Canadians

Last week we had some visitors from the far North. We were able to spend a pleasant day with these guys, one of whom I met in a roundabout way through blog comments, the other two who came down to Vegas for a guys wild week out while their wives went on a religious getaway. That seems a fair tradeoff: the women get religion, the guys get Vegas. Not sure what all they did while they were here, but we took them off Strip to a local restaurant and then out to Red Rock.


Red Rock is a National Conservation Area located about a dozen miles west of the Strip, located in the Movaje Desert and a little higher in altitude than here. The above and below photos are from Calico Rocks area, and it is quite colorful.


Above you can see the clouds starting to come down. This was a day after our heavy rains, and there was still a lot of water flowing down the rocks in waterfalls and streams. In a few minutes we were surrounded by thick clouds and getting wet.
A little further along the loop trail we came to an area that had been used for sandstone mining, where the colored stripes were much more pronounced. And there was still a little snow on the ground.


In a strange coincidence some new bling started to show up around town. These little gold pins have started showing up on the outfits of some attractive adult entertainers.


These pins first made their appearance about a year ago, but only a few were seen and then they disappeared. These started showing up again this week. I spoke to the young lady wearing this one and she had an interesting tale about how she got it. She said a nice older man from the far north of Canada gave it to her. Unfortunately, like most younger people (yes, I consider myself an old fart too) geography is not a school subject that students pay much attention to, and young women like this one probably could not find Canada on a world map even if she did know how to spell it. But back to her story; she said the gentleman was very friendly and amusing, telling lots of jokes. He gave her this solid gold pin (instead of a tip) because he liked her, and insisted on pinning it on her outfit himself. She said he had some problems with the clasp that slid on the back, probably due to him loosing feelings in his fingers due to frostbite.

As the poor guy was trying to attach the clasp he kept dropping it, and had to keep reaching around inside her top to find it again, continuously apologizing about his inability to feel anything as he kept feeling around to find the small cap. She said he must have dropped it three or four times but kept smiling and telling jokes and fishing around for the clasp until he finally had it attached. She did say he was ever so nice and friendly and funny and the pin was nice and shiny and probably worth a lot of money because of the price of gold now (I’ll have to remember that line and try it out myself) but for some reason her skin was turning green right behind the pin.
Several other young attractive women in the entertainment industry here in Vegas had similar pins, and told similar stories, about the poor man with frostbite that insisted on putting on the pin but then kept dropping the clasp and having to spend considerable time reaching in to find it because he had lost feeling in his fingers.
This all sounded pretty good, until I noticed other girls with the pin located elsewhere.


And these girls told the same story, about the nice funny man that kept dropping the clasp and kept reaching down to find it. And dropping it, and having a difficult time finding it. Again, seeing as there really wasn’t that large an area to misplace it in, he seemed to be spending an awful lot of time just reaching around.


I kind of feel sorry for him myself, not being able to feel anything and continuously dropping things in the strangest places. Hmm, I wonder if he might have anything to do with the group of Canadians I met.

E posing

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

E and her mom visited us a few weeks ago. Before taking them to the airport for their return to far off Portland we wanted a group photo, so I set up the camera on the counter, set the timer and we all gathered together for the image. To be safe, and insure that at least one photo had everybody with their eyes open we took several shots. Extracting E from the group, here is what she looked like:








Care to make a bet about which photo was the best one for the rest of us?

Nice week

It has been a really nice week here in Vegas. With the storms dropping all that rain last week everything is damp and starting to green up. The sky is blue and clear and sunny (well, that’s normal around here) and the mountains around us stand out. I didn’t take my camera when we went out last week, and tried to take a photo of the mountains with snow, this one is looking north from in front of our house


Those are the mountains there under the cloud. Yes, we have telephone poles and wires strung around the neighborhood. They are not along the street but run down the back yards, here crossing the street in the middle of the block. That’s our local grammar school down a block on the right, with a big blue canvas cover over the playground equipment. Pretty nice scene for January, with the green pines and palm trees.
The high humidity has given us some nice sunrises and sunsets, with clouds coming in at night and disappearing during the day.


