Friday, September 28, 2007

E talking

A bonus for today, 'cause it's Friday and I'm ready for the weekend. She's not really talking, other than being distracted by her finger, she's imitating the fire engines going by a few blocks away.

E Friday - at the table

In following the tradition of Clare we return again to E Friday, where I post three photos of my darling granddaughter E, because VG really likes to look at these pics. Well, I like to look at them also.

Let’s look at her sitting at the kitchen table. This is about where I notice her the most – down on the floor under your knees running around she can be overlooked. Well, not really, but up here it’s eye to eye.


Yes, enough teeth to do damage to corn on the cob. Mom tries to do her veggie most of the time, but we do slip in other things.


Don’t know what she was talking about in that one. But she has the famous pickle spoon that Grammy bought her.


And yes, even at two she can be dramatic.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Random Vegas notes

News this past week shows that you can work your way up – the George Clooney motorcycle accident story discussed his girlfriend Sarah who broke her toe in the accident. She was a cocktail server here in Vegas at the Palms when they met. I guess you can come to Vegas and strike it rich.

Also in the local paper today is Norm's column discussing chef Joel Robuchon’s food. His place at the MGM Grand is supposedly the best in town, but a full sixteen course tasting dinner goes for $360 per person (plus the wine). Doesn’t look like I’ll be eating such fancy food in the near (or far) future.

Steve Wynn’s 230 carat diamond will not be staying in Vegas, it will be put on display at his new place in Macau. My top level boss Sheldon Adelson is hosting our illustrious VP Dick Cheney at his home today for a Republican fund raiser, it only costs $250 to be at his house, additional funds required if you want pictures. I would just like to see what the home of the sixth richest person in the world is like, I’ve read about Bill Gate’s house.

Well, glad there is only one

It doesn't look like I'm very Clare

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

MC vs Michael

In response to the Joys posting of MC, who was in competition with MJ back in the 80's, I think Michael wins. Besides, he hasn't declared bankruptcy (yet). Not a video, but he dances a heck of a lot better. And isn't his moonwalk better than that back and forth thing (though I can't do either)?

Oh - up a few days and YouTube pulled it. Well, no moonwalk, but probably closer to MC's


OK, now that I've changed that one, we have to have the alternate version:

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Tuesday fall weather

It was cool again this morning, but warming up now. I'm home from work today with some kind of flu. Hit the doctor yesterday thinking it was just my allergies but she took a strep throat culture and gave me prescriptions for these big pills. So here I sit with a fuzzy head trying to do useful things that don't take a lot of thinking. No power tools - don't want to chop off a finger or something, so the mantle just waits. Maybe I'll go check out Udge's second life thingie.

Thought I'd share our weather forecast, as I do periodically.


You can see from all of the little suns on the map that we are expecting no rain atall out west.

Coming home from work the other day I drove past these two young gentlemen. If you can't see them too well, they are wearing black pants, short sleeved white shirts, skinny black ties and backpacks. They always travel in pairs and we see a lot of them here in Vegas, and once in a while down in SD.


Yes, that's my neighborhood. No street lights or sidewalks, big lots (half acre minimum), horses allowed (people a block over have some). We don't get any kids around for Halloween, but have lots of people out walking their dogs. Blue skies and palm trees and block walls abound in Vegas. Off in the distance is the Wynn, about three miles due east. If you didn't recognize them the two guys are missionaries for the Church of Je$u$ Chri$t of Latter Day $aints out to save our souls. Back east we used to have people with bibles and the Watchtower coming by for the same reason. I guess there are a lot of people that need saving.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Monday videos

Monday – summer seems to have left us quickly. It was 57 when I got up this morning – rather cool all weekend, with highs under 80 and rain on Friday. But it’s supposed to warm back up a little, and be up in the 90’s the end of the week and all weekend. At least we have the sunshine. I’ve been working on household projects all weekend, leaking pipes on Saturday – I just love plumbing, for some reason it tool a long time to master soldering copper, and I always dread turning the water back on and finding it still leaks.

