Stumble Upon

You gotta try this. The worst thing to happen to my free time in a while.

Cadbury Mini Eggs

I love Cadbury Mini Eggs. Hershey Eggies can go to heck.

Uhler's Birthday

My brother got me some depend's for my birthday to celebrate being one day closer to that magic time of incontinence. Joke's on him, we'll both need them one day.

The gang took me to the 2nd Avenue Grill and nearly all of us had the steak and lobster. I felt as if we had somehow grown up, at least for a night. Shanin and I were greeted at the door to "Party of two, or Chris's Birthday?" Quite neat. Eleven of us had supper.

Then came the options? Where to? Seeing as though I played and lost $100 the night before on craps, the natural thought was to go back to the casino! The Emerald Casino quite sucks, and if you have been in any other casino, you'd know why.

I played a half an hour on craps, starting at $60 and quickly getting up to $100 or so. I coloured up to two $25 chips and stuffed $60 in my pocket. The rest I threw away back to the house. (I left a two dollar tip to the dealers.)

Next was a very crowded game of Roulette. I had wanted to bet $5.00 on 23 and $55 on Red, but there were no more colours left. I bet $55 on red and it landed on 32 red. Sweet. Up about $40 on the night. Took off to Lydia's.

Went upstairs and was inundated with shooters. I must have had seven or eight in a 45 minute time period. This is all well and good, but I needed to be mindful of three things:

1. Don't puke, and


2. You need to drink as many shots as your friends offer, and


3. You have a tournament game of squash tomorrow morning at 10:30.

I managed to keep a good balance of all three. I almost didn't make #1 due to a shot from Darrell at 10:55. It's my good friend Tequila. It caused my mouth to water, and my stomach to get turney and such, but I managed to suck it up. What didn't help was a good combination of JD, Tequila and Tabasco sauce from Cory a few minutes before.

Brian bought me a second shot of Jag, about 11:05, and if I were to have had it right then I would not have been mindful of #1. I delayed the consumption until 11:30. Good stuff, that Jag.

After which, a few of us went downstairs to watch the band. Dunno who was playing.

Just after 1:00, Shanin and I took off back home. I drank plenty of water, had a cup of coffee in the morning, and kicked my opponent's ass, and had $40 extra in my pocket. Good birthday! (And it's not even my birthday!)

Uhler's Physiological Response to Tournament Play

I'm a stats freak. I love statistics. To further this obsession with collecting stats I purchased a heart monitor that records my heart rate during squash, or whatever activity I want. I can download exercise data to my computer for further analysis. I have been using it for every squash match I've played since early December 2004. It's an amazing little contraption.

Previous to my tournament play, I have found that during a difficult game of squash my heart rate gets as high as 195 beats per minute (or so). It doesn't stay around there for very long, but it does get quite high. My maximum heart rate is 203 (I took a VO2 Max which figured this out). My VO2 max is 39.2 just in case you were wondering -- and yes, I am working to improve it.

The final game of each of my matches I averaged a heart rate of 197! My maximum heart rate for each of the matches was 204, 210, and 212. Clearly well beyond my normal safe hear rate of 203. I averaged just over 11 minutes per game beyond my safe heart rate limit (in Zone 4).

I can probably attribute the increased heart rate to adrenalin and nerves. When do I call a let? Am I playing right? What are the spectators thinking? etc... I guess my tournament nerves will calm down after I've played a few more.

Saskatchewan Open Squash Tournament

I participated in my first squash tournament, in Saskatoon. I entered the Mens Open "D" against four other opponents. They arranged the "D" in a round-robin so everyone had a chance to play each other.

My fist match was against a new player of about 4 months. I can best describe him as a power player, a natural racket player. He pounded me 3 games to 0. We went on to claim first place.

The second match was againat a new player of a few weeks. I beat him 3 games to 0. He went on to end up in last place.

My third match, I defaulted because I was having supper with my friends. This guy eventually finished second place.

In my last match, I beat a young man 3 games to 1. He went on to finish in fourth place.

My record was 2-2, good enough for third place, out of five guys.

First Tourney Squash Match

I have my first tournament squash match in a few hours. Wish me luck. I have only one game today, one or more tomorrow...

Emerald Casino

Emerald Casino - Casino City I went to the casino yesterday with a few friends. I took a crisp, new $100 bill. Started out on Let it Ride, and lost $25 pretty quickly. I wanted to play some blackjack (even practised) but ended up playing Craps. I took my $75 and turned it into $102 after two and a half hours. I was up to about $140 at one point!

I left a $2.00 tip for the Craps table and called it a night with another crisp, new $100 bill. Sweet.

Copy Block

I've always liked 'copy block,' AKA 'dummy text,' AKA 'lorem ipsum.' I was first introduced to it back in highschool during my visual arts days. Copy block is a nonsensical english looking words that are used to fill in the blanks during publications. We know something is going to be put there, but we don't want it to be left blank. It can make articles or blog posts look bigger and more important.

Esent la feui exerciduis adigna consed dolesent wis augiam ex etum inci ea feum vulla facil et ulput velenis niam irit ver sectet vulla faccummod magna at ullam, commy nibh er suscidunt velit ver senisit nonsequis ea coreetue feu facil eugait am, volore delit ercipis molestrud dunt vel incipisim velestrud delent augiat, vel et nulland reetue estrud dolorer illutate dunt nos dolutpatuer summy nos nonulpute erit veliquam, qui tat nullaorem eugiat.

Ex erit wisl diam iliquat lor sendre feugait lummy nonulla feugueros exerit prat, vulput eleniscil doloborer sit eugue conum zzrit alis dipit, velenis cipsum augait am, sum zzrit luptatinisi.

Ibh eu feu feuguer at vero od er autpat, core ming eugait atie tio eumsan hent vendionum quisim vel in ectet lore con ulputpatet volor secte del ex exer init wisl ute magna conulputpat, quam zzrit at, conse feugiamet autpat. Ut dipismod tat, sequipisl incilisci erat. Xeraestis exer autatue vel exerillandit nostrud ming ea facinim ipit wisi.

Caesars 24/7

Caesars 24/7 is a reality show on A&E that I can't get enough of! Way better than Fox's "The Casino." NBC's Las Vegas seems hit and miss, but it does have some very good episodes.

All in all, I love Las Vegas!

Feb Saskatoon Squash Tournament

February Squash Tournament in Saskatoon. I'm going to enter the Men's Open D. It's gunna be my first squash tournament.

Devon's 29th Birthday

Went to Lidia's for Devo's 29th Birthday Party. Some good pics of Devo and the gang.

Photogallery - Smugmug

I've been spending time getting the keywords set up on my smugmug page. Instead of looking for something in a gallery, look for it by a keyword. Cool stuff.

Haiku #3

Craven at Sunset.
A seagull flies in the sky
Hey Guy! Bomb's away.