Obama In My Backyard

I was startled this morning at 6am to what I thought was plane about to fly into my apartment building. I jumped out of bed to go see what all the noise was literally right outside my window. I peered across the street to see dozens of police cars, marked, unmarked, motorcycle cops and secret service agents loitering all down Barrington Ave.
Keep in mind I noticed over the last few days the parking lot was blocked off and there were signs that said no parking from Tues-Thurs and then last night there was a cop sitting at the entrance making sure no one parked in the lot. I thought it was strange but I wasn't sure what was going on.
By now everyone in the building was awake and people began to congregate around the gate that had been disabled so that it was impossible to leave the building. Word staring flying around that Obama was going to be leaving from this undisclosed location sometime in the next hour and a half. By 7:15 the caravan of security began, and within a few seconds Obama and his 2 limos entered the park on Barrington across from my home at Sunset Barrington Gardens. Within a few minutes everyone moved from the vehicle into the helicopters that were on their way to LAX to take Obama and team back to Washington. I even saw the 2 guys dressed in all black with the famous briefcases holding the codes to any nuclear missiles that Obama might need.
The helicopters were warmed up and off they were off. There we 2 because as we all know they don't want you to know which one he is in and then right after the 2 air force one helicopters took off it was followed by 2 snipers (well that is what they looked like to me) took off immediately after. They flew right over the trees in front of my balcony and were off to LAX.
I felt like I was on a episode of 24 this morning it was a very cool experience.

BINGO

BINGO- a fun game of luck with lettered and numbered balls. My parents are frequent casino visitors. Las Vegas used to be the place of choice because that was the only choice, now since they live in San Diego the pool of blackjack and slot machines has grown to all corners of San Diego County. They can go to Barona, Sycuan, Harrahs just to name a few. Now the casinos have ventured into new territories they have BINGO everynight. Bingo is something we as a family used to play when we were little on all the cruises we used to take. I would have never imagined driving to a Casino to play BINGO, but I must say we had a great time.

We arrived to this large Casino in the middle of nowhere and people were filling in as if there was a free buffet that night but no it was a 'special' BINGO night. The buy in was $25.00 which is more than double what is usually is so of course my Dad's face lite up like a kid in a candy store. We sat down he went up to the counter, well only after we all had to get frequent buyer cards for Sycuan Casino (mind you I will never go again). He came back to our aisle seat right in front of the Bingo annoucer with literally 50 Bingo cards. We played BINGO from 6:15 till 10:45 at night.

At one point I ran to the bathroom because you don't have much time between games and as I was sitting there I said to myself please let my dad win tonight. I quickly washed my hands ran back to play another game of four corners, plus 3 bingo lines and a coverall, no win for anyone in our group. Then the next game a random arrow across your card. I was dotting away with my handy dandy dabber that they provide for an extra dollar of course and I looked over at my dads card and said, "dad you only need one more" and before I knew it the next number that was called was G47 I said yell BINGO. He just looked at me and I said yell BINGO then he finally said BINGO not very forcefully but the host came over looked at his card and confirmed BINGO. The majority of the games were paying out $200 dollars but this was as special game he won $1,000 dollars. It was so fun he couldn't stop talking about it and there were over 1,000 people at BINGO that night so it was a real victory. Needless to say we got home after midnight with an extra grand that we showed up with.

Congrats Dad!

A Girl with 2 First Names

So Ashley Lynn is my name which as we all know is 2 first names put together. I actually love my name I think its fantastic...its easy to spell, easy to write, people don't usually get it confused except lately I don't know what has happened. I often get AshleyLynn what is your last name? This doesn't bother me to much as I can appreciate and understand why someone would think that I do in fact think Ashleylynn is sort of cute. I also get Lin when I spell my last name and I can also understand how this happens.
Over the past 48 hours 4 different people of which I have worked with for over a year each at least have addressed me as Lynn. I am really bothered and upset by this for some reason. Three people addressed me as Lynn in an email when my name clearly is Ashley and my signature at the bottom of all my emails clearly states this. Then I received a phone call this morning and the girl who I have worked with forever said Hi Lynn it's blank.....wtf I mean seriously how can you mistake someones name you have known for such a long time. My voicemail says Hi you have reached Ashley Lynn please leave a message. Anyways I am not sure what is going on but I am keeping tabs on this situation. If it happens again I might say something.