Concert, ATV riding & the diet

This has been another busy week. Don’t know when the heck things are going to slow down. It’s really been insane the last couple months. So much stuff going on. Well, to catch you up for the past week:

Thursday evening we went to see Cross Canadian Ragweed at the House of Blues. Once again, they put on a fantastic show. It’s a shame they don’t get more radio airplay. We drug Jake and Diane along for the show this time and they both really enjoyed the show. Not to mention the opening act, who I had never heard of, Micky and the Motorcars. Another great rock band. I’ll definitely be picking up their CDs in the near future.

If you are a fan of good ‘ol fashion southern rock, you should definitely check both of these bands.

Paxton on an ATVOn Tuesday Paxton will turn 16. We wanted to do something really cool for his birthday rather than just getting him a gift that he’d forget about in a few short weeks. Chris came up with the idea of taking him out on an ATV tour. We had originally planned to take him next weekend, but since I’m having surgery on Friday, I didn’t think going ATV riding with stitches in my back would be a good idea. So, we moved it up to this weekend. Holy crap, what a fun time!

This was the first time Paxton had been on an ATV. It was also my first time on an ATV in about 20+ years. They started us out on the skills track. You go pretty slow and get used to the machine and how it handles bumps, dips, rocks and such. Paxton started off fairly tentative and that had me a bit nervous. Next we headed out on the the trail around the base of a mountain. We had our guide out front, then Paxton and then me pulling up the rear. We were told to stay a certain distance behind the guide. Not to get too close and not to drift back to far. Paxton started out fairly well behind the guide to start. But, by the end of the first hour, he was hanging right in there with him. At the end of the second hour on our way back to the hanger where we had started out there was about a quarter mile stretch of wide open flat ground. The guide waved us on to open it up. It was awesome seeing Paxton peg the throttle and just tear down the open stretch. No fear. Just flying!

For as much fun as I had riding, I had 10 times as much fun watching Paxton ride.

And finally, the diet. This has been another pretty good week. I still have yet to wake up and have my morning weigh in be under 200 pounds, but Saturday was pretty close with an exact 200.0. Actually, something really interesting happened on Thursday night at the concert. I had a beer. It was only my second beer in 5 weeks. The first can be seen here. The interesting part being that I did not enjoy the beer at all. I would have so much more enjoyed a bottled water. So this getting in to shape thing has really started making some major changes in me. I am just about certain that I have had my last beer until after I reach my final goal. And even then, I don’t know that I”m going to rush back to drinking beer on a regular basis anyway.

Saturday afternoon Chris and I went to the Village Runner shoe store to sign up for the Las Vegas Road Runners and also the Las Vegas (half) Marathon. It’s official now. We have until December 2nd to get ready to run 13.1 miles. You know I’ll keep you updated!

if you are interested in joining up with the Road Runners, they will be back at the Village Runner and also at some other locations next Saturday, May 19th. The first session running with them will be at 7:00 am on Sunday, May 27th. The scary part is, after the first run, all other Sunday morning runs START at 6:00 am. If there was anybody remotely interested, that last sentence probably killed that, huh?

Well that was dumb!

I’ve only recently (within 6 months) become an iPod user. Before that, I’ve had about 5 or 6 different MP3 players. I used to use software called cdex to rip CDs to my computer to play on my MP3 player. The problem was, I never had a standardized naming convention. So, some of the tracks had track numbers, some had band names, some had just the title and a whole mess of them were never sorted in to sub-directories… this made finding stuff a bit of a bitch.

With the new iPod came iTunes. It has it’s own nice little MP3 ripping software built in that lets you rip the CD and import it to your iTunes library all in one fell swoop. Love it. So, the other day I was at my desk and started ripping some new CDs that I had recently purchased. I noticed that they were going in to a new iTunes music directory. When I looked, I noticed that it was set up EXACTLY as I wanted it. Every track was ripped and set up in a perfect directory structure:

\Artist\CD Title\01 song title.mp3

I was so giddy! A thought ran through my head… “You should delete all your current MP3s and re-rip them all so they all are perfectly named and organized.” What a great idea, I told myself. I quickly went over to the MP3 directory that currently existed and hit delete. Windows even tried to save me from myself by asking me, “Are you sure you want to delete 2245 files?” - “Of course I do”, I answered out loud as I hit confirmed and watched 4+ years worth of MP3s hit the bit-bucket.

