Happy Birthday Dad!

Success!

Most of you know that I like cooking. A lot. And the pride and joy of my cookbook collection has been my nearly complete set of Culinaria cookbooks by Konemann. I'm very happy to say that I finally managed to complete my collection over the weekend with Culinaria the Caribbean. For those not in the know, and whom actually care about this sort of stuff, the Culinaria series is only part cookbook, but also includes a lot of information about how food fits into various cultures.

In a possibly related story, I've been having reoccurring dreams over the last few nights where I'm a contestant on The Next Iron Chef, and I'm never managing to get my food done in time. It's a nice little change from those dreams where you're back in high school writing final exams for courses you never studied.

Why yes, I am a geek. Thank you for noticing.

I spent the weekend at an oilfield golf tournament. Who am I to turn down free booze, food, and golf? It does surprise me, though, that people will buy a house on the fairway of a course, not put up any sort of netting, trees, or other protection from stray balls, and then be upset when their house gets hit buy some amateur with a wicked slice.

I've also discovered that golf is a lot more entertaining when you can commit property damage. I don't feel nearly as guilty as when I hit wildlife.

Go Hogs!

Okay, so it's not exactly a Razorback, but just take a look at what was nosing around in my front yard when I went home for lunch today:



I really like all the wildlife (even if some of it isn't particularly wild) that's around my place. Personally, I think that this guy has a lot more potential for a good meal than a couple of guinea hens, but that's just me.

Green Wizard Needs Sleep Badly.

Oy. It's been a heckuva a couple of weeks. I'm currently sitting in the middle of nowhere where I've been spending most of the last two days, plus the weekend and last Friday. We do, fortunately, have satellite internet up here so I can remain somewhat entertained and busy up here between jobs. The problem lies with back to back to back 18 hour days. I'd forgotten how much they can wear a person out. If all goes well, today will be the last long day for a couple of weeks. I plan on doing a lot of sleeping tomorrow. Maybe I'll get the energy up to do some yardwork on Sunday.

Oh my exciting life. Stop the insanity. I can't keep up with the excitement.

As I mentioned, about a month back I finally broke down and got satellite television (no internet yet. I can't justify the cost for the service when I can use the connection at work five minutes away for my email and billing) so that I could watch the Riders play. They've been having a great season. Since I got my satellite, I have watched the Riders lose three times in a row. Last weekend I was too busy to actually watch the game (see above) and lo and behold - they won. This being Thanksgiving weekend in the Great White North, they are playing in the afternoon on Monday and are heavily favored to win. Of course, I'll be working down here and unable to watch the game. I've never considered myself superstitious, but I think I'm an albatross.

In any event, I actually found capon down here - which I don't recall ever seeing in Calgary - and I'm going to try roasting it up on the weekend. I wonder if it'll taste like chicken?

*ducks*
*runs*

HA!

http://wcbstv.com/business/finance_story_266174828.html

I am a petty, petty man.

Fuck GM

Some of you may be familiar with my car (a 1999 Pontiac Grand AM) and its many 'quirks'. My personal favorite is the brakes. For those not in the know, my car has a problem where it will quite often have the 'ABS' light come on and the 'Traction Control Off' light come on. This should normally only happen when conditions are extremely slippery. Instead, this happens pretty much any time the car is driven for more than 2 feet.

A fun side-effect of this is the fact that, whenever stopping, the car will release its brakes just before coming to a complete stop and roll ahead about another 10 feet before finally stopping.

I have taken the car to GM to repair this. Several times. To two separate garages. Neither garage claimed to be able to find anything wrong. The problem would disappear for about a month after coming back from the shop before rearing its ugly head again.

When I moved I decided to give the car to my parents. What they can get from selling it, they can keep. My dad, not believing in Caveat Emptor nearly as strongly as I do (or perhaps wanting to maximize the selling price of my p.o.s.), took it to a third mechanic - an independent - to get it looked at.

A 10 minute diagnosis found the problem. The bill? $1800. According to the mechanic the problem should have been obvious to anybody with a modicum of training.

