Archives for 2009

Yes, I’m moving things around with my site again. The photo gallery is offline for a bit and the site links are a bit “off” for the moment. Just wanted to make note that I am aware of the situation.

In the mean time you can follow me on Twitter (lesliekirk) – those are the “What I’m doing…” messages in the upper left hand corner.

We’ve been back from our trip San Diego with a side trip to Vegas for over a week now. I am just now finishing the uploads of all the pictures I took. San Diego was beautiful, the weather was sunny and mild. Our rental car was a convertible this time and we thoroughly enjoyed it, if you can’t tell from Jeff’s “wind burn” (yeah right).

We cut the trip to San Diego a day short. The Miva Merchant conference ran from Thursday through Sunday afternoon, but we had an offer to meet up with my sister Kelley and her husband in Las Vegas to go to the NASCAR race. It was an offer we just couldn’t turn down.

We caught a Southwest flight from San Diego to Las Vegas – it’s still a lot of fun flying with them. Their pre-flight safety briefing always gets me to pay attention just to hear what little jokes and jabs get slipped in. We landed in Vegas, connected up with Kelley and Scott, dropped our bags off at their room and we were off to the track.

The track experience seemed a bit nicer than Talladega, maybe it was the paved flat parking lot. The seats were great, well with the exception of the “geologist” and the immodest woman with him. He seemed to take offence to me using the word “ya’ll” in a sentence. “Who said ‘ya’ll’?” and it was down hill from there. And no, I do not have a dog.

The next day we got out and explored a Vegas I did not know. It had been almost 20 years since I the last time I was there and it had CHANGED. No more free drinks while you gambled, no more cheap $3 buffets, it was now all glitz and glam. I suppose in the grand scheme of things it was no more expensive than any other tourist trap. My one food request was to have dinner at the Bellagio buffet. I suppose the $30 per person wouldn’t have been so bad if the food had been better. The Buffalo was dry, the peeled shrimp was mushy and I make a better Key Lime pie. The desserts had a “frozen” taste to them. The roast beef was good, but so may of the other things I sampled were disappointing.

We watched the Bellagio fountain(s) from ground level and then I got to watch it again from atop the Eiffel Tower at the Paris casino. What a view I had from up there and at night!

On Tuesday, we went to the Hoover Dam and did our own dam tour. Everything touristy has gotten “pricey” – I had fun taking lots of pictures there, including the ones where I leaned over the edge of the dam to shoot straight down. I had Jeff hold my belt loops while I took those pictures.

After our own version of the dam tour, we did a little geocaching. That was tons of fun. I took pictures of one of the area’s and everyone looked they were running from the law. I love caches that make use of something you would not think to check because it looks like it belongs there.

We attempted to check out the newly opened casino called “M” – when we got there, the parking lot was half full. Inside the lines for all the eateries were already getting long and by the time the friends of my sister made it there, the lines were even longer, so we opted for a different “local” restaurant called Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza. How ironic, it is also our favor place to stop at when we are in San Diego – very good food!

Wednesday, we had to head back. We made it to airport early enough to give us time with the “lines” at security. We were so early, security wasn’t open yet. I must say, Las Vegas had the screening thing down to a science, props to them!

After a long day of travel, we finally made it home to our “boys”, they weren’t too mad at us, but we do have a great foster kitty mommy to watch them while we are away.

It has been a while since I have been able to find the time to post. I’ve been goofing around with Facebook, so that’s taken some of my attention. I really don’t like all the cheezy applications and games. I do like being able to connect and interact with friends and family. Kelley and Scott are on Facebook, but we haven’t quite gotten Jeff there yet. I still enjoy the micro-blogging aspects of Twitter, but I haven’t been using it as much either.

I also hate to have my posts tainted by negative events that have happened. I’m working to recover from being let go by my “dream company”. We are looking forward to the trip out to San Diego, although there is becoming a difference in opinion as to what the itinerary will be while we are there. Since 2004 I’ve always taken tons of pictures of the conference, it was something that kept me occupied in the evenings while everyone else went out and drank themselves silly. Last year Jeff went with me for the first time and last year was also the first time I was there representing a company (other than myself) and I was expected to “work the event”. This year I’m officially a “guest” of the company that let me go but I’m also expected to “work” while I am there. Sure, I would much rather do absolutely nothing but enjoy San Diego, but I still want to be able to take conference pictures too.

I do need to bury one of those dreaded ex related comments in this post because I feel bad for Megan.  Her father made another one of those say one thing, do another type moves he’s famous for. I won’t go into the details of his latest disappointment, but I told Megan she needs to come up with some sort of code message to use with him when she has a really important issue she needs to talk to him about.

On the heart touching side of things, I listened to one side of a conversation that Megan and Jeff had (I heard Jeff’s half), he was so supportive, warm, caring, concerned and loving it truly moved me. The two of them have worked through the issues of Megan’s turbulent childhood. I think deep down inside she wishes her father would listen and be supportive like Jeff has been for her. That’s really all she has ever wanted from him.

I find myself feeling really bad when I have to cut my phone conversations short with her because I’m working. I’m afraid I’m starting to seem like more like her father, always working. At least I don’t have a bluetooth ear piece melded to my head. I tried one for about a week, I didn’t like how it made me look like I was talking to myself. I can understand using it while driving to keep the hands free aspect, but too many studies have shown that talking on a cell phone while driving is almost like driving drunk. So I try to stick to the shut up and drive state of mind.