I never got around to finishing the Adventures in America segment so here goes. After the Grand Canyon debacle we continued on our way to beautiful Las Vegas, NV to visit the sister in law. On the way to Vegas there happens to be a very large dam that as of now needs to be crossed over. The dam has a name, they call it Hoover. I say as of now it needs to be crossed because they are currently building a by-pass to ease the traffic through area because quite frankly it is a mess.
As we arrived at Mr. Hoover's dam it was late afternoon/early evening and we decided to do the get out of the car and take pictures tour instead of the actual tour which I hear is pretty cool, maybe next time. Lets not kid ourselves we really wanted to get to Vegas quickly so the hop out tour was best. At this point we are also running out of gas quickly, Lindsey is getting flustered but I assure her we can go another 20 miles once the line gets to E. I really don't know if thats true, but I'm not scared I'll say it will. We finally get out of the Hoover mess and see a gas station a few miles after, the price? $4.05. At the end of May the averages price was around $3.30 so I'm really not happy about this, I try to keep going but the wife and common sense prevail, we needed to get gas.
We don't have directions to Jen's place and are trying to contact her. Little do we know her phone doesn't ring while she is in her apartment but it does recieve voicemails and texts. We are approaching the city quickly it's rush hour and we don't know where we are going. Lindsey is getting flustered and I say if we don't hear from Jen in the next 10 minutes we are going to Four Queens for some blackjack switch (greatest game ever!). We don't hear from Jen and proceed to north vegas when finally Jen calls back and asks where we are. She is laughing and ripping us for going somewhere without directions and I assure her its ok I have an atlas, blackjack switch here we come! Anyways we turn around and go to Jen's and I am crushed, Lindsey tells me the tables will be waiting but I don't believe her.
We had a nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and retired to bed for the evening without going to the casinos. The next day we hang out at Jen's pool and do some barbecueing. Then its time to hit the tables.
So a few months ago I bought a computer casino game so I could learn how to play craps. (I know, I know I'm a nerd.) I'm really excited to play but first we play switch at Binions and all three of us are doing well. Jen and I pretty much play by the book and are up like $50 or so. Lindsey plays with no rhyme or reason and is cleaning up. I will never understand. We finish the shoe, I'm up money and am now ready to try out craps. Jen and I play and it's going good for about 10 minutes, then boom the money I was up is gone plus a little more. We gave ourselves a gambling budget since the trip was draining our pocketbook and my budget is almost spent which isn't good. I sit out for awhile and watch Lindsey clean up at her favorite casino The Fitzgerald, baffled by how she is playing and winning. She equates busting to double faulting so she will stand at nearly every chance and ends up winning with 13s and 14s. Simply amazing.
I sneak away to secretly play craps and lose the rest of my budget. I come crawling back to Lindsey and ask for some of her winnings and she reluctantly gives $40 to me, I play switch for awhile and do alright before the craps itch comes back. Yep I lost all that too and I'm done. No wait! I have a secret $50 stash in my shoe! I promise myself I'm done. Wait for it, wait for it...I'm playing again, I lose again. I'm really done now. Lindsey does well enough to make up for some of my losses and we end up down $97 as a team for the evening which really isn't bad at all. Props to Lindsey for making no excuses and playing like a champion.
The rest of our Vegas time goes well, the girls did some shopping meanwhile I participated in some people watching, one of my favorite pastimes. We check out some of the casinos I didn't get a chance to see last time and meet up with Buckley for some lunch at her new house. Buckley's boyfriend hooked us up with some free tickets to Spamalot for that evening which was fantastic and our time in Sin City was over.
Next stop...Yosemite National Park and Redwood Forest
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
I suck at blogging
I am really sorry, I'm not very good at this. Anyways for an update on my life and other happenings here you go. I finished up my first summer session of big kid's school last week. Maybe that's why I haven't found the time to update.
I'm in graduate school to get a master's in community counseling. Community counseling is basically being a counselor that provides individual, group, family, and marriage counseling that works through a community agency. The six students including me in our class were all new and pretty much had no idea what was going on. So what do we do you ask. Theories class was about different counseling theories and was pretty boring, Counseling Methods class was however not boring. We had lecture on Monday and Tuesday for two hours and then had lab on Thursdays. Lab is where it really gets crazy. We pair off so one person is the counselor and the other is a client, then they send us into the room next door. This room has some chairs a small table a two way mirror that the rest of the class is watching through and a camera system so we get recorded.
The first week they throw us in the fire telling us to go in there and start a counseling session and try to make it 10-15 minutes in length. Keep in mind that we have no experience and are pretty much nervous as hell. Needless to say we all pretty much sucked that first week. As the weeks went on we learned new skills and the sessions got longer working our way up to 25 minute sessions. A typical session in the real world is 50 minutes but we couldn't do that due to classroom constraints.
After 8 weeks of that we finished and our professor assures us we are ready for practicum even though none of us feel that confident. Practicum starts in the fall and is pretty much the same as methods except it involves real clients at real sites in Grand Forks. I'm not gonna lie I'm kind of scared, I can't believe they are going to put that kind of responsibility in my hands.
That has been a recap of the last 8 weeks of my life, in other news Lindsey and I had our one year anniversary last Sunday, we celebrated by going to Qdoba and eating the top of our wedding cake that had been cryogenetically frozen in my inlaws fridge for the last year. It actually tasted pretty good.
Ta Ta for now I'm going to noonball.
I'm in graduate school to get a master's in community counseling. Community counseling is basically being a counselor that provides individual, group, family, and marriage counseling that works through a community agency. The six students including me in our class were all new and pretty much had no idea what was going on. So what do we do you ask. Theories class was about different counseling theories and was pretty boring, Counseling Methods class was however not boring. We had lecture on Monday and Tuesday for two hours and then had lab on Thursdays. Lab is where it really gets crazy. We pair off so one person is the counselor and the other is a client, then they send us into the room next door. This room has some chairs a small table a two way mirror that the rest of the class is watching through and a camera system so we get recorded.
The first week they throw us in the fire telling us to go in there and start a counseling session and try to make it 10-15 minutes in length. Keep in mind that we have no experience and are pretty much nervous as hell. Needless to say we all pretty much sucked that first week. As the weeks went on we learned new skills and the sessions got longer working our way up to 25 minute sessions. A typical session in the real world is 50 minutes but we couldn't do that due to classroom constraints.
After 8 weeks of that we finished and our professor assures us we are ready for practicum even though none of us feel that confident. Practicum starts in the fall and is pretty much the same as methods except it involves real clients at real sites in Grand Forks. I'm not gonna lie I'm kind of scared, I can't believe they are going to put that kind of responsibility in my hands.
That has been a recap of the last 8 weeks of my life, in other news Lindsey and I had our one year anniversary last Sunday, we celebrated by going to Qdoba and eating the top of our wedding cake that had been cryogenetically frozen in my inlaws fridge for the last year. It actually tasted pretty good.
Ta Ta for now I'm going to noonball.
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