I got up a little before 6 a.m. on Christmas Morning to load up the food fixin’s and myself, RockBand, and amongst other things, and head for Vegas.  I made the old digs around 9 a.m. and couldn’t help but wonder what the weather would be like on the way home as the wind was in close to gale force and it was spitting intermittently.  Food fixing’s are always the first priority on holidaze because that’s why we all get together, so we can graze and gab, but we had a little time to spare.

We tried to prime Riot for package opening, he was slow starting and had a cold so he wasn’t top of the line for the task at hand.  I got most of it on video tape as he warmed up and started smiling.  I also made a dvd of the ‘elfing movies’ in the Christmas post and we played that for him several times.  He was fascinated by it.  We had to watch it another 20 or more times during the day…but hey…it was Christmas.  He loved all of his presents and had a great time spinning hither and yon with, “Open this!” demands.  Baby Katie was with her mom – life is full of strangeness, I leave it at that.

We played RockBand, taking turns with two guitars, drums, and the microphone, except I played the guitars briefly as I meandered in and out of the kitchen checking on food.  Riot took his turn at a guitar but he knew we were bluffing when he wasn’t hooked up.  He asked, “Hey!  What’s happening?”  And didn’t want to play the guitar anymore but he did play the drums – for real – and got right into it.

I cooked  fantabulous, crusted filet mignon roasts, giant ones, and did a bag/roaster full of Au Jus with baby carrots, baby red potatoes, and red onions, and we had corn as a side dish and a great fruit salad composed by MOI – and bread sticks by Pillsbury.  I even enjoyed the hell out of the food.

I stayed until 8ish and decided it was time to fly – too wet, windy, and cold for the broom so I chose the Silver Steed.  When I hit the hump (the mountain between Vegas and Pahrump), I slid 3 times on black ice, even though I wasn’t on the pedal nor pushing when I started the incline.  A car came speeding up behind me and was going to pass until he saw me slide, he backed right down and pulled in behind me and stayed there.  I took the grade at 25mph and never slid again but I was wondering.  There was fresh snow and a plow had been out, it was hard to tell where the lanes began and ended.  It’s been a helluva long time since I drove on ice and snow, can’t say as I’m pleased about being back to that in the winter when I want to visit Vegas.  But I made home without a hitch and raced into the coach as fast as possible lugging in some stuff that had to come in.  The wind had teeth of icy, steel nails and it was driving sleet in front of it.  Whew!  Nice to be home!  Today is still windy and creepy cold.

On another note, PokerStars Record Breaker is going off in 1 day 15 hours and there are only a little over 9K seats left.  Thirty thousand of us have signed up, don’t gamble on getting a seat, get one now.  And it’s World Record Week at PokerStars, there’s a lot of ways to win money going on right now.

I posted last on a stale, dead run that I’ve been on with poker.  I received comments (I always appreciate comments) and one in particular that brings me back to renewed feelings about poker.  ChrisW left a great comment which nudged something in my neanderthal dark matter and renewed my zest for trying to beat a game.  YIPPEEE!  See YOU there!