Tomorrow, I’m leaving for Phoenix with Stacy to celebrate her birthday. In the past few years, we have made it a point to celebrate our birthdays in style and to enjoy living in the present. Before dating Stacy, I never even paid attention to my birthday. We went to Disney World in Orlando for my 30th birthday and went to Hawaii for my 32nd birthday. I’m happy with those trips. We went to Dallas for Stacy’s 30th and Orlando for her 31st and now Phoenix for her 32nd. I think that is the way to do birthdays. Get away and have some fun.

The trip to Phoenix can’t come soon enough. Today it is -15 degrees and -35 with the wind chill. Fck that. With a broomstick. Sideways. No lubrication. Bring on the 70 degree weather in Phoenix.

We’ve been super busy since Christmas. I still can’t believe that Rollin is gone but I’m glad that he is no longer in pain and I know that he is having a blast in heaven pulling pranks with JProdigy.

Stacy and I met up with the Mayor and his wife, Missy, and had lunch on the way down to the funeral. It was very nice to see the Mayor and catch up on things. Stacy enjoyed herself and time flew as we traded stories and chatted away about things. Mitch had called me right before the lunch to ask me to be a pall bearer and to tell me what the dress code was going to be. Rollin wanted us all wearing black pants with white dress shirts and wearing an UK tie. Stacy and I left the lunch and got back on the road and stopped at the outlet mall an hour north of Louisville. I went into my favorite store there, Van Heusen and got a great white dress shirt with cuffs and a very nice pair of cuff links to match the UK tie. We got to the wake towards the end and went in to pay our respects. I saw DJ Donnie and we exchanged hugs and he assured me that I was not ready for what awaited inside. He was right. I couldn’t bring myself to stay long so we went to the Holiday Inn and got checked in before going to Hooters for supper. Yep Stacy goes to Hooters with me. I have a keeper!

The funeral was packed. There were no seats left by the time Stacy and I got there. We had to stay out in the hallway and just listen to the services. I couldn’t believe all the old faces that I saw there. Big Daddy Vic, Phoenix, Suicide, Rico, Pondo, Corp, Sean & Amanda, just a lot of the old regulars, wrestlers and fans. It’s such a shame that these reunions always have to come at times like these. I have no idea how Bull, Mitch and myself made it through being pall bearers. We exchanged a lot of hugs and tears and hell I’m tearing up again just typing this. Seeing it finally sink in to Justus and Autumn made everything that much harder.

In the end, it is very fitting that my good friend’s final resting place is in the cemetery right next door to the old KMart building in Louisville…The Madhouse of the Mid-South where IWA got its start and thus he got his. His resting place is facing the building and there is no more fitting place for Rollin to spend eternity and that is why he chose that place. It was an emotional send off and a day that I won’t soon forget. Hopefully Rollin saw his sendoff and was pleased. I’m sure he was.

Stacy and I left from the cemetery and headed to Rosemont for the Jeff Dunham performance for which we had tickets. It was an easy drive and we made it to the Rosemont exit with an hour to spare! That’s when Rollin started playing pranks on us. It took us 45 minutes to go 1/2 a mile when we got to the exit. There was like 4 or 5 stop lights in that half mile and they were never green at the same time once in those 45 minutes. There were no cops directing traffic until the last traffic light. Stacy and I finally got to the parking garage for the building that has all the autograph shows that Chris and I go to and we parked there and decided to walk the remaining two blocks so we could get to the show on time. When we left the garage, it started snowing and the wind started gusting. It was about 50 degrees difference in weather from the cemetery in Louisville and the street in Rosemont! We jogged the remaining two blocks and got inside just as they flickered the lights to let everyone know the show was starting…then the delayed the start of the show for 20 minutes to let the people still stuck outside have a chance to get in!!!!! Rollin got me good on that one.

We thoroughly enjoyed the performance though and got back to DeKalb around 3 am. Stacy’s cats were pissed that they didn’t get their tuna for the day until then! Pampered cats! We went to sleep and slept all day on New Year’s Eve…until it was time to get up and get ready to head back to the city for Howl at the Moon. My Garmin GPS didn’t like downtown Chicago with the skyscrapers and such blocking the signal and the 6 way intersection we came to officially got us lost because the GPS was unclear as to which left we should take…left high, left middle or left low! I took the wrong one and ended up on Lower Wacker which meant there was no satellite reception and it was going haywire with directions because it didn’t know where we were. We eventually found the Moon but I was exhausted and cranky so I didn’t enjoy myself. Of course, I also didn’t end up knowing any of the songs that were played and it was just no where near as fun as when we went to HATM in Orlando. We brought in the New Year and left.

January 3rd was IWA in Joliet and that was a fun time…right up until Ian pissed me off by giving his title shot to Jimmy Jacobs for the January 23rd show. Thankfully I’m going on vacation and relaxing tomorrow to relieve the stress that that caused.

Stacy and I went to Quad Cities the 8th to visit her brother and his girlfriend. We played Mental Floss, ate damn good pizza and watched the national championship game until the snow started and we made the 2 hour drive back to DeKalb.

The past two days have been spent hanging out with them more here in Morris. Wii bowling, golf and boxing are a ton of fun. I haven’t played video games since the original nintendo got replaced by the Super Nintendo but this was fun. I suck at the tennis and baseball but maybe I will get better with practice.

As for movies, Stacy and I during this time have watched Wall E (awesome), Tropic of Thunder (crude but worth a laugh or two), Step Brothers (awesome), Righteous Kill (awesome) and Burn After Readind (sucks ass) and we went to the theater to see Four Christmases (awesome).

I should finally get to see The Wrestler tomorrow night in Phoenix as I saw it was playing there when we looked online.

Time to get ready to pack and get ready to get the hell out of this freezing weather.

Until next week…Good Day.