The biggest little sleepy casino town in the world!

Juan looks almost as bored as I look mentally challenged.

On Tuesday of this week, John and I headed up to Reno to hang out with my buddy Juan (who's also a co-worker). A while back he'd won a free two-nights stay in a hotel of his choice, and he was nice enough to invite us to fly up , hang out, and share the room. We stayed at the Peppermill Casino Hotel (which is actually the nicest Casino there...despite, or maybe because of, the millions of dollars in neon and pretty flashing lights they've installed) One of the neater things that they had, pretty much everywhere, were these TV screens inside art frames, which usually had what appeared to be really pretty nature stills cycling on them. But then I'd really look, and realize that the images were actually 15-30 seconds of video of some great landscape or waterfall. Really cool.

I don't know which is more pink...the hat, or John.

Anyway, one of the major draws for John and I in Reno was to see the famous National Automobile Museum. All of the cars there at one time belonged to Bill Harrah (the Harrah's Casino guy) who was also an avid car-nut. There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 cars on display there, which supposedly are merely a small portion of his overall collection that get rotated throughout the year. Some of the more famous cars: The Batmobile, Elvis' Thunderbird, Frank Sinatra's Chrysler, and a good number of Ed Roth cars.

Does this make us look provincial, or just like idiots that can't resist an opportunity to play dress up?

The rest of the town was kinda neat to see too...kind of a mini-Vegas on Lithium. Not nearly as much going on, but it's clean and has some pretty portions...like their River Walk. The whole town seemed a little sleepy at times, but after having spent plenty of time in Vegas lately that was actually a welcome change.

You wouldn't see this in Vegas...at least not without a few bodies floating about.

All in all, a good time was had by all...and we learned one very important lesson...never go out on a weeknight following Pride in Reno...unless, of course, you enjoy being one of 5 people in an establishment.

One of the Ed Roth cars...or is it some fancy snow blower?

The bloggers are coming! The bloggers are coming!

Well, ok...so it's only one blogger, but if you know Moby then you know he's got enough personality for three bloggers! (Besides, otherwise I couldn't have used the almost-clever Paul Revere reference headline)

Anyway, Moby's coming in to visit tomorrow! We're gonna go over to Homer's for a lovely pizza and pineapple-upside-down-cake gathering tomorrow night. Otherwise we'll be showing him what a delightful little little town Tucson can be (stop laughing, you). Or maybe just relax and see a movie.

Awake, hungry, bored

Not sure why this always seems to happen, but whenever I eat something right before going to bed I usually wake up earlier than I'd care to the next morning...not due to upset stomach or nature calling, but due to hunger. WTF?

Of course the wise solution would be "don't eat and then go right to bed" but therein lies the rub...if I go to bed even the slightest bit hungry, I can't sleep. I could SO not last a day doing the job of that Survivorman guy from the Discovery Channel. If I miss even ONE of my usual 5 or 6 meals a day I'm a miserable grump.

Random Beef #4 ("Reason enough to tolerate the FX network" edition)

Angry because his opponent wore the same Prada gym shorts to the fight that he did. (That bitch)

At work the satellite system for our breakroom TV has been on the fritz for the last few weeks. Which means that, of the 3.5 trillion channels available on the guide thingy, we have only been getting about 5 of them to actually work.

I wonder if he'd hold still long enough for you to do your laundry on those?

One of the channels that comes in is the FX network, which seems to be a favorite with the guys at work. Which is ok with me, because even though they show really cheesy testosterone-fuled cliche-fests...they sometimes show cheesy testosterone-fueled cliche-fests like Undisputed 2. Whose only redeeming quality was that you got to see this guy shirtless and sweaty...alot...but that was still enough to keep me watching for a bit.

Maybe it's overactive sweat glands...or maybe it's spilled lube.

I love lazy days off...

I can safely say that I got very little accomplished during my "weekend" this time around..though, admittedly more than I would have had we gone out of town for my days off.

We did some house chore type stuff yesterday, like fixing the drawers that I've overloaded with my thrift-store T-shirt treasures until their guides broke from the sheer weight.

We also tried out the LA Fitness up on Ina, because we both agreed that we desperately needed a change of pace from the Bally's by the Tucson Mall. Not only has Bally become primarily occupied by potential cast members for a Cocoon sequel, but their AC hasn't been operational for a good month now. I mean, I know they filed for bankruptcy, but WTF?!? I don't mind sweating when I work out, but is it necessary to go into heat exhaustion when you're paying good money to do so?

Anyway, the LA was not only much cooler...but there were actually a few notable pieces of eye candy there. There was one guy that totally belongs in porn...or at least in my own private version of it during my...uh..."private time".

Later last night we met Scott S. and Jeff out for scary-no-key at Woody's, where it was "Gay Idol" tryouts. And since mom always said not to say anything at all if you don't have anything nice to say, I'll just leave it at that. Scott (as usual) sang really well, and I (as usual) butchered the song I attempted.

Today was even lazier than yesterday. We sat around playing computer until we went out for lunch (yummy Vietnamese), and then I went to get a haircut while John played car-rescue-ranger.

We ended today by seeing 1408, a pretty decent sci-fi-ish flick with Samuel "Bad Motherfucker" L. Jackson and John "not to be confused with Joan" Cusack.

