shy

i'm here at the pool side, avoiding both the sun and water and using the last 3/4 of an hour of my internet usage.

all in all, it's been a fun trip but i'm ready to get the hell out of here.

like before the excitement of vegas is great - nightlife alone is amazing. but it does wear thin and after three late nights in a row, i'm ready to head back home to a more quiet and calm lifestyle.

we're boring people back home. but we're happy, too.

having said that, i'm milking it in as much as i can while i'm here. the music at the pool is energetic but lovely. we'll be headin upstairs in 15 minutes but before then, i'm sucking down a strawberry dacquiri (after already gulping down a blue hurricane). we'll be heading over the the caesar forum for the cheese factory for dinner - our last meal in vegas.

tai, doug and i will then head over to the airport while dave, viv and arvie stay another night. they will watch cirque du soliel O tonight at the belagio before heading home tomorrow morning.

will i come back?

yeah - probably. with friends and definitely mid-week as a way to stay away from the expensive prices on weekends and the huge crowds.

i was never a huge fan of vegas before, but this trip has created memories that will forever be a part of me - thanks to the company i was surrounded with during the stay. well, and some thanks goes out to vegas joe.

i believe that vegas-style for us encompasses going to bed around 4am everyday.

not something i'm use to but - VEGAS BABY!!!

as planned we did go to mgm for their buffet (best quality for buffet i've ever had) and we did go to see KA.

we didn't however, go to caesar's pure nightclub. in turned out it wasn't open last night. and any of the top rated clubs required a strict dresscode - not everyone had the appropriate attire.

so... with a bit of decision-making, we ended up going to venetian's V and to be quite honest, i'm glad we did. the club was small yet intimate. the atmoshere was great. but how we got in, was even better.

it all started with arvie and i trying to decode the directory map (these vegas hotels are huge!) the security guard came over (obviously due to the look of utter confusion as both arvie and i were pointing at different directions) to help us out. AND he told us to look for some guy name 'joe' and tell him that 'matt' sent us. and that 'joe' would take good care of us.

alright.

well, turns out joe took very good care of us. he waved our cover charge and gave us 2-for-1 drink coupons.

not a bad way to start off the night.

then tai, using his ultra, charming ways, talked to joe into providing us a bit of more excitement for the night.

the next thing i knew, we were being whisked away in a limo to another club where the cover charges were waved again (though no 2-for-1 drink coupons but you know, greed was never our colour anyway).

what a night!

granted, we were dead by the time we got back to the hotel yet for whatever reason, we had enough energy to try and go to one more club.

this time, the guy wouldn't let us in for free.

i guess at that point, we got cocky and forgot we lost the 'joe' connection.

thanks vegas joe. you did us good last night!

we ended up at a roof-top restaurant for brunch this morning.

with a light breeze and blue-blue skies (and just enough clouds to cover us from the dessert sun), we found ourselves sitting across from caesars.

not a bad way for us to start! and the food was actually very tastey without paying the big bucks.

the rest of the group found a van taxi to take the to some outlet mall. doug and i decided to bow out. i'm sure the outlet mall is amazing but neither of us are really into shopping while on vacation. instead, we walked north up the strip and visited the bellagio, mirage and treasure island.

we walked a lot! and while my feet are sore, i feel great to have been on the move for a few hours.

we're both back in our hotel room just to cool off for an hour and a bit before meeting up with the rest of the group.

off to mgm we'll go later tonight for cirque du soliel's KA and then back to hopefully check out caesar's nightclub, pure.

we finally manage to find the rest of boys - turns out they were put in a different room then what the concierge told us. just after 1am, vegas time, we said 'good night' and left them to go to la-la-land. doug and i, as a last minute decision, decided to take a walk around our area.

we walked down to bally's and paris. outstanding! and while we didn't go inside bellagio or caesars, we had a great view of the grandiose hotels across the street from our stroll. at night, these two hotels were even bigger in appearance. they seemed to glow like great monuments in the nevada sky.

before heading back up to our room (around 3am now), we decided to christen our first night in vegas with a bit of slots.

on my very first spin, i all of the sudden realized that the BING-BING sounds and flashing lights where coming from my slot machine! the sound seemed to go on forever until it finally ended. i found myself coming out with 250% of what i put in!

i played a little more but didn't win much so i stopped and cashed out my earnings.

too bad i was just on the penny slots. :)

still, i managed to make one dollar into two.

not bad on my first night!

we arrived at the hotel a bit after 11pm. by the time we checked in to our room, it was 11:30pm. or to be more precise around 2:30am our time. the time our bodies and minds are functioning at.

the other boys arrived earlier this morning. we have no idea where they are.

in the meantime, tai is in our room and completely asleep. in fact, he's across the table from me with his head resting against his arm.

man. we'd better calm down. gotta save some wildness for the next couple of nights!

though on the way here, tai did explian, "VEGAS BABY!" at every opportunistic time. which was a lot.

looks like we're in for an exciting night.

