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.

Wandering around one of the hotel pools (no, that’s not ours). Don’t know where she got that pretty necklace.


Sometime she is serious (well, not smiling). This is in her Grammie redone bedroom.


I think she likes the room, almost as much as the big fuzzy bear. (Why, yes, she likes pink.)

The Palms

We live about 6km west of Las Vegas Boulevard commonly called the ‘Strip’, where most of the big casinos are located. We can’t see the tall buildings because of the houses across the street, but between the buildings and down the side road we can see the glimmer of neon, and at night all of the lights down there keep things bright. Even though we can see adult Disneyland down there doesn’t mean we go there often. Once in a while we feel like a special meal, or just to take some time walking and there is no better place for us than down with the crowds. We can go in the other direction to Red Rock Canyon for alone walks in the hills for a different perspective.

When we feel like a nice breakfast we love the Bouchon at the Venetian, but it is rather fancy and expensive and a long casino walk to get to. For quicker we usually hit the coffee shop at the Palms. The Palms is also west of the Strip, a bit away from most of the tourists, it is a little too far to walk over to from the main action, and so attracts a bit different crowd. The Palms is home to the only Playboy club left, a lot of actors and sports stars and music people like to go there. They have a very good recording studio, used by a lot of artists, in addition to the Pearl hall, great for mid size presentations. It’s also very easy for us to get to on the back roads.


We tried the buffet once, it’s OK, but not as large or as good as some of the others. The Rio’s buffet is still our favorite, but we hear the one at Paris is the best on the Strip.


They do have a fair assortment, and it was pretty good, a recommendation if you are staying at the Palms but not a dining destination from the Strip. The Palms 9 Steakhouse is great though, if you are feeling rich and want to mingle with the famous.

Tony Curtis

Yes, should say goodbye to Tony Curtis. He’s been living in Vegas for the past ten years, and appears in our newspaper columns quite often. He is seen in a lot of the clubs and restaurants, and shows off his paintings often. He’s friendly with everyone, and still liked to play tricks on people. Yesterday’s paper discussed one time he went to a restaurant with a group and Milton Berle was already there with some friends. Tony stopped by to say hi and Uncle Miltie (a little fuzzy from age) loudly proclaimed ‘who the fuck was that guy?’. Tony went back to the kitchen, put on a full chef’s outfit, came out and sat with Milton and started discussing the food. Milton still didn’t know who he was and yelled to throw the bum out.

Some favorite movies, Rob particularly liked the pie throwing in The Great Race, yes a great scene:


I liked Some Like It Hot


Tony was particularly fond of the 1978 TV show Vega$, where he played casino owner Roth (sorry, couldn't find a clip with Tony in it)


A little different now, most of the neon is gone, replaced with LEDs and giant TV screens.
Bye Tony

Strip casinos

We’ve been hearing about the new City Center project for years. It finally opened around last Christmas, and we had yet to visit this $7,000,000,000 project while seeing photos of it. Last week we finally went down to the Strip and walked around the place. We parked behind the Excalibur as that parking garage is rather easy for us to get to from the back, walked around there, across the street to New York New York, over to the Luxor, took the tram to the Bellagio to see their conservatory show and then walked back through City Center itself.

It is different than most other Las Vegas casino/hotels in that it is modern. There is no theme to the place, theme casinos having fallen out of style a while back with Treasure Island being rebranded to TI and removing all piratey stuff from inside. New places are more generic and not kid oriented. CC is definitely for adults, no suits of armor or boats or anything. All the surfaces are hard and shiny, very few carpeted areas were to be found. Most Vegas casinos have full wall to wall carpets, probably to keep noise down, but CC is all tiles.

