Archive for December, 2009

Well, it is almost the last day of the year! Have we accomplished all we wanted to get done this year? Ha, me neither. But I hope we all end this year on a good note and start the new year on the right foot.

What did we do today? Basically nothing. Stayed home all day, had a cook out, felt an earthquake, and went to Card Bingo tonight. Felt an earthquake? Yep, you read right. Let me point you to the article that was posted only a few hours after the quake today. You can click HERE to read it. The link will open in a new window.

I was sitting in the RV at the time of the earthquake and felt the camper shake a little for about 3 or 4 seconds, nothing violent, just a vibration shake. I wasn’t worried or afraid or anything, but it did get my attention. I went outside after and saw others coming out from their homes and talking about it. I’ve never experienced the feel of an earthquake before, that was pretty cool. In Yuma, it was reported as a magnitude-3.9 quake. There was no noise to it, I didn’t find a crack in the earth, no RVs around us sank, it was just a rumble of the earth. That was pretty cool (I know I said that already). We don’t have those in New Hampshire. Maybe we do, but they are too small to notice.

Okay, enough about that. If the snowflakes on the screen are driving you nuts, it’s just a passing snow storm that will just last into tomorrow evening.

Tonight we went to Card Bingo, but we didn’t win anything. Tomorrow we have a New Year’s Party to go to, so we will be out pretty late, so I’ll do a quick blog posting tomorrow night just to say Hi, but don’t expect too much

You have a good night and I’ll be back tomorrow. And thanks for checking on me!

Hi! You are going to suffer today, because I’m in a real yappy mood! Alot happened today too! Lucky you, huh? LOL!

Well, my blackberry wasn’t working during these past few weeks, and because of it’s malfunction, I was getting to the point of getting 3G digital panic attacks. So this morning I dropped it off at a Nextel Authorized Service Center here in Yuma. After I told them that I do have insurance on my Blackberry they told me that it would take 45 minutes to look it over and try to repair it. Fine. So I left the Blackberry there for the afternoon (separation anxiety – yep, now I know how that feels – you laugh, but there’s a reason why they call it “Crack”berry).

I called them two hours after they had it and I was explained that upon inspection of my Blackberry they had found some corrosion inside my phone due to liquid damage. Huh? Wait a minute, I take good care of my Blackberry! It’s a part of me, like a third arm!!

So they told me that if I talk on my phone excessively, my sweat left on the phone could of caused the damage. I am in no way impressed by their answer. So they continue to tell me that liquid damage wasn’t covered under my insurance policy and if I wanted to submit an insurance claim there is a $100 deductible. HUH? Whatever! I told them I’ll be down to get my phone.

So after I hung up with them, I called Nextel and inquired about my options. Nextel told me that I could get a brand new Blackberry for $150, but I’d have to wait until March, my one year purchase anniversary on the Blackberry I have now.

Yeah Exactly! Did you get that…my Blackberry didn’t even make it one year. Okay, I may use it over excessively, I admit, I read and reply to my emails on it, my 21 rss feeds comes through 30 times a day, I get tweeted and I got to tweet back, my 10 text messages an hour, my news websites to keep me up with reality, check my bank accounts (again to keep me IN reality ), blah, blah, blah.

I don’t sweat over it, I don’t drool all over it, I don’t drop it. I mean, seriously, on my bed I have three pillows, one for me, one for Jake, and one for my Blackberry. Yes, I am a tad traumatized by this hic-cup with my phone’s behavior. It wasn’t working right, have you ever seen CPR done to a Blackberry……well, you should of been here then. I was in complete chaos. I don’t like it when something I depend on to make my life run smoother breaks.

So, anyways, I go back down to the service center and pick up my phone. What was wrong with my Blackberry is that the trackball wasn’t working right…I couldn’t scroll around the screen or use any of the menu options. So, I picked up my phone from the service center and the guy gave me information to submit a claim to repair my phone. I took the information and left. On the way home I was fidgeting with the trackball on my device and something must of snapped under the trackball, because it decided to work! It’s working!!!! The trackball works great now. So, I’m assuming that once the service guy opened up the device, some “corrosion” must of loosed up and released the tension of the trackball. The Blackberry Gods love me again!!! Yes! Okay, so my life is back on track again. My Blackberry is back to normal and yes, so am I……

What else did we do today? Jake got him nails clipped at a local pet grooming shop here next to our RV park. He needed it. And for lunch today…..take a peek….

