what else you got to do

funni stuff from vegas

2010-08-18T01:00:00.000-07:00

messy room
"Excuse me, can you make up our room?"

bluffed
"Show him!"

Is that 5k or 500 ?
"German guy says 5, means to bet 5k but because he said 5 dealer will only accept the lowest bet so 500 is the bet, opponent calls, hits gutshot straight. German guy outside yelling into his phone"

shit juice
"Dude, there is a problem with the house"
"The shit juice was everywhere"

time out
kid at wynn buffet, was being naughty, parents had him standing in the corner of the room facing the wall.... surely harsh punishment when there is all you can eat ice cream.

baseball

2010-07-21T23:46:00.000-07:00

went to oakland v boston.

inception

2010-07-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

saw inception.

walking around san fran

2010-07-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

walked from hotel down post to market, then to the piers then back up to filmore.

back in san fran

2010-07-18T01:02:00.000-07:00

Staying at Hotel Kabuki, in Japantown.

trip so long

2010-06-29T00:44:00.000-07:00

7 steps and 38 hours to get to vegas:

(0) Wait for flight out [2 hours]
(1) Johannesburg -> Kuala Lumpur [7 hours]
(2) 3 hour wait in KL airport [ 3 hours]
(3) Kuala Lumpur -> Guangzhou [3 hours]
(4) 8 hour wait in Guangzhou airport [8 hours]
(5) Guangzhou -> LA [13 hours]
(6) 1 hour wait in LAX [1 hour]
(7) LA -> Vegas [1 hour]

When we boarded Guangzhou -> LA flight a man was in my seat, he wouldn't move. I had to go sit in another seat.

Shower and bed at Ballys was sooooo good after that long.

Vegas felt like home.

joburg

2010-06-28T02:53:00.000-07:00

argentINA v mexico

ghana v usa

2010-06-27T02:45:00.000-07:00

Drive to rustenburg from nelsprut

ghana v usa (22 mins late)

return to obramra

extended KPL

2010-06-25T02:28:00.000-07:00

atv riding.

on safari @ kruger park

2010-06-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

lions !

aus v serbia in nelspruit

2010-06-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

Big day... aus needed many goals and either ghana to win by 1 or germany to win by many.

Neither happened, but it was a good win anyway. Holman wonder strike.

It was about an hour drive to park and ride from KPL.

blyde canyon

2010-06-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

Driver had no idea how to drive manual... cooked the clutch attempting to backout the driveway.

Went to god's window, the pinnacle, lisbon falls, bourkes luck potholes

Accidental podolski in the photo.

Watched bafana bafana v france (2-1) couldn't get the required 5 goals (urguay def mexico 1-0) bafana bafana out on goal difference.

decompression day

2010-06-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

shops, washing, bbq for dinner.

KPL and LOL Italy.

2010-06-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

Drove from Rustenburg through Nelspruit to where we were staying near Hazyview at Kruger Park Lodge http://www.krugerparklodge.co.za.

Pretty easy drive considering what we've seen so far.

Dropped our bags and immediately drove back to Nelspruit for the Italy v NZ game.

Scalped some tickets outside the game. "wait we had a deal!"

Fckin Smeltz scored early, Italy were lucky to scrape through with a draw after they drew a contentious penalty.

another game another red card

2010-06-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

Pre-game went to the hood, so rk could buy crazy sth african shoes.

Watched netherlands v nippon at the ground before the game.

Aus started well, then red card, then played well to get through with a draw.

During the AUS game monica returned from the food stall, to the wrong section and sat in the corresponding seats. The guy behind her tapped her on the shoulder:

aussie fan: "excuse me your sitting in Ron Barrassi's seat".
monica: who ?
aussie fan: Ron Barrassi, aussie rules legend!

LOL referee

2010-06-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

Went zip lining during the day, you are attached to cable via harness and you repeatedly slide from one side of a small canyon to the other side. Not bad the first few gos, then it gets a bit boring.

Watched Germany LOL vs Serbia

Drove to Sun City to watch USA v Slovenia, disallowed last min goal cost USA victory, on replay the commentator said I can see 3 penalties there, but why the goal was disallowed we will never know).

Casino with dinner paid for by the infamous 23 on roulette.

