unexplainable...

A bit of background...Sharon had tried to kick me, so we pulled her legs and she slid down in the booth and hilarity ensues...

All while having dinner at Joan and Ed's.

heat

I guess summer finally decided to arrive...it was 80 something around 9 this morning.

After making some last minute coupons for Sharon (don't ask, I got a call last night, I came to the rescue this morning), I went home and put the two air conditioners in downstairs so we can keep the house fairly temperate. Of course, upstairs besides our bedroom still feels like a sauna, but I figure that's a lost cause.

I don't think the cats like the a/c in all of the house though, they kept giving me faces and had this pissed off meow like "damn you Daddy, we like the heat."

Our trip to NY and the Catskills was pretty uneventful. Well at least problem wise. The trip over on Wednesday afternoon was without incident and besides being stuck in neckdowns due to night paving on the way back last night, there wasn't a problem.

My only question though is why the fuck was the first rest area on the MassPike closed last night at 8:30 at night? We had skipped the New Baltimore area on the NY Thruway figuring we'd stop to go the bathroom and get coffee at the MassPike rest area. We walk up and the employees are outside smoking and are like "the rest area is closed."

So it was off at Exit 2 where we stopped at McDonalds and got some iced coffee and gas next door at Shell. At least there's no tolls on those exits so it didn't cost me anything other than time.

The rest of the areas seemed to be open, so I have no idea why that one area was closed. Budget cuts?

Yesterday Moe and I hiked over Hunter Mountain after a bit of an assist from the Ranger, who was driving up to the old leanto site with my Father and Brother to do some work. So we rode up to there, saving us about two and a half miles of walking and avoiding the majority of the steep climbing. Pretty sweet.

The full write-up of the hike is over on AITO.

Got the front lawn mowed today and designed a new kitchen with Lowe's online thingy, so I think it was a productive day. I'll have to tackle the back tomorrow along with the store's grass. I also have to get to Lowe's to actually price out what the remodel would cost.

busy

A long day at the store today...I think there was a continual cascade of issues, but eventually it got taken care of.

I'm pooped though.

Tonight it's out with Sharon.

Tomorrow we've got some stuff to take care of in the morning and then we'll be heading to the Catskills for an overnight trip and a hike on Thursday. Be back sometime on Thursday so the cats won't miss us too much.

a bit late...

Our bad for not remembering sooner, but go and make sure you wish Sharon a happy 29th birthday. She turned 29 once again this past Thursday!

That was the face she made when she realized it was her birthday.

MGM Recap...

Moe and I had a good couple of days down at MGM Grand at Foxwoods. We kept ourselves busy without having to resort to gambling too often, though I think Moe managed to find every single Wizard of Oz slot machine that was in MGM Grand, Foxwoods and Mohegan.

Sadly there were no jackpots, but we did manage to play all around without spending too much.

We also got a sweet room at MGM Grand. I'm telling you, out of the three northeastern CT casinos, MGM Grand by far has the best overall rooms and hotel amenities. It really feels like you're staying in a hotel in Las Vegas like TheHotel or something. I loved it.

The bed was really comfortable too.

We were on the 23rd floor and faced the Foxwoods complex and since our room was on the curved part of the building, we had about a 180 degree view from our room of the area. What was really cool was the majority of the outside wall was windows. I did kind of want a tub in the room so I could relax with a bath, but the shower that we had was pretty good.

On the way down we had to drive through some pretty torrential thunderstorms, though thankfully we made it down without too many problems. It cleared off after we got there and then when we woke up on Wednesday it was partly cloudy.

We had breakfast at the buffet in Foxwoods and then wandered and gambled a bit. Then it was back to the room to change into swimsuits and we were off to the pool, which is on the back side of the MGM Grand hotel. I didn't like that you had to walk through a bit of the casino to get there, but it was pretty minor. Once out there it's a fan shaped pool with lounge chairs all around and the staff will give you towels and direct you to open chairs. We got comfortable in lounge chairs that were actually in the pool and proceeded to get a lot of sun in between swims.

After spending longer than we thought at the pool, we went back to the room and looked in the mirror and realized just how red we were from the sun. I wasn't quite lobster-like, though Moe was pretty close.