It was delicious! I think I’ll make another one tomorrow. What else did we do today? We squeezed some more orange juice with our electronic juice maker and I made some more lemonade. I’m practically living on lemonade now.

Okay, this evening we didn’t have much to do, so we decided that we could eat dinner at the Paradise Casino. I know, I know, I know we said we would not gamble again this year, but tonight was the lassssssst time we would gamble this year…….just tonight, this was the last time….no more gambling this year! Ha!

But, you won’t believe what happened to me at the casino tonight. You aren’t going to believe me, but I swear this is what happened. I was sitting at a slot machine and I put 50 dollars in it. This guy sits down next to me (he was around my age – no, I’m not telling you how old I am ), so he hit a bonus feature on his slot machine. Cool! His slot machine rings and he gets 50 free spins. Wow! The winnings can really add up on a slot machine bonus round with 50 free spins.

So, I sit there playing my slot machine. And as the balance on my machine is going down, his balance is going up. Of course! So, we small talk it about how lucky he is, blah, blah, blah and he asks me how much I’m down tonight. So I look at my balance and it says $33.80, so I tell him I’m down about 20 bucks. So he says, “I believe in Karma, when I cash out my bonus money, I’ll give you $20 dollars so you will be where you were when you started.” My mind goes blank…..I mean, what’s the chances of that happening?? Noooo, this is not a dream….it really happened….now stay with me here.

So, I look at his balance and his bonus feature gave him $223.00. Well, I don’t feel so bad about taking $20 dollars of that if he’s offering it…..and no, he doesn’t want anything in return….I hope he doesn’t. He cashes his bonus out and passes me $20 dollars out of his pocket. I ask “Are you sure you want to give me this money?” He says, “I’m not suppose to be here. If my wife finds out I was even thinking about going to a casino, she’s a mean Mexican, she would get out her brass knuckles, and she’s not shy with them.” Oh boy. So I take my part of his bonus winnings and we say bye and go our separate ways.

So, I have now considered this $20 dollar bill my lucky charm. So I put it in my jacket pocket and head over to the Keno machine in the back of the casino. (Mr. $223 winner walks out the door). I take out another $20 dollar bill (not his $20 dollar bill, that’s my lucky charm) and I put my $20 dollars in the Keno machine and play 8 numbers on my Keno card.

I get down to about $12 dollars and I hit 7 out of 8 numbers on my card! 7 out of 8 numbers! And the display on my Keno screen says I won 1,652 quarters! 1,652 quarters!!!!! That’s $413 dollars! Wow! So, I put my hand in my jacket pocket and think, “Yep, my lucky $20 dollar bill is still there. I’ll hang on to that for a while.” So at the end of the night, when we left the casino, I had my lucky $20 dollar bill from Mr. bonus feature winner and I had a couple of hundred dollar bills. I am a happy camper.

So, here I am back at home and I’m not sure what we are up to tomorrow, but hey, don’t forget to come back and check on me! Have a great night. I’ll be back to yap tomorrow! Hey, my question of the day! Tell me, do you have a lucky charm?? Tell me what your lucky charm is and where did you get it? Did you find it, did you buy it…..tell me about your lucky charm!

Hi! WOW, I love all the comments that came in. I would of approved them earlier today but my Blackberry is not working properly, so I had to log on to my netbook to approve them tonight for them to get posted. Thank you for coming along with me on this trip.

Today we explored the casinos of Southern California. How exciting! We started off this morning enjoying the buffet at the Quechan Casino just over the California line, not a bad price too at $4.95 with a magic players card. And with my points that I’ve accumulated, the total cost of the breakfast buffet came out to be Free for me! I love a free buffet. After the buffet…..no, we didn’t spend a dime in that casino today….we left and the first casino we went to was La Posta Casino on the La Posta Indian Reservation. It’s a very small casino off Exit 61 on I-8. There’s about 350 slot machines there. I did pretty good there. Came out with a $20 profit. Don’t get too excited, we’ve got two more casinos to go to. Ha! There’s another casino right off the same exit on the other side of the highway called the Golden Acorn Casino. I’m getting ahead of myself again. I’ll continue to tell you about the journey in a second, just let me show you some pictures on our way to Exit 61……

There’s a lot of rocks and boulders on the side of the highway on our way over to the casinos…..Back home we have grass and trees around our highways, but no grass and trees anywhere to be found here……

I got a comment from someone that said, “Why would you post pictures of the highway, we all know what a highway looks like”. Geez, I can’t make everyone happy. I laughed out loud and deleted that comment……moving on…..here’s a picture of the highway…..

Here’s another picture of the highway…….

