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Black Friday : 2008

November 28, 2008
best-buy-camping.jpg

best buy campingMy Black Friday story actually starts on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. It was about 4pm when my wife and I pulled up to Best Buy. As we walked in I snapped this photo of the 2 tents that had already been set up out front by the guys waiting for the Black Friday sales rush. I don’t know what item they could have been so interested in that they would be willing to spend roughly 36 hours in front of Best Buy, but I hope it was worth it for them.

This morning the alarm was set for 4:00 am. I woke up (slowly), threw on some clothes, grabbed a sweatshirt and a jacket and was out the door by 4:15. Today was my first ever trip out in to the craziness that is Black Friday Shopping Madness and I was excited and ready to go.

My wife and sister headed off to Kohl’s while I went to get in line at Game Stop. When I got there, I noticed that the line for Target was really short. There were maybe 15 people in line. So I hopped in that line thinking they’d have the 1 item I was in search of (can’t talk exact item here) and as an added bonus, they opened at 6am rather than 7am. I figured if I wasn’t able to get what I wanted at Target, I could always hop in to the Game Stop line after the initial madness at Target.

By 5:15, the line hadn’t really grown as much as I expected. It maybe tripled in size. My wife showed up to hang out with me while my sister headed to the mall. The channel 13 news van arrived and the reporter stood right in front of us on the sidewalk, so there’s a very good chance we were on TV this morning while she talked about those “crazy people camped out at Target. Actually she was saying how there was a line, but the line wasn’t nearly as crazy as past years. Apparently this was the story all over.

Between 5:30 and 5:45 the line really grew. Then, with about 5 minutes left before the store opened, something really interesting happed. People started gathering in front of the doors in the parking lot (pictured below). It looked like they were going to make a mad rush for the doors when they opened. People in line started to get agitated. They brought out a couple security guards to try and block the people from coming in. But, as the doors opened and we started to file in, sure enough, here they came. The security guards kept back most of them, but one guy made a break for it and bust through the security guards and headed in to the store. By the time we got in and made it to the electronics section, we saw the cheater standing at the front of the line holding the item he had set out to get. Some other customers were getting in his face and calling him pathetic and whatnot. We just carried on with our mission. Unfortunately, even though we were one of the very first people to the electronics section, the item we were looking for was not available. There’s no way they had any in stock that morning because it would have been impossible for them all to have gone out the door before we got there. Whatever. We headed back out the front door and as we passed the registers out front, my wife noticed the coolest thing. The security guards were talking to Mr. Cheater who was trying to check out. They politely explained to him that since he cut in front of the line, they would not be accepting his purchases today and took his merchandise away from him. That made my day right there!

Target crowd 

We got in line at Game Stop and began to wait. 10 minutes later I got a call from my sister at the mall. She says, “I’m at Game Stop in the mall. Is this the item you are looking for?” Well yes it is! She picked it up for us as we stepped out of line. The bulk of our Black Friday shopping is now complete and we can carry on with no worries!

We headed over to Best Buy as I wanted to pick up the Photoshop/Premier software bundle that was listed in their ad. I didn’t expect it would be one of the products flying off the shelves. We walked in the store, turned right and immediately saw two of the items that we had been waiting in line at Target to get. Since the item is limited edition, this surprised the heck out of me and really drove home the hit that retailers are taking this year. Any other year these would have been gone within 30 minutes of the store opening with no chance of finding one nearly 3 hours after they opened. We grabbed the software and headed to the line which snaked up and down every aisle to the back of the store. Even though it looked like a crazy line, we were out of there in 30 minutes. I have to hand it to Best Buy, they really had their shit together. Target could learn a thing or two from them.

We met up with my sister at the mall and did a bit of browsing. We bought a couple more items, had a little breakfast (Hot Dog on a Stick and Cinnabon FTW) and then headed home for a nap.

All-in-all, I have to say that my first Black Friday experience was a good one. I think several factors played in to that, though. First off, nothing on our list of things to buy today was one of the “GOTTA HAVE” items on everybody elses list. Also, none of the items we were after were gotta have items for the people we were shopping for. If we walked out entirely empty handed, it wouldn’t have been tragic. And of course, the economy definitely played a part in the size of the crowds. Even though Target was pretty well packed with people, I heard a couple employees talking about how this year was “nothing compared to last year.” Oi! I can only imagine.

