Daily Diary Notes - February

03/20/2009 - Connie and I are still battling colds and sinus problems. Seems like this is taking forever to get rid of. We went to the pool again today for the third day in a row. The weather has been in the middle 80's for three days, although they say it is suppose to cool down some next week. This afternoon I played in a $10,000 freeroll tournament at GVR and had a disappointing finish. I placed 44th out of 450 players, just four seats off the bubble. That means I was just four places away from cashing in. Oh well, better luck next time.

03/19/2009 - I have been spending a lot of time working on and testing my new picture blog. I created this blog for the viewing pleasure of friends and family. You will find pictures, slideshow and videos on a variety of subjects. We hope you enjoy viewing them as much as we enjoy sharing them with you. To visit the site, click here [http://visitourphotogallery.blogspot.com/ ]. Take the time to roam around the site ... you may even find a picture of yourself somewhere.

02/17/2009 – Never thought before we moved here that we would ever hear this, “The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for today. Forecasters say snow will be developing in the mountains of Clark and Lincoln counties late this morning. A heavy period of snow is expected this afternoon through tonight. The greatest accumulations of eight to 16 inches is possible in the Mount Charleston area and Sheep Range. For the Las Vegas Valley, there is a 50-percent chance of showers in the afternoon and evening with wind gusts up to 30 miles-per-hour.”

My brother Tom called yesterday and said he placed 1st in an online hold'em tournament out of 9,000 players. I played in a live Omaha tournament last night and got knocked out in the first hour.

02/16/2009 - Today I booked a trip in March to the Grand Canyon via the Grand Canyon Railway. We will be driving to Williams, AZ with our neighbor Marc and will be spending three days and two nights there.

02/14/2009 - VALENTINE'S DAY - Connie said I did good! I took her to the Palm restaurant in Las Vegas, which is located at Caesars Casino near the entry to the Forum Shops. They advertised a 5-lb New England lobster dinner for two with salad, side entree, dessert and Champagne for only $125. Such a deal. The Caesar salad was fresh tossed and was topped with anchovies. One of, if not, the best we’ve had in Vegas. We ordered a side of asparagus with our lobster which came baked and split. A waiter came and cracked the claws, which were as big as your fist, and extracted the meat. The asparagus was small and cooked to perfection with whole cloves of garlic. This was all topped off with a two generous portions of chocolate mousse and a slice of homemade Key Lime pie. Oh, don't mention the Champagne. It was a suburb meal that took nearly two hours to eat. Connie can’t wait to go back again.

02/13/2009 - Here it is, Friday the 13th, and boy was it unlucky for me. I've been putting in a lot of hours over the past 7-10 days playing poker at GVR trying to get a share of the "bad beat jackpot" when it hit. The last two days I got up at 4am and went up and played 12 hours each day. This morning, I didn't wake up until 5:15. As I was going out the door, I called for a seat reservation and was told that it had just hit 5 minutes before. The payout was $1,938 per player. Bummer! Oh, well, better luck next time.

02/06/2009 - Today we went to Santora's Bar and Grill for lunch. They advertised Fried Haddock "fish & chips", even though it was kind of expensive. We have had such a hard time finding anyplace that served good old New England Haddock, we thought we would give it a try. Though they were good sized pieces of Haddock, they were not fried well and turned out to be way too greasy. Oh well, we tried. Won't be back. We do miss our fresh New England seafood.

02/02/2009 - Today was kind of a "night out with the boys" day. My neighbor Marc and I shot pool for several hours and then headed to the "strip" for some poker. We had lunch at "Nathan's" at the Palms. I have to admit that the "Philly Cheese-Steak" sub was one of the best I've ever had. Though Marc didn't fair quite as well, I had a great day at the poker table, picking up $400. It was then home for some TV and dessert with Connie.

02/04/2009 - Went to the movies today to see Taken. We thought it was one of the best movies we had seen in a while. Click the title for a review.

02/01/2009 - Here it is, another new day, another new month, Super Bowl Sunday, and Connie's birthday, all wrapped up in one. Remembering back, 2004 was the last time Connie's birthday fell on Super Bowl Sunday, an we celebrated it in Tahoe with my brother Tom. Tom made homemade tacos for the game. See the pictures. Click here.

This year we went to the Sunday Jazz Brunch at Tera Verdi, the signature Italian restaurant at Green Valley Ranch. Connie had the spinach and ricotta stuffed raviolis, I had the fillet mignon w/eggs and delicious fried potatoes with onions and peppers. Though the food was good, we were not pleased with the service. After some short playing time, of which we both won money, we then headed home to watch the Super Bowl. Connie was rooting for Arizona and I the Steelers. It was a very exciting game, especially the last few minutes.