Yesterday was spent on woodworking. Our house was build in the late 60’s, with some major construction work done around 1990. At that time the whole back of the house was pushed out fifteen feet, enlarging our bedroom and the family room and creating an additional bedroom/office. At the same time they put in the pool (at least we think that’s when it went in) and several built in oak bookcases in the family room and a whole wall of oak shelves and computer space in the new bedroom. Bad news, as B doesn’t particularly like oak. We have our TV in one of the deep cabinets built in next to the fireplace, which is nice in that we can close the cabinet doors and ignore the darn thing when we want to just sit. But B wanted the cabinets removed and a long mantle installed over the fireplace, and I have been delaying it because of the TV. Well, recently Costco had a pallet full of flat screen sets at a very good price and we succumbed. Now there is a big hi-def flat screen hanging above the fireplace and the oak cabinet is gone, replaced by some smooth front doors hiding the electronics and stuff behind awaiting painting.

It took a while to get the space framed and doors made, yesterday was spend on creating a mantle to fill in over the fireplace and extend all the way across the cabinets. That’s 10’3” long, which meant a lot of work to create something that size. Tired of the poor quality warped and bent wood at HD I finally hit a good wood store and tried some ‘Baltic Birch’ plywood. Very nice, but it’s only 5x5, which meant that it took three pieces to make ten feet three inches. So I now have a long box out in the garage, still needing to fill in the nail holes and sand it all pretty. We don’t want to have any visible supports, so it took a while to figure out how to mount the thing on the wall. I bolted wood strips across the fireplace and down across the cabinet, so will be installing the item later in the week. We watch lots of those home improvement shows, and get a lot of ideas from what we see. I’ll take some photos (if it comes out good).

But this morning it’s time for some old videos. I thought that I would continue on with my old songs. These are perhaps a little older than most of you remember. Marlene Dietrich – Lili Marleen, 1972 concert in London. I saw Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks recently, and nothing against Marlene, but there was a character in that movie which looked remarkably like her. (the Martian in costume in the white house).


I couldn’t find an original clip, but she still sounds pretty good after all those years. It definitly is a little different song style than Kylie.

One of my favorite old singers is Fred Astaire. Known more for his dancing, I still like the way he sings his way into his dances. Here is Cheek to Cheek from Top Hat.


Ginger always had such nice dresses. It would have been nice if these were color clips, so we could see what shades were chosen. As long as I’m talking of Ginger, she was a singer before she paired with Fred. I do like old movies – the old Fred & Ginger stuff with divorces in Venice and dancing along the canals, but my real favorites are the Busby Berkely grand ones from the early ‘30s, with the corny story lines and overacting. Here she is inway the oneymay.


As long as I’m doing Busby, no one puts on more expansive sets and elaborate choreography. Supposedly taking place on stage during the depression, with overhead camera shots to get all of the patterns in place. I couldn’t find the piano number, but here’s his famous violin one:

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Saturday

Wow, spent the day working on plumbing problems. Glad Home Depot and Lowe's are both reasonably close. In between Torchwood episodes tonight, thought I would spend a few minutes here.
Somebody laughing brought this one to mind. At least he was a little more honest than George Michael.

Friday, September 21, 2007

E Friday

In following the tradition of Clare we return again to E Friday, where I post three photos of my darling granddaughter E, because VG really likes to look at these pics. Well, I like to look at them also.

Still going through photos I took last June when they were down from Portland to visit. B returned yesterday from her trip up there with a camera chip full of pictures and videos, so I will eventually have some newer stuff to put up. But for now, since it is starting to get cold (well, it was only 64 when I got up this morning, basically freezing for us) I’ll remember her in the pool.

Here she is dancing with mom. No, she hasn’t learned to swim, and mom is to scared to let her try. So they sit on the step or in the floating thingy and just enjoy getting wet.


But you do have to dry off when you get out. Well, it was already over 100 every day back then.

In bouncing around I found out that TKW was the creator of some beautiful tutus. Figuring that E was almost the same size as her kids this might be something that she would like, and I purchased two tutus (does that make them tutututus?) Anyway, ignoring the concept that her mom might think I was trying to make her to ‘girly’ (let’s not go into the Barbie thing just yet) I ended up having B present the items to E. Well, she did apparently like them, and proceeded to dance around like a proper ballerina would.


