More Phoenix and then to Vegas

Thursday morning and the weather has turned very cool and windy – down from 95 degrees to 70 degrees.

I know I am in holiday mode when I sleep in till 09:00 something I rarely do. I mooch around the apartment until lunch time when I meet Penny at Flo’s a modern Asian restaurant which is actually quite good. My experience with Chinese meals in the USA has been, let us say, less than ideal especially when I once asked a Chinese waiter if they had Chinese vegetables and was told yes carrots and broccoli – but this defies the odds.

I spend the afternoon with the kids after which Penny cooks an amazing baked lemon fish dinner. She is on a diet basically eating only vegetables and salads with 75 grams of protein with each. She has los 4lbs so far and looking good for her aim of 10-15 lbs over 4 weeks – not that she has that much to lose.

Friday and its Ipad day. I decided to buy an Ipad and the model I want is being released at 17:00 so I am planning to get there at 18:00 after the crowd and pick one up. I spend 30 minutes on the phone to my US Bank explaining that I am visiting the USA, will be using my card in Phoenix and will be making a substantial purchase at the Apple Store. I have had bad experiences in the past so made a pre-emptive bid this time.

Penny and I lunch at the local micro-brewery which claims to have more varieties of beer than anywhere else on the planet. I head off to a lovely gift shop called Artafax looking for something for Mother’s Day but nothing suitable there despite having a wonderful product range.

Oh well it is 15:15 and nothing to do maybe I’ll go to the Apple Shop at Scottsdale and queue up – something I NEVER repeat NEVER do. I arrive there at 15:30 to find 20 people queued up already. One nice thing about queuing is the conversation you have with random people while waiting. Apple do things well – they have a trolley with water, cookies and other treats and they take this up and down the line offering it to customers waiting.

Anyway 17:00 grinds around with another 100 people behind me in the queue. At 16:55 the fifty – yes fifty – staff they have run down the queue giving everybody high fives and at the appointed hour they let people in with each person receiving personal service.

My ‘Genius’, Sean assists me to grab my Ipad and accessories and I pay – well almost pay – card declined. FARK!!!!! I phone Bank of America and ask if they specialise in stupidity and after some choice words they unlock my card. As an aside there was a fraudulent $80 charge on my card in December and after six hours on the phone and eighteen people in the Bank now knowing my mother’s maiden name they fixed the problem, not before firstly saying that the charge was legitimate and making me prove it wasn’t. Note to self – fraud has to be substantial to waste your time else it is cheaper to just let it ride.

Back to Penny’s and we head off for the kid’s soccer tryouts – it is now freezing, yes freezing in Phoenix in April/May. I take Riley for an IN/OUT burger for late dinner and drop him home while Penny does a few things and head back to the hotel to pack and set up my Ipad.

First Impressions: The Ipad is a wonderful device for those on the move. Instead of dragging a notebook or even a netbook computer it provides a wonderful array of internet, email and application possibilities. It is a very impressive unit.

Saturday morning I check out of the hotel to spend a night at Chez P/G. Graeme arrives back from Manila where he runs a business in which I am greatly interested. In brief it is a BPO business which is a 13 billion industry in the Philippines. BPO stands for Business Process Outsourcing whereby it is possible to save 50-65% of equivalent domestic costs for web design, accounting, order processing etc.. In the Philippines one can hire a university educated accountant for $US500 a month or about 20% of the equivalent amount in Australia. He currently employs about 35 staff on behalf of Australian and US based companies and headed towards 60 by the end of the year. I am thinking of flying to Manila to have a look at his operations and see if I can get some clients for him.

The kids head off to Wet and Wild for a party while Graeme Penny and I go to Flo’s for lunch. We had to wait 20 minutes as it was full which was surprising but when I got the bill $21 I realised why – all mains are $5 for Saturday lunch.

I promised the kids mini-golf which works out well as Graeme is in need of some sleep. I usually lose to 9 and 10 year olds but this time I managed a handsome win. Back to earth when Riley beats me 3-7 at air hockey and hey he did score one of my goals – as Justin aid – ‘You scored 3”?

Dinner at an excellent Mexican restaurant where we have dined before and back for a good night’s sleep.

Next morning I wake at 05:30 to watch what is likely to be the match of the year Chelsea vs Liverpool with Chelsea likely to win the EPL Championship if they win the match and lose it if they draw or lose. Of course they aren’t showing it on TV here so I am chatting with Graeme who has woken early and watching the score on the internet while keyboarding with Justin for match reports.

At 10:00 I head off for Vegas using the car that Graeme and Penny have kindly lent me – a large SUV – Lincoln Navigator with the darkest windows you have ever seen. I have been driving it all week so am used to it.

Now the drive to Vegas is supposed to be 5 hours. I was thinking of pulling over around half way but for some reason I regretfully didn’t. 5 miles from the Hoover Dam and 40 miles from Las Vegas there is an accident with a dead stop queue of cars. Luckily I have my computer which I turn on and watch two episodes of The Bill. Long story short – 2 hours to travel just six miles. The Hoover Dam crossing is always problematic but this made the five hour journey seven hours without a stop or food.

Anyway joyfully arrive at the hotel to find that I am booked in from tomorrow but luckily they have a room tonight in a part of the hotel that I prefer given that I have to drag computer gear back and forth.

I am on a bit of a high so have dinner, mooch around and yes gamble for a short period of time before having a drink with Alexander Smirnov (who ordered gin not vodka) and heading off to bed around midnight.

So here I am Monday morning beautifully warm and sunny. With the teams and work starting on Wednesday my main roles are photographer and BBO (online Bridge) co-ordinator where I bring all the equipment and run the online presentation working two sessions out of three. . Now work isn’t very hard at all but it is tiring standing there doing all the inputting and commentating – cerebrally tiring more than anything else.

As I get busy from Wednesday to Sunday, anything I want to do in Las Vegas I need to do in the next two days and I must say, this being my eleventh year at this tournament, there isn’t anything I HAVE to do but I am sure I will find something.

Anyway you have caught up with my life
Love to all
D