I wanna go Fast!

Sunday, Jannuary 7th
It is amazing how much of a difference a real weekend makes after a real week at work. When your average day is 4-5 hours, days off are not that important. When you work 40 hours in 4 days... suddenly not going to work seems a whole lot more fun. This was the last weekend for Clarese as she heads back for Jacksonville at 7 AM Sunday morning. It is going to be very sad not to have her here with us. She is a real joy in our lives, and it is tough having her live so far away.
Saturday we went to the Sahara and the "Nascar Experience". Apparently it isn't exactly the biggest attraction on the planet since at 3 PM on a Saturday afternoon there were no lines, and hardly any people. We went on the rolleroaster there "Speed - The Ride". I have to say, that is a darn good coaster. Backwards and forwards, a vertical drop in reverse, one loop, some twists, with no waiting it was pretty solid. We also did the "Cyber Speedway". I was sorely disappointed. The graphics were awful, the handling was poor, the cars were difficult to use, and overall a poor lacking experience. Play an Xbox driving game and skip this one.
Now that Clarese and Johan are finished with their visit, which I wish had been longer but everyone has other things to do than entertain me. (I wonder why that is... I pay them enough I thought :), I can start my new year of poker. I want to start playing more serious tournament poker and plan to hit up the Venetian, MGM or Ceaser's tourney's first. They are respectable starter tournaments at 100 or so buy-ins, 30-40 minute levels and deep stacks. So it is a real tournament and not a push-fest like the 40-50 dollar ones around town. In addition the prize money is fairly large (4-5K for a win in most of them), so it is worthy of some effort. I want to try to hit 1-2 a week as well as 20 hours or so of playing. I will try to finish up the numbers from 2006 to give an idea of how things finished up. Overall it was a good year, and I hope next year is even better.
A funny story from the Nascar ride at Sahara. We are waiting our turn to get on, and the guy in the coaster already is smoking a cigarette. Now this SEEMS to be a bad idea, but what do I know. He then drops the lit cigarette into his lap and starts trying to find it in his layers of clothes, at this point the ride takes off. Speed is a turbo start, so he is launched back into his seat with a lit cigarette in his lap. On the return trip he states to his friends "My hat is gone. Right off my hand". Regardless of the fact there is a sign that says "No loose articles of clothing. Please put all hats, sunglasses, purses, etc into the lockers". He had a hat on as well as his 4 Nascar jacket wearing friends who all promptly took their hats off and put them in a locker. As he gets up to walk off the ride he falls back INTO the the coaster cars and has to be helped off the platform by the employees. I think he was drunk, hatless AND burned at this point. I am sure this guy will be a poster boy for natural selection one day