Category: Other Stuff

Vegas!

I was in Las Vegas last week with my dad and sister. My dad took me there as part of a graduation present for completing my Electrical Engineering undergrad degree this April. We had a ton of fun. Seen a lot of things. Bought a lot of stuff.

Obligatory picture of Las Vegas sign.

Monday – May 1
Arrived in Vegas. Went to The Strip. Seen Mystère, a Cirque du Soleil show at the Treasure Island Hotel. As expected, that was incredible. Did not understand the story at all.

The view from our room in the Rio hotel. Pretty clear side view of the Strip.

Tuesday – May 2
Went shopping at the South Las Vegas Premium Outlet Mall – my dad bought me a suit from Van Heusen and I bought some new golf attire from the Nike store. Ate at the largest buffet in Vegas (which was in the Rio). Went to Penn and Teller illusion/comedy show – both my dad and I were called on stage on separate occasions! After the show, my sister and I went up to the Voodoo rooftop nightclub on the 51st floor of the Rio; coincidentally there was a huge group of Albertan’s there.

Me and my sister at the largest buffet in Vegas. I'm om-nomming some crab legs.
Getting our picture with Teller. The paper is the punchline to a joke used in the skit with my dad.
And a picture with Penn.

Wednesday – May 3
Went on an all day bus tour to the Grand Canyon. Our bus driver, Mike, made the 3.5 hour drive to the canyon a blast; he was hilarious the whole way. Checked out Hoover Dam. Went on the Skywalk. The Grand Canyon was amazing. The Skywalk, however, was just silly. I heard it was a 4000 ft vertical drop through the glass – turns out it’s between 500 to 800 ft. Felt like 50 with the glass as scratched as it was. Got back and went to the Strip again; can’t understate how incredibly massive and glamorous it is. I don’t normally like drinking, but I had a Havana and Banana colada from Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville and that thing was tasty.

View of Hoover Dam from the new bypass bridge.
Me, lookin' good on the bridge.
Me, checkin' out the uhh... the canyons.

 

Back in Vegas on the Strip with my sister and some parrots.
A nice picture of the Strip that my sister took.

Thursday – May 4
Went shopping at the same outlet mall again – my dad bought a suit for himself. Later at night we went to Freemont street. It’s kinda neat with the roof being a gigantic screen. I put $20 into a slot machine and lost it. Felt bad. Watched my dad win in Blackjack. Felt good.

Freemont street.

Friday – May 5
Went shopping at the North Las Vegas Premium Outlet Mall. It was all outdoors – a very cool place actually. I ended up buying more golf apparel. Went to the Strip again. Afterwords my sister and I went to Absinthe, a small show at Caesars Palace. It was hysterically vulgar and featured impressive acrobatics. We got bumped up to front row seats which was awesome – one of the actresses gave me a little more than I was expecting…
Saturday – May 6
Started the long 18 hour drive back home. Got home on Sunday. What a great week.

Two clips of me failing

A few days ago I was recording myself golfing to analyze my swing technique. My uncle and I were the only two on the range (bad weather), and there was a course employee walking by, picking up the empty buckets. He stopped to wait for me to take my drive and I let off this rocket:

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKtPfYxAoH4

Today I decided to drive my nitro rc car to let out some frustration after watching the Bruins net 4 goals in 4m14s against the Canucks (Stanley Cup Final game 6). I wanted to see how fast my car was going so I set up 4 meters of tape measure and recorded the car driving past. I think I did it right:

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxLH54a3VE8

Boring…

I haven’t written anything in a long time, so here’s… something.

Exams wen’t pretty well; depressingly though, English 199 was my best grade. I took a week off after coming back to Lethbridge to relax, play some hockey, video games, fix peoples broken computers (because  knowing how to fix my own computer makes me super-pro at fixing other peoples computers…), fail hard at making a Seagate drive work in a Western Digital hard drive enclosure for my Wii, and play some tennis. Oh yea, and take some 4.5 hour safety training for my summer job.

Starting last Monday, I began working for an electrical contractor as an electrical apprentice – for experience, and because I am ‘good with my hands’. Currently, and presumably for most of the summer, I am working on a soon-to-be nursing home. So far all I have done is mount data trays; they are used to carry low voltage wires such as ethernet, cable, and telephone lines. Actually, for the most part, all I have been doing is fixing trays that were mounted in the wrong locations. I shouldn’t complain though, I imagine I’ll be pulling wire for a long time once these trays are done. Most of the electricians think engineers are assholes/idiots who don’t know how the real world works – I think maybe the electricians are following the blueprints a little too closely, although there may be some major design flaws, I really don’t know. I know when I create a plan for something, my plans always change a bit in the building process. Maybe that’s just because one day I will be an asshole engineer as well.

Yesterday was pretty fun; after a hard days work I went and played some street hockey with a bunch of friends. It was pretty intense; needless to say, my team dominated. Following that, we had a barbecue while watching the Flyers pull off the unbelievable: come back from 3-0 Boston series lead, and come back from a 3-0 Boston game 7  lead, to win both the game and series 4-3… Hollly crappp.

Here I am now, sore as hell from a week of hard labor polished off with 3 hours of street hockey.