Off to Vegas...

I am packing today as tomorrow I leave for Las Vegas! :) I'll be there from Sunday - Friday. The main reasons I am going for is to see Celine. I have been wanting to go see her for the longest time, Since this is apparently her last year doing her show in Vegas I just had to go. It's sort of my belated b-day gift for myself. The show is on Wednesday so the rest of the time I am there is up for whatever mood I am in.

I am not going without any idea of where I want to go. Food Network has done some neat shows of Vegas so I downloaded the guides from the shows $40 a Day, The Hungry Detective, and Food Finds. So you may find see me at these places for breakfast, brunch, lunch, and/or dinner:

- Palms Hotel - Sunrise Cafe
- Sam's Town Firelight Buffet
- Freed's Bakery
- Bahama Breeze
- Ellis Island Casino & Brewery
- Nora's Cuisine
- Joyful House
- Mermaids Casino
- Binion's Ranch Steakhouse
- Executive Sweets
- Big Mama's Rib Shack
- Selma's Cookies
- Aranda's Tortillas

Now for shows some that I am considering going to are:

- World Famous Popovich Comedy Pet Theater at the V Theater
- John Stagliano's Fashionistas at the Empire Ballroom
- La Cage at the Riviera Hotel and Casino
- The Ultimate Variety Show at the V Theater
- Burlesque at the Flamingo Hotel

So excited! Now I just go need to finish packing. I am taking only the bare minimum needed so that it will hopefully fit all into a carry-on bag. Don't fell like having to wait for baggage. Aaron will be joining me there and he's been to Vegas before so I'm sure he'll have some neat places to go to also. Well off to finish. :) Have a good week yawl !!!

Afternoon...

So apparently I don't know where Steele Indian School Park is located. That's where the Phoenix Gay Pride Parade and Festival is happening. I should have checked directions before heading out.

Upon not finding the park I decided then to head to the Arizona Book Festival. The first thing I noticed when I got there was that many people had Target Branded tush cushions. So apparently this event is co-sponsored by Target and SRP and of course they had the biggest tents. With its branded give-aways, Target made the biggest splash. Whether you were at the Target area or not you knew Target was present. Everywhere you looked someone was carrying one or more Target Branded tush cushions.

Morning...

It's a gorgeous day on Phoenix. Clear skies with a little bit of cool wind. Perfect for the cup of coffee. All outdoor events today will enjoy a just marvelous day.



I wasn't expecting to wake up as early as I did. I went to sleep around midnight. I normally get up at around 4am, but that's when I go to bed at my normal time. Since I was out yesterday at the Maricopa County Fair. I missed my normal bedtime. So I expected to wake up at around 7am, however my roommate and his friends stayed up all night so from time to time I was awakened by their loud noise and I ended getting up at around 5:30ish am. I took a long shower to wake up. Since I was up might as well do some things I wanted to do.



Off I went a few minutes before 8am to the Downtown Phoenix Public Market. It's a quaint little market that springs up on Saturdays 8am - 1pm. There are vendors of local produce, mostly family owned farms. A few arts and crafts vendors, a hand made soap vendor, one farm fresh eggs vendor, and various fruit, vegetable, and herb vendors. It was my first time going. I got some gorgeous on-the-vine tomatoes and some very luscious looking green tomatoes, and some peppers that I will be stuffing with cheese, yum. I almost purchased a pepper and tomatoe plant, but I knew it wouldn't survive my care. I have managed to grow basil, cilantro, parsley, dill, marjoram, chives, and thyme on my kitchen window sill. In actuality my dill, thyme, and chives aren't doing so good. So before into fruits and vegetables, I should get a handle of growing my favorite herbs first. My best looking herb right now is basil. Its aroma is delicious in the kitchen. One vendor was selling tamales and breakfast burritos. They even had vegan burritos. Awesome!! I'm not vegetarian mush less vegan and I might never be, so I got a chorizo burrito with spicy hot salsa. It was delicious.



After the market I went to Starbucks for a regular coffee to have with the burrito Picked up some espresso beans covered in dark chocolate. I love them. I'm going to keep them at work in the event I need a pick me up on any given morning.

Hope everyone has a great morning!!!

Maricopa County Fair

Just came back from the Maricopa County Fair. I went with Aaron and his some of his friends. Everything was overpriced from parking to rides to food. Of course that is to be expected of any fair right. I had a good time though. I 'm not a rides person(I'll vomit very easily) so I only got on the Ferris Wheel(i got nauseas on the first couple of rounds). I also won a prize at shooting darts through balloons. Well, can't really say won cause I did pay $20 to play, but it was fun nonetheless..