To say that this disgusts me is to say that the holocaust wasn't that good an idea. I suppose that it shouldn't surprise me. As long as the car was under warranty, they weren't going to find anything wrong with it if at all possible. From what I understand, originally the problem would have been a relatively cheap fix. Now the entire brake system is going to need to be replaced. I can accept that most companies don't believe in customer service. I'd just like to see them start believing in "don't fuck over your customers". Is that too much to ask? I've still got all the receipts for the car repairs I've asked for over the years, and I know what GM will say when we confront them with it. "Oh, we're sorry you're not completely satisfied. How about $500 off of your next car purchase?". Fat fucking chance that they're ever going to have to apply that discount. I've already said that I'm never buying a GM product again (and I'll be surprised if anybody in my family ever does either), but now I'm at the "actively loathing" stage of my hatred. I would much rather brand myself with an iron than ever drive one of their overpriced disposable piles of shit ever again.

With "customer service" like this, it's no wonder that they're failing. I actually am giddy at the prospect of GM declaring bankruptcy and/or getting bought out/up. Maybe they'll merge with Ford and form a mega-corporation of suck so vast and dense that the very fabric of reality is warped. Good riddance. The next vehicle I buy will probably be a Toyota.

And as long as I'm posting. Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

There's a hole in my ceiling

I'm a klutz. This will probably not come as a surprise to anybody reading my blog.

About a week or so back, I finally broke down. The combination of my beloved 'Riders having their best season since before I was born, and my getting tired of only being able to watch movies on my television made me decide to get satellite service.

"Great!" Says the company. "We'll be over on the afternoon of the 11th to set it up. You have a working phone line we can plug it into?"

"Sure." Says I, not exactly recalling if there is one behind the television, but there's phone jacks all over the place so there's assuredly one in that wall.

Turns out, I don't have one, so I phoned AT&T and had them over yesterday to install a new one. I learned two things through that experience:

1.) Be careful when you're crawling through the attic that you don't step between the studs.
2.) The guy that originally wired my house is barely competent .

So, as I said, I now have a hole in the ceiling of my mud room. It could have been worse. If I'd stepped down about a foot further it would have been in my bathroom.

I guess I just can't have nice things.

Also, just to prove that not everything that lives in my back yard is poisonous, creepy, or downright disturbing, here's a pic I snapped of one guy hoofing it towards the trees.

Le Sigh

So I got back from a great trip in Calgary to find out that my electricity was, in fact, not turned off while I was away. This is good. I also discovered that my herb garden can not go for a week and a half in 100 F weather without rain or somebody watering it. This is bad. Of course it's been raining almost nonstop since I got back. Figures.

My leg's been bothering me for the last month, and I finally went to see the doctor about it. It is, as my friends and family suggested, my sciatic nerve. True to form, he suggested prescription medication immediately. Specifically Ibuprofen (in fairness, he did allow me the option of just using the off-the-shelf variety and upping the dosage) and steroids.

This is not to condemn the pharmacological world. Far from it. I believe that there are plenty of good reasons for prescribing medication. This is, however, the second time that I've gone to this doctor and had him wanting to prescribe medication for me. The first time I went in to look at my foot. When he checked my weight and blood pressure he immediately started talking about blood pressure medication. When he inquired about my sleeping habits and I told him that I wasn't sleeping well he wanted to book me into a sleep clinic/study, and when he felt my heartbeat and found a "minor irregularity" (or something like that) he wanted to book me for an MRI. I just looked at him and asked if he wasn't supposed to prescribe diet and exercise first.

In any event, the downside of this latest trip is that my BP is still too high (150/104) and he, somewhat justifiably, wants me to start taking medication. Fair enough. I'm not happy about it, but I'll do it. He also wanted me to lose more weight. This is also a fair request, and something I've been working on*. I do find it laughable that he wants me down to below 200 lb. I haven't been that light since junior high when I was actually active.

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*This is to say that I don't add salt to most of my food, avoid fast food whenever possible, and generally try to not eat as much, but don't go so far as to actually "diet".

The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men

It was the perfect plan. Malcolm's birthday is at the end of the month. I had him convinced that I wasn't going to be able to get back to Calgary until Christmas. His gift had been mailed. Time had, in fact, been booked off work. My plane ticked was purchased*. Siochain was keeping me informed of any party plans. I was all set to show up unannounced. And then the bugger had to ruin it by deciding to visit me the week after.

