Just as I was writing that last entry, the cable company called. We ordered cable and internet service through Cox earlier this afternoon and signed up for a Monday installation appointment.

They called to let Kerri know if a Saturday appointment would be better instead (it is). That’ll be great - because right now we have that TV she bought earlier today, hooked up to a wall, and with zero signal. It’s pretty depressing watching TV when it’s a blank blue screen on every channel.

The gas man turned out to be a lady. She knocked on our door to make sure we were home, then went to turn everything on outside, came back in to check the appliances, and was on her way. The whole process took about 10 minutes. We now have fire, hot water, and [an effective] clothes dryer now!

It’s the middle of the afternoon, and I’m waiting for the gas man. When we called the gas company yesterday, they said to expect him “any time after 7am” so that’s what we’re doing.

Kerri spent a lot of the morning putting those cleaning products we bought yesterday to good use. She got the kitchen and bathrooms done.

Anyway, I’m sitting here at home alone right now. Kerri took one for the team and is at Walmart right now picking up our TV. We’re probably getting the 32″ Vizio, since I was pretty happy with the one I bought back home.

In the meantime, I’m home alone! Party time! I’ve got a fridge with a couple bottles of water, waiting for the gas man who probably won’t be showing up any time soon in an apartment with no furniture except for an aerobed. This is actually a little more exciting than some of the parties I’ve been to in my life.

We signed the rental lease this morning and moved in this afternoon. In preparation, we went to get a cashier’s check yesterday. Kerri’s FCU back home has sister locations with a number of CU’s around town here. The one we went to was in a mexican supermarket called “La Bonita”, where they played fiesta music and we bought a bottle of Boone’s malt liquor for a buck and a half.

Anyway, we moved into the new place this afternoon, and Kerri started calling up the gas and power companies. I took note of a few of the issues and minor repairs around the place and called the property manager. It was just a short list of things which included a leaking toilet flapper, the realtor lockboxes still being outside, and a couple of other things.

We went to Walmart this afternoon and spent about 50 bucks on an Air-bed, and about $150 on a bunch of housewares that I’ve always taken for granted - cleaning supplies, handsoap, dish soap, paper towels, bath towels, a broom … and some other stuff. I didn’t realize how quickly all that stuff can add up.

After we got home, we were cleaning up around the kitchen when we heard the door unlock and two people stepped in. Remember how I said the Realtor lockboxes were still outside? Well, a realtor and a house hunter came through the door. After the four of us made eye contact and freaked out simultaneously, we explained that we had just moved in today, and the realtor said we need to call our agent again to remove the listing asap. He was nice enough to give us the spare keys from the lockbox, and Kerri was nice enough to let the house hunter look around the unit. Too late, buddy!

Tonight, we went to Reid’s place around the Southern part of town and had a BBQ, a lot of beers, and watched some TV. Good times seeing that guy again. Good times watching TV, too - no idea when the cable guy’s going to hook us up (not like we have a TV yet anyway). Fortunately, though, we have at least one neighbor who runs an unsecure wifi connection. Thanks, dude!

That’s according to my mom when I talked with her over the phone tonight. I told her the following story:

Earlier tonight we went to play the slots again. Acting on a tip from BT, we checked out these Blazing 7 machines at Main Street that he and Nicole had luck on (Nicole actually won the jackpot on one of them). I went to the exact machine she won at, and Kerri sat next to me.

$100 later, I was sitting there empty handed, and Kerri had won $200. I switched from my machine on Kerri’s left to the one on her right. At the second machine, I lost another $50, and Kerri won another $200 on her very last spin, just as the waitress came to bring us our ‘free’ beers. She cashed out with a $500 ticket.

Final score for tonight:
Eric: -$150
Kerri: $400

When I told my mom, she gave me a short ‘told you so’ lecture about not gambling, and said “We don’t have luck”.

“Wait what do you mean? ‘We’ as in the Fong family?”

“Yeah. Even my family on my side.” She said.

Mom knows best. I will now retire from gambling. (For tonight, anyway.)

This morning, we met up with a realtor that Kerri’s been in touch with for the past week. It was a pretty busy day; he spent about five hours with us and showed us seven or eight different rental properties. We found one that we liked, and sent in an application, but it being Saturday, I don’t think we’ll find out whether we got the place or not until Tuesday or Wednesday.

Trouble is, we’re supposed to check out of the hotel on Wednesday morning. As a just-in-case, we booked an extra two nights over at the Main Street Hotel. We may not need those two nights, or we might need those two nights and then some. Looks like we’re gambling in more ways than one here. WOO!

Small win for the day: So it was 1am and we were craving desert. The Plaza hotel has a 24-hour McDonalds right in the lobby, so we took the elevator down to check to see whether they had ice cream cones.

We were thinking of getting one cone and sharing it. But then we get to McDonalds and find out that, ice cream cones are only .50cents there! They cost more than twice that back in Hawaii (even more at Ala Moana). I don’t know if it’s like that just here in the hotel, or if it’s like that everywhere else, too. I’ll find out.

Anyway, since they were so cheap, we each got one. Man I’m going to get fat living like this. And during our time here, I bet we’ll save at least…. five bucks on ice cream alone. Time to hit the slots, bitches.

Again, my internet connection is unreliable and I can’t post any photos with this entry yet. I’ll post the pictures when we get a better connection..

We woke up and checked out of the hotel in the morning, and made our way to Horizon Lines to pick up Kerri’s car. Originally, we thought that we’d be able to just pick the car up at the pier (part of the reason behind our staying at the Queen Mary Hotel). Turned out that the car pickup was somewhere in Compton.

