Vegas 2012-Day 1

It appears that I haven't posted on this blog in almost six months. I don't think that labels me as a bad person, but you can judge for yourself. Day 1: Getting there still isn’t half the fun I’m not going to do the full run-down of everyone that went, but suffice to say we were part of a large group. There were about 15 people in 4 different hotels, so the big turned into smaller sub-groups. Our group was the wife, Nene, Mon and me. Nene, the wife and I flew out of Peoria, IL (Mon flew out the next day from our local airport), which is 2.5 hours in the wrong direction. The price was in the right direction, it cost us over $200 less than using our local airport. Car ride was uneventful except for Nene’s excessive gas and the need to stop for a crap halfway there. In my long history of road trips I’ve never stopped for a crap, especially not after only an hour in the car. The airport was nice, it looks like it has been recently renovated and they don’t charge for parking. The dude in front of us checked a bag containing 3 bowling balls. I found that to be a bit odd. The flight out was late, bumpy and noisy. There was a group directly in front of us going out for a wedding and, despite being in their forties, acted like they were 22. And they drank like Vegas had run out of alcohol. We got to the Flamingo and the line to check was about 4000 people deep. We waited for awhile until I noticed four empty kiosks. I assumed they were to check in, so I slipped out of line to make sure. They were, and they were being manned by a very helpful older gentleman. It took some time to get them to work properly and assign rooms, but I still saved 30 minutes of precious Vegas time. The weather was a bit chilly when we landed, so the girls voted against the pool and instead we went to Margaritaville. We ordered some big ass nachos and drinks while waiting for a few others to join us. We were shortly joined by 4 more and ate while planning the evening. We settled on going to the Venetian to walk around the Grand Canal Shoppes, then meeting up with the rest of the group for drinks. Coolest store we walked through was It’Sugar. It specializes in oversized candy and other inappropriate edible items. For instance, they sell candy cigarettes. I thought those had basically been outlawed years ago as they encourage children to smoke. Apparently they are not frowned upon in Vegas. They also sell 2 pound rice krispy treats and tootsie pops as big as your head. We wandered around for awhile until we were informed the rest of the group was at the pub. My initial response was there is more than one pub in Vegas. I can think of two off the top of my head, one in Monte Carlo and the other in Aria. I was hoping they were at the one in Monte Carlo, that place has a phenomenal and reasonably priced beer selection. So naturally, they were at the one in Aria. I had been to the Pub at Aria on a previous trip and was underwhelmed. Food is average and over-priced, drinks are priced for people in a higher tax bracket than me. My friend assured me they had $2 draws. We came to find out the $2 beer was their house beer, which tastes remarkably similar to ass. We did find Innis & Gunn on the beer list, which is almost impossible to find. It was also the favorite beer of my brother-in-law, who had died very suddenly the week before. We ignored the $12 price tag and the wife and I toasted Erik. Maybe I have to quit hating the Pub at Aria. We left the Pub with another couple and went to Dick’s Last Resort at Excalibur. We bought one of their 44 oz slushy drinks and set to getting loaded. It’s not the best people watching on the strip, however it is entertaining to watch who staggers through Excalibur around midnight. By the time we finished I thought we might have received the virgin variety. We headed back to Flamingo with a light buzz and a dragging ass. And yes, I’m aware that I said “ass” about 12 times already. Read more on this article...

Always room for improvement

The family has been immersed in "A Christmas Carol" for the last month or so. My oldest is in a community theater production of the timeless classic. I've seen the performance 3 times in the last 4 days, so I feel like I'm in a position to offer some suggestions to freshen it up.

1. The Tiny Tim character is a bit depressing. He goes from being a scrawny kid with a limp to a scrawny kid without a limp. Everyone celebrates like it's some kind of miracle, when in reality he probably just sprained his ankle. I propose trading out Tiny Tim for Spud Webb. He can go from blowing out his ACL to dunking over Scrooge.
2. More swearing. Scrooge shuffles around with his signature "Bah, Humbug," but what if he channeled his inner Samuel L. Jackson? Nothing spices things up like a few f-bombs.
3. Fewer Christmas Carols, more Lady Gaga songs. Then again, maybe not. She's crazy.
4. Midgets.

In closing, I'd be remiss to not mention the star of the production. Mady was the consummate professional through the late night rehearsals, multiple role changes, and agreeing to play a boy. She hit all her cues and from everyone we talked to in the cast was very impressed with her. And she requested I mention her in this blog because the online review didn't mention her by name. I informed her that being a "street child" usually doesn't warrant a mention, but I would be glad to include her in my review. Well done Mady.
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How not to fix a garage door opener

My garage door opener croaked last week. I did the responsible thing and called a local business to fix it. It appeared to me that the chain was loose and just needed some adjustment. They came out the next day informed me the main drive gear was stripped and I’d need a new opener at a cost of almost $500. Well, it’s only about 6 years od so I decided to do some investigation. I found the gear that needed to be replaced for $8 online. I also needed the part that tightens the chain (the turnbuckle) as it had broken while I was trying to tighten the chain. Total cost plus shipping was under $20. I could tell the wife was a bit skeptical that I’d succeed in this repair adventure.

It started out ok. I had the opener disassembled so all I needed to do was replace the part and re-assemble. The gear was easy to replace, then I had to thread the chain and tighten it. That was a little tricky as it’s a lot chain to squeeze through some tight spots. I got it tightened and all I needed to do was adjust the door so it would open and close correctly. Problem is that is a lot more difficult than it looks. I had to keep starting and stopping the door manually to make sure it didn’t go too far. Unfortunately I didn’t react fast enough and the sprocket that I had just replaced tried to eat the turnbuckle I had also just replaced. The result was the turnbuckle broke again and I said a lot of bad words with my 4 yr old son looking on in disbelief. After composing myself, I surveyed the damage and realized I still had a part that I could use to fix it again. I went back to threading the chain through while cursing just under my breath. I was looping it around the sprocket when the chain got away from me and hit the exposed circuit board. That wouldn’t have been a problem if I had remembered to cut the power to the opener. The opener made a audible pop and the lights went out. Naturally, Zach was still in the garage with me but luckily he didn’t freak out. I made my way to the door and brought Zach inside to find a flashlight. I reset the breaker I had tripped, but the opener still wouldn’t power up. I don’t know exactly what was wrong with the opener at this point, put I was pretty sure I was not going to be able to fix it.
I had one more shot to get the opener fixed yet that night. My next door neighbor had stopped by a couple days before because he heard my garage door opener was broke. He informed me he had one just like mine that I could have. He replaced his with a belt drive opener and the old one was free to a good home. I thanked him for the offer, but said I had parts on order and I thought I could get it fixed. Which is why after fighting my broken opener for over an hour I called up my neighbor to see if the free opener offer still stood. Within 15 minutes of my calling him I had an operational garage door. And I felt like a complete idiot for not taking him up on his offer earlier. I do plan on paying it forward. If anyone is interested in a fried garage door opener, I have one available for the low price of free to a good home.
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Parasailing-Marco Island

Parasailing looks exhilarating from the beach. Unfortunately, it’s not as cool as it looks. You go way up the air, but it doesn’t feel like you’re that high. That’s probably because there isn’t any scale. Water looks the same size no matter how far away you are. The other boats in the water looked small, but they weren’t very big to begin with. I’ll give it a 2 on my “was it worth it scale?” I can’t see myself doing it again, unless I can do it for a lot less that the $80/person price tag this came with.

I went up with Abby and her friend Avery. A lot went into that decision. At first it was just Mady going with her friend Belle. Then Abby said she wanted to go, but Avery didn’t so I was going to go with Abby. Then Avery decided she would go. We thought we were set and just the four girls would go in pairs. Then we found out the two younger girls weren’t heavy enough to go by themselves. Our next idea was for the siblings to go as that would have taken care of the weight requirement. Of course, they didn’t want to do that because they are small women and prone to be difficult. In the end, I went with the lighter girls. Partially to help them reach the weight requirement, partially to but their nerves at ease, and partially because I’ve always wanted try it. And because they are siblings, the older girls made me and the younger ones go first to try to freak us out. Thankfully that backfired.
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Jet Skiing-Marco Island

I found Captain Ron’s Awesome Everglades Adventures after a little searching and it looked right up our ally. We have a guide taking us through the 10,000 islands (I have to trust them as that was a few more than I wanted to count). It’s a little pricey at $210 for two hours, but I’m the type that’ll spend a little extra to do something that I don’t normally get to do.

On the “was it worth it?” scale I’d give it a 7 out of 10. The guides took some time training us how to operate the wave runners and they were great at spotting wildlife. There were four wave runners in our group and I was the only one with passengers. The other 3 were a couple in their 50’s and their 20-something son with unfortunate facial hair. The wife in the group had a bit of a lead foot (or finger) so she and I took turns following the guide while the other two guys brought up the rear. In between finding dolphins and manatee we could let the jet skis rip. The website said they normally go about 20 MPH on the tour. Thankfully that was a lie. In between checking out the wildlife we were going full throttle, which on these Waverunners was about 40 MPH. We weren’t setting any speed records, but it was a lot of fun. They also gave us a cd of pictures, I’m attaching a few. You’ll see what I mean about the unfortunate facial hair.
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Marco Island-2011

We just got back from a week in Marco Island, FL. We rented a house that we found on vrbo.com and it worked out great for us. I’m feeling fairly disorganized, so I’m just going to type and see where this goes.

First off, it’s a long haul. The whole family went and I didn’t feel like shelling out $1500-$2000 for airfare. Add on that we still would need a car or van to get from any airport to Marco as the closest airport is almost 50 miles away. The drive is about 1400 miles and took us 22 hours to complete over 2 days. It took Zach about 30 miles to ask if we were there yet. At one point coming home he started in and I answered him about 5 times that we weren’t almost home. Then I decided to ignore him and I counted how many times asked before getting tired of it. 45. That’s how many consecutive “Are we there yet's?” he asked. Then he changed the subject for 15 seconds and started in again. Damn he’s persistent. It was becoming obvious that the subtle parenting wasn’t going to work, so I took the direct approach. I told him he’d get a spanking if he didn’t quit asking. I didn’t want to have to spank him for something so stupid, but he was driving me crazy. Thankfully for both of us, he got the message. We chose Marco for a vacation largely because our friends have a timeshare there. We could have rented a condo in the same complex as them for about $2500/wk, instead we opted for the house at a cost of $700/wk. They were on the beach and could watch the sunset every night. Not that you can put a price on sunsets, but for me I know the price is less than $1800. And quite honestly, once you’ve seen one sunset over the gulf, you’ve seen them all. Next up-jet skiing.
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Addiction

I haven’t blogged for awhile because I’m dealing with a very serious addiction in my home. I didn’t realize how serious it was until I did an intervention about a month ago.
It was a Saturday morning and the house was empty except for my four-year-old and me. We were playing Lego Star Wars and I decided to take Zach to the raptor center (birds, not dinosaurs). It’s a good way for me to kill an hour with the kids while getting them out of the house. Plus Zach needed some time away from the Wii. Zach had no idea what we were going to see, so I explained we’ll see eagles, owls and hawks. Here’s the ensuing conversation:
Zach: Ewoks?
Me: Hawks. Not Ewoks.
Zach: What about the Ewoks?
Me: There are no Ewoks. Only hawks.
I thought I had conveyed the situation until we got to the raptor center. We were walking around and Zach kept asking about the Ewoks.
Zach: Where are the Ewoks?
Me: There are no Ewoks.
Zach: But you said there would be Ewoks here.
Me: There are no Ewoks.
Zach: Why aren’t there any Ewoks here?
Me: Because there aren’t any Ewoks. They aren’t real.
Zach: But you said there would be Ewoks here.
As you can see, this is a fairly serious issue. Zach is totally addicted to anything related to Star Wars. He plays Star Wars on the Wii for about an hour per day to feed the addiction. He has watched all 6 of the movies several times and watches the clone wars cartoon religiously. We are at the end of a weeklong vacation and Zach hasn’t had too many withdrawal issues, but we’ll see how he handles his addiction once he gets in contact with it again.
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