Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Traveling artists

Following up on my ‘Things to do in Vegas’ list, here are some specials floating through in the next few months:

Madonna – Confessions on a Dance Floor – MGM Grand Arena, May 27. Anybody Madonna fans? Sting – Mandalay Bay, April 29. Martina McBride - June 24 Mandalay Bay, Reba – May 3 – August 26 (assorted days), Hilton. Billy Joel – April 8, Hilton. Tom Jones – April 27, MGM. GooGoo Dolls – May 13, Red Rock. Those are a few of the ‘big’ names coming up soon.

Driving in to work this morning I was struck by the amount of trash in one of the freeway underpasses. Vegas has a big problem in I-15 north of town, it’s on the way to the ‘sanitary landfill’ which all of the trash trucks use. The freeway up there is just lined with plastic supermarket bags and things that blow out of the trucks. There have been lots of complaints, but our collections company denies that their trucks are doing it. Sure. But it makes a really poor impression of Vegas for people driving in from the north. Sorry, Utah, don’t want to look pretty for you guys. The ones from LA coming from the south have the empty desert to look at. OK, Jean is down there on the border, but it’s not a trash lined freeway.

But the trash on the streets, that seems to be from people throwing things from their cars. When I go on my lunchtime walks I’m always coming across things left behind – usually fast food wrappers and drink containers. I don’t understand how some people think, that this stuff doesn’t matter, or they are done with it just toss it out the car window, or if they even think at all. The same with the smokers – Vegas has a lot more smokers than San Diego did. Just toss those butts out the window, more unusual are the ones that stop at a traffic light and dump their ashtrays out the window – what do these guys do at home, just flick the ashes and butts on their floor? Sheesh. I’ve taken to picking things up as I walk, guess I’ll start bringing along a trash bag and just filling it with finds.

And how about me – just rambling on about trash when the US military fatalities in Iraq have jumped to 2344. And the TV every day has reports on civilians being blown up and found beheaded or tortured. And what am I doing about it? Perhaps we should be starting more protest marches. When in Arizona a few months ago there was a group of women dressed in black holding a silent vigil on the town square with signs protesting the war. I thought that at least they were doing something.
I took a flyer, have to see if I can find it tonight and find their web site (I found it back then) and see if there is a Vegas chapter. Perhaps it’s time to get active and do something rather than just complain. But it’s so easy to just stay home and do the same old same old.

OK, enough complaints (well, maybe not enough, but the people that need to hear don’t come by so why burden you all).

Our little queen (no, DM, not of the Universe, just of our portion of the world) found the wagon we got when the Swedes came. She climbed in, and somehow figured out that people would pull her around if she asked, or just stood in it. She doesn’t like to sit, would rather stand.


Here she is waving with Max watching the parade. He’ll watch but he still runs away when approached.

And this is the royal wave, to her loyal following, or whomever is nearby.


See, she can do it with either hand. And notice how clean the hands are.

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