Tomorrow is full of events and am not sure that I'll get to go to them all. First there's the Phoenix Gay Pride Parade and Festival. It starts at 11am. Then there's also the Arizona Book Festival. That starts at 10am. I also have been wanting to go to the Downtown Phoenix Public Market that is only open on Saturdays from 8am - 1pm. So if I wake early enough I would go to the market, then the book fair, then the parade and festival. However I highly doubt that I will be waking up early enough on my day off. So instead I may end up going to the parade, then the market, then the book festival, and lastly the gay pride festival. I may not go to that last one. You pay for parking, to get into the festival, and then anything in there will be overpriced(although this is expected of on any event i.e. baseball stadium, state fair, street fairs), plus there will be people drinking and smoking... not my thing. I am very unlike most gay guys. Well of to sleep, y'all have a good one.

Cookout...

Had a cookout today with my roommates. I purchased the items, onions, chicken, lemons, cool whip, etc. I got the items to be grilled ready in different containers. My cousin prepared the grill and grilled the food. I tried cooking the tortillas on the grill but I got distracted and next thing I know they were on fire. Aaron made dessert, cool whip and Jello pies, YUM! Then watched Little Miss Sunshine while eating. Now I am just washing dishes and putting the leftovers away. Pic is of dessert. :)

Uneekays and Nana's Sassy Salsa!

As you know last Friday I went to the Tempe Festical of the Arts with my roommates. There were hundreds of artists. The website says:

More than 400 fine artists and crafts persons display and sell their original work amid a street festival atmosphere throughout Tempe’s Mill Avenue District.

There were also an area that offered original recipe creations such as salsas, jams, herbal arts, handmade soaps, soup mixes and other such stuff. I love salsas. I always like trying new salsas with different flavors. I especially like the spicy ones. As soon as I saw the salsa section I wanted to rush through since I was planning on not buying any this time as I still have a couple jars of salsa from Summers Fruit Barn which is where I like going to get my locally made salsas. I do get salsas from Whole Foods, Target, and Fry's, but I prefer to support the locally made ones.

Anyways, as soon as we started down the path of the salsas, the first vendor offered us to try their salsas. They asked me if i would like to try spicy or sweet. Of course I went for the spicy. So I got a sample from the one called Uneekays Pepper Sauce. What a punch!!! It was VERY hot! I loved it. Then I got to try the one called Tamarind Chutney. It was really good, but not spicy. So in the end I got both of them. If you get a chance you should try this stuff. Their name is Uneekays, and they list themselves as authentic Caribbean chutneys and spices.

We continued down the salsa area and Nana from Nana's Sassy Salsa invited us to try her salsa. I tried the Habanero. At first taste you get the full flavor of the tomatoes and spices in the salsa, and then suddenly and without warning your mouth gets a punch of HOT from the habanero peppers. Oh my how delightful that felt. I had to get it. Her salsas are made and bottled locally in Chandler, Arizona. Check out her products at her website: Nana's Sassy Salsa

April fooled by Google

So I went to the google website and today they have a link:

New! Get FREE breakthrough broadband with Google TiSP (BETA).

so I was all interested in it as it sounded truly groundbreaking. Free broadband Internet through my toilet, weird but neat at the same time. I read the FAQ and the instructions on how it works. Then when I get to the next page there is an error page that says the below:

Google Error

Not Found The requested URL was not found on this server. There are so many reasons that this might have happened we can scarcely bring ourselves to type them all out. You might have typed the URL incorrectly, for instance. Or (less likely but certainly plausible) we might have coded the URL incorrectly. Or (far less plausible, but theoretically possible, depending on which ill-defined Grand Unifying Theory of physics one subscribes to), some random fluctuation in the space-time continuum might have produced a shatteringly brief but nonetheless real electromagnetic discombobulation which caused this error page to appear. Or (and truth be told, this is by far the most likely scenario) you might have reached a page that we meant to create but didn't get around to it, since this year's April Fool's joke got hacked together at the last minute, more or less the same way this one did. And this one. And this one, and this one, and this one...

So yeah, I got April fooled by Google... :) had a good laugh about it too :) You all have a good Day!!!

Caress Exotic Oil Infusions Cream Oil Body Wash, Japanese

I went to K-Mart last week and saw this new body wash "exotic" Body Wash by Caress. It's delicious. There are several types on this exotic line, Japanese, Moroccan, etc.

The Japanese is the one I have been using. It has a lovely neutral scent that is not overpowering. A tiny bit on a mesh poof or mesh sponge lathers amazingly well and leaves your skin silky smooth and soft.

