The Legend Lives On.......

.....from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee." Anyone know that opening line, anyone? That is right, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". Saturday I was working, yes I worked on a Saturday. On my way home from work, I drove by the Appleton PAC and noticed on the sign out front that Gordon Lightfoot was playing Sunday night. I do not have extensive knowledge of the Gordon Lightfoot collection, but I do like some of his stuff. And "If You Could Read My Mind" is one of my karyoke staples. Being that the PAC is only two blocks from my place, I had no choice but to go to the show. I called up my only friends in Appleton, Mark and Suzanne, to see if they wanted to join me. Mark ended up having to work on his rental house. So Suzanne and I went to the show. We grabbed some buffalo wings before hand and then headed to the show. I thought that Gordon looked a little bit like Grandpa Munster. A lot of his songs sound the same. And I noticed how short many of this songs were. I also thought that the drummer in his band was basically stealing money, as he didn't do too much. One song he played just the wood block and a triangle. But I did enjoy the show.

I have been continuing to train for my 1/2 marathon. This weekend I got in 7 miles on Saturday and 7.5 miles on Sunday. It was the first time I was running outside since the weather was almost decent. I have to tell you it wasn't good. I was averaging around 9:30 miles. Not good. I think I am going to be in some big trouble for the actual race. Sunday about 6 miles in the run, I was crossing the Fox River and thought about just jumping in. My lungs were burning and my legs were killing me. I was planning on shooting for 1 hour and 45 minutes the day of the race. Now I think I am going to be lucky to make it under 2 hours.

I put together a pool for the NCAA tournament. I have been having a bit of a problem collecting money from people. Here are my current deadbeats, if you see these people please be sure to call them deadbeats: Preston, Tree, Tree's wife Heather and Krum.

Here Suzanne and I are at intermission at Gordon Lightfoot.

Brewer Fever

I did this for the Packers and no one won. I didn't do it for the Bucks because no one cares about them. But since this type of posting yields the most comments, and I am always starving for comments, it is time to predict the Brewers record. I will admit I have caught a bit of the Brewers Fever. I am looking forward to the start of the season. I would venture to guess that I will either watch or listen to some or all of at least 80% of their games. The season is 162 games long. To make sure that someone wins, the person who gets closest to the actual record will get dinner at Oakland Gyros with me. So let the games begin. Last year the Brew Crew finished with a record of 83-79, and the Cubs won the division with 85 wins. I am going to go with 92-70. Leave your prediction and your name and you could be the sitting with me at Oakland Gyros on a crisp October Saturday afternoon eating a plain gyro extra peta bread with gallons of cucumber sauce and a large rootbeer. I know for you girls and maybe some guys out there, that probably sounds like the dream date of a lifetime. Trust me, it will be.

More Requests

Hear are the next couple of requests.

The Twins vs. Brewer game will not be the same without Borky and K-Mart in attendance. In all my life, last years game was the best game I never went to. We started tailgating in the parking lot, planning to go into the game for the 3rd inning. The Brewers were down 4-1 at that point, so we waited for the 5th inning, and the score didn't change and we were still having a good time in the parking lot. Same story for the 7th inning. Next thing we knew, we had spent the entire game out in the parking lot. I am a pretty big Brewers fan, but the fact that the team is getting better and tickets are in much higher demand, for me isn't a good thing. From what I have heard from a very reliable source, if you want 8 or more seats together for a weekend game this coming season, if you haven't ordered them by now, good luck getting them at all. Here are some pictures from last year's game.