It was about 2 minutes later when I realized what exactly I had just done. I threw up in my mouth a little bit.

The picture above is what “Phase 1″ of my CD ripping will consist of. Gotta go now, it’s time to switch CDs again.

Visitors, Beatles & Pools

As the summer months quickly approach, it’s time to start getting ready for onslaught of visitors we will undoubtedly have. If you don’t live in Vegas, you wouldn’t understand. I know we didn’t fully grasp the concept until we lived here for a while. But Damn, when you live here, there are always visitors during the summer.

This past weekend was the start for us. My buddy Dan was in from So. Cal. He had come in to meet up with his mom who lives in Arizona. The came out to take in a couple of shows and basically just hang out. They had tickets for the new Cirque Du Soleil show going on at the Mirage. It’s called Love and it’s set to the music of the Beatles. The show isn’t officially “open” yet. They are still doing their preview performances. But, a quick check of the website and I found that there were still some really good tickets to be had. As luck would have it, we ended up sitting 4 rows directly in front of Dan and his folks. The music was great, the stage is awesome and the show overall was really enjoyable. My one complaint with the Cirque shows as of late has been the fact that there are fewer acrobatics than that of the show “O” and Mystere. They put more emphasis on the dancing & music. I’m not complaining, really, but I’d come out of the show saying that I absolutely loved the show if there was more acrobatics. As it was, I enjoyed the show, but, it’s no match for “O” or Mystere in my book.

Earlier in the day on Saturday, we went to a home show over at Cashmen Center. We are interested in installing a pool in the backyard and wanted to go check out some of the builders. I’m really glad we did. We got brochures from several vendors and one of them really took his time with us letting us know all that they offered plus a list of things we would want/need to know before moving forward. I couldn’t have been happier with his service, help and information. I hope it works out that we can use his company when it comes time to get the ball rolling.

While we were at the show we picked up a Little Giant ladder. You’ve probably seen their infomercial. It is one awesome ladder. As a home owner, I think buying one of these suckers is just about mandatory. We did have a bit of an adventure getting it home. We bought one of the demo models from the show and saved a little extra cash over the regular show discount. We went back to pick it up in the SSR on Sunday afternoon and found that it was about 4 inches too long to fit in the back of my truck. I ended up borrowing some bungie cords from the ladder salesman and driving home with the back gate down. We made it home safely and didn’t lose anything out the back so that was cool.

On Sunday, at the recommendation of Myya, we hit up the Sunset Station Brunch buffet at The Feast. It was an absolute hit! Since they have redone the buffet over there, it is all-around better than it was before. They had a great selection and I think I sampled just about everything they had to offer. The carved roast was my least favorite part and it was the part I was expecting to like the best… Ahh well, just about everything else there made up for it.

The DVD player in our living room died a week or two back. I’ve been wanting to pick up a new one but just haven’t really had the time. Sunday afternoon after dropping Dan off at the airport, Chris, Blake and I set off to pick up a new DVD player and some dinner. First stop, Best Buy (of course). I found exactly what I was looking for. 5 DVD changer + HD upsampling all for about $135. I’ll take it! Nope. They were out of stock. So, we hop back in the car and head over to Target. They were out of the same model but I found something comparable… they were out of those, too. By this time we are getting quite hungry. However, I plead for a quick trip to Circuit City. Pay dirt! We found the same player we had found over at Best Buy for the same price and they had some in stock. After a quick trip to Chipotle for some dinner, we headed home. I quickly downed my dinner and set out to install the new DVD player… One minor issue… it’s too deep to fit in our entertainment system. Ugg. We had recently purchased a stand that was to be used for keeping the video games in a semi-orderly fashion. I hadn’t put it together yet, but this seemed like a perfect opportunity. I slapped it together and the DVD player fit perfectly on the bottom shelf. A quick test to make sure everything was working smoothly. Then, instead of actually watching a movie, I went to the garage and installed my new Sirius Satellite radio receiver in the SSR. My old one bit the dust a few weeks back and it’s been killing me not being able to listen to Howard Stern on the way to and from work. By the time I was done with that install & activation, I was too tired to sit through any sort of movie. Ahh well, there’s always tomorrow night… nope, that’s poker night. I guess I’ll shoot for Wednesday. crap.

Jam Packed Weekend!

