Speaking of travel plans, I need to find a little window in my calendar for a quick trip out to Arizona. My girlfriend, Alara, who works at the franchise spa company has invited me to a Diamondbacks game and I would love to take her up on it. I love baseball and I’ve cheered for the Diamondbacks since the 1980’s.

Alara says that there are some great games during spring training, too, which I hadn’t thought of that. For some reason, every time I think of spring training, I think of Florida. But she is right, Arizona is a big hub for spring training, too. Wouldn’t it be fun to rent a nice house in the Phoenix area for a week during spring training and just go out there for the week? I have the perfect source for rental houses and any other kind of real estate in Scottsdale Arizona.

Thanks to Alara, I could rent a house and invite a couple more girlfriends out for the week and have a great all girls retreat, with baseball games, free spa treatments via Alara, a couple rounds of golf, and maybe even a hot air balloon ride.

We’ll have to start planning that for next year and make it happen!

Both Cabby and Steph were online tonight playing spades and they were so happy to see me! Cabby keep telling me how happy they were to have finally met me and that they were really looking forward to my next visit. I would love to go back to London any time, but I’m not sure I’ll have a business trip that puts me back in the U.K. until later this summer.

I have a big convention coming up in May – the ICSC in Vegas. And I have to go back to New York to check on that project at least once a month, probably for the next 18 months. The project manager sent me an email this morning asking when is my next trip to NYC. But I sure would like to have a good reason to go back to London soon. We just didn’t find any promising properties on the first trip, so my fate is in the hands of our broker, I guess.

I played a spades game with a guy who lives in Utah. We were chatting and he told me that he was on a dial up connection, which makes the game go slow and some people fuss about that, but that he had no choice because where he lives he can’t get cable or DSL for internet. The rest of us were shocked. It was like, what? This is 2008 – in America! And no cable internet to your town? But it turns out that there are a lot of places where you cannot get cable or DSL.

If you live in areas not serviced by DSL or cable for internet access, you do have a source for a broadband connection. You can get satellite internet. Even in the melon capital of the world, Green River, Utah.

This year’s baseball season opened today with a bunch of great games.

It was not a good day for Chicago, as both the Cubs and the White Sox lost their games. I got to watch some of the Cubs game on TV in the sports bar at lunch It was a close game but they lost 4-3.

It was a great day for the Nationals, as they played their first game in their new stadium and they won. WTG!

Arizona won!

St. Louis won – kinda. They were ahead 5 – 1 and then the game got called due to rain.

Great day for Selena’s favorite teams! We are off to a good start!

My son called this afternoon and let me know that he has settled into his new condo in Atlanta. All the furniture arrived last week and it only took 2 days to get unpacked. Of course, this place is much bigger and nicer than the condo he had in Las Vegas. I haven’t seen it yet, but I saw the website and I’m familiar with the neighborhood from all the trips I’ve had to make to Atlanta over the years.

The living room is huge, so he’s going to buy a new recliner sectional since he has so much room now. He’s been looking online for living room furniture and thinks he found what he wants – it’s a beautiful leather unit in chocolate brown.

He doesn’t have a problem ordering things like furniture online – he usually knows what he wants and likes the convenience of shopping from home. He found this website and thought the prices were reasonable, so with a few clicks he has his new sofa ordered and on it’s way.

He thought I might be interested in the same site, since I never have gotten around to putting furniture into my extra bedroom. My former roommate had her own furniture, but since her wedding I haven’t had anyone else in the condo with me and I think I like it that way for now. I think I’ll put a queen bed with storage unit in that room, and use it as a combination guest room and home office. I can get all my office stuff out of the living and have the living room look a lot nicer without all that extra clutter.