I’ve got a lot of photos, and will be dribbling them out. Here are some shots of the other casinos we walked through the same day. I like the fairy tale castle theme of Excalibur:


The Luxor pyramid is one of my favorite places. It’s always fairly dark and feels like it’s night inside because of the lack of windows and high ceiling. There is now a big flag hanging from the peak inside:


Walking back through New York New York we passed the sports book, which is quite small in comparison to other casinos. There are not very many places to sit, but there are sure a lot of big TV screens on the wall:

Random girls

We are supposed to be heading down into our very comfortable Fall weather, this being the end of September, but for some reason the weather is not agreeing to this transition. High today is 39c (103f), about where it will be for the next three days before cooling slightly to a high of 32c (90f) on Monday. I was just thinking of my trip to Sweden last March, right now they are having highs around 12c (54f) all week, quite a bit different than us.

I’m listening to my New Zealand radio station Zed FM on the internet where they are headed into Spring and looking forward to warmer weather. The weekend DJs are a little strange (what – FM radio DJs strange you say?) and quite often have contests and activities going on in the studio while broadcasting, and frequently have guests in to interview. They posted a photo of this young woman with one of the DJs, but did not mention why she was invited in.


Perhaps she’s a nuclear physicist or something, or might be playing a hobbit in Peter Jackson’s next movie (filming now down there). That shot reminds me of one I recently came across: the same radio guys were talking about Geri Halliwell, one of the Spice Girls. This prompted me to bring up Google and find photos of her, to compare how she looked when in the group and what she is like now. She seems to have filled out a bit:


I’m just wondering what she is looking for in there. Hopefully most of it has been there for years and should still be the same. Celebrities must love always having the paparazzi around with telephoto lenses.

Lady Gaga has been on radio play lists all over the world. There was a comparison photo of Stefani Germanotta and the Lady G. Guess we all came from somewhere.

Monday videos - Adult Sesame Street

There was some controversy last week about Katy Perry appearing on Sesame Street. I really like Sesame Street, and still watch it when I can. I still like the older Muppets, but E, like most kids, loves Elmo. I started watching before Elmo came on, I think Gonzo is probably my fav. But Katy did one of her recent songs while having a play date with Elmo, the clip was somehow published on YouTube, and the resulting complaints about the amount of skin she exposed has caused SS to suspend inclusion of that segment. (the new season of SS starts today, don’t know when this clip was scheduled). In a press conference today Elmo said he would be very happy to have another play date with Katy. It looks like the video keeps being removed; let’s see if this link works:


Some people have had their kids watch the clip, and kids didn’t mention her outfit they all wanted MORE ELMO!!! So to kids the skin was no big deal. Yup, adults strike again.

On other fronts Scaryduck posted a video that we didn’t get to see over on this side, but it does remind me of the 80’s anyway. It’s not an adult video, but will probably only be remembered by adults.


(anyone want to admit to having hair like that?) Don’t think I’ve ever Jacked, was that dance popular here? Wow, enough synthesizer in that.

For our last one, let’s keep with the Sesame adult theme, but please don’t play this one when the kids are in the room. Not because of the breasts but because of the song. The Blogess pointed to a version of Peaches Teaches: I don’t think I’ll ever look at Miss Piggy the same again.

E Friday - BBKing

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.

Before E and her mom came down to visit us last we redecorated her room. I made a new bed and B painted and made it all pretty for a bigger girl. B would sit with her every evening and read a story before she went to sleep.


One evening we went down to BB King’s House of Blues for dinner. E and her mom shared something, and as the band played (loudly) they followed a New Orleans tradition of waving your napkin in the air in appreciation.


They also went out on the dance floor and had a good time.

Next Harry Potter

A new trailer is out, and for those of you Potter fans (as opposed to Twilight fans) it looks pretty good - and in 3D too!

Dogs on Tuesday - Buster sleeping

I don’t have many pictures of Max here in Las Vegas, like kids, you take a lot of shots when they are young but eventually you get used to them and stop taking photos. But here is one of him down in San Diego, in our back courtyard with a bandage on his back leg when he tore a nail.


Buster is now around 20 years old, missing one eye and almost blind in the other and fairly deaf. He doesn’t jump around because he can’t see in addition to probably being fairly worn out. He usually sleeps most of the time, and has given up jumping onto the bed or couch, so he just lays down when he gets tired. This means we have to watch where we walk.


(no, haven't changed the kitchen floor yet) Sometimes we put him up on the couch, when it’s hot and we have the air conditioner on and the fan going.


