From The Desk of Ken and Connie

  Entries for the Month of September 

Last Mother's Day we gave my mother a digital picture frame from Vizit.com. If you ever want a great gift for sharing your pictures with a distant relative, check this site out.  Each month feature some of the pictures that I have sent to her frame. You can enlarge any of the pictures below by just double-clicking on them. Then click on your browser's "Back" button to return to the original screen. To see more of my photographs, go to http://kensphotogallery.blogspot.com/

SUNDAY - 09/18/2011 - I spent the morning working on my new Photography Journal blog. Connie read and did dishes, wash and ironing. At noon I headed over to the "M" to play in a another $15,000 free roll Texas-hold'em tournament. Well if must have been my lucky day. I won $150 playing live poker before the tournament and ended up getting everyone to "chop" when we got down to 20 players in the tournament and picked up another $500. In addition, I got a free embroidered jacket and they fed us with a very good variety of hot and cold hors d'oeuvres and dessert selections. When I finally got home I watched a couple of TV shows with Connie. I then called my sister Bonnie in Tahoe and had a nice long talk before heading off to bed.

Henderson Symphony Concert

SATURDAY - 09/18/2011 - We had cereal with bananas for breakfast. Connie started a new book. After finally catching up on the mail, email, paying bills and entering expenses from our week away, I began work on a new blog idea that I had a couple of weeks ago, the creation of a "Photography Journal" to chronicle my photo shooting excursions and provide a place for the picture taking information, hints, tips I collected over the past several months.. At noon we went  up to GVR to play for a while. Connie lost $20, however, I won $330 in the poker room. We came home and watched the finals of America's Got Talent over a dinner of chicken Caesar salad and a side of baked beans. At 7:30 we headed out to the Pavilion up the street to see the Henderson Symphony's first concert of the season. Tonight's concert featured a violin concert and symphony by Ludwig Van Beethoven. The guest violin soloist, De Ann Letourneau, was outstanding. We got home around 10:00 pm and headed straight to bed. 

FRIDAY - 09/16/2011 - We watched GMA over raspberry danish and coffee in bed. Being another beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky, we then put on our bathing suits and headed to the spa and pool. We spent two hours soaking and reading. I took a few pictures. We then went back to the room to shower and checkout. After gassing up the car for the trip home, we stopped at IHOP and had a huge late breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, home fries, and blueberry pancakes. On the way home, just before Boulder City, we ran into the worst storm I have ever driven in. Heavy, heavy rain, hail, strong winds; so bad you couldn't see to drive. every car was off the road waiting for it to end. It lasted about 10 minutes. When it was over, the whole area was nearly flooded; the intersection in front of us had 5-6 inches of water in it. Before getting home we stopped at the library, GVR where Connie had $12 in free slot play and won $21, and the "M" where I picked up two free chicken Caesar salads at the deli. After unpacking we had one of the salads over the semi-final round of America's Got Talent before heading out to an outdoor concert - "Peace Frong" a Jim Morrison and the Doors tribute band. They put on a 1-3/4 hour long concert and were excellent. We got home after 10:00 pm and finally called it a day, heading straight to bed.

THURSDAY - 09/15/2011 - We had danish and coffee in bed over GMA. This was the first really clear sunny day since we arrived here three days ago, so we decided to head to the spa and pool around 9:00am. I stopped at McDonald's on the way and picked us up some Egg McMuffins and Sausage Bisket and coffee for a poolside breakfast. We read until 1:00pm before showering and dressing and heading out for a movie. We went to the Riverside theater and sad "The Debt" with Helen Murin. A little slow, but we liked it. After the movie we had dinner at The Prime Rib room at the Riverside. This restaurant offers one of the best dining views of the Colorado River and the surrounding mountains of any restaurant in Laughlin. After a very good meal we headed back to Harrah's where we play for a while before retiring to our room. 