Wow! I can’t remember the last time I had a weekend with so many activities packed in. Here is what it looked like:

Friday after work, Chris and I went and played in a World Series of Poker Circuit event at Caeser’s Palace. The event we were to play in is a daily event held each nite at 7:00 PM. We had initially planned to play in the same event on Sunday because it was Chris’ birthday. That was to be my gift to her. But, since it didn’t start until 7:00 PM, common sense said that since we both get up early on Monday, a late tourney on Sunday may not be wise. So, we opted for Friday’s event instead. For a recap of how I did in the event, check out PokerStories.info.

Saturday we got up fairly early and Chris and I both got massages. Since Chris graduated from the massage school, her massages are free. And, when she graduated, she received a stack of gift certificates good for free massages. I use those. So, mine too was free. Sweet!

We then went out to lunch at Road Runners Saloon to celebrate Chris’ birthday with her mom, brother & sister-in-law. After a big lunch, we headed home and took a nice long nap. We got up in time to get dressed and head on over to the Silverton Casino to see Twisted Sister in concert. Paxton had discovered Twisted Sister a few months back. I’m certain it had to do with one of their songs showing up in a video game he was playing. But, he had downloaded some of their videos and we had also bought him a greatest hits CD which he liked a lot. So, when we found out they were coming to town, we surprised him with tickets for the 3 of us to go. He was stoked. The show was great. Dee and the boys sounded great. The photo above was taken during the last song of the night. To see a bunch of photos, click here. If you ever go to see a show at Silverton that is going to be at the Pavillion, be sure to wear a bathing suit. You can watch the show from in the pool that is no more than 15 feet from the front of the stage. Makes for a nice “Slosh Pit”. har har har.

The concert let out pretty early. So, after getting home and dropping off Paxton, we, of course, went out to play poker at Sahara in the 11:00 PM tourney. I ended up going out in 18th spot after making a bad play. 8 away from the money. Damn. We got home at about 3:00 AM and after a LONG day, finally got some sleep.

We got up on Sunday morning and I asked Chris if she wanted to go back to Sahara to play the 11:00 AM tourney. Reluctantly, she agreed. Man, I’m so glad she decided to go. After being short stacked for most of the way, I ended up making it to the final table. Since only 69 players started the event, they were only going to pay out 7 spots. We all agreed to chop $90 off first and second spots in order to pay spot 10, 9 & 8 $60 each. At least they would get their buy-in back. It sucks to make it to the final table and still not get any cash… I played fairly tight at the final table and watched as spots 10 through 8 got busted out. At that time, I announced to the table that I was not going to accept any deal to chop the pot. Even if that meant they all come gunning for me, I wasn’t chopping. It took a little while to do, but before too terribly long, we were down to the final 4. I had doubled up a time or two so I was sitting pretty well in chips. Player 4 got taken out and it was down to the final 3 of us. All of us were fairly evenly stacked. I was the shortest stack and this was the first time somebody had mentioned a deal. I declined the deal and we played on. I picked up pocket 5s in the Big Blind and the small blind raised me. I went ahead and moved all-in. He called and showed Q-8. He didn’t get any help and I doubled up and took a nice sized chip lead. He still had about 25K chips left. A few hands later, he moved all-in and I called with K/J. He turned over J/8 and he did not hit his 8. We were then heads up. At the time we started heads up, I had a sizeable chip lead. I had approx 200K in chips to my opponents 40K. Funny thing though. In No Limit hold ‘em, that can change in a few short hands. And it did. He battled back and I doubled him up… Then, the final hand came up. I was the Big Blind. With the blinds 5K and 10K, a lot of chips move around pretty quick. He raised to 40K and I pushed all-in with A-3. He called in an instant which scared the crap out of me. He turned over K/J. All I needed to do was NOT get unlucky here. The flop was all blanks. The turn was an Ace. He was drawing dead. When the chips were counted down, I had him covered by 4K chips. I won the tourney and it felt sooooo good! This was my first ever first place finish in a casino tourney. I’ve chopped the final 4,5 or 6 places a few times before, but this was my first actual solo first place finish. I can’t wait to do it again!

