December 31, 2006

I just received an email this afternoon from my friend Mou who is teaching English in South Korea.  She was sending New Year's wishes, so a big shout out to her as she is celebrating New Year's a whole fourteen hours before all of us in this half of the world.  She was a bartender at the Wild Mushroom in Niagara Falls where I worked as a bouncer for several years.

The resort had a big fireworks display tonight for all the guests.  I was quite impressed with the length of the show and you can see a little video of some of the fireworks here.  It is a big video file so it may take a while to load in.  Be patient.

Here's a toast to 2006!  It was a great year, but it's now in the past, so let's look forward to 2007!

December 29, 2006

I went for a little Mountain Bike Ride in the morning.  I took a picture of a palm tree that was a type that I haven't seen before.  Well, it's off to work tonight and the casino is crazy busy.

December 27, 2006

Quiet day as it is raining outside.  I was supposed to play tennis but those plans are looking off because of the rain.  Instead I cooked my Christmas turkey from the casino.  They gave one to each employee.  While that was cooking I took in a few movies, Lucky Number Slevin and Running Scared.  I really enjoyed both of them.  I noticed Paul Walker using the term "Red Ice" in Running Scared.  I remember Woody Harrelson also using the term in "North Country" I believe, from what I remember.  Good to see some Hockey terminology finally breaking into US culture.

Surfing the web, I came across this crazy little video of a hyena rolling around inside a giraffe.  Check it out here.

December 26, 2006

Today was J'ouvert morning.  Pronounced joo-vay.  It is a contraction of the French jour ouvert meaning 'day open' or morning.  It is basically a large street party that occurs in the morning during Carnival in the Caribbean.  Each Caribbean country has its own carnival and J'ouvert happens on a different day depending on which Caribbean country you are in.  Here on St. Kitts that day is December 26th every year.  The party goes from about 4am until noon or until such time that the combination of rum and dancing knocks them out.

Basically large groups of people follow a truck that has calypso music or such playing, and they give out large quantities of alcohol, in particular rum, to all the people following behind them and dancing.  They call this procession a "troupe", and each troupe marches through the streets of the city.  One of the largest troupes this year was the "Extreme J'ouvert Warriors" and you can see them in neon green shirts on the streets.  Naturally there are street vendors, outdoor bars and food all over the place.  The tradition also involves smearing paint, mud, or oil on the participants known as Jab Jabs. This is done in remembrance of a civil disturbance in Trinidad, when the people smeared themselves with oil to avoid being recognized.  We arrived at 6am, just before things got hectic, and stayed for quite a few hours as we were having a great time.  I've included lots of pictures and even some videos of the festivities.  For some of the videos, click here.

Here I am with Dermot, Curlis and Javaughn.  Rinel is next.  They are all in Table Games.  Mark, Heather and Paul are upstairs at Jimmy's Bar overlooking the Circus.  Next two pics show the Circus at 6:40am and then at 9:15am (clock).

Here's some pictures of various outfits and costumes.  Not sure what the crazy weed man is supposed to be.

Some miscellaneous pictures.  You can see them handing rum out the back of the trucks and pouring it into water bottles.  One of the troupes is pictured here with the band on board.  I don't know what is up with the donkey guy.  I have absolutely no idea what the forks are for.

Until next year...

December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas!  from Santa.  

The big Christmas party was today at Carol-Anne's so I left work and took some time out from running my busy (ahem) casino floor to take in the festivities for a while.  We started out with a meal that included turkey, ham and all the trimmings.  Naturally, we had some Caribbean style appetizers including cheese and pineapple as well as pickled onions and cheese, which I hear is a common treat in England.  You will also catch a glimpse of the Australian, Tristan, cooking some shrimp on the barbie. How appropriate.  The barbecue shrimp were absolutely huge and delicious.  There was also cherry trifle for dessert.  There was just tons of food, way too much to go around, so I'm sure there'll be plenty of leftovers.  Next came the presents.  I ended up getting a bottle of James Buchanan 18 year old Scotch.  I've never had scotch before, but I'm told by the connoisseurs at the party that you drink it straight with no mix, especially with a single malt scotch such as this.  We'll see if I like it.  Carol-Anne was dressed as Mrs. Claus, and Allen had some kind of crazy Burger King thing going on with that crown while he was being humped by Tigger.  Myself, I just had to get my picture taken with Santa, aka Tigger as well.