WEDNESDAY - 09/14/2011 - After Connie had her coffee in bed, we dressed and headed down to use our two free breakfast buffet coupons. After checking out we received $40 in free slot play which Connie used while I played in the poker room.

Connie broke even, I lost.  After checking in at Harrah's, we drove down to the Colorado Belle where Connie had $20 in free slot play. After several hours of playing we both ended up loosing and drove back to Harrah's for dinner. Between coupons and points, we ended up with only having to pay for one dinner buffet. I do have to admit that, though nowhere near as good as the Vegas buffets we go to, Harrah's has probably the best buffet in Laughlin. After reading for a while in the room, we watch the new season opener of "Survivor" before calling it a day.

TUESDAY - 09/13/2011 - After a night of heavy rain and thunder we slept in a little. Connie had her normal morning coffee and raspberry danish. After checking the movie schedules we headed down to the Feather's Cafe and had a nice big breakfast. Eggs, ham, hash browns, wheat toast, and pancakes for .99 each. Oops, sorry the pancakes for $3.99 extra. The whole thing was $6 - such a deal. We went to the movies and saw "Colombiana", which we both liked. After the movie we both had ice cream cones. We went back to the room and both read our books for a while before going down to the casino to play. I ended up entering a bounty tournament and won $125. We had two chocolate donuts for dessert over the TV special on Jackie Onassis and then called it a night.

MONDAY - 09/12/2011 - I got us breakfast at Burger King which we ate over GMA. After checking out of the RIO I drove downtown to the Gamblers General Store to pick up a couple of chip holders. When we reached Laughlin we went directly to Daniel's on the River, one of our favorite lunch spots. After finishing two huge hamburgers, we stayed and watched the rest of the U.S. Open men's finals with Nadal and dejokavic. Dejokavic was the much stronger player and beat Nadal in a four set match. We then went to the AVI and checked into our room. After check-in we went to the sports lounge and watched the Patriots cream the Miami Dolphins, 38-24. We had two delicious chili dogs in the lounge for dinner before heading back to the room. After a little reading we went to bed, but had a hard time falling off due to a lot of lightening and thunder in one of the worst storms we've witnessed since moving here.

SUNDAY - 09/11/2011 - The anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks. Who can forget where they were on that fateful day. Connie and I were watching GMA, having breakfast on the sun porch in our home in Greenland, NH, just prior to me heading off to work at Allegiant Management Corporation. Obviously, as was the rest of the world, we were shocked. Being only a couple of miles from the office, I was there within 20 minutes of the first plane hitting. When I got there, several of us congregated in the president's office discussing what had just happened, when Jay's wife came to the door and told us that the second tower had just been hit. Needless to say, we were all stunned, and spend the remainder of the day discussing the events. After we finished packing for the upcoming week in Laughlin, we drove over to the "M" where I had a Hold'em tournament to play. We ended up chopping for $300.00 each. Connie and I then drove to Paris-Paris on the Strip to have the dinner buffet. Even with a 2-1 LVA coupon, this buffet cost us $30, but we have eaten here before and it is well worth it. We then drove to the RIO on the strip where whe had earned a free night's stay. After check-in we watched some TV before retiring for the evening.

SATURDAY - Spent a couple of hours making some changes to categories and the home page on my photo gallery site. It was only 78 degrees this morning, so I  then went out to the pool to read while Connie did wash and watched the Semi-finals of the US Open. Around noon I came in and heated up some frozen snack food to nibble on over the Federer and djokovic. Around 1:00 we had some brief rain and several bursts of thunder, a rarity for these parts. We were rooting for Roger, who was up two sets to luv, but ended up loosing the next three straight sets in a very close five set match. We then went over to the "M" and then back to GVR where Connie ended up winning $10.00 on her $12 free slot play. Unfortunately it was a loosing day for me in the poker room. Came home and watched a PBS special on the building of the 9/11 memorial and the new 1,776 foot One World Trade Center tower.