Anyway, it wasn’t so bad. Once we got the car up, we returned the rental, stopped at Burger King, and made our way to Vegas.

Kerri wanted to do the entire drive by herself, which was fine with me. She did the entire drive by herself, with no rest breaks. I took a few notes during the drive. Here’s what I wrote:

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2:26pm - So we picked up Kerri’s car a few hours ago and then dropped off the rental car. Even with the GPS, I think I got lost once or twice. The streets in LA are really crammed together. Anyway, right now we’re on the I-15 North, about to reach Barstow. We’ve been driving for about an hour and a half now. The car’s trip meter reads 109.1 miles, but only just now did I think to grab the laptop and start writing stuff down. I’ll post everything up once we get Internet access.

According to the GPS, we’ll get there at 5:18pm. WE’RE ALMOST THERE! WOO!!

2:48pm - We just passed a sign that says we’re 151 miles away from Vegas. We’re surrounded by sand and brown plants. We’re still on the I-15. The GPS says to go straight on this road for 142 miles. No problem. Our ETA did bump up a little, though - it now says we should reach our destination at 5:15. We saved six minutes WOOO!!! We’re going about 75mph now. I think this is the fastest that Kerri’s Yaris has ever gone.

3:00pm - We just passed another road sign. Only 140 more miles to go. Correction on my last entry - we’re now going 83mph, which I think is also the Yaris’ max speed. A couple of raindrops hit the windshield a few minutes ago, but I don’t see any clouds. Weird.

3:03pm - To our left, we just passed some abandoned waterpark. I remember seeing it before on an episode of Rob & Big when they were driving to Vegas. They pulled the bus over at the park and started skating down the dry waterslides and in the pools.

3:29pm - Baker: 11mi. Vegas: 105mi. The Dirty Thunder session that we were listening to on the iPod just ended.

3:54pm - Vegas: 72 mi. Elevation: 4000ft. GPS Arrival time says 5:06pm now. People drive really fast here. There’s also a lane just for trucks and other slow vehicles. We passed an old white couple driving in that lane a while back.

4:03pm - Vegas: 60mi. Kerri wanted a wrist massage just now. She says she’s still doing okay. Man I’m getting tired just sitting here.

4:20pm - We just crossed the Nevada border! Almost there! The Primm buildings were the first we’ve seen for miles. GPS ETA now says 5:03pm. Damn as I was typing this, we passed a white Escalade on the side of the road with nice rims and a flat front left tire. FAIL! (knock on wood).

4:31pm - Las Vegas: 29mi. We’re surrounded by flat land again. GPS now says 5:01pm, but we have a feeling that we’ll hit traffic when we get closer to our destination.

4:43pm - We see the strip! LAND HO! We also just passed a billboard that says that NKOTB’s coming to town on Oct11. OOO BOY!!!!

4:49pm - Just passed the Mandalay and Luxor…and now the New York New York … and now some construction. Traffic’s real light, I’m glad. GPS now says we’ll get there in 9 minutes. Okay now we’re passing the Belagio. We’re pretty much there! I can’t wait! (to use the bathroom, that is).

4:51pm - Ok nvermind we’ve just hit that traffic. Oh man. I remember when we were here in February - driving from the Strip to downtown took over an hour. I think there was an accident that day though. Or… I hope so.

The arrival time on the GPS is creeping back up now. Doh!

5:03pm - Traffic wasn’t *too* bad. We just took the offramp to downtown. I’m signing off now. Gotta help navigate.

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…And there you have it! That was our drive to Vegas. All in all, it was four hours of a looong drive.

The internet connection I’ve got right now is kind of lacking, so I can’t put pictures up yet. When I get a better connection, I’ll come back to this post later and post photos..

We flew out of Honolulu on Wednesday morning. I left my family with a messy room and a couple of boxes that need to be sent up once we find a place to live.The flight over wasn’t too bad. I slept through most of it and we landed in LAX around 4:30pm, took the shuttle to the rental car place, and drove over to the Queen Mary Hotel.

The hotel is an old ship that’s been drydocked and set up as a hotel and venue. Kerri’s cousin lives in Anaheim and she took us out to dinner that night. We met her at this place called The Boiling Crab, which ended up falling in the best-ever list of things I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Any writeup I try to do won’t do this place justice, so I’ll just say that Rachel was waiting over an hour before we got there, and we all waited about half an hour more, and it was still well worth it.

That said, I’ll just refer you to their myspace page where they have a pretty good video review. I’m pretty sure the location where the video took place was the same one we went to.

We got back to the hotel that night and wandered around the old ship/hotel, washed up in the room’s tiny shower, and fell asleep in the room’s tiny beds. It was an interesting hotel, though.

It’s 10:50pm in Las Vegas. I’m sitting at the window on the 12th floor of the Plaza Hotel. Kerri’s passed out on one of the beds. The place isn’t as ghetto as I feared it might be.We’ve been here in Vegas for about five hours now, after landing in LA yesterday and driving up from there this afternoon.

Apparently, I can’t really go without internet for more than a few days without freaking out. That, and after ‘donating’ $30 to the California Hotel (which lasted all of ten minutes), paying $40 for an entire week of wifi access stopped seeming like such a stretch. I’m pretty sure it’ll pay for itself in a couple of days with all the money I’ll save by staying in the room and not-gambling.

Anyway, just wanted you guys to know that we’ve landed and are ok. I’m going to take a shower, fill in a couple more details afterwards, and try to catch up on email.