Well, we're back from Sorry-Excuse... I've come to realize that spending 7 days with family is about 4 days too long.. Between sleeping on a small bed, cig smoke, cig smoke, and did I metion cig smoke, I'm glad to be home.. We barely slept in Syarcuse, since everything in the family's houses --REEKED- of cig smoke.. It doesn't matter if they wash it, febreeze, whathaveyou.. IT STINKS.. Its like sleeping with your face in an ashtray, and nothing gets rid of it... We've re-washed all our clothes upon getting home, even the clean stuff.. Once our packages arrived back in Phoenix (we shipped the gifts back), we let them air out for several days before touching them.. *sigh*.. Our only repreieve was to spend time at friends houses, none of which who smoke.. And then spending a couple nights at Turning Stone also helped..

I'm probably never going to travel again during the holidays. Not only cause of the above, but because travel just plain sucks during then too.. Plus it takes far too much of vaca time away.. Once you spend a week at xmas, you only have a week for the rest of the year.. Yuck.. So at least -I'm- not going back during the holidays..

Seems that Teri and I have located some good hotdog eateries.. Last night we ate at Ted's, which is a chain from Western NY (buffalo).. The only one outside of NY happens to be in Tempe, about a couple miles from work.. Its a trip from home, but hey.. The other thing we've found, but haven't eaten at is "New York Sausage Company"... It was closed when we went by, but glacing in the windows shows us that they server Hoffman's Hot Dogs!! They do list sausage on the menu, hopefully it'll be Gianelli..

Shortly, I will finally have some pictures online... I had to write some software to export the iPhoto stuff to a web page, since I didn't like the currently availble options.. One of them, myPhoto didn't like being pushed to a seperate machine, plus it decided to move my directories around... WTF? Don't move my stuff around.. Use links or something, but leave my files where they are thank you... The other option, BetterHTMLExport, didn't logically handle folders nicely... Plus I could not get the commandline intereface to it to work.. Kept coming up with errors.. So I wrote my own.. The end result is currently really ugly, but it works.. I'll clean it up in the next few days, and then the fun begins- Sorting the photos..

I just love having my vacation paid for by the casinos!

As many of you know, I play a table game called Let It Ride.. On this trip to Vegas, it paid VERY well... I'll describe my last hand.. It was a $10 table, which means that i put 3 bets of $10 on the table... I was delt 3 Jacks, which is a winning hand (3 of a kind pays 3:1 + $5 bonus), so I laid my cards down... At this point, I'm garenteed to win $90.. Not bad.. Then the dealer turns the 4th jack over... Whoa.. I get excited... I tell the person next to me, be prepared to hear me yell... Why? Four of a kind pays 50:1, plus a $400 bonus... So.... ((50*$10)*3)+$400 = $1900!!!!!!!!!!! Plus.. I was already up for the week, cause of another 4 of a kind (4 sixes, but only won $900 on that hand..) and a couple full houses (11:1 odds).. AFter paying for hotel, food, and other expenses, I left vegas with a rather large amount of money in my pocket! Teri didn't do that well, she lost all the money she had planned on, but even after that, with my winnings, we left up.. Oh yeah... The orange chips are reallllll purty! ($1000 chips.)... This was the first time I actaully held $500(purple) and $1000 chips! Here's to holding more of them!

What else did we do in Vegas? Well.. How about being in a major motion picture? Rocky VI was being filmed at Mandalay Bay (next door to Luxor).. So we signed up to be unpaid extras... Are we going to be in the movie?? Well.. Maybe.. When we arrived, they had us sit in section 120.. Towards the top of the section.. Then for another scene, we were in the front, but wayy off to one side (section 108 I think).. THen back to 120 for a while.. Then we broke for lunch... Crappy bag lunch, comeplete with vending machine sandwiches.. *sigh*.. AND NO CAFFINE (except coffee..).. WTF? No Pepsi, coke, dew, nothing.. Only coffee.. UGH.. Withdrawls.. Anyways.. After lunch, they had us sit in the floor seats... For... four... hours... During that time, they filmed ONE scene.. Three quarters of the time, the only thing we could see happening was them practicing "throwing in the towel.." Literally.. I guess there's a real art to throwing in the towel.. Then they filmed the towel throwing, and for a bit after that... They didn't like the bit after that, so what do they do? The start filming that section over, after the thrown towel.. But.. They had moved the towel.. So now the towel is out of place... 30 minutes of replacing the towel, cause its not right anymore... Why not just re-shoot the towel throwing? Beats me.. These are professionals..They know what they are doing...