Religion. I am not the most religious person. I was raised Lutheran. My parents made me go to church every Sunday. I can recall being home one weekend while I was in college. We had a big family dinner. My brother in law was trying to make me look bad and asked me in front of the entire family as we were sitting down eating, "How often do you go to church while you are at school?" I told him, "On average, I go every other week." This took everyone a bit by surprise. Then I explained that since I went every week until the age of 18, if I don't go again until I am 36, on average I would have gone every other week. Do I believe in a God? Sure, I think he has an incredible sense of humor based on the things I have seen and the things I have experienced and the course my life has gone through. By the way, The God that I believe in doesn't count the number of times I go to church. The God I believe in doesn't listen to me only on Sunday mornings. The God I believe in doesn't listen to me only if I am a church built out of donations and offerings of people who think that they can buy their forgiveness. I guess my views on religion are pretty much indifferent. Annie, I know you are a loyal reader, so I will give the Catholics a break. But I do believe that Baptist are a bit out there.

Politics. I could really give two flying flips of a swizzle stick about politics. I don't believe that my vote really counts. I flat out do not vote. If my memory serves me correct, I believe one year, at least in one state the Elector College vote went the opposite way of the popular vote. This would mean that the popular vote didn't mean anything in that state. Granted the public does elect those that place the Elector College vote, so I guess indirectly the public's vote counted. I am not interested in politics, and therefore often I do not have an educated opinion on those that are on a ballet. Do I really care or know who is running for House of Representatives seat in the 8th district? No. I would probably just pick whomever had the better sounding name. I realize that thousands of people have died fighting for my right to vote. But they also fought for my right not to vote. I realize that by not voting, I lose my right to complain about the course that my country is headed. I have accepted this. Now I do still have a right to complain about how much both my property and personal taxes go up, because no matter who is in office, be it at the local, state or federal level, my taxes are going to go up no matter who is in the office. But you won't hear me complain about the abortion issue, Medicare, the War in Iraq, the federal budget, defense spending, etc. because I just do not care about those issues.

Lastly on the requests. The 41 yard dash will be on this summer. I will take on all challengers. And I am looking to retain my title as the World's Fastest Davies

Borky's Request

Borky wanted me to discuss, Alpine Valley, Summerfest, and my plans to visit Minnesota this summer.

Alpine Valley has only announced a couple of shows. First is Jimmy Buffett on July 19th. I won't be able to make it to that show. I am doing a Paddle Portage in Madison with Tree on that day. I will most likely stretch that into a long Madison weekend. By the way Tree asked me to invite any and all of my readers to join us in the race. We are willing to take on any challengers, just let us know how high you want the stakes to be. As for other Alpine Shows, Dave Matthews is in town August 9th and 10th. I have already put in for tickets for both shows. And while not announced, I have a feeling that Pearl Jam will be coming to town later in the summer. I know that they announced an east coast tour earlier this week. In fact I was contemplating going to the June 12 show in Tampa. I figured I could go to the show with Truz and crash at his place. But I know that my boss has me covering for another project engineer over that time. I will just wait and hope they come to Alpine.

Summerfest hasn't announced much in the way of shows. They have announced a number of headliners at the Marcus. The only ones that really do anything for me are: Stevie Wonder on June 26th and Tom Petty with Steve Winwood on July 5th.

When it comes to trips to the Twin Cities, I only have one planned at that is the weekend of August 15th. I have to head up there for work and I will make that a long weekend. I checked out the Brewers schedule, but they play the Twins on the opening weekend of Summerfest. So that weekend is out. However, I promised Horn that I would do the Twin Cities Marathon with her, which is October 5th (I guess that isn't summer any more). I am still waiting to see how the 1/2 marathon goes in two weeks from Saturday. The training isn't too bad. I although I am a touch behind where I would like to be. Last night I ran 5 miles. I didn't feel to bad afterwards either. It is just that the training takes a lot of time. I run somewhere between 9 - 8:30 minute miles. If you do the math a simple 10 mile run is going to take 1.5 hours out of my day. Add in some stretching and the rest of my normal work out routine and that is closer to 2 -2.5 hours to work out. If you do that after work, that is pretty much your entire evening. I am shooting for runs of 6 and 8 miles this weekend.

Anyone have any other questions?

Requests

I have nothing to talk about. Do anyone have any topics they would like me to discuss?