Then watched England v Algeria.

tg arrives

2010-06-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

Picked up tg at joburg airport at 730am.

Today was passport day drove to:

- US consulate in Sandton
- Aus consulate in Pretoria
- US consulate in Sandton
- Rustenburg (via Pretoria)

Ended up at camp 32 , and realised we'd been shafted with prices. Oh well, tents for 3 nights, how bad can it be.

Not so bad, just really cold ! and no hot showers.

boutique lodge

2010-06-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

Day safari at boutique lodge... then elephant feeding.

Booked the F1 hotel at East Benoni in Johannesburg. It was a long 9 hour trip due to road conditions/potholes/road work.

Arrived at F1, they gave away our booking as we hadn't paid (there was no way to pay via phone) and they cancel bookings at 6pm, even though we told them we were arriving late.

So we had smoking rooms just like san diego .... "imagine a guy smoking in a room for 15 years".

moving day

2010-06-16T17:31:00.001-07:00

Waved the cursed house goodbye.

Went past the police station in stanger to pickup "the report".

About 30 mins in to the drive realised that we left the table from the van in the garage.... doh. We realised this was the beach house trying to lure us back, we weren't going to fall for that.

We had a booking with a lodge called Rhino River but when we called up to get directions, they told us our booking was gone. They were nice and found us what sounded like a better place nearby for the same price. http://www.bayetezulu.co.za

As soon as we arrived we headed out for a night safari. Some quotes from the guide:

guide: "if these hippos decided to charge I wouldn't even be able to start the car in time"

guide: "it can be really dangerous to be in the middle of a herd of buffalo"
rk: "err like this
guide: "ja, but they seem calm now"

Dinner was a choice of lamb or steak, but you could choose a bit of both, which turned out to be a lot of food.

Watched brasil v north korea in front of open fire ... so tired.

the day after

2010-06-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

Slept most of the day recovering from the day from hell. Nandos for dinner. Internet stooped working, this is the house from hell. Detective came around to talk to us, he was pretty nice about the whole thing.

We had an armed guard at the front of our house all night.

game day

2010-06-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

Big game.... disappointing result, even worse when we go home.

Started off the day at the beach...there were a few german supporters on the beach also relaxing before the big game.

Oh oh the tv is gone.

Came home at 230am after the worst game ever... the longest wait at the park and ride, then a 45 min drive back to the house.

House broken into... the tv gone, a couple of bags missing, with ipad, laptop, cash and 2 passports.

picked up our tickets

2010-06-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

picked up our tickets at gateway shopping centre.

durban fan fest.

gateway to india for dinner (recommended by the beer guy at the durban fan fest).

drive to durban

2010-06-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

arrive in durban... watch bafana bafana v mexico.

go shopping late at night in stanger.

getting ready

2010-06-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

rk and monica arrive.

noticed the van didn't have the correct wheel brace so went to autozone to pickup one that would fit.

attempted to find the apartheid museuem. failed.

stayed at F1 in east benoni.

our van

2010-06-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

lol

touchdown sth africa

2010-06-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

arrived around 9pm

dude supposed to pick us up from airport wasn't there... prob due to flight delays.

eventually we were picked up in our van 'marley'.

lap and flight delays

2010-06-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

met lap at airport after catching KLIA express.

at 12am for 120am flight find out it's delayed until 4am.

at 3am find out flight is delayed until 5pm the next day.

airline packed us into buses and around 5am we arrived at the palace of golden horses.

check in was quick.

sleep until 9am, free buffet breakfast.

sleep until 1pm, free buffet lunch.

bus back to airport flight takes off on time.

packed & waiting

2010-06-07T01:45:00.000-07:00

Packed. My bag weighs 9.4KG my laptop bag 5.8KG.

I tried to pack as light as possible, but I still have too much stuff. I'd like to fit everything in the rucksack.

Now...In hotel lobby waiting....