Look what we came upon….(and another picture of the highway )……

Huge windmills! What a beautiful sight. Okay, we made it, here’s a picture of the La Posta Casino. This is 1 mile off the highway and it’s just looks like a warehouse on the outside. So when you get off the exit and turn right, go straight, and when you come to a warehouse with an entrance that looks like this, you found it…..

Here’s the Golden Acorn. You can see this casino from the highway. Take Exit 61 and turn left instead of right and you are there……

We spent 1 hour at La Posta (small casino with 350 slot machines) and two hours at Golden Acorn Casino. Golden Acorn Casino has 750 slot machines. I looked up all this information on the internet before we ventured out…..

Okay, we made it to Viejas Casino!! I like this one a lot. It’s got an outdoor mall across the street….more of an outlet center……Nike, Wilson Leather, Nine West…..

Now, I know that casino security frowns upon taking pictures inside a casino, but I’ve never seen any warning sign like this one before, “If you take a photograph or video inside this casino, your camera will be confiscated.” So, I put my camera in my pocket where it stayed……

Oh, this casino has 2,500 slot machines and this casino is off Exit 36 (I think) 20 miles west of Exit 61, definitely worth a pit stop if you are passing through the area. The casino is 2 miles off I-8. We played the slot machines here for 2 hours…..I lost some money here. I have to say that this casino is huge and if you lose the person you are with inside this casino, well, good luck finding that person. It’s like a super maze in there…..casino rooms attached to casino rooms. You can really get lost in this place. We did get a magic players card here and we enjoyed the prime rib dinner buffet here for $7.96……..yep, for $7.96 you can enjoy all the prime rib you can eat….it was super delicious too! You’ve got to stop here…….here’s some pictures of the outlet shops (there’s 60 stores here)……

Oh, and look what I found sitting at the San Diego Visitor’s Center at the outlet mall……hmmmm…….you know what I’m thinking……did we hit all the casinos or did we miss a few?? ha!

Anyways, I flipped through this magazine (I don’t know if I should call it a magazine with only about 8 pages in it), but it looks like there are two more casinos in the area that we missed……maybe another trip at another time. We got home around 7:30pm and spent some time with Jake walking him to the mail center here at the RV park to check the mail and then fed him. He’s doing great and tomorrow will be a Jake Day and a Blackberry Day (there’s a repair shop down the street here)! OH, one more thing, we are all done gambling! Yes, we are! We all said we are not going to gamble anymore this year! LOL!!! Have a great night and thanks for the comments, you all make my day so much better!

Hi! How’s everyone holding up up north? Thanks for coming along for the ride. First I want to say that so far in this whole blog I’ve received 30 comments! Now, don’t you think for once that I don’t read every single one of these comments, because I do. I have to approved the comments before they are posted on my site, so, yes, I read them all. I love all the comments and they really do make my day! So, don’t by shy to say Hi, tell me what you are doing, tell me the temperature where you are!

So, what did I do today? We went to the movies! I have never in my life been to the movies so many times as I have this last month. I’ve seen three movies in the last month….Old Dogs, Avatar, and today I saw It’s Complicated. This movie is a total “chick flick” and of course, I loved it!! This movie has Steve Martin, Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin in it and provides a great story that can realistically hit “home” with some people. I’m not going to spoil it and tell you the story but if you are a “chick flick” lover, you will thoroughly enjoy this movie!

After the movies we returned home and I took Jake out on a bicycle ride around the RV Park. I’m trying to take him out earlier in the and not in the evening because it gets a little chilly out after 6pm. Today’s high temperature was 62 and it drops to about 50 at night.

Oh, I don’t have pictures today, but I will have some tomorrow. Tomorrow we are venturing out. We are leaving pretty early and hopping over to the Golden Acorn Casino and La Posta Casino two hours from here towards San Diego. I think San Diego is three hours from here. But these casinos are right off I-8, off the same exit, so it’s super easy to get to, but it just takes two hours to get there. Let’s see how my luck is in Southern California! I’ll be taking my camera along with me! And Tuesday is a big day for me too because Tuesday I’ll be getting my Blackberry fixed! So, now I’m going to feed Jake and watch some TV before calling it a night because tomorrow we are getting up real early – Ugh! Have a good night. Oh, hey, tell me….did you get anything cool for Christmas….tell me what ya got??

Hi! We are being pretty predictable now in our day to day routine, huh? Ha! This morning we went to the Flea Market….yes, Jake went too! Everyone was returning gifts at Walmart so the Flea Market was not busy at all. We bought a water filter for the RV and Jake made some friends there. I saw five other little dogs walking around the flea market.