Did you head out on Black Friday? How was your shopping experience?

Filed Under: Ranting Tagged With: , , ,

Creating new holiday traditions

November 27, 2008

Growing up was all about holiday traditions. It was a given that every Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve were going to be spent at my grandparent’s house. I’ll bet for the first 25 years of my life, this is how it went every year. But, time has gone by, much of that has changed. My grandfather passed away, my grandmother moved out of the house, most of us grandkids have families of our own now and several of us have moved out of state. Getting the family together in one place for one holiday would be difficult, for both would be nearly impossible.

When we first moved to Las Vegas, just my brother-in-law was living out here. Since that time he’s gotten married, my wife’s other brother has moved out here with his wife and two kids and my mother-in-law has moved out here as well. Since moving here 7 years ago, we’ve cooked Thanksgiving dinner at hour house every year. We’ve had family drive in from California just about every year to spend the holiday with us. This year was no exception as my Sister and her boyfriend joined us for the holiday.

So it seems that the new tradition is going to be to spend Thanksgiving at our house with family from near and far. This suits me just fine. For next year I would like to see about getting my parents out to Vegas for Thanksgiving along with a few nieces, nephews and cousins.

Christmas is a whole other story. For the past couple years we’ve spent Christmas morning together at our house with my in-laws and their families. This year we are tossing around the idea of traveling to California to visit family. That’s still up in the air, though. I guess we’ll play that one by ear.

This Thanksgiving was our first time trying a turducken. At first it sounded weird. But, I have to admit that I absolutely loved it. I’m going to lobby for the turducken to become a staple in our Thanksgiving tradition.

Happy Holidays my friends. I hope you are able to spend them surrounded by friends and family.

Cheers.

Filed Under: Family, General Tagged With: , , ,

The Real Deal Poker at the Venetian

November 23, 2008

My buddy Ryan had a couple tickets to go see The Real Deal Poker at the Venetian casino on Sunday evening. I had never heard of it before, but once he explained what it was, I was excited to go.

I’m going to assume that like me, you are new to The Real Deal Poker and explain how it works. It’s like a mashup of a Vegas style show and a game show. There’s a poker table on a stage, a couple pretty girls {hostess and poker dealer}, a comic for an MC and 2 well known poker players (there are 10 pros who are part of the show, 2 per night). The MC selects 6 players out of the audience and they get to sit down at the table to play against the pros. Even if you aren’t chosen to play on stage, you still get to play along from the audience. Every seat has a touch-screen available that lets you be part of the action. Not only do you get dealt a hand in the game, there are a string of prop bets that add a bit of randomness to the game and the scores.

Here’s how the prop bets work. Before the poker game stars, you use the touch screen device to select your choses for the following prop bets:
1. Red or Black. You are betting on what color cards are going to hit the flop, turn and river.
2. Pick a Suit. The more cards of your suit that hit the flop, turn and river, the more you earn.
3. Pick 3 cards. You get to select 3 specific cards (8 of clubs, for example) and any time one of your cards comes up, you earn points.
4. Pick a pro. Decide which of the 2 pros are going to last the longest.
5. Pick an amateur. Decide which amateur is going to last the longest.

Now the game begins. The dealer starts by dealing 2 cards that belong to the audience. Everybody in the audience decides if they are going to call or fold (you can not raise). You can call or fold pre-flop, on the flop, turn or river. If the hand being played at the table is not going to make it to the river because everybody has folded, the last player with cards goes up against the audience to see who wins. There’s no penalty to the player on the table for losing to the audience. They are just trying to accumulate chips. The first round is 4 hands long. At the end of the first round, the short stack is eliminated.

In between rounds, on the touch screens they show all 52 cards face down. Everybody selects 5 cards. When they reveal the hidden cards, the top 9 players get to advance to the final round (I’ll explain this in a few.)