With all that, you’d think that would bring us to the end of the weekend… But you would be wrong. We took Chris out for a birthday dinner. We went to a place called The Melting Pot. It’s a fondue restaurant over on Eastern. Holy cow! That place was excellent. You start off with a cheese fondue with bread, veggies and apples for dipping. Then, a salad (they have some great salads & dressings!!). Then, they bring you out your main course. You cook your main course yourself in the center of the table. After the meal, you absolutely MUST have dessert. We had a smores fondue. Milk Chocolate, graham cracker crumbs and marshmellows heated in the pot. Then, a plate of strawberries, mashmellows, bannanas, cheese cake and brownies for dipping. We all left feeling quite full! Two quick things you will want to know before heading there for dinner… Don’t go if you are in a hurry. Dinner took a little over 2 hours. Second, the place is not cheap. They add an 18% gratuity on any party of 5 or more. And, our meal worked out to be a little more than $45 per person. I was not expecting that at all.

So there ya have it. A great weekend has come to an end. I’m going to need to go to work in the morning so I can rest up. ;)

New found respect

So many times people go out and spout off about something they are pissed off about but then, when called to task, they backpeddle, retract or come out with some spin where they were taken out of context… What a bunch of bullshit. If you got a beef and feel like going public with it, have the balls to stand behind it when somebody pushes back. I promise, no matter what you say in public, not everybody is going to agree.

If you remember a couple years back, the Dixie Chicks pissed off a ton of people by some comments they made about George Bush at a London concert. If you didn’t hear about it, she said:

“Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.”

You can read a whole bunch of the back story here.

Well, there was a big ‘ol backlash and people were boycotting the Chicks and all that crap…

Fast forward a couple years. The Dixie Chicks have a new album out and have released a new single titled Not Ready To Make Nice.

You can find the complete lyrics on dixiechicks.com, but my favorite parts are:

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I know you said
Can’t you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

So, like what she said or think she’s the devil, you have to respect somebody who comes right out and says, “Yeah, I said it. I’d say it again, too!”

An evening with the Beastie Boys

Last night we got to check out a Big Screen Concert of the new Beastie Boys concert movie called, “Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That“. If you aren’t familiar with Big Sceen Concerts, basically they shoot a live concert and then show it in movie theaters around the country. I have wanted to go check one out in the past but it hasn’t worked out. But, when it was the Beastie Boys, I bought tickets early. (Turns out that wasn’t needed since there were like 40-50 people in the entire theater…) The only difference from this and a normal BigScreenConcert is that the movie is actually coming out in theaters nationwide on March 31st.

The movie is from a Beastie Boys concert shot at Madison Square Gardens back in 2004. It was shot by 50 fans holding Hi-8 video cameras (plus some pro footage thrown in from time to time). If you get motion sickness, this movie is NOT for you! My wife had to leave the theater after about 20 minutes. It’s quite bouncy and by the end I was starting to feel a little woozy myself. But, the concert itself is damn good. At one point they bring out Doug E Fresh and he does beat box for one of the songs. Man that guy is good! The way he performs is quite impressive!

At the show they played all sorts of old school tunes like Brass Monkey, Time to Get Ill, Hello Brooklyn & Paul Revere. The crowd does most of the singing on Paul Revere.
It’s definitely worth seeing, but I don’t think I’d be able to watch it too many times. The camera work just makes it a bit too difficult to fully enjoy.

The best band I’d never heard of…

On Saturday night we went to the House Of Blues to see Dierks Bentley. This is the second time this year we’ve seen him, but he was so good the first time, I definitely wanted to go see him again. Man, am I glad we did. We got there early and ended up getting to stand right behind the mixing board. We had a good view of the stage and didn’t have to fight through hundreds of bobbing heads to see the show.

Before the show, I heard several people in the crowd talking about the opening act saying that they are likely not even going to stay for Dierks as they’ve come just to see the opening act. Well, this got my attention. Makes you wonder just how good somebody can be if you have never heard them on the radio, or, never even heard the band name before… I had no idea what we were in for.

The name of the band, Cross Canadian Ragweed. And, even though this was a “country” show, I’d say this band is more of a flat-out Rock n Roll band. They are from Oklahoma and they tour extensively in Texas and Colorado and apparently their video gets some air time on CMT. But their sound is more of a rockin’, not quite heavy metal sound. Great guitar work, the singer has a great “Rock” voice and they have a BIG following. I was amazed at how many of the people in the audience knew all their lyrics.

Turns out they have 7 albums they’ve put out over the past 11 years. I’ll definitely be picking up a few of ‘em. You should do the same!

