Aaron Ewer
Aaron Ewers thoughts about everything

Years ago backgammon became fashionable again and everyone was playing it. I’ve played since I was a kid, so it was nice to have other people present themselves as worthy opponents. Then I discovered backgammon online and now I always have an assortment of available and willing opponents for a quick game. One of the first online backgammon sites is Backgammon Masters. It is easy to get started - just download their game application and jump online to find a game.

What I like about the game is that it is fast and although easy to learn to play, there are definite skills to learn and playing against an advanced player sharpens your skills. Backgammon is good for a mental health break of 10-20 minutes, or you can hunker down on a cold and rainy day and play for hours.

This morning I noticed there is a link on the backgammon site to play poker and blackjack. The graphics here are really good and the game play has been excellent, so I suspect that the poker and blackjack games are just are good.

With the new movie out, called, “21,” I wonder if there will be a renewed interest in playing blackjack. The movie is based on a true story, and the real MIT players are going to be involved with the game operators of this site to test the new game platform and blackjack calculator that they’ve developed. It will be interesting to see if the MIT kids who could beat “the house” in Vegas can also beat the computer online.

When we want to take several people out for breakfast,, our favorite choice of restaurants has been Shoney’s. They have a buffet plus you can get fresh eggs prepared to order, or you can order from the menu. The buffet has a quarter of the space dedicated to fresh green salad items, another quarter dedicated to fruits and jellos, and the remaining half is a election of traditional breakfast foods, including scrambled eggs, pancakes, french toast, breakfast meats such as bacon, sausage patties, sliced ham, and fried chicken nuggets. There are usually an assortment of dirty rice, potatoes, grits, and hot biscuits.

The waitresses at Shoney’s are usually very good at taking care of the customers. They take your drink order and keep the drinks refilled. They also clear the dishes from the table as you finish with them and bring the cooked to order eggs to you. If they keep my drink refilled before it goes completely empty, I’ll leave a good tip, anywhere from $5 to $10 depending upon whether it’s just 2 or 3 of us at the table. Otherwise, I don’t feel that tipping well is due for a buffet, so I’ll leave about $1 per person in my party.

When we go to Las Vegas next month for the convention we’re planning to leave a day early and stay an extra day to have some personal time in Sin City.

The plane ride is over 5 hours long, so that kills half a day right there. The company is OK with paying for the hotel room for the extra nights, so all I have to cover is the extra meals and those will probably be comped by the casinos.

All 4 of us are taking our golf clubs because we have to play in the convention tournament, and we want to find another course for our stay-over day. I’m in charge of finding the golf course and booking the tee time. I’ve never played gold in the desert before, but I think I’m smart enough to know that a very early tee time is best so we don’t have to play in the hot desert sun during the worst heat of the day, from 11:00 until 3:00.

I used the internet to find Las Vegas golf deals and came across a great website that has great golf deals on courses like TPC Las Vegas and Paiute. It has a large list of the bet golf courses in Vegas, with a description of the course and a chart with details on each , such as the year built, dress code, etc. Las Vegas Golfing lets you book your tee times directly with the golf course of your choice - no brokers needed.

I would love to play TPC Las Vegas, but to be honest, that’s where the pros play and I’m just not that good a player - yet. I decided on the Paiute course and set up everything for our foursome. We are all looking forward to the convention and two days of golf in Vegas.

Today’s NFL draft held quite a few surprises and I’m still watching the final rounds on ESPN.

It is always interesting to see how the coaches and team ownership try to reshape their teams each spring. There is a lot of money at stake and the decisions made during the draft will affect a lot of people over the next several years.

I was glad to see Chris Long go to the St. Louis Rams. I am not a big Rams fan, but they are a good team and they did well picking Chris Long.

Chris Williams went to the Bears. I have mixed feelings about that. I like Chris Williams a lot and the Bears really need his talents, but I kinda hoped Chris would go to a better team. I hope this won’t be a waste of his talent and that he does well in Chicago.

There’s a growing interest here to create a large public dog park. I’m totally a dog person and a big fan of the idea. I would love a place to take my dogs for an outing where they could run freely and explore a field or wooded area.

There are some cities and towns that have created dog parks and I’m researching the idea to present it at our next dog day in the park to the pet owners and get a petition started for the council. We’ll be having a dog parade with judges for the best costume and vendors, including adoptable pets from some of the local shelters. It always brings out huge crowds.

I’ve been trying to think of a clever costume for my dog and can’t find anything locally, so I turned to the internet. Thank goodness I found a site for Halloween Costume and they have a section for pet costumes! Some of the pet costumes are tunics that wrap around the dog’s middle, and some slip over the front legs. There’s a cute pirate costume with black boots that slip over their paws and a pirate’s hat.

Here’s what I’m going to get for my dog - I think it’s cute and he’ll not object too much to wearing it:

Anyone who knows my dog will tell you that he’s much too friendly and lovable to ever be a watch dog, and that’s the irony of the costume. He can dress up as something he’s not!