Since 1998 I have visited Las Vegas more than a few times. I have stayed a casino hotels. I have passed on the pamphlets passed out on the street. I have wandered aimlessly on the strip. I stopped and wasted too much time in front of the Bellagio watching the water fountain show. Once I spent 4 days there attending Photoshop World. It was a great time. Since my first trip I have noticed many times on TV that the layout and other features of a casino have been pointed out. These things intrigue me tremendously.

• No windows.
• No clocks.
• Free drinks.
• The slots are in the back forcing everyone to pass everything else to get to them.

I had a supply chain class at the university that taught me that most business do similar things including the grocery stores.

But my quarrel is not with casinos or grocery stores. Tonight it is with Chuck E. Cheese or should I say, “The kids casino.” They have copied the successful features of casinos and made it kid friendly. I spent two hours there tonight and it was crazy. The game machines each had their allure to the boys. Blinking lights and buzzing bells. Free refills. Tickets for performing well. Tickets are redeemed for prizes. This all seems so familiar like a… hmmm, I don’t know…. a casino.
Note: I went as the only adult with two children.
Now you may be thinking, “What are you doing at Chuck E. Cheese on a school night?” It was a school fund raiser. Plus we missed going there last Saturday for a birthday party. Grant cried so Susan promised we would go for his birthday coming up next week. Now I know what you are thinking, “How convenient and easy!”
Yes, I agree.

The problem with having a DVR and blogging is that when I try to write during the commercials Grant asks me to fast forward them. Then the movie/show is back on and I don’t want to write again. So I have this dilemma. I know big freakin’ deal.
Tonight, Susan is out at a RS meeting. Normally that means that I stay home with the boys and we do nothing significant. This is a special week so I decided we would go out. A quick change of the car seats and we were ready to go. We drove up the road to REI so I could look at bicycles. Before we were even out of the neighborhood Tucker had fallen asleep. I carried him, asleep, on my shoulder around the store. Grant ran around trying to hide so I didn’t get to look at everything I wanted. I saw just enough to realize that bikes are expensive.
We came home and Grant asked to watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade I had recorded some time ago. I moved us ahead to the spot we were the last time we watched it. I forgot that the at the end there seems to be quite a bit of religion. Grant asked, “Is Indiana Jones a member?” I asked, “A member of what?” He said a member of the church. Oh… No…, he isn’t. Then later when Indiana Jones has to step out into nothing (leap of faith) Grant says, “He’s starting to believe in God.”
So here we are movie over and not much to show for a night’s activities. Ahh, just like most nights.

Apple has a great site to preview pretty much any movie. I go to it every so often to keep up with the movies I will be missing, mostly because of the ‘R’ rating. I like to watch the various previews of the movies that I will be watching. The boys like to watch also as the previews are just about the length of their attention span. Ok, not really but they are long enough to get us excited about watching them later.

We had been watching out for Wall-E since we saw a very brief teaser long ago. Now there are more previews. Even a short video of Wall-E with a shop vac.

freddysays.com – Baby Clothes and Baby Accessories

I ran across this site through a chain of a couple of others. The shirts for little kids are really cool. The ones with iPods and cell phones are the best. I believe it is the Kit N Kin series.
The company is in Great Britain so all prices are in pounds.

So today is a special day. Susan’s birthday. But for the reasons below it felt like my birthday.
While getting ready Grant took very good care of me. He started out by taking the tweasers from Susan when she finished and started to pluck my eye brows because he said they were long. After he finished he said that it was time to scrub my feet. He actually focused and did a good job. I was impressed with the length of time he spent smoothing out my feet. Usually he does it for about 20 seconds. After we cleaned up from that we both went into the closet. He suggested that I choose a red tie to match his red tie. He then began sorting through my pants to find a pair. He chose a pair of khakis that went well with the tie. I asked him if he thought it matched and his response was, “I think it looks okay.”
The complete outfit soon followed with shoes, socks, belt and shirt all being found and selected by him.
I said to Susan after this, “I guess I better enjoy it since he may not do this for too much longer.” He really wanted to help his dad.
The new schedule for Sunday meetings is causing some issues with Grant’s nap schedule. He fell asleep for the last weeks and yesterday would have with a few more minutes of talk time. No nap in the afternoon made it easy to put him to sleep. Sometimes with that scenario he could be a cranky little boy.

As a side note, at the request of Susan I have begun to work on adding more pages to our website… for the end of last year and now 2006. I have added the zoo trip we made two Saturdays ago.