Our New Office

August 29, 2008. On the way to Tahoe this morning, we had a slight incident. Less than 10 miles from Reno (and about an hour from our final destination in Tahoe), one of the studs on the right rear broke.

See the two holes that don’t have lug nuts? Both of those studs broke.

For those of you that don’t know, the stud is a “bolt” about a half an inch in diameter that the lugnut spins onto. It’s rare that this happens – in fact it’s extremely unlikely. The person who installed my wheels a few weeks ago must have cross-threaded the lugnut and weakened the stud. Once one of the studs broke, it was only a matter of time before a second one gave way. Since the wheels only have four studs a piece, losing one is kind of a big deal, and losing two is cause to stop driving. Sara and I heard a thump-thumping once the second stud broke (we had no idea one was already broken) and we pulled off to the side of I-80.

We called a tow truck and after about an hour we were towed to a service facility in downtown Reno, Nevada known as Generator Exchange. The shop manager was named Dodger, and even though it was lunch time when were towed in, he worked hard to get us back on the road. He has our thanks.

Next we headed for the Cal-Neva Resort which straddles the California-Nevada border. The joke is that you can swim from Nevada to California and back in the hotel pool. Back in the day, Sinatra owned this resort, and it doesn’t look like it’s changed much since the 60’s. Mirrored ceilings in all the hallways, a sort of “swinging 60’s” feeling, you can definitely see the Rat Pack strolling through. Learn more about the Cal-Neva Resort’s history (it’s a quick read and definitely interesting).

The Indian Room of the Cal-Neva Resort with the border lines colorfully emphasized.

I gambled tonight and had no luck. All I won at the casino is a free drink for Sara – not very cost effective. Evidently I’ve already done all the winning I’m going to do two weeks ago in Aruba.

Soon we’ll be attending Kim and Kevin’s wedding. Sara is excited to be a bridesmaid, and I know she’s eager to hang out with her friends after spending so much quality time with me this past month.

August 15th, 2008. We rented a 4wd this morning (for our planned off-road adventures this weekend) and then headed off to meet with Mark at CaribMedia. Sara and I really enjoyed talking about business with Mark, and we’re excited about working together in the future.

Today was as close to “regular” as we’ve managed to get. We worked just about the whole day, then went out on our normal Friday night date. We decided to visit the Occidental for dinner and a show.

The variety show wasn’t very good, but it was interesting and we had fun. Here’s the idea behind the show: Dancers (mostly from South America) act out snippets from a bunch of different Broadway shows. Seems solid enough. However, being that English isn’t their primary language, the performers lip-synced the entire time and it just wasn’t that good. Imagine a bunch of latin-looking people performing a scene from “Oklahoma,” with the movie soundtrack playing in the background and you’ll be pretty close.

The dancing was quite good, however.

Next, it was off to the casinos. When someone says “casino” in Aruba, it’s nothing like a normal US gambling establishment. They’re small and pretty basic. Sara said it best – “Iowa has better casinos than this.” Still, I did get lucky and win us a couple hundred.

I won 4500 nickels – it cost me $40 to get to this point, so that works out to about $200.

I’m the big winner!!

Today really was our lucky day. After I won some money, Sara and I got some free drinks. It was a very fun evening and business-wise it was a very productive day.