These shots never look as good in pictures as they do in real life. Ah well, imagine the pinks and orange colors in there if you will.

Last week we volunteered to help the Habitat for Humanity group again. This time we were at the World Market Center consolidating furniture donations. Driving down we passed the new Ruvo Brain Institute designed by Frank Gehry being constructed across from the market. (no, I haven't distored this picture, the curves are really there. Wonder what the rooms look like inside)


I don’t know what is more impressive, that someone could design a building like that, that a company would agree to pay for it, or the builder that can actually make it happen. The back is made up of standard office rectangles, but the front is rather interesting.
The World Market Center is also interesting, not as curvy, but comprised of different angles


There are only three buildings constructed, with glass walkways connecting the upper floors (seen at far left in picture), with another three or four to be built as profits are made. This week they are holding the market - these buildings are really only used twice a year, for the week long furniture and furnishings shows. We’ll be back there on Friday after the show collecting more stuff for Habitat. They have two local stores where they sell these things, some of the stuff donated is brand new, just last year’s models of chairs and couches and tables and stuff.

Also doing some things at home. We plan on redoing our kitchen, and were just set to order the cabinets last June when my employer decided to cut back some more (no, still haven’t found anything, job market in Vegas is really the pits) but put plans on hold for a while. Our house was built in the late 60’s, and the kitchen is in need of a change. We still have the full ceiling fluorescent lights that were popular back then but have fallen out of favor. We are testing different lights and trying to decide on what we want, mainly trying out different LED and fluorescent fixtures, we’ve purchased a few different ones and I’ve mounted them in the kitchen ceiling to see what they look like. (well, it’s all coming down when we remodel) We are about settled on the LED spotlights over most of the counters, much more efficient than regular incandescent lights and a lot cooler and long lasting. We have already replaced some spots around the living room with LED spots, liking the way they look in our test situation. For general background lighting we will go with some 3 inch diameter fluorescent fixtures that Home Depot had in stock. B liked them, and wanted some more light in our front room, which does not have any ceiling fixture, just lamps on the tables, so I put up a string of four yesterday along the wall soffit.


They look pretty good, and at 11 watts each they don’t consume much power, or give off any heat (important in summertime Vegas). So I spent most of yesterday crouched in the attic, moving fiberglass insulation and stringing wire. But I also put in a few in the front entryway and kitchen to use as night lights, so as to keep some lights on around when we have guests spend the night. I'm still itching from the fiberglass embedded in my arms from all that, even after some showers to try and wash it out.

Last time we painted B decided to put horizontal stripes up, applied over the paint with a clear glaze. You don’t really notice the stripes as they are not a different color; they just reflect the light a little more. She did the painting too, trying to pull some more color in there without overwhelming things.

So that’s it for around here. Oh - for those of you that like Buster pics; he is getting old and at times has a problem with making it outside. He doesn’t use the flipper doors any more, his eyesight is too poor for him to find them, especially when he is outside wanting to come in, so we have to let him out. In the warmer seasons we just leave the doors open, we don’t have to worry about bugs out in the desert, and when the swamp coolers are on they just blow the air out the doors. We do keep doors closed when it is cold, like now, and really hot and the air conditioners are on, so we have to catch him when he stands at the door waiting for it to open. But sometimes he just gets off the bed and makes no attempt to get outside, heck, at 21 he is what, 147 dog years old? When I get that old I promised B that I would probably just stand up and let go myself, her problem to clean up. But then she will be equally old, so I guess it is up to our daughter (or whatever caretaker we end up with) that will have to worry about it. But back to Buster: we got him some ‘pants’ that hold doggy diapers that work fairly well at containing things. But after wearing them for a day he refuses to let us put them back on. He is rather cute like this, no?

