Barbara dropped the hookah and everything went to shit.
On the last day in Vegas Barb, Paul and I are walking through a mall when we come up on a hookah shop. Sammy the hookah boy offers a hit off the huge bong and I'm saying "yeah, sure why not." Sammy is playing up the Egyptian bazar thing like crazy. Among other fun lies he tells me that the hookah is great for your health and I've decided to play along.

I'm haggling with Sammy for about 20 minutes and Paul and Barbara are hitting the hookah. I've only got him to $120 for the package deal and since he doesn't get to my self imposed $100 limit on stupid purchases I'm ready to go. Finally Barbara blurts out, I'm buying one.

At this point Paul just about shits. We are flying Southwest in a couple of hours and he absolutely does not want to be in group "C". I think the first time he said it was about 5 minutes after he landed – I’m sure he’s been thinking about it for the last 48 hours.

Paul starts in on the hookah again and this time I join him while Barb tries to squeeze Sammy to throw more into the deal. Finally, Barb gets the hookah and we are on our way. We're not quite running, but we aren't stopping for anything either.

Just as we're getting to the end of the mall, Barb drops the hookah and the damn thing shatters. Paul shits. I laugh. Barb is pissed. We run back to Sammy only to find him putting the sweet talk on a couple of hookah groupies (hey, Barb says, didn't he say he was married?).

While Sammy and Barb are working the whole thing out Paul gets a beer at a neighboring bar and I camp out at the hookah. I'm still smoking my ass off when Paul gets back from his beer. We both hit the hookah and I find myself answering questions of passers by. “Sure, I guess you could smoke that shit through a pipe. But, dude,(big exhale) why. (take a hit) This thing kicks ass. (exhale and pass to Paul) Dude you aughta check it out.”

Finally Barb gets the hookah together and has Sammy ship it to her house. Now, we are running. All the way through the mall and down the street to Bally’s where we get our bags and a cab to the airport. Not only are we in “C”, we walk up as the plane is boarding. We are the last three people on it.

But, I’m cool. I smoked enough hookah snot to keep me high for two days.

Viva Las Vegas
I'm heading back to LV tomorrow morning for three days of vericose vein building trade show torture. I finally got a little smarter and bought a ticket to "O". No you pinheaded perv - it's the Cirque Du Soleil show at the Bellagio. This should be good.

The flip side is that I'm nagged by the reminder of the violence from my last trip. It's amazing how quick we adapt to horror. But adaptation to horror shouldn't render it any less potent. Isn't every murder equal to Cain's? What the hell do I know, it's not like I'm a deep thinker or anything. Patricia has a push on her site to get you to be a bit more aware of the issues around child abuse. And I've always thought, who could possibly be for child abuse? Well these FugMonkeys sure seem to have missed the point. How do you leave your kids to the hands of a couple of spun out tweaks?

Sailing takes me away...
Expecting seriously heavy winds, we started the Regatta today with small sails. Unfortunately, the wind in the SFBay didn't really pick up like we had planned and we were pretty much racing with a slow boat all day. Nothing sucks quite like racing a 4 hour race and knowing within the first 15 minutes that you are screwed. We made a late push, but in the end we couldn't keep up. At least we had some fun, and I lost a hat.

Blah, Blah, Blah
I was at a conference last week and one of the speakers was John Dvorak. He had a lot of interesting takes, but the funniest subject was his rip on Bloggers. That's how lame I am, I didn't even know there was a long history to this...

If you gotta die,
It's come to this. If you are going to get killed in California the deciding factor in whether you get your 15 minutes posthumously seems to be dependent on whether or not your support contingent can muster some appealing pictures with a great smile. And they better not be checking any of the other boxes in the ethnicity section of the police report. From Diane Whipple to Laci Peterson, nothing sells advertising on the locally over-produced news like a hottie who has suddenly been iced.

I have seen the other side and it is good.
I finally got to play golf at the local country club and won the long drive contest. Yeah, nailing a 310 yard drive is cool, but the 200 yard second shot to an elevated green was better.

For 3 years I could see the course from my house, but up to now have been stuffed into the Municipal courses amongst the teeming hordes of the unwashed. I'm not sure I can go back. I just need to find a way to come up with the insane wad of money that it will take to get in... oh yeah, and they have to invite me. On the other hand, I guess I should play more than 10 times per year before I get into something like this...

She Spies is a funny TV show. Try it.

A little note to the guy on the 680 today:
Yeah, I saw you singing in your car. I could tell you really suck at it too. BUT you did not see me laughing and there was no need to stop on my account. I sing in the car all the time and there is no way I'd stop just because you were looking at me.

The end of the periodical
In one of those moods about a year ago, I ordered something like 7 magazine subscriptions. So for the last year, I haven't read one book - only magazines. Mostly car magazines. While I was satiated at first, the monthly grind is getting a little tedious. I'm ready for them to stop coming. I'm also looking forward to getting back to my regular reading habits.

Then something weird started happening. I'm getting magazines I didn't order and ones that should have stopped, haven't.

I'm getting a little worried.

Books are stacking up, and I can't get to them. I'm wading through Car & Driver, Esquire, T&L Golf, and the list goes on...

I'm going to open a barber shop just so people will start stealing them from me.