But if we don’t pick him up he will just stop anywhere.

Monday videos - some strange ones

Feeling in a good mood this morning, so let’s go with some interesting videos, supplied thanks to Jenny, who posts some strange stuff at times.

Not sure what this one is about, but it’s different


Or Pickle Surprise?


Or Pork – the meat of kings?


I don’t think this is in the same league, but we can’t forget Shoes with Kelly

E Friday - guitar

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.

Several years ago we got E an electric guitar, the kind that has buttons instead of strings, and also plays background tunes while you play notes and drum sounds. E used to like putting it on the floor, starting up a song, and then dancing in a circle around the guitar. Now that she is bigger she has learned to put the guitar on and play songs rather than just be content with listening. On her last trip she performed for us several times.


Looks like she even learned some rock moves.


With a few dance steps thrown in.

Joke of the day

I go to Wondermark periodically to see their interesting period cartoons, and for some reason this one from yesterday just struck me as amusing:

More pirates

Comments on pirates made me go look for some clips. Errol Flynn is one of the first, and best, pirates, Captain Blood:


He talks more like a gentleman than our traditional image of a pirate, the way that people imagine pirates talk comes mostly from the portrayal of Long John Silver by Robert Newton in the 1955 version:


He even had a parrot on his shoulder. But perhaps the most amusing version of Long John was by Tim Curry:

Talk like a Pirate

Ahoy Maties - Arrrg – this be a reminder te ya tha international talk like a pirate day be just one week away. Next Sunday, Sept. 19, everyone a ya should be talkin like a pirate – Not this kind of pirates


But them kind


For more information yer can goes ta the Official HQ page. This event seems to be more fun over in jolly old England than here in the colonies.

So remember, don’t be talkin like this guy


Unless you dress like him too. But the good news is those last two maties will be in a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, in production now.

Update:
Arrrr, you've asked how to talk like a pirate matey, from the American site

E Friday - at the Springs

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.

Earlier in the year E and her mom came down for a visit and we took them to the Springs Preserve. Way back before the current round of invaders came to take over Nevada the prior invaders (the “Native Americans”) were living in this area because there was a natural spring and meadows in the valley; even though we are in a desert there is still some water in places. Since then pumps have been sucking the groundwater up, lowering the water table so that the natural springs are not above ground anymore. The area just west of the 15 freeway between Sahara and Charleston is where the springs were, and some of the homes there still have problems with dampness, and the trees grow very well from the higher water table. Some of this area has large lots and fancy homes, and is where the original casino managers used to live, and our current mayor lives there.

The Las Vegas Water District offices are nearby, and they used to have some demonstration gardens adjacent to the office buildings, where you could walk around and look at plants that grew well here, and talk to Master Gardeners about plants and things. Across the street is a 180 acre parcel where the original spring, and current large pumps and water tanks are located. Last year the water district fixed that area up and moved the demonstration gardens over there, now calling it the Springs Preserve. The Springs Preserve web site says “features museums, galleries, outdoor concerts and events, colorful botanical gardens and an interpretive trail system that meanders through a scenic wetland habitat”. Tickets to get in to everything cost $9.95 for residents, $18.95 for nonresidents. Before they opened the hope was to make it a tourist destination, and pay for it all through ticket sales. That never happened – I guess visitors to Vegas didn’t want to pay that kind of money to walk through gardens and see a natural habitat when there are so many more exciting things to do here. But it has become a destination for locals, we go and walk through the gardens (which are free) once in a while and some neighbors have yearly passes.

Anyway, we took E to the preserves, and walked the nature trail and played with the kids interactive exhibits. It was a little cool, so she wore her pink coat, played in the sand with Grammie, and generally had a good time.

Medical care?

When eating my lunch I’ve taken to reading books. One I just finished today is Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. We’ve been reading the New Yorker Magazine for a very long time and he is a regular contributor there, and the book is about Paris, my favorite city, so when I heard of the book I just had to get it. He, his wife and young son and their five years living in Paris between New York stays are described in the book. Their daughter is born during the last year of their stay, and the French medical system is touched upon several times.

