Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Hockey camp video

This post is a follow-up to the last one, so if you haven't seen the pictures from Lucas's first day of hockey camp, go back and check them out. To be honest, it's not really a camp, since it's only an hour a day for 5 straight days, but that's what they call it so that's what I'm going with here.

As most of you know, prior to Canada, I spent the majority of my life in warmer climes (not counting the 7 years I suffered in Massachusetts). As a result, ice skating is not a skill I ever acquired. Hell, I could probably count the number of times I've worn skates (of the non-roller variety) on both hands and maybe a foot. Due to my lack of experience, I've never had any great desire to bring Lucas out during the winter and skate since I would probably fall more often than him. That said, Marilu has no similar excuses so feel free to bug her about his lack of frozen pond activity. :)

Now that Lucas wants to play hockey, this lack of skating experience has become a hindrance. Starting next weekend, he is due to spend the next two weekends in "sort outs," which allow the coaches to sort the kids by their experience level. Since we didn't want to send him into that with absolutely no skating experience, we signed him up for this camp. It's supposed to teach both hockey and skating skills so we hoped to kill two birds with one stone.

That said, yesterday was a bit trying as a parent. It was obvious most of the other kids had a decent amount of skating experience (and hockey, for that matter) so Lucas really stood out, shuffling along the ice as others glided quickly by him. For the first half hour, it seemed like Lucas spent more time falling to the ice than standing on it. He didn't have much experience standing up so we watched as he would struggle for 30-45 seconds, attempting to get up, only to fall to the ice once again. One of the instructors finally gave him some tips, and that seemed to help. He still fell a lot, but he was getting better. We were really worried that he was going to be frustrated at the end of the hour, but when he got off the ice, he had a huge smile and said that he had a lot of fun. So our worry was much ado about nothing, it seems.

Today, he briefly had problems getting up at the beginning of class, but the instructor came by and showed him once again how to stand, and he got the hang of it fairly quickly. By the end of the class, he looked way better than he did yesterday. Sure, he's got a long way to go, but he's definitely making progress and is enthused about it so I think he's going to be all right.

Here's a video from the latter half of yesterday's class. The kids got a chance to have a scrimmage of sorts.

Future Gretzky

Since Lucas had his first day of hockey camp yesterday, I decided to update with pictures of that instead. We're literally on our way out the door now for today's session, so I'll add more text later. For now, enjoy the pictures.










Sunday, August 25, 2013

So many photos

Just spent the last couple of hours organizing my unposted photos. Not counting the ones from Massachusetts, which I'll be posting in the next 2-3 entries, there are 619 photos. Although a lot of them will probably never see the light of day, so to speak, that's still a heck of a lot of photos so bear with me. I'm burnt out on looking at photos right now, but I hope to have the first of the Massachusetts series up by tomorrow evening. Feel free to nag me if you don't see them by Tuesday.

Monday, August 12, 2013

The rest of Vegas

I've been lazy, I'll admit it. Marilu and Lucas left for Newfoundland last Wednesday so I've been living the bachelor life since then, so when I haven't been working on accounting, I've been eating bad, drinking bad, and watching a whole lot of TV. I've taken a break from all that to get another update out the door since you've probably been waiting with bated breath for the second half of our Vegas vacation. So without any further adieu, here it is.

Apparently, our 45 minute walk to the Hard Rock Hotel on Saturday afternoon in 115 degree heat didn't dissuade us too much from the warm weather as we headed out again on Sunday. This time it was a 20 minute walk across the interstate to In-N-Out burger. For those of you who have never been to the West Coast, In-N-Out are the best fast food hamburgers you'll ever sink your teeth into, so every time I find myself on the left coast, I try to get to at least one. As if taking a picture in front of a fast food restaurant sign isn't highbrow enough, I think my shirt adds that extra splash of class.


For dinner that night, we went to an Italian place at New York New York. It was okay but nothing spectacular. We had a picture of both of us, but I didn't like how it came out so instead, you just get my lovely wife.


We had tickets for Cirque du Soleil's water show O, which required us to trek further up the Strip. On the way, we posed for photos in front of Paris as well as the Bellagio fountains.