I posted a brief video back in June, but still like to see her dancing.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Three things in the Fall

Three things for Clare:
1. You can tell Fall is here by the sunlight – it’s too dark outside in the morning for me to sit and read my paper before work. I sit inside at the kitchen table with the doors open and can still enjoy the sound of the fountain outside and the birds waking up.
2. The change of seasons is also noted by the temperature changes. Just last week it was over 100 every day, and this week everything has dropped twenty degrees. It was only 60 when I awoke today, but it still will warm up to 85 or so in the afternoon. I had to roll up my car windows driving to work this morning as the wind was just a little too cool.
3. I drive in to work heading due east. Sitting at a traffic light the sun is hidden behind the new Trump tower, and I can look straight ahead without squinting. As the light changes and we drive through the curves over 15 the sun becomes visible and I have to hide behind the visor. Turning the corners to head to the ‘team member’ parking garage the sun is now reflected off of the big golden Wynn, again causing the visor to be dropped down.

PBS was using a quiet guitar background on one story and it took quite a while for me to remember the title, so that I could go off and find it. Reading through the notes referenced I was surprised to find that this song, well, the a capella version, was the first song every distributed on the Internet via MP3 encoding. The German engineer that was developing the MP3 software used Suzanne’s song to test the algorithms.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Pirate Talk

Arr, me hearty, thanks bein' to Anna and Rob I'm reminded that it's the annual Talk Like A Pirate day.
Sorry, that didn't sound to piraty. Rob said it better:

Haaaar! Ahoy blogmates! Today be international "Talk Like A Pirate" Day, when bloggers all round the globe, at sea or on land, do affect strange v'ices an' indulge in fantastical transliterations so they can make 'emselves understood by landlubbery scallywags who think a coral reef be a kind o' bookmaker's hitch, as well as by their shipmates. This be the day when our blogs all take on a most piratical cast, whether or not we do resemble Johnny Depp, or Kiera Knightley, or even Cthulhu-cheeked Davy Jones himself.

So, aye, ye sprogs go see Capn' Jack and find out how to talk.

I've been looking for a good Pirate clip, between Jack Sparrow and Spongebob this is the most amusing one I've found:


Watching it again for some reason I can see DM singing along. With pink hair, doing a pirate dance waiting for the bus.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

OK

Yes, I've seen it around but this time I have to blame Miranda

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Monday, September 17, 2007

Shows this week

Wow, do we have a variety here at work this week. I work at a rather large convention and expo facility, with dozens of small meeting rooms and two large halls, which can be subdivided into smaller sections. The biggest hall upstairs is about 800,000 square feet in size and can be cut into quarters. The smaller hall downstairs is about half that size, 400,000 square feet. We sometimes have big shows that take up all the available space, and sometimes little conferences that just use one small room, and everything in between.

This week we have the upstairs hall split up – the ceiling is forty feet high, but there are ‘air walls’ composed of movable panels that hang from tracks in the ceiling and cut the room into pieces. There are three shows moving in today: one on scrap booking, one on security and one on orthopedics and prosthetics. Except for our January mix of electronics geeks and porn actresses I couldn’t imagine a more diverse combination. Though I suppose we could throw in toys in the last space and then fill downstairs with low price clothes or jewelry to further add to the people flow.

It’s different to walk through the prosthetics show and see piles of artificial limbs scattered around the booths. With what’s going on overseas I guess this is a hot topic in military hospitals now. The scrap booking show is the largest – the main floor is still only one quarter of the big hall, but they also have twenty or so conference rooms where they are giving seminars in the latest trends. These shows are not open to the public, but just for people ‘in the trade’. That might include hospitals and doctors for the limbs and surgery stuff, stores for the scrap books, and security companies and hotels for the security stuff. But if you want to get into the scrapping one Dana I can get a visitor's pass.

None of these shows have anything I would need (well, at least not yet) but it is interesting to walk around today and look at all the work involved in setting up, and then tomorrow to walk around the booths and see the sales pitches and supplies.

I took a video of the bridal stuff, as soon as I can find a place to post it I'll put it up.