France, like many European countries, has universal medical care, for citizens as well as visitors as the Gropniks were. Since the US is still debating the most recent health care system modifications, and a lot of people are complaining about the costs and how them durn furriners come north just to get free care, well, one of his lines in the book seemed to fit my thoughts.

Adam is describing the French ‘standard’ of giving a woman four or five days in the hospital after giving birth as opposed to the American tradition of insurance companies giving (grudgingly) only one day, or if the doctor fills out tons of paperwork, two. More than that and it takes a serious act to get an insurance company to pay for additional hospital days:

“All human desires short of simple survival are luxurious, and a mother’s desire to have a slightly queenly experience of childbirth – a laying in rather than a pushing out and a going home – seems as well worth paying for as a tobacco subsidy or another tank.”

Just thinking about how much in subsidies we give to rich people and farming corporations (how many ‘family’ farms are there anymore? And how many of them are eligible for Federal funds?) and how much the ‘wars’ (no, Congress never did declare war, did they?) in Iraq and Afghanistan cost (still costing) us? Are we better off because a huge percentage of our taxes go for the military?

Sorry, not usually political, but that section of the book just made me think of how much my finger accident cost, and how much Suzy had to pay for her fall, and what it costs for heart surgery on young kids and still wondering why we just don’t take that large payment employers and individuals give to insurance companies and just put it in taxes for medical care. I know, too many people don’t want government ‘interference’ even when they jump through hoops with insurance companies, too many medical companies and doctor groups pay large ‘campaign contributions’ (no, not bribes, those are illegal), and darn if my money will pay for those illegals to get free care.

And by the way I liked the book and would recommend it.

Rain! (and bbq)

Yesterday we had our first measurable rainfall in 137 days: a whole 0.24mm (0.01 inches), as measured at the LV Airport weather station. Usually we get half our rainfall for the year during the summer monsoon storms, but it seems that we were left out of this year’s storm flow up from Mexico (where our monsoon rainstorms come from). Today it is cool (relatively) and pretty windy, gusts up to 80kmh (35mph). Hi today 34c (93f) and low tonight will be 21c (69f) full sun with no clouds in the sky at all. With the small humidity increase we had a beautiful orange ball of a sunrise, and our sage will probably bloom again. They usually go all purple whenever there is an increase in humidity (even this slight).

For some reason this reminded me of our Septembers back in San Diego. It was a lot cooler there, with the highs about equal to the lows here. I was president of the San Diego Computer Society, and used to hold picnics in our back yard. We had a large yard, on a canyon fairly close to the football stadium. My friend Cy would come over early on a Saturday morning with his BBQ rig and a pile of ribs then spend all morning slow cooking that stuff. People would show up early afternoon with an assortment of side dishes and we would all just enjoy the time together. We usually had around a hundred or so people, all celebrating Cy’s abilities. Here he is starting things up:


There was usually a breeze coming up the canyon, but spending six or eight hours out in the sun turning ribs every 15 minutes (that was his formula) he ended up pretty hot and red. Before coming he would have spent the night before preparing the meat, and using whatever his magic formula was to tenderize them overnight. They cooked dry, and he would put his magic sauce on as they were being served. If I remember correctly we never had any leftovers, no matter how much he cooked.

Games

Hi, my name is Joe and I’m addicted to computer games. There, I’ve said it finally. It all started with Atari; I purchased one of the first ones, and ended up with a stack of the (very expensive) game cartridges. I just loved those little space invaders marching back and forth as I shot them from the skies. From there I moved on to an Apple 2, which I did purchase in order to write programs for, but probably spent more time playing games on. Apple Panic was one of my favorites, jumping over things and digging holes occupied many hours. Then I moved on to an IMB PC, which had a disk drive and let me get many more programs.

I am not very speedy of reaction, and so do not really like the shoot them up games. My sons are always on line, playing the soldier type things with their Xboxes, jumping around and shooting people and getting shot. I purchased several of the games they used, but got killed within a few seconds of getting on; with one (rather expensive) WW2 shooter I couldn’t even get through the stand alone training session on the wimp setting. So none of that interaction stuff for me, I don’t mind losing but I would like to be in the game for at least a few minutes.

