Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Sean's Neck Injury?!
Sean hurt his neck while goofing off a week or more ago. He doesn't seem to be getting better and is having all kinds of issues from numbness in the face to dizziness to light sensitivity to soreness and more. Since he's not yet insured in the US we're not quite sure what to do but know we need to get him looked at ASAP. We're probably going to have to take an emergency flight back to the UK to have him seen there but we're looking into all options and trying everything before booking our very expensive flights. Wish us luck!
Thursday, October 17, 2013
November Race Registration, "Work", and a $400 Etsy Order! 10/15/13
A few miscellaneous bits worth mentioning from the day:
Later, Sean and I registered for a second November race: the Mustache Dache 5K in downtown Las Vegas on November 30th! Danny didn't wanna join us but said he might come watch. Total cost for the race: $38 for the two of us. Thanks for the deal, Amazon!
Sean and I got a lot of other stuff done during the day too. We ate at a new restaurant called Taco Taco with Danny and left some of our advertisements on the bulletin board there. After that, we stopped in the Big Dollar Store (1st time there!) across from Taco Taco and got some craft supplies for things I'll be making and selling and Halloween supplies that we'll be using for videos we make, races we do, parties we attend or throw, etc. We visited Savers later in the evening and picked up some ankle weights, running weights, more craft supplies, and more Halloween stuff. Hooray for deals! Back home, we organized the garage a lot. Here's what we did with our sports equipment and holiday stuff! (Excuse the bad photo; my camera's not the best.)
Then, amongst lots of other things we did that night, we spent a few hours on crafts and eBay and Etsy stuff. I made a bunch of accessories and Sean did pictures, listings, packaging, and much more! Finally, for the day's grand finale, we got the biggest Etsy order we'd ever received - at least to date: 200 glow in the dark alien necklaces for $400!! It was ordered by an elementary school representatives for their students participating in a walk-a-thon they were hosting and they chose us to fill their order. We cut them a bit of a deal but still made damn good profit. Awesome!! What better way to end a day?
Saturday, October 5, 2013
First Friday in Downtown Las Vegas, NV - 10/4/13
Within the last couple of years, I've attended First Friday several times as a visitor, buyer, and spectator but since Sean and I opened our own online store, CandyMountainCrafts.com, last year we've also been contemplating selling at public venues such as First Friday.
For those unfamiliar with Vegas' monthly First Friday celebration here's some info about it directly from their website:
What: "Young and established local artists displaying and selling their work. Food trucks galore, Interactive KidZone, GreenZone, Music with 3 stages and over 12 live bands. Special Art Installations and Live Performance Paintings. A community coming together to celebrate art."
Where: "First Friday is celebrated in the Arts District of Downtown Las Vegas. The hub is on Casino Center Blvd in between Colorado St and California St. with an extension on 3rd St and Colorado. We have extended First Friday to include Fremont East district with live activations and music in Get Back Alley behind Beauty Bar and The Griffin."
When: Apparently the hours vary but the event takes place on the first Friday of every month, hence the name. The hours for October 2013 were 5pm-12am (midnight).
It took quite awhile to create and collect enough merchandise to make it worth it to rent a space there as well as to find the free time for such a thing. It was $50 for a 10ft x 10ft tent space at First Friday assuming we provided our own tent/gazebo. Fortunately, we'd prepared months earlier by buying a 9x9 gazebo from a Craigslist seller for $15. Not so fortunately, we didn't have a vehicle large enough to move the amount of stuff it'd take to fill a 10x10 space so we'd have to rent that too. Worst of all, though, was that registration for First Friday always closes one week after the previous First Friday event. Sean and I rarely plan what we're doing the next day. Planning what we'd be doing or where we'd be in 3+ weeks seemed next to impossible!
It was a slow and challenging process but we finally managed to do it.
Applying:
Just before October's First Friday deadline, Sean and I got brave and submitted our application for the 1st time! We were asked for pics and a description of our store and what we sell, a bio, links for our online site, etc. It'd been several days when we heard back and were told we'd been accepted! We then sent the $50 to reserve our spot and got to planning.