After we left the flea market, we came back home and relaxed. Real eventful day so far, huh? Around 2pm, our neighbor….yeah, the one that made all that delicious food yesterday….knocked on our door and wanted to know who wanted to go to the Quechan Casino. We really didn’t have to put much thought into it and we all climbed in the car Off to the Casino….

At the casino we ate at the buffet – only $6.95 for lunch buffet with your magic player’s card! And we played the slot machines for a couple of hours. I lost. Well, I started off winning, but then eventually lost. Should of stopped while I was…..nah, I’m not going to say it! LOL!

Anyways, we are back home relaxing now and I just got done feeding Jake. I thought we would hit the movies today, but hopefully we will go to the movies soon. Adult ticket for an afternoon movie is $6.50 – over 55 years old is $5 bucks! Not bad at all.

So that’s all we did today and we are watching TV. We didn’t sign up for cable here so we are limited to our channel selection.  I’ve never watched “That ’70s Show” before, but I’m slowly getting use to watching it. Maybe I’ll change the channel and go back to watching “Cops”. Have a good night!

Hi! I’ve never had Christmas dinner outside before. Normally there’s always snow around me back home, cold temperatures, and a warm home. Last winter we spent Christmas in Las Vegas and ate Christmas dinner at the Binion Casino. But today was a pleasant experience. Our wonderful neighbor made us Christmas dinner and, yes, we enjoyed it outside in the perfect weather with great company. I’ve got pictures……

Doesn’t all that food look great! Thank you to our neighbor for all her hard work cooking up a wonderful Christmas dinner!

We also had desert after dinner which was just as delicious, it was hard to decide what to save room for. There was 7 of us together today! Jake enjoyed the day too laying on my lawn chair, he behaved himself. I know you are wondering about gifts, but we didn’t exchange gifts at all. Just to be here on this trip is a gift by itself, I’m sure you would all agree with me about that

I’m stuffed with food and relaxing the rest of the night. I can see Jake is already sleeping, but it’s early and I’ll take him out for one more walk before calling it a night. I hope your day was just as enjoyable as mine.

And one more time before the day is out – Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Merry Christmas!

It’s 11pm here and it’s 1am back home so it’s Christmas Day back home, and soon to be Christmas Day here in Arizona! Let me tell you about my day today and I’ll leave you with a little Christmas treat at the end of this blog entry (pictures and a song)…..

This morning we didn’t do much but sit around outside and shoot the breeze…..I like doing that….just relaxing and enjoying good company. The sun was high and it was a beautiful day out with a slight breeze……exactly how I like December.

OH, I almost forgot…I did some research today and found two local companies in Yuma that fixes Blackberries…..I called one of them up this morning and they told me that they can fix it for free because I have an insurance plan on my Blackberry. They reopen after the holidays and I can wait that long…..I think

This afternoon we stopped by the Paradise Casino. I know we said we wouldn’t be going to any more casinos this week, but it wasn’t my idea, I just get in the car and follow everyone else. I’m innocent! Ha! I lost today at the casino, oh well. I’m use to it….

Tonight I took the electric bicycle out with Jake and snapped some pictures around the park…..I’ll leave you with pictures and a little song.

No, this next picture isn’t our Montana…..It sure is pretty though….

Okay, here’s a Christmas song for you….you can sing this to the tune of “Walking In A Winter Wonderland”……

Palm trees wail, are you listening,
in the pool, water’s glistening,
we are happy tonight
living in a desert wonderland.

Gone away, is the blizzard,
here to stay, is the lizard,
a warm sunny day,
living in a desert wonderland.

In the desert we will have a picnic,
road runners, cactus flowers, and sun,
Christmas dinner is an old tradition,
salsa and tamales by the ton.

Later on we’ll perspire,
as the temperatures rise even higher,
a warm sunny day,
we like it that way,
living in a desert wonderland.

(Lyrics Website Credit is Here)

Okay! Now I want to say Merry Christmas To Jake….

Yep, he’s out cold.

My family and I wish everyone of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. A special holiday wish goes out to all the men and women in the armed forces! Thank you for what you do for us and God bless you and your family….

Good night!