As it turned out, the next day was Canada Day. We made sure we dressed in red, and we visited The Pub at Monte Carlo, a fantastic bar we found on our first trip to Vegas (for my 40th birthday 2 years ago). Coincidentally, two separate sets of people sitting next to us were also from Canada. So we all had a good cheers/prost as the waitress snapped our picture.


As it turned out, the upcoming weekend had a major UFC PPV scheduled at the MGM Grand. As part of the promotion, they'd set up a UFC octagon ring in the main lobby. Since Marilu and I are fans of the UFC, it turned out to be a good photo op.



As a child of the 80s, one of my favorite music genres is hair metal. It should come as no surprise then that I absolutely loved the musical Rock of Ages. Even though we didn't get to see the show in Vegas (we saw it in Ottawa earlier this year), I wanted to check out the Bourbon Room bar, which is based on the musical, as well as the bars of the Sunset Strip in L.A., circa 1988. For your entertainment, I struck my best rock pose.


I thought about wrapping this up here and finishing the rest of our trip in a 3rd entry, but I don't want to make you wait another 10 days for that so I shall continue on.

That night, we finally had a chance to have our 10th anniversary dinner. Marilu had picked out a steak house in Mandalay Bay named Stripsteak. At the risk of becoming hyperbolic, it was quite literally the best steak I have ever had (and Marilu agrees). We both ordered 10 oz filet mignons, which were $59 each, without anything on the side, but my god, they were fantastic. People throw around the phrase "melts in your mouth," but these steaks almost did. The best part? Marilu only ate half of hers so I got to eat almost a full pound of filet mignon. Like I needed THAT. Whatever the case, if you are ever in Vegas, need a steak fix, and don't mind spending a bit of money, I would highly recommend Stripsteak.





After that wonderful dinner, we were ready to go straight to bed, but we had tickets to Michael Jackson One, a brand new Cirque du Soleil show that was playing at Mandalay Bay (and the reason all the celebs showed up on Saturday night). It was a complete impulse buy that we made on Saturday when we heard other people talk about how good it was. We toyed with skipping it, but in the end, we decided that would be a waste of money, and we ended up going. Thank god that we did since I haven't been as impressed with a Cirque show since the very first one I attended (Alegria, for those keeping score). To be honest, I would recommend this show just as much as I would recommend Stripsteak. If you have the remotest interest in Cirque shows, you owe it to yourself to see it. It's that good. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the show itself, but you can get an idea of what the stage looks like in the panorama shot below.



The next day, which was our last, I went around and took some shots of Mandalay Bay, particularly the pool area. Although I haven't mentioned it before, that was the main reason Marilu picked Mandalay Bay for this trip. They have a massive pool area, with a gigantic wave pool, a lazy river, and about 6-7 other assorted smaller pools. I'm no professional so I know I won't do them justice, but here's an idea of what we got to experience every day.




And the view from our room...


For our last lunch, I had to return to one of my favorite spots of the trip, the Burger Bar. I had my very first Kobe beef hamburger, which I washed down with a Stone Smoked Porter. Lunch doesn't get much better than that, folks.



I don't often take pictures of food itself, but I felt our dessert for dinner that night warranted it. We ate an upscale Mexican restaurant in Mandalay Bay called Border Grill, and while the dinner was excellent, the dessert is what really caught my attention. Take a look at the picture, and then I'll describe it afterwards.


So, it was a Oreo cookie crumble on the bottom with a peanut butter ice cream on top of that. There was other assorted stuff going on with the orange and pink sauces, as well as the mint leaf (I think mint?), but what really made this interesting is that on top of the ice cream? Those are bacon bits. I know, it sounds crazy, but I have to admit, it tasted pretty good. I guess everything really does taste better with bacon.

After that, we were off to airport. Here's the final picture for this trip, which pretty much sums up how we felt about leaving Las Vegas.


It's kind of funny. I have absolutely no patience for or desire to gamble, but I still love Vegas. The only gambling I did was the video poker, and that was just because I was getting "free" glasses of Lagunitas IPA. But there's just something about the spectacle of Vegas that makes me want to go back as soon as possible. So if anyone if planning a wedding, reunion, anniversary, or whatever in Vegas, let me know, and I'll be on the next plane there. :)

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Vegas, Baby!