I like the games that make you think, try out things and find stuff, and that let you try and try again to get better. Duke Nukem was interesting, it let me wander around and shoot things and find things, and if I got killed I could go back and try it over doing something different, Doom was similar. I am in the middle of Fallout, where you wander around a landscape after a nuclear war looking for stuff and trying to survive. Yes, you get shot at, but it’s by the computer and you can go back to a previous position and avoid the area or do something different, like having a second (and third and fourth) chance. Before that it was Spore, a different game where you fly around between planets and build cities and look for combinations of things. No getting shot in that one and it’s really big – you can go to hundreds of stars looking for stuff and build cities on thousands of planets. No real way to ‘win’ it, you just keep on going until you’re tired of building and looking because eventually everything seems the same.

My latest obsession is Starcraft 2, which I picked up last week. In the Starcraft games you direct little people/aliens/equipment around a map and have them construct buildings and wage mini wars. I just love setting up a sequence of events, then sitting back and watching those little figures scurry around the screen building things and running back and forth. Sometimes I get so involved in watching what’s going on that I forget it’s a game, and then the bad guys show up and destroy my base and I have to start all over. I tried to go on line and play with others, but again I’m thinking about things and building stuff and when I look up a whole army is descending on me and all I have are workers and factories and nobody to fight back.

I joined Facebook just to play Farmville and Café World. Yes, I put up a few pictures, but those are mostly for my European friends that don’t come here, and have more family shots than interesting Vegas images. Facebook games are similar to Starcraft, where you can just sit back and watch those little people wander around and do things. There is something soothing in watching your Café and seeing all the guests walking in through the door, sit down and be served a meal. Endless hours of productive time can be spent just moving a mouse and watching a computer screen. But then that’s very similar to the programming I get paid to do, so what’s the difference? (except I don’t get paid to raise crops in Farmville, at least not in money I can send to my mortgage company).

Quite a lot of people I know are on Facebook. A number of them used to be listed over there on the right but they enjoyed the short posting formats and quick responses there and have stopped updating their blogs (I mean you too Dana and Terri). I usually drop people off of the read list after three months of no posting, so my four queens are now down to two. A few have gone over to Twitter, and seem to Tweet more than blog (Suzy says she does) but until there are games I don’t see much reason to let everyone know what I’m doing in 140 characters or less. It might be interesting to hear (sorry, read) Suz’s jokes and thoughts but I’m not sure if I can handle my cell phone continually vibrating as new tweets come in.

So, here I am, not posting as much as I want, so it’s back to walkng the Strip and taking some more pictures.

Monday videos - Hide your wife

Kevin recently posted a link to this crime story. When I first saw it I thought it was a joke, that guy just seemed a little to strange to be real, but I guess he was (is)


This video seemed to be rather popular, and someone with the time took advantage of Auto Tune to create a music video


Pretty good, I’m not sure which one is more entertaining, the original news story or the remix.

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’s back in Vegas! I picked them up at the airport and almost didn’t recognize that taller kid. She likes to come down in August because it is a change from Portland, and the water in our pool is warm so that she can swim as much as she wants. However it seems she is now Portland adapted, and can’t play outside without getting all red and hot. Come on, it was only 39 (103f) yesterday when she went across the street to play with the trips plus one. B says that she didn’t even last an hour over there before melting and coming back. But they were in the pool this morning at 7 enjoying it – water temp is around 31 (93f) so you can float for a while without getting chilled.

When we got home from the airport the first thing she did was take off her shoes and run out to the swing (well, after stopping to hug Grammie)


Then we went to her favorite Mexican restaurant, Viva Mercados, a few blocks from our house. She likes Mexican food but mom can’t find a good place in Portland. She walked in with Grammie


And only wanted to eat the colored chips. VM mixes in some green and red and black with the plain ones


Yea, Granddad (oh, no, I’m not that old, am I?) got her some Barbies which she quickly found in her room. I guess mom doesn’t get her those, just a million stuffed animals. I did notice that this one ended up going commando in the Brazilian style, but didn’t point that out to her. (what?)


