My legs hurt, my throat is raw, and I think there is some strange fungus growing between my toes. But I had such a good time at the concert, I could care less. Everything about the concert was awesome, except for the weather. It had been raining for 24 hours straight by the time the concert started, and continued to rain (and pour!) throughout the night. One of my co-workers took his 8 and 16 year old daughters to the concert, but had lawn seats. I’m pretty sure he got so wet and muddy, that he didn’t stay until the end of the concert. Luckily Margaret and I had seats under the roof, so we got to stay drier (we still had to get to the venue from the car…).

This is one of the few concerts I’ve been to where I actually had heard of the opening acts (Pussycat Dolls), so I was kind of excited to see two bands that I had heard of. There was another opening act, but we didn’t get to see them, and I don’t feel that I really missed anything. So the Pussycat Dolls took the stage about 30 minutes after we got there, with next to nothing on, which was really quite a bold statement on a cold and rainy night. But all their dancing seemed to keep them warm, at least judging by the amount of sweat glistening on Nicole’s body (sorry, no picture). Musically, they weren’t bad, but I’m not running out to get their CD. At least Nicole can sing (I’m not sure about the rest). After their set, I felt like I had just gotten done watching a show at a strip club (which I think is the effect they were going for).

Once PCD was done, the roadies took over turning around the stage for the BEP, it took all of 20 minutes before they were ready to take the stage (just enough time for me to run to the bathroom!).

This BEP set was awesome. They played for about 1:15 and really rocked to place. BEP did something that I wish more acts would pick up: they gave us a reason to go to the concert by playing stuff you could never hear or see anywhere else. We had Fergie covering “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns N’ Roses. We had Taboo doing “OPP” and “Jump Around”. And there was at least one song where will.i.am was doing a rather good Louie Armstrong impersonation that I had never heard before. I have no idea where that came from, but I would love to hear it again.

As expected, their delivery of “Pump It” brought the house down! I love that song, and loved hearing it live (this is where I started to lose my voice yelling “Louder” with the music). Margaret and I both enjoyed “Where is the love”, which was extra good since it was delivering a political message in a town that thrives on politics.  After their first set, the came back on and did an encore that lasted about 45 minutes or so.  It was a good set, but not really as good as the first set.

will.i.am was just amazing. He played the keyboard. He rapped and played the drums at the same time. He was a microphone stand for the sax player. He was did impersonations. He did beat box. I don’t think there is anything he can’t do.

Fergie came out onto stage acting how everyone in the crowd felt: blech. She really didn’t seem to be into the show at all during their first couple of songs. But once she warmed up a bit, you could tell that she really got into the show. Which I’m really glad because in my mind, her voice is a very necessary element in the BEP sound. So I’m glad she warmed up to the crowd since the show wouldn’t have been half as good without her.

All-in-all, an excellent show and I’m very glad we went!

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I know a lot of people don’t like the Black Eyed Peas. I’m not one of them. I like their sound and pretty much every song of theirs that I have heard. So it was a pretty easy decision to get tickets to see them tomorrow night at the Merriweather Post Pavilion. I’m very excited about going, and I think Margaret is a bit excited as well.

We got regular seats. I wanted to avoid the lawn seats in April because the weather is so iffy. It could very easily rain, and I don’t think I would enjoy sitting on a wet lawn in the rain. That just doesn’t sound like fun.

I’ll write after the concert to let you know how it was.  The Merriweather Post Pavilion is one of two “Pavilion” style concert venues outside DC (The Nissan Pavilion is the other).  I’ve never been to the Post, but from their website it sounds like it is in a pretty senic location with plenty of room to walk around.  We’ll see (I’m a little doubtful..).

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This was a Big Dam Day! On the schedule for today: Visit Hoover Dam and see a Vegas show.

