Random things

The big jewelry show that comes around every year is over, and they are in the process of cleaning up now. There were still armed guards down one hall this morning, guarding the last of the 'product' that hadn't been moved out yet. It was interesting coming in yesterday; whenever the police come to our facility they park on the sidewalk out near the corner - it’s about thirty feet from the curb to the steps up to our building at that point, so there is a lot of room. There were about a half dozen black and white units there, along with about fifteen unmarked cars and a half dozen big black SWAT SUVs. In addition to those there were four panda units on the sidewalk around the corner and another five on the center divider right out front. Three motorcycles were parked on the west sidewalk as well. As I walked past the parked vehicles there were SWAT guys putting on their armored vests and taking rifles out of the back of their cars. All this was in addition to the private armed security that was here, and whatever undercover guys that were roving the halls. Nothing dramatic happened, but I did walk by some SWAT guys in one hallway putting handcuffs on someone. You usually don’t read about any bad things that happen to tourists in our paper, or see stuff on the news, anything negative on air is usually about locals getting in trouble. I guess they don’t want to scare off any of the money that comes to town, after all tourists are the only reason for Vegas being here.

It’s noisy next door and overhead. My office is down in the basement, over on the side of the big downstairs hall. We usually hear noise upstairs, through the foot or so of concrete that makes up the floor/ceiling, when setting up as they tend to drop things to the floor, not while moving out because they are lifting and putting stuff into trucks. But we can hear the forklifts drive over expansion plates when they are heavily loaded, and when they push things around. For an event like that, which took up all of our halls and meeting rooms and had around 75,000 attendees, we usually bring in 500 or so temp workers. That is in addition to all the people hired by the event management such as the security guards and ticket takers and all, as well as models in the booths, so a big show can provide a few weeks of work for quite a crowd, in addition to the food and drink suppliers and construction people and electricians. Now that we are headed into the summer the number of big shows drops dramatically. There are still a lot of smaller things in the meeting rooms and in the convention tower next door, but no show will take more than one of the halls until the fancy clothing show comes at the beginning of September. Our food and beverage department has been busy for weeks, with the show opening last Saturday they didn’t even get a weekend off; there are only eight full time people there, so most of them will be taking a few days off now to recuperate. July is our slowest month, with August next then December, so those are the only times that management would like us to take vacations.

Here in Nevada our legislature is wrapping up their session. According to our state constitution the legislature only meets once every two years, which gives them less time to mess things up. This year our governor has vetoed more bills than any other governor, and the legislature has overridden his vetoes a record number of times as well. There are a lot of bad laws and restrictions that have been passed, but there is one that I am happy to say was passed after being vetoed; that is our state domestic partner bill. This bill provides unmarried couples with some legal rights regarding community property and the responsibility of debts. It also provides them with rights regarding hospital visitation and the like. This puts us a little ahead of California, but unfortunately back in 2002 (before we lived here) a constitutional amendment was passed that defines marriage as being only between a man and a woman. I’m glad our legislature was able to overcome the governor’s objections and move this along. Personally I don’t see why people like to put restrictions on others, geez, come on, how can it hurt your marriage or your ‘god’ if two girls are living next door. One of the main arguments for passing this was protection for the elderly, when an older couple, both surviving spouses, lives together but don’t want to get married again, who then legally have no standing in medical decisions for each other or an interest in shared property. This brings to mind a video made in response to California’s recent voting:


I’m listening to that New Zealand radio station, Zed FM again. I have read about drinking in Australia, but from everything I hear over in NZ it seems that getting drunk is a national pastime, even more so than here in Vegas. They usually have some interesting things on their web site, but I just noticed a listing on ten tips for what to do when you wake up the morning after and don’t remember what you did. Here are ten tips on how to reconstruct the previous evening's bender...

1.) Take stock of where you are and what you're wearing: Do you know where you are? Are you naked? Any distinctive stains, smells, or rips that jog your memory?

2.) Feel for aches and pains: Are your calves sore, like you ran from something? Does it feel like you've been in a fight?

3.) Search for receipts: Check your pockets, your wallet, and the area around your bed for receipts that could place you in a specific location at a specific time the night before.
That includes ATM receipts, which is also a good time to make sure you didn't overdraw your account.

4.) Count your money: Assuming you know what you started with, this should tell you just how much fun you had. Finding MORE than you started with is never a good sign.

5.) Check your credit cards: Go online and retrace your steps using your credit card statement.

6.) Look at your call history: Don't just check the numbers on your call log, pay attention to the call length. Did you leave an embarrassing message when you drunk-dialed your ex, or did you spend the better part of an hour with them?

7.) Don't forget social networks: Be sure to delete any drunk-dialed Twitter comments or Facebook statuses.

8.) Gather visual evidence: While checking your phone and Internet activity, see if you took any photos or video. Also check YouTube for any hot new "drunk guy" videos that might feature YOU.

9.) Watch your roommate's reaction: Are they afraid of you, or angry with you. If they just look at you and laugh, that's just as bad.

