My elbow, or more accurately the area just on the forearm outward side of the elbow, has been sore lately. If I pick something up it twinges, or if I hold the arm straight and make a fist it hurts.
It has been painful, but not debilitating- like a lot of things that happen with my joints since I turned thirty, I more or less just have been living with it. After some poking around on the internet, I found some references to tennis elbow and concluded that this was the most likely culprit. I decided to give it a couple of weeks and, if treating it like tennis elbow with cold packs and compression improved it, to assume I was on the right track.
Our deck and spa replacement project has sort of been in “standby” mode since my initial post. Since then, the concrete spa pad and deck supports were added, but not much else could be done until the spa itself arrived. That day was today.
Irene and I spent the last five days over on Vancouver Island in Victoria for the Tall Ships Festival. I had a good time, and would particularly recommend seeing the Tall Ships to someone who has a moderate to strong interest in the age of sail. So what did we see? Well, a lot of ships, of course
My vacation started on Friday. Well, technically, the days off work start on Monday, but on Friday I realized I’d already worked 50 hours for the week by about noon, and I was feeling beat… so I set up my out-of-office email auto-responder agent, changed my answering machine message, and shut down my work laptop at around 2:00 PM. I’ve had some stress at work the past couple of weeks, mostly good stress, but tiring nonetheless.
So, what am I doing with my vacation time? The biggest “event” during my vacation will be a getaway to Vancouver Island with my wife to see the Tall Ships Festival. We are joining my friend Chris and his family there: he’s the one most interested in the sailing ships, for me it is a good opportunity to visit, an excuse to get away for a few days, and maybe a chance to learn some thing about the ships.
Other than that, I’ll be hopefully relaxing, playing some computer games, drinking some beer, and if the Gods of Construction smile, watching some progress on our deck construction take place. Supposedly they will begin pouring the footing next week- and there is a (slim) chance that the spa itself might be delivered the week after. We might even have a way to eliminate the need to use a crane to place the spa in our back yard… I’m somewhat torn on that one. On the one hand, saving a thousand bucks for the crane and operator fees would be very nice. On the other hand, being able to watch a crane lift a 600 kg spa over the roof of my house is definitely something I’ll miss
My niece, Marnie, her husband Murray, and their six month old baby Grace came out to visit folks on the left coast a few weeks ago. I took a few photos…
Click the photo to see some more pictures. We had an enjoyable chat with Marnie and Murray, and Gracie was constantly smiling and waving her arms at us. I’m not really a baby person, but she’s pretty cute. And now I can feel *really* old, by adding the term “grand” in front of my other title, “uncle”.
Okay, it is actually almost summer now, but I took these pictures a month ago or so. Usually there comes a time in spring when the exuberant plant life, the birds singing, and the occasional bit of sun finally make me realize that the winter is over. Sometime around that day each year it is my habit to take a few pictures of the flowers around my house.
Click the picture to see some more photos of our yard from earlier in May.
I recently mentioned to my nephew, more or less in passing, that the Age of Conan massively multiplayer game was about to ship. I expected this to result in a “ho hum” sort of response: both he and I have become somewhat jaded over the years from consuming a half score or so different online roleplaying games in the last decade. We play EQ2, there are other decent games, but nothing worth getting excited about.
For reasons unexplained, my nephew ran out and bought two copies of AoC, one for his wife and one for himself. Suddenly the clock was ticking: he was playing the game and enjoying it… using up all those gaming enjoyment quanta, leaving less for me! Thus began my quest to acquire a copy of the game (which I will likely give some sort of review to in the next few days).
Off I go to Best Buy: not my favorite store, but they are big, and often have stuff I want. And it was at Best Buy’s subsidiary, Future Shop, that my nephew acquired his copy- the Chilliwack Future Shop, to be precise. Since I live closer to Vancouver, in the Langley area, I went to the Langley Best Buy. A scan of the lengthy shelves there revealed… no Age of Conan. A second and third scan did not change this fact: the program did not suddenly leap out and present itself to me. I hailed a Sales Associate (shudder) and asked “whither is Age of Conan?”, to which she responded “Huh? Oh, well, no, that isn’t out yet. May 22nd is the ship date. Sorry.” I replied “Your knowledge is faulty- it is available, so says the Age of Conan website, several games sites, and the Future Shop in Chilliwack”. My sales associate replied “No, they are wrong- see, it says here, in our weekly flyer- not available until May 22nd. Sorry.” I walked away, muttering curses upon the sales associate, and choosing my next possible source…
Across the road to London Drugs: London Drugs has a small games section, but periodically I’ve found they have games on the shelf that no one else has in stock, probably because most people don’t think to look there. The sales person there had no idea what Age of Conan was, but at least she didn’t try to convince me that the world is flat purely because the sales flyer says so- instead she shuffled through several boxes of new inventory on my behalf, but also came up empty. Steeled by a new sense of resolve, I moved on to…
Electronics Boutique #1: This particular EB Games store resides in a strip mall sort of midway between Best Buy and London Drugs. They specialize in console games, so I was unsurprised when they had no idea what I was talking about and had no copies upon the shelf. My destiny lay further beyond, perhaps in the realm of…
