The Weekend

Well, it's about time to start keeping up to date on this thing, and actually writing something, instead of just the quick 3 second link to some random car, gadget or site.

So let's start with the weekend. I was lucky enough to get out of work pretty early on Friday, courtesy of the Easter Holiday. Of course, that just meant a slightly earlier start to work on the bathroom, which is finally starting to come together. Actually, I could probably sum up the majority of the weekend as working on the bathroom, intermingled with trips to Home Depot (1 long one for the wife, 3 short ones for me). We did make some decent progress though - tiles are almost all complete (this photo was from Friday night, so we're further along now), we worked out how to install the rain tile shower thing (and that we didn't have the right tools to actually do the work - actually, no-one did, so Kohler are kindly sending out the required bit that we need). The floor tiles now have the first coating of sealant on them as well, so fingers crossed this all should be finished in a few weeks (he says making vague date statements as nothing ever quite goes as planned).

Saturday we ended up having a couple of people over at the last minute to watch the latest UFC event. It was actually a pretty good one, although the fight I thought would be the best (Diego vs Josh) turned out to be the worst - not sure what was going on with that one - Diego looked like he couldn't work out how to fight for some reason, and ended up losing his unbeaten record. Also managed to watch the Calzaghe fight (all 2 and a half rounds of it) in the afternoon - one of the benefits of fights being held on the other side of the Atlantic means it doesn't conflict with the nights activities. The fight was ok, but the fact the ref stopped it so soon was pretty disappointined - there was no way the other guy was going to win, but stopping it so soon when he wasn't hurt was a bit much - just glad that wasn't a fight I had paid money for, either to be there or on PPV.

Sunday meant we finally got a chance to meet up with the long lost traveller known as Lauren (and Neil too of course). Working in between everyone's schedules meant a brunch meet up at Snooze. I have to say, this place is great. It was obviously pretty trendy judging by the clientele, and the line out of the door and into the snow, but the food was amazing, and Neil enjoyed the fact that you can order Stella with your breakfast. Anyway, if you're looking for a decent breakfast downtown, this is the place.

Sunday afternoon was spent being completely frustrated with everything I touched. The bathroom, Home Depot trips (including realizing that they shut early on Easter Sunday, but only when I almost walked into the entry door), web-site touch up turning into a complete change coz I couldn't get some things to work, Sopranos starting again (I somehow just feel a lot of dread everytime I watch this - it looks like the world is all going to come tumbling down around Tony, and I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with that), and snow in April to top it all off. Even a high speed blast in the car didn't seem to get me out of my stroppy mood completely, so apologies if you were anywhere near me yesterday.

Oh, and finally got around to uploading a load of pics from the last few weeks/months, so check out Mine and Heidi's Flickr if you want to check them out.

Vegas Weekend

OK - so this took a while, but I finally did manage to get the photo's and one video uploaded from the weekend. The highlight was the Ricky Hatton fight - one of those things that you didn't know was going on, then getting last minute tickets (pretty close to the ring too) and having an absolute blast.




The weekend had started off ok with on-time flights, a decent room at the Bellagio (for a special price based on the fact that I always hand over lots of additional cash to the casinos when I'm there), and actually finding my wife in the huge complex that is known as MGM. However, we were both feeling pretty rough, with a hectic week almost behind us, and a decent bout of cold/flu type symptoms that had us dragging. A couple of cocktails and some wasabi peas helped out at Tao in The Venetian, but then we hit the wall and headed back for room service and a pretty early night (although I did go back downstairs for an hour on the machines to lose even more money).

Saturday was the best day - we hit Stratosphere (the cheap places always seem to be luckier for me) and managed to win a little money. Ended up staying there until around 4, when the plan emerged for the Hatton fight (we had saw a poster the night before when wandering around). Tickets secured, a quick change at the hotel, a run across the road, disappointment when we realized the ticket office had told us a 7pm start meant that was when the 2 main fights were starting, and we had missed the 3 or 4 fights on the undercard, but then elation when we saw where our seats were. The guys next to us were a good laugh as well, and the beer section was close enough to run to and stock up as necessary (there appeared to be waitresses wandering around taking orders, but one waitress per 500 people meant it was a crap shoot to even get her attention, and the time between ordering and receiving bordered on the ridiculous). The place was full of dodgy blokes from Manchester, but everyone was in good spirits and the atmosphere got better as the night went on. Even the HBO camera teams were good crack (they were pretty close to our seats for most of the night, and spent what seemed to be a large part of the time taking video of the wife - she did look particularly stunning that night though, I must say). Photos are uploaded here - some of the fight ones came out ok, but my favorite is this one of Larry Merchant - he really thought Heidi was a huge fan and asked her to wait a second so he could pose properly for the close up. Little did he know we actually slag him off soooo much when we're watching HBO - he's way too old and losing a couple of marbles to keep up with the modern game. Even though we knew he wore a decent amount of make-up, nothing prepared us for the shock of the real thing - that stuff was shovelled on his face, and must have been an inch deep! And the young(er) guy who sits with him was no better.




Anyway, after the fight, we hit Bally's for a bit, and then planned to meet up with Heidi's friends form work over at Hard Rock. Through some connections, luck and a small amount of cash exchanging hands, we bypassed the ridiculous line outside and headed straight for the VIP section. There weren't any VIP's in there though, so we just pretended to be rich and famous, and had a few cocktails to wind down the night. Unfortunately, at around 2am, I realized that the half a tuna melt I had at 1pm wasn't going to be quite enough to soak up all the alcohol (I had started drinking at about 1.05pm and hadn't really stopped for too long), so what followed next should have been expected. I won't go into too many details here (see Mam, I do protect you just in case you read this), but it involved a speedy walk/run to the bathroom, almost making it, a trashcan, 3 bouncers, a cleaner and for some strange reason a midget on a stool pressing elevator buttons (quickly followed by 2 people getting "friendly" but totally being busted when they didn't realize they were leaning against an elevator door). The conclusions were all good though - no bruises, another thing off my "things to do before I die" list (being asked to leave a Vegas club), and I was feeling great.

Sunday was the usual blow out - we got a late checkout, room service breakfast, delayed flight and then more snow to arrive back to (just under a foot in our street). However, Saturday made the whole weekend worth it (and is still making me smile today).

An Update for later Updates

No pics of Vegas uploaded yet - we got back late due to more snow in Denver yesterday (another foot to dig out of our driveway), the wife's velly velly sick and in bed, and I was late for work. So, full updates later on when I get the pics and videos loaded up. Let me tell you it'll be worth the wait though (well, maybe not, but I'm trying). Hopefully have some good pics of the big fight on Saturday night (Ricky Hatton, not me), and none of me getting escorted out of Hard Rock by the nice bouncers at Body English, so stay tuned.


Oh, yeah, and this is the first weather forecast we've had in the last 6 weeks that has no snow in the forecast - it makes me smile.....