A cunning person could have lied their way out of it - stalled him for a couple of weeks so that he could make his decision after his birthday. I am not a cunning person. At the very least I'm a terrible liar. So the surprise is now ruined. Congratulations Malcolm. I hope you're happy.

In completely unrelated news, I'm going to be in Calgary from the 23rd til Sept. 2nd. Come hang out with me! I'll probably be drunk, but in case I'm not you should bring alcohol. Seriously. I need drink bad. The last few months of work have had my stress level ramping up steadily to the point where I seem to be existing in one of three states: Work, sleep, or zombie**.

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*Again I have discovered that I am completely illiterate when it comes to reading flight schedules. I thought I was landing just before noon on the 22nd. Turns out I'm landing just before midnight.

**I'm still a little squeamish about the brains, though.

Fuck Entergy*

It's 107 Fahrenheit here today, and I just went home for lunch to learn that Entergy turned off my power.

Again.

I'm sick of their crap. I got a lovely message left for me at home on the ninth stating that if I didn't call them that day to have my meter put in my name (something that they've said several times before that they had done) that they'd shut off my power. I phoned them - on the ninth - and talked to a very nice (and obviously incompetent) woman who said that the had straightened out the problem and that my power now would not be shut off.

Then I come home to this bullshit.

The lady I talked to put me on hold for a half hour, and swears that the problem is fixed for real this time. I'm sorely tempted to booby-trap my meter box some way. In any event, if this happens one more time, I think I'll engage in that wonderful American pastime of the lawsuit.
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*WARNING! This post contains somewhat stronger language than usual.

Eight Legged Freaks.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the latest specimen that I have confronted. Legs extended, it is nearly the size of my hand. Feel free to identify if you can. I only let it live long enough to take the photo.

I still haven't stopped shuddering at the thought of that thing. I think I'm going to have to nuke my house from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Aargh

One month of tests.

Down the drain.

Because somebody sent us the wrong additive.

I'm going to go home and drink now. Afterwards, I plan on working with power tools.

I'm not stupid... I'm advanced!

Oi vey. I'm having flashbacks to skool. For the last several weeks I've been trying to learn about cement (specifically, wellbore cementing). Fun stuff.

No, really, it's actually interesting. The problem arises from me having no relevant background with the stuff, and combining the learning process with the ongoing QC. It's starting to all merge into one massive mental ball of... stuff that I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around.

On the plus side, if I ever feel like pouring an extension to my patio, I'm fairly sure I can get a good deal on the supplies...

The heat comes and goes down here. And this weekend it came. I originally planned to use the weekend to get a bunch of work done around the house. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men. Saturday started off good. I managed to trim back the jungle in my yard and unloaded nearly a ton of rock so that I could set up a garden section in my yard to transplant my herbs into. Sunday was supposed to be about cleaning the house (I swear things get dirtier quicker down here than in Calgary), and installing a few organizing racks in the garage, but I woke up with a splitting headache that never really went away. When combined with the heat I ended up saying "screw it" and loafed around for the day feeling miserable. Good times. All praise the inventor of central air conditioning.

I also suspect that I have raccoons hanging around my place now. I can't be positive, but I don't know of any other animal that would actually try to steal my birdfeeder. I came out one morning to find it gone and the pole it was mounted on bent over. After much searching, I found the thing wedged underneath my back fence.

Oh! New bug alert! I haven't seen one of these since elementary school.

The second pic isn't great, but gives a better idea of the size.


No, the ash-can isn't mine. Neither is the bug. It was found up by our warehouse. I was tempted to take it home as a pet.

And in case Amy hasn't been notified of this article already: The Ultimate Knitter

Wokking in Memphis

The last few weeks have been busy, to say the least. We're starting up a new service line down here, and meeting the technical requirements have been rather trying. I've been bouncing back and forth between the two lines trying to learn how to run the new equipment while at the same time trying to keep up with issues on the frac side.

We've also had a fair number of people come down from Calgary to train us on said new equipment. It's been good to see some old familiar faces. The flip side of that, though, is that I've been eating out more than usual. This is not entirely a bad thing, as it's allowed me to find a couple of new restaurants and at least one really good pub* out and about.