Online Holiday Shopping

If you plan on doing your holiday shopping online, time is getting short. With shipping times to consider and such, you should probably be ordering sooner rather than later. But, for you last minute guys, have no fear. Sav-on is open 24 hours even on Christmas Eve. I’m sure they’ll have exactly what your wife is looking for…

OK, but seriously… if you plan on doing any shopping online, have a look at my online store at himx.com - the domain is nice and short so those of you with ADD won’t get sidetracked while typing it in the browser…

Tonight, the wife and I are headed to House of Blues to see Gary Allan. YES, I have the tickets. NO, they are not at Will Call. Thanks for asking! Should be a good show. Sorry to those of you who were looking to play some poker over here tonight. We’ll make up for it soon.

Concerts and planning ahead

Yesterday at work, my buddy Chip asked if I had plans for the evening. Other than dropping the wife off at the airport, I didn’t. He then offered up a ticket to see U2 at the MGM Grand. After checking on babysitting arrangements, I gladly accepted. I had never seen U2 before and was excited for the opportunity.

Our tickets, on paper, appeared to be pretty good. They were behind the stage, but in the 2nd row of the middle section of seats. Upon arriving, we were treated to a few extra elements that made the seats a bit less appealing. First, we were at about a 3/4 angle to the stage. So, we weren’t directly behind the stage, but off to the side. This meant that all the wires hanging down from the lighting scaffold were directly in front of us. If Bono was standing at his mic at center stage, we were not able to see him.

The second thing we realized was that these were not permanent seats for the MGM. Instead, these were basically “roll in” bleachers that were specifically designed to comfortably seat a person who weighs about 95 pounds. So basically, Chip was sitting in my lap. Thankfully, we didn’t sit much during the show.

The third thing to happen was these strands of lights that looked like those beads that act as a semi-door in every hippies house back in the ’70s. I’ll admit that the lights were VERY cool in that they produced complex patters, images and such during the show, but they were also keeping us from having a clear shot of the stage. Luckily they didn’t stay down the entire time. They brought them up and down and probably only interferred with about 25% of the show.

Regardless, U2 was awesome. Musically, I’d say they were one of the best sounding bands I’ve ever seen live. Thanks again, Chip. I really enjoyed the show!

Also at work on Friday, Todd asked if I knew when the Henry Rollins spoken word show is. Since we bought tickets so long ago, we had both forgotten when the show was. I’ve yet to look it up. I hope we haven’t missed it. Anyway, this brough up conversation about planning ahead. I typically don’t have things planned much past 1 week and at the most 2. But, I recently bought tickets to see Bon Jovi. Even though I bought the tickets 2 weeks ago, the show isn’t until MARCH 2006. Seriously, that’s just WAY too far away to plan anything… Oh, but that’s not true. I realized that this is not the first thing I have planned for March. I actually have an appointment with my dermatologist. This is an honest-to-goodness appointment. I have the little reminder card and everything. At 9:30 am on 3/15/06, I’ll be sitting in a waiting room. This is assuming that I don’t lose the little reminder card…

So much music out here

This week I’ve run across a bunch of new music. I’m not going to say it’s all great music, but, it all got my attention for one reason or another.

1. I had heard a snipped of a song on the country station that I thought was a band called “Big & Rich”. Trust me, if you watch any TV, you’ve at least heard this band. They have one of their songs in about every 3rd commercial this past year… Anyway, I turned the station and that was the end of that. But then, on Saturday, flipping channels on TV we landed on the country video station.. that’s when I was treated to Cowboy Troy. He’s a black country singer/rapper. His type of music, well, he calls it “HickHop”. Man, I sure wish I was making that up. Go to his site and watch the video for “I played Chicken With the Train”. At first it was like a train wreck that I couldn’t stop watching. Then, it sorta grew on me. It’s sorta catchy.

2. This morning on my way to work on the comedy station they played a song by an artist named “MC Hawking”. The song is called “The Big Bizang”. This music is rap music as done through a speak-n-spell which makes the guy sound like Stephen Hawking. Trying to find the song to download, I ran in to mchawking.com. Go there and watch a video or two. They are a riot.

3. While showing the previous site to Justin, he turned me on to dictionaraoke.org. People have taken lyrics to favorite songs and set them to music. But, all the lyrics are “spoken” by the techno voice that is used on dictionary.com to show you how to pronounce a word. Some really good tunes here. Beastie Boys, Pink Floyd, Rage Against the Machine, Linkin Park, and of course, Barry Manilow.

So go check ‘em out and let me know what you think…

(side note: Since the moment I started writing this, I can’t get that damn Cowboy Troy song out of my head. It’s gonna be a long day.)

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