What Do You Get When You...

...put together the following numbers?

• My birth month
• My birth day
• My birth year
• Our anniversary month
• Our anniversary day
• DH's birth month
• DH's birth day
• DH's birth year
• My mom's birth year
• My dad's birth year (or was it my brother's?)

You get $4800, that's what you get! At least that's what you get at Treasure Island in Vegas when you play a $5 "Pick 10" card at Keno and manage to pick 8 of the 10 numbers you selected.

On Thursday, we flew in to Vegas (10:00 AM flight on Southwest, smooth flight, on time, no screaming people or children, arrived on time), got a cab to Treasure Island, and were in our room by 1:00 PM (lovely room, Strip view, looking south towards MGM and Mandalay Bay). Having only grabbed coffee and a muffin at the airport, we needed food, so headed to TI's 24-hour restaurant as the path of least resistance. While sitting and talking about what we wanted to do while in town, I took out a Keno sheet and crayon, and KW and I started picking numbers. We put in two sheets, one a "Pick 10," and one a "Sweet 16."

When the game was over, I read the numbers to KW, who could see the board behind me. "Yes." "Yes." "Yes." "No." "Yes." "Yes." "No." "Yes." "Yes." "Yes." I reached for the little Keno brochure that shows the payouts and almost choked. I could have sworn it said that when you pick 8 on a "Pick 10" card, you got $4800, and told KW. He looked at me funny, in a "Are you sure you know how to read?" kind of way, when the Keno runner came to the table with a little print-out sheet. "You won!" she said, and showed me the sheet. Sure enough, it said "$4800" on it.

Well, anyone who knows anything about Keno knows that it has the worst odds of all the casino games. There's a 25% house advantage - compared to Blackjack with something like a 1.2% house advantage. No one wins at Keno! Apparently the number of winners from the Coffee Shop are so few and far between, the runner didn't know the proper procedure for us to get our money! First she said her supervisor would have to come to the restaurant with a TI manager, then she said we would have to go to the Keno area. So we went over to the Keno desk, met the supervisor and the TI manager, who dutifully filled out the IRS paperwork (yep, anything over $1199 gets you a Form W-2G, "Certain Gambling Winnings" form) and then started counting out 48 one hundred dollar bills.

Let me tell you, that's a lot of bills! And pretty damn exciting to use them to pay for everything on the trip... wheeee!

The rest of the trip was wonderful, too, especially dinner at Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay's restaurant at Caesar's Palace), where I was greeted by the Birthday Bear! The Bear does get around!

Late flight home today, and KW is off again tomorrow on a business trip. He gets back on Friday, then we're both off to San Diego next weekend to attend a business conference. Busy, busy, busy!

Alright, Who's the Wise Guy...

...who "borrowed" all my store club cards? DSW... BevMo... Office Depot... They were (at one time) all together. Now they are... well, perhaps they're all together, but they're nowhere to be found (by me, anyway). And the car title from the lender, the one that says they release the lien on the car? Who's got that?

I swear, little gremlins have been coming in to the house and taking things away. Probably having a better time there than with us, but that's besides the point. I need them and they're not here! C'mon, guys; give 'em back! Please?

At least I'm not walking around asking where my glasses are (they're perched right on my nose, where they belong, thankyouverymuch). But some days I feel like that question is right around the corner.

::sigh:: Being discombobulated is not a good way to start this week!

Beadazzler

No nefarious goings-on with the Beadazzler - no plans to rhinestone up my car or the lampshades. My purse sprung a leak - the joins where the leather meets the zipper have come undone. I thought a Beadazzler would work as a way to hold them together. Unfortunately, I returned it today because the prongs on the studs that they sell for it were too short to go through both the zipper and the leather.

So there goes my stud crafting future!

Expedition

I don't really do a lot of shopping anymore. I tend to make a list of stuff I need, then go on a focused trip, get it, and come home. For some reason, though, every so often I need a real shopping day, where I wander, see what's out there, and get stuff. Yup; it's that time.

It started rather innocently - with a list of what I needed: bras. Girls, you know what I mean - find one you like and fits well, and stick with it (at least until the manufacturer discontinues it, but that's a rant for another day). I took my list ("bras"), got my cheat-sheet of style numbers ("Bali 6520"), and headed out to the Bali/Playtex outlet at the outlet stores in Gilroy.

I asked the saleslady if they carried that style and she went to her big, thick book of codes. (Seriously? There isn't an online inventory system you could check? Whatever...) It was taking a while to look it up (seriously? it's not online?), so I finally asked her if it would help if I showed her what it looked like. She nodded, so I flashed the bra I was wearing at her - at which point she immediately said "yes" and took me right to them, where I grabbed 6 (quick, before they're discontinued!).

And here's where the desire to shop started. It was my birthday month, so they give you 20% off your purchase. Plus they were having a buy 2, get one for $1 sale. By the time she was done ringing me up, I had gotten 6 bras for $61. Not bad for bras that retail at $24 each.

So if I could get $144 worth of bras for $61, what other bargains could be had?

