I love cable

I love cable. I love cable too much and I think we need to get rid of it. I reached this conclusion last night while watching the "Keeping up with the Kardashians." For those of you that have lives and don't know anything about this family, Kim Kardashian is famous for being friends with Paris Hilton and having an extremely, um, shapely derriere. Naturally someone decided those were good reasons to give she and her family a reality show. Prior to the Kardashian family saga I was engaged in another gripping reality show called "Doctor 90210" which details the plastic surgery adventures of people that live in Beverly Hills and probably have emotional issues. All in all I spent two and half hours last night watching reality tv. I am so embarrassed by this I felt I should share it with all of you. Seriously, no wonder I don't have time to exercise.

Next, because it's not possible to write a whole post about reality television (unless you are way, way more pathetic than I am), I'll tell you a funny story about what happened on my flight from Las Vegas to Denver. I flew home on United so of course the flight was delayed. We had to wait for a plane to land and everyone to deplane before we'd start boarding. So waiting, waiting and I notice about five police officers mulling around. I was sort of hoping for some drama so I would have a good story. Naturally my thought was that someone on the flight about the land was intoxicated and belligerent. Eventually the plane landed and everyone started to deplane. At this point I didn't see the officers and was waiting for someone to be escorted off, I don't know, screaming and making scene in handcuffs maybe.


After many, many long minutes it was clear that the plane was empty and the officers were gone. Oh well, no drama or funny story to share. That was ok.

My friend and I got in line to board and then walked down the hall to the cabin. Standing right outside the cabin door were four police officers. Under ideal circumstances I am nervous flier. Having four uniformed police officers greet me as I got on the plane did not help matters.

I said exactly that to one of them and he laughed and told me he was making sure that no one was leaving Las Vegas with any money. I looked at him quizzically and wondered if he really thought I was stupid enough to believe him. The line was moving slowly but eventually I got onto the plane, looked over and lo and behold if OJ Simpson wasn't sitting there. Since my power of observation is very keen I said loudly "Hey! It's OJ Simpson!" He sort of smiled at me. Then, in case there were people in the back that didn't hear me I said it again. Seriously, I was just really surprised.

He was friendly to all the people that approached him (I don't really think I blew his cover). He didn't murder, assault or rob anyone on the flight. He seemed well-behaved. I did wonder why the hell he was flying coach but reached the conclusion that he probably has no money left for first class. I found out later that he was arraigned that day in Las Vegas and that our flight continued on to Miami where he lives.

I was musing over the presence of the officers with my dad and mom and my mom suggested there were there to stop people from mobbing him for his autograph. My dad thought that he wouldn't mind that and that the officers were there to protect him from angry mobs. Who knows?

So in the end I didn't have a belligerent drunk person story but I think the story I got is, in a way, even better.

Holy crap

Has it really two and a half weeks since I last wrote? I guess time really does fly when you're having fun. I've been so busy I'm not even sure where to begin. Also I left my camera at home so I can't post any of the dozens of pictures I took.

I guess I'll first say that I had a great, great time with my friend Susy. I was a little nervous that we wouldn't get along since it's been almost five years since we last saw each other. As it turns out it was like we hadn't spent a day apart. I don't know how many other people have a friend like that but I certainly feel blessed that I do. She and Kent also hit it off and we had a great time together while he was in town. Since we had a guest we did stuff that we normally don't take the time to do. We went up to Fort Collins and did two brewery tours, one at O'Dells and one at New Belgium. I preferred the O'Dells tour, mainly because we didn't have to wait. At New Belgium we cooled our heels for 45 minutes before we got our beer. (Hey, I have priorities.)

Thanksgiving was also nice, we had 15 people at dinner. The cooking for 15 isn't that much more than for 7 but the clean-up is sure a pain. Plus, we had some of my mom's family in town and their contribution is to sit and eat the food and watch everyone else clean up. As you can imagine, it's extremely helpful. Susy had never been to Thanksgiving before and I thought it was great she got to enjoy my favorite holiday with us.

Susy and I went to Las Vegas on the Monday after Thanksgiving and stayed at the Paris. It was pretty nice but after this trip I'm not eager to go to Las Vegas again. Once you've seen one casino on the strip, you've pretty much seen them all. Our first night we met up with my friend Hanna and had dinner (thanks again Hanna, it was awesome!). The second night we went down to Fremont Street for the light show. My dad also instructed us to see the newly renovated pool at the Golden Nugget. It's definitely cool, with a huge aquarium in the middle. However I felt the experience was somewhat marred by the vast number of scary drunk people walking around and at times following us. At one point I dragged Susy into Binyon's Horseshoe because I thought someone was following us. I asked a police officer for assistance but by then the smelly old drunk was gone. We didn't stay much longer after that since we didn't feel like gambling anymore.

Those are the main highlights of the last few weeks, plus a lot of good time with my family. On a side note, my brother is in trouble yet again. He relapsed about six months ago and as a result back serving time that he'd been on probation for. I hope that he'll be able to get and stay clean but my faith is somewhat broken.

I hope to have some pictures up this week of my trip.