roncli.com blog

I am mildly annoyed at myself. I used to do a real good job at keeping up with what I'm doing as a way to keep contact with people out in the real world. And yet here I am, realizing yet again that it's been more than a month since my last post. Hmph.

Anyway, a lot has happened lately. First and foremost, if you don't know that I've gotten engaged, you've been out of the loop! I proposed to Kathy on the 16th at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. It's been over 7 1/2 years since we've been together. The only explanation I can gather is that I like outdoing my brother, who's got this thing he calls the "five year rule". Well, I did 50% better than ya, bro. Heh.

Anyway, the date we're looking at is June 20, 2009, which would be 8 years exactly since we met at the Seabrook Beach Club. Which is closed. Would've made for a great reception.

So the plans have begun. The bands are bought, and all of the fun of planning is on the way. Finding a ceremony and reception site, getting a planner, booking catering and a DJ, and all the other extras that go into setting up that special day. Admittedly, I feel I'm going really slow, but we're making progress.

I did take a trip to Buffalo this year, although it was a lot shorter than usual due to me mismanaging my days off at work. I promised myself I won't do that again this year, but with the wedding, I may have little choice. Anyway, the trip was out of the ordinary, as the day before I was supposed to leave it was 60 degrees! The backyard flooded some with all the melting snow from Christmas eve and Christmas day, it was nuts. Then the next day the airport was closed because of high wind and power outages. Ugly stuff, I had to miss a day from work I couldn't afford to take.

It was there that I got the idea to get proposal plans going when my mom commented, "Maybe I should take you out to look at rings." She was surprised when I took her seriously.

Also while I was there, I got to see my brother play live again. It wasn't his usual band, but they still sounded pretty good. But the place he played out, yikes. It reminded me of when I saw my sister at a similar place the year before, except this one seemed smaller and seemed like it had four times as many people in it. We were packed wall to wall.

I also extended my luck at casinos, as I posted a $200 profit from Casino Niagara. But this time it was off of a near straight flush in Let It Ride. The last card needed to be the five of diamonds for me to walk out with some awesome five digit figure. Instead it was the queen of diamonds, which was good enough for a flush. Now, what gets me is that I don't really understand why I sat down to play that game, because I normally go exclusively for Blackjack. Not only did I win on the flush, but I kept even for the rest of my time at that table. Yet the brief time I played Blackjack, I actually lost a bit. I have to wonder what kind of uncanny sixth sense I have when it comes to gambling, because I have only really lost badly once. I figure I'm up on casinos by well over $1,000 by now. Thank goodness I don't have a casino nearby in Houston, because I would be very tempted to play frequently.

Hmm. A straight flush... that would've made for a nice wedding.

Anyway, I got a lot to talk about, so I'll try to play catchup.

Labels: Blackjack, Buffalo, Let It Ride, Life, Wedding

Thursday, August 24, 2006

I Need a Vacation
Posted: 2:38:00 AM 0 comments

In June, as you know, Kathy and I went to Melbourne, Australia. Just this past week, we went to Las Vegas, staying at the Luxor hotel for a few days. I had a ton of fun, even won $630 in blackjack. Plus we had a nice, relaxing aqua massage. Boy are those things wonderful.

Problem is, I get home, and all hell breaks loose. I have two websites I need to at least start this week, a bunch of stuff to review for Saurin, and to top it all off the boss is in town, giving work for this week a fast and hectic pace. Nothing seems to be going easy this week.

On top of this, I don't have enough time to do much of anything, and with all that is going on I've managed to stress myself out in all of two and a half days. Geesh, I need a vacation. Again.

Labels: Blackjack, Las Vegas, Life

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Another Update
Posted: 12:05:00 AM 0 comments

Not too much going on right now. I've taken on another project that should be picking up really soon which will probably take up a lot of my time. In the meantime, I've stopped work on everything else to work on a game in C++ using SDL and OpenGL... goodness, the horizons I'm expanding with this project... which should be relatively done within the month. I'm having a lot of fun coding this one... it's a simple point and click game, and I've been challenging myself to use things I haven't touched yet, such as operator overloading, templates, vectors, and other simple concepts. At the same time, it's a fun game to play, so most of my time has been actually playing it. Yes, I have a working alpha, so it shouldn't be long before I wrap this one up.

I have a trip to Las Vegas coming up. I've studied up on my Blackjack game and will cram some more on the plane so I get my hits, splits, and surrenders down pat. I've had some good trips and I've had some bad trips, so it'll be interesting, if not fun, to see how I do this time around.

Labels: Blackjack, Coding, Constellation, Las Vegas, Life, Projects