My parents told me about the place they get same-day tickets in Vegas, so we decided to stop by. Since they don’t open until noon, but post their shows at 11:30, we had some time to waste in the morning. We slept in a little (still trying to adjust to Pacific Time) and headed out to find some food. We finally settled on Starbucks (PS - You can’t go more than a block without having access to a Starbucks in Las Vegas. Each Hotel has one, and there are a few in-between hotels in case you get that caffeine craving). Arriving at the ticket counter in plenty of time, we try and decide which show we want to see. Well, the 3 top shows we had picked to see seem to be everyone’s top shows to see. We thought about just picking a show to see, but didn’t want to see a Vegas show just to see a Vegas show. We wanted to see something we really wanted to see. So we got out of line and went to the car and headed out to see one of the Modern Wonders of the World.

Hoover Dam should be about a 30 minute trip from Las Vegas. And we didn’t really hit any traffic until we got close to the dam. Due to increased security, there is a large traffic tie up approaching the dam as every vehicle has to proceed through the security check point before even getting close to the dam. Once we cleared security, it was only another half mile to the parking garage and visitors center.

After parking the car we headed into the visitors center where we paid to see the movie and tour the generator room. If you have never been and want to go, pay the money. It is very, very worth it. The movie wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. Along the lines of any educational movie you saw in school production wise. But the content was very good. They explained the biggest question in my mind: Why build it? The answer is multi-faceted: To control the Colorado River and prevent downstream flooding. To generate eceltricity for a large portion of surrounding areas (but NOT Las Vegas). And probably most subtly, to create jobs for people in the middle of the Great Depression.

Once done with the movie, you wait a little to get into the elevator that takes you down to the generator level. You can see the massive generators in the picture to the left. It is a nice shot, but doesn’t really give a good idead of the size of them. Let’s just say they are massive!

After seeing the rest of what the Dam has to offer (including walking into Arizona), we hopped back into the car for the trip back to Las Vegas. On the way out we had picked a place to eat for dinner. Since we weren’t going to a show, we wanted to pick someplace nice as kind of a treat for my birthday. So we picked Michael Mina at the Bellagio, which was listed in our book as a good seafood place.

Back at the hotel, we got all dressed up and headed out for dinner, walking to the Bellagio. Thankfully we had packed nice clothes, so we didn’t really stand out in the resturant. After we sat down, they gave us a sample of a new dish the chef was trying out: a Sweet Pea soup. It was pretty good, but I wanted to save room for dinner. We passed on the tasting menu (which would have been cool) and just picked from the regular menu. I had the sole and Margaret (branching out!) had the salmon. (I also had the best Gin and Tonic I’ve ever had.)

While waiting for our food to arrive, we did check out what other people were eating. The most interesting thing that people ordered was the Lobster Pot Pie. It arrived at the table in a copper pot (fresh from the oven!) that contained the lobster (and shell) and had the pastry top covering the pot. The server would take the pastry top off and put it on the plate, and then (at the table) serve up the lobster on top of it. It was quite a presentation.

The food was wonderful, I would recommend it. Since we had done a bit of walking that day, we decided to splurge on dessert. This time we chose the Tasting menu and got a large plate of mini desserts to eat. The most interesting thing was the Root Beer Floats with Chocolate Chip cookies. Since we got a smaller portion with the tasting, it came in little espreso glasses with little mini cookies on the side. There ended up being some stuff we didn’t like in the Tasting, but we loved the stuff we did like.

As was our tradition, we did some gambling as long as we were at the Casino. Once again, I left with the Bellagio owing me money. This time I turned $5 into $26 playing quarter video poker. After a full meal like that (and Margaret’s feet were bothering here), we decided to just take a cab home rather than walking.

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At least according to Money Magazine I have the best job (check out the top job on the list).

Here’s where the story get really funny. The have a profile on a “representative” Software Developer. The theory at my office is that he is a paid actor. He works at EA (makers of Madden Football, among other games) which has recently had a really bad bout of bad press. An “EA Spouse” wrote a blog about how disgruntled she was with the company and how it treats its employee’s. One of my coworkers (who came to use from EA) told us that when that news story broke, he came home and asked his wife it is were writing that blog, since it very easily could have been.

