And we're back!

Wow, it's been a while since I last had a chance to make an update.  I've been extremely busy with all of the things going on in my life.  It seems that even though I don't have a regular job to go to anymore, I seem to have even less time to trawl around on-line.

I've started studying for the LSAT in earnest.  I scored 158 on my first practice test that I timed myself on, with no prior study or practice.  I'm looking to score at least 170, so I have 12 points to improve.  Unfortunately, the raw test score to LSAT reported score is logarithmic, so to increase my score requires getting quite a few more right.  I am doing fine in reading comprehension, almost always get them all correct with maybe 1 or 2 incorrect.  I do fine in analytic reasoning with no time constraint.  I need to get faster, as I keep hitting the 35 minute time limit.  My current Achilles' heel is the logical reasoning section of the test.  What is odd, is that from the prep materials I have one of which contains 3 practice tests with answers and explanations, is that I do fine on the difficulty 2, 3, and 4 questions, but struggle with the 1's and 5's.  I guess I am over thinking things sometimes.  I have been getting better and scored a 168 on the practice test that I took today.

My regular schedule now is to study on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, play poker on Wednesday and Friday, and family time on Saturdays and Sundays.  As the test gets closer (June 10, 2013), and if I feel I need more study time, I'll knock off Wednesdays from poker first, and then include Sundays for studying as well if necessary.  I received two more study aids today in the mail from Amazon, and I plan on starting on them tomorrow.  I'll see how useful they are.  Sometimes I think the writers of the LSAT are sadistic little green evil men, but I guess they need something to separate the riffraff from the cream of the crop.

While my kids had spring break from their school in early April, my wife suggested we go to Vegas so the kids could go swimming and have something to do over their break.  I didn't really want to go, but my wife prodded me enough for me to acquiesce. I made some phone calls and hooked up with a host at Mandalay Bay.  The host arranged everything and was much better than my current host at the Aria.  He was attentive, got all the details correct and made sure that we had everything we needed each day were there.  He arranged for us to have an approximately 1500 square foot, 2 bedroom suite.  One bedroom had a king bed, while the other had 2 queens, which worked out perfect for us.  The beer, red bull, wine, cheese and fruit platter, and fresh cut flowers for my wife, were all delivered within an hour of us checking in.  We got a cabana each of the 3 days that we were there.  My kids had a blast and loved the cabana service and the fact that they could pretty much order anything they wanted any time they wanted.  We tried three different cabana locations, one at the lazy river, one at the west lagoon, and one near the wave pool.  Each had its pluses and minuses.  Next time around, I'm sure my wife will have a better idea of where she wants our cabana to be.  Two complaints, the cabana menu is very nondescript and has nothing really tantalizing, it pales in comparison to the cabana menu at the MGM Grand, which is a little surprising since they are owned by the same company.  I couldn't get a vanilla shake, since their shake machine was broken.  I complained jokingly that I was going to the Bellagio if I couldn't get a shake.  

We arrived early on Wednesday morning a little after 10am.  We left San Diego a little after 5am in the morning.  Unfortunately, the beginning of this trip was the day after the Day of Degeneracy with Cecil and crew.  Bad timing on my part, as I was in no shape to be up this early in the morning for travel via car.  More on the Day of Degeneracy later.  The first night we ate at some meh sushi restaurant inside Mandalay Bay called Mizuya.  Can't say that I recommend it.

The  next morning, we got room service for breakfast (at least the kids and my wife did, I was sleeping).  Spent the morning at Shark Reef, and then headed out to the the pool.  After the pool we decided to go to RM Seafood for dinner.  Food and service were much better here than the previous night.  After the kids were in bed, I headed out to do some gambling, and got back to the room very early Friday am hours.  My wife graciously let me sleep for a couple of hours, took the kids for breakfast and headed out to the cabana.  I got a few hours sleep and then headed out to the pool to join up with the rest of my family.  While at the pool, we were debating staying another night or coming home, but decided to stay and see the 6pm showing of Tournament of Kings at Excalibur and then drive home.  We were on the road home by around 8pm or so, and arrived at home a little before 1am.  My kids enjoyed the show, particularly my youngest, whose eyes I swear got all bug-eyed, and she was screaming and giggling with delight almost the whole time.  It was difficult to get her to eat anything for dinner.  The other two enjoyed it as well, but unfortunately, we sat in the Dragon section, and it is a little hard to get all amped for the bad guy, when you know inevitably he is going to lose.

Overall it was a fun Vegas trip.  All of the room expenses got comped, and while I lost, I lost the equivalent of a bad 40/80 session so it wasn't too bad.  My wife is thinking of going again this summer, but I'm not so sure about that, nor keen on the idea.  Vegas is very hot during the summer, and I don't think my kids nor myself or my wife would enjoy spending the day outside in the pool area, even if we were in a misted cabana.  I am thinking of going to Vegas to play in the WSOP limit holdem 6-handed $2,500 event on June 26.  I haven't told the wife yet about this.  Hoping to sneak it in as a post-LSAT / law school acceptance gift to myself.  The wife has 3 or 4 different ideas for summer vacation plans.  All involve visiting at least one of her sisters, so it's either going to be Northern California, Minnesota, or Wichita, or Vegas, or some combination of the three.  Plus my kids are signed up for summer camp for 3 weeks in July or so here in San Diego, so we'll need to work around that as well.  Nothing has been decided and conversations regarding that have just begun.

Well that's a pretty long update, and while I have other mildly interesting things I could possibly muse about, I'll save it for another time.  I will leave you with this, from Kenny Rogers, which was playing as I was eating a burger at BGR for lunch today, "Know when to walk away and know when to run."