Interesting reading...

I was browsing the New York Times online today and came across this interesting article about Facebook. I couldn't help but laugh a little bit as I thought back to this "famous" moment in time.

I could just picture Zuckerberg doing something like this:



Anyway, happy Memorial Day everyone. Here's one to all our friends serving at home and overseas. Stay safe and we'll see you back home soon.

Hot Vegas Nights...

Wow, so the last couple of weekends have been really rough on the following work weeks and this week so far is no different. I've had fraternity brothers cruise into Vegas and so the obligatory trips to The Strip have gone down. I can't complain financially as I've done well at the tables and had good times out on the town but I think I've really completed my transformation to a homebody as my body has not be able to recover as quickly. Here's a brief synopsis and some pics to help you live vacariously though me.

Weekend #1:

My friends Viral and Jordan came into town because Viral's family is in the hotel industry and there was some sort of furnishings conference. Suraj, Viral's brother, is the type that's all about getting ass so he was using the conference as an opportunity to hit on the sales girls at each booth. What the man lacks in quality of game, he makes up for in quantity of times that he attempts to run game. It can be both hilarious and annoying to watch. But we did end up hitting The Strip for some gambling on Friday night. Jordan and I passed on the trip to Tryst and played some blackjack at Treasure Island instead. The next night was a bit insane. I met up with the guys and we hit up every shady casino on The Strip and essentially drank and gambled the night away. Here are some pics of the evening. Much fun. Too bad I had a hangover that lasted well into Wednesday though.

Late Night Vegas Part 1

This past weekend my friends Bharath, Brian, Stew and Terry came into town for some gambling, golf and strippers. Apparently they amused themselves at the Spearmint Rhino while I was at work and were too tired to do anything afterwards. The next afternoon was filled with golf and In-N-Out burger before hitting up the tables. Luckily fortune smiled upon me and I had another winning session for the second weekend in a row. The highlight of the night was going to Risque at Paris. We got table service out on the balcony and the night was just rowdy in general. Here are some more pics for you to enjoy. Let's just say the night involved some girls with questionable moral fiber that made things all the more entertaining.

Late Night Vegas Part Deux

No more visitors for a while I think. I'm trying to make it to my sister's graduate from Yale next week but flights are really expensive and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it. Either way, congrats Cynthia. I'm über proud of you!

Hmmm...

In light of my last entry, my friend Andrew pointed me towards this:



Touché. I still think you folks should still at least try and learn how to play the real thing though.

Christmas In May...

Okay, so I've been on a bit of a purchasing spree of late. My replacement laptop finally got here and I have to say, it's pretty sweet. After using the same laptop for over 6 years, it's nice to have something this new. The old machine was just chugging along but finally gave out in style with a cracked LCD panel. The T60 widescreen is pretty impressive:



It came pre-loaded with Vista Home Premium and since I'm no longer in IT, I really don't care to have the Business versions installed. Plus, the functions that I needed in the past from XP Pro are now in this version of Vista. I do have to admit though, if the "sidebar" scrolled and was located bottom-center, this would be an even more blatant ripoff of the Mac OS. All of this is pretty and all but when you have 1GB of RAM and the Aero interface is noticeable slow at times, you really have to wonder if it's actually a good upgrade. I suppose time will tell.

My purchase that I'm really happy about is this:



A Takamine GS330S. I had to leave my Washburn D10S behind when I made the drive out here and I've had that thing since high school. It was a great birthday present from my dad when I was a sophomore and perfect at the time since I was going through my WSP/Jam Band phase in life and John Bell was jamming away on one onstage. That thing survived college and grad school so while it had some good memories associated with it, I'm happy to be trying a guitar. The guy at Guitar Center also took some money off the final price since I was trying to decide between the Takamine and a less expensive Fender so that was pretty cool. I've always wanted to get my hands on a Takamine and since this was their value model that has gotten some great reviews, I'm hoping it will live up to the "hype." One thing I thought that was interesting was the fact that the sales guy recommended a guitar humidifier since it's so dry out here during the summer months that acoustics crack quite frequently. Makes sense I suppose. Anyway, maybe some of you Guitar Hero nuts should try your hand at the actual thing. I promise that you won't regret it. It's easy to learn and is always good at a party.

Anyway, so now I'm spending my evenings after work fiddling with my new compy or guitar which is nice since the weather isn't unbearably hot yet so I can do both out on my patio and enjoy the weather while it's still decent.

Got some fraternity brothers coming into town this weekend. Should be rowdy!!

Windy City Trip...

Me sandwiched between a bear and some mung. Ab-Fab.

I'm back in Vegas after my trip to Chicago and I have come to the conclusion that I will never EVER complain about federal travel regulations for government employees ever again. The local health district can kiss my arse with their travel policy. Other than the crap I had to deal with from SouthWorst, the trip was awesome. Here's a little recap.

Day 1 - I woke up Tuesday a bit early to try and head to the airport on time since I knew that there was the chance that traffic would be bad. I got to the airport on time and went to check my bag when I was caught in the worst line ever. Apparently there was a family who had overloaded their bags and the inept counter agent couldn't figure out how to multi-task and check baggage while waiting on the family of traveling idiots. Needless to say, my bag didn't make it to Chicago on my flight and SouthWorst refused to send it to my hotel for free so I had to wait a few hours for it to show up. Whatever. I finally made it to the hotel and ended up grabbing drinks with my college friend Mark that night.

Day 2 - SAS training was the order of the day but I did get to check out Millenium Park and "The Bean" at lunchtime. Pretty nifty little piece of art if I do say so myself. The highlight of the evening was meeting Mung out for dinner and drinks. Even though the Ethopian food ravaged my digestive system the next day, I would highly recommend Ras Dashen then next time you're in Chicago. It was some good stuff. Even the Bear was gracious enough to show up later that evening and brought along a nice piece of eye candy. Way to go Bear. I also did get to drive by The Golden Apple of This American Life fame. I didn't get to go in but I'm sure I'll hit it up next time. The key moment of the evening - Mung's wife offering to let me hump her leg. Ben, you've got a keeper there. Don't screw it up.

Day 3 - More SAS during the day but I did get to meet Mung for lunch and had my first Chicago Style Hot Dog. Not too shabby - although I could have done without the chili pepper or whatever that was that they stuck in there. The best part of the day was finding out that the Art Institute was free from 5-8 that evening! I couldn't believe how many great works they had in there. I was really looking forward to seeing the two prints that I have hanging on my office walls that are on display there. I got to see Seurat's "La Grande Jatte" but didn't realize that "The Nighthawks" was on loan to some museum in Boston. Boo. More drinks that night with Mung and my friend Mark.

Day 4 - Last day of training but what I was really looking forward to was lunch with Mung in the hopes of seeing hot CP girl. Alas, she wasn't around today but damn was the turkey sandwich that I had great! Chicago has to be one of the greatest cities I have ever visited and I could actually see myself living there. It's got everything that I'd want in a city that I could see myself settling down in. Oh and on the way home, SouthWorst struck again. I was flying back with a bachelor party heading to Vegas that was WAY overserved and obnoxious. To make things worse, everyone thought the plane was going to go down more than a few times during the flight. At least they didn't lose my luggage on the way back.

I uploaded my pics from the week onto Facebook. Click here to check them out. Ben and Mark, you guys were great hosts and it was great to see both of you. Bear, I wish you hadn't gone into hibernation the second night but it was great to see you too. Thanks to all of you for showing me a great time!