My coworker says he doesn’t know the guy profiled, but says he worked in a different office (he could tell by the artwork in the background what game he was working on, and deduce what office he was in). So this guy could be real, but I would think twice about taking a job at EA any time in the near future…

UPDATE: I got this from a friend of a friend who used to be a game programmer (current occupation: coffee farmer in Hawaii) talking about this same article:

A friend just forwarded me this article.  I worked with this guy some at EA.  Some stupid journalist decided he has the best job in the country.  Shows how they don’t do much research before publishing.  Apparently they missed the fact that they guy has no family life because he works piles of overtime, isn’t paid all that well, and works for a company that was sued by it’s employees over unfair business practices.  To top it off, the guy may have what sounds like a good job but he sure sucks balls at it.

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So Day 1 was pretty bad. As I had foreshadowed, Day 2 didn’t start off all that much better.

Saturday. The day of the Big Game (Cubs vs. Padres live from Las Vegas!). We had checked multiple times that we had the tickets, so the problem wasn’t there. We knew where we were going (Cashman Field is about 2 miles north of the Strip, on Las Vegas Blvd) and we also knew to leave early as we had no idea what traffic was going to be like (and it was a good things as there was a broken down car blocking the left lane and had traffic tied up for a bit).

We stopped for a quick (and not very healthy) breakfast at 7-11 (it was on the way) and made it to the park with time to spare. Margaret and I decided to hit the comfort facilities and then meet up at our seats. Good plan, poor execution. It turns out that I don’t know how to read tickets and spent 20 minutes in the wrong seats, until I went to double-check with the user where I was sitting.

While I was spending my time in the wrong location, Margaret decided to check out the camera and take some shots of the Cubs as they warmed up. I knew the batteries in the camera were low, so when we packed I put the charger on the bed to bring it with. At the field we realized I had never charged the batteries. And the batteries weren’t low, they were dead. So we were unable to get any pictures from the Cubs game.

But at least the game was exciting! Being the last spring training game before the real season starts, the starting lineup had been decided and were going to start that game. Margaret’s favorite Todd Walker got the starting 2B spot, so she was very happy. Dusty kept the starting pitcher (Las Vegas hometown boy Greg Maddux) in for 2 innings, and then rested him for his next start later on that week. The rest of the starters stayed in for about half the game (with the exception of Derrek Lee who needed a few more at-bats to get ready).

The Cubs were up towards the end of the game when things got really exciting. They had a backup player playing right field who missed a popup that he probably should have caught that allowed the Padres to tie it up and sent the game into extra innings. But in the land of luck, Karma is king and the right fielder got to make up for the error in the bottom of the 10th by getting a hit that started the rally for the Cubs to score and win the game. A very exciting ending to the game!

After the game we drove back to the Hotel (The Luxor) and had plans to park the car and grab some dinner. Problem is that is was like 4:00 on a Saturday afternoon which seems to be a high time to be at a casino, so there was no parking in the Luxor parking lot! There were about 10 cars circling the lot looking for people leaving. A mad race when people left the casino to follow them out to their cars to try and get their spots. I ended up dropping Margaret off at the hotel and parking at the Excalibur next door and walking over (it was a short walk and they had plenty of parking).

Dinner is when things started going better. We decided to have some Mexican at La Salsa, a restaurant up the strip from our hotel (turns out there is one at the Luxor as well, but we wanted to see the strip). The food was great, but the best part was by far the Margarita’s. I have never had Margarita’s this good. We declined the 3-foot ones and just had normal sized ones and boy were they delicious!

Sidebar: Apparently Las Vegas doesn’t have an open container law as you can walk down the street drinking your cocktail/beer/yard of beverage without any problem. And lots of people do that, even walking down the streets getting loaded with their little kids walking next to them. I have never seen anything like it.

Back to our intrepid heroes: La Salsa is just a little chain restaurant, little did we know that there was a floorshow as well. It turns out that two women there were celebrating their birthdays. So in the usual restaurant fashion they brought out the entire wait staff while banging on pots and pans and had the whole restaurant sing “Happy Birthday”. But the fun didn’t end there. They brought the women out to the middle of the dance floor and sat them down on two chairs. After queing up some dance music, one of the waiters came out and “danced” for them. And then another, and another. And finally, their boyfriends came out and “danced” for them as well. All in all, everyone involved was a really good sport, and provided entertainment for everyone else.