I had a few questions from "the critics" wondering why some pictures are a little blurry.  In those pictures I didn't use a flash, so that you can see lights better, such as on the Christmas tree.

Here's a few pictures from the hotel lobby of a crazy Russian drummer man that looks like a big nutcracker, and also of the big Christmas tree in front of the casino entrance that you can see in the background.  I also snapped a few pictures outside some of the villas on the resort before work.  As you can see it wasn't quite a White Christmas ...lol.

Merry Christmas from Jason.  Merry Christmas from Kurt.

December 23, 2006

Break out the aluminum poles, it's Happy Festivus 2006!

Finished the ol' Christmas shopping yesterday in downtown Basseterre and stopped in a neat little cafe called the Oasis Outdoor Cafe.  It's close to the Circus and is kind of in the center of a little shopping district.  I also snapped a picture of the National Museum while I was there.

Happy Birthday, Lauren!

December 21, 2006

Congratulations to a high school friend of mine, Paul Taylor and Danielle on the birth of their baby, Annika Grace.  As Paul says, "mom and baby are doing well, and dad is hangin' in there".  Keep hangin' Paul, she'll be driving before you know it.  See all the pictures they've posted on their website here.

Very excited to see the newly released trailer for the Transformers movie coming out next July.  As I am a movie buff, I can't wait to see it.  What's not to love about alien space robots?  Check it out here.

And for all you Ontario gaming folks out there, Casino Windsor is becoming Caesars Windsor by early 2008.  Guess they're hoping the Ceasars name will draw crowds looking for Vegas-style action and entertainment.  I also heard that this is the first casino venture outside the U.S. for Caesars.  Interesting, I was unaware of that.

December 20, 2006

I did well in the tournament last night.  Finished in the money in third place.  But I lost in the cash game.  Final hand had me all-in with a full house on the flop against trip fives for Lee.  He caught an Ace on the river to win with a higher full house than me.  Very tough loss as I had a huge advantage in the hand.  But that's poker.  Here's a few pics of Eric next to his Christmas tree and a very intoxicated Alastair.  Also present left to right were:  Sue, Cliff, Lee, Allen, Alastair, Eric and Larry O.  Alastair and his crazy betting were leading when I left.  It doesn't always pay to play the best cards...

December 19, 2006

Headed downtown for a little shopping today.  We're doing a "Secret Santa" where you draw someone's name out of a hat and buy a Christmas gift for them.  Of course I picked two girls for my gifts and so I had to get creative.  Guys are easy to buy for but girls have such specific tastes that it makes it difficult.  Hopefully I succeeded in picking out some nice things. Did most of the shopping at "Ashburry's" and "Island Fever".   I had a few ladies present to help me so that helped quite a bit.  There were quite a few people downtown shopping including Cliff, Fabio, Cheryl, Kesha, Ishall, Larry O, Juvaughn, Curlis and Dermot.  We all met up at the "Circus" which is what they call a circular roadway that is downtown that has shops all around and a large clock tower in the center.  I snapped a couple of pics of the clock tower for all to see.

It is also now official that I have lost in the semis to "UNNECESSARYROUGHNESS" in the fantasy pool.  LaDanian was just too much to overcome.  Lundy is now moving on to face Al's team "Frigate Bay Gators" in the finals.  I'm still taking solace in the big regular season win though.

Big poker game tonight at Eric D's.  Hopefully it will be profitable.  Wish me luck!!

