The Careful Gambler

As you know I have been enjoying being recognized as a Senior Citizen at the Sky City Casino here. On Mondays we get a coupon book that entitles us to $9.95 buffet, one free drink (beer, wine, pop), $5 keno and $10 slot machines.

In the past we have given away the drink and the Keno. A few weeks ago we thought we'd give this Keno a try. As I reported no Facebook we had $10 and actually won $3. So we had $10 fake dollars and walked away with $3 real dollars.
That was enough to by 2 litres of milk and 3x30c ice cream cones. An ice cream cone is 30c at McD's.

Last week instead of betting it all on Keno numbers we bet $1 on heads or tails. Essentially tails is numbers 1-40 and is head and 41-80 is tails, or is that other way around?

So last week I placed a $1 bet on tails and won. I got $2 back. Now if you remember that I am actually betting with money that doesn't really exists it's just a $5 keno coupon.

This got me thinking if L has a $5 coupon and I have a $5 coupon, she can bet heads and I can bet tails on the same game and we are guaranteed to win $10. That makes our dinner really on $9.90 for the both of us.
What an amazing idea.

Well after many long discussions, you have those when you're married, we have come up with a new strategy.

We'll each bet $3 so we are guaranteed to win $6 and use the other $4 to make bets with a possible jackpot $44 from a $1 ticket for picking 3 numbers.

By using this method we aren't totally taking advantage of our hosts and thus reducing our guilt factor a little. We'll be paying $13.90 for dinner for 2 which is still a great deal.

I'll let you know how we go later since tonight is Monday.

It's been a few months

It's been a few months since I last posted so I have a lot to catch up on.

Well in June I turned 50 that qualifies us as Senior citizens at the local Casino. There we can get $9.95 buffet, that's a better price than seniors get in Florida.

Modified coupon

As you can see we fit right in with the seniors crowd.

We enjoyed some cool nights in June, I know for the people in the northern hemisphere that may seem a little weird but June is our winter. On some nights it got down to a "minimum" (their speak) of 16c. Some nights we even had to put a blanket on the bed and close the window. I say that all with a little bit of sarcasm because that weather in June is still pretty nice. The only bad thing about winter here is that the trees start to drop their leaves and we have to clean up the back garden every weekend. But our pile is nothing you would want to jump into.

In July we took a 5 week trip back to Canada, via Sydney and the USA.

I don't know what it is about me and travelling but every time I go travelling I always get selected to be bomb sniffed. I bet I look like someone that would laugh it off which I always do. So I have left Darwin airport 3 times and been sniffed twice.

Our time in Sydney was short as there was an 8 hour stop over. We took the subway to visit the Opera house and the famous bridge. The subway cost was reasonable until you paid for the exit tax/trip from the airport. That was $15 each.

Waiting a the startion

Hold on tight with sleepy commuters

When we got out of the subway all I can say was brrrrr. This weather is not what you would think Australia is about. But the south gets really cold in the winter. Sydney can hit 0c or below. We had long sleeve t-shirts on and hoodies and at 8am in the morning we were cold.

They did not turn up the heat.

Being there didn't seem as grand as it does on TV or you see in pictures. The Opera house did seem to look as if it needed a good scrub down with a soapy bucket of water and a broom.

Sydney Opera house

It could have been the overcast day, bad lighting, bad camera angle or just bad photographer.
But Sydney did have this amazing network of boats that ferried citizens to the down-town to go to work I would think taking a boat to and from work every day might be a little relaxing. It's a nice city built on a river and unlike Toronto has seemed to have kept a lot of it's old buildings.

The next stop San Francisco California, but to get there we had to endure a 15 hour plane ride. Now usually long distance flying is not bad because every seat has it's own TV with multiple movies to watch. But not the Sydney to San Francisco via United Airlines. Nope it just had 1 big screen that was so bright you couldn't catch any sleep because of the light. Well it was cheap so the saying goes "you get what you pay for".

Upon arrival at San Francisco we drove to San Jose California which is better referred to as Silicon Valley. This is where the who's who of internet companies are. It is also the home of Google, but a little more on Google later.

L has 2 brothers and a sister in Cali, with many assorted nephews, nieces and friends from Vietnam. But the first thing that we always do when we get to San Jose is have Vietnamese food. It's a debate on whether Toronto, San Jose or LA has the best Vietnamese but it doesn't matter because it's great.

Good Vietnamese at last.

We stayed with L's brother and her 2 nephews. They had just bought a house and it had a nice backyard with lots of fruit trees which we pillaged.

L and her brother with her nephews

 In San Jose we did some outlet shopping, and totally laid waste to the Hollister store. Although most of the stuff we bought we took back to Canada as gifts.

There was a big birthday party for one of the boys which worked our really well for the timing of the trip and some of us passed out some gifts from Darwin and modelled them as well.