Planning:
We went down to the Crown and Anchor British pub and had a business meeting over some pints of shandy, planning what we needed to prepare, pack, obtain, create, etc prior to our big night. In addition to all the things we still needed to obtain, here's the list we came up with of things we had to pack and take with us: money box (to hold change and profits in), dolly (though we ended up not needing it), 3 chairs (a spare in case Danny stopped by the booth), flood light, flashlights, black wire rack, white wire rack, the supplies we had on/in/near the white wire rack, trash can, bricks to tie tent/gazebo to, white table, black table, vanity, tent, string for tent, long extension cord, 4 way extension (multi-outlet), business cards & advertisements, candy dish, wipes, tissue, Sharpie, notepads & pens (to write what sells), scissors, tape, glue, thumb tacks, zip ties, hammer & nails (you never know!), craft supplies (to custom make things on the spot), earrings, bottle lamps, hangers for clothes, food/drink/snacks (we didn't wanna starve while there!). Of course, it was a bullet point list at the time but that'd just be a space waster here.
Preparing:
Over the next couple of weeks, we did a little shopping and picked up a few inexpensive things to make First Friday more successful for us ie: table cloths, candy for our candy dish, a mini light to make our merchandise more visible, Tupperware containers to hold and display some of our accessories.
A couple of days before the event, we made an online reservation for a Uhaul rental van to transport our stuff. The truck was $20 plus tax for a 24 hour rental and $0.59 per mile. Because of the area we'd be leaving the van unattended in, we paid an extra $10 for their loss/damage waiver. Calculating miles between Uhaul, home, and First Friday and miles per gallon, the entire rental cost-including gas- should be just under $60 (ended up being $58).
Packing:
We spent all day Thursday organizing and packing things at home so it'd be quick loading the van and we'd have a game plan once it was time to set up. We made 3 main piles: the upstairs stuff (things that were safer from pets upstairs and would be taken directly from there to the van), downstairs stuff (heavier stuff that we normally keep downstairs - more practical to take directly to the van), and the fridge (the food and drink we'd be eating while there). As we were doing this, we kept finding a million other things that still needed to be done such as printing business cards, labeling everything with price tags, and sorting things into groups of similar items so it'd be easy to navigate around our booth.
It was the middle of the night by the time we finished and we were absolutely exhausted. We had time to get some sleep but we knew it wouldn't be enough.
Game time!:
We woke up around 10:30am and got ourselves ready for the day, dressing up and eating breakfast before driving down to Uhaul to pick up our rental van at noon.
Back home with the van, we loaded everything up! We'd been a bit worried that it wouldn't all fit in but it actually only took up about half the space.
First Friday setup didn't start til 2:30pm and loading things up hadn't taken nearly as long as expected so we still had a lot of time to kill before leaving. We spent that time making a Jäger bottle lamp to take with us and try and sell alongside the other bottle lamps we'd made. Sadly, we didn't have time to prepare any other bottle lamps and we didn't have many made (due to selling some and not having/taking time to make others) so we couldn't take much variety with us but at least we could get the word out that we make and sell bottle lamps for good prices so anyone wanting them could keep us in mind when choosing who to purchase from.
On the way to First Friday, we realized we'd forgotten to get smaller bills and change for our customers. We stopped at a bank and got $40 in ones and $20 in quarters before continuing on our way.
Once we got to the Art District in downtown where First Friday was setting up, we struggled a lot to find where WE were supposed to be setting up. We finally worked out that our spot was with some of the other artists on the dirt lot on E California Ave and S Casino Center Blvd. We got our spot assignment and unloaded the truck. Then Sean went to park the truck, since we couldn't keep it there, while I started setting up. Sean got back in about 10 minutes and helped me put the gazebo together.
We were nearly 1.5 hours late arriving for set up and nothing was going as planned. Our gazebo was easy to put together (though not as easy as the sturdy fold-out ones everyone else had) but the wind was so strong we spent about an hour just trying to tie it down so that it wouldn't blow it away after we set it up! Then we realized the gazebo didn't have any metal bars going around the bottoms edges of the canopy's four sides so we had nothing to hang half of our merchandise on to display it. We finally had to give up on selling those items and just store them. While setting everything else up on tables and such, which was again tough because our space was more limited by the design of the gazebo than expected, we also had to keep an eye on and sometimes even hold the gazebo so it wouldn't blow over with the stronger, unexpected gusts of wind. During this time, around 5pm, customers started to show up. We hadn't priced anything so it was a while before we could get any sales. We finally got our crap together, though, and started selling!
