As Far As It Takes

Rumplestiltskin:  "How far are you willing to go?"

Evil Queen:  "As far as it takes..."

-Once Upon A Time-

Good morning everyone.  You can chalk up the above quote to keeping an open mind and never knowing who or what is going to have an impact on your life.  For someone who is inclined to look at information and circumstances and make a lot of predictions, I will be the first to tell you that I have been surprised many, many times throughout the course of my life.  I hope that each of you is entering this holiday season with many things to be thankful for and with optimism for the new year.

I am going to use today's "Potluck Tuesday" in the blogging schedule to do an extra ramble for this week.  Let me once again thank you for stopping by and checking out my blog.  One of the predictions that I made A LONG TIME AGO was that this blog would reach the 20,000 viewcount mark by the end of this year.  If someone wants to earn some extra credit, you can sift through my old blog entries to see exactly when I made this prediction.  I believe that my blog had somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 views at the time that I threw this prediction out there.  Based on the rate that traffic has picked up here recently on 'Bikini Hill', even if the 20,000 mark isn't reached by 2013, it's going to be respectably close.  What is going to hurt that drive is my upcoming trip to Las Vegas the week before Christmas.  For those of you who don't remember my arrival in the desert in early August, I have the WORST TIME trying to make blog entries from my phone.  However this prediction turns out, I really do appreciate you stopping by and taking the time to check out my little piece of cyberspace , and I have a feeling that you will be joined by many others in 2013.

One of my favorite things about the increased traffic here on 'Bikini Hill' is the appreciable rise in the quality of the advertisements that are placed with my blog.  For so long, the ads that I received were strictly print ads.  Now my blog is attracting multicolored, scrolling advertisements from the likes of companies such as Nike...  "Just Do It..."  ;)

One of the high points of the past few days for me came on Sunday, and this was as the result of me acting like an idiot at work on Saturday night.  There was no one at my station when some of my friends showed up, and my newest friend in the group had a beer bottle, so I gave her a cup to pour it in.  She tried to step by me about three times, and I told her about three times that the beer must be poured into the cup.  At this point, she told me that she was just trying to get out of the way of the guy who was standing in line behind her, and I felt COMPLETELY STUPID...  The neat thing about this story occurred when I went into work the next day to get my schedule before making my trip to San Antonio for my "Chinese Thanksgiving" with my dad.  As I was leaving the area behind the bar, this girl summons me from her bar stool, the first that I had seen of her until this point.  I motioned to her that I would be there in just a second, came out from behind the bar, and as soon as I reached her, we both INSTANTLY started apologizing to each other for what had happened the night before...  Again, I'm really sorry Jackie.  Thank you for taking it in stride...  :)

My week-long trip to Las Vegas is now a mere 28 days away, and I will write much more about that tomorrow.  One thing that I did want to say today is that I went online last night and discovered that the 2013 World Series of Poker will be taking place in Las Vegas at the Rio from May 29th - July 16th.  The 'Main Event' will be taking place from July 7th - July 16th, with the final nine being determined on the 16th.

Don't be surprised if I decide to make my weekly football predictions on Thursday this week due to all of the games that will played on Thanksgiving Day.  If I like ANY of those games once I start reviewing the lines, you will see those picks a day early.  One prediction that I made at work last night involves the Notre Dame/USC game.  It is not a lock that USC will win, but going into the game with a 7-4 record, and fresh off of a loss to UCLA, I GUARANTEE that the Trojans will show up for this game...  How must it feel to be Matt Barkley right now, returning to school to go 7-4 to this point?  This game could make the season for USC...

That is all for today folks.  Have a good one and I will see you again tomorrow...