Well, next door is a Wilson Leather store. I had recently bought a wallet at Target, and though I liked the basic design, it was a little awkward to use. At Wilson's, I found a similar design, but one that worked better. As I was checking out (special sale day, everything in the store was an additional 20% off) I noticed the sign that said "10% military discount." Um, I got one of them... $38 wallet for $12. Nice. Keep going, Meg!

Next stop, the Van Heusen store. I was on a roll... Everything in the store is normally heavily discounted and, lucky for me, I really like the quality of their clothes and the way they fit. Turns out they were having a double sale yesterday, so they were practically paying me to take home 5 new tops. Plus, because it was my birthday month, I got an additional 20% on top of that. On the way out, I decided to look at the men's side of the store and found 2 shirts for KW. Deal!

All this in about 30 minutes.

I had intended to go to Bed Bath & Beyond yesterday (really!), but after my fun at those three stores, I was late for knit night, so I decided to go shopping again today - that fun kind of shopping. The kind where I don't have a list. Oh boy, did I have fun! Here was my take (this is both yesterday and today):

Bali: 6 bras.

Wilson's: Wallet.

Van Heusen: 5 tops for me, 2 shirts for KW.

Izod: 1 top (thanks to a $5 certificate from Van Heusen, I paid $.99 for the top!).

Coach: 1 purse (a $328 purse on sale for $99 PLUS a 20%-off coupon they gave me at the door... come on, people - it's a Coach purse for $80!!! Oh, and a 1 key chain.)

Bed Bath & Beyond (yes, I finally made it!): 2 sets of bathroom towels, new curtains for the downstairs bathroom, sink mats, mini-funnels.
Ross: 3 pair of jeans, 1 vest. (I really needed some jeans that went all the way to the floor.)
Michael's: File basket and Beadazzler (don't ask).

I came home today with bags and bags of stuff. Shopping at the outlets and getting birthday discounts, I saved about $400 over what I could have paid at a 'normal' store. Shoot, I saved almost $250 on that Coach purse alone!

Damn, that was fun, but I'm really glad I don't do it that often. Now it's time to go through towels and curtains and donate 2 sets, then go through my closet and donate 6 tops, 3 pair of pants, a vest, a purse, and a wallet (yep - new in, old out, except the bras... that's kind of creepy).

Happy Labor Day to you, too!

Second Test

We were hopeful until today. Let's see...

Awww... isn't s/he cute? (And the picture upload still works, too!)

Photo test

New machine, testing whether or not I can upload pictures... What do you see below?

(If you said "Bruce!" you get a gold star!)

Evil Cupertino vs Evil Redmond

Thanks to everyone who suggested that we should be getting a Mac instead of an(other) Windows-based PC (ChickenKnittle, Kadootje, Roberta, Mark, RP - the list goes on...). Believe me, we've thought about it, especially these past few weeks.

Unfortunately, there is no built-in Mac "Geek Squad" in this household. We've both been PC users since 'way back (KW goes back to before I knew what computers were, I've been working with them since at least 1981). Switching to a Mac now is only going to frustrate us more in the long run, especially since the 4 other computers in the house are Windows-based and we have no plans to convert over the household. At least with a PC, KW knows where to go for help and we can make our way through the maze of solutions.

Having said that, though... if the third Win7 PC doesn't do what I need it to do with a minimum of fuss and "accommodations" to Redmond's bizarre thought process, I admit I have been thinking about Macs and their double-barreled promises of simplicity and stability. Unfortunately, my built-in Geek Squad (aka KW) says if I take that route, I'm on my own. Should it come to that decision, it will be a hard one to make. I'm beginning to like Kadootje's suggestion of stone and papyrus...

In other news, the stupendously wonderful plays in TheatreWorks' New Work Festival are all rolling around in my head. They all made me cry - not surprising since all of them touched on death in some way. Most of them with physical death, but one ("Variations on a Theme") with the loss of love. They've all brought back the summer of 2009, which I spent in Florida, tending to my aunt. She'd been in my thoughts a lot even before we saw the plays; the constant themes have pulled those thoughts up further to the surface. I miss her greatly and still wonder if I couldn't have done more; if I had stayed longer, would she still be with us? I know the rational answer is "no," but the question still lurks in one of the folds of my brain.

The plays also brought up my continual fear of losing my One True Love. When he doesn't check in after driving to a client, when he can't hear me call his name in the house, when he leaves his phone in the restroom and so doesn't know I'm trying to text him and get no response... My over-active imagination thinks he's gone - crashed, fallen, stricken - and I have a little mini-panic over losing him. He usually checks in a few moments after I've tried to talk myself down off the ceiling, and it's often with a "of course I'm fine, why wouldn't I be fine?" tone in his voice or in his text (for as much as you can tell tone from a text, that is). It's hard to be very Buddha-like about the impermanence of all things when you have this kind of love. I try, but I don't succeed, at least when it comes to him.

Enough soul-searching. The plays are great. Go see as many as you can.