I spent almost all of my down time throughout the night rearranging things and looking for spots for things I hadn't yet been able to put on display but I think the majority of the stuff we got out and for sale was ready to go and customer friendly before 6pm. That still left us a good 6 hours to bring in customers and make some money! We sold A LOT of keychains and other small accessories but didn't have room to put out many of the bigger, more valuable items that would've increased our profits greatly. Still, we made a decent enough profit and learned a lot - mainly to get a better gazebo if we plan to sell there again. One thing we were really happy about though was that most of the things we were selling protected in little ziplocs. Good thing because the wind kept blowing dirt all over everything and by the end of the night everything exposed was covered! The wind was actually so bad, Sean had to spend a good several hours holding our gazebo in place to be sure it wouldn't blow over or hurt anyone. Most other people's gazebos were doing fine, however. We just needed a much sturdier one. Besides being super windy, it got kinda cold out. I was alright but Sean had forgotten a jacket. :(
During the night, a few people we knew - Roberto, Nate, etc - passed by, surprised to see us selling there, and stopped to say hi!
Around 11pm, most other sellers were packing up. Things died down but we stuck it out for the last hour or so, finally packing up our dirty tent, paying the taxes all sellers are required to collect from their sales and pay to First Friday/government, and loading the truck just after midnight.
We'd made over $210 but after the cost of the truck, the fee for tent space at First Friday, and taxes we were left with about $100 profit minus the cost of supplies and such. We decided it was definitely not worth the effort to do the same way again but we'd learned enough to know how to do it differently and make a really good amount of profit if we really wanted to. First off, we'd much rather exhibit and sell indoors so we wouldn't have to deal with things like weather. The wind and dirt were both big issues and the cold was a minor annoyance as well. All three of those things could be remedied by selling at indoor events or indoor spots at events. Additionally, we really learned the importance of utilizing our vertical, as well as our horizontal, space. We'd meant to hang things from the gazebo but our profits were significantly affected by the fact that we weren't able to do so. The setup and packing away times took away from the value of the profit too since we put far too much time and effort in on both ends. It just didn't seem worth it for the amount we could potentially make at that particular event though we were aware that the required time for such things would significantly decrease with experience and once a pattern was developed. A more permanent location such as a store of our own in a good, visible, and busy location would be so much better and would save us from the tedious efforts of packing. If we decided to continue vending at public events though, it'd also increase our profits a lot over time if we could obtain a larger vehicle of our own such as a minivan or even a moving van to transport our things rather than having to deal with the hassle and expense of renting such a vehicle every time we want to attend an event. Other things we realized we needed to consider if planning for future events were losses accrued when dealing with the public such as items being stolen or broken, having to adjust our schedules to fit upcoming events, having to be personable and provide a more personal customer service experience than when selling online, and having to present and uphold a good public image. I'm sure there's much more to it but that's what immediately came to mind. It's also harder to reach as large of a market in person since, to an extent, you have to bring the customers in yourself (rather than having them look for you) and provide items that the customers you'll bring in (which sometimes varies by event or location) will be interested in. On the bright side, costs to the buyer can sometimes be much lower in person since fees such as shipping or listing on/selling through online websites won't apply. Overall, we deducted that First Friday would be a worthwhile endeavor for us again if we just wanted something different to do, obtained a moving vehicle, could get a tent space off of the dirt lot, just wanted some periodic advertising to get our name out there, and/or better utilized our space to sell larger and more valuable items. For the time being, however, it looks like we'll be sticking to our online sales. On that note, check us out at any of the following!:
For those unfamiliar with Vegas' monthly First Friday celebration here's some info about it directly from their website:
What: "Young and established local artists displaying and selling their work. Food trucks galore, Interactive KidZone, GreenZone, Music with 3 stages and over 12 live bands. Special Art Installations and Live Performance Paintings. A community coming together to celebrate art."