Day 4: more mall action

2010-06-07T01:40:00.000-07:00

Low Fat Plaza... 6 stories if IT goodnes. Also petronas towers and some sort of shrine... no photos. :(

many malls

2010-06-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

Day 3... went to a few of the malls. Lot 10, pavillion etc. pretty big

Night time went to the petaling st market. Lots of shoes, DVDs, watches for sale. They should sell the DVDs on cheap USB sticks ... I'd be in. who has a DVD player ?

another post ... another trip

2010-06-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

Day 1 ... Adelaide->KL

Flight direct from Adelaide. Express train to KL sentral then two monorails trips + short walk to hotel.

home

2009-08-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

made it home.... trip home looked something like this:

- caught JFK shuttle at 11am from midtown to JFK
- shuttle driver insisted i needed terminal 3 i thought i needed terminal 2, checked in at terminal 3 lady told me to catch shuttle to terminal 2.
- 3 hour delay due to late plane, weather change, removing people who were on the wrong plane (hostess explaining to non english speaking italians they were on wrong plane...LOL)
- about 50% of entertainment systems were borked no sound
- arrived LAX with 2.5 hours until my AUS flight was to take off.
- first bag at carousel took 15 mins second bag took 35 mins
- walk to terminal 3 check in at vaus
- arrive syd check in at vblue, shuttle to t1
- arrive adel

carnegie deli

2009-07-28T23:17:00.000-07:00

Final day in NY.

Hit the carnegie deli for a pastrami sandwich... got some pro advice from ed, make sure you order extra bread and pickles. LOL. it looked somthing like this :

grimaldi's

2009-07-27T23:11:00.000-07:00

Pizza... well it's supposed to be good so I thought I should give it a go.

Caught the subway down to the start of the brooklyn bridge, walked the bridge and then down to Grimaldi's. Queued for 40 mins in the rain. Waited for another 20 mins before I was served. They don't serve anything smaller than a 17" pizza so I guess i had to man up and order one.

Pizza came out pretty quick and it was pretty good.

Not sure if it was worth the wait but you gotta give it a go right ?

U.S.A v. Mexico: 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup Final

2009-07-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

Went to the final at the Giants stadium, even though both the NY Jets and NY Giants play there the stadium is actually in New Jersey.

So to get there from Midtown I caught the subway -> subway -> PATH -> Giants stadium train.

Apparently this was the first time they used the new train line to Giants Stadium and it seemed like the driver was going very slow.

I didn't have a ticket so it was a bit of a gamble to go so far... and possibly not be able to get in. I walked around for a bit and there wasn't a lot of scalping action going on. Eventually I a dude with some tickets paid like $100 for a seat way up in the nose bleeds that was about 3 times the list price.

Mexico drilled the USA's "b team" 5-0.

yankee stadium

2009-07-24T23:01:00.000-07:00

Went straight from empire state to Yankee stadium to see Yankees v Oakland A's.

Yankee chef demonstrated how to cook "emoo" on the big screen. I think he meant emu.

Yankees won 8-3.

The new stadium is pretty nice, it's right next to the old stadium which i forgot to take a picture of.

empire queue building

2009-07-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

Empire state building should just be called the empire queue building. Once your inside all you do is queue.

I counted 8 seperate queues (escalator, security check, ticket, first elevator, 2nd elevator, 2nd elevator, sovenir shop, 1st elevator) to get up to the observation deck and get back down again.

I bought the express ticket so I could just walk straight past the queues, I really really hate queues so it was $20 well spent, even with the express ticket it still took well over 2 hours to do the whole thing, including about 20 mins actually outside on the deck.

tour

2009-07-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

So bit the bullet last night and booked myself on a tour... I thought it would be a good way to see a few things fairly quickly.

And like most things there are 100s of tours to choose from but one that caught my eye was a called "OnBoard". So I locked that in.

Tour included strawberry fields, upper east side, empire state, statten island, 30 rock, wall st etc.

NYC

2009-07-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

arrived NYC today via train from DC. pretty good run on the train to union station to penn station. i was on the business express, i recommend this option as you get comfortable seats with power for laptops.

the craziness of NYC hit me the second I emerged from the top of the esculator.

people, cars and a large number of dogs, everywhere.

my room is like a jail cell. fits a dbl bed and a very small desk. it's kinda good though i don't feel like i need any more space.

dumped my bags and went for a walk around, walked for a long time never made it out of the high-rise jungle. thinking about going on a tour or two, pizza tour, sopranos tour, or a general NYC tour.

museums

2009-07-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hit the museums and monuments, today and yesterday. Ratings :

Natural History - good but too many russells

American History - too much star spangled banner, but a reminder of how much fighting there was to get everyone into the "united" states. exhibit on the Appalachian through hiker guy.

