It's been an amazing week. Business has just been phenomenal lately and I have been averaging about 4 hours of sleep per night. Can't complain about that! We also launched our Relay for Life initiative and I am really excited to see how it goes.

In other news, I put a bid in on another house in Royal Oak and it was accepted. As I said last year, you don't count the deal done until you're sitting at the closing table, but things seem pretty promising right now. I'll write more about it once the deal has been sealed.

Jen and I are going up north this weekend for the extended holiday. The weather looks like it is going to be cold, but as long as I am up north, I don't care. What are you up to this holiday weekend? Post a comment below and let me know. Off to work now though. I'll write again...

Good game Pistons and Happy Birthday Jim!

So last night Dief and I made our weekly trip to the downtown Detroit casinos. Last week we went to MGM Grand, to we decided last night we would give Greektown a shot. Both Dief and I had won money last week (Dief more than I) and we were in the mood to win again. We have a usual routine where we play some blackjack and then hit up the red/black streaks at the roulette tables. However, last night didn't fall into the norm.

We sat down at the first blackjack table we saw. Both Dief and I were doing decent, fluctuating up and down with our money. After about 45 minutes of playing, Dief noted the roulette table near-by had a pretty good black streak going. I gave Dief $45 and he took $45 of his own to the roulette table while the blackjack dealer held his spot at the table. While Dief was gone, my hands at blackjack were pretty hot and I was winning a decent amount of money. After a few good hands, I looked over to the roulette table to see Dief pumping his fist in the air in joy as our $90 on red had hit! We had doubled our money in a matter of minutes. Dief came back and resumed his blackjack game. I hit my stopping point and retired from the table. With my roulette money and blackjack winnings, I was now up $150 for the night so far. The night had started good.

I decided to leave Dief at the blackjack table while I headed upstairs to see how the roulette tables up there were doing. I told Dief I wouldn't play without him, but he told me to play just once. As I rounded the corner upstairs, I saw a table with six blacks in a row. I quickly walked over there and played $50 on red. The wheel went around and black came up again! Upset that red didn't hit, I started to head back downstairs. As I got to the bottom of the escalator, I started to think, "That's seven times in a row now, it's bound to hit red soon!"

I quickly turned right around (despite Dief's words to place once) and headed back up to that same roulette table. While I was gone, black had hit again. That was now eight in a row! I pulled out my $100 chip and had her "color me down" to greens ($25 chips). I put $75 on red this time, thinking that in the scheme of the overall statistics, it would bound to hit red soon. Sure enough, it hit black...AGAIN! This was now nine times in a row. Well, by this time I was pissed. I put the last $25 I had from my winnings for the night on red, hoping to make some money back. Around again...BLACK AGAIN!

I went back downstairs in a state of confusion and dismay. How could black hit ten times in a row?! I told Dief my story. He found it funny...I did not. We then noticed the nearby roulette table had been red for a while. I took $25 from him and chipped in $25 of my own and went over to the table while he continued to play blackjack. I played $50 on black and sure enough, the wheel decided to hit red again. My bad luck just wouldn't stop! I was now DOWN $50, losing a total of $200 in a matter of ten minutes.

I waited for Dief to finish blackjack and refused to play any more roulette until he would go play with me. I was convinced my hands were bad luck, he had to place the chips on the table. The bad luck continued even more so we went upstairs to get my money back from the roulette wheel I lost it to. This time we started small, playing $10 or $15 at a time. We slowly started to gain our money back and I was now down only $25 from my original $200 I brought.

We decided we would play only one more time. We went to the table with four reds in a row. I told Dief I had a feeling "red 19" was going to hit (like it had for me in Vegas). He thought I was crazy and bet $85 I was wrong with $75 on black and $10 on the 3rd 12. I put my lonely $10 on red 19. As the wheel spun this time, it felt like it was going in slow motion, but much to my surprise when it was done, red 19 had come up!!! With 35 to 1 odds, I was now heading home for the night UP $300!!! Dief lost his $85.