After living down here for six months I finally got around to seeing Memphis. At a mere two hours away I probably should have gone sooner (say, for Memphis in May) but c'est la vie. Myself and a compatriot from the Calgary office crossed the Mighty Mississippi into the town. We visited the National Civil Rights Museum**, the Rock and Soul museum, wandered Beale Street and in general gorged ourselves on the food there***. Good times.

No. Graceland was not visited. Maybe next time.

The weather down here has actually been relatively mild. According to the locals we should be pushing 100 F daily with no rain. Instead for the most part it's been overcast, raining nearly every evening or night (we went through a week where we had hour long downpours start at 5 pm on the nose), and only about as hot as Calgary gets on its hottest days - if that. That might have started to finally change if yesterday was any indication.

And I made another ridiculous purchase. Behold!

I know. It's not a John Deere, but on the plus side I didn't have to take out a second mortgage to pay for it either. I finally got around to giving it a workout yesterday and it was... satisfying. Not necessarily fun, but definitely satisfying. The fact that it will go through the underbrush that's in the unsodded part of my lawn and not even slow down was immensely gratifying****.

So now it's poll time, ladies! Do you think my tractor's sexy? I just need one of you to say yes so I can hum "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" while I mow my lawn.

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*75 different beers on tap = much fun.
**I was quite pleased that neither myself nor my compatriot - both burly white men with extremely short hair (me) and completely shaved head (him) did not get even one strange look going through there. In all seriousness, though, if you're ever in Memphis go see it. It's definitely worth it.
***In the unlikely even that I ever open my own restaurant I'm hiring a baker. Free fresh buns will be provided to all diners.
****Seriously. Parts of it haven't been mowed in two months or more and some of the weeds growing in it are taller than me and about an inch in diameter. I figured I'd need a machete and a British accent to cut my way through it.

Happy Canada Day

Hope everybody had a good Canada Day/day off in lieu. I myself took the opportunity to take up the game of whackf##k*. Definitely an enjoyable experience and one that I'm going to endeavor to continue with. It was actually very good weather for it. We had to drive through a rainstorm to get to the course, and it threatened to rain all morning but never did. It just stayed overcast and a pretty reasonable temperature - if still somewhat humid. It's good to finally have another hobby that actually requires physical exertion. I went to a doctor a couple of weeks back and wash shocked - SHOCKED I tell you - to find out how bad a shape I'm in.

Anyhoo, after said game I had a barbecue for some ex-pats down here helping us set up our latest operation. I've discovered that I really enjoy cooking over charcoal. It's something that I never did in Calgary - we always used propane - but I find it quite funl. Pizza and flatbeds were a blast. The smoked ribs I cooked for Canada Day turned out great - especially for a first attempt. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the summer I'm trying to bake cookies on it.

And I ended off the evening with fireworks. Hopefully the neighbors weren't too confused by them going off a few days before the fourth of July. I knew that fireworks were legal and a lot more available down here, but I was surprised by the sheer quantity. It seems like every mile there's another carnival tent stocked selling "Crazy Larry's Black Market Fireworks" or such. I guess that it's a good thing it is so damp down here. If it was drier one spark would cause a lovely chain reaction of ammo dumps.

My house and yard slowly continue to come together. I decided a while back to hire landscapers to finish my lawn. It doesn't need much - just to be leveled, have all the weeds killed, have a bunch of trees planted and then be seeded or sodded - but it's a large enough job, and it's hot enough here that I figured it would be better to get it done right the first time. Besides, the ground is hard enough around here that I'm going to definitely need some heavy equipment if I want to get it done before next year. I can't dig down more than a couple of inches with a spade.

So all in all, life ain't going too terribly bad down here. I seem to have pulled myself out of the malaise that has been affecting me for the last few months - whether this unnatural cheerfulness will actually continue I don't know, so I'm going to milk it for all it's worth now.
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*Those who are actually good at the game more commonly refer to it as "Golf".

Going Buggy

The flies. They're everywhere.

I hear them in the distance. Always buzzing. Always taunting. So smug.

They stay just out of range. Daring me to swat them before flying off. Even if I kill one, two more take its place. They circle my head at night, keeping me awake. They don't just seek to defeat me. They intend to drive me insane. But I won't let them. I'm too strong for that. I'll find a way.

What's that, mother?