Holcaust museum - lame, missed a couple of exhibits coz they were "full". exhibits i did see were lame.

Space and Air - pretty good. lots of aircraft and space rockets. some good demonstrations. too many russells.

Lincoln - solid, bigger than you expect

Washington - pretty big

Vietnam wall - big list of names

Whitehouse - it's kinda smaller than expected but also white.

nationals are like lake mead

2009-07-20T08:16:00.000-07:00

went to the baseball today at nationals park, to see the nationals play against the cubs. the cubs aren't playing that well this season but they still managed to sh*t all over the nationals 11-2. with the nationals giving up a 7 run inning somewhere in there.

i was about maybe 3 metres from a foul ball catch. i was pretty keen to show them how aussies catch without a "mit".

just as i arrived, everyone in the bar was crowded around the tv.... watching tom watson at 59 years, lose the british open to stewart cink.

go united

2009-07-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

walking to RKS stadium

game about to start.

flight to DC

2009-07-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

hmmmm struggled at the airport with sickness.

thought i was gonna faint in the security line, which isn't a good look.

eventually made it through and just in time to board with my "A" boarding pass.

we landed in baltimore around 40 mins early. everyone was happy including the hostess on the microphone, who made us sing happy birthday to a guy up the front.

they then made us wait 35 mins on the tarmac before parking the plane, and it took like forever for the bags to come out at the bag pickup so any advantage made up on the plane we lost it all.

dodgy bwi train station -> washington union. then taxi to lombardy hotel.

barter leaves

2009-07-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

boooooo !

good stories from the wsop

2009-07-12T02:22:00.000-07:00

- ivey cristal
- ivey pac man
- wrkngball please fold sign
- deeb v tonyg
- taking chips to the toilet
- fml on cafe sign
- barter's table show cards and take penalty
- betting on golf at tonyg's
- rk's never muck player
- an Italian guy at the wsop possibly didn't hold the door open for some other guy who was exiting behind him, second dude went off, "we have a new president, his name is obama, what you think im gonna suck your d**k. etc... ".

suite suite

2009-07-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

this is a good suite.....

this is a good view from the suite....

hard work

barter arrives !

2009-07-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

yay barter.

ub party last night

2009-06-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

held at studio 54 at MGM this year (last year was at the playboy at palms).

phil was dropped down from the VIP area to the main stage via a rope.

girls wearing only body paint and free drinks all night... it could get messy.

phil fist pumped ed on the way out.

finally to innout

2009-06-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

finally made it to in n out burger.

had the classic double double.

then went to Steel Panther at Green Valley Ranch.

steel panther rocks !

in n out issues

2009-06-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

in and out teases me every day i can see it but it's really hard/impossible to walk there.

WSOP

2009-06-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

the WSOP is held at the Rio conventions centre. which is out the back of the rio hotel and casino.

the main event final table is held in the penn and teller theatre which is also here at the rio. it's actually in between the main rio casino and rio convention centre.

japanese place

2009-06-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

went to a japanese place ed wanted to try.

ed orders/eats about 15 yakatori skewers.

icecream in a loaf of bread for dessert.

ok so back in the USA !

2009-06-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

10:30am adel -> syd -> lax -> 10pm las

took around 30 hours all up it's a long trip.

taxi driver didn't know where my hotel was i had to direct him.

tv shows

2008-08-06T22:59:00.000-07:00

TV shows that haven't hit aus yet ... they aren't really worth watching but maybe i'll download a few episodes :

- Run's House, reality show of Run DMC and family
- Buzzin, some music dudes who have just been signed by a label
- The Cleaner, dude kidnaps people with addictions and cleans them up
- The Recruiter (one off HBO doco, pretty good).
- Flipping Out, real estate dude

day 26 the return

2008-08-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

Involves waking up at 0530 (1am adelaide time) taxi to airport, 10 hours jetstar to sydney, tbus to t2 terminal, walk to t3 terminal, qantas flightto adelaide, taxi to home arrive like 9pm (adelaide time).

