Race for the Galaxy: Home Decor

My friends know me. They know what I'm enthusiastic about and even though I haven't been posting about it lately, I'm still crazy about Race for the Galaxy (192 plays since Christmas and hoping to greatly add to that this weekend!). My friend Seth sent a gift via Mike for my birthday and when I saw Mike pulling out a rolled up poster, I started screaming with joy and jumping up and down in circles because I knew it had to be a Race for the Galaxy poster! And it was!! So, a very public "THANK YOU SETH!" for my favorite poster in the world (at least for now...)!

So, I took it and got a cool black anodized custom frame made and hung it in my dining room so I can look at it whenever I want while playing games. Here's what it looks like...



And a step back...


Isn't that awesome?!?!
*happy dance*
OK, that's it for now...

Tomorrow is my birthday

Tomorrow is my birthday... woo-hoo...

I usually look forward to my birthday, but this year has been different. I don't really care about the aging part, I just wish that my life was less stressful right now. I'm stressed at work and in my personal life...

My goals for April are to recover from the break-up, exercise & sleep more, and not plan anything else in April. I'm booked for most of April already and it seems like work is going to be crazy for the next two months due to today being our fiscal year end.

That said, I better get to sleep!

Vegas Trip

I'm back from Vegas and TIRED! After getting off to a slow start on Saturday, we finally hit the road and had a relatively uneventful ride out to Vegas. We made the ritual stop at In-n-Out in Barstow.

We checked into the Las Vegas Hilton and Stephen at the front desk gave me a free upgrade because it was my birthday! And then after being in the room for a bit, there was a knock at the door and it was room service! Stephen also sent up a gift basket for my birthday! He is definitely getting a "thank you" note from me! I was thrilled!


For dinner, we went out to Mon Ami Gabi and got a table out on the patio. It was fabulous! The weather was perfect and the people watching was really fun. The best part? We had a front row view of the Bellagio water show every 15 minutes!
Water Show at the Bellagio

Steph & Chris

Jon & Shane

Travis & Ron
Dinner itself was pretty good. After dinner, we went over to the Bellagio to check out the new set-up in the atrium. It's gorgeous inside, as usual! Check out this snail!!!


And the pretty umbrella flowers in the atrium area!
Shane & Steph in the Bellagio atrium

After that, we sadly, did no gambling and went back to the hotel to play Race for the Galaxy so we could get to bed early and do some serious gambling on Sunday. Oh my, we are dorks! I tried to get them to play for $1 per point, but no one seemed that interested!

On Sunday, we had breakfast/lunch at Blueberry Hill and then headed over to the Pinball Hall of Fame and I got my fill of Addam's Family & Fish Tales! Then we finally got to the gambling!

We headed over to the MGM Grand because that is our poker room of choice. Travis and I played from about 3 PM - 9 PM. I think by the time we left, I was down about $75 and Travis was down about half that. We went out to the Burger Bar, dropped of the non-gambling folk back at the hotel then headed back to the MGM Grand for more poker! We got there around 11:30 PM and stayed until 4:30 AM. By that time, Matt, our new private pilot friend had gone to bed and all the fun people left, so we took off too. I tried to talk Travis into hitting Casino Royale for some craps, but he wasn't havin' any of that.

I woke up on Monday morning because Travis' phone alarm went off at 8 AM. I contemplated getting up to go play more poker before breakfast, but sadly the Las Vegas Hilton doesn't have a poker room. So I just went back to sleep... as Chris said, "Thank God Travis needs to back to LA tonight for class, otherwise we'd never get out of here..."

Overall, we all had a great time and I got lots of poker in. Unfortunately, no craps, but that will have to wait til I go with my friend Gary who loves craps and poker! Trip is being scheduled for June as I write this! I also found out that if you have a player's card at the MGM and play an average of 4 hours per day, the pit boss will call the front desk to have them knock up to $40 off your room night. The catch is that you have to book the room through the MGM website or by phone and you can't already be getting some special deal they have. It would've worked out great for us if we had known that because the rooms were listed at $140 per night so it would've only been $100 per night! Next time, I'm definitely doing that.

My boss has no shame!

He really doesn't. He's lucky he's married to a woman that helps him monitor his eating habits because if he wasn't, he'd weigh about 300 lbs!!

Today is Marilyn's birthday. And I know I said that I was done with the lunches, but I will most likely organize her lunch today because, as my assistant, she is my right hand woman here at work and I couldn't get along without her. So, I want to show her that I appreciate her. (BTW, the guy who didn't offer anything towards my lunch had already offered to buy her entire lunch by 8 AM) My caring started last night when I baked her triple chocolate fudge chip cupcakes! Mmmm... she loves chocolate. In fact, we all do in my office, but none so much as my boss!