Back To My Dull Life

I am back to the same old daily routine of life. Maybe that is a good thing. I did recall one little side story from Vegas that happened that could have got me in a decent amount of trouble. While we were down on Fremont Street, we had gotten split up from Tim's brother, Pat. I gave him a call on his cell phone and told him to meet the rest of us out in the street. While we were waiting for Pat to show up I noticed an empty golf cart that was being used by a maintenance person. I walked over and sat down in the drivers seat, and of course noticed that the keys weren't in it. I found a nail on the floor, inserted it into the ignition, turned the nail and it fired right up. Just as I was trying to figure out how to get it into reverse, the maintenance worker returned and kicked me out. When I got out I noticed two cops were right there. But they didn't say anything to me. I suppose I hadn't done anything wrong yet. Yet.

What else do I have for you? Not too much. My project at work is coming along well. Here is a picture of the bridge taken yesterday.

As you can see the new grid panels are in place, the railings are nearly complete. We still have to pour the fixed concrete deck and bridge approaches. There is a lot of electrical work to be completed, including wiring limit switches on both sides, navigation lights, motors to the span locks. We also need to complete a pedestrian ramp on the far corner. Looking at everything that is yet to be completed, I am targeting May 16th as the final completion date. But change orders and punchlist items will take it to the end of May. Currently I am schedule to do some work at our Oshkosh project in June, as the project engineer there is going to be on vacation for 3 weeks. So I am hoping to be back in Milwaukee by the first of July.

Vegas Recap

Here is my Vegas Weekend Recap. I know the saying is "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" but I really didn't do anything bad, so I am OK on this one. I have nothing to hide so here goes for the recap. We were staying at Harrah's. This was an all girl band that was playing at the outdoor bar.

Sherman with the band in the background.
We took something of a walk down the strip shortly after we got in and here are Tim and Sherman.
This is back at the outdoor bar with the all girl band. They were pouring out upside down margaritas. It was $1 a shot, but I was a little disappointed because the bartender cut me off before I said stop.
We watched the Badger Game at a bar inside Harrah's. There were a ton of Wisconsin fans, not only at the bar but all over the strip this weekend. On Thursday and Saturday, the days they played, you would see a lot of red walking around. Later on Thursday night after the game and a couple drinks we were in the bathroom and I did the old "pretend I am washing my hands and then splash water on the person next to me at the sink" to Sherman. He wasn't the happiest with me, so later he dumped some of his beer on my shoes.
Friday was a good day for me. I woke up a took care of some push ups and sit ups in the room, then got in around a 4 mile run. I basically ran from Harrah's in the middle of the strip down to the south end past Excalibur and back. I didn't actually run on the strip, but one block off of it. Upon my return I headed for the pool. It was a beautiful 80 degrees on Friday. So while a good share of you were getting dumped on by 10-15 inches of snow in the Milwaukee area, I was sitting pool side. I was up at the pool with Timmy's sister, Shelly, and then later in the afternoon Sherman showed up for a while. While I was at the pool, I had a 43 year old mother of 4 hitting on me right in front of her daughter. That was interesting. It was actually nearly too hot at the pool, as the pool is between two casinos, there isn't much of a breeze. Around 2 in the afternoon, we cleaned up and went to a bar / restaurant in the casino for lunch. After lunch Tim, Sherman and I walked the strip. We headed south to the Plant Hollywood Casino. Here is Sherman.As we were talking our walk, I saw a guy taking a picture of this girl. Then I asked him if he would take our picture. I made the girl get into our picture as well. Is it just me, or is everyone in this picture but me short?By the Paris casino, I offer to take a picture of this couple, then I insisted that they stand around and be part of my picture.We went into the Hawaiian Tropic Bar at Planet Hollywood. I highly recommend it for the service staff, but not for the prices. 2 Captain and Cokes and 1 Beer = $26. We headed back to Harrah's and went to the Sports Book. They had gaming tables set up and we played some blackjack while watching out bets on the college basketball games come in. After a couple hours of that, we (Tim, Sherman, Pat (Tim's brother), Shelly (Tim's sister), Pete (Shelly's husband and myself) went to dinner. Pat treated us to dinner and it was fabulous. A great meal. I am going off on a bit of a Nate tangent, i.e. telling a story and telling people what I ate, but everything was so good. The shrimp in the shrimp cocktails were huge. The lobster bisque was out of this world. And the scalps and rice were just incredible. Pat really set us up well all weekend, with rooms, drink tickets and reserved seating in the sports book. Here are Tim and Shelly as we were waiting for our table.Pete, Shelly, Pat, Sherman, myself and Tim getting ready to dig in for dinner.Pat, Tim and Shelly.Here I am with the waiter, I don't know why but he was giving me grief the entire meal. So I don't know why I got my picture taken with him.Here is Shelly and Pete right after dinner. Shelly went to bed and the rest of us went down to the old part of Vegas on Fremont Street.Saturday I spent with Spider at his place out in Henderson, watching basketball. Spider picked me up and we went to a bar by his place for lunch then went to his place to watch the remainder of the basketball games. I got to meet Spider's new wife, Sarah, who is a very nice girl and one of his step son's, Nate. Saturday night Spider and I came back to the strip. We headed back down to the Hawaiian Tropic bar, Spider hadn't been in there yet. Then we were back to Harrah's and got in some gambling. Here is Spider with a guy named Junior while we were walking the strip. Sunday morning we had an early morning flight, so I didn't really bother even going to sleep. We got on our plane and were 45 minutes into the flight when an indicator light went on in the plane. The pilots didn't know what it was and we ended up heading back to Las Vegas. We had to deplane and were put on another plane. We were suppose to get back to Green Bay at noon, but instead didn't get in until 4:30. That put a damper on the end of the trip. Here is Sherman when we were back at the Las Vegas airport drinking a Bloody Mary.