Where: "First Friday is celebrated in the Arts District of Downtown Las Vegas. The hub is on Casino Center Blvd in between Colorado St and California St. with an extension on 3rd St and Colorado. We have extended First Friday to include Fremont East district with live activations and music in Get Back Alley behind Beauty Bar and The Griffin."
When: Apparently the hours vary but the event takes place on the first Friday of every month, hence the name. The hours for October 2013 were 5pm-12am (midnight).
It took quite awhile to create and collect enough merchandise to make it worth it to rent a space there as well as to find the free time for such a thing. It was $50 for a 10ft x 10ft tent space at First Friday assuming we provided our own tent/gazebo. Fortunately, we'd prepared months earlier by buying a 9x9 gazebo from a Craigslist seller for $15. Not so fortunately, we didn't have a vehicle large enough to move the amount of stuff it'd take to fill a 10x10 space so we'd have to rent that too. Worst of all, though, was that registration for First Friday always closes one week after the previous First Friday event. Sean and I rarely plan what we're doing the next day. Planning what we'd be doing or where we'd be in 3+ weeks seemed next to impossible!
It was a slow and challenging process but we finally managed to do it.
Applying:
Just before October's First Friday deadline, Sean and I got brave and submitted our application for the 1st time! We were asked for pics and a description of our store and what we sell, a bio, links for our online site, etc. It'd been several days when we heard back and were told we'd been accepted! We then sent the $50 to reserve our spot and got to planning.
Planning:
We went down to the Crown and Anchor British pub and had a business meeting over some pints of shandy, planning what we needed to prepare, pack, obtain, create, etc prior to our big night. In addition to all the things we still needed to obtain, here's the list we came up with of things we had to pack and take with us: money box (to hold change and profits in), dolly (though we ended up not needing it), 3 chairs (a spare in case Danny stopped by the booth), flood light, flashlights, black wire rack, white wire rack, the supplies we had on/in/near the white wire rack, trash can, bricks to tie tent/gazebo to, white table, black table, vanity, tent, string for tent, long extension cord, 4 way extension (multi-outlet), business cards & advertisements, candy dish, wipes, tissue, Sharpie, notepads & pens (to write what sells), scissors, tape, glue, thumb tacks, zip ties, hammer & nails (you never know!), craft supplies (to custom make things on the spot), earrings, bottle lamps, hangers for clothes, food/drink/snacks (we didn't wanna starve while there!). Of course, it was a bullet point list at the time but that'd just be a space waster here.
Preparing:
Over the next couple of weeks, we did a little shopping and picked up a few inexpensive things to make First Friday more successful for us ie: table cloths, candy for our candy dish, a mini light to make our merchandise more visible, Tupperware containers to hold and display some of our accessories.
A couple of days before the event, we made an online reservation for a Uhaul rental van to transport our stuff. The truck was $20 plus tax for a 24 hour rental and $0.59 per mile. Because of the area we'd be leaving the van unattended in, we paid an extra $10 for their loss/damage waiver. Calculating miles between Uhaul, home, and First Friday and miles per gallon, the entire rental cost-including gas- should be just under $60 (ended up being $58).
Packing:
We spent all day Thursday organizing and packing things at home so it'd be quick loading the van and we'd have a game plan once it was time to set up. We made 3 main piles: the upstairs stuff (things that were safer from pets upstairs and would be taken directly from there to the van), downstairs stuff (heavier stuff that we normally keep downstairs - more practical to take directly to the van), and the fridge (the food and drink we'd be eating while there). As we were doing this, we kept finding a million other things that still needed to be done such as printing business cards, labeling everything with price tags, and sorting things into groups of similar items so it'd be easy to navigate around our booth.
It was the middle of the night by the time we finished and we were absolutely exhausted. We had time to get some sleep but we knew it wouldn't be enough.
Game time!:
We woke up around 10:30am and got ourselves ready for the day, dressing up and eating breakfast before driving down to Uhaul to pick up our rental van at noon.
Back home with the van, we loaded everything up! We'd been a bit worried that it wouldn't all fit in but it actually only took up about half the space.