Tempe Festival of the Arts, March Birthdays, and other rants...

This month was full of Birthdays... Mine was over a week ago.. Normally, I take the whole week of my birthday off, but this year my b-day was on my normal day off and, since I did not plan any trips as I normally would I just worked my normal week.

If you have read my previous posts, then you know I like Christmas Cards and keep them filed. I like b-day cards almost as much. I got the expected B-day card from my mother. I love her. Other b-day wishes are always hit and miss. This year, I got a phone call b-day wish from Marla and a verbal one from my cousin, Jerry. His mother sent me b-day wishes from Texas. I also received several other verbal and online B-day wishes. My aunt, Gloria and her fam sent me a card. Aaron gave me a card. I even got a B-day Card from JcPenny and Ace Hardware. I was expecting one from my co-workers, but I didn't receive one. I did not even receive a verbal Happy B-day wish from anyone in the team.

At work, I am the one who ensures there's a b-day card for each person's b-day and one cake a month to celebrate the birthdays of the month. Since I am the one who keeps track of b-days then I made sure I mentioned when my b-day was at the beginning of the year, a month before my birthday and a week before my b-day, in hopes someone would remember and get a b-day card they could sign. Didn't happen of course. The people who would have remembered are either no longer working with the company or have moved to a different department/building. So I am done doing B-days for work. I'll still send Happy B-Day wishes to them, but I am no longer using my time and money on it. So moving on....

Today is/was my cousin Jerry's B-day... I took him out to his choice of place for dinner. There's cake and Ice cream pending for tomorrow as we were too full after dinner. We had a great day however. We went to the Tempe Festival Of the Arts. (Marna Schindler is the artist of the funky chicken picture) Parking wasn't free but the event was... It's been so long since I have been to downtown Tempe. It was nice. We parked near new condos being built(wish I could afford one)whose builder was sponsoring the event, along with a radio staion and others. We walked down the booths of exotic art, wild and still photography, creative art designers, southwest vendors ranging from clothing and decorative items to spicy and sweet salsas. It was Awesome! Today was the first day of the event. It will run through Sunday.

Since we were in downtime Tempe. We got to go to a store called Lotions and Potions. I got some foot Fizzies. Ever so often I enjoy a footbath and I was running low on Foot Fizzies. Usually my mother sends me some from AVON, but I only have one left of those.

Another store that's in downtown Tempe is Trails. A store for all your smoking needs. I don't smoke myself but, several days ago I was chatting with some of my co-workers about smoking and we came upon the topic of cloves. So I had to get some. Once In a blue moon I get the need for a clove.

So in all everything I did today seemed to fall in sync. From waking up in the morning to go back to sleep to wake up several hours later and enjoy Jerry's B-day while ejoying the art festival and the nifties I had been wanting to get.


Oh... In case you read my New Day has come post... I got my tickets for the Celine Dion concert... I will be going in May... I'll be in Vegas for almost a whole week in May... I also have my room reserved at a resort already... Now I just need to decide whether to drive or fly... my inclination is to fly as I would get there almost instantly and would not need to stop and gas up, and the way gas is going, paying for roundtrip airfare to Vegas would be less expensive than driving...

Beans...

So I was cooking beans and I got distracted and they burned.

Weeds and Games...

Monday was a slow day at work. So I requested to leave early, and I decided I would get an Xbox 360 if I did get off early. While I waited on a response for my request I was pricing out the system at different retailers and reading news about it. I did get off early, but I did not get the system.

When the original Xbox came out I got it a couple of months before they cut the price for it, so I couldn't get price adjustment. I had gotten that system for one game that I wanted to play only and then of course discovered a whole lot of other games that are awesome. My favorite game of the original Xbox is Fable.

Fable 2 is slated for the Xbox 360 and it is the game that will make me buy the Xbox 360. There are some other games I want to get, but none make me go out and buy the system. By the time Fable 2 comes out, sometime in 2008 I think, the price of the 360 might be less and it is rumored that an updated version of it might be available. Even if it isn't I won't be getting the Xbox 360 until Fable 2.In the meantime I will continue replaying my Xbox games.

My cousin got the Nintendo Wii a couple of weeks ago and I have been hooke onthe Wii Sports game it comes with. I also downloaded Donkey Kong Jr and Golden Axe to have some retro game action. The everybody votes channel is also addicting.

So what to do was the final question on Monday when I got off early. No new game system but I need a fix for new games. That's when I decided the DS Lite would be what I would get.