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably realize our 10th wedding anniversary was at the end of June, and we went to Vegas to celebrate. I've finally overcome the procrastination and uploaded some of the pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Why am I starting off with a photo from Logan Airport (Boston), before we even left for Vegas? Because that was probably the last time we were happy that night. Our flight was delayed 2-3 hours, and since it was leaving at night, that put us into Vegas at around 1 AM, which was 4 AM our time. By the time, we got to our hotel (after a wildly overpriced cab ride) and grabbed something to eat at a crappy little cafe, it was already late for Vegas, let alone our internal clocks. Things did get better the next day, thankfully.


Because we were getting in so late our first night, we stayed at a cheaper hotel, the Golden Nugget in Old Vegas. Although the hotel itself isn't as impressive as the ones on the Strip, the pool area was very cool. It may be hard to see, but the waterslide goes through a shark tank.




After that, we headed over to the Strip and checked into Mandalay Bay, where we spent the rest of our trip. The first afternoon, we played some video poker and then we found the Burger Bar, a great pub/restaurant in the shopping area that has about a zillion types of beer. It ended up being a frequent destination of ours during the trip.


As it turned out, the newest Cirque du Soleil show was having its world premiere at Mandalay Bay our first night there. Just like a Hollywood premiere, they set up a red carpet area and had a bunch of celebrities. As we were heading out to the Hard Rock Hotel to see another show, Marilu took this picture, which may be the worst quality photo I've ever posted on the blog. It'll probably take a lot of squinting, but it happens to be Doogie Howser/Barney himself, Neil Patrick Harris.


Speaking of the Hard Rock Hotel, we decided to walk from Mandalay Bay since it didn't seem that far. Misjudging distances is a common error in Las Vegas, which we realized after we walked 2.8 miles, mostly outside to HRH. Oh, and did I mention it was 117 degrees that day? (47 for my Canadian fans) Somehow I survived, even though I couldn't have been less hydrated, having drank many high alcohol beers that afternoon at the Burger Bar.

Before the show, we went to the Hofbrauhaus Vegas. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Hofbrauhaus is a famous beer hall in Munich, Germany. And for those of you unfamiliar with my past, I lived in the Munich area for almost 3 years while in the US Army, back in the early 1990s. So, since I'd been to the original many, many times, I just had to see the re-creation. I have to admit, from what I remember, they did a very good job with it. The beer was so-so, but that could be attributed to either the fact that my beer tastes have changed since drinking German lagers 2 decades ago, or it could be that I was about ready to pass out from heat exhaustion. One or the other. Whatever the case, here I am finishing off a liter of their dunkel.


The show we saw at the Hard Rock was the stand-up comedian Andrew Dice Clay. If you know anything about the Dice Man, you know he is one crude mother f*****. As such, when we ordered our tickets, we tried to make sure we weren't anywhere near the front row. When we got there, we discovered it was a fairly small theater, and guess which row we were in? Ugh. As it turned out, Dice did focus on us, and I got picked on for a good third of his act. I suppose it could have been a bad experience, but the way we see it, it made it all the more memorable.

After the show, Dice posed for pictures in the lobby. However, since he was charging $30 or $40 a pop, Marilu just snapped a picture of him with someone else. That said, we both agreed he should have taken a picture with us for free, just for the grief he gave me. :)


On our way back to the room (we took a cab back...no more 3 mile walks), we were getting on the elevator and Marilu whispered to me, "That's Alison Janney!" As it turns out, the former star of The West Wing was returning to her room after seeing the new Cirque show, and she graciously took a picture with us. So all in all, it was a pretty neat first full day in Vegas.


I'm going to stop there for now since there are still a lot of pictures to see and stories to be told, but it's 1:30 in the morning, and I don't want to be up until 4:00. I'll put up some more--hopefully the rest--tomorrow.

In Lucas news, his science camp is going well. He's having a great time, and Marilu and I are enjoying the house being quiet from 9-5. Also, Lucas had his first trip to a Subway restaurant yesterday, and he thought it was the coolest thing ever. He ordered a foot long Italian BMT with cheddar cheese, untoasted. Surprisingly, he ordered the exact same topping as I do (lettuce, black olives, no sauces or oils), without any prompting from me. Like father, like son, I guess. In case you're wondering why we let him get a foot long, it's because he had half for dinner and the other half as his lunch today. We're not actively encouraging obesity, yo.