First Friday setup didn't start til 2:30pm and loading things up hadn't taken nearly as long as expected so we still had a lot of time to kill before leaving. We spent that time making a Jäger bottle lamp to take with us and try and sell alongside the other bottle lamps we'd made. Sadly, we didn't have time to prepare any other bottle lamps and we didn't have many made (due to selling some and not having/taking time to make others) so we couldn't take much variety with us but at least we could get the word out that we make and sell bottle lamps for good prices so anyone wanting them could keep us in mind when choosing who to purchase from.
On the way to First Friday, we realized we'd forgotten to get smaller bills and change for our customers. We stopped at a bank and got $40 in ones and $20 in quarters before continuing on our way.
Once we got to the Art District in downtown where First Friday was setting up, we struggled a lot to find where WE were supposed to be setting up. We finally worked out that our spot was with some of the other artists on the dirt lot on E California Ave and S Casino Center Blvd. We got our spot assignment and unloaded the truck. Then Sean went to park the truck, since we couldn't keep it there, while I started setting up. Sean got back in about 10 minutes and helped me put the gazebo together.
We were nearly 1.5 hours late arriving for set up and nothing was going as planned. Our gazebo was easy to put together (though not as easy as the sturdy fold-out ones everyone else had) but the wind was so strong we spent about an hour just trying to tie it down so that it wouldn't blow it away after we set it up! Then we realized the gazebo didn't have any metal bars going around the bottoms edges of the canopy's four sides so we had nothing to hang half of our merchandise on to display it. We finally had to give up on selling those items and just store them. While setting everything else up on tables and such, which was again tough because our space was more limited by the design of the gazebo than expected, we also had to keep an eye on and sometimes even hold the gazebo so it wouldn't blow over with the stronger, unexpected gusts of wind. During this time, around 5pm, customers started to show up. We hadn't priced anything so it was a while before we could get any sales. We finally got our crap together, though, and started selling!
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During the night, a few people we knew - Roberto, Nate, etc - passed by, surprised to see us selling there, and stopped to say hi!
Around 11pm, most other sellers were packing up. Things died down but we stuck it out for the last hour or so, finally packing up our dirty tent, paying the taxes all sellers are required to collect from their sales and pay to First Friday/government, and loading the truck just after midnight.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
MNF, ITG/DDR, Red Rock Overlook with Dogs, NES, Sympathy For The Devil 5k, Midnight Cowboy 5k, etc 9/9/13-9/14/13
Monday Night Football, ITG/DDR, Red Rock Overlook with the Dogs, NES, Sympathy For The Devil (Running With The Devil) 5k race, Midnight Cowboy 5k race, etc 9/9/13-9/14/13
9/9/13:
Amongst lots of other things, we went to Wildfire Lanes, one of Vegas' few 24hr dance game locations, for a few early morning credits on DDR Megamix today! Still $0.50/3 songs. 2P side is still pretty good, though the screws hurt if you don't wear shoes. Vids coming soon!
Just after that, we went to Walmart and got a new car battery. Our old one was shot but still have us some trade in value so we only had to pay $65 or $69 or something.
Later, Sean and I went to Johnny Rockets for a promotion they had going on: free milkshakes just for saying "yummy"! Sean got vanilla, I got chocolate, and they really were yummy!
Free shake offer:
Our free shakes!:
Danny got home from work just after that and then he, Sean, and I went the first Monday Night Football event of the season at Gold Coast! We didn't win anything in the raffle this time but we totally raped the food deals there, per usual. Even better news: the bowling alley's arcade now has DDR Supernova available 24/7! (I don't think it was there before?) Wow.. Another 24 hour dance machine in Vegas?!
MNF at Gold Coast!:
Food and drink specials:
Inside the Showroom at Gold Coast for week 1 of Monday Night Football:
9/11/13 & 9/12/13:
Despite waking up with a cold, today was super cool! After some various activities in and out of the house, Sean and I went to play some ITG at Sam's Town. JJ was working so he hooked us up with a few free credits and chatted with us for awhile. His gf, Jennifer Losito, stopped in a bit later. We hadn't seen her in quite awhile either so we asked her what she'd been up to and caught up a little. After 5 credits together, Sean and I were too worn out so we decided to get on with things and drove on to our next destination!