Following our meal, we headed up the strip to the Bellagio to see the fountains (If you’re in Vegas, the fountains are a must see: 1,000 Places to See Before You Die). All I can say is: Amazing. The best thing you can see in Vegas that costs you no money whatsoever. Since we were already at the Bellagio, we had to go inside. I mean, this is the place where Ocean’s Eleven (Widescreen Edition) (one of our favorite movies) was filmed! It was legendary in our minds.

If you’re in a casino, you might as well gamble a little bit. So we played some slots and video poker. Since I find slots totally mindless, I actually prefer to play Video Poker, and I think I got Margaret hooked on it. She was able to play for hours on $5. It was amazing to see (especially since I could blow through $5 like it was nothing). I did end up leaving that night with $7 more than I came in with, so our luck had turned around.

We were tired, so we decided to walk back to the Luxor to catch some sleep so we would be ready for Day 3.

UPDATE: So Margaret reminded me that I forgot something! On our walk up the strip before dinner, we had to pass by New York, New York and we saw the roller coaster that runs past the mini New York skyline. The last time I was in Las Vegas (I was 16), there wasn’t much for a kid to do. My parents took us to the only thing in town: Circus, Circus. At that time, it was basically an Arcade (in both the Street Fighter and County Fair meaning). But boy has Las Vegas changed! A lot of the hotels have more kid friendly food, shows, and entertainment. (Don’t worry, they still have lots of Adult themed entertainment as well)

So deciding to act like kids, we got two tickets to ride. The line was short, so we basically got right on (after a short delay to add another car). And it was an awesome ride! The sun was just going down, so you got a great view of the strip in dusk before dropping off that first hill. Then you didn’t get to see much else except for the occasional glimpses of the New York skyline as your were hanging from your seat restraints completly inverted. The second half of the ride was a bit more tame and allowed you to really get a good view of the Strip, and also the level of detail put into replicating the New York skyline.

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I would like to start by thanking the academy….   What do you mean it’s not that kind of award?  I’m not getting an Oscar?  Ok….

Well, then I’m glad that the kind people at MacZot were able to appreciate my prose for what it is and saw that my entry was far and above better then all the other entries.  Wait, you mean I didn’t win in those categories?  Well, what category did I win in? (Random Drawing - Every blogger has a chance at this one.)

 Well, like we always say at Hillcrest, “Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.”

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As you may have noticed, this site has been dog-slow for a while.  It’s been running of a pentium computer in my house for the past couple of years.  Well, things have finally overwhelmed that poor machine so I’ve been moving my webpages to some external (faster) hosting. As a result of these changes, some things are acting kind of wonky and you may find some broken links.  Give it until Monday for everything to settle down, and then you can start telling me about all the tings I broke.

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You probably haven’t heard of MacZot, yet. MacZot. Suprisingly Cheap Mac Shareware Daily.

Every day MacZot offers at least one piece of Mac Shareware at a discount over the usual registration price. This helps both the users and the developers. The users get to register their shareware at a discount, and the developer gets free advertising about their product and some cash. MacZot can be surpsing in a few regards:

1. You can’t believe how much of a discount you are getting.
2. You didn’t know there was a piece of software that does that.
3. You don’t know what the software is

I’ve been enticed twice into buying Mystery Zot’s from MacZot. $15 for 4-6 apps that I have no idea what they are or what the do. Both times I have been very happy as I have gotten at least one item that really justifies the $15 I spent. My first one I got AppZapper and Swift Office Ships (and a few other things). In my second MacZot, I got VoiceNotes and iClip (and again, a few other things).

MysteryZot is actually a very interesting phenomenon. If I had been told what the bundles were, I don’t think I would have bought them. But the excitement of not knowing got me to pull the trigger. Twice! And now that I have these little applications, I’m quite happy that I have them. It is just interesting how you can be quite happily suprised.

