ToddW Blog

I was lucky enough to get in a Dell Coupon deal on their top of the line XPS Laptop.  Normally these laptops range from $2300 to over $3,000 but this last week for nearly 2 days you were able to get one for $1345 or less (depending on options)!  Now they have gone back up even though the discount is still in place! Why? Dell accidently allowed you to downgrade the warranty and processor and a few other misc things ON TOP of $350 off! [Normally on their $$ systems they force you to buy the best, then give you a little back to make it seem like a “deal”.]

Now some of you who know me know that I have an Alienware P4 laptop that’s barely a year old so why get a new one?

Cost for one reason, and I really do not like the Alienware laptop.  The Alienware is a P4 so it has no battery life, it overheats sitting on my desk, even for less than 30 minutes! I`ve had to replace the video card, cd-rom and power supply (under warranty), and am tired of fixing it!

Now I must say the Alienware is BUILT MUCH STRONGER than the dell.  The dell feels like a plastic toy [almost] compared to the Alienware, and surprisingly the Alienware is heavier even though it has a smaller screen!  The LCD on the dell looks amazing! I would say better than the Alienware and nicer than my dell 2001FP’s (20.1″) I use on my desktop.  I think the LCD on the Dell XPS is very crisp like Sony’s desktop LCDs.

Anyway, the Alienware is/was an awesome system when it’s running and working but with the problems I`ve had it was more of a headache for me.

So this weekend (April 8th and 9th) I attended a friends’ birthday part in Las Vegas Nevada. The original plan was to leave California at 8pm Friday night and arrive in Vegas around 9pm. We had hoped to go out Friday night, and visit the many places in in Las Vegas during the daytime Saturday. As it turns out they overbooked our flight leaving Sacramento on Friday, and we were kind enough to give up our seats so someone who NEEDED to get to Las Vegas could. Afterall, we had plans for Saturday night to goto Rain at the Palms, and nothing “for sure” on Saturday night. So not only did we do a good thing by helping outhers out we EACH got $465 to use at SouthWest for travel in the next year! Awesome! So we arrived in Las Vegas around 5pm on Saturday! Once arriving we met up with friends and went to a small cafe for a quick (so we hoped) dinner. The cafe was in Ballys Hotel and the COOK was terribly slow for a more than half empty cafe. After eating everyone got ready to goto Rain at the Palms Las Vegas’s newest and hottest club. Once arriving at the Palms Hotel it was made clear to us even though we had pre-purchased our ticket we were going to have to wait in a long line! After around 30 minutes of waiting and some slot machine gambling we were finally escorted to the front of the line where we verified our iformation and were let in. The club was smaller than I expected. With mixed drink prices all above $10/each and beer at $9/each it’s no wonder these hotels make so much money! I`m not a big dancer or club person so really nothing there was to exciting other than the flames that went shooting in the air randomly! They really heated up the place. WHen we left around 2:30am the place was packed and the line was gone, i`m not sure at what time everyone was inside but it was impossible to walk out without bumping into people.

We ended up going to bed around 3am, and were woken up by the alarm buzzing at 8am so we were sure to be on time at the airport.  Once arriving at the airport it was made clear we may actually miss our flight due to the numerous lines, security checkpoints and lagging people.  Luckily the lines moved quickly, and since we were not checking any baggage we got to go into a MUCH smaller line.  I believe if we checked luggage we would have missed our flight.

Arriving back in Sacramento to complete our journey we were greeted with sub 60 degree weather, wind and what looked like another rainstorm working its’ way in!  No more 70 and 80 degree weather for us, back to the shadow of the clouds!

I got my mountain bike back from the shop today! It was supposed to be reay on Wed. but they never called, a couple days late no problem but when noon rolled around today and no call I decided to take matters into my own hands!  As it turns out they forgot to call me, and the bike was sitting there! If I had not called it would have just sat there… forever most likely!

My bike is now fixed, it actually shifts, and the derailer is no longer bent! I`ve had this specialized ground control for over 5 years and she has treated me well!  I`m hoping to get another 5 years out of her.

If you enjoy mountain biking feel free to comment on some of your favorite places to ride!

The news said that Saturday was supposed to be cold, windy, snowy and overall a crappy day.  I woke up to the opposite, it was sunny and calm! A perfect day for hitting the slopes!  After rentals and lines at the gondola we finaly made it to the top of Heavenly Lake Tahoe at around 10:00am, it was sunny and about 5*.  This was my first time back on the slopes in almost 10 years so we only made a handful of runs, and on our last run the clouds moved in, it started snowing, and visibility went down to about 25 feet!  We decided this was our que to head home, so we headed to the Gondola for a ride down the mountain.  The ride was relaxing, warm and about 30 minutes including the wait at the top outside in the snow.  Back at the hotel we cleaned up, and rested for dinner.

Dinner tonight was going to be at the 19th Kitchen in Harveys.

With such great reviews we new we were going to be in for a treat!  The wine selection at the 19th Kitchen was great as well as the apps.  Food was prepared perfectly brought out on time and enjoyed by all.  My choice for main course was Filet Mignon again as I wanted to compare with the previous nights excellant filet.  I was tempted on getting Surf-n-Turf but the filet that I got was supposed to be ’special tonight’.  The filet was awesome I will give you that but the Surf-N-Turf filet looked identical and came with a bunch of seafood, to say the most I was upset.  The atmosphere was great, the wine was great, and the food was awesome!

When the dessert menus arrived everyone instantly joked about the #1 item “Donuts”… “Who would order donuts?” “Are they serious?” were just a couple things I remember hearing at dinner.  We all picked out our dessers when the waitress came back and gave her suggestion of “Donuts”, was she joking I thought?  Apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking this as others asked her about them.  Apparently the donuts are made fresh right before they are served and come with two sauces.  I think everyone added donuts ONTOP of their previously selected dessert items!  When the donuts came they were your basic looking sugar donuts but they were warm, VERY FRUSH and tasted awesome dipped in either dark chocolate sauce or vanilla.  My other dessert was an apple cobbler, it was average.  To me it had to much cinnamon.   By the end of dinner/dessert everyone agreed this was the best place we had eaten at in a long time including the previous night.  Just when we were getting ready to leave Cotton Candy was delivered to our table, fresh, warm cotton candy at no charge delivered to our table at an upscale restaurant? What’s this world coming too!  The cotton candy was pink in color, and warm and sugary in taste.  Overall, nothing special just a unique idea for a restaurant… which appears to have worked as I`m here telling the world about it.

After dinner we hit the casino and I ended up loosing $20 right off the bat at $1 Wheel Of Fortune. Next I decided it was time to play a little longer and headed to the $00.25 Wheel of Fortune where my money would go a little further!  I ended up getting 3 “Spins” in a row and walked away with $3.75 more than I started with including the $20 I lost previously.  I`m not much a gambler so this was the end of my casino time.  We headed back to our rooms where we decided to turn in early because if the weather was nice again tomorrow we were going to be hitting the slopes again.

Apparently because I have a blog which is about “My Life” and I mention SEO once or twice I am now a hypocrite.  I was told I`m a hypocrite because I suggested to someone else to have a unique twist to writing an entire content site on SEO or to pick a new topic.  News flash! I`m not writing a complete content site about SEO! I`m blogging about my life, and if a google update or such is in my life and I notice it I will blog about whatever I please!  I also was threatened by this person in a private message for “negative rep” points on a forum, come on buddy get a life! If you don’t like what my post says reply and give your own suggestions for the original poster! Don’t PM me and cry about it!