FRIDAY - 09/09/2011 - Couldn't sleep well, so I was up at 4:00 am and started working on creating pages for yesterday's hike on my Photo Gallery blog. Check them out here ... Daytrip To Mt. Charleston.  I then got ready to head over to the "M" for the first play-off round of this month's $33,000 free-roll hold'em tournament. Good news and bad news. The bad news was that I got knocked out in 33th position out of 180 players, three positions off the moey. The good news is that they drew 9 names from all those knocked out for a special $2,000 "Loosers" tournament for this Sunday (9/11) and  I was one of the 9 names; so I still have a shot at getting some money. I am also in a $15,000 the following Sunday (9/18) with only 50 players. Came home and made turkey sandwiches for dinner, watched a couple of prerecorded TV shows and went to bed and read before calling it a day.

Cecropia Moth Caterpillar 

THURSDAY - 09/08/2011 - It was up at 5:30 am and over to the Senior Center to catch the van for this morning's hike to Mt. Charleston's Scenic Loop drive. We made five stops for short hikes along the way with the last one to Little Falls being the toughest. When I got home I made us some turkey sandwiches to eat over our latest Netflix installment of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". We then watched Federer beat Tsonga in the semi-finals of the U.S. Open.  I got some good pictures and spent the latter part of the evening deleting and cleaning them up for posting to my Photo Gallery blog. One of the more unique pictures was of the moth on the right. As it had been a long, hard day, we both went to bed relatively early.

WEDNESDAY - 09/07/2011 - I continued to work on editing pictures while Connie read. Around noon we finally decided to shower and dress and head out. After a stop at the bank and the library, we went to GVR to use a 2-1 coupon for lunch at the Tides Oyster Bar restaurant. I had the Fried Oysters with french fries, coleslaw and hush puppies. Connie had the Crab-cakes. After lunch we played for a couple of hours; Connie lost a few dollars and I won a few dollars. On the way home we stopped at Smith's and picked up some groceries. I made a fresh fruit salad for dinner and we watched TV shows till it was time for bed. Before bed I staged my camera gear and set the alarm for 5:30 am for tomorrow's hike to Mt. Charleston. Looking forward to getting some more nice pictures.

Bryce Canyon, Utah

TUESDAY - 09/06/2011 - Connie made waffles and eggs for breakfast. We then decided to stay home today. I worked on updating some pages to my photography site while Connie read. The above picture is one of my favorites from my Bryce Canyon page (click to view full-screen). Check out the "RoadTrip" pages I added to the site here ... Recently Added Pages. Around noon I did decide to go out to run some errands, car supplies, water store, etc. On the way home I stopped at VON's and picked up a barbecued chicken and potato salad which we had about mid-afternoon for an early dinner over some prerecorded TV shows. After a break where we both read for a while, we decided to watch a TV movie we had recorded, "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull". Though we never thought the sequels were as good as the first one, we still enjoyed. We then watched the semi-finals of America's Got Talent over a dinner of chocolate chip cookies. We actually had a hard time deciding who we liked for the top four. We like Team Illuminate, Landau Eugene Murphy Jr., and PopLyfe. After that it is a tossup between the Smadge Brothers and Landon Swank, the magician. Oh well, we'll find out tomorrow night.

MONDAY - 09/05/2011 - LABOR DAY HOLIDAY. Today is also Cheryl's birthday, so once again HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHERYL!  I sent off a birthday email this morning even though I know Connie sent her a card the other day. Connie started the morning off with more U.S. Open Tennis in between a load of wash and some ironing. I played on the computer updating this blog. At noon, we decided to go to Green Valley Ranch Resort for their lunch buffet.  Connie played her $12 in free slot play but didn't win anything, however, I won $300 in the poker room. We then drove over to the "M" where she had another $5 in free slot play. After loosing $25, she decided to sit in one of the lounges and watch tennis. I won another $200 in the poker room and decided to take Connie home and come back and play in the ($100 entry fee) $5,000 tournament. Again I had no luck and came home and watched some TV with Connie before going to bed.  All in all, not a bad day.

