b’s blog

I think this year is the year I’ve taken the most holidays ever! In May I went to Australia for 3 weeks, September to Toronto for 10 days, and October to Las Vegas for 5 days. Needless to say that there will be no more vacation for me until Boxing Day.

I met up with Adrian and his friend Drew at the MGM Grand for a night before booking myself into the Excalibur for another 3 nights. Adrian lamented the excessive cost of his room as compared to mine (>$130.00 vs. my $41.00).

I did the CSI experience with Adrian and now we are certified! That’s right, I’ve got the emailed certificate to prove it! We looked at a “crime scene” (staged set) and then went back to the ”labs” to figure out the answers to all the observations we saw earlier.

While we were in the process of completing the lab portion, a “lead CSI” (chick in hot pants with a handcuff belt) came by telling us that our “crime scene” was contaminated and that we should ignore the condom that was tossed into the “crime scene”. Too funny!

The weekend also consisted of a TON of shopping for the boys (I think over $300.00 in one shop!) while I helped them pick out clothes because I’m penniless. At least I thought I was. The bank machine told me I had “Insufficient Funds”. I was embarrassed but when I got back to Edmonton, my account had plenty of funds. The only thing I can figure is that it was an incompatible ATM to my bank. (although it did have the Cirrus logo on it…)

Why would it say “insufficent funds” when it’s just not compatible. It is less embarrassing and worrying if it would say “Card Error” rather than “Insufficient Funds” Don’t you think?

 I’ve got another funny story about Adrian, avoiding someone and McDonald’s so if you want to know, just ask.

Visited with a couple of people I met while travelling during the first week of this year. Stayed at my friend Obrie’s apartment 2 blocks from the harbour on the sheltered side of San Fran Bay. She was a great hostess taking me around to all the touristy things and making dinner! I also spent time with Adrian, Chris and Hassan who were in town from Sydney for the Macworld Conference.

SF is a beautiful city and I would recommend it to anyone considering travelling there. The feel of the city is very safe and relatively clean. I never felt nervous walking around after dark in the downtown area. Everything is relatively close together because the penninsula is 7.5 sq. miles. I managed to cover all the major tourist attractions by foot and took the subway/cablecars when my feet were tired. The only drawback was the visible homeless on the streets.

Fisherman’s Wharf (Pier 39) is very touristy with a lot of kitchy shops selling discount t-shirts or electronics but all the seafood vendors were neat to watch and I had the famous Clam Chowder in a bread bowl as well as som deep fried prawns. The drawback was all the HUGE seagulls that are so annoying. They followed me around and when I put my prawns down on the bench directly beside me touching my leg, I turned to eat my clam chowder, one of them came up behind me and snatched a prawn from my dish! EVIL!! I already have a hatred for California seagulls from ‘92…

The Alcatraz tour was interesting. They had an audio tour about the prsion and the main structure but I didn’t see much information on the military base or the Native occupation. I did miss the intro video though as I was a little short on time so maybe they were covered during that intro video…

Well, my week long family vacation to LV was entertaining. The best highlight was that my parents joined my brother and I for Indoor Skydiving something I did last time I came to LV. My dad was hesitant ... [Continue reading this entry]