Video Monday - for the girls

I was going to continue on in the semi classy vein, even though so few of you comment when I go in that direction, but due to some comments by Deana let’s go with some old music. It is kind of catchy though.


He does have nice muscles. Oooo – how about another sexy boy, back from before he was known to inhabit those places politicians are coming to be known for. 1984, wow, was it really that long ago? After the short shorts period and before the cross earings and three day old beard.


OK, as long as we are doing sexy guys, let’s continue on in that vein and bring on Elijah Wood dancing. I haven’t seen this show, but Yo! Gabba Gabba seems a poor substitute for the Muppets. This one is courtesy of Megan. OK, I know this song doesn’t have much of a sing along beat, but go ahead and dance if you want to.


Sorry Twat, maybe we'll have some sexy girls next week.

Friday, September 14, 2007

E smiling

In following the tradition of Clare we return again to E Friday, where I post three photos of my darling granddaughter E, because VG really likes to look at these pics. Well, I like to look at them also.

We have two big ‘fashion outlet’ malls here in town. There is a big pretty one close to downtown that we go to periodically. It is a single story outdoor mall, fairly new, that is easy for us to get to. The second mall is located on Las Vegas Boulevard, way down south of the airport. This is a really large indoor mall that always seems to be full of locals with lots of kids. E likes the indoor mall, there are two food courts and a big carousel. At first she was afraid of it, but now she runs over and wants to ride the horses.



Grammy likes to ride along too. This is E with a start of her ‘smile for the camera’ smile. I don’t know where she picked it up, probably from her dad. But if you ask her to smile for the camera this is what you get.


Or if she is really in a good mood you might get this really big smile.


At least I hope she's smiling for the camera. Granddad always has a camera pointed at her. Of course, she might be filling her diaper.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Three Fall things

I’ve been talking about our descent into Fall weather. Yesterday morning when I woke up it was only 20c, the coolest it has been in months. But when I got home from work it was back up to a more ‘normal’ 40c. I haven’t had the cover off of the pool for a week, and the water temp is up to 35c, which was like floating in a hot tub last night.

Thanks back to Clare.
1. Floating in the pool at sunset, with the water and air temps both at 95, feeling warm and comfortable while watching a beautiful orange sky with little blinking airplane lights high overhead. There is no wind or breeze, and the tall palm trees along the edge of the pool are not moving at all. Periodically a short burst of wind comes from somewhere making the palm fronds rustle and shake for a few seconds before going back to their motionless silhouettes.
2. Getting the paper this morning, again looking at an orange sunrise (unusual here in the normally dry desert) and listening to the birds wake up, talking to each other about where to go for breakfast.
3. Walking past the canal upstairs in the Big Hotel Next Door at lunch, seeing a new gondolier singing Volare in the style of Elvis: swinging his hips, dancing on the back of the boat and making the boat rock from side to side. The passengers seemed to enjoy it, and he was given a loud ovation from the surrounding crowd of tourists when he finished up.

MTV Video Awards

I was recently asked by VG to discuss the recent MTV Video Awards, which were held here in Vegas last weekend. It’s been in the papers so much that I kind of figured everyone was reading about it. But I guess we get more info because it is a local event.

George Maloof owns the Palms, where the awards show was held. He pulled over 400 slot machines out of the casino for a week to make room for the red carpet, but did object when MTV wanted to close down Flamingo Boulevard out front. I didn’t watch the show or go by even though the Palms is only a couple of miles from my house. The awards were given out in the new Pearl showroom, which just opened a few months ago. It is supposed to be one of the nicest places for concerts, with the big tickets getting to sit at tables down front or in private boxes, and every seat has a great view.

Different events were presented all over the resort, with some of the big acts appearing up in the new sky villa suites. If you’ve got $10,000 to spend for a night’s stay then there is a suite with a basketball court, one with bowling lanes, and even the Playboy suite, which you might periodically see if you watch The Girls Next Door. Most of the suites have private swimming pools – glass bottomed, hanging on balconies off the side of the tower. It must be interesting to be swimming at night, hanging out there on the 50th floor, with tremendous views of the Strip.

