Ever had one of those weeks?

This past week feels like quite the turbulent one. I've had to make sure I stay flexible and fluid as my plans would change quickly. Earlier this week, my mom was supposed to possibly arrive on Sunday evening, giving me some family time that I haven't had for a while. Instead, traffic and a couple of blown tires brought her in late Monday night. I barely had a chance to have dinner and breakfast with her before her schedule dictated she leave to Dix, Illinois. That upturned my Wednesday night plans to get caught up with her, too.

On top of that, later in the week, plans to hang out with some friends got dropped due to various reasons - illness, other plans coming up, a hot date materializing out of nowhere ;-). That's cool. Luckily, I was able to switch up my evenings with some fam time, like taking my bro out to see the wonders of downtown KC.

Last night I scoured the Power & Light district for the perfect location to host Deaf Professional Happy Hour (DPHH). This has been a voluntary responsibilty that I've put off since DeafNation KC in April. I still don't know how the heck I got nominated for the job. ;-) In any case, let me back up. Kansas City has two distinct groups of deaf populations - the South KC club (KSD centric, with people in Olathe/Overland Park/Johnson County) and the North KC crew (centered around MWCC/North Deaf Church/Blue Springs. I've just learned MWCC is shuttering their Interpreter Training Program :-( ). If we really want a good group of deaf professionals and interpreters to hang out together, we'd need a central location. Downtown's as good as a place it'll get.

So, I first step into Flying Saucer - it's gives a kind of a Irish pub feeling to it, with a iridescent glow instead of a gloomy atmosphere that I get from other pubs. It's pretty roomy, and there are tons of saucers on the walls, hence the name. The UFO theme is present, but the saucers are the big thing - if you become a club member and you drink 200 different beers, you get a saucer ceremony where your name gets put on a saucer (plate) up on the wall. There's also a members only area that could be used to get away from the small crowd that was there on Saturday night. Pretty sweet place! Their happy hour is 4-8 on Fridays, so that could work out for us.

Next was the Raglan Road Irish Pub (authentic!). This was a little more posh, more upscale than Flying Saucer. Immediately I thought this would be just a little too high-brow for the initial group I was trying to attract - after all, the majority of people I'd probably bring in would be KSD employees, interpreters in training, and 20-somethings who may or may not be "professionals." So that was out... for now.

I took a peek at McFadden's sports bar. Wow, way crowded even lateish on a Saturday night. Definitely a hot spot, being right next to the big Sprint Center and being wide open to the enclosed space where all the bars feed into. It didn't look like there was much room for deaf people to mingle with that size of a crowd - I fear it would be even more crowded after work on a Friday. Hmm.

Checked out the space in-between bars - there is a large, tiered, enclosed space where concerts and dances are held in P&L. My bro and I checked out the top floor for a bit. Mike got engrossed in watching the computer screen of the DJ, so I people watched, observing bachelorette parties on the dance floor playing out some dares. PBR Big Sky had a line going into it and had a cover charge, so did Mosaic.

Mike started to need to leave at this point, so I skipped out on Shark Bar, The Indie, and Gordon Biersch. However, parking wasn't bad, there are a couple of specials to get parking down to $2 or even 3 hours of parking free on Fridays. Otherwise the lots were something like $7 to park, not $20 unless there's some silly event going on.

I also found out that OneRepublic's gonna be playing in town on Oct 29th - woot! Now who is the Rob Thomas dude that's on the ticket????