It was a great trip. I would like to again thank Tim for inviting me on the trip. And I would like to also thank Tim's brother, Pat, who rolled out the red carpet for us and showed us a great time and took care of us the entire time we were down there. As far as how did I do gambling, for the first time I did pretty well. At one point I was up $1200, but after missing on all of my bets at the sports book on Saturday and some bad luck at the Blackjack table on Saturday as well, I came home about $500 richer than when I showed up. I wasn't able to eclipse my sleep deprivation record of 48 hours but I gave it a pretty good run. I went from Saturday 9:30 in the morning until 9:30 last night. This will of course force me to go to bed the minute I get home from work the next two nights. Between the great weather, the good fortune in gambling and the fun I had down in Las Vegas, I am ready to go back.

Maundy Thursday

Today is the day or night of the Last Supper. Since my "Last Supper" will probably be with Coonen and Sherman at some buffet at 2 in the morning, I thought I would post a number of different Last Supper pictures I found. Enjoy.
The Original Last Supper. Can you name them all without looking them up? Annie might be the only one I think of that can.

Poker Last Supper.Classic Hollywood Last Supper.Star Wars Last Supper.Lego Last Supper.Simpsons Last Supper. Can you name all the characters?Breakfast Cereal Last Supper.Fast Food Last Supper.Super Friends Last Supper.My favorite, Sopranos Last Supper.Mickey Mouse Last Supper.Leave a comment and let me know which one you like best.

Leaving for Las Vegas

I am leaving for Las Vegas. I have been doing some research for my trip. I am going to try to count cards at Blackjack and see how that works out for me. I think I should have started practicing a little bit more before hand. It will be interesting. 10s Jacks, Queens, Kings are all (-1); 2,3,4,5,6 are all (+1); 7,8,9 are 0. Six decks, any number above 6 bet big. How hard can that be to keep track of? I did some practicing last night and was able to keep track, but I don't know that I was dealing the cards as fast as the real dealers do.