Electronics Boutique #2: Ah, the “EB Games in the mall”. A much more PC-friendly EB store, the one in the mall almost always has pleased me by having new games on day one of release. And lo, I was not disappointed: yes, they did have Age of Conan on day one of release… which was the day before I got there. When I arrived, they were completely sold out. By Crom! Truly the dark Gods conspire against my quest. There is only one course left open to me…
Future Shop, Langley: where I dislike Best Buy, I generally despise Future Shop. I have often received some of the most pathetic and uncalled for “advice” from their sales trolls, which has led to my patented “I know exactly what I want get out of my way or I’ll run you down and stomp your twitching corpse into the linoleum” shopping method. I strode across the floor, my steely-eyed gaze and unpleasant grimace driving away wave after wave of sales trolls before they could venture within my personal “space”. At last, I stood before the game shelf, scanned its length and… upon it lay my prize, a singular copy of Age of Conan. As my hand closed upon it, I swear I heard the peal of holy trumpets, and felt the touch of the Gods upon my credit card as I strode back with my prize to the checkout counter
And there you have it: my personal quest to acquire a copy of Age of Conan is complete. The game itself now resides upon my hard drive, calling to me as I sit here typing this post…
Irene and I arrived home last night after our Las Vegas vacation. I have spent most of today perched here on a chair going through our photos and posting them to the gallery. Here is one of my favorite photos:
I took this picture Saturday evening: that is the Paris Hotel and Casino, with its half-scale version of the Eiffel tower.
During our three full days in Vegas, we did the following:
Day 1:
to the strip during daylight hours, rode the monorail, saw the Eiffel tower and went to the top, visited the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton, watched part of the Bellagio fountain exhibit
returned at night, saw the Eiffel tower again, watched the Bellagio fountain show
Day 2:
drove to Hoover Dam, took full tour
continued drive around Lake Mead to Valley of Fire
Day 3:
back to the strip again, went to Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden at the Mirage
shopped at Caesar’s Palace mall
explored MGM Grande and Excalibur on our way to the Las Vegas Luxor, where we saw the Tutankhamun exhibit
By the end of Day 3, my feet were killing me- every hotel in Vegas is at least a mile long, or so it seems, and to get from one monorail entrance to a particular hotel/casino usually involves walking through two or three of these massive structures. The monorail was great, by the way: $9 a person for a 24 hour ticket- ride as much as you want. My favorite parts of the trip were the times when we were able to get away from the casinos themselves. Which leads to my opinions about Las Vegas.
What did I think about Vegas? Well, it is definitely worth seeing- Irene and I had a great time, getting a real mental break from the normal day to day. There is a tremendous amount of entertainment compressed in a small area, and there is always something going on. Would I go again? Probably, but I don’t think I’d make Vegas itself my primary “hub” for touring. It is too loud, too bright, and too tiring. I don’t drink or gamble to excess, so a big chunk of the appeal of Vegas is lost on me.
It is probably worth noting that the drinks may still be cheap in Vegas, but everything else is pretty expensive these days. Expect buffet prices to start at $15 per person for breakfast, and about $20 a person for supper. Don’t get me wrong, that isn’t a bad price at all: but if you expect to eat for $10 a day in Vegas in the 21st century, you are out of touch. If you want to attend a show, the prices start at about $45 per person and climb based on the fame of the show’s star and the seating location. Bette Midler or Cher command $150+ a person, with really good seats going for $900 a person: note that most of the tickets for the “name star” shows are sold out months in advance. Cirque de Soleil shows (of which there are several: Zumanity, Ka, O… ) are $75-$125 per seat. Some magician I’ve never heard of before costs about $45 a seat. Budget accordingly.
The casinos in Vegas are still all “smoking permitted”, and I found that to be a lot tougher for me to deal with than I expected. All of the public spaces *other than* casinos are non-smoking. However, all the buildings are structured to herd you right through the gaming floor, often several times as you make your way from one attraction to the next. I noticed that I was rushing, almost running through the casino floors in order to get to clear air again. And invariably some guy wearing far too much gold for someone with so much grey hair and belly flab would come around the corner with a $50 cigar blowing smoke in my face just when I thought the air was breathable again. It was worse for Irene, but she put up with it far more stoically than I expected.
When we go back to Vegas, and I’m sure we will one day, I think we’ll focus more on going to a few shows or exhibits over several days instead of trying to see several per day. Without long rests sitting in front of a slot machine or gaming table, the walking is just too much- like I said, my feet were literally killing me. I also think we’ll probably pick a more centrally located hotel like Caesar’s Palace or Bellagio.
Did we gamble at all while in Vegas? I put $1 into a slot machine at Ballys and came away with $2: I briefly had $5. We also plugged a twenty into one of our favorite machines (Hexbreaker), and came away with $35. That was pretty much it for our gambling. And despite the miles and miles of walking, and the fact that I missed quite a few meals, I actually somehow gained weight while on vacation.
Apropos of nothing, here is a video I shot of the dolphins while we were at Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden…
I haven’t really done any...