The ‘big’ fight between Tommy Lee and Kid Rock was a replay of one last year, where the Kid kicked in the door of a high roller suite one night at the Hard Rock looking for Tommy. He was knocking on the wrong door though. They both stayed at the Palms this year, but were put in separate towers to try and keep them apart. I assume the fight was over their former shared (well, not shared that way) wife Pamela Denise Anderson Lee Rock Lee (any others there I missed?) who was supposedly running around with magician Hans Klok who she is appearing with at a Planet Hollywood magic show, and was reported in today’s paper as dating a poker player, stating she paid off some big table loses with 'sexual favors'.

Many of the big named people that attended the awards have been spotted in the lounges around town all week, not only partying, but putting on performances, so if you were at Tryst or Tao or one of the many other places you might get a few songs live by some of the biggest names in music. No reported sightings of anyone in daylight though.

As far as the biggest story to come out of the event, I really can’t add too much. Let me present my opinion this way. You can go over to Kevin to see a clip he posted about it (not my opinion though). Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Last night I was bouncing around YouTube looking for clips by Donovan (which will come at some time in the future) and came across this one. It is of a song that I remember from a long time ago, and probably would have posted a version soon anyway. Here is some live footage from a concert in 2000. Evidently Donovan had been attending several concerts (she says 17 in the clip) and was noticed by the act on stage. It looks like a fan’s biggest dream was fulfilled here, he was called up on stage and got to perform with the backup dancers. He looks pretty good, and the focus of this clip is more on him than on the lead. So for those of you that are die-hard fans of a group, I guess that this shows you are noticed, and perhaps one day you can get up and dance on stage.


My comments here: Tina was 61 years old at the time of this concert in 2000, wearing five inch heels, probably was on stage for at least an hour before this song rolled around, is listed in Wikipedia as the most successful female rock artist of all time with record sales in excess of 180,000,000 and selling more concert tickets than any other solo performer in history, performed in front of the largest paying audience ever to see a single performer - over 184,000 fans in Brazil, still has a pair of the best legs in show business (or anywhere), is divorced from an abusive coke addict that left her deep in debt, and has two kids of her own. (hope I can move this good when I’m 61, as I can’t even do that stuff now, and would never attempt the heels)

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Fall weather

OK, I guess I have to admit that we are moving into Fall now. The revised weather forecast in our paper this morning predicted the high for today to only be 103, with the highs for the next week only expected to be around 101. Nighttime temps go down to the mid 70s, which is rather cool after our summer temps. It is rather pleasant to sit out in the afternoon when I get home from work now, I usually have a cup of iced coffee and sit out and read the newspaper, watching the birds in the fountain.

The sage we have planted around the yard are also noticing the drops in temperature and are in bloom again.


When we pulled up the grass and moved to desert landscaping we put in a variety of low water plants. The conversion effort pushed by our water department required us to submit a planting plan, with at least 50% of the area we converted from grass to be shaded by trees and shrubs. They have a large chart of approved low water trees, shrubs and groundcover, with the plant size when full grown. We put in a lot more than required, with quite a few big trees, resulting in a calculated shade coverage of 110%, because of overlapping trees and shrubs. We planted about twenty different sage bushes, mostly in two areas; a strip along the front and another strip down the side outside of our kitchen, with a few more scattered randomly. Several varieties were used, all have purple flowers but the colors vary from deep dark purple to a very light, almost white, shade. The different varieties have a slightly offset bloom schedule, resulting in flowers over a longer period of time.

All bloom profusely in the spring, and then again at assorted times during summer and fall, usually right after any rain. The dozen shown above are the ones outside the kitchen window, and after four years are now about seven feet tall. B likes the ‘natural’ look, rather than pruning them into shapes or smooth balls as most people do. Pruning recommendations suggest cutting back about a quarter of the stems down to the ground each year, still leaving a large plant but always having some new growth coming up. B would rather wait and see how big these things will eventually get. They are fairly well watered from the drip system that I put in and so are growing faster than if they were not watered. Periodically a flock of tiny chirpy birds fly through and fill the bushes; they seem to be eating the flower buds as I don’t see any insects for them to be feasting on, but they leave enough flowers for us to enjoy so we don’t chase them away.