Speaking of Gambling, I see that I have 18 people that have signed up for my NCAA pool. And of those 18 people, the only people who are paid up are, myself, Liquid, Nate and Doggie. Sherman and Coonen have passes as I will see them today. Technically I should have made everyone pay before the tournament, but you caught me in a good mood. Payment must be in to me by Monday. If not, I will delete your sheets. Expect all payments that come in after Monday to be sent back or to become property of the commissioner. Tree and The General, I could really care less what you think, so don't even leave a scathing comment.

I just officially registered for the 1/2 marathon in Oshkosh on April 12th. That gives me just under a month to get into shape. I think if I can get through this weekend, and get my butt moving I should be OK. I am going to make a serious effort to run both Friday and Saturday mornings down on the strip. I will let you know how that works out as well. I think my chances of counting cards and actually making money, as doubtful as that may be, is higher than the chances of me running 3 miles both of those mornings.

Other than that I don't have much to say, so wish me luck.

Merge Memories

I was back in Milwaukee yesterday afternoon. I had to go back to my office for some safety training. We moved into a new complex just off of 70th and Greenfield. Oddly enough directly across the hall from my new office with URS is the world headquarters for Merge Technologies, my former employer. So after my training I stopped in. I knew there office was there, and I told Steve that I would stop by when I got the chance. Steve is a long time friend of my older brother, Jon. I have known Steve since I was in 8th grade. The first time I met Steve, he had been out to a Halloween costume party with Jon. They came back to my parent's house. I had been watching TV up in my bedroom and was half asleep. Steve was dressed up as a cavewoman. He just came walking into my bedroom and scared the crap out of me because one, I didn't know who he was, and two and more importantly, I didn't know what he was.
Yesterday was the first time in 8 years I had set foot in the Merge offices. As you may or may not know, I was let go after 3 years of faithful service due to company downsizing. Looking back, Merge was a great job for me. I started out building computers, and ended up traveling around the world. It was a great time in my life, I had just bought my house, and I had roommates that I was out partying with all the time, and I was traveling a ton. I don't regret that job at all. But I am also happy with the course that my life has taken me. I don't think I could be more content with my life right now.
Steve gave me a tour of the facilities, I was able to see a number of that I used to work with. Here is Steve in his office. Apparently he is a very important person. While on the tour of Merge, Steve pulled out these two hand carts.
As you can see, I left my mark on this cart. Steve's memory is a bit better than mine. He informed me that way back when I started at Merge in the manufacturing department, we ordered these two hand carts. And then Steve and I had a race to see which of us could put our cart together first. I am sure we would both claim that we won. But it was funny to see that memories of me are still left behind.
Seeing my name on that cart got me to wondering, how many of the computers that I installed are still in use. I know that I used to leave my business card behind, taped to every computer I installed with my number to call for service issues. It would be pretty crazy to be in a hospital and see that.
Here are some pictures that I dug up from my days with Merge when I was in the service department doing on call support. My cubicle was just a mess back then.
If you can believe it, this how I used to go to work. Tie-dye shirt , baseball hat and basketball shorts. I do know that shortly after I left the company they instituted a dress code. I believe it used to be on Thursdays we would have Service Department Team Meetings at 7:00 a.m. I would always forget,and they would call me at home in bed on my cell phone at 7:10 a.m. I lived so close to the office, that I would be there by 7:15, with lines from my pillow still on my face.

There were a lot of good times at Merge. It was when I bought my truck and house. It was when I saw the world. And while my departure was a bit bitter, I still look back as those days being some of the most fun and exciting times of my life.