This process is repeated until it gets down to one pro and one amateur. At this time, the top point earner from the audience gets to join the remaining 2 players on the featured table. They battle down to the final player (there’s a certain set of hands that can be played, so it’s not going to last too long) and then the player with the most chips is the champion. If the pro wins, the second place finisher receives a nice gift. If one of the players wins, they receive a bracelet and some other prizes.

Once the tournament has finished, it’s time for the final round. This is where somebody in the audience has a chance to win a million dollars. All the players that made it on stage, and those that advanced to the final round by winning the mini-games between rounds are shown the 52 cards face down. If somebody picks 5 cards that give them a Royal Flush, they win the million. A straight flush wins them a 75 thousand dollar necklace. There are some other gifts for some other high hands as well. Of the 40ish players who are in, the best hand wins a nice prize as does the top point earner from the audience.

The show was pretty cool. We had a lot of fun watching our prop bets and bustin’ each other’s chops about who was winning. In the end I finished in the top 15 and Ryan finished about 100 places behind me.

The show lasts just over 90 minutes. Tickets are $45 for regular seats or $125 for VIP seats which are right down front, include a free drink and a meet & greet with the poker pros. In case you are wondering, sitting in the VIP section does not better your chances for making it on stage (as far as I could tell, anyway)

Here’s a shot of the game going on on-stage with the leaderboard behind them. That’s me in 13th place.

The Real Deal Poker

I just read that they have an “after hours” show where the comic is “let loose” to do his Don Rickles style comedy. Add to that the bar service and I think I’ve found the night for me to go back and take the wife since she couldn’t go with us tonight.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , ,

I think I may be a control freak

November 21, 2008

I’m not gonna lie, I love to organize events. Normally small events. Poker tournaments, trips with friends to the movies or things like that. But this is the first time I’ve ever taken on an event the size of WordCamp:Las Vegas. If things go well and we manage to sell out, we are talking about 200 attendees, 10 speakers, a dozen-ish sponsors and a handful of volunteers. That’s a bigger group than I’ve ever put together by a roughly 10:1 ratio.

Everybody I’ve talked to and everything I’ve read online has said that the best way to do organize something like WordCamp is to delegate certain portions of the organization process to different people. Put one person in charge of sponsorship, put somebody else in charge of rounding up speakers, etc, etc, etc… The thing is, when I decided to step up and take on the WordCamp project, it didn’t dawn on me to go around and ask if anybody else was interested in taking on part of the responsibility. This isn’t to say that I haven’t had help. A couple of people have provided me with some excellent contacts. But, the legwork has been all mine.

Here’s the thing… I’m not bothered by this in the least. To be quite honest, this is exactly how I would have wanted it. That’s not to say that I don’t want/need any help. Far from it. I’ve got my dad driving in from L.A. to do the audio, I’ve got a friend lined up to shoot video and manage the livecast, I’ve got another friend lined up to shoot photos and live blog the event and a third friend lined up to help with technical issues (wireless network, etc…), plus I’m still in need of a couple people to work the registration booth the day of the event, a couple people to play “security” and check badges at the door, and probably somebody to be a gopher for the miscellaneous things that come up during the day. But other than that, I’d like to think that things are coming together nicely.

Had to do over again, it would be nice to be sharing the duties with a partner. Unfortunately the one guy who I know would have been the perfect candidate to help out has moved a few thousand miles away. True, he’s still been a great help in providing me information and some direction, but not getting to see him daily (or even weekly) to bounce ideas off is a big bummer for me.

But hey, with him out of the way, there’s nobody to tell me I can’t start the show off by riding in on a Shetland Pony surrounded by the ladies of Olympic Garden! (The Power Is MINE!)

If you plan on taking on a project like organizing a WordCamp, don’t do it the way I’m doing it. Find a small group of people who you can rely on and hand off projects to save your sanity. You will be happy you did.

Filed Under: Ranting, WordCamp Tagged With: , , ,

I'm in serious need of an office

November 20, 2008

Without trying to make this sound like an excuse, I’ve been noticing lately that I am in serious need of a home office. Currently my desk is in our loft. Also in the loft are my Son and Daughter’s Computer desks. That’s a total of 4 computers (I have 2) plus 3 people in the loft most of the time. When the kids go to bed at 9, that’s when I can usually sit down and get a bunch of work done. But, my wife, a light sleeper if ever there was one, is usually sleeping down the hall at this point. So, the idea of creating video blog posts or recording a podcast are typically out the window.

