Bad News Day

Well the day started off really nice. Ryan and I had a Valentine's date, since its easier on the weekend than a week night. We went to The Celtic Grill in Bentonville and its a really nice place. Good Irish food and atmosphere. We then ran some errands this afternoon and go home to settle in for the rest of the night.

Then the bad news started coming in. First, we heard Michelle Kwan pulled out of the Olympics. I've been a huge fan of hers since the beginning. I personally thought she should have competed in Lilehammer instead of Harding. I also feel that she was better than Lipinski in Nagano. And the thought that she will never get a gold just saddens me. I'm not sure it will be impossible for her to come back in the next Olympics; however, it seems, even with the new scoring system, it wouldn't be surprising if judges, and the establishment of the skating community, would be too basis to let someone of that age be successful at competitions.

The second bad news we got today was that O'Flaherty's Irish Pub in New Orleans closed because of Katrina. We had eaten there the last night we were in New Orleans for our honeymoon five years ago and it was a very special night for us. We talked about going back to New Orleans for our fifth anniversary (in 2005) but decided we couldn't afford it and a few weeks later Katrina hit. Most of the places we went in New Orleans faired well so we thought everything would be fine. We heard news in October that O'Flaherty's had some cleaning and repairs to do, but they were planning on reopening. Then today there was a post on their site that they decided not to reopen.

It's just all so sad.