St. Patty's Poll

Did you drink a green beer last night?
	Of course, I am a rock star.
	No, I don't want my #2 coming out green, but I had a regular beer.
	I am old, 34 and up, and didn't drink at all just like you.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone. I had a great weekend. Friday I headed up to the U.P. I met up with Doug, Liquid Lisa and Eric at the ski hill bar. We headed back to our cabin and grilled up some Italians and played some card games. Saturday we didn't get to the hill until 10:30 or so. Here was the ski schedule for the day. Ski for an hour, drink in the bar for an hour, ski for an hour, drink in the bar for an hour, ski for an hour. It was a nice little schedule and worked out really well. I skied with Eric all day. I have skied with Eric a number of times in the past. I am sure some may argue with this, but Eric is one of the better people to ski with. He offers up above average conversation on the chair lift. We have about the same ski ability. Eric will also ski any run. Most importantly, he doesn't stand around at the top of the run waiting and talking about useless stuff. That is my biggest pet peeve with skiing. Others that top my list of people to ski with (Nate, Russ, Tree, The Moose and I will even throw Flo in with that group. Sorry Krum, you complain too much.) So it was some good skiing. I didn't take any pictures all weekend, but Eric got some. Once he emails those to be, I will post some. Saturday night, we were back at the cabin and had dinner. At 10:00 I went to the resort bar for a couple of drinks. But Eric, Doug and Liquid all opted to stay at the cabin. I ran into a friend that I used to work with and ended up at the bar until 1:30. Sunday I was up early, and headed back to Appleton. I got back in time to watch the Badgers win. And that pretty much summed up my day Sunday.

Here are a couple of random items. My NCAA pool. I have 9 people in the pool so far. Only Liquid has paid up. I know most of the people in my pool also read my blog. If you don't send me your payment by next Monday, I will not only delete your sheet, but I will take pleasure in doing so. Sherman and Coonen are the only ones with free passes as I will see them Thursday.

Stoves. Most stoves come with 4 burners. Has anyone ever used all 4 burners at the same time. Why so many? I have never used more than 2 at once.

St. Patrick's Day. This may come as a shock to a number of my readers, but I have never taken the day off of work to go to a bar and start drinking at 7 in the morning before. And as for today, I doubt I will be getting my hands on any green beer tonight. Probably a very mild evening for me tonight. So if you are out for a beer tonight, have one for me.

Weekend Plans

Is it too early to be looking forward to this weekend? I don't think so. I am headed up to the U.P. of Michigan for some skiing. I didn't plans things out very well. I won't be heading up until after work on Friday and then headed back to Appleton Sunday afternoon. So I will probably only get one good day of skiing in. So look forward to pictures of the chicken skiing next week. Once this weekend is over with, it is time for the snow to melt. I am more than ready for winter to be over with. And the excitement should continue as next weekend I am going to be down in Las Vegas for the opening weekend of the NCAA tournament. I am still looking for my first trip to Las Vegas where I come out ahead in regards to gambling. Maybe this time. I guess that is all that I have for you at the time.

NCAA Pool

I am trying to get a head start on this years NCAA pool. I sent out invites to the regulars yesterday. If you want to get in on the pool and didn't get an invite, send me a comment or email. This year I am requiring everyone to send me the money, because with my schedule, I really won't be seeing anyone before the tournament starts or until after the tournament is over. Entry fee is $5.41, the $0.41 to cover postage.

Again my address is:

Rickie Davies

400 North Richmond

Unit #444

Appleton, WI 54911

And here is the main reason why I put together this pool every year, just so I can post this picture.

Bachelor Party is Set

I have received a number of emails and many phone calls about my recent engagement. Alright, I will come clean. No, I am not engaged. It was a big joke that we cooked up before we even headed down to Mexico. I probably should have played it out longer. I talked to "The General" last night, and he told me that I should have kept going with it until I got a bachelor party. While most people didn't believe that I was engaged, all of those same people did have a sliver of doubt that maybe I actually did get engaged. I do relish the fact that nothing I could do would be surprising or out of the realm of possibility. So there you have it. I am back on the market. Which leads me to today's poll question.

Will I ever get married?
	No. You are too independent and comfortable with your current lifestyle.
	Yes. The girls are lined up around the corner for a shot at you.
	And divorced.....a couple times.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Daylight Savings

Did I miss something? Was it Daylight Savings this past weekend? I didn't hear anything about it. But Sunday while I was busy doing absolutely nothing lying on the couch watching TV, I noticed that the TV Guide Channel time wasn't matching up with my VCR clock. Yes, I do have a VCR, I have it hooked up but I haven't used it once since I moved into my place in Appleton.