Burn the house, you say?

Yes. That will stop them.

Uninvited Guests

Last week I discovered that I had a new house guest squatting on my front porch.


With a little prodding, I was able to get the little buggers ID.


I initially left him/her/it alone but then realized that it probably wasn't a good idea leaving a poisonous spider on my doorstep, and gave it the boot.

It's funny, but it's little things like that that really make me realize that I'm not in Kansas (or Canada) anymore. The heat, the humidity? Annoying, but they don't really stand out, for some reason (I notice them, of course. They just don't scream to me: "Hey! You're in Arkansas!") Ditto for the accents. The wildlife, however, is another matter. The other night I also found this lovely specimen in my backyard.


The strange part is that I was more disturbed by the katydid than the black widow. Bugs of all type (spiders especially) creep me out, but I was all "Kewl! A black widow in MY house!" .

Also saw a flock of vultures on the side of the road, something else that I'd never seen live before. Huge birds. Honestly though, I don't know how armadillos aren't an endangered species yet. You can practically measure you driving distance by counting the dead ones on the road.

Leaving Las Vegas (And Getting There, And Staying There)

Day 1

Due to a combination of excitement about seeing my buds and paranoia about sleeping through my alarm and missing my flight I didn’t sleep at all the night before my flight.

Body: “Wanna sleep.”

Brain: “Shut up. We’re not going to miss the flight because you oversleep.”

Body: “But I’m really tired. Just a few minutes please?”

Brain: I said shut up. Now have another coffee before I really give you something to cry about.”

I managed to drag my butt to the airport and make it to Vegas (via Memphis) with minimal trouble. Arriving in Vegas I very quickly realized how much I’ve become accustomed to the humidity in Arkansas.

It’s strange, really. I might have grown up in a relatively large city, but in the last few months I’ve gotten really used to the solitude and quiet of a small town. Compared to that, Vegas felt both incredibly real and surreal both at the same time. Still, I was impressed at how the city managed to incorporate walkways everywhere so that pedestrian and automotive traffic have as little effect as possible on each other. I was also impressed/surprised/stunned by the amount of construction going on. Buildings going up all over the place, and each one with an army of construction workers and equipment.

One thing that did disappoint me was the real lack of patios to just sit and drink at in the afternoon on the Strip. Plenty of places indoors to drink or grab drinks to go, but almost nothing that allowed me to take a load off of my rapidly aching feet and relax with a drink. Still, I eventually found a place to grab lunch and beer before continuing my exploring.

And so I wandered up and down the strip for a couple of hours. Looked around the casinos, checked out what was showing where and generally tried to get my bearings. I was rapidly feeling the effect of my lack of sleep, combined with the heat and the alcohol. I was also discovering that I’m not used to walking for long periods of time, as my blisters were starting to attest.

I eventually headed back to the hotel and amused myself for the rest of the day by gambling and checking out the casino and restaurants. I only dropped $100 at the blackjack table. The dealer was actually very nice about it. After watching me make some stupid bets she looked at me and asked if this was my first time playing blackjack (it wasn’t, but the last time was a few years back and I had some coworkers at the table helping me out). She then proceeded to explain what a decent strategy was and point out when I was about to make a stupid bet. I still lost money, but it took longer.

Finally, my buds arrived. Siochain knocked me off my feet with a big hug, which is only fair since I do the same so often. We grabbed something to eat and then headed back to the hotel where I discovered that my blisters had blisters. I crashed immediately, and managed to keep them awake all night with my snoring.

Day 2

Up with the dawn, and feeling much more awake, we all moseyed on down to a café in the casino for breakfast and enjoyed some incredibly good coffee (remember Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction? Yeah. That good).

We then, much to the protest of my feet, began exploring. Just up and down the strip. Siochain got her picture taken with the surliest Elvis impersonator ever. We hit the shops in Planet Hollywood and the Venetian, where M picked up a very stylin’ hat. I also discovered that somewhere along the way Siochain apparently became part lizard. Seriously, the girl was freezing in the air conditioned casinos and it took here about 10 minutes in the sun to warm up. That’s just not right.