Croc hat

On thing that's always on the menu when we visit the boys is Laser Quest and this time we didn't get to play as soon as we normally do so for 3 days we heard "are we going to Laser Quest now?"

Pew pew

 Needless to say we made it and the scores from the boys were a lot higher this year. I'm gonna be in big trouble next time I visit. I'm gonna have to watch my back and front and gun and .... where ever else I can be shot.

Our next stop was Toronto which involved the Red Eye flight which arrives at 5:45am. Dad and Pauline were there to pick us up and we drove home noticing that not much had really changed since we had left.

Our first stop that night was Mandarin buffet, which I had been raving about since I knew we were coming, but actually it was our only visit to the Mandarin.

That weekend we had a 50th birthday party for me and we had L's family, mine and Paulines grandson Jaxon and Brooke along as well. We all had a great time and Jaxon demonstrated how he can use a screw driving gun to put screws in a block of wood. For a guy just short of 2 he's pretty handy.

Jaxon the hand toddler soon to be man.

Since Ontario is our old stomping grounds we knew were home, we had some past Canada life to settle and lots of shopping and family visiting to do. Even though we had 2+ weeks there we just never seemed to have enough time.

Dad with Phillip in the background practising his driving.

We both visited our old work places but I never got to see everyone. I had 4 floors to cover and only managed 2.

We also brought back a crock from Darwin for mums pool which Grandpa Brian named Boris. As you can tell he has adjust to the Canadian lifestyle quite well.

Boris

We had a nephew's day which involved McD's, Laser Quest and a movie. The boys are growing up and we certainly won't looking at them as boys any more they are really young men now.

Men still play Laser Quest

Since Phillip had never been on a big airplane, he's been on lots of little ones we took a 1 week trip to Florida. So to summarise the trip we,

Ready to take off

Did a surfing simulation the first day, Uncle Paul hit his head within the first 2 minutes felt like he had a concussion for the rest of the trip.

Phillip on the boogie board

 Went shopping and went to the M&M's store.

M & M Race car

Went to the Walt Disney Magic Kingdom ... "there was blood on the saddle"

Main Street USA

Drove to Daytona beach were we saw the Daytona 500 track

Daytona 500 store

And the beach the water was freezing cold.

Daytona beach

Discovered that TD is taking over America.

No I did not make a withdrawal

Went to Universal Studios, not Uncle Paul's favourite.

Universal studios Florida

Surfer Dude

Met Scooby Doo

Scooby and Shaggy

Rode a Seqway, well Phillip and L did.

Segway

Played monster mini putt.

This is what I call mini putt

And survived the driving, the heat, the line ups, the roller-coasters (well Paul didn't), 3 trips to Golden Corral buffet and still managed to catch the plane home to Toronto.

All aboard

 From this point on the vacation was finishing up really quickly.

We came back to San Jose for 4 days to celebrate L's sisters birthday.

Happy Birthday Ma Hoang

Went to Laser Quest with a side trip to the Google campus to pose with a bunch of fibre glass food.

It's gonna take a big cup of tea to eat this guy.

This is an ice cream sandwich.

The scores were much better this time but Uncle Hien came 2nd of all players

4 days was over before you know before we had to get on the plane for the 15 hours of torture back to Sydney (cough upgrade your plans United).

Back on the United flight to Australia

In Sydney the weather was still cold and we had to wait outside to transfer between International and Domestic.

Sydney Transfer

Another 4 hours back to Darwin only to arrive to beautiful hot Top End weather.

No hoodies required in Darwin

Yep that's 3 duffel bags of luggage. Not suit cases but bags. The reason is that a suit case weighs 10lbs and that's 10lbs of clothes we couldn't bring back.

The haul

Becoming a senior & what anniversary‏

Well this year I turned 50. I guess it was easier to take as no one could make a big fuss over it because of being in Australia.

So to celebrate we did our usual, which was to go to the Skycity Buffet. If any of you are on Facebook know that every time we go there L gets here picture taken and put on Facebook. It makes it look like all we do is eat out. But in reality we rarely eat out here because it's so expensive here.

But at Skycity if you are 50 or over you are considered a senior. Well I'm not sure what the benefits are of being a senior but it says you get a booklet with all sorts of free stuff.
L and I have vowed to check it out next week. We found out that the buffet is $9.95 and you have to book well in advance.

Also this month it was our Anniversary, 7 years. It seems after 7 years of marriage your mind must go because we both forgot. In Canada I was lucky because my workmate Jeff was married on the same day as L and I was. So we always reminded each other. So really it's Jeff's fault. The only reason I remember is that my mum called ME to wish us a happy anniversary. Except the 18th in Canada at night is the 19th in Australia, in the morning. So my mum could have saved my skin but she was just 12 hours too late.

 

It's ok for next year I have entered the date in both L's and I hotmail calendar so we will get reminders a few days ahead of time and on the day. So no more excuses.