Firecracker Dragonfly

SUNDAY - 09/04/2011 - Connie decided to stay home again today and watch the U.S. Open. As she watches all of the main tournaments throughout the hear leading up to the Open and knows all the players, she really enjoys the matches. I usually start watching with her when they get down to the quarter final and final matches. Today I headed back to the "M" poker room to see if I could have any luck their Labor Day promotion of flopping four-of-a-kind for $500. Not only no luck, but gave back a lot of what I won yesterday. Oh well, easy come, easy go. When I got home I warmed up the rest of the left-over chicken patties and buns, added tomato and avocado and repeated last nights dinner. We ate dinner over our lates Netflix movie, the third in the Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". We both admitted that we didn't like this one as much as the first two. Bonnie called while we were watching some TV shows and talked for more than an hour. Sounds like they might be moving to Kansas to help out Christian and Christina with Adalynn - they're going to need a full-time care giver if she survives the next couple of operations and they get to bring her home. You can keep up with hat is happening on her CarringBridge page (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/adalynnpaine) We are all hoping for the best. After her call I played on my photo gallery for a while before joining Connie in bed. Here is a link to the new page I created ... Dragonfly. 

Bonnie, Tom and Me (1955)

SATURDAY - 09/03/2011 - Today is my brother's birthday, 56. The little "baby" of the family is getting old. I placed the picture on the right on the front of the Smilebox e-birthday card that I sent him. Bonnie loved it! Haven't hear from Tom yet. Again, I was up early and headed over to the "M" poker room to try and win some of their special Labor Day promotions while Connie stayed home and watched the U.S. Open Tennis and a movie. After spending the day, I didn't hit the big one, but did win two of the cash drawings for a total of $100, plus I won nearly $300 playing poker. I picked up some chicken finger fillets from the deli to take home and make chicken sandwiches for dinner. We ate dinner over a couple of prerecorded TV shows and went straight to bed. It had been a long day for both of us. 

Angel's Trumpet with Bee

FRIDAY - 09/02/2011 - This was the first day of the special Labor Day weekend promotions in the poker room at the "M". They are having cash drawings every half hour and offering $500 dollars for any high hand on the flop. So, after spending the morning working on adding pictures of yesterday's hike to my photo gallery, I made us lunch and we watched a prerecorded TV show before I headed over to the "M" to play poker. Connie decided to stay home and watch the U.S. Open tennis and a couple of movies. Even though I did get four queens for a high hand, in came on the turn card and not on the "flop", only getting me $50 instead of $500. They were also having a $5,000 Texas Hold'em tournament for a $100 buy-in. So, having won a couple of hundred for the day, I decided to stay and enter and give it a shot. I just couldn't get any good hands, or callers when I actually had one, and ended up getting knocked out 32 out of 72 players. Oh well, better luck another day. By the time I got home it was 8:30 and Connie had already eaten, so I just had some peanut butter and jelly crackers while we watched a TV show before heading off to bed. Long day! 

Wild Horses at Cold Creek

THURSDAY - 09/01/2011 - This was the day for my first fall hike with the rock hounds from the senior center, so it was up at 5:30 am to get ready to drive over there to catch the bus at 7:00am. I was a great day for taking photos and, unlike our last visit to Cold Creek Nevada, I was able to get some nice pictures of the wild horses that roam that area. We had a new driver that made a couple of wrong turns on the way out so we didn't end up getting home until around three in the afternoon, much later than our normal 1:00 o'clock. Because it was so late, we decided not to go anywhere and  I popped a pizza in the oven for a late lunch/early dinner which we ate over a prerecorded movie. I then went onto the computer and downloaded the day's pictures and started "cleaning" them up in preparation for posting onto my photo gallery site. We the had chocolate sundaes for dessert over another movie before heading off to bed.