From there, we picked up our car from the Valet and headed over to Mohegan since we knew that it was Wednesday and that they have fireworks and some other activities there that night so we wouldn't have to gamble all that much.

We made reservations at Pompeii & Caesar for dinner and then proceeded to gamble a bit on the Wizard of Oz slots before making our way up to the Riverside Garage to check out the old cars and the farmers market thing that they had going on up there. Dinner after that was great at always. The fireworks were nice. We ended up going up to the top of the other garage (Indian Summer or something) where we had parked and stood up there and watched them. That way we could just walk to the car afterwards and head out without having to deal with the crowds on the other garage. I think they shot the fireworks off from the roof of the building near the gas station, but it was a pretty good fireworks display.

After we got back to MGM and got settled, we headed back out to the casino floor since we hadn't really spent any time so far in the MGM casino itself. Plus we discovered that housekeeping had forgotten about our room. We checked in with the concierge who said it would be clean and so we headed out to give them the time to do it. Funny thing as we're walking around and playing, who do we run into? Sharon and Dwight had come down to Foxwoods and Mohegan for the day and managed to find us.

We played with them for a bit and after they went home, Moe and I went back up to the room and crashed in the freshly made up room. You know, I've got to have as many sample sizes of shampoo and conditioner as possible!

Thursday morning we slept in and then took our time getting ready and packing up.

Moe slept in longer than me as you can see.

The sun wasn't out so we decided against going to the pool and instead just checked out and then left our bags at the Bell desk while we went to breakfast at the new restaurant in MGM Grand, Juniors. Yes, of the Juniors cheesecake fame. Turns out they have a great breakfast too.

After that we left MGM with the idea of going to the Pequot museum, but we figured since it was pretty overcast, cold and stuff, we didn't want to go there and spend money to go up to the observation platform without a good view. Plus I think we were both kind of tired and we wanted to get home with enough time to get some other stuff done before the end of the day.

The drive back was uneventful and while Grace gave us the cold shoulder, at least she didn't squat down and piss in front of me, so I'll take that as a welcome home.

Reviews of MGM Foxwoods and Juniors Restaurant forthcoming on Epinions...

don't be saying that...

Keep your sodomy to yourself...

Thanks for protecting me from objectionable words iTunes.

yes...

There truly is something for everyone on the internet...

Search 1000s of profiles of single Little people at LittlePeopleMeet.com

denied

I hate Citibank. I call today to see if I could get an interest rate dropped on a balance I've been paying off. I explain that I had one late payment several months ago and they upped the rate and since then I've paid it on time and before that I paid it on time, plus I've been laid off and such and what do I get? Well since you have closed the account, the interest rate is what it is. Oh...well I'm so glad I was told that when I asked to close the account.

Whatever...it's just frustrating.

Perhaps it was just because I was a bit frazzled today at the store...a rough morning for some reason. Maybe it's the return of the rainy weather.

That or maybe it was the letter I got from the hospital telling me I better pay up or they would come after me. Never mind that I've been sending them payments each month. I call and the woman is like "oh, just keep paying what you've been paying." Thanks for the nasty letter to rattle me up.

Moe and I are off to MGM Foxwoods tonight. I really don't have any money to spend so I hoping beyond hope that the weather is good and we can spend most of tomorrow out by the pool since we're going to be there tonight and tomorrow night. We'll also go to the Bodies show which I've wanted to see forever and I'd imagine we'll have a meal or two at Mohegan to use up some of my points there.

Fingers crossed on good weather please! Pray the sunshine to eastern Connecticut.

mulch

With almost two days of relative dryness (we only had a quick shower yesterday), it was actually dry enough to spread the second batch of mulch we had gotten for Sharon's store. It's literally been sitting there for almost a month since it would rain every day.

I spent about 2 hours spreading some. Between that and finally getting back to the gym yesterday after a while, my arms feel like they are going to fall off.

Hopefully I'll get some more done when Moe gets home and we can both go over and do it.

In the meantime, I'm going to soak up some of that sun.

some sun

There was enough that after I got back from the gym I was able to mow the lawn. I'll consider that a productive day.

Hopefully tomorrow will be somewhat dry so we can start spreading the extra mulch we had gotten at the store. Since it's been delivered there's been exactly one day when we haven't had rain.

I got the write-up of the hike finished over on AITO