Three February things

I wanted to do this more often, but thanks to Clare here are three beautiful things for today:
1. The sun is shining, and everything seems clean from the rain last week. The ground is still moist, and it smells like springtime. I bought several packs of flower bulbs yesterday and am working in the moist garden and anticipating colorful blooms in a few months.
2. Buster is out in the grass wandering around. Even almost blind and twenty one years old he still likes to sniff the grass and check things out. When he bumps into my leg he sniffs to make sure it’s me and just stands there waiting to be picked up.
3. Buster normally sleeps all day on our bed, but we can hear when he gets down and goes for a drink of water as the tags on his collar hit against the metal water bowl, and the distant clink clink echoes around the house.

OK, can’t do this without at least one picture, here he is just supervising us in the kitchen, that missing left eye doesn’t seem to bother him too much.

Birds after the rain

We have a little break in the rains this morning; official total so far this week is 1.69', over the total for all last year of 1.59'. These are the storms coming up from the Los Angeles area that are causing so many problems there. Today was supposed to be the heaviest rainfall, but the forecast has been revised to just random thunderstorms, instead of the steady rain like we had all day yesterday. Normally we get most of our rain in February coming up from Southern California like these storms, but not so much over so many days in a row. Then it’s back to dry, with a usual series of Thunderstorms coming up from Mexico via the Phoenix area (southeast direction instead of the LA southwest direction) during July and August, and back to dry again. The snow level is down to 2,500 feet, so all of the mountains around us are white, with several inches up the street around Red Rock Canyon. Should make the skiers happy, the Mt. Charleston ski resort is less than an hour drive with the ski slope up around 10,000 feet; reports say they received about 24" of snow in the last day, so it will probably be pretty good for a while. Next week afternoon temps on the mountain will probably be around 50f with plenty of sun, so it does get a little slushy for skiing late in the day.

I filled up the bird feeder out back this morning and the birds pictured yesterday are all there eating now. Along with several dozen of their friends: when I put birdseed out we usually have fifty or sixty house sparrows and finches on the ground and fighting for one of the perches on the feeder. They are quite a noisy bunch chirping at each other out there. In addition to the seed feeders we have a lot of bug eating birds, as the rains have driven a lot of worms up to the surface. I counted a half dozen robins, two quail, three or four woodpeckers, and over a hundred starlings in addition to our regular hummingbirds and mockingbirds all out back at the same time. The front yard is full of pigeons and doves eating the fallen olives.

I tried to take a shot of our water fountain out back when the starlings descended - there were about a dozen on the rocks pecking at each other. But as usual some noise startled them and they all jumped up to the trees. So you'll have to settle for five, with a robin in the lower right corner watching.


The starlings come in a flock, I can count a little over fifty in this picture, but my camera doesn’t shoot wide enough to get the whole group, extending left and right about the same amount as here.


It’s funny to watch them all jump up when there is a noise out on the street, or fly together as a group into the trees, wait a bit, and come back down. See what little it takes to amuse me?

Here is the feeder. It took a while to find one that the pigeons can’t perch on, I got this tube one and cut the perches shorter and glued plastic partially over the seed holes so that the birds can’t just swipe all the food out quickly. It holds about a pound of seed, and these guys can clear it out in about six hours.


One of the woodpeckers came back - here he is on the fountain. That black looking mark on his chest is a very iridescent bright red when caught in the sunlight. I think it’s a sapsucker, as they have circled our peach tree with holes then come back a few days later and eat the sap that oozes out. I don’t think we have that many boring bugs in the peach tree.


All the birds have black and gray speckled feathers, and blend into the dry grass and gravel yards. It's hard to see the sapsucker on the peach tree until he starts beating on the trunk and you see his head moving. The starlings turn full black in the summertime, and the robins are not a bright red but have more of a pale redish gray front, not as bright as the ones I remember from back East.

On a different front, my allergies are back and really knocking me right now. I never had problems before we moved here, but have developed an allergy to one of the trees that blooms in January. I guess the rain pushed them, and yesterday my head felt like it was about to explode from the stuffed sinuses. I’ve got some prescription pills an allergist prescribed to me last year; they help but not really enough. I’ve talked about all the pollen produced by desert trees and bushes before, because the plants are so far apart they depend on air pollination, so are quite generous with pollen output.