 

For that day we went to downtown Darwin and ate chinese take-a-way in a qwerky takeout area. It was outside and kinda romantic.

Life in Darwin is starting pickup as the tourist season is starting to kick in. So there are a lot more people downtown, which is good for the economy.

It's schnitzel night‏

Our favourite buffet, Sunset Buffet at the Skycity Casino, decided to designate Tuesday nights as Schitzel night. The price was 1/2 their normal rate so L and I decided that we'd go on at date to try out the new offering.

Upon arriving the the casino the sunset was going down and we captured this video. This is about as good as it gets in Darwin as we are going into their winter and the sun sets over the ocean.



A loveely sunset



At this buffet you pay before you eat. At the cashier they asked us what schnitzel we wanted; pork, chicken or beef. I chose beef, L selected chicken. They explained that they delivered the schnitzel portion of the meal to the table and you can buffet the rest. That seemed unusual but fine.

We were shown to our table and as soon as we sat down a waitress was there with our schnitzel on plates to give to us. I was a little unprepared for the main part of meal so so but we accepted them.

Then I thought "but I wanted a salad first".

So we decided we'd do things the way we always do and have a salad and then commence with the main part of our meal. So we would just have to settle for cold schnitzel.

Overall I would say things weren't up to the usual quality but the price was certainly right. The next day I felt like I was poisoned, which really isn't hard to do to me.

So will we go back ?

Maybe in another 4 weeks.

It's the start of the Dry

Here in Darwin we have 2 seasons wet and dry. This years wet was unusually dry which for us, as new to Australia, was great. We didn't have to deal with to much mould growing on things.

But the dry has officially started because lots of events are ahappening. The one that makes it really official is the Mindil beach market. This happens every Thursday and Sunday night and is a place to buy food and trinkets. The big draw of course is the sunset. The big downer is the mosquitoes and I usually get poisoned from the food.

But the dry means that it probably won't rain for another 5 months. Another thing that comes with the dry is cooler nights. This is the first time we didn't need any air con and we actually needed a blanket on the bed. We have the windows wide open. This has an unfortunate side affect of letting all the smoke from the brush burning into the house. That is the other thing that comes with the dry, the brush burning. They do this for 2 reasons; to reduce the chance of a big fire that would threaten cities and to rejuvenate the foliage for the next upcoming wet season.

Last night we saw the barking owl, but this time it wasn't barking. It was sitting on the pole and would fly around catching big bugs. It was special to be able to see this bird at all, but to see him in action was amazing. Since our first sighting we're always on the lookout for it every time we take out the garbage.

By the way the background picture of the blog is taken at Mindil beach.

I must ASH you what's falling from the sky

Well the dry has started, so they say. The dry is where it won't rain for 6 months. With that comes cooler nights. So much cooler we don't need ceiling fans. They have been running constantly for 7 months  and we actually can use the top sheet on the bed. In fact last night was so cool I could have used a blanket. Tonight I'll be better prepared.

But what also comes with the dry (Darwin's Winter) is controlled burning of the brush. They do this as buffers between areas just in case they get a big brush fire, this prevents whole place doesn't burn down. Well at least that's the theory.

So for the last few days the place has been so smokey we could have smoked bacon in the house. With the burning there is all sorts of white ash falling from the sky. I know it's not nuclear winter because N Korea's missile didn't make it this far ... yet.

The smoke is so bad it's pointless taking up smoking as you can get the same effects just going for a walk. So much for healthy living in the outback.

Can you fill this bottle‏

If you don't know already I have a new job. The job is IT support for a construction company here in Darwin.

It seems that as a part of their safety requirements they perform random drug and alcohol testing. So you can't cheat the tests are unannounced ... I guess that's where the RANDOM part comes it.

So today after being with the company only 4 weeks someone poked their head around the corner and said "oh by the way you have to give a sample".

Well normally I don't like tests because I am really lousy at studying, but this test didn't require pulling an all nighter in front of a load of books. Just a clean lifestyle.

So I confidently knew this was one test I was not going to fail. I mean if they were to test for something like Chocolate Cookies then that one I would normally fail in a heartbeat but I've been on a bit of a clean eating kick for the last few weeks. So even the cookie test I could pass.

The only thing that was stopping me from acing this test was ... um ... like ... motivation. Well no problem I'll drink lots of water.

Well 4 bottles of water later and ... still no desire to be tested. People kept asking me, "ready to test" and I'd tell them I was working on it.

Well after about 2 hours I was ready to take the test. Oh by the way this test is performed in the presence of a referee (for lack of a better word). To make sure that you don't cheat. I mean that fact alone is enough to put someone off being motivated.

So off I went to find the person from the testing company, I said "I'm ready" and she said "oh we just wrapped up, I guess we'll have to get you the next time around". No problem I said and waved her goodbye and promptly trotted off to the mens.