As a last resort, you can call the people you started the night with and make sure there are no warrants out for your arrest.

I may be getting old, but I still don’t see why you would get that drunk. What fun is that? To me it is much more entertaining to drink coke and watch the drunks, taking photographs so that you have something to talk about for weeks to come.

Wheel of Fortune

Missinformation: Wheel of Fortune will be here tomorrow for initial testing, May 2, not last weekend as I thought. They are setting up now in the hall next door with the Wheelmobile. The Wheelmobile is a 39-foot Winnebago that tours nationwide in search of contestants for television's #1 game show. The Wheelmobile team is coming our way to find contestants for four weeks of shows taping at The Venetian & The Palazzo in July 2009! So, if you're a local or you will be in town this weekend and are willing to come back for the final auditions in a few months and then for show tapeing in July if selected for a live show, come on down! (wait a minute, sorry, wrong show)

There are three shows at a Wheelmobile event. Each show lasts approximately one hour. Shows will be held on Saturday, May 2nd & Sunday, May 3rd at 2:00pm, 3:30pm and 5:00pm

• Applicants must be at least 18 years of age.
• Applicants do not need to arrive hours in advance. WOF will distribute applications approximately one hour before each show begins.
• Everyone who comes to a Wheelmobile event will receive a color-coded application. The color of the application tells you what time the show you are eligible for will begin.
• Fill out your application and drop it in a nearby receptacle. Just before show time, WOF will put all the applications in a gold drum that sits on the stage.
• When the show begins, the Wheelmobile host will pick applications at random from the drum and call participants up to the stage (in groups of five) to play the game.
• On stage, WOF will do a brief interview with each contestant and play a version of the Wheel of Fortune Speed-Up Round.
• Each person who comes up to the stage will be evaluated as a potential contestant for the show. At the end of the puzzle, all contestants on stage will be awarded a prize (Wheel of Fortune hats, t-shirts and duffle bags are just some of the stuff you might win).
• Wheel of Fortune is looking for good game players who are energetic, enthusiastic and fun.
• After all the Wheelmobile events in the Las Vegas area have been conducted, WOF will choose the people believed to be the best candidates for the show (based on their overall performance on stage) to take part in a final round of auditions. The final auditions will take place in the Las Vegas area within a couple of months after the last Wheelmobile event.
• WOF plans to get as many people up to the stage as they can.
• If you are invited to the final auditions, you will receive a letter or e-mail within a few weeks after our last Wheelmobile event.

Monday update: Well, it looks like the event was poorly advertised; only a few hundred showed up. So you probably would have had a good chance at getting on for this one.

Roof views

Driving down Spring Mountain Drive to work I pass the construction site for the new Venetian hotel tower. This construction will add over 3,000 rooms to the Venetian’s 4,000 making this the largest hotel in the world, overtaking the current Largest Hotel In The World – the MGM Grand with 5,500 rooms. Underneath the new tower are parking spaces for 4,500 cars, the first Strip hotel to have parking underneath the facility.

One lane of Spring Mountain is closed, leaving room for construction vehicles and delivery trucks. Also diverted is the sidewalk, which is temporarily covered by a plywood roof to protect people from ‘falling objects’. (I don’t know what good that would do if a crane dropped one of those multi-ton steel girders, but it’s there). A series of concrete dividers keeps cars away from pedestrians. These dividers are used all over the west whenever there is road construction. But these are the first ones I’ve seen with plants glued on top.


Even if the flowers are plastic embedded in concrete, at least there was an attempt at making the place look pretty. To the right is one of the dead trees in a big pot – dead because nobody waters them, and there is no way you can count on Vegas rain to keep them alive (guess they should have used plastic trees too). You can also see the covered walkway, and the top of a concrete truck behind that. The morning I took this shot – from my car when I was stopped for another concrete truck to back up to a pump – there were about twenty concrete trucks lined up ready for a big pour.

Rounding the corner and putting my car on the twelfth floor of the employee (sorry, Team Member) parking garage I come upon this view, which only the employees have:


It’s the top of the Sands Expo Convention Center looking North, with the Venetian towers to the left. You can see the new tower going up in about the middle, with the lower floors already getting their glass put in, even though the top twenty floors haven’t even been framed with steel yet. The Wynn tower is a little to the right.

Turning a little to the right is the rest of the roof:

The row of towers on the left is the Turnberry Place condos, where you can spend $20,000,000 to get a nice Strip view. The new Wynn Team Member parking garage is on the right, with the monorail track above it. The big green area is the Wynn golf course.

Even though the top twenty floors have yet to get steel put in place, much less everything else that goes with a new building, the estimated opening date is still December of this year – shows that when a private company wants to build something the work gets done.

I tried to figure out the roof area covering the convention center. I think it comes out to around 17 acres, covering two floors with over 1,800,000 square feet of convention space, including the five story tower with fancy meeting rooms you can see in front of the new tower (no windows, meeting rooms don’t need windows).