Birds in the rain

What do birds do when it rains for three days straight in Las Vegas? Well, they give up on sitting in the trees and look for whatever little roof they can find. Our roof extends out over the walls by about two feet, so it's dry right under that. We noticed them when we looked out our front window into the courtyard. Over on the right wall we have an iron sun sculpture.


To the left of that is our front gate.


And to the left of that is a bedroom window.


These are all the little house sparrows that eat at our feeder (when I fill it up) and come drink from the fountains front and rear all the time. They are used to coming into the courtyard regularly for a drink, and at times like this (very rare) they keep coming back. So that’s five on the sun, four on the wall, four on the gate and seven on the window frame. They are also around the brick edging on the rear patio, but our house isn’t laid out where we can see them from inside and they fly away when I try to sneak up outside.

We are hiding inside out of the rain as well. More rain scheduled for tomorrow, then clearing but cold by Sunday. So far this week we have had almost as much rain as the total last year (big deal, a whole 1.5 inches : 35mm)

E Swinging (again)

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

E and mom came down from Portland a few days ago to visit for Grammy’s birthday. It’s a little cool here now, but warmer than back home, so the first thing E did was take off her shoes (it’s OK to go barefoot at Grammy’s) and run outside to hang out on the swing. We now have two swings, one with two ropes that she likes being pushed in, and a yellow one on one rope that she can handle herself. Since she was first one out, she hit the yellow one:


Of course, we just wrap the rope around a branch on the peach tree, and it’s easy to adjust up or down. The current best spot seems to be about eight inches off the grass, where it’s easy to sit on, walk backwards and let go.


And when you’re really moving all you have to do is hang on, lean back, and let your hair touch the grass.


But yes, it is pleasant to just sit on the green swing and let Granddad do all the work.


Plus you can go a lot higher with somebody pushing. (see DA, I do post photos of myself sometimes)

Change of careers

Since I'm looking for a job, perhaps this might be a suitable career change
(Thanks to Scarlet)


Not sure about the clothing part, but if it's in the job requirements description I guess if I have to . . .

This isn't a career change, but I love these guys, that's another outfit I haven't had the opportunity to wear. I would probably look about the same in one of those waiter aprons.

Christmas trees

What did you do with your tree when you took it down? (you did take down the tree by now, no?)

New Years in Nevada

Being rather conservative we spent New Year’s Eve in bed asleep. Ah well, living in probably the number one party town in the world we just skipped it all again. The estimate was for only a half million people out on the Strip to see the end of 2009, with quite an impressive fireworks display off the tops of several big hotels. Downtown under the canopy were a few hundred thousand more, serenaded by tribute bands. So when we got up feeling nice and chipper on New Year’s Day B thought we should explore someplace new, and wanted to drive down to Searchlight. For those of you not from Nevada, Searchlight is the home of one of our politicians, Harry Reid. Driving up from LA on the interstate we pass one off ramp that directs you to this town, but wanted to see it for ourselves. It’s about an hour drive from our house, and Wikipedia lists it as a Census-designated place (CDP), which means basically it’s a wide spot in the road. Population 513 in 14 square miles, a former mining town now home to two casinos and two gas stations.

So big we didn’t even stop to take a picture. But we continued on another half hour do Laughlin, another place we had not been to (yes, another CDP). This is on the Colorado River, another wide spot in the road. It seemed that everyone lived across the river in Arizona, no homes to be seen just a lot of trailers and casinos. It is a town created by Don Laughlin when he opened a casino there in 1964 with 12 slot machines, two tables and eight motel rooms. Wow. The most interesting casino there is in the riverboat theme, though on dry land and not in the water.


Inside it just looks like an old casino, but on New Year’s Day every slot machine was taken, and the minimum age to gamble looked to be about 65.


It is on the river, where you can get a river taxi to take you over to the other casinos. Across the way is Bullhead City, Arizona.


For those of you in the cold, it’s supposed to get to 61f here today, and remembering back to last June 23, looking at the thermometer in my car. (you can see I was stopped when I took the photo)



Thinking of you Twilight fans.