PS - This is my entry for the MacZot contest [1,2,6]

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While you’re waiting for me to inform you about Day 2 in Las Vegas, check out our pictures (That Margaret just uploaded…).

Also note that Bill and Margaret’s “Gallery” has an RSS link so you can subscribe (like on your My Yahoo, for example) to know when new updates are added (This is actually how I found out that Margaret uploaded the Vegas pictures!).

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For my 30th Birthday my wife and I decided to spend it in Las Vegas (much like she spent her 30th birthday at Disney World). It was basically a no-brainer choice for us. We wanted to go someplace warm and we wanted to go someplace fun. It turns out the Cubs were playing pre-season ball in Vegas the weekend before my birthday, so that sealed the deal for us.

Margaret and I have traveled a lot, both for business and for pleasure. And I can’t think of a trip that started off worse than this ill-fated vacation. In consideration of everyone’s stress level, I wish to inform you dear reader that everything works out in the end. Hopefully the knowledge of this fact will keep you from fretting throughout your reading of my little tale.

It all started out so innocently. Being concerned (as a good DC resident is) about traffic, we left in plenty of time for the airport. And amazingly enough, the trip from Margaret’s office to IAD was mainly light traffic (it helps to have dedicated Airport Traffic Lanes). That should have been my first warning that something was up.

This is the point where things just start to slide. We were on a US Airways flight operated by America West. So to which location do you go to check in? The answer is: it depends. We chose US Airways, but our flight needed to check in at America West, clear at the other end of the terminal. So we hoof it down there to check in. That’s when we found out that we will not be sitting together. And if that isn’t bad enough, we both have middle seats.

OK. So far, not all that bad. We spend a lot of time together as it is, so 5 hours with 2 people in-between us is tolerable. Even riding in the middle seat isn’t that bad since we both have plenty of things to keep us occupied. And here’s some good news! We arrived 17 minutes early! Woo Hoo! Here’s the bad news. There is another plane at our gate and we need to wait for it to leave before we can de-plane. 60 minutes later we pull up to the gate. I wonder if they get an “on-time-arrival” for that or not?

Ok. Enough airplane fun, let’s get on to the rest of the fun. I’m a Hertz Gold Member, so my name should be in lights when we get there to pick up the car (I signed up for this after wasting too much time waiting to pick up my rental when traveling…). The thing is, there is something wrong with my account, so I still have to wait in line. Bonus: It is Hertz, so they take care of me with no hassle. We got a 2006 Monte Carlo while only paying for an economy car, so who can complain all that much?

The Hotel. No problems getting there. We were staying at the Luxor (the giant pyramid) and were able to see the hotel from the airport, and almost the entire way to the hotel (there is a big light on top of it that we could navigate by). So let’s see if we can figure out where we can park the car. Valet is full (honestly, Valet seemed to always be full at the Luxor), need to find self park. 15 minutes later find it, WAY behind the hotel (after only 2 wrong turns and a couple of good guesses). After figuring out the non-obvious way of actually getting to the second level where there were actually spots, we do finally get the car parked. I run on ahead to get us registered so we can get to bed (it is midnight PST, 3AM EST).

After finding my way through the casino to registration, I am greeted with a line at least 30 people deep. So, being the good person I am, I stand in it. 45 minutes later, I’m at the registration desk and actually talking with someone. The room is pre-paid, so all I need to do is provide some ID and an Credit Card for incidentals. And my wallet is not in my pockets (I left it in the car, though I didn’t know that then). So I had to get Margaret to do all the stuff for me. And it turns out that the Pyramid room we had reserved they are all out of, so we get a tower room. After explaining to the uncaring lady that I paid more for a Pyramid room, she explains that they are actually giving me a better room than I paid for. So at that point I shut my mouth and take my room.

Thus ends the drama of Day 1. There are at least 12 more hours of drama before things starting going our way again, but I’ll talk about them tomorrow.

PS - I did find my wallet in-between the seat and the door in the car before I went to bed.

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