Good morning everyone and Happy New Year! The title of today's entry is proof that I'm stealing from my facebook page for 'Bikini Hill'. You'll actually be seeing a lot from my facebook page here in the near future as I was using it as a sort of "notebook" while I was in Las Vegas, making entries with the intention of looking back later so that I could remember everything that I did on my recent trip to the desert. The title refers to the status that I posted very shortly after midnight on December 22nd while I was playing poker at the Flamingo. Up until I said something to my table, I think that I was the only one aware of the time and that we had survived the Mayans' prediction. My facebook status read, "Civilization 1 Mayans 0, But thanks for playing..." (You can ask for your money back at this point, but just remember that this is free, SOOOO...).
Anyway, I don't have to work today, and there are SIX college bowl games on t.v... I did work last night, and it was predictably a very active evening on the Square in San Marcos, America as everyone was ringing in the new year. The first day of January is a very important point in the break between the fall and spring semesters in San Marcos as people FINALLY start returning to town. For those of you who are new to 'Bikini Hill', San Marcos, America is a college town, and I CANNOT STAND the quiet that consumes the town for the month that the college students go home for their Christmas Break. I was the recipient of many handshakes and fistbumps and hugs last night from excited people who are excited for the arrival of 2013.
Speaking of 2013, I do have one prediction for you this morning. In addition to the numerous sports predictions that I make here, I also venture into other areas. This educated (???) guess happens to do with the blog. At somewhere around the 4,000 view mark, I had predicted that the blog would reach 20,000 total views by this morning. The number actually came in at about 19,390. This morning I am feeling very confident, and I am going to predict that 'Bikini Hill' will reach the 75,000 view mark by the end of 2013. Now my blog is just over 15 months old (birthday September 28th, 2011), and receiving 100 views on any given day is noteworthy. For 'Bikini Hill' to reach 75,000 total views in the next 12 months, the blog will have to average just over 4,500 views per month, or 150 views per day (4,500 x 12 = 54,000). 54,000 + almost 20,000 = almost 74,000 (you get the idea)... I also predict that at the end of the year, I am the ONLY ONE who is going to care about this at all... ;)
Also for those of you who are new to the blog, remember that there are plenty of entries that you can catch up on if you find yourself with some free time during this first week of January where New Year's Day falls on a Tuesday. I did a 'teaser' for one of these posts last night on my twitter account where a customer who was leaving my workplace hugged me while I was wearing two oversized sweatshirts and then exclamined, "YOU'RE LIKE A GUMMY BEAR!!!" I do tell many work stories here among the random topics and sports predictions and Las Vegas and poker musings. Speaking of Las Vegas, if I had to guess right now, I would say that the chances that I would be able to move back to the desert this coming summer are probably less than 10% right now. For those of you who don't know, I would be content (workwise) to spend my days playing poker and betting sports (football preferably). Now be aware that when I say this, I am not fond AT ALL of living in the desert, and that San Marcos, America (Texas) is the one place that I have enjoyed calling home above all others. Anyway, I have about 220-something older posts if you find yourself with some free time, and if you go WAY BACK, the writing was definitely worse at the start... ;)
When you come back tomorrow, there is a 100% chance that you will be reading a post about my recent holiday vacation in Las Vegas. Enjoy the first day of the new year and I'll see you then!
Selasa, 01 Januari 2013
Senin, 31 Desember 2012
Raining In The New Year
Good morning everyone. I won't lie to you, I'm pretty excited about welcoming 2013 into my life. I sit here doing my last blog entry of 2012 in San Marcos, America while we have a light drizzle outside, but after the severe drought that Texas experienced a couple of years ago, I honestly never mind seeing the rain. All signs point to my last night of work in 2012 being very busy, as it seems that every single regular customer that I have spoken to has plans to stop by Harper's/Slackers/The Veranda to celebrate the first hours of the new year... In a strange and pleasant twist of fate, I have not been scheduled to work tomorrow, the day which happens to be serving up SIX college bowl games... :) As I have said here recently, my holiday trip to Las Vegas will provide the material for many blog entries to come, so be looking for that in the near future.