She's back!

There are several writers that really are very good at telling stories, several of them are blended in over there on the right side. One that supposedly quit writing a while back I haven't looked for in a while, but she is writing again. It's FirstNations. Now her style might not suit some of you, but go back and look at some of her stories in the past and see how well she can describe a situation. Yea!

Christmas in Vegas 2009

Thought I’d show you what Vegas looks like at Christmas. This year we didn’t get any snow, or rain but a lot of wind. The leaves have finally fallen off of most of the trees out back.


We decided to do a short Christmas Eve trip down to the Strip just to walk around a bit. We parked at our usual location in the Fashion Show Mall and encountered a lonely Santa awaiting customers. The mall was fairly empty, especially so close to a big giving holiday. Perhaps everyone was home getting ready for family.


We shopped a bit, and stopped for coffee at our favorite chain and watched people getting massaged.


We went outside and crossed over to the Venetian to see what they did to their mall, this is looking west down Sands Boulevard across Las Vegas Boulevard.


In the Palazzo they continued with their imitation of a smaller Bellagio with some bears, these made of poinsettias. We’ll visit the Bellagio Conservatory next week, their bears are made of carnations.


They also kept that big vine strip, but changed over to red with twinkling lights.


Back across the street we stopped in at the Wynn resort. For some reason no one was in the pool, even though it was nice and sunny. I guess it was the 55f temperatures.


There are two small areas with artificial trees that were decorated,


And a trio of traditional trees were by the main entrance.


Crossing back I almost missed a shot of my favorite Las Vegas visitor, the bride in wedding gown. I really will have to pull all of those together for a brides page.


No fashion shows this week at the Fashion Show Mall, but the runway was used for their big Christmas Spectacular, ten dancers with long legs and Santa. I hope some of the girls from the closed shows found at least temporary employment here.


And lunch at our favorite place, the Nordstrom’s Café, with the tomato basil soup and walnut pear salad.

More holiday music

This one thanks to Pamela


I love her voice for the old quiet songs (yes, I have some of her recordings), one of the slides showed this version, so here is an alternative



Oh - and Kevin, thanks for the reminder of what Christmas really is about

More religions

In an effort to promote more something, another variation

Other holidays

Sorry, didn't mean to ignore other religions by only showing Christmas songs.

E Friday

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

Whenever E comes down to visit she seems to want to play with the grandparents. The two favorite activities are swimming in the pool and having granddad push her on the swing. Inside Grammy seems to come up with a variety of things to do. Sometimes they involve complex things, like building forts from sheets and chairs.


That’s my wife B on the left. I usually don’t get her to pose for pictures but snapped this one without her knowing.


Here she is in the pool, I think it was take just before the laughing one posted a few days ago. Probably Granddad told her a joke, and here she has to think about it before laughing. At least I hope that’s why she was laughing.


This was waiting impatiently for the swing to be cleaned off or adjusted. Time not swinging in the sunshine is time lost.

Must be Santa

Oh, thanks Lisa, I hadn't heard that one. At least Bob has funny hair, kind of like George but not.

Christmas music

Sorry, with this being the season I should be posting holiday videos. OK, here from the past


Oh Georgie, I still love the hair. (never had enough to do it like that, or the time to want to) OK, not seasonal but we can keep it with Wham Rap.


Yes, a younger Goerge with less hair and cropped pegged jeans that even Kevin might like.

I've got a feeling

Sorry, it’s been busy around here just before Christmas. I’ve been supporting a manufacturing company that moves 90% of its annual sales during December, which leads to 13 hour days 7 days a week. But it’s a short term contract, finishing up Dec23 so I’ll be back on the job market soon. Ah well, that’s how things go, at least it’s better than sitting at home.

Some assorted things today, first an amusing video parody that lead to lots of discussions. First the original video by the Black Eyed Peas. They’ll be in town for two shows on New Year’s Eve.


