Telling it like it is

I discovered this morning that the power outage while we were away blew up our old mechanical sprinkler timer. I took it apart this morning to discover the timing motor was dead. The spare is $49 plus shipping and I figured I could get a whole new timer for $60 so it seemed like a no-brainer. So we now have a new digital RainBird timer. Now I'm no dummy, but this thing requires a degree in astrophysics to program. I think I've got it how I want it but it's not intuitive at all. Still - at least it has a battery backup so it maintains the clock when the power is off. Anyhoo - that was the first of many trips to Home Depot today. The rest were for stupid things like wire and batteries that didn't come with the new timer. Go figure.

Aaaahhhhhhh . Apart from the drive to Vegas and back, the last few days have been spent blissfully doing nothing. Zip. Nada. Well - lying around the pool at the Red Rock Resort perhaps, but does that really count as doing something? The hotel was everything we remembered from last year when we visited it during Ray and Marie's wedding. We got a room on the 18th floor with a great view of the pool area. The room itself was excellent, of course, as was the whole resort / hotel. The casino was fun, and their player's club is a pretty good deal, getting you discounts off merchandise, food and drink right from day 1. The staff were courteous and friendly and the girl who served us poolside each day looked astonishingly like the wife of a Dutch friend of mine, only with black hair instead of red. And a little younger. And totally hot. We had a square bed / cabana at the poolside yesterday. Should have been 50 bucks for the day but because it was off-peak and none had been reserved, w