I want to welcome those of you who are just finding my little blog. 'The View From Bikini Hill' was born on September 28th, 2011, and the total viewcount is currently at 19,290 clicks. I am extremely confident that 'Bikini Hill's' readership is going to skyrocket in the near future, so I wanted to take a second to let you know what to expect here. I am currently making an entry on every weekday, and I'll sometimes make a random post on weekends. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursday I write about random topics, and these entries are normally what I like to call "rambles" - these posts encompass several topics. You will get to experience my sarcasm, my sense of humor (debatable), get an insight into my personal life, learn about San Marcos, America, and get my viewpoints on all sorts of subjects. On Wednesdays I write about poker and things related to Las Vegas, and on Fridays I write about sports. During football season, the Friday posts are almost totally composed of football predictions, and I am about to start predicting the final scores of all of the NFL playoff games each week, an area in which I did remarkably well last year when it came down to picking winning and losers (and coming VERY CLOSE to a lot of the final scores). If you are indeed one of my new readers, please feel free to go back into the archives to get a better idea of what 'Bikini Hill' is about. I have posted over 200 times now in just under a year and a half, so there is plenty for you to catch up on. Please feel free to comment on anything that you read here - I think that the participation of my readers just makes the blog better.
For those of you who have been regular readers on 'Bikini Hill', I want to thank you again for your patronage. The list of blogs to the right will direct you to quality material written by friends that I have come to know since I have started babbling here in cyberspace, and the writers showcased there represent a significant portion of my original following. Also, for any of you who are reading this right now, I also plan to become more active on my twitter account in 2013, and my 'handle' is listed at the top of this page. There have been many things that have made my facebook page which haven't made the blog, and I plan on including more of those things in my twitter account also.
Back to the future now, my resolution for 2013 is to stay active. When I was teaching and coaching (nine years experience at the high school level), I was busy beyond belief, to the point that I did not have a personal life. I was CONSTANTLY making lists of things that I needed to get done, but one thing that did happen was that I DID get a lot accomplished. Although I do love having more control over my life, I don't want to feel that I'm being idle this year - I want everything that I do to have a purpose. Last year my resolution was to "trust my reads" - I feel that I did a good job of that, analyzing situations and acting on the conclusions that I reached. For this year I want to be more like the Matthew Fox character in the movie 'Alex Cross' - it's not that I want to be a villain (and for those of you who don't know me yet, I am TRULY one of the "good guys"), but the Fox character always seemed focused, like he was getting something accomplished... ;)
I will be back tomorrow with my first post of 2013, but in the meantime, I hope that all of you end 2012 on a positive note, and that you ring in the new year safely. Have a great day and I will see you again tomorrow!
I want to welcome those of you who are just finding my little blog. 'The View From Bikini Hill' was born on September 28th, 2011, and the total viewcount is currently at 19,290 clicks. I am extremely confident that 'Bikini Hill's' readership is going to skyrocket in the near future, so I wanted to take a second to let you know what to expect here. I am currently making an entry on every weekday, and I'll sometimes make a random post on weekends. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursday I write about random topics, and these entries are normally what I like to call "rambles" - these posts encompass several topics. You will get to experience my sarcasm, my sense of humor (debatable), get an insight into my personal life, learn about San Marcos, America, and get my viewpoints on all sorts of subjects. On Wednesdays I write about poker and things related to Las Vegas, and on Fridays I write about sports. During football season, the Friday posts are almost totally composed of football predictions, and I am about to start predicting the final scores of all of the NFL playoff games each week, an area in which I did remarkably well last year when it came down to picking winning and losers (and coming VERY CLOSE to a lot of the final scores). If you are indeed one of my new readers, please feel free to go back into the archives to get a better idea of what 'Bikini Hill' is about. I have posted over 200 times now in just under a year and a half, so there is plenty for you to catch up on. Please feel free to comment on anything that you read here - I think that the participation of my readers just makes the blog better.
For those of you who have been regular readers on 'Bikini Hill', I want to thank you again for your patronage. The list of blogs to the right will direct you to quality material written by friends that I have come to know since I have started babbling here in cyberspace, and the writers showcased there represent a significant portion of my original following. Also, for any of you who are reading this right now, I also plan to become more active on my twitter account in 2013, and my 'handle' is listed at the top of this page. There have been many things that have made my facebook page which haven't made the blog, and I plan on including more of those things in my twitter account also.
Back to the future now, my resolution for 2013 is to stay active. When I was teaching and coaching (nine years experience at the high school level), I was busy beyond belief, to the point that I did not have a personal life. I was CONSTANTLY making lists of things that I needed to get done, but one thing that did happen was that I DID get a lot accomplished. Although I do love having more control over my life, I don't want to feel that I'm being idle this year - I want everything that I do to have a purpose. Last year my resolution was to "trust my reads" - I feel that I did a good job of that, analyzing situations and acting on the conclusions that I reached. For this year I want to be more like the Matthew Fox character in the movie 'Alex Cross' - it's not that I want to be a villain (and for those of you who don't know me yet, I am TRULY one of the "good guys"), but the Fox character always seemed focused, like he was getting something accomplished... ;)
I will be back tomorrow with my first post of 2013, but in the meantime, I hope that all of you end 2012 on a positive note, and that you ring in the new year safely. Have a great day and I will see you again tomorrow!