We had to swing back by the house to pick the dogs up for our next adventure but as we were getting them loaded in the car a crazy rainstorm hit out of nowhere. It was POURING down! Thunder, lightning, and wind were going crazy and streets and freeways were getting a bit flooded. It calmed down slightly after awhile and more so after we left the house but it stayed pretty wet for most of the rest of the evening and rained a good amount just after sunset too.
Of course, Sean and I aren't the types to let weather deter us from our plans so we got the dogs loaded up in the car and drove out to Red Rock Canyon! The dogs had never been up there before and we'd wanted to take them exploring for so long! It wasn't long til sunset so we didn't go to our usual spot. Instead, we went to a Red Rock overlook and picnic area and took the dogs out running around in the dessert! (Check my YouTube for the full vid of our Red Rock Overlook adventure!)
The dogs were so excited for their trip! (This was right before the crazy rain storm hit. Our convertible top was up almost immediately after this pic!):
Little Girl offered to drive us there. :p :
Red Rock Overlook:
Exploring Red Rock Overlook:
We were probably out there an hour or more when it started raining hard again. We made our way back to the picnic area by the car, had some snacks, and hopped back in the car.
On the way home, we stopped at Gameworld, which was actually open! Wow. It was Sean's first time actually going inside. The place had changed since I'd last been in maybe a couple years prior. The old arcade area was completely closed off but a new card game area was open on the other side. I guess they'd given up the space lease on the arcade area and leased out the space on the opposite side instead, keeping the main game store in the middle! Sean bought himself Track and Field for the Nintendo while we were there. I didn't see anything I wanted for prices I wanted to play but I checked out a lot of cool games, some of which I'll probably pick up elsewhere in the future.
Front of Gameworld:
These pics don't do the place justice but here's the view from just inside the front door:
Some arcade games at Gameworld:
The card game area of Gameworld (separate but adjacent room):
We were starving so we got pizza from Little Caesars before going home. Then we put some blankets down on the floor by our downstairs tv and game console setup and ate pizza while gaming from about 10pm til 1am! I watched Sean play some of his new NES games, I had a few tries on Mario and Track and Field (didn't go well x.x), and Sean watched me play about 45mind of Fatal Frame in the dark!! Ahhh!! Finally, we fell asleep together, all wrapped up in our blankets on the floor there.
Sean playing some NES!:
When we woke up 5 hours later at 6am the tv and ps2 were still on! We played a few more hours on some various games together including Flow, for which I even brought out my Beat [drum] pad for Sean to try, and Pirates of the Caribbean, which neither of us had tried before but had a really good time with! Crazy! Aside from dance gaming, I hadn't had a gaming sesh like that since I played Daggerfall when I was 9!! That's why it's so amazing being married to Sean. I'm super lucky!
Anyway, we finally got our lazy butts up just in time to make it to Epic Thrift at 9am and take advantage of their crazy Thursday $1 sales. We got so many incredible things for just $1 each! Most things were to resell on eBay and make money from but we got ourselves a croquet set (my 1st!), a skateboard, and a pair of track shoes (for me!) for just $3 total!!! I feel like we don't stop winning. LOL
Oh yeah, and we did a lot of cool things throughout the day but most importantly we met Danny at Sam's Town later that night, played a tough set on ITG, and I didn't get that tired. My period started while I was playing but that didn't stop me either. :p It was feeling easier than it had in a long time. I think I'm finally dusting the cobwebs off. Guess who's getting it back?!
We ate with Danny at Fatburger at Sunset Station after that and then Sean and I chilled out for the rest of the night, finally going to bed around 1am maybe.
9/13/13:
Sean and I didn't wake up til 10:30am but when we did wake up we woke up horny! We were all over each other in no time at all, Sean going in every one of my holes til he ended up in my butt. Mmm My vag started bleeding everywhere while we were doing each other and by the time we were done the bed looked like a murder scene and Sean was covered!! Felt good though. XD
You should've seen the rest of the bed!:
We took care of and did some fun and semi-important things later and eventually went to eat at In-N-Out and watch a movie called The World's End at Sam's Town with Danny! Simon Pegg's character in the movie, Gary King, resembles Sean almost EXACTLY and not just because of the accent! His sense of humor, vocabulary, short attention span, style of arguing, need to always be right, and spontaneous, childish, energetic, carefree, and sometimes accidentally inconsiderate personality are nearly dead on with Sean's with the one exception that Sean can typically manage to focus and get down to business when absolutely mandatory. XD Seriously, aside from the unexpected sci-fi twist that the movie took it felt like I was watching an older version of Sean in his natural environment on the big screen!
