Day 3 (Tuesday) was nice and mellow. Got up, had breakfast and then visited another Indian Casino (Dad loves slot machines). Money went fast as usual and we left in about 30 minutes. Then we had lunch at the Phoenix Art Museum where my friend Tammy works as their Membership and Visitor Services Manager. Staff was very nice and somehow they all seem to know me (code name The Wizard), but I don’t know them. Some highlights were meeting the creator of the hamster wizard (super nice person) and the IT Director. Got to preview the server room and viewing other server rooms always makes me feel proud of ours at SBMA!

Later that night, went to Peoria Sports Complex to catch one of the last spring training games (Brewers vs. Padres). Game was fun and there was this crazy vendor that was very loud but hilarious. He reminded me of the Chef from South Park. One of his rhymes was “Fresh cold lemonade, just like grandma made. mmmmm…. baby!”. I got a video of it, will post later on you tube.

Tomorrow is Viva Las Vegas!!! My friend Chuck is driving up and I am also going to hang out with some friends from Acuity-VCT that are in town for the security tradeshow (may even check that out too, I am sure they got some neat gadgets).

Next post will be from sin city!

Wow, driving a Mercedes sure is nice. Not sure how I am going to feel going back to the caribou. Left early Sunday (6:40 AM) and arrived at our hotel around 2:30 PM. Made lots of restroom stops along the way. The most interesting stop was by the summit where there was a General Patton tank museum. Took lots of photos of tanks and then continued on. Traffic was a breeze and had very little on the whole trip. The new thing I noticed are camera enforcement zones, which are basically cameras on the highway that will snap your photo and send you a ticket via email. They use to only have those on the 101/202 loop out here, but now they are on the 10 coming into Phoenix. Somebody told me Arizona wants to put them all the way to the border!

After arriving, we all (Dad, Tammy, and I) went to Rawhide for some old west bbq food. Was damn good. Also tried their pale ale that they brew there and that had a nice taste to it. Inside of the restaurant there was a country band playing some shit kicking music that all of a sudden went to Simon and Garfunkel songs, go figure. Unfortunatley it was around 9 PM, so we did not see any gunfights, oh well…maybe next time.

On Monday, Dad and I explored. Went to a military airplane museum out in Mesa, AZ. Was pretty cool. The museum is ran by mostly volunteers and is an actual working musuem where they restore old war plane. They had everything there from bombers to jets and the volunteers were awesome. They knew tons about the planes and had a passion. Most were in the air force themselves. After that, we visited Fountain Hills to see their Veteran’s Memorial and then headed over to Fort. McDowell Casino. The memorial was beautiful right on the lake. The casino sucked…smokey and money went way too fast. Later in the afternoon I went to Ikea to by some more forks (only have 2 at home, kind of getting annoying) and then took Dad to Rock Bottoms for a burger and I had their pale ale…very nice.

Later that night I met up with one of of my vendors that use to work at Insight and is now at MicroAge. We went to Dos Gringos, was great. Outside patio bar and they have a great happy hour for $2 Pacificos. Thanks Shawn for the beers!

Tomorrow, Dad and I will be visiting another casino (Lone Butte) and then visiting my friend Tammy at the Phoenix Art Museum for lunch. Then the spring training ball game tomorrow night (Padres vs Brewers), woo hoo!

Wow, it sure has been a while since I have updated my blog. Life has been super busy the last month with work projects and personal life (yes, I know…the blog is part of my personal life). Figured it is time to start again as I am leaving tomorrow for a mini road trip with my Dad. We are heading to Phoenix - AZ for three days, then visiting the Grand Canyon, and finally ending up in fabulous Las Vegas. Arizona should be action packed, visiting with my good friend Tammy, catching a spring training ball game, and going to raw hide old west town. Vegas will also be full of excitement as Dan and Randy from Ohio are coming to town along with my buddy Chuck who is driving in from Santa Barbara.

So now on to the first marking that this trip is going to be GREAT. I went to go rent the car tonight and I reserved a Dodge Charger (basically a full size car). I go there and they have NO full size cars. All they got is a Cobalt and a piece of shit Chevy Aveo. Looking at my Dad and I in this car…not happening, it would be like a clown car. I am not really interested in either of those and have the attitude if I don’t get the car I want, I walk out and just take our Mustang. Must be my lucky night cause they have a Mercedes C300 available. I got it for a few bucks more than my other rental, score!!!! The car is awesome and full of tech gadgets, so yeah…I am pretty much in heaven right now. Have already thumbed through the owners manual and got my phone paired with the car. w00t! w00t!

I will try to update this daily during the trip, but may be difficult depending on Interweb access.

The Mercedes C300, Score!,
click to view more