We don’t have any cats, and the two that our neighbors across the street have don’t wander over into our yard any more. Our dogs are not much of a threat to the birds, and as a result we usually have a yard that is filled with birds. The grass area out back under the trees attracts robins and mockingbirds looking for worms and insects in the grass. We have fountains in the front courtyard and out back, which both pull in birds looking for a quick drink. Hummingbird feeders front and back are busy year ‘round, with two or three always fighting each other over who controls the sugar water. Finches and house sparrows are always around, and when I remember to put seed in the feeder out back even more gather, chasing each other off the perches and making quite a racket arguing over who should be eating.

There are usually mocking bird nests in the big palm out front and in the tall palm by the pool. The hummingbirds and finches like to nest in the olive trees, and usually there are grackles in the ash trees out back. Most of the young birds usually are around in the Spring, but last week there was a young yellow finch hoping around the pool area, with mom overhead squawking at us and swooping down periodically. It probably jumped out of the nest just a little early, before it fully learned to fly. It was gone the next day, either finally getting enough altitude to make it into the trees, or it went into somebody else’s yard, or one of the few cats around found it. There are a group of young ones in the fall, when the weather is still warm and there are fruits and berries on the trees and bushes for food.

The pool water temp is still up around 90, so we can still float around in the evening. It should start cooling down soon. September and October are usually the nicest months for weather, as it was in San Diego as well. Kids are back in school and the tourist crowd usually slows down, but it seems that Vegas is packed almost all year around. December is usually the lightest, probably because people are getting ready for the holidays.

Monday, September 10, 2007

E Monday

Sorry I missed Friday, but this is the way we are seeing E these days. B is flying up tomorrow, and gets to see young blue eyes herself.

I said I wouldn't but . . .

OK, sorry, said I wouldn't do this, but I'm disgusted at the general attitude, one that I am also adopting, of ignoring things that I think I have no control over. This Time/CNN story goes over points that have been quite evident for a while. The Bloom County comic yesterday kind of said it all. (sorry, can't find it on line).

Video Monday - Catherine D

I know that I have been following the Twat’s lead on Kylie and skinny girls lately, but that’s just a periodic infatuation. I really go for the older, classy women. My all time favorite is Catherine Deneuve.

She first came to be noticed in Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964. Or should I properly say Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.


Not a very good clip of her, but all I could find from that movie. She was cute, but I really liked her older, and I'm a sucker for the French accent (though as an American the UK provides some nice accents too). I think she looked her best twenty years later in the Hunger, 1983. The movie was a little strange, but it had a really nice atmosphere. Not a musical, so nothing to sing along to, and not very many nice short clips. Also in the movie was Susan Sarandon.


Also staring was Davie Bowie, for those of you that would rather see him than Susan here is a longer clip, but with his shower scene.


Back to music – the music in Umbrellas was written by Michele Legrand, who created a great many songs that seem to stick in your head, leaving you humming along or singing however many of the words you remember. Rob and Udge call them Earworms. I couldn’t find a clip with good sound, but here is Liza (with a Z) singing the same song in English. Turn up the volume and sing along. Dramatic, but I kind of like the original quiet version a little better.


One of my most memorable Legrand songs came in the Thomas Crown Affair. (the older Steve McQueen/Fay Dunaway one, not the remake). I don't think I've played chess since seeing how Faye plays the game. You can stop it after the plane lands and the song is over.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Shows

The bridal show is in full swing upstairs today. Again, they don’t let us take cameras up there – guess it’s too easy to steal designs. This is the same one that was here back in February. Back then sparkles were popular, those are the little crystals stuck all over to make the gowns sparkle. I didn’t see much of that yesterday when I walked around, perhaps it’s for Spring weddings and this show is more for winter weddings. The primary color is again an ivory rather than bright white and the emphasis is on yards and yards of gathered silk instead of the appliqués.