So on Tuesday, I did a quick search online for DS Lite. I went to Target and got the Black DS Lite, and got Brainage and New Super Mario Bros. games for it. It is an awesome system. It is also my first portable gaming system, I never had Gameboy. Plus I can have it at work on the days that are slow.

Tuesday was also weeds day. I pulled out weeds from the front yard. Those things never go away. It seems to be a never ending job. You pull them out, they grow back out, even with weed killer.

Hope everyone has a good day!!!

National Chocolate Mint Day!

At work I am in a committee called Fast, Fun, and Friendly Committee or FFF. All the members get to be in it for one year, after which different members are selected. The selected members are from different parts of the company, collections, guest service, card services, hr, chargebacks, etc. We create at least one fun event each month. Past events have included, pumpkin decorating contest, holiday dinner, summer pic-nic, cookie decorating, jersey day, etc. So the last project for the year was for today, National Chocolate Mint Day! We put together goodie bags of an assortment of, you guessed it chocolate mints. There's Andes, Hershey's and York. A desk drop was done last night to distribute them. Hopefully at work everyone will have a good day and minty fresh breath. So, everyone have yourself a piece of chocolate or mint or chocolate mint and have an awesome day!

Wii bit Hooked...

My cousin/roommate got a the Nintendo Wii this past weekend and I am hooked playing the Wii sports game and some of the retro games you can download. Oh yeah I am also enjoying the new voting channel. If you have a Wii and would like our Miis to be friends message me your console number... Have an awesome weekend!!!

Cows, pigs, and chickens oh my!

So I did not make any New Year's Resolution as most people do. The one thing I have been wanting to do for long time though is go vegetarian. Yeah, that's not going to happen, at least not instantly.

When I was about 5 or 6 years old there was a street vendor selling baby chickens, chicks. They had been sprayed with coloring. I only remember one was red. The color of the others escapes me. So to a little kid, like I was then, they looked awesome right, so my mother bought them for me. I took them home. It was summer so we were staying at my grandmothers house in Mexico. I took care of them and had them in one of the kitchen counters in a box. The chicks grew, so they were then kept outside where they used to keep chickens years before. One day one of my uncles decided that they were grown enough, so he killed them to make them for dinner that night. I could not eat them, they had been my pets. I was sad that day.

When I was around 10 years old one of my uncles, not the same one that killed the chickens, bought a lamb. I knew why he had bought it. They were going to kill it and eat it. I did not know this however until the lamb was on my grandmothers backyard. My grandmother's back yard is huge... So they kept it there a few days, my guess was getting it ready to kill it. I kept asking when they were going to do that so that I would not be there. The day came when they were to kill it, and I happened to be there, so I went into hiding in one of the rooms. That did not help, as soon as they slit the throat I heard a loud squeal from the animal. So sad. In Mexico they make a dish out of lamb in which they cook it in its own blood. So when they cut the throat they had a bucket or bin of some sort to catch all the blood and then they cooked the meat of the animal with it. Still sad thinking of it.

So these 2 encounters with animal cruelty would have turned me vegetarian if it was not that our meals always included some sort of animal flesh. So you kind of get used to it and and end up liking it.

The one thing I started doing this past year is switching to incorporate humanely treated animals. That would be organic and/or natural raised animals. My goal is to eventually stop eating meat altogether. This may take several years for me.

Cows: I don't like beef, and only rarely eat it, and I have never liked milk. Even a quart of milk goes bad on me when I do get it as I don't use it or drink it. I am happy to say that I have completely stopped drinking cow milk, I never really did. Soymilk is so much more tasty and much more healthy than cow milk. That was an easy switch.

Fish: I don't like most seafood, except for salmon, catfish, tuna, canned mackarel and shrimp. I don't buy it too often but when I do it's mostly cans or pouches of tuna.

Lamb and goat: I don't like. I don't buy.I don't eat it.

Pigs: Only occasionally do I buy pork loin or chops, but I do buy bacon. I'll need to find an alternative to bacon. Any suggestions?

Chicken: You would think that after my traumatic childhood encounter it would be the one I least like, however it is the one I like the most including eggs. This is the one that will be the most difficult to eliminate. I have however switched to eggs from chickens raised cage free and fed organically. If you eat eggs you should definitely switch to these, they are so much better than the eggs that come from inhumanely treated factory farms.

Turkey: Love turkey sandwiches and cook a whole one once a year during the holiday season. So this one too will be difficult to eliminate.

Good thing is I like most vegetables. :)

VICTORY: POM Promises to End Deadly Animal Tests!

Full article can be found on the PETA Website or here http://peta.org/feat-pom-victory.asp?c=weekly_enews