I loved the paint scheme inside the Miracle Mile at PH. If you haven’t seen, they’ve done the ceiling up like the sky, which doesn’t sound too impressive until you’ve actually seen it with the lighting and realized how realistic it looks. It’s also rather confusing when you spend a couple hours in there, thinking that it’s around sunset and then walk outside and find that it’s still noon.

I imagine that to most people, going to Vegas and not gambling or seeing a lot of shows or exhibits seems nearly heretical. For me, though, I really couldn’t care about most of that (There’s a few shows that I want to see there, but that’s about it). I’m just happy that I was able to hang out with my friends and not have to worry about being at X place at time Y.

The water show at the Bellagio is pretty impressive. I’ve seen it in videos but they really don’t do it justice. The scope of it is pretty massive. I also find it very humorous that, in a city in the middle of the desert that so many of the casinos have massive water shows.

Unbeknownst to Siochain, her beloved Treasure Island show had changed since she was last in Vegas. No longer is it a swashbuckling adventure with pirates fighting each other and falling into the water. Now it’s been replaced by “The Sirens of Treasure Island”. A more adult themed show, chock full of scantily clad women and single entendres (“I’ve lured many a salty seaman into my cove” – brilliant!). And the songs? Pure poetry. With lines like “You take a little bit of sugar and a little bit of honey and you shake it… Shake it!” Shakespeare had better watch out. The expression on Siochain’s face was better than the show itself.

Day 3

Hit the Bodies exhibit at the Tropicana. Not exactly my cup of tea, being as squeamish as I am, but still fascinating from a medical perspective. M & Siochain really liked it though, which is the important part. If I haven’t mentioned it already, I really couldn’t give a crap where I was, as long as I was with my friends.

Did some more wandering. The nerve endings on my feet were pretty much fried by that point, so my feet weren’t doing to bad. Fortunately, the rest of my legs were burning by then so I didn’t get too comfortable.

The highlight of the day was definitely O. It was the first and so far only Cirque de Soleil show that I’ve seen, and was a hell of an introduction. I’ve seen clips of Cirque here and there but, like the water show at the Bellagio, the videos don’t do Cirque justice. Of course, the Bellagio show doesn’t even come close to comparing to O. Seriously, go see it and for the love of god spend the extra money and get good tickets – something in the first few rows. I would quite happily go back down to Vegas just to see the show again. Each act in it blew me away more than the last one and left me thinking “there’s no way that they’ll be able to top that”. Of course, they did manage to top it. I find it amusing to note that there were parts of the show that could be considered boring due to the fact that they were merely incredible, as opposed to mind-bogglingly stunning like the rest of the show. It’s not unlike what M was saying while leaving the show – It made Vegas seem mundane by comparison. Watching O was actually an emotional experience. If you see it and aren’t moved, I declare that you are not human.

Day 4

The last day was a pretty big blur. We basically just fit a few last minute things into the trip – nothing special – and then went to the airport. Saying goodbye this time, though, was infinitely harder than a few months ago. I think that the last time I left I was too distracted by work and my impending house purchase to really appreciate how much I missed these two. I’ve known them for twenty years now and they’re more than family to me, they are a part of me. Fortunately, I guess, I was giving a temporary reprieve from my depression while I discovered that my place was going to be an hour and a half late, forcing me to miss my connection in Dallas. After much frustration, I decided to head to Dallas on my flight and get the first plane from there to Little Rock in the morning rather than overnight in Vegas. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t sleep much in Dallas either and I’m still trying to get my body back on time.

And that’s pretty much it. I had a blast with my friends, but I’ve got to be the only person on the planet that can go to Vegas, not lose loads of cash, and still manage to be depressed when I leave.

I miss 'em already.

My Feet Hurt... With Destiny!

Back. Very tired. Vegas was interesting. "O" was indescribable. Seeing my buds was phenomenal. Flight home was not so good. Plane was delayed and I missed my connection and overnighted in Dallas. Very tired right now and busy getting stuff ready for work tomorrow. Will write a more in depth review soon.

Viva Las Vegas!

There's nothing quite like a 16 hour work day to prep you for a vacation.

Of course, there's also nothing quite like learning how to read, which would have saved me from finding out last night that my plane tickets land me in Vegas at 9:52 a.m., and my friends land at 9:00 p.m.

Well, I guess I have to keep myself entertained for 11 hours. I hope I can find something to do.