As for my weekend, well I didn't do much of anything. I am still trying to recover from my sickness. I got home from work Friday and had a pounding headache and went right to bed. Saturday, I got out of my condo in the morning to get an oil change on my truck and to grocery shopping. That was the only time I left my place all weekend. The rest of the weekend I spent dreaming about my fiance, Vanessa.

Mexican Proposal

This will probably come as a shock to many of you, but I got engaged while I was down in Mexico. It all happened so fast. I have known Vanessa for about 6 years now. We had been talking to each other on the phone quite a bit going into the trip. Then once we got down to Mexico things between us went really well. So the one day we were in town, I went into one of the jewelery shops and bought a ring. The next night as the sun was going down, I decided to propose. I had this picture taken while I was popping the question. It was pretty spontaneous, but then again so am I. We haven't set a date or anything like that. We are going to wait to iron all of that out once I move back to Milwaukee. Sorry Butch, I meant to ask your permission before hand, but as I said, it all happened to fast.

Mexico Recap

Here is the recap from the Mexico trip. It was a great trip. But we as a group didn't get as crazy as last year. We all agreed that the resort last year was much better. You get what you pay for. But in the end, the main reason for the trip was that big ball of fire in the sky. And the weather was great. Sunny and 80 everyday. We were a pretty lazy group. On the way home a number of people we ran into asked us if we went anywhere. And we all said that we went to town one night otherwise we were out on the beach or around the pool laying out every day. I was pretty sick the first two days, but I made it through. I had a cough that I couldn't shake the entire time down there. Well on to the pictures. Here are Chris and Rebecca on the flight down.

Here is Vanessa writing my pet name for her in the sand.

Chris was the self appointed president of the "Hot Tub Club" Chris was in there just about every night from 5:00 until 7:30.

Me and Rebecca pool side.

This was one of the first nights on our way out to dinner.

One day we all had massage appointments out on the beach. $55 per couple for an hour. It was the best massage I have ever had. Well worth the money. While Vanessa and I were waiting for Chris and Rebecca's massage to be over, we went for a walk down the beach. Here is a shot of me flexing.
We went boogie boarding a couple days. This is where I had some problems with my camera. My camera is waterproof. But shortly after being out in the ocean, my camera when out for a couple of days and didn't work. But anyhow here I am boogie boarding.

Sorry, Vanessa and I didn't do any shower pictures, but I did get one of Chris.

One day they had a pool diving contest. I made it to the finals and lost to a girl who basically just jumped into the pool and threw her arms up in the air. To get to the finals, I did jump over one of the "fun club" workers. Here I am doing a jack knife dive into the pool.
We went to town one night and that was fun. We stopped in at this liquor store and the owner who was there was just great. Every other word was an "F" bomb. We asked him if we could walk around outside with a beer. He said "This is Mexico, you can do whatever the "F" you want?"

While waiting to eat at a place called "Pi Pi's" I watched the police sneak up on this guy who was talking to one of the chefs and arrest him. Kind of funny.

Chris and Rebecca at dinner.

I missed the first four sunsets. So I made it a point to see the last three, here I am with Vanessa at one sunset.

Here is a group shot at sunset.

Chris and Rebecca reflecting as the sun sets.

Rebecca and I sang "Leather and Lace". My voice was so horrible because I was still getting over a cold and my throat was all scratching and I had been coughing all day. But we had stage presence.

This was the best sunset of the trip. This gives you a pretty good view of the main resort pool area.

Vanessa and I tearing up the dance floor. There wasn't much of a question that we were the best dancers out there.

It was a great trip. I just wish I hadn't been sick while down there. I just wasn't myself most of the trip. Still fun. But I wasn't at the top of my game.