Courier for sale

The Copley newspapers in Lincoln, Springfield, Peoria and Galesburg are for sale, it was announced today. Seems like a big shakeup.

Jax Hat piñata

Gil from WIU made a video at Jax Hat 2006.

No longer MVP

Before we went on vacation, my doctor had me get an echocardiograhm to generate some data on my mitral valve prolapse. The results are in and the test verified that I either outgrew MVP or that it was misdiagnosed originally (I think that was when I was in Junior High). All results came back normal and I no longer need to take the tons of preventive antibiotics for minor things, like when I go to the dentist for a cleaning.

We are still trying to sell the house. The financing fell through for our buyer, so we are back to having open houses on the weekends as well as random showings.

We found several ticks on Sassy, we aren’t sure where she picked them up. We may have to look into anti-tick medication for her.

Oops, typo

Some creative misspellings found on a local resturant’s menu: Hogie, tenderlion, sauarkraut, Thrusday, goden brown, fahita, baked potatoe, Hooiser.

UPDATE: I noticed the typos have been fixed since I brought them to the resturants attention.

Illinois Hat

Seven of us from Jacksonville/Springfield Ultimate (plus Willy came over from Bloomington) went to the Illinois Hat Tournament last Saturday in Urbana. My team didn’t do so well (sixth out of eight teams, I believe), but I had a good time and we had really nice weather.

Illinois Hat photos by Gio. — See if you can find me in this photo.

We took a couple high school students from Springfield who’ve been playing with us for a couple months, Cory and Marcus, and they got to experience their first Ultimate tournament. I think they had a good time.

For my own notes, let me see if I can remember names (Guido, Carlos, Craven, Hot Sauce, Katie, Zil, Chris, Geoff, Andrew, Schmalz, woman, woman, P___ )

The days are getting so short that we looked into renting a lighted field for Thursday nights, but it seems that the park district has raised their rates 150 percent. So we’ve had to go from playing three times a week to just Sundays. I’m disappointed about that.

Leaving Las Vegas

We are packing up and getting ready for our flight in the morning. Today we had nothing planned, just a relaxing random day.

I signed up for the GameWorks rewards program to get 100 more points for free, we spent them after lunch on Dance Dance Revolution and air hockey. I picked up a carton of Coke Blak (4) on the walk back to our place and drank them throughout the rest of the day. We enjoyed our room’s 42″ plasma screen… I played 360 while Jantina napped and then later this evening we watched some of our Blockbuster Online DVDs that we brought with us.

We had a blast in Vegas, but now we are looking forward to getting back home and into a normal routine.

View more of my Las Vegas photos in my “Las Vegas” set on Flickr

Las Vegas: Day 6

we rented a car and drove to the Hoover Dam. It was impressive to see the size and learn about all the engineering that went into creating such a structure. We went in to see the generators, into one of the diversion tunnels, and then back to the top to see a few more educational exhibits.

For lunch we found ourselves at In-N-Out Burger. Christopher strongly suggested that we eat there while we were out this way. We were not disappointed! They don’t freeze their beef, they use 100% cholesterol-free oil for frying their freshly peeled potatoes for fries, and they don’t use preservatives in their spongy rolls … it all tasted great!

After lunch, we drove to Red Rock Canyon and did some hiking and amateur rock climbing. It was a perfect day, cool breeze and no clouds. We really enjoyed climbing around and seeing the little desert animals.

When we returned to the strip, we caught a quick meal of Hot Dog on a Stick at Fashion Show Mall and banana toffee gelato from the Bellagio. During the walk we happened to catch the pirate show in front of Treasure Island, it wasn’t that great but the effects were impressive.

View more of my Las Vegas photos in my “Las Vegas” set on Flickr

Las Vegas: Day 5

Happy Birthday Jantina! Today Jantina picked our itinerary, there were a few things she saved for us to do today.

We started by buying some Vegas monorail tickets for the day’s travels. We hopped on at the MGM and exited at Harrah’s for our first stop. We visited Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum to see the life-like celebrities. Jantina’s favorite was the Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy. I wished the Patrick Stewart was still dressed as Captain Picard, but they had changed him into a boring suit.

We crossed the street to see the tiger at the Mirage, and then boarded the monorail again to go to the Hilton. The Hilton hosts the Star Trek Experience and it was pretty incredible! We bought the latinum passes which included both rides, the Klingon Encounter and the Borg Invasion. Both were excellent, and designed by Paramount so the sets and props were all authentic. We also took a backstage tour to see how things were done… being transported was pretty amazing. We fit in lunch at Quark’s between rides and viewing the Trek museum.

After a day at the Hilton, we had to hurry back to the room so we could change for dinner. We rushed back to our place, changed clothes, rushed back to the Venetian (getting every dollar’s worth out of the monorail) to have dinner at Delmonico’s. They knew it was her birthday and treated us to a couple complimentary treats. A puffed pastry with pate and caramelized red onions at the start of our meal and a chocolate sorbet afterward. The entire meal was perfect; I had the mini filets with bacon wraped prawns and blue cheese / bacon potatoe cakes …and even though we had the complimentary sorbet, I still went ahead and had the bananas foster ice cream pie for dessert.

View more of my Las Vegas photos in my “Las Vegas” set on Flickr

Las Vegas: Day 4

Today we took a tour of our timeshare here at the Marriott. We earned 15,000 points for an hour’s worth of sales pitch. I could get double the points if five of you out there are willing to be added to a Marriott timeshare sales list… let me know!

After that we had lunch at Paris and then started our walk to the Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay. Before hitting the hotels though, we stopped off at Gameworks were they had a very neat arcade version of Mario Cart. We also dropped into a Coca-Cola store where I picked up a Coke Blak and Jantina ordered a Fresca from the fountain shop.

Tonight we are eating at Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois.

View more of my Las Vegas photos in my “Las Vegas” set on Flickr

Las Vegas: Day 3

We slept in this morning. We had a pretty busy day yesterday. Today was Tillman’s last day in town with us, he made Jantina eggs-in-a-poke as a birthday surprise (Matt remembered Jantina explaining that her mom used to make those for her growing up and that she hadn’t had them for a long time). Jantina spent the morning at Caesar’s Palace Spa getting her hair styled and a manicure. Matt and I stayed in the room playing 360 until it was time to meet up with Jantina.

The three of us went shopping at the Fashion Show Mall. Jantina shopped for a new purse while Matt and I hit the electronics stores (Apple and EB Games). I picked up “Mario vs Donkey Kong 2,” a really neat puzzle game similar to “Lemmings.”

We said goodbye to Matt. He had to catch his flight back to San Francisco. And Jantina and I walked back to the Marriott. We stopped by Treasure Island, the Venetian, and Margaritaville.

This evening we ate at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill. I had the squash blossom appetizer, a coffee glazed filet mignon, and an espresso cake with banana walnut ice cream for dessert.

Now we are back in the room, going to catch up on “The 4400” (on DVD).

View from the roof of our place at night:

View more of my Las Vegas photos in my “Las Vegas” set on Flickr