I watch it and wonder why my wife doesn’t wear underwear like Fergie. Then I have to admit that she does not look like Fergie walking away (how many women do? Maybe it’s the heels. OK, probably you Heather but to be sure I’d have to do a more thorough inspection), but I love her anyway. It looks like a fun party, but at the end people are still falling down drunk, which lead to this version of the morning after. Sorry, no embedding, so you’ll have to click on Song parody. Go ahead, please, you’ll find this amusing. Was that like your college days?

After the Peas spent how many thousands of dollars creating the song and video, what does it take to make a good sounding parody? Well, you can pick up the Karaoke version someplace on the internet, or free software will pull out the vocals from almost any song so you can have the original music to sing to. Then you can get a free version of AutoTune to sing into, and you end up with a song that sounds pretty good. A not very expensive digital video camera and editing software which probably comes free with your computer and a few hours of fun with your buds, next thing you know you have your own video.

With Christmas coming up, please pay attention to the message in this video


And, just because I missed Friday for a while, here’s favorite granddaughter


And if you’re feeling cold, back in August the water temp in our pool was 93f

old cartoons

A little change today, instead of music I thought we would try some cartoons instead. Way back when I was a kid I loved watching Saturday morning cartoons on TV. I’ve frequently turned to the network stations on recent Saturdays and have not found anything that matches the fun I used to have. Searching YouTube for some of these old gems led to finding a few.
Back before my watching was the first made for TV cartoon: Crusader Rabbit.


Created by Jay Ward, who also was behind many others that I really liked, including Rocky and Bullwinkle and friends. This episode seems to have just about everyone, including Boris and the moon men:


Hanna Barbera created a lot of early cartoons. One I really liked was Ruff and Ready


Along with Yogi Bear and Deputy Dawg. Beany and Cecil the seasick sea serpent were also up there


We used to get tv stations out of New York, and as most big cities did, they employed local announcers to introduce the cartoons, and to stretch out We had Ray Heatherton as the Merry Mailman and Claude Kirchner as a ringmaster. There were also a few shows that were more live action, one I always watched was Andy’s Gang, with his gremlin pal Froggie. This was the standard lead in:


This was brought to you by Buster Brown shoes, filmed in Hollywood supposedly before a live audience, though some of the gags seem to be too involved for live tv. That’s why we named our brown dog Buster.


Let’s not forget Howdy Doody.


I think that was Bob Keeshan, who moved on to be Captain Kangaroo.

When I got older I moved to more sophisticated comedy, like the Soupy Sales show. Regulars on the show were Pookie and White Fang, along with other unseen cast members, always filed with corny jokes that kids found hilarious. Soupy always ended up with a pie in the face, which eventually resulted in a lot of celebrities coming on just to get the pie.


A lot of the show was spend conversing with his regular cast of puppets. You can tell this was live and the staff always seemed to have a good time.


So, what did you watch when you were a kid?

Bohemian pole dancing

A sad change for those of you that wander the Strip late at night; the mobile strippers are no longer driving up and down Las Vegas Boulevard.


Since attendance at adult clubs has been declining due to the lower number of tourists in town and the restricted amounts of money they have to spend, a few clubs got together and had a special vehicle built. It looks like a box truck, kind of like a small UHaul rental truck, but the back has glass sides. A pole is mounted inside the back and scantily clad young women dance back there as the truck drives up and down the Strip. They were only active between 10pm and 2am, so as not to offend younger people that might be out and about.


But our county commissioners have decided that the truck is too much of a distraction and are in the process of passing an ordinance banning the truck from driving around town. Letters to the editor in our local paper just suggest that the police department start enforcing seat belt ordinances, but our prudish commissioners feel they need to become involved. I am still amazed at the dichotomy of attitude here, where it is ok to drink and gamble and look at semi naked people but for some reason nudity or making things obvious instead of hidden is bad. OK to drink and lose all your money, but don’t touch the girls.

On other fronts, for those of you old enough to remember Queen


The most viewed video on YouTube is a Muppet version of the same song.


If the embedded link is taken down you can go see the official version.
(Yes, I know it's not Video Monday, but NZed discussed this and it seemed to cute to wait until next week)