December 18, 2006

Rudi didn't let me down, but the Bengals did.  They played so bad, and did so many things wrong, that they had to pass the ball at the end of the game to try to stop the clock.  So Rudi didn't get a lot of carries at the end.  It was atrocious.  So it looks like I'm down and out.  Even though it's close, I think I will bow to "UNNECESSARYROUGHNESS" when the official scores are tallied tomorrow.  At least the regular season trophy was mine, that's where the big money was.

I also won $150 US on Full Tilt playing a few Sit 'n Go Poker Tournaments while I was watching the game.  So it wasn't such a bad night after all.  I am now ranked as a "shark" on the poker databases.  A modest achievement for some, but significant for all the poker guys out there.

December 17, 2006

It was a day of football since it was the semifinals of our Fantasy Football League.  After winning the regular season and getting a win last week in the quarters, I was definitely a favorite heading into the semis.  As it stands, Paul "Lundog" Lundy's team is beating me at the moment thanks to the usual ridiculous amount of points from LaDanian Tomlinson tonight against the Chiefs.  But there is still hope as I have Rudi Johnson hitting the turf for me tomorrow night.  Hopefully Rudi will have a superhuman effort.

December 14, 2006

Well, it's after midnight so I guess it's technically the 14th.  I finished uploading the rest of my Daily Weblog from my old website to my new one.  I like the look of the new website a little more so I'm sticking with it.  It really didn't take long to upload it as my new server was pretty fast.  Now the whole year is included at this new updated site.

Check out a great little Christmas Jingle here.  It cracked me up.

December 13, 2006

It's my night off and I went to a nice little Italian Restaurant on the island here that isn't too far from the resort.  It's located in Frigate Bay on the Atlantic side and is called Ciao.  This is the second time I've been here and I have to say the food is "to die for".  Absolutely the best Italian Cuisine I've ever had.  In typical Caribbean fashion however, the service has not always been great, but the food is worth the wait, so to speak.

The restaurant is actually fairly close to the Royal St. Kitts Golf Course and is just a short distance from the tee blocks on Hole #6.

Also just found out on the web that the incident with Pauly Shore was apparently fake and was planned all along as a hoax.  That's too bad as I quite enjoyed seeing that jackass get poked in the head.  Maybe he's not such a bad actor after all...

December 12, 2006

I just posted a script I wrote recently on my site for a short film I called "The Life Of Reilly" that I'm hoping to get produced for an upcoming film festival.  I've sent it out to a couple of production companies in the hopes they agree to produce it.  Response has been positive so far, but I believe if they do they will change the title.  Hopefully I will be cast in one of the leading roles.  Click on the link for scripts in the menu to your left for a copy of the screenplay.  Email me and let me know what you think.

I just watched a funny clip of Pauly Shore getting punched in the head onstage during a performance.  I guess his "fans" in Texas didn't appreciate his humor.  Watch the clip here.

Late at night I played a little online poker tournament for $10 US.  I came in 35th out of about 1,200 and took home a whopping $20 US.  I needed to get into the top ten to crack the serious money in the thousands of dollars $$.  But I did pretty good overall considering the number of players.

December 11, 2006

Worked day shift again today, but afterwards played a little tennis under the lights for a couple of hours.  I was pretty rusty as it's been a few years since I've really played much tennis, but it was quite fun nonetheless.  The courts on the resort are beautiful and very well kept as you can see from the pictures here.  The court is made of a kind of synthetic material that works quite well, or at least works well until it gets wet from what I hear.

Warwick Greenwood is seen in this photo.  He was the Aussie of the three.  Also present was Cliff Spivac.  Cliff, representing England, took home the victory tonight between the three of us in a closely contested three way match.

December 10, 2006

Well, I have to work today, but I managed to put together a few pics from Allen's party last night.  Since we all live on the resort, everyone can go back to the rooms on break, so you can see there were quite a few guys in suits coming back on breaks.  Tristan tried his best to look mean.  Definitely an entertaining night.  Lots of people there including:  Tristan, Bird, Fabio, Carol-Anne, Alastair, Lee, Cliff, Daron and of course Jocssi to name a few.