(how do you wake this dude up? he's totally out!)

...except that with a bunch of late 30's and early 40's type of people that we are, it's not like we're going to wake up the next day like the movie, the hangover. on the contrary, i'm curious as to how i'm going to stay awake past 10pm every night.

WE'RE NOT EVEN GOING TO A STRIP CLUB!

that's right. my first time ever going to a stag and the guys are the ones that don't want to go to a strip club.

not that it makes a difference with me either way (though i am a little bummed i can't stuff a dollar bill down a g-string of a vegas peeler). i suppose i'm a little proud that they all seem to be beyond that phase.

on the other hand, it's a little depressing of how it signifies our age and basically, how old we're all getting.

*sigh*

this weekend was suppose to be a relaxing, do-nothing, type weekend.

when will i ever learn that in my world, that rarely exisits?

it started off with my mom and dad coming back with chaeli way earlier then expected friday night. by the time they left and we got chaeli off to bed, it was almost 11pm! i was just too tired to start cleaning the house then.

saturday morning arrived and after a slow start where we eased ourself in, doug and i started the house-cleaning process after brunch. it only took us an hour and a half. i must admit that having doug help is definitely easier - it just gets the process done that much faster.

when we finished, i still had an hour to shower, get myself and chaeli dressed, before heading out to the movie theatre.

then on sunday morning, we ended up getting together with my friend and her two kids whom were visiting from washington d.c. they were only in town until tuesday so sunday morning was the only chance we had to see them. chaeli had a blast playing with the two kids. and we had a great lunch together at a near-by chinese restaurant that opened a year ago - doug and i haven't had a chance to give it a go up until then. afterwards, we took the kids to a place similar to chuckie cheese for them to run around in the indoor playground for half an hour.

good times.

anyway, as for the movie...

chaeli had been bugging us for weeks to take her to see transformers - revenge of the fallen. when the movie came out on wednesday, she was quite anxious that we were going to miss our change in seeing it in the theatres. i tried to explain to her that it would take awhile before this movie, a sure-box office hit, to leave the theaters. she didn't quite understand and since both doug and i were excited to see this movie, it didn't take much convincing to take her to see it.

sometimes, my own kid amazes me. it was a 2.5 hours movie and because it was the first weekend, we went in to grab our seats early. she was pretty much sitting in that seat for a good three hours. granted, she was starting to get a little tired and restless by the last 30-35 minutes but she hung on until the end.

and, there were a few scarier scenes compared to the first movie but the girl didn't even flinch. she just sat there, totally engrossed with her favourite robots.

[note the below does not give away the storyline at all - but does critique on the style of the movie]

as for me, i loved it but i think the first is my fave. this one was a bit too long and while i had no issues with the more complex plot, others seemed to be critisized the movie for it. i do, however, have a problem with the introduction of too many new characters at once, which is what they did with the robots (only one new human character was introduced). with the additional robots, there were the twin autobots whom reminded me of jar jar of star wars.

the intention was for comic relief which just didn't seem to work for me. plus, i counted seven comic relief type characters and for me, that's just way too many.

in addition, the introduction of these new robot characters took away from the overall, character development that i would have liked to have seen - not just with the humans but with the autobots.

one critique from the last movie was that not enough emphasis was placed on the robots and too much was placed on the humans.

it was obvious that to compensate for this, they just decided to add more robots - both on the autobots and the decepticons side. but... what happened was far less interactions between robots. while some of the main autobots were still there like ratchett and ironhide, we rarely got a chance to hear them speak. they were there more just for the fighting. only optimus prime and bumblebee had most of the dialogue, as did some of the decepticons.

the focus was still mainly on the humans. so i don't know why they thought that just by adding more robots would help. it didn't. it so did not make it any better. i would have rather had them stick to the way they had it in the first movie.

having said that, i still really enjoyed the movie but more as an action type movie only. and the special effects had me mesmerized.

09:12 listening to 9 PM (Till I Come) by ATB while desiging an ad. an oldie but goodie. #

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14:21 contemplating on taking my kid to see transformers this weekend. #

22:11 honestly? i don't get what's so great about rita mcneil. plurk.com/p/13p9s8 #

08:19 SYTYCD's rhumba routine last night left me needing a cigerrette at the end. and i don't even smoke. plurk.com/p/13v1yc #

08:32 while watching high school musical 3 w/ chaeli, i said, "i hope you get a boyfriend like troy when you grow up." doug groaned. :p #

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perhaps i'm speaking too soon but it looks like the flowers i planted this year on our patio just might survive.

it's only been a few days and they are looking stronger and bigger. various buds are opening up.

last year, they just didn't seem to thrive at all. not even in the beginning.

it's such a small thing in my life but i actually look forward to coming home and seeing them. especially today - i had a brutal day at work. and the mere thought of giving doug a kiss, getting a hug from chaeli and seeing my potted flowers was enough to get me through today.

oh - and the cold beer on my aunt's patio helped too.