Minggu, 30 Desember 2012
Some Commissions
Now that Xmas has come and gone, I figure it's safe to post some of the sketch card commissions I've been doing all month!
The Black Rabbit
Good morning everyone. This is an unanticipated entry for me, but I didn't work last night and I just woke up for no reason, so here you go... For those of you who have been following my blog on a regular basis during the fall and early winter, you are undoubtedly aware of the disappointment that I faced this past summer upon returning to Las Vegas (can anyone say "stolen windpants?"). Anyway, what most of you are probably unaware of is the gut-wrenching summer that I endured the previous year which brought me back to San Marcos, America. It is chronicled here in the blog, but you have to go WAY BACK in the posts.
Leading up to the summer before last, I was working for the University of Texas and had been planning my return move to Las Vegas, but at the "last minute" (the end of May), I decided to leave UT and instead get back into teaching and coaching for at least one more year. It seemed like a good idea at the time, doing the "responsible thing" - I'd be able to put a lot of money in the bank during one year, because teachers and coaches don't have a life during the school year (at least I never did). Well, after driving all over the great big state of Texas to ELEVEN interviews, and going to both "coaching schools" (clinics that were held in Austin and Fort Worth where coaches can also interview for jobs), I came up empty in my job search. I have come to the conclusion since that time that it was due to the bad economy, and the teachers/coaches with no experience being hired because they cost less. Anyway, I was jobless, my lease in Austin was up at the end of July, and because of a friend of mine, I landed a job at the Texas Music Theater here in San Marcos, America. I was still breathing fire for quite a while, angry, frustrated, and just working my tail off at TMT. It wasn't too long into this stretch of discontent that one of our bartenders took the time to point out how much she appreciated how hard I worked every single night. Last night this bartender worked her last shift at another local bar, The Black Rabbit, and she will be leaving San Marcos for the hopefully greener pastures of Austin. Lissy, I just wanted to say thank you again for your kind words just over sixteen months ago, and to wish you the best of luck in the ATX. For those of you who pay close attention to this blog, YES, it was VERY UNUSUAL for me to be off on a Saturday, but I was able to take advantage of it. My friends Ryan and Nia were able to join Lissy and myself in a nice conversation for seemingly fifteen minutes before my overwhelming popularity (ha ha) seemed to bring SWARMS OF CUSTOMERS into the back bar area of the Black Rabbit, which actually put Lissy and Nia to work, but it was nice to have the opportunity to say goodbye.
I hope that all of you have a great day today and I'll see you again tomorrow!
Leading up to the summer before last, I was working for the University of Texas and had been planning my return move to Las Vegas, but at the "last minute" (the end of May), I decided to leave UT and instead get back into teaching and coaching for at least one more year. It seemed like a good idea at the time, doing the "responsible thing" - I'd be able to put a lot of money in the bank during one year, because teachers and coaches don't have a life during the school year (at least I never did). Well, after driving all over the great big state of Texas to ELEVEN interviews, and going to both "coaching schools" (clinics that were held in Austin and Fort Worth where coaches can also interview for jobs), I came up empty in my job search. I have come to the conclusion since that time that it was due to the bad economy, and the teachers/coaches with no experience being hired because they cost less. Anyway, I was jobless, my lease in Austin was up at the end of July, and because of a friend of mine, I landed a job at the Texas Music Theater here in San Marcos, America. I was still breathing fire for quite a while, angry, frustrated, and just working my tail off at TMT. It wasn't too long into this stretch of discontent that one of our bartenders took the time to point out how much she appreciated how hard I worked every single night. Last night this bartender worked her last shift at another local bar, The Black Rabbit, and she will be leaving San Marcos for the hopefully greener pastures of Austin. Lissy, I just wanted to say thank you again for your kind words just over sixteen months ago, and to wish you the best of luck in the ATX. For those of you who pay close attention to this blog, YES, it was VERY UNUSUAL for me to be off on a Saturday, but I was able to take advantage of it. My friends Ryan and Nia were able to join Lissy and myself in a nice conversation for seemingly fifteen minutes before my overwhelming popularity (ha ha) seemed to bring SWARMS OF CUSTOMERS into the back bar area of the Black Rabbit, which actually put Lissy and Nia to work, but it was nice to have the opportunity to say goodbye.
I hope that all of you have a great day today and I'll see you again tomorrow!
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