More info on the movie The World's End here (thanks, Wikipedia!):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_End_(film)
After the movie, Sean and I came back home and handled things around the house. Then we drove alllll the way across town to:
The RoadRunner
9820 W Flamingo
Las Vegas, NV 89147
702-243-5329
It was both a restaurant and the location of the following night's race that we were planning to do so we went in a day early to have a look around! It was a really cool restaurant, very western themed with lots to offer for just about everyone. They even had pinball! Lol
Just down the street from there, we saw a carnival! We stopped by to look around. Turned out, it was this year's Sean Genaro Festival location! I'd been to that festival before but Sean hadn't and when I'd gone before it'd been at Rio or some more central location in Vegas and they didn't have the carnival setup, rides, etc.
An awesome inflatable dragon slide-thing at the 2013 San Genaro Festival:
Part of the carnival area:
On the way home, we stopped at Walmart and did some grocery shopping.
At home again, we set some blankets in front of the downstairs tv again, Sean played the Track and Field 2 NES game he'd just bought for awhile while I watched, and we ate some ramen and bread rolls.
It was just before 3am when we fell asleep there on the floor...
9/14/13:
We woke up at 5:30am because we had a different race to go to! We hadn't yet registered but luckily the event was procrastinator friendly so we just drove down and registered right before our 7:10am race time! The race: Sympathy For The Devil (possibly the last in the Running With The Devil series). The event: 5k! We both decided to run the 5k this time. It was cheaper and I'm better at shorter distances. :) The location:
Equestrian Park - River Mountains Loop Trail
1200 Equestrian Dr
Henderson, NV 89015
We arrived with devil horns and tails on at 6:25am and registered, $40/person just because it was so last minute. They gave us cool race goodies including some energy gel, drink mix, Running With The Devil technical shirts, and our race bibs!
The shirts:
We all got lined up a few minutes to race time. As usual, Sean started at the very front and I started at the back. I prefer the back because the feeling of passing people up rather than getting passed up is worth the few seconds it might cost me at the end of the race. Besides, I didn't think I'd be beating many people in the race considering I almost never run and hadn't run more than a few minutes since a random 5k we did in June, 3 months and 1 week prior. Surprisingly, I was very wrong! I was actually stuck behind people and having to try not to trip over slower runners for the first few seconds, passed most people up within another few seconds, and had passed almost everyone within a couple of minutes. At first I wondered if I was maybe running too fast but I was pretty sure I could maintain the pace I was doing for 3 miles so I just kept doing my own thing til I was 3rd or 4th from the front. Just before I reached the halfway turn around where the 5k doubles back, Sean and a guy who was neck and neck with him in 1st passed by me on their return. I blew Sean a kiss for good luck. Of course, I didn't think he'd need it. I'd expected him to win from the start and I know the other guy didn't stand a chance! About 2 miles into the race, I noticed my denim shorts were rubbing my thighs a lot and giving me a rash. Bad outfit choice! The devil horns and tail were fine but I was feeling kinda tired and starting to get really bad cramps too. I guess being on my period wasn't helping the matter but I sure as hell wasn't gonna let cramps stop me when I knew my lungs and legs could handle it! Instead, I put my hands on my sides for a bit and put a little pressure on the cramps to relieve them. I didn't care if I was supposed to or not. It felt much better and kept me from stopping. Despite my best efforts, however, a few guys passed me up and there was no way I could catch them again. I guess they hadn't pushed too hard at the start because I knew I hadn't slowed down and they made passing me seem relatively easy, though on of them stopped a couple of times during the remainder of the race, looked back, and started running again. I was okay with it. I was running my own race and I felt like I was doing good for myself. By 3 miles, I was nearly drained! I sprinted the finish, as I always do, but hesitated just a little at the very end because I didn't know where to stop running. There was a sign that said, "finish" but it was just before the spot you have to cross to get your time. I slowed down just a bit but it didn't cost me a place or anything. I still came in 6th overall (after Sean, the guy he was running with, and the other few guys ahead of me) and 1st female out of 42 people! Sean had come in 1st overall! Wow. He was waiting for me at the finish line and as soon as I got my medal he took me to get some water and snacks.