Anyway, we had a good time as always. Remember kids, you don't always win at the casino...unless red 19 comes up.

Happy Birthday Taylor!

WOW! It has been quite some time since I have made a post here. And a lot has certainly happened since that last one, that's for sure.

For starters, I have now officially graduated from good ole Michigan State University! I checked my grades online and passed all my classes for the semester. In a few weeks, I should have a shiny diploma in the mail to me. As I tell people, it won't really hit me until come August, I don't have to go back to school. Right now it just feels like a regular summer vacation.

With school being done now, Ryan and I can make a full go at core|3 Solutions. I am really excited to finally be working full-time. While there is a bit more pressure involved with it, I always welcome a challenge.

I have a ton of pictures to post, and I will post them soon, however my time has been rather limited lately with trying to get things organized with core3 and moving back home. I promise I will post them soon though.

Jenni has been in town for the past few days. She is looking for teaching jobs around here. Things have been pretty good for her so far. While she worries about it every day, I am pretty confident she will find a job without a problem.

Between work and moving home, not much else is new. I still have not been up north since New Years, but hopefully I will make it up this coming weekend. Our softball game got rained out again tonight for the second week in a row. I think we should have played both times, but what do I know? It was good though because we got to get some practice in, which I think I needed.

Finally, as you can see below, you can now add comments to my blog here. I didn't have this feature turned on before, but since Blogger made some updates to their system, I thought I would enable it. Please keep them clean (Mayer). Anyway, I will try to post more often now that I am finally getting settled. Until next time...

Four down, one to go! Yes, I am now one exam away from being done with my college career (for now)! My last and final exam is this Friday at 10 AM. I then graduate at 3:30 PM that day.

I used to always say that when I was done with college, I would be done with schooling for the rest of my life; I never wanted to go back. I now realize that was an ignorant statement. I've been thinking about it more and more and I think I would eventually like to get my MBA and even my builders license. I know, two TOTALLY different things, but I want both. I'm not going to rush out tomorrow and start applying to grad school, but I think in the next few years, I would like to start getting my MBA. I have my reasons for wanting it.

As far as the builders license is concerned, there are a few extra reasons for wanting that. First of all, if you are a builder, you get serious discounts on building supplies. As a homeowner already, this would be extremely beneficial. Second, I want to possess that knowledge. Kind of like my desire to know about cars, but we need to limit the goals for now so I don't fry my brain. Nonetheless, I have many customers who are builders and it is always something I have been interested in, like a hobby. I would just like to be on that same level when I am working with those customers or having my own house worked on.

Enough about school though. It's almost done and I am going to take some time away from it for a while to help core|3 Solutions grow. Ryan and I are very lucky that we already have an established business to jump in to. We have surrounded ourselves by smart people who really want to see us succeed. We couldn't ask for anything more (well, other than a Ferrari or something cool like that).

Shifting gears, the XM Satellite Radio has been just AWESOME! It does have a few downfall's such as signal loss when you go into a garage or something, but the positives of the XM far outweigh that negative. From the comprehensive Detroit traffic and weather station to CNN and MSNBC News to commercial free music of all genres, there isn't much to complain about. If you don't mind paying for something that is usually free (radio), then it is well worth the investment. I remember my step-dad once telling us he remembers when cable first came out and people used to say, "Who would pay for something that is free like TV?!"

Boy it's been a long week! Two classes down and three to go! I am trying to burn my DVD project for class right now though and it doesn't seem to be working; this kinda sucks, but I will figure it out (I hope). So the Red Wings lost yesterday, but that was to be expected. The good news is I got XM Satellite Radio installed in my Explorer (as you can see in the pictures below). So far I like it. I will keep you updated though with reviews as I use it more. Anyway, gotta finish up here and pack up to head back to Troy for a soccer game. Until next time...