Sigh. Hi. Sigh. Should I start this blog posting on a good note or end it on a good note. Well, I’m heartbroken and I’m in need of a Blackberry repair shop, quick! No, it’s not because of the email failure that Blackberry was recently experiencing. No, my Blackberry has a trackball that moves me around the screen and the trackball died. I can still make phone calls, but I can’t text, surfing the internet, or, sniff, check my email. Sob!!! It’s like….it’s like….it’s like a regular common cell phone now that can just make phone calls and get voice mail messages. Ugh! Who leaves voice mail anymore…..I need email, internet access to check my social networking sites, and access to daily news sites! My life has come to an abrupt halt. I mean, 75% of my life lives in cyber-world….like an Avatar – Ha!

Okay, enough about that. I’ll get it fix, don’t you worry about me. Because if I can’t get it fixed or if I have to send it into some repair warehouse in the middle of India, I’ll be buying a new one. I can’t go that long without my Blackberry. Okay, like I said, enough about that…..

Okay, so we didn’t do anything today, didn’t go anywhere today. Just a nice relaxing day. I took Jake for a walk around the park. Visited our neighbor. And today is Wednesday so it’s Card Bingo night at the recreation hall here at this RV Park. We won a little bit of money and a “grab bag” with goodies in it. Not much in the bag, just a deck of cards, and some other little household common stuff. How much money did we win tonight at Card Bingo? 5 dollars and 80 cents and there are four people on a team to play Card Bingo, so that is….$1.45 each. Not bad and we had a lot of fun!

Tonight we are watching TV. So that’s my day today. The simple life. Not sure what we are doing tomorrow, but it will consist of scouting for a Nextel repair shop. Have a nice night. Chat tomorrow!

Hi! Well, I don’t have any pictures for you today. Whoa, don’t leave me now…I gotta tell you about my day! I didn’t do much today, but for me, it was a great day!

I went to the movies! Dad wanted to see “Avatar” (click Here to watch movie trailer, it will open in a new window) and I really didn’t see any commercials about it….so I went along, not sure what it was about. This is a very good movie and James Cameron, once again, put together special ingredients for action packed entertainment. The movie is 165 minutes long and delivers a great story, impressive graphics, and action that did make me jumpy at times! I’m not going to tell you about the movie in case you want to see it. But I will tell you that it was worth the price of admission…..

Today was a very windy day. The awning on the RV came in and the chairs were picked up and stored away. Things were blowing around everywhere and Mom said she saw a Christmas tree working its way down the street in control of the wind. I saw in the news today that this wind surge caused quiet a wreck in Phoenix today, you can read about it by clicking Here.

After the movies, we went out to dinner at KFC 1 mile from the RV Park that we are staying at and tonight, yep, you know what we did tonight…..

Casino Time! We stopped by the Quechan Casino and I lost, lost, lost…..got nothing out of that casino. On the way home, some of us (there are 5 of us) wanted to stop at Paradise Casino and majority won, so we stopped and boy, am I glad we did! I won $100 at Keno, $100 at Wheel Of Fortune, and $219 at some volcano themed slot machine that I can’t remember the name of! I’ve lost enough money until now, it’s was time for the tide to turn. So, now we are home and it’s late. I’m sure this blog will post for the 23rd of December, but to me, it’s still the 22nd.

Not too sure what we are doing tomorrow, but we all decided no more casino until next week……..okay, you can stop laughing now. Have a good night!

Hi! I’m blogging a little early today because it is Monday and you know what that means…..Bingo tonight! I’m settling in nicely into my retirement schedule: Monday is Bingo, Tuesday  is swimming, Wednesday is Card Bingo….yeah, and it goes on and on….I love it!

Anyways, today we went to pick fruit….we’ve done this many times before and it is always something I look forward to. Yep, I’ve got some pictures!!!

I see the prices have gone up from last year…..hey, to be expected……

Yeah, they have “pets” here…sheep, miniature horses, and roosters!

You use these tools to get the fruit off the tree that is high off the ground…..I’ll show ya how to use it

Okay, got my bucket – follow me!

Ohhh, there they are……

See, there are plenty around…..

They have oranges and grapefruits…....let’s get to work!

We were there for about 30 minutes and look at all we picked! There were five us there picking fruit and filling up the buckets!

This place is pretty big….rows and rows of trees……

I found a lemon tree too!

Time to come home and make some fresh juice. We usually use our electric juicer, but decided to try this contraption out. Don’t ask me how old this thing is, but it sure works great! I guess we had it hanging around the house and decided to bring it with us. This is the first I’m seeing of this thing…..

Well, that’s all we did today. Off to Bingo and tomorrow I’m off to see the movie Avatar!!! I’ll let ya know how it is without spoiling it for you! Have a good night. Chat tomorrow!