Interesting little trivia for all you gaming folks out there.  Allen was the first person awarded a gaming license in Ontario, back in the day.  Or so he says.  Can't say I can prove him wrong, so a fact it is.

As you can tell from the last photo, everyone has been putting up Christmas decorations.  It may not be a White Christmas, but all the decorations makes it feel like the Holidays, especially when you're indoors and you can't see the sun shining so bright outside.

December 9, 2006

What a beautiful day today for the 2nd Annual Royal St. Kitts Golf Club Holiday Scramble.  My partner for the outing was Larry O'Sullivan for the two man scramble format.  We finished in the middle of the pack with a 72.  Winners had 61.  The best score with no adjustments for handicaps was 62, which was pretty amazing.  Lots of staff from the casino as well as the Resort took part and we also raised some money for the local Children's House.  Daron Pearson, Mike Redivivo, Allen Petherick and Peter Page were some of the others in attendance.  I didn't take home any prizes as I did last time we had a scramble, but it was a very successful day with a great meal to top it all off.

Since it was a Holiday Scramble, Santa was there of course to hand out the prizes.  He was played convincingly, or at least as convincingly as a skinny guy can, by Chris Johnson, one of the pros at the course.  Also a big shout out to Allen Petherick as he celebrates his birthday today here on the island.  I'm off work tonight, so the party is about to continue at his place.  Cheers.

December 8, 2006

I had to work tonight, but was fortunate enough to be able to skip out and attend a big dinner and cocktail hour in one of the ballrooms at the Marriott here.  It was a Holiday gathering put on by the local government and also attended by quite a few of us managers here at the Resort, as they were kind enough to invite us.  The highlight of the evening was definitely the band.  They were great and played the whole way through.  It was a dry night for me though since I had a casino floor to run and had to head back to work early.

There were quite a few photographers present, so I may have some pictures in the near future to post.

December 7, 2006

It's official.  I won the regular season of our online Fantasy Football Challenge and took home the Grand Prize of $120 US Dollars.  Not bad for the rookie.  "Super Laz" Anthony Laslo came in a close second.  Now for the Playoffs that start this week.  I have to keep my fortune going as I look to take home the Playoff Trophy.

Speaking of Laz, here's a picture I took of his 3-Legged Dog while Laz was still here living in St. Kitts.  Very interesting to see him get around.

December 6, 2006

It was a nice relaxing night off work.  I watched Miami Vice with Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell.  It had some very interesting camera angles that I haven't seen before very often in films.  Overall, I liked the movie because it tried to be different, but the storyline was nothing exciting.

Signed up to play on Full Tilt Poker and played a few tourneys while watching the movie.  Finished first in two smaller tourneys as well as qualifying for a larger satellite in the Aussie Millions.  Unfortunately I finished out of the money on that one, but it was a very good and profitable night of online poker.  Haven't played in quite a while so it was good to get the feet wet again in the online game.  Full Tilt turned out to be a great site, so far.

December 4, 2006

Well, the Caribbean Poker Classic is finally over and the winner of the main event was crowned.  An 18 year old European, from Sweden I believe, was crowned the champion and was awarded the prize of $221,000.  Not bad for a few days work.  The event was very successful and everyone is already looking forward to next year.

I hit the golf course and took a few nice shots of Half Moon Bay.  It is a cove on the Atlantic Ocean side that runs along the 16th and 17th fairways.  Very picturesque with a beautiful color blue to the water.  The ocean was quite rough today though as it has been for the last couple of days.

December 1, 2006

There's a great little moneymaker on the beach here, where a guy lets you get your picture taken with some baby Monkeys if you give him a few bucks.  Needless to say, many tourists eat it up and get their picture taken.  I haven't in the past, but I finally gave up and decided to get my picture taken with them.

They are pretty cute and even have little diapers on.  I've been doing too much golfing, and not enough beaching, so you can see the golfers tan that I'm getting.  I'll have to do something about that.