Ho-Chunk Casino in Wisconsin Dells
We spent Tuesday with my family by visiting Wisconsin Dells. Primary goal: Hit the Ho-Chunk casino and win big money. Mission outcome: Casino took most of our money, save for my mom, who ran in to "use the bathroom," then plugged in $4 to a nickel-slot machine and won 1300 nickels (around $65).
Mom shows off her winnings.
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Spent the day in Lake Mills, visiting friends from "the good 'ole days." Amy was sick (she caught my cold), so she stayed home and hung out with her sister and mom. I went to my friend Chris' house to fix his computer (Windows XP Home machine with 54 instances of viruses, spyware, adware, and so on). He just finished building his new garage, and it's pretty nice:
His Ducati Chromo - it's a pretty cool bike...
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Well, we made it to Wisconsin without any problems. Other than the cold weather (it was 8F the entire way to WI), we had a great drive, no traffic, made good time, and arrived in Wisconsin at around 2:30pm on Thursday afternoon.
Here's the Tahoe, fresh from its 700-mile trek from Arkansas... it's waiting to be unloaded.
We introduced our dogs to Amy's sister's (Kelly) dogs: Jack and Charley, and to her Mom's dogs: Max and Murphy. We have seven dogs at the house, and it's rather interesting... Murphy doesn't seem to like other dogs, so there's a scuffle every so often... :-(
The dogs all met each other in the backyard.
Jack is such a good boy.
Charley is a character...
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It was supposed to snow 3-6" last night, but when I woke up this morning, the ground was bare and dry. It was a bit chilly - around 20F or so, and then at around 10:00 am, the snow started to fall. We only got a dusting - nothing like the doomsday they were predicting... Thank goodness, as we're headed out to Wisconsin tomorrow.
Regis sleeps on the bed, with Sulley and Big Boy in the background.
Monica's holding down the couch.
Kozmo finds her place on Big Boy's bed.
I returned home from Washington DC on Thursday, and was surprised at how big the kittens have become... and might I add, naughty? They're little stinkers - they play with *everything,* chase *everything,* and are intrigued by *everything.* I love 'em - they're so adorable.
Amy has named them "Beetle" and "Bugs." Beetle has the two grey dots on his head, while Bugs is all white.
Bugs is up to something...
Beetle loves the camera (and notice Bugs' hand in background trying to grab Beetle's tail...)
Beetle peers around the corner, looking for Bugs (he was actually above him at the time...)
I hate to be a Grinch, but Christmas just isn't doin' it for me anymore. The crowds, the stores, the sales, the advertisements, the commercials, the cold weather, the mess to clean-up when it's all over, and so on - it's all so aggravating.
The good news is I got all of my Christmas shopping almost done... we only have to get Amy's Dad his gift, but we already know what we're going to get him, so it's just a matter of going to the store (ugh!), fighting the people (double ugh!), and getting through the checkout line (arrhrhrhrgghgh!). At least we get a few days off and will have a chance to relax back at home - that'll be nice.
I'm heading back to Arkansas tomorrow. Friday = get the new tires mounted, get a hair cut, catch up on all of the stuff I've missed over the past 10 days, and possibly go see a movie... maybe Oceans 12?
Wow. Sorry I was off-line for so long, but I really got my butt-kicked by a nasty, nasty bug of some sort. It started off with a sore throat, fever (around 101) and some really fun body aches. From there, things went south (literally), and I became very intimate with Charlie's bathrooms (thankfully, he has four, so I was never very far from one).
From Wednesday night through this morning, I was not a happy camper, nor was the Washington DC sewer plant, I'm sure. I think the only happy folks are the people at Kaopectate - I was downing the stuff like it was water... Anyway, things seem better today. Fever is gone, chills are gone, everything else is "normal." All that remains is a funny sounding voice and a bit of medicine-head. No pictures, as all I did was writhe around in bed and on the couch...
Charlie's kids were over tonight, so he made some tacos. Not being a big fan of tacos, I opted for a more traditional Wisconsinite delight: beer brats. :-)
Charlie's got enough taco meat there for half of Washington DC.
Alexandra reaches for the heavy stuff.
My brats are ready for serving.
Ava prepares her tacos.
Not much else going on - I think I'm getting sick... have a nasty little sore throat and my head feels like it's the size of a watermelon. :-(
and her name is HDTV on a 60+" Toshiba DLP HDTV with Denon 3805, and a Klipsch Surround Sound system. My deepest apologies to my wife, who has to read of this love affair here, but I couldn't stand keeping it a secret any longer. The truth had to be known.
First test of the new home theater system at Charlie's house. Speakers aren't set-up (those are the bedroom speakers in the picture), but the picture is big, bright and beautiful.
Isn't she beautiful? I watched my first NFL football game in HDTV, and all I can say is, "Wow." It's unreal. The colors are so vivid. The details are so sharp. The audio is crystal clear, with bone jarring bass. I'm afraid I've been bitten by the HDTV bug - I'll never be able to enjoy a "normal" TV program again.
Now, all I need is to find the $10k to get all of this for myself, and the world will be wonderful. Let Dubya' run us in to Hades - just so long as I can watch HDTV on a big DLP TV on the way down.
Once again, I found myself at the Memphis airport, with a few hours to kill, so I decided to listen to my (ever growing) stomach and order up some BBQ. My favorite place, Jim's Interstate BBQ was jam-packed, and the carry-out line was at least 50 yards long. So, I decided to try out Corky's BBQ, which also happened to be located directly across from my connecting gate.
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That's Sulley's paw... he doesn't really like the kittens. My guess is that he's jealous because they get to eat whenever they want to, while he's limited to 2 meals per day (hey, we don't call him Fat Sulley because he's anorexic).
Largo went to a new foster home today - somewhere down near Hot Springs. I hope he does well there. The poor guy was just getting used to things here at our house. I'm off to pack for my trip tomorrow.
No pictures today... too tired, too frazzled, too worn out. Things have been insanely busy lately, as is the norm for this time of the year. Why do car manufacturers have to schedule all of their new releases, industry events and major car shows at Christmas time?? It makes absolutely no sense to me... why don't the schedule this stuff in April, or May?
Leaving for DC on Saturday, and will return home on the 16th. Then we're home for a few days before leaving for our 700-mile journey to the great state of Wisconsin. It'll be great to get out of this hole for a while. :-)
So, speaking of the little things, I had a hankerin' for some macaroni and cheese today. Amy had bought some Tostitos last night, so I decided to use the Tostitos to "scoop" the macaroni and cheese, essentially making a mini, edible plate for those imitation-cheese-flavored-highly-processed-starchy-noodles. Wow. I forgot how good that tasted (used to do it when I was younger). So I sat there, at my desk, eating my macaroni-n-tostito combo, and for about 5 minutes forgot about all of the busy stuff that's overdue. I ignored the phone and e-mail for a few minutes and enjoyed that simple concoction. Ahhh....