Second thing was coloring the placemat; she now keeps colors in the lines. And playing tic-tac-toe with Grammie. She wins sometimes but Grammie doesn’t throw any games like she used to. Then on to Granddad’s iPhone and all the fun new game apps. The cheese quesadilla and beans were filling.

Rochester

For some unknown reason I was thinking about Rochester, New York today; don’t know why. I attended college back there a long time ago before moving out to California. I first attended Rochester Institute of Technology when it was on the old campus, located right in downtown Rochester, with buildings scattered around town. The dormitory I stayed in was the old twelve story Manger Hotel with only the first ten floor used. The top two floors were just used for storage; the elevators did not go up to there, and only one stairwell provided access to the top. The buildings used for classrooms were a combination of older buildings purchased by the school and a few new ones built for that purpose. I stayed for a while and was not enjoying myself, so I dropped out, joined the Navy (to see the world) then for some strange reason returned.

When I got back to RIT the second time they had moved to a brand new campus outside of the city, in a suburb named Henrietta. But the name was not changed to Henrietta Institute of Technology; I guess RIT sounded better than HIT. The new campus was out by itself in the middle of farm fields, all new buildings built of the same red brick surrounded by empty fields and trees, with big parking lots out front. RIT had a lot of full time students, most living in the dorms, but there were about three times as many part time students living around the area that would drive out for night classes. My major was Photographic Illustration, but that eventually changed to Computer Science when I realized that I was better with hard technical subjects rather than artistic stuff.

There were several large companies that had headquarters in Rochester. The most well known was Eastman Kodak, but DuPont and Xerox also had large facilities. RIT was one of the first schools to offer internships as a standard part of their curriculum. Classes were on the quarter system, your first two years were spent doing three quarters of classes, with summer off. The next three years you alternated quarters between classes and working at a related industry. So it took five years to get a BS degree, where other schools offered four year terms, but you left with work experience, and usually a job offer from the place you interned. Back then RIT was the only college on the east coast that had a school of photography; my alternative would have been a tech school in Los Angeles. Growing up in New Jersey made Rochester a stretch, much less convincing the parents that I needed to go to LA for school.

RIT also housed the NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf), with about a thousand deaf students living in the dorms and attending classes. The school of photography was part of the art department, which also had a school of craftsmanship where you could specialize in glass blowing or wood working or metal craft in addition to the ‘standards’ of painting and drawing. Most of my classes were based on how to take pictures, composition and color and framing, in addition to darkroom time learning techniques to print pictures. Now that probably has changed to digital stuff with classes in Photoshop techniques rather than darkroom techniques. The Photo Illustration program was more art oriented, with lots of basic art classes included. Other photography majors were more technical, with investigations into high speed photography, the chemical composition of film, and that type of stuff.

While in the Navy I purchased a lot of 35mm camera equipment, several camera bodies and lots of lenses. When overseas we could order things on ship that were about a quarter of the price in the states so I took advantage of the shipboard stores. I had classes on studio photography, learning how to use 4x5 view cameras and large film, which required a lot of setup time and precise lighting and angles. I learned how difficult it was to create some of those print advertisements, and how many hours it took setting up even simple studio shots. But I liked the candid stuff more, carrying around my 35mm camera and shooting things on the fly. In high school I took sports photographs for the area newspaper, shooting football games was my favorite, and I might have kept on in that direction if computers didn’t catch my interest. Sometimes I think of getting a 4x5 or 8x10 view camera and doing some outdoor photography, but it’s easier with a digital camera, the good ones providing images of very good quality without all the work.