It certainly was an interesting experience.. I got within 10 feet of Stallone at one point while he was walking an ailse directing, and teh guy who plays his best friend (Paulie) in the movies was close enough to shake hands, but didn't cause I couldn't remember the actors name.. No biggie. The extras started a "Paulie, Paulie, Paulie" chant after one of Paulie's scene's.. Was quite cool... We were not in the scene where we got to chant "rocky, rocky, rocky" though... :(

WOuld we do it again? Maybe... I guess it would have to depend on the movie... Saying that you are in a Rocky movie is kinda cool though...

What else did we do? Wandered a bunch of shops in Caesar's and other places.. Took pictures of the various xmas displays (Oh my god... Belagio's display was awesome..)..

Oh well.. My hands are cramping... I still need to get pictures online, I will do that soon, I promise..

1. John buys a foriegn made car.

2. John moves from Syracuse.

3. John buys a Mac.

Yes.. I have bought a Mac Mini.. (for those that care: 1.42Ghz, 512M, 80G HD, Superdrive..).. So far its nice, except for a few things.. The keyboard controls seem to be in consistant... I have finger memory for using Crtl- and Crtl- for going forwards and backword by word.. This is now Alt- and Alt-.. And the Home/End keys dont seems to work on a consistent basis.. I believe the Mac way is - and -.. For all I know this is due to the particular keyboard I have.. Its not an apple one, so who knows.. I'll have to check out some apple keyboards and see how they behave..

Other than those keyboard annoyances, its not too bad.. The included software is actaully quite nice, the little I've play with it.. There's a plug in for iPhoto to upload to the Gallery software I use on the website.. So maybe we'll finally be able to get the 100's of pics up to it, finally...

The Mac Mini is the first step in my goal of simplifying the computers here.. I'm starting to get tired of the maintenance of my Gentoo machines.. And to do the "simplest" things, such as rotate a photo and upload it is a chore.. There is software to do it, but its overly complicated, or you can't do muiltple things at once.. Mac's software seems to be decently setup for these 'simplest' things..

I signed up for SU's multimedia service recently, in order to be able to watch TV clips of the games.. Its unlikely I'd be able to see any parts of the early games any other way... I could listen to the games live, but wouldn't be able to get video at all..

But just now.. I got an email from the same service, saying that they are looking for beta testers for LIVE STREAMING OF GAMES...

HOLY CRAP

Can you say that I responded instantly? I knew you could... They won't be able to broadcast all of games, probably due to agreements with ESPN, and others.. But I can live with that, since I can get ESPN on DirectTV..

First... I tend to see Ferrari's, Maserati's, and such several times a week...... Then, while getting lost trying to find the post office, I stubmble upon the Lotus and Lamborghini dealerships (I already knew where the Maserati and Ferrari one is..)..(never did find the post office...).. But then I run into articles like this: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1029hotcars29.html

Some days I'm glad I'm not rich... Too many temptations.....

Ok, this is so pointless, it rocks... And rolls.. And probably needs a tune-up: Gasoline powered turntable

Teri and I went to the Arizona State Fair.. Probably should be renamed the State Field Days, cause thats all it really was.. Only neat thing was the rodeo that happend to be on while we were there.. ($10/person *2 ) + $8 parking = $28.. Only to spend -maybe- an hour, cause thats all it takes to see it all.. Needless to say, we won't be going often.. I now know why my co-workers looked at me as if I had 3 heads when I asked about the Fair..

In the sun.

Been having fun putting together more Ikea furniture... This time it was missing parts.. *sigh*.. Had to go back to exchange it..

The office is slowly coming together.. Once done, its going to look very nice.. Maybe I'll actaully keep it clean... Nope, probably won't..

House still isn't sold.. Anyone wanna buy 6acres in the Syracuse NY area? No hurricanes, floods or earthquakes.. Maybe I should take out a billboard near New Orleans or something......