The show is here for four days, and again it provides some employment for several dozen skinny girls; I’d estimate around 60 girls standing around showing off the clothes, most rather attractive even if thin. Almost every booth had several models standing around wearing the latest offerings. The larger booths have raised runways where a half dozen girls walk before the buyers. And something new this time – in addition to all of the size 0 girls I saw two that were probably a size 10. I was really surprised when the curtains opened at one booth and a larger girl walked out – this wasn’t one of the wedding dress booths but it was filled with the colored dresses more appropriate for proms, or even for bridesmaids if the bride went for quieter dresses but still bright colors.

It is interesting to wander around the wide variety of shows. A few weeks ago we had several clothing shows here; downstairs was the lower priced goods and three of the larger halls upstairs held fancier trendy stuff, while one hall had accessories and the big hotel next door hosted shoes and lingerie and swimwear. No, don’t know if Kylie came buy to ride a bull, but Nicole Hilton was in our upstairs hall pushing her clothing line. And we did get to see the kung fu Shaolin monks.

Just before that was furniture. Following the same pattern, fancy stuff upstairs and lower priced stuff downstairs. At the entrance upstairs they filled the front lobby with hanging things to welcome people.


Inside the color of choice was grey. The walkways were grey carpet and the booths were usually white. As at most shows a standard carpet was provided as part of the base cost but companies could opt to pay for slightly different colors to make their booths stand out.


The drapes dividing the booths were black. The basic booth pattern is a ten foot by ten foot square, with bigger companies purchasing multiple smaller ones.


Down the center aisle in back the carpet changed to white and white panels were hung from the ceiling.


I was not impressed with the furniture. There seemed to be a choice between heavy wooden style and modern European white and plastic. I did get a guest pass for B to come by, and she enjoyed the day just poking around. Almost all of the big shows are closed to the public, with only people from ‘the trade’ invited. I say invited, but that means invited to buy tickets and attend. I know the exhibitors pay a bunch for their booths and supporting stuff, but the attendees also usually pay quite a hefty fee to get in. But if that is your industry then I guess you have to be part of it.

One booth that I did like was filled with sparkly bits. Guess you can tell that I really like things that shine or sparkle or stand out. You couldn’t tell from my house – no Liberace styled items there, but I just like looking at it. This booth had mirrors and picture frames and candlesticks and chandeliers covered with crystals. They had small revolving lights scattered around that made the whole booth just sparkle and glow.


Sorry I couldn’t capture the full affect on camera, but it was impressive to walk by and be dazzled.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Still summer here

Just watching the 10pm local news - one of the 'standards' on the west coast (and most of the country) is national news at 11pm and local news for the off stations (non-network) at 10. The weatherman came out and pointed at the bottom of the screen where the time and temp were displayed, saying 'Look at that - it's already down to 81 (27c)' and all I could think of is DOWN TO ALREADY? It's ten at night, and he's excited that it's cooled down so low this early? Do I really live here?

So I can call it summer still, but to the weatherman it's obviously signs of Fall.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Three things & the Monkees

Three things for Clare.

1. Driving in to work past an apartment complex with a long strip of grass running alongside the road. The sprinklers are turned on, and each of a dozen heads pop up in progression, the drops of water sparkling in the early morning sunlight.
2. Working with a group of people that enjoy their job, and can sit over coffee and laugh at things going on around them. Realizing of course that we will be the ones that have to fix things and keep them running.
3. Thinking of songs you haven’t heard in years and finding them on YouTube.



The US answer to the Beatles. Yes, it wasn't great music, but how much from the 60's was?

Monday, September 03, 2007

Monday videos

Some of my favorite TV shows are Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock - you can tell I'm a big Jim Henson fan. The Muppet Show kind of followed on with the Ed Sullivan tradition of having guest stars appear, some of them were singers, some dancers and assorted actors that just showed up. I've previously posted Kylie singing with Kermit, but today let's show continue with the singer style.

First is somebody that has a regular gig here in Vegas, so I guess there is a tie-in with my town. He doesn't look like this anymore, but back in the Muppet days he was rather a rival to Liberace, another Vegas regular.


Maybe I should get an outfit with some feathers. If you didn't recognize him that was Sir Elton back before he was a Sir.

Here was Sir Elton back again in 1977.


And for you country fans, Johnny Cash even showed up to sing.