National Blog Posting Month takes place in November each year. It's supposed to encourage bloggers to post something new, every single day, for a month. You can find frequently asked questions about it here.
The last time I did this was in 2007, back in the earlier years of this blog. It was exhausting, especially since November has a pretty major holiday in it that hinders my ability to consistently post on here. But I completed it that year and promptly ignored all references to NaBloPoMo for the next two years.
But I'm doing it again this year, which means you get 30 straight days of Sandbar stories.
Hoping that if I publicly name them, it will shame them into staying committed, which in turn will help keep me on track.
Help me out! If there's something about the Sandbar you're dying to know, leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer your question, or at the very least I'll make something up.
We're mostly recovered from the long Halloween weekend- our party bus extravaganza, the pre-party on Saturday and the actual holiday Sunday.
We recapped our Rocky Horror festivities already, and you can find pictures on our Facebook page and Flickr. Unfortunately, your reporter on all things Sandbar was tired on Saturday, so I didn't take very many pictures of the Halloween party.
Dave, as usual, came up with a fantastic and unique idea: a rodeo clown. Complete with a cut-off pair of size 62 jeans, rainbow suspenders and face paint. Andrew was a nerd; John was a Top Gun character. Almost everyone in the bar was in costume, too. We had cheerleaders, baseball players, Lucille Ball, Dora the Explorer, Fred Flintstone and a viking woman. Princess Leia and Obi-Wan-Kenobi even made an appearance. As usual, we forgot to do any sort of costume contest. As usual, no one noticed.
Halloween night, sadly, was slow. We had some repeat customers from the night before, and even some folks who wore three different costumes, three nights in a row. Bartender Fyler was a shark! Apparently his mom made a shark costume for him long before he ever worked at the Sandbar; it must be fate.
Best costume of the weekend, from my perspective: Tom and Kara as Angry Birds, even though they didn't actually stop by the Sandbar. But they made the costumes themselves, and at the last minute on Saturday.
For those of you unfamiliar with Angry Birds, it's an apparently highly-addictive game you can play on a smartphone.
We'd love to see your Halloween pictures. E-mail them to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com, or upload them to our Facebook page.
Our first hurricane video ran for awhile, and then we moved up in the world and hired the local TV station to create our next one back in 2002.
Our stars moseyed down the street to Channel 6 studios and tried to be professional. We probably failed miserably, but we had fun doing it. At least we didn't get kicked out of the studio.
Hurricane video #2 starred a whole host of local celebrities:
Sandbar Dave and his wife Debbi as the anchors
Tom Conroy, owner of Kaspar's Pub (now Conroy's Pub) and Peach's brother
Patrick Conroy, Peach's other brother
Patty Kennedy, posing as a local real estate agent
Pat Mushrush as our "man on the street"
Gary Bartz, owner of Don's Steakhouse
Al Hack, local insurance agent
Marty Kennedy, former mayor of Lawrence
Sue Hack, former mayor of Lawrence
Warning: this video is LONG. It featured our original hurricane song at the end- a revised version of Copa Cabana, sung by Scott "Showtime" Schoenberger, Peach, and Larry Hofmeier. While loading this video, we discovered a hidden track-our revised version of Love Shack that rolls during the credits, along with a few bloopers. This song didn't stick around very long, so many of you might not remember it, or maybe you never even heard it. Frankly, we forgot about it and were pleasantly surprised we still had a recording of it.
Get ready, Lawrence- this is going to be a BIGGER one!
(Note: the original video, in all its glory and including the full length of the storm, was over 15 minutes long. Yes, 15 minutes! I cut out the storm portion for your viewing pleasure and it saved about a minute of boring storm footage. You're welcome.)
It's no secret that we love to create big and entertaining things- like our annual St. Patrick's Day float, which gets bigger and better every year. Our friends at Pet World are the same way when it comes to Halloween.
The crew at Pet World, along with volunteers from the neighborhood and all around town, have been creating haunted houses for a number of years now. Like our floats, every year their haunted house gets bigger and better, and they spend countless hours and lots of money putting together a labor of love, all for just a few hours' worth of entertainment. And like us, they have as much fun putting everything together.
This year's theme is a haunted castle- and the dragon from our castle float this year makes an appearance!
Dave and I got a sneak peek at this year's haunted castle, and it is truly amazing. They've created a whole maze of rooms in their yard, complete with all the spooky Halloween props, decorations and costumed actors you can dream of. Even in the daylight the castle was creepy, and the amount of time and energy that goes into putting this together is something we can definitely appreciate.
Details for this year's haunted castle:
Sunday, October 31, from 7-9 p.m.
29th Court and Missouri Street in Lawrence, 2 blocks south of 27th & Missouri
Free line to the north for costumed trick-or-treaters age 12 and under
For everyone else, the line forms to the south. There's a $1 charge which goes to the Lawrence Humane Society.
The first 300 people will get free, reusable Pet World shopping bags.
If you love fun, interactive, family events- and Halloween- we encourage you to take the family over to the Pet World haunted house. You won't regret it!
Last night the Sandbar hosted its second annual Rocky Horror Picture Show party bus extravaganza, and it was a smashing success.
We had a minor snag at the very start of the night- our bus was scheduled to leave the bar at 7 p.m., but due to all the happenings in downtown Lawrence (Final Fridays, show at Liberty Hall, celebration of Mass Street being named a Top 10 street), our characters had a hard time finding parking places. We got off to a late start and even had to pick a couple people up on random streets far away from downtown. We had a blast watching everyone walk into the bar in costume!
(Note- Michelle made the gold and black costumes in the picture above. No pattern- she just figured it out as she went. Amazing job!)
The bus traveled to Baldwin City and stopped at the Lodge, and then we continued on to Dunn's Landing for a Halloween party. By the way, THAT is an amazing place. Very cool barn. We had chili and warmed up with some Sandbar dancing tunes before continuing on to the Crystal Plaza Theater in Ottawa for the main event.
And what an event!
Several members of our group are RHPS-diehards. Others had only seen the movie once or twice- but it didn't matter. The audience was possibly more entertained by the constant narrations of Movie Dave and Scotty Mack than the movie itself. Peach's movie theater crew did and awesome job dealing with our rowdy group.
After the movie, we hit the road back to Lawrence and the Sandbar. What a fun night! We're looking forward to making this an annual event.