We have a guestroom downstairs. Currently it’s being occupied by my brother-in-law and his wife as they are waiting for escrow to close on their new house. Don’t get me wrong, they have been absolutely NO trouble at all. But, as soon as they go, I’m taking over that room pronto. We’ve been without it’s services for the past couple months while they’ve been staying in there, so I don’t see how me taking it over full time can be that big a deal. Plus, it will give me a place to store all my camera equipment. I could set up a mini-recording studio and hopefully I can use it to produce the weekly podcast show I’ve been pondering for way to long now.

By this time next month if I have not posted at least 1 podcast and/or 1 video blog post, please proceed to give me a ton of crap for it. Thanks.

Filed Under: Ranting Tagged With: , ,

I'm Going Down to South Park Gonna Have Myself a Time

November 18, 2008
South Park


Last night i was flipping channels on the TV before going to bed and I ran across an episode of South Park on Comedy Central. I stopped for a few minutes and laughed as they made fun of High School Musical in typical South Park fashion. Even though I don’t watch the show on a regular basis these days, it seems that even after 10+ seasons, the show continues to be really funny. It made me sad to realize I haven’t seen more than a hand full of episodes in the past 4 years. That has got to change.

I told my wife last night that I want to get caught up on South Park. I want to see every episode from every season and there is only one way to do that; Netflix. So today I went on Netflix and added the first 10 seasons of South Park to my queue and moved them all to the top. I have no idea how long it’s going to take me to watch 30+ DVDs of South Park shenanigans, but I’m ready to find out.

If this goes well, I may have to do the same for the Simpsons when I’m done.

Filed Under: Entertainment Tagged With: ,

Getting Organized Feels Good

November 16, 2008

Over the past couple months it’s been a bit crazy the amount of things that have been on my schedule. I don’t recall being this popular… ever. It seems that 4 or 5 nights a week we have plans to go out for one reason or another. Between the 3 meetup groups I’m part of, concerts or just an evening out with friends, it was really getting to be a bit much. That’s partially because I would never write anything down and we’d always end up scrambling to make it somewhere, or worse, we’d be double-booked for the same evening.

Until: iPhone to the rescue!

OK, at the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I have to say that the iPhone has really been the start of me getting some fecal cohesion. Any time ANY sort of appointment comes up, I quickly add it to my calendar. My iPhone calendar has become “the boss of me.” I don’t agree to anything until I check and see if I already have something planned at that time.

I feel like I’m late to the party. Like everybody else around me has been doing this for years and it’s just dawning on me to get organized. But seriously, I never really realized how unorganized I was until just recently. They say ignorance is bliss, so I must have been on cloud 9.

Now, if I could just organize my desk at home and keep it that way, I’ll really be on to something!

Filed Under: Ranting Tagged With: ,

2008 WSOP recap

November 13, 2008

The World Series of Poker is finally over. Congratulations to Peter Eastgate on becoming the youngest player ever to win the Main Event at only 22 years old. I have a feeling it’s going to be a LONG time before anybody is able to beat that record.

This year, rather than playing out the final event of the World Series until there was 1 player left, when they eliminated the 10th place player, they put the tournament on hold and sent the players on a break. A LONG break. A 3 month break. If you are asking yourself why they would do something like that, well, you are not alone. Back when they first announced that they were going to do this, the explanation that I heard was that they were going to send the players home and invite them back in November to play out the final table live on TV. This would give ESPN time to show all the preliminary events, and the action from the main event up until the point where there were only 9 left. This sounded like an awesome idea. Last year I paid for the Pay-Per-View of the final table and watched about 7 hours of the event. I was definitely ready to watch the final table again this year. Unfortunately, that information was incorrect.

