Insomnimusing: Allons-y!

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hampton Hotels . All opinions are 100% mine. This summer, Hampton Inn is giving you the chance to win AN ENTIRE HOTEL for a weekend in the Hampton Chain of Friends Sweepstakes ! That's right. I said, an ENTIRE HOTEL. Not one room - 100 rooms! For two nights! Imagine the possibilities. That's just the grand prize though. They're also giving away a daily prize of a weekend stay for you and three friends. It couldn't be easier to enter. Just visit the Hampton Chain of Friends Sweepstakes page and complete the simple form. You know - all the usual stuff - name, address, phone, email - that kind of thing. Who doesn't need a little weekend getaway? If you're one of the daily winners, you get to grab your three closest friends for some much-needed rest and relaxation. And if you're the grand-prize winner of the whole hotel? Well, that's a party, isn't it? :) Where would you go? Well, Hampton Inn's got

How strange it is that we can spend a year living in the same town, going to the same high school, even sharing some of the same friends with a person, but we never meet. Then one day, 20 years later and 2,000 miles apart, we should discover each other. Technology at work again. I suppose it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to me. Indeed, when I think on it, it doesn't strike me as much of a surprise at all. The circumstances of my life have distanced me from everyone who was a part of my life in my youth. And I've had no real opportunity to develop new relationships, outside my interactions online. Perhaps living in the isolation that I do - in this village of 600 tight-knit Catholics all intermarried, and working in a job where my single colleagues are 25 or 80 - it's not a surprise my friendships all live their lives in cyberspace. So my new friend, from my old life, might be coming to Ohio for a visit, and we'll see each other in person. We'll have t

Well, tonight's the final performance episode of this season's So You Think You Can Dance, and here in Shelby County, Ohio - HOME OF KENT BOYD - we've been watching with great pride as our little hometown boy has overcome the perceived "disadvantages" of growing up in a small town and attending a small local dance studio as his only training. He's certainly given us reason to be proud, hasn't he? I haven't voted for the past few weeks - though when things started, I was putting in between 450 and 500 votes each week. I'll be back to dialing tonight for sure! There's a parade planned for Kent this Saturday, as he'll be returning home to Botkins - presumably not for long. The kids and I will be attending. What an exciting development for our little corner of the world! Naturally, also in my mind and boosting my adrenaline levels is the start of the Premier League season this weekend. I got to see that great 3-1 win over Chelsea in the Communi