April 21, 1999- Ballads for Buffalos

    A girl, Elizabeth, on our wing is in Pax Christi, a group that was trying to raise money to send a water buffalo to the Philippines for farming purposes.  So, several of us went to the concert, which cost $3 and a $1 for song dedications.  Let me just say that I was extremely impressed by the singing and the entire performance.
    It was at 9:30 PM in the Terrace Room of the University Center and when we arrived, they had lit candles on each of the tables and around the instruments.  The entire room was lit by candles, soft light and very intimate.  We sat right in front and had an excellent view.  The performers, Tom Sheibley, Megan Pater, and Mike Hasenmueller, were excellent.  I wish that the one man hadn't sang so many of his own songs, but, even those were good.  The sing alongs were fun and I liked the spiritual theme running throughout.  They performed with two guitars, so, it was a very low key evening.
    And, it raised enough money for two buffalos and perhaps a llama.  So, it was a success all around.

April 24, 1999- Styuka

    The second concert event of the week was Styuka, the annual music concert for charity- the United Cerebral Palsy of Cincinnati, Inc.  Mom and Dad came up and we ate and played games.  We got there at 4 PM, when it opened, so, some of the stuff wasn't set up yet.  I wanted to go on the big slide, but, they didn't have the safer big slide for big kids so, I couldn't.  They had a dunking booth, which Hassan, in an inner tube, climbed in to.  Dad found that amusing, but, found the blow up sumo wrestling even more amusing.
    Let me explain: two people climb into these suits that have a plastic liner in them.  The plastic liner is then blow up and the people look like sumo wrestlers.  To make the outfit complete, they put on helmets that look like Japanese pulled back hair.  Dad watched the first two people do this and promptly busted out laughing.  Every time two people started up, Dad would make a bee-line back to the sumo wrestlers.
    Dad bought $15 worth of tickets- 50 game tickets and 6 raffle tickets.  We didn't win anything in the raffle, but, with the 50 game tickets, we had quite a fun time.  We played ring toss, which I won a frisbee at.  We won a couple more frisbees at the dart game, which I was amazingly good at (actually, my whole family was good at the darts).  We ended up with 5 frisbees, two lizard pens, and varying candies.  We had a bunch of fun.
    We didn't listen to any of the bands, though.  <shrugs>