Over this past weekend, the “November Nine”, as they were so cutely named, took over the Penn & Teller theater and with about 1000 people in the audience, they played down to the final 2 players. The following evening, the final 2 came back and played it out until Peter Eastgate held all the chips in play. Of course all of this action was filmed, but there was no live broadcast, no pay-per-view, no extra content to be had at all. Instead, the well produced condensed version was shown on ESPN just like every week leading up to the final table. So why did they make the players wait? I have a guess; money.

If they had completed the final table back in July, even the most casual of poker players would have found out by now who won the WSOP. It’s not like the SuperBowl, but if you are in to Poker, you are going to run across the information on a website, magazine or word of mouth. But, by making everybody wait, they have a built up of excitement to find out who wins. This could cause poker players who may not normally watch the ESPN telecast to turn it on to find out who wins. Face it, most poker players don’t actually watch televised poker. ESPN wants those eyes watching. So anything they could do to build SOME excitement has got to be good for them.

I was pretty bummed when I found out they weren’t going to show the entire final table. But, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to watch the final show.

There were a couple of really ugly beats to knock people out, but I have to say, every player at this final table conducted themselves with a level of professionalism not normally found at the final table. When Scott Montgomery lost on the river to a one-outter, he simply smiled, shook everybody’s hand and walked away. It was a very refreshing sight.

ESPN did one thing during the telecast that is my biggest pet peeve when it comes to televised poker. When they were down to 8 players, they came back from a commercial and they are showing Kelly Kim shaking hands with some of the players. The announcer says that Kelly Kim has just been eliminated. Are you going to tell me that this player fought his way through more than 6800 players and you don’t even have the decency to show his final hand in the tournament? I don’t care if it’s the most mundane hand ever played, he deserves to have his final hand shown.

One other side effect of having a 3 month layoff before the final table, it gave all the players a chance to get sponsorships from dozens of companies. I had made a joke that it looked like we were watching a NASCAR event with everybody covered in sponsorship badges. For the players I’m stoked. Why shouldn’t they get an extra quarter-million if they can work the deals? However, for the viewers at home, I’m a little embarrassed. I would like to think that if I were to ever make it to a televised final table, I would pass up the sponsorship money and instead wear a comfortable suit that actually looks nice.

I’m really curious to hear the plans for next year’s WSOP event. I plan on playing in a couple events next year and want to know what surprises I have ahead of me. I guess I have to wait and see.

Filed Under: Ranting Tagged With: , ,

Pole Position Indoor Karting

November 10, 2008
John Go-Karting

Saturday night, in honor of Kristen’s Birthday, a group of us met up at Pole Position Raceway for some go-kart racing. We had about 20 of use there, but only a dozen of us were racing. We signed up for a 2 race event. The first race has all 12 of us on the the track and they record your lap times. Then, in the second race they line you up NASCAR style and you have an all-out race.

These go-karts are like none I had ever seen before. They are all electric powered and they are all tied in to a hand-held remote control carried by one of the track officials. When they first let you out of the gate, they are on minimal power. Once everybody is on the track and they have the gate closed, he pushes the button put the karts in high gear. If there is any sort of incident on the track, a quick push of the button and the carts are back in low gear. It’s really a cool way to moderate the races. I’m sure that for more experienced racers, there is a gear higher than they let us have access to. I should thank them for keeping it away from us.

Todd and I both took our camera equipment. I was having a great time taking pictures of the other races that were going on between ours. Shooting at high speed was proving to be quite a challenge. I think I’d like to go back there and just practice shooting.

I hope to make it out there again. We had a great time and it was an awesome way to spend an evening with a dozen people and get them all involved in a single activity. I’m sure this would make a for a great team-building outing for companies. (If any of the higher-ups at my office are reading this… hint hint)

Before you pack up the kids and head over to Pole Position, keep two things in mind. First, it’s not cheap. The two race deal was $55 per person. For a family four, that’s a pricey evening out. Also, these cars are fast. My daughter basically missed the final part of an S turn and drove UNDER the barricade. It ripped her helmet off her head. Amazingly she wasn’t injured at all. Shaken up quite a bit, but nothing that some Aleve and rest couldn’t handle. Make sure the people you take with you have all had experience driving karts before. These are probably not the best for first timers.

Here’s a link to some additional photos from our racing adventures.

Filed Under: Entertainment Tagged With: , ,