Thats 18 hours of fun fun fun.

day 25

2008-08-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

Dropped off the jeep, have to refill the "gas" tank.

All the service stations here are pre-pay and generally I have no idea how much the tank will need. So you end up having to pay and then try to get refunded after.

I try to use the swipe at the pump method, but it usually asks for a 5 digit zip. It won't accept our 4 digit post codes. I tried putting a zero in front and that worked once.

Walked around the waikiki area, more inland than previous excursions.

Lunch, swim, and reading on the beach until sunset.

Watched Predator.... then early bed gotta plane to catch. But accidentally stayed up watching stupid tv shows such as gene simmons reality tv show.

day 24 pearl harbor and pineapples

2008-08-03T02:06:00.000-07:00

Hired wrangler from dollar car rental (dollar is not good).

Drove to pearl harbor, went aboard USS Missouri and USS Bowfin.

Dole pineapple plantation for pineapple.

North shore for swim, expected big waves there weren't any.

Chinatown for dinner, then sears/radioshck for monitor cable for poker on the tv.

day 23 more decompression

2008-08-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

Japanese for lunch then looooooong swim.

Booked jeep wrangler for tomorrow.

day 22 decompression

2008-07-31T23:20:00.000-07:00

Swim, lunch at lulu's... decompression.

Then sunset catamaran cruise with mai ta'i cruises.

day 21 aloha

2008-07-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

Flight at 920am to Honolulu from Seattle Tacoma airport (known as sea-tac).

Dropped off hire car and checked in. At checkin rk bag 10 pounds over limit, so we transfer some stuff over to mine and we scrape under the limits.

Flight was basically empty so we had the whole 3 seat row to ourselves.

Taxi to the hotel and straight to food at the wolfgang puck (with a p) for pizza, then swim at the beach.

day 20 duck !

2008-07-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

Lunch at pike market, rk had a really bad crab pasta, which he rated worst meal of the trip, until i reminded him of the meal at the grand canyon.

Caught monorail back to the space needle (as with most monorails, except maybe singapore/japan, it was a complete waste of time).

Went on a duck tour, driver with mucho comedy, such as butterfly was known as caterpillar hosue and the baseball catch outside of ball park.

Apparently down close to the water, they built a lot of the city too low and the bathrooms in the buildings were actually below the water line, so at high tide ... well yer it came back up. So the y had to raise the level of the road and the first floor of most of the buildings is really the 4th floor. But the old side walks still exist 3 floors down, and they run tours thru them at night. We should have gone on one of these tours but didn't have time.

Went up to the top of the space needle, pretty good view.

Good thai much food, 21 zagat rating.

Then back to the space needle for a night view, night view might be better than day view.

Came up with new rule for when on holiday, you should get to the highest point and go on some sort of duck/bus tour the first day.

PS: Earth quake in LA today, 5.4.

day 19 seattle

2008-07-28T18:19:00.000-07:00

Drive from portland to seattle, which took about 3.5 hours. Easy drive.

Went through a town called Centralia, which I thought I recognised as the town that was abandoned due to underground coal fires.

We stopped at Wendys and asked if it was the same town the lady there didn't know anything about it. So I guess not. (We discovered later it was Centralia, Pennsylvania not Centralia, Washington). We then proceeded to cause all sorts of confusion with our orders. Monica tried to order 9 nugget meal when there was only a 10 nugget meal. I tried to order the kids burger in a combo meal, the computer locked up and the manager had to be called.

Checked into comfort suites in Seattle (near the space needle) had some GPS issues finding it. (no net in my room, grrrrr).

Booked a table at some thai restuarant but couldnt find it so we settled on pho .... pretty good pho. Then walking home we somehow misnavigated and accidentally circum navigated the entire park adding 3 km to our walk back to the hotel.

day 18 portland

2008-07-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

Sunday which means it's poker day, rk plays 8am->8pm straight.

Nai went out exploring ate at anchorsteam brewery.

