Remind me to replace this with a real weekend report. Friday: trick knee, no exercise. Sat. Knee not as bad, went swimming for exercise, dinner with D and C Sun. knee is OK, but dealing with scope made it hurt again, and favoring it now gives me twinges in the other one. Got scope out, saw mars with unicorn and kitty.

Wednesday: Up early to go to Sacramento. Picked up Bruce, got to Sac office about 9:30. Worked on fetch finishing touches with Bruce. (Make that “offered moral support while Bruce did 90% of the work.”) Fired off questions to Dan, Hugo, etc. about how things should go. Managed to get some time with Michael, Stacy, and a bit with Hugo, Dan and Tommy. Attended the Wednesday Sac meeting. M came with us to the office and we took off at lunchtime to meet M’s parents, brother and brother’s fiance, and about 945281 people who are old friends of M’s folks. Had Chinese… got there just in time for starting on the soup. The place we went is about 35 min from the office to the East, so it was a long lunch. ...

For those who didn’t quite read all the details of our trip, we are now proud owners of a timeshare known affectionately as Hilton Grand Vacations Club on the Las Vegas Strip. Here are some facts. Our fraction of the property is based on a 1-bedroom suite occupied for 7 days. It’s not a specific assigned week, it is based on a reservation system, first-come first-served. We have the option to take a smaller suite for a longer time, or a larger one for a shorter time. If we go at an off-peak time we can have 14 days instead of 7. The cost of this timeshare property is a little less than a new car. We will probably pay it off in 3-4 years. After it is paid off we can use it forever, we just have to pay a yearly maintenance fee of $480 (kind of like a condo association fee). The 7-days (or 14 off peak) can be used at the home resort, or any resort in the Hilton Grand Vacations system, such as Florida (beaches, islands, disneyworld), Hawai’i or Scotland, or a couple other places. We can trade with other timeshare owners using a network called RCI. Because Hilton properties are quite desirable, we can trade our 7 days for 10 days most anywhere else on the network. If we decide to take shorter vacations, we can reserve in smaller blocks (2 or 3-day minimum I think). We can also decide to fold our points into Hilton Honors program and get “normal” hotels instead (or air fare or rental cars or a combination of things.) They gave us 9.9% financing which is not bad, but I still want to refinance with our credit union. Our property is 10 acres, and is located on the strip across from Wet ’n Wild, between Circus Cirus and Stratosphere. 0.00406% of 10 acres is 176 square feet. Therefore, property in Nevada is about US$100 per square foot, if purchased with a resort already attached. This makes the sale price of the entire resort by the developers about $450M. So, the only thing left to decide is, where are we going on vacation next year, and who should we take with us?

Friday: I think we got Chevy’s food. Not much going on. Saturday: Pedalled in the morning. Went to dinner with helenschappell and wschappell, had a good time. Went to Mudd’s and had a great dinner, and went back to their place to play with kitten. We did our best to tire out the little ragamuffin, but he dozed for 15 min and was playful again. “I got my breath back, it must be a new day!” Returned home and reassured our kitties that they are still the only ones in our lives, despite the Interesting Scents. ...

Bryant linked to this as well, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention. Lots of techies give really lousy progress reports, and are basically hell on their managers for no good reason. This is particularly bad for sysadmin types, systems programmers, and other people who love math too much. This is a pretty good article (if short) and has some good info, including: Time management and getting organized Balancing easy and hard work to get more consistent output Good strategy for dealing with managers who need constant status Good tips on making lack of information Someone Else’s Problem ...

Breakfast and Keno again at the Pyramid Cafe. After breakfast we hopped a cab to try and find our property. There was a building there but we could not get close with the cab, and there was a HGV office next to it but the doors were locked. So we stayed in the cab and went to NY NY. Cabbie was friendly and interested in the time share and I tipped him a few bucks, I think it was $30 total. ...

Awakened at 930 by housekeeping, forgot to put the sign out. Oh well, showers for everyone and down to breakfast. Buffet crowded, so it’s the Pyramid Cafe (3rd time :) Played 5 on keno over breakfast. Then played some pgp again, this time M played too, good for her! I think we dropped $20 on that, though M kept some of that. Spent $27 on Imax tix for haunted castle, which was OK but not great. ...

Checked out of HGV and stashed our bags. Got tickets for BOO from concierge. Went for buffet, while waiting, ran back to HGV to get more tickets from sales spiff desk: 99 for both Star Trek and Second City taken from gaming fund. Run back to buffet. Haggle with cashier over which coupon I can use or not use. Coupons are OK for something I want anyway but the ones for the Flamingo were over the top, and I hatehatehate sitting there discussing whether we woulld save $4 one way or $6 the other. Omelete guy took forever to make my food, other than that breakfast was OK. ...

Up at 920, I got the feeling that sleeping any longer would make me snore. Not sure when M got up but I think she ate and watched TV and went back to bed. Made some coffee in the room. This room is incredibly nice, it has a bedroom, bathroom with 2 sinks, a shower and a jacuzzi, and a kitchen and living room area as well. Even a washer and dryer. But it doesn’t have room service :) I think if I had kids I would like this better, but as it is the extra appointments of the room are overkill and I’m reminded regularly that this is not a hotel. Breakfast was Capn Crunch, so another 10 in gift shop bucks making about 45. ...

Flew Southwest. Got a snack at the airport. On arriving at resort, got some food at the deli. After settling in I went to the Flamingo, withdrew 200, and played Pai Gow poker, broke even, down to 70 and back up to 100. Dropped 20 in quarters in Triple Play poker and slots. Back to room to fetch M for dinner. Worked out 30 min on a bike, which doesn’t measure miles but does measure watts. Kept 60 watts or so for 30 min, which will either power the lamp in the room for 30 min or the AC I am breathing for 3 min, but either way earns me dinner. ...