When he came in this morning, he walked by saying "Good morning" to everyone as usual. When he saw the cupcakes sitting on her desk, he couldn't resist taking one. She told him, "You may have ONE."

Well, ten minutes later, he called me and said, "I want to meet with you and Marilyn in your office. Could you call her over and I'll meet you there in a minute." She works across the hall from me, so I called her and said, "[Bossman] wants to meet with us in my office, could you come over here please?" Meanwhile, I did a quick clean-up so it looks a little better before he gets here.

Then he comes walking up the hall and heads straight into her office. We were both thinking, "Hello! We're over here..." but then we realized he was going in there to snag a cupcake and we both starting cracking up!! More in disbelief than anything.

Seriously... he has no shame!

I'm done with organizing the lunches

At my office, there's a mix of people who bring lunches from home or who go out for lunch. For years now, we would order lunch on Fridays to be delivered or I'd run an pick up a big order for everyone in the office so we could eat together in the conference room and catch up with each other. We switched it to Thursdays when one of the people changed her schedule so that she never works on Fridays now.

However, as of this week, I'm done. I'm done with organizing, taking the orders, calling it in, handling all the money, picking it up, etc. I'm done with all of it. First of all, the lunches have deteriorated to just being an ordering/delivery service. We used to sit together and talk while we ate. We'd catch up on life events, family, friends, etc. However, over the last six months of so, people have started just picking up their food and going back to their offices without hanging around to chat!

Another office tradition revolving around our lunches: Anytime it's someone's birthday, I always organize lunch for that day (or a day close to it). Sometimes I even make sure we have cake or cupcakes (homemade or store bought).

My birthday was last Saturday, but because I was really busy at work last Thursday and Friday, we pushed my birthday lunch to be on this past Monday. Since I'm usually the one who handles all the lunches, fine... I took everyone's order and collected the money. Usually, everyone usually chips in a couple extra bucks to cover the cost of the birthday boy/girl's lunch. So, of the four people who ate lunch with me on Monday...

1. One person gave me the exact amount for his lunch, not one dollar extra. He's the one who can most afford it and the one who is constantly offering to or actually buying my assistant's lunch throughout the year.

2. One person offered and actually gave me $2 dollars to contribute towards my lunch.

3. One person said he'd contribute towards my lunch, but then realized that he didn't have enough cash on him to cover his own lunch and had to borrow money from person #4 who...

4. Also said she'd contribute towards my lunch, but didn't have enough for both her lunch and to let person #3 borrow money, so I ended up putting in money to help cover the deficit.

Both #3 and #4 said they'd pay me back. So far, nothing.

So, it was my birthday lunch, which person #2 contributed $2 towards and I *still* paid $8 out of my pocket. The total cost of my lunch was $8.50!

Do I care about $8 out of my pocket? No, it's not the money. It's the fact that it's CONSTANTLY like this. People don't have enough money, they'll pay me back. No one else wants to go pick up the lunches. If I weren't the one spearheading the Thursday lunch, I don't think it would exist. So I'm letting it die. I'm tired of getting stiffed for a few dollars each week and not being appreciated.

When did I decide I was *done* with this? When person #1 came to me yesterday and said, "Is anyone ordering food for Thursday lunch?" and I said, "Nope, I'm not and I'm done with it." I hadn't consciously thought about it before he asked the question. It just popped out of my mouth. This person never brings his lunch and hates to drive anywhere for lunch, so everyday he asks if anyone's going out to pick up lunch so that he can give them money to pick him up lunch too. He doesn't want a Thursday lunch, he just wants food. He's one of the ones that gets his food and disappears into his office. I'm not his lackey.

So, after the fiasco with my birthday on Monday and him not offering one single dollar, I decided that is it. I'm through. They can all take care of ordering their own damn lunches. At this point, I don't want to eat with them.

I'm outta here!

I'm outta here and on my way to Vegas!! Whew. This is awesome. I'm finally finished catching up from all the hard drive crash stuff and February financial results are finished. I can go into my birthday weekend worry-free!

My birthday plans are shaping up!

My birthday is rapidly approaching and plans have been made! I'm going to Vegas with a few friends and we're going to see O at the Bellagio. Tickets were expensive, but I'm so tired of doing the whole "the tickets are too expensive, maybe next time we'll see a show..." thing. That can just go on and on. You know what? The next time has come and we're seeing a show!

I'm really looking forward to it! It's been ages since I've seen a Cirque show. Also, I picked out a restaurant for dinner too. We're going to Rosemary's Restaurant which has a top rating by Zagat, so hopefully it's good!