OUCH! This one stings!

Your Candy Heart Says "Get Real"

You're a bit of a cynic when it comes to love. You don't lose your head, and hardly anyone penetrates your heart. Your ideal Valentine's Day date: is all about the person you're seeing (with no mentions of v-day!) Your flirting style: honest and even slightly sarcastic What turns you off: romantic expectations and "greeting card" holidays Why you're hot: you don't just play hard to get - you are hard to get

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

In case you missed them last night

Sting is still one of the sexiest men alive! I would take his tantric sexy self over just about anyone!

WAAAAA-HOOOOOOO!!!!!!

I have already signed up for email alerts when they go on sale!!!!

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Police Announce Worldwide Concert Tour

Monday February 12, 2:00 pm ET

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Following an electrifying rehearsal performance at The Whiskey on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip, The Police today confirmed their highly-anticipated concert tour will begin on May 28th in Vancouver, playing arenas, some stadiums & making some special appearances throughout North America. Some of the North American tour highlights announced include a headline performance at this year's June 16th Bonnaroo Festival, an appearance at Boston's historic Fenway Park on July 28th and two Madison Square Garden performances in New York City on August 1 and 3. Concert dates were also confirmed in Seattle, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, New Orleans, St. Louis, Toronto and Montreal.

Arthur Fogel, Live Nation Chairman of Global Music, also announced that the tour will continue this fall with dates in the UK and Europe, including appearances in Holland, Germany, Italy and France with additional countries to be announced. Additional dates in Mexico, South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are anticipated. "The anticipation and excitement to see The Police is overwhelming and I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of bringing the band to their fans worldwide," said Mr. Fogel.

In 1977, The Police stormed the music scene by blending reggae, punk, jazz and rock. Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers created an unmistakably nuanced sound filled with evocative melodies, infectious lyrics and rock & roll swagger. The Police dominated the top of the charts and radio airwaves worldwide with five #1 albums and a succession of top 10 hit singles. In the six years they were together, The Police became one of the world's most famous bands, earning six Grammy Awards and countless fans around the globe.

The North American tour is presented by Best Buy, the leading consumer electronics retailer with nearly 1,000 retail locations in the United States and Canada. "The Police Live in Concert is one of the most anticipated musical events of this decade," said Gary Arnold, senior vice president of entertainment for Best Buy. "We are proud to be able to help bring this event to music fans and to be able to offer our best customers a chance to experience this incredible tour."

In the United States, members of Best Buy's Reward Zone program will have the opportunity to access tickets prior to the general public. To qualify for the presale, participants need to be 18 years old or older and must have a current Reward Zone program membership that was activated by February 1, 2007. Presale tickets will be sold through Ticketmaster on a first come first served basis. Complete details of the Reward Zone program presale can be found at www.bestbuy.com/thepolice. Information about the Canadian concert dates can be found at www.bestbuy.ca/thepolice.

Special guest Fiction Plane will join The Police for the North American portion of the tour. Known for their high-energy live shows, this dynamic rock trio will be releasing their 2nd full length album in May. Fiction Plane are: Joe Sumner (Bass); Seton Daunt (Guitar); Pete Wilhoit (Drums). Additional support artists will be announced in the coming weeks.

A portion of the proceeds from this tour will be donated to WaterAid, an international NGO founded in 1981 and dedicated to reducing poverty by improving access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene education. Working in 17 of the world's poorest countries, WaterAid and its partners have already helped over 10 million people gain access to water and sanitation and is committed to helping to reduce by half the proportion of people living without these basic necessities of life by 2015.

Tickets for the North American leg of The Police tour will be scaled at $225.00, $90.00 and $50.00 in most markets (plus applicable service fees) and will go on sale beginning this Saturday, February 17th in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Tickets in Boston and New York City will go on sale Tuesday, February 20th. Additional on sale dates to be announced. There will be a 4 ticket limit per person for all arena shows and a 6 ticket limit per person for the stadium events.

The Police World Tour is produced by The Next Adventure, A Live Nation Company in association with RZO Entertainment, Inc.