But back to Rochester: the things I remember most about living there were the grey skies and the cold. It seemed like the cloud cover moved over the city sometime in October, and we didn’t see the sun again until April. Buffalo, 100km to the west, got lots of snow because of its location in relation to the Great Lakes, but Rochester received considerably less of the white stuff. If Buffalo had a three foot snowfall we would only get six inches, but it never got warm enough to melt so by springtime we ended up with significant piles of snow around the parking lots and walkways. There were also periods of cold; I remember one week where the temperature never got above -28 (-20f). You would walk outside and almost immediately lose all feeling in your face, with your toes going not long afterwards. The dorms were located a bit away from the classroom buildings, with one long exposed pathway between the complexes. It was a very cold walk in the morning, with the low temps and strong winds blowing, by the time you got to class you were frozen, and took a while to thaw out before you could work the equipment.

I was out cleaning our pool in the 42c (108f) sunshine Saturday when cold Rochester came to mind. A lot of people ask how we can live with such temperatures, but if 22c (72f) is the ideal comfortable temperature, then we are only 20c (35f) away from that, while Rochester has a swing of 50c (90f) away from comfortable. I would much rather be here, sweating a little in the sunshine than spend a winter there, wondering if I would ever feel my nose or toes again. It was a beautiful weekend, with the same weather forecast for every day this week. Daughter and E are coming in on Wednesday for a week’s stay, so I have to be sure the pool is clean and toys all set up. We redid her room; I built a bed (finger photos from that posted a while back, medical bill summary to come) and B painted and fixed things, so it is a lot different. All pink: for some reason that has become her color. On Saturday we will be having the annual E end of summer pool party, which should be lots of fun with a pool full of kids and relatives we only see once a year. Those trips plus one from across the street will be over, they are quite noisy just hearing them from far away, should be quite a bundle all piled in the pool together.
Missed posting Friday: here she is with an Ikea heart Grammy got her

Cheap Trick & Sgt. Pepper

I listen to NPR radio a lot while driving. It’s usually the station I have on in the car, and only switch when they have their ‘pledge drive’ or B is in the car and wants to hear music. The local station’s summer pledge drive was over last week, but they are still trying to raise more money. One of the ways to get some funds is by offering tickets to shows; the station usually gets a local show or touring company to just give them all the tickets for one performance, or a big block of tickets. They then sell the tickets for around face value, people get to see a show and the station gets some money. In the past there have been tickets for most of the Cirque shows and other long term events.

This month they are pushing tickets for Cheap Trick, in town with a full orchestra performing the entire Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, in addition to their own music. I almost have every word of their pitch down, as I get to hear it about every ten minutes. So here’s to Cheap Trick and their big hit from the late 70’s:


They are here for several shows, the benefit one is for the 18th, looks like somebody already caught them and posted a (not very good) video of part of the performance


They never performed I live, but the album and Yellow Submarine cartoon came out my first year in college. It’s still pretty good, and probably quite a few people know the words to all the songs on the album


OK, the trippiest one:

Back to normal

The weather has finally resorted back to summer normal – nighttime lows of 25 or so (77f) and daytime highs of 43 (110f), the usual 18 (30f) degree swing that provides variety, and chills the all night club goers when they finally get outside for breakfast after drinking and dancing all night. Mornings at sunrise are just beautiful – we can open the kitchen door again without our air conditioner complaining and watch the hummingbirds chase each other away from the feeders, and listen to the two roosters next door welcoming the dawn. Our neighbor across the street, with the trips plus one, ordered some chickens so that she could have fresh eggs (a big thing here in Vegas, raising chickens) and talked our next door neighbor into keeping them in his yard. Well, not all of the little chicks were girls, and it is very obvious now. The noise doesn’t bother us – we have good insulation and can’t hear them at all with the windows closed, which they usually are in the summertime.

But the pool is clear blue and warm and waiting for E to come down from Portland for her summer visit. Last time they were here it was too cold, and she really likes swimming. She still did some magic tricks with the gravel



And did some dance steps around our back yard (yes we do have some grass back there too)


But mostly we appreciated her smile.

Kodachrome

Way back when I was in college my major was photography. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of taking pictures, developing film and then spending time in the darkroom creating prints. Once in a while I used a big view camera which was an additional experience, definitely not the point and shoot stuff I do now. Taking the time to set up a big camera, preparing everything and actually taking a photograph was a big effort. We used to use large format Polaroid film for test shots, to be sure that everything was correