While staying at Mandalay Bay, we spent most of our nights at EyeCandy, located at the center of the casino. During the day on Friday we relaxed at the Beach, which has a pool with waves, which was fun to hang out in… especially in 95+ degree heat. Although I spent a lot of money while in Vegas, I happened to leave with $100 more cash-on-hand then when I arrived. That included at least 5-6 hours of blackjack. I think this is the first time I’ve come out on top since my first trip to Vegas, when I stayed at Stratosphere, about 4 years ago. The most exciting/funny part of the trip had to be the Michael Jackson wannabe at EyeCandy on Thursday night (see video in previous post).

So Saturday was here and it was time to go home, stopping to pick up the Jeep. It turned out the coolant was in very bad shape and the radiator needed a flush (not sure if I’m explaining it correctly). We made it home in one piece from there on out, in plenty of time to settle in at home and prepare for our 4th of July BBQ, which turned out to be a resounding success.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So here I am finally getting some things done at home. Mostly, I’ve been cleaning up in certain areas that get ignored, like the garage. And, in the “things that interest only me” area, I finally upgraded WordPress today. I’m now running on v2.3.1. And I was able to upgrade the K2 theme and Gallery plugin so everything work together. I’ve been using the Gallery plugin for pictures for some time now, but I had to stop using the K2 theme earlier this year when I figured out the K2 theme and Gallery plugin didn’t get along. The K2 theme comes with some cool functions that I’ve missed. Specifically, I’m able to create header images using my own pictures to put on the site. I’ve already added one that I was using earlier this year. One I get more header images in there, the images will rotate so that front page doesn’t seem static. Like I said, things that interest only me.

On that same note, I can’t wait for Christmas to come. I’m getting the latest version of Mac OS/X – Leopard. That’ll give me something to play with for a few days. I’ll try to get another post in before Christmas. But, if I don’t, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

For the most part, I’ve spent my time going to a few restaurants/bars. I’m pretty sure I went out for drinks almost every night here other than maybe 2 or 3 days. The usual suspects were Tony P’s for sports, Cactus Cantina for Mexican food and “sight seeing”, and The Terrace for relaxing. Well, usually The Terrace is relaxing. Surprisingly, there were a couple of days where they had a DJ. You would have go to The Terrace to understand why that’s surprising. There was one other restaurant that we went too once, the California Yacht Club, to view the Boat Parade. I can’t explain how enormous the buffet was. I filled myself up with a small plate for dinner and finished off with a few rounds of desert, yum.

Thanks to Eric, I also managed to play a couple rounds of golf in California. Both were public courses, but were in pretty good shape. I guess it’s not too hard to keep a course in good shape when the weather is nice all year round. By the time I was on the course for the second round of golf last Monday, I was as relaxed as it gets. No matter how good or bad I was shooting it was nice to be outside drinking a few beers and enjoying the weather. Eric and I also had a few laughs along the way. Somehow, my ability to hit a righty driver over 200 yards – straight – surprises everyone. Well, I guess it should, it surprises me too. We also had a good laugh at one of the players we were paired with. We’ll just call him Mr. Professional since I don’t remember his name. At the first hole, Mr. Professional asked that we move back behind him and out of his site line while he hits his driver. It turned out being silent and still was a common request from him. I’d hate to see how he’s react to having a crowd watch him play. Early on Eric said he would lose his game in the middle of the back nine. And he wasn’t kidding. Mr. Professional lost his game big time. As for my score during the two rounds, I shot a 92 from the white tees during the first round and a 91 from the blue tees during the second round. It would have been nice to finally hit a round under 90, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Maybe I’ll buy myself a game like Eric claims to have done. In other words, he bought himself expensive clubs.

Outside of that, I helped my brother move apartments. Most days I would go to the old apartment, fill up my truck with as much as I could, then move it over to the new apartment. It worked out pretty well having a week or so overlap between the two apartments.

That’s it for now. And, as Joker pointed out, I’ll do my best to remember that they’re just chips!