 For complete tour & ticket information, fan club memberships and more visit:

                            www.thepolicetour.com                      NORTH AMERICAN TOUR ITINERARY 2007    DATE:        CITY:             VENUE:                    ON SALE DATE:    28-May       Vancouver, BC     GM Place                  Saturday, Feb. 17    06-June      Seattle, WA       Key Arena                 To Be Announced    09-June      Denver, CO        Pepsi Center              To Be Announced    15-June      Las Vegas, NV     MGM Grand Garden Arena    To Be Announced    16-June      Manchester, TN    Bonnaroo Festival         To Be Announced    18-June      Phoenix, AZ       US Airways Arena          To Be Announced    26-June      Dallas, TX        American Airlines Center  To Be Announced    30-June      New Orleans, LA   New Orleans Arena         To Be Announced    02-July      St. Louis, MO     Scottrade Center          To Be Announced    22-July      Toronto, ON       Air Canada Centre         Sat., Feb. 17    25-July      Montreal, PQ      Bell Centre               Sat., Feb. 17    28-July      Boston, MA        Fenway Park               Tuesday, Feb. 20    01, 03-Aug   New York, NY      Madison Square Garden     Tuesday, Feb. 20                                                            *both shows on                                                             sale

Additional North American concert dates in Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Edmonton, Hartford, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Tampa, San Francisco's Bay Area, Minneapolis/St. Paul and the Washington/Baltimore area will be announced in the next few weeks.

Additional cities and venues to be announced soon.

For complete tour & ticket information, fan club memberships and more visit:

www.thepolicetour.com

Our new camera

Pentax 3x Optical Zoom 7.0 Megapixel Digital 2.5" Diag. LCD

It should be here in the next couple days. Plus we ordered a 1gig SD memory card along with it. Total came to under $250. And on flex-pay so after the 1st payment which includes the card it's only $50/month for the next 4 months.

I love QVC!


YAY!!!!

Tentative Superbowl Menu

veggie tray
chili
Triscuit Reuben Bites
mini pepperoni calzones
ham wrapped breadsticks
cucumber and herb dip
football cheese loaf
football sugar cookies
Saunder's caramel cake (cuz we have to! it's Kevin's favorite)
tortilla chips

We will also be serving margaritas and a limited amount of hurricanes.

If there is anything else you want, please bring it.

If you need directions to the house please let me know.

Joel Stanley is a Rock Star

Joel works for Cobasys, which is mentioned in this article.

Battery developers are white-hot commodities in Detroit

By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY

ORION, Mich. — The new rock stars of the auto industry aren't producing the quickest sports coupes or the sleekest sedans.

They are the handful of high-tech companies racing to develop a new breed of a historically unsexy product, the battery, that is revolutionizing the way that vehicles work.

One of them is Cobasys, located in this Detroit suburb. The company makes batteries that power today's gas-electric hybrid vehicles, such as the Saturn Vue. But it is also jointly developing the next wave of batteries, those that will be needed for plug-in hybrids, which can recharge overnight from a wall socket.

"This is one of the bright spots in the auto industry today," says Cobasys CEO Thomas Neslage.

Unlike most automakers, some of the battery makers have a distinctly high-tech sheen. They're growing fast in a field where technology advances by the day, making products that are a leap beyond the lead-acid batteries that have started cars and trucks for decades. And their customers are begging for more.

Cobasys' focus has been on making the nickel-metal hydride batteries that are the mainstay of most hybrids. They provide enough juice to power vehicles at slower speeds, allow the car's internal-combustion engines to shut off at intersections, and are partially recharged when a car's brakes are applied.

But many see the holy grail as the lithium-ion battery, technology that powers many personal electronic devices and will make plug-in hybrids practical.

Research is focused on making battery packs for cars that would be compact, dependable and cheap. They also must be durable: Automakers want them to last at least 10 years before they need to be replaced.

It's that promise that's making high-tech battery makers into industry darlings, at least in the eyes of:

• Clamoring automakers. Two weeks ago, General Motors rolled out the hit of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, a plug-in hybrid concept car called the Chevrolet Volt. The car was billed as being able to travel up to 40 miles on an overnight charge, more than the nation's average daily commuting distance, before needing its gasoline engine.