And now it's more computer time until I get tired and head to bed...hey, there's only so much BMB surfing one can do in a day!

I'm never flying out of Oakland on a Sunday....EVER!

Well, it had to happen. After having a great many flights to various places that went off without a hitch, John and I finally ran into trouble going somewhere. This past weekend we were supposed to go visit some friends in Vancouver for their pride extravagayza. I say supposed to, because, obviously, it didn't happen.

The plan was to fly up to Seattle (since that's as far north as our free flight benefits will take us) and then take a train from there to Vancouver. I should have taken the hint from (insert mystical force of the universe of choice here...Flying Spaghetti Monster?) that this trip might not go well when I had to beg, plead, and eventually pay one of my co-workers just to get him to cover my shift. As if that weren't bad omen enough, I checked on trains once I had finally secured the days off I needed, only to find out that all of the trains going from Seattle to VC were sold out. Seeing that there was still a shuttle we could take, however, I figured we could just be a bit flexible and do that instead.

The flight plan was that I would fly into Vegas and meet John (who was already there for business) at the gate for the flight going to Oakland...from where we would then take a flight to Seattle. I had checked the bookings, and they appeared to be more than fine from Vegas to Oakland. From Oakland to Seattle was a little tighter, but still looked manageable. So we made our way up to Oakland, and proceeded to our gate for the Seattle flight...which was over-booked by a large margin. We put ourselves on the standby list to no avail, and waited for later flights...all of which we missed.

I'd been texting Moby about our ordeal while we were sitting around the airport, and he (being the sweetheart that he is) let us know that we could come stay at his place so that we could try again in the morning. So we headed into Frisco, met up with Moby, and had dinner at this really great chicken place whose name is escaping me right now...but they put out these spiced olives on all the tables that, by themselves are worth visiting the place for. Later we watched a The Prestige, which was fun for us to see again...and even more fun to watch Moby get all excited about figuring out the ending ahead of time. Later we kicked him out of his own bed so we could sleep there instead. It was a nice, if short, and unexpected visit.

Hey! This isn't Vancouver!

So the next day we took the two trains and a bus needed to get to Oakland airport from the Castro, only to walk upon the longest line EVER seen. You'd have thought they were giving away free Iphones or something. But that was only the line to get to the ticket counter. Luckily enough, we weren't checking bags, and had security passes, so we waltzed right on through and managed to make it just in time...to be told we couldn't make it on the flight we were trying for. And then the next one? Same thing. And the four after that? All the same.

So, finally realizing that we'd been beat, we decided that we should head back to Vegas, where we had left the car in airport parking. ($12 a day!) But we then found out that just about any flight going anywhere that wasn't the zoo that the Oakland airport seems to turn into on a Sunday was overbooked, and had a waiting list 14 lines long of paying standbys. How bad was it? we had to fly to Ontario, CA just to make our way to Vegas.

Having finally made it back to Vegas, we decided to head to the gym to take out our frustrations...despite having headaches and feeling a little nauseated from a full day of airport food. The next day, however, John's nausea went from "Green Zone" to "Fallujah". It was that bad...really. The bad part was that it turned ugly while I was visiting with a co-worker who'd flown in for a short while on his way back to San Diego. So while I was having buffet and talking shop, John was kneeling at the porcelain altar. Yes, I'll be expecting my husband of the year award nomination any day now.

...and neither is this! WTF?

Luckily enough, by the next morning John's stomach issues had turned more into just general malaise and less Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Still, I wanted to make sure that he was ok for the drive home, so I went with him instead of flying back. Which was really nice, as it gave us some time to spend together frolicking about in Lake Mead along the way. The water was surprisingly warm, and I got the added bonus of watching John's facial expressions as his feet moved from the rocky portion of the lake floor to the part he described as "icky and slimey". Classic.

And neither is this! But at least it's pretty!

The remainder of the trip home was a scenic tour of the lovely northern Arizona desert. Alot of which I spent thinking about how a flight from Vegas to Tucson is a little over an hour, but driving takes nearly 8 hours. I guess traveling at nearly 500 mph through the air verses 60mph on twisty, curvey roads tends to help with that.

Still not Vancouver, but at least we got a little vitamin D!

So the moral of the story, kids? If you should ever get the benefit of flying as a non-revenue standby passenger on an airline...don't fly out of Oakland on a Sunday...EVER...no, seriously.

OMG! I totally forgot about my blog!

Ok, so I didn't forget about it, but things have just been a little too crazy lately for me to make the time to post anything. See, I've got this weird perfectionist streak sometimes that makes me think that if I'm not posting something fun, interesting, or compelling, then I shouldn't bother. The problem being that when I try to post that kind of stuff it usually takes longer than the time I have available. Which, essentially, means that I'm too long winded for my own good, and should just post smaller items more frequently...so that I at least post something.

So I think that's going to be my new goal for this blog thingy. Even if it's just an update of what kind of lint I found in my belly button this morning, I'm going to post something as close to daily as possible. Not to worry, though....I'll still do my more substantial posts when I can for those that need to exercise their ocular muscles.

By the way, today it was gray, just like the shirt I wore yesterday.