The finish line including me finishing!:
We took a few pics and vids after that and then it was time for the awards ceremony! We weren't able to catch the start, where they announced my name, on video but we got the rest!:
Click here for full 5k race results: http://finishstats.com/sympathy-for-the-devil/
Sean and me in front of the finish line with our medals and 1st place "trophies"!:
Our awards/"trophies" (1st place man overall and 1st place woman overall):
I was super hungry by the time we finished with yard sales so we went home and made ramen, sausage, and eggs. We put an episode of Heroes on and ate but after finishing the food Sean was out in a matter of minutes. I watched the rest of the episode then tried to sleep with him but 3 hours later I was wide awake and couldn't fall asleep again. I laid there with Sean for about 40 minutes longer before waking him and then another 2 hours trying to get his sleepy butt out of bed!
We finally left the house again around 6:45pm, headed for Savers to find some cowboy hats for the Midnight Cowboy race at The RoadRunner that night. I found an awesome one for $10. Normally I wouldn't spend that much on a hat but the occasion made it worth it! Sean couldn't find a cowboy hat that would fit his head properly but he found a really funny hat that he wanted instead.
Then we got a few groceries at the 99 Cent Store and drove home to make some food! Sean cooked up some mushrooms and potatoes, I think I made smoothies, and we might've had some leftovers or something. We are upstairs while rewatching that episode of Heroes. Then we got ready for the race and went downstairs where Danny and I watched Sean play NES games til it was time to go!
We got to The RoadRunner 40 mins before race time and registered, $40 per person for the 5k. We didn't wanna pay the extra $5 each for the 10k plus we were a bit sore from that morning's race and decided just to run this one together for fun! It was pretty dark and hard to get good pics/vids but they had a dj, cool lights, and lots of runners there! They gave us technical race shirts, glow stick bracelets and necklaces, and some other little goodies in our race packets.
We started running about 2 mins after midnight. Since Sean likes to start in front and I prefer the back, we started together in the middle. We ran side by side the whole way, hats on, talking about video games most of the way. We weren't trying too hard at first since it was just a fun run for us and we were just enjoying each others' company and the Vegas sights. I think the first mile took us over 10 mins. We picked up the pace for the second mile though, which was funny because we had to run up and down hill, turn around at the halfway point, and run up and down hill again during it. By the last mile, we were beasting! We weren't sure why and didn't plan to but I guess it just felt right. We got progressively faster til the end, passing up some girl about 400 meters from the end and then sprinting the finish! Just past the finish line, they handed us our awesome finishers medals.
The medals:
We didn't realize at the time and hadn't been trying to but we accidentally won other prizes too! Sean had placed 2nd in his age category just by running with me. He wasn't even out of breath, hadn't tried hard at all, and probably would've won the entire race if he'd ran it on his own but it was pretty awesome that he placed anyway! I'd placed first in my age category. I'd also placed 3rd female but prizes only went 2 deep. Sean and I both got a couple of certificates to show for our efforts (or lack thereof) and watched the rest of the awards ceremony too. :)
The age group awards Sean and I received:
Sean and I were pretty thirsty by then so we took advantage of the post race goodies and helped ourselves to four Gatorades, 2 Core Power protein shakes, and even a few bananas, bagels, and little muffins. Mmm! The race officials were also giving out free drink coupons to runners. A good amount of runners didn't want theirs though so we ended up with 6!
Danny had driven from home to meet up with us for food at The RoadRunner and arrived just a bit before the awards ceremony. The dj was playing all night so Danny had to endure watching Sean and me do the Cha Cha Slide before going inside with him to eat. XD Then we all went in, Sean and I used our 6 drink coupons to get 4 beers and 2 Cokes (1 for Danny!), and we sat down for food! Sean and I chugged a beer each, shared some chicken wings, and then tried in vain to drink our second beers.
Somehow, it was about 3:30am by then so we all went home to sleep, though Sean and I showered and hung out til about 5am first!
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