But GM was quick to add that the decision on whether to build the Volt rests entirely on whether battery technology advances. GM is pitting Cobasys and another battery maker, A123Systems, against the team of Johnson Controls and Saft Advanced Power Solutions in developing lithium-ion power for the next-generation Saturn Vue, a plug-in hybrid which could be the forerunner to a production Volt.

Other automakers are in the race as well. DaimlerChrysler is placing 20 Dodge Sprinter vans with plug-in hybrid systems into corporate or government fleets through next year. Ford Motor has built a prototype plug-in hybrid version of its Edge crossover SUV that also has a hydrogen fuel cell. Toyota has said it's developing its own plug-in hybrid.

•Supportive government. For the second consecutive year, President Bush, in his State of the Union address Tuesday, cited the development of plug-in hybrids as an important budding solution to weaning the USA off imported oil.

Government is kicking in. Two lithium-ion battery makers, A123 and Detroit's Compact Power, recently won grants totaling $21.3 million from the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium, a partially government-funded research group for Detroit's automakers, GM, Ford and Chrysler Group.

•Anxious investors. The money is flowing. A123 announced Thursday that it has received another $40 million in private financing, bringing total investment so far to $102 million. The fast-growing Watertown, Mass., company is thinking of an initial public offering when it deems the time to be right. "It shocked the battery world that a start-up could create game-changing technology and launch it in such a short period of time," A123 CEO David Vieau says.

Cobasys says parent Chevron, which has joint ownership with Energy Conversion Devices, has invested $230 million so far. Cobasys has grown from 34 employees five years ago to nearly 400 today.

Compact Power hasn't been hurting for attention, either. "There is heightened interest from equity groups wanting to participate," CEO Prabhakar Patil says.

Of course, there are risks. Like any emerging technology, the race to find the best solution may turn out to be an unorthodox approach. Silicon Valley start-up Tesla Motors is bundling 6,831 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, like the ones used in laptop computers, as the heart of the $92,000 electric roadster it expects to start delivering next year.

Tesla says the plug-in car should go from 0 to 60 mph in about 4 seconds. Its charge will last up to 250 miles of driving, the company promises.

But that's in the future. Even with today's technology, Cobasys is trying to keep up with demand for nickel-metal hydride batteries. Its headquarters here is supposed to be mostly a development facility, but demand is so high that it's being used for production while a new factory in Springboro, Ohio, ramps up.

The company makes about 400,000 cells a year, the Lego-like plastic-covered rectangles about the size of a carton of cigarettes that are literally the building blocks of a hybrid battery. It hopes to increase production to 3 million by 2009. The number of these cells that go into a hybrid battery varies. When 24 are packaged together, they produce a wallop equal to a 120-horsepower gas engine over a five- to 10-second burst. "Think of the battery as a fuel tank," Neslage says.

The tricky part is getting all those cells to work together as a single unit. That's Cobasys' specialty — and the role it's playing in its partnership with A123 focused on the lithium-ion batteries. A123 makes battery packs for Black and Decker power tools at present.

Besides cars, Cobasys' units are being tested in delivery vans and military haulers. And Neslage hopes to crack the market for buses and trash trucks as well, stop-and-go vehicles that lend themselves to the advantages of hybrids.

And someday, if everything works out, maybe GM's plug-in hybrid models as well.

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Kevin's 40th

We had such a great time last night. Thanks to everyone who made it up there! He was pleasantly surprised. Especially since I'm not good at organizing anything. I had huge help from our favorite barmaid, and friend, Karyn, up at the box. She did the decorating for us. love her!

Some pics from last night:



Kevin when we first got there. The medallion says something like "better with age" (it's out in a bag in the car and it's too cold to go check it)

A couple of the balloons Karyn put up:





And lastly, Kevin at the end of the night after about 6 shots and 4 pitchers of beer lol:



Again we had such a good time! Didn't even mind getting our butts kicked in darts by Lady J and her friends.

He's still sleeping it off. After we came home we had MORE beer as we watched a special on Bukowski. He's gotta work today @ 3pm for a couple hours, then who knows. We are gonna try to get up to corktown to see ROADHOG.

And if you missed the party and are in the area, don't forget we're having a Superbowl/kevin's 40th on Feb 4th starting around 4PM (game starts around 6PM)