Went to some grill place on the 30th floor of some building in downtown. Ranier beers are pretty cheap here $1.50 per bottle. Went to a hotel called shanghai something. Apparently in the early days if you weren't too careful you could get too drunk, fall asleep and wake up on a boat to china. There are underground tunnels from pubs like this to the docks and if they needed more people to crew the ships they would just grab you. shanghaied

Final stop before heading back to the hotel was ... Voodoo doughnuts.

day 17 portland

2008-07-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

Two sets of lost headphones
Back to harley davidson to pickup the notepad
Flight to portland on Southwest.
Waiting at the baggage claim, our bags didn't come out... :(
Checked in at Marriot and straight down to the brewer festival on the river.
Met Monica's friends (Tina/Nick) and to pub after.

day 16 gone

2008-07-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

Lunch at the same italian place, we rated as pretty much the best italian we've had.

More shopping then Dayle leaves flight @ 2240 qantas/american airlines.

Tried jack in the box, not really that good :) didnt expect it to be

day 15 dark knight

2008-07-25T18:23:00.000-07:00

Went to the 10am session of dark knight in IMAX. Pretty damn good movie and pretty damn good cinema. Desmonds sitting next to us constantly talking and someone nearby seemed to be constantly "passing wind". Tough conditions.

Sushi for lunch.

Went out to the harley davidson dealer, to get some sunglasses. Little did I know, we'd be back very soon. (Panoptx Bora).

Went to Borders and bought some books, gonna need something to read on the beach in Hawaii. :)

Went to the Golfsmith store, it hurt, clubs so cheap, really tempting to buy a set, but since I don't actually play golf hard to justify.

Mel's diner for dinner after we found 2-3 other places we'd targeted had already closed.

RK stayed in our hotel, room dirctly below us as Monica was staying at her brother's place in San Jose.

We book our flights/hotels in Portland and Hawaii.

day 14 escape to alcatraz

2008-07-23T18:04:00.000-07:00

Wake up hungover have to drop ed at the airport 9am and drop car off. Catch taxi back to hotel sleep for a bit then off to Alcatraz!

Walk back thru chinatown to hotel, find best italian food ever (used map from marriot concierge to find good food).

Buy tickets for imax/dark knight.

day 13 let's go giants let's go

2008-07-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

Drinking game at pizza place on fillermore st.
Waiter brought out complimentry jug (pitcher) just when we didnt need it, when does that ever happen ? Off to the ball park to see baseball giants v nationals...giants get a rare win.

Checked into inn at union on 440 post st. Nice 30 room hotel, after game drinks at mo's across the st. Then elbo room which was pretty good.

day 12 more san fran

2008-07-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

Checkin @ 3am , holiday inn fishermans wharf (darlene military discount)

There was a denny's in the hotel, didnt look that good but ed reckoned it actually looked better than most dennys. Back to tommy's joynt for more coopers they ran out. Ed rang them asked to put more coopers in the fridge, it didn't take long until it was all gone.

Drove over the golden gate bridge, through Sausalito to Muir woods ... big trees, crazy windy road.

Dayle pretends to not want to take the German tourists photo after they took ours, they didn't find it funni. Dont mess with German tourists in the woods.

The super slow motion claw during drinking game at Tommy's Joynt. Drunk dude interrupts our drinking game to explain his drinking game, which he thought was "heaps" better than our drinking game.

Gave all our change to the homeless guy outside... this may have been a bad idea. Parking meters only take coins !

day 11 san fran

2008-07-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

Lunch at the end of newport beach pier.

When I was driving, seemed to somehow mysteriously leave the I5 and get onto some back road. Slight detour to get back on the interstate.

Arrive in san fran stay at hilton fishermans warf, a darlene booking, darlene ed's friend called 15 hotels to find this one. All the hotels seem to be booked out here.

Randomly walk into a bar called Tommy's joynt which happens to have coopers pale plus pastrami sandwich.

On the way down saw the aftermath of a bad crash on the highway helicopter circling etc.

day 10 san diego

2008-07-20T00:40:00.000-07:00

Went to the San Diego zoo gps route was interrupted by the gay pride parade.

Saw the pandas big line up to get in and rk made us go thru twice.

Checked in at the Westin Hotel in gas lamp district, good hotel.

Most of the bars he have issues with our driver licences for ID. It was either you need a passport or a second photo ID or this photo doesn't look like you.

Ate mexican which seemed ok but Ed wasn't happy with it. Watched the hawks v saints at some Irish bar, but all bars close at 2am in California. (although 2am closing saved us on multiple occasions)

Ed started to hatch a plan to go to tijuana to get more beer.

day 9 the road trip begins

2008-07-19T00:27:00.000-07:00

So Monica's car full of stuff as she is moving to san fran, so we booked a rental car and was told it would be ready for collection from the mirage in 2 hours, debacle ensues:
- walk to mirage, car not there
- catch shuttle to rental office, takes about 1 year for the dude to do the paperwork then about another year for the dude to let us out the car park.
- drive back to the palazzo, check out, walk back to mirage to meet ed
- dollar rental car counter now closed so cant add him as a driver
- drive to airport to the dollar rental place, ad ed as driver

So the road trip can now commence, takes about 5 secs to realise our GPS is shite.

Drive to san diego
- dodgy smoking hotel room
- imagine a room where someone is smoking for 3 years, its not going to smell good
- no rooms anywhere due to gay pride
- first night of the hotel hopping
- gps is hopeless

day 8 beer pong

2008-07-19T00:22:00.000-07:00

Bbworld continues and ends.

Cirque du Soleil LOVE. Pretty damn good, one of the best shows I've seen.

Then d/m/r ridiculous sized drinks on the way to oshea, osheas for beer pong, meet ed

In one of those ridiculous moments in world sport, monica/dayle beat two dudes challenging our table with their first shot.

day 7 - the blue man group

2008-07-14T00:16:00.000-07:00

Bbworld starts with sessions all day.

Had a break for lunch 2 hour window, attempted to go to pool, but it was closed due to thunder ... cmon how often is the pool closed in vegas.

Went and saw the blue man group at the venetian, I hadn't really heard of them until Arrested Development, when Tobias gets a call up.

Went to Jasmine for dinner (pretty HT) saw johnny chan the master there.

day 6 - dday

2008-07-14T00:11:00.000-07:00

We gave our presentation, which went quite well, no technical issues at all.

Bbworld kicks off, with the keynote from Steve Wozniak, who comes in on a segway, drove a few laps around high fiving the audience.

Saw phil hellmuth buying chips at bellagio

Dinner @ noodles @ bellagio

Mandaly bay, light fixation, 66th floor night club, good view of vegas.

day 5 - grand canyon

2008-07-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

Hummer picked us up from the palazzo, to the hard rock cafe, where we hired a hummer. Drove the hummer via hoover dam to the grand canyon car park.

Helicopter ride down to the bottom of the canyon, then a boat ride in the colarado river.

- attempted lotus restaurant but closed for reno
- ate at grand lux
- bits fell off the hummer, hummer's maybe not that solid
- store pizza, wings and things on the way at some springs place

day 4

2008-07-13T23:57:00.000-07:00

Not much today. Prep for the presentation we have to give on tuesday.

day 3

2008-07-12T23:51:00.000-07:00

Went to the mirage casino to see the tiger cubs. I can't believe they have zoo at the mirage with dolhpins,tigers,lions for dinner went to in & out burger, saw jay leno there.

day 2 vegas

2008-07-12T23:50:00.000-07:00

- hnl -> vegas
- nearly got done by 2 hour checkin time
- dayle attempt to buy chips in vendo
- got 3 seats to ourselves by moving one row back
- take off was around 2pm arrived vegas 11pm
- scary landing due to thunder storms and lightning
- on touch down aussie dude yelling at the back "vegas baby, vegas wohooooo "
- he also mentioned that he was staying at the luxor (the brightest light in the world)
- got to palazzo... pretty nice room
- rk/monica comes over from their room at the venetian
- go for food at the grand lux

day 1 aloha

2008-07-11T18:26:00.000-07:00

adl -> syd
syd -> hawaii (10 hours) arrived 7amish (3 seats to ourselves at the back of the plane)

There were a lot of american school kids maybe wrestlers also on the plane, seemed like it might have been a good idea to upgrade, tried to upgrade but it was full.

When we arrived airport seemed deserted and it was a long walk to ATM for our first USD.
Caught the shuttle to our hotel Resort Quest Waikiki Beach hotel, (shuttle bus which was mistake, taxi better). Straight to beach for swim, lunch then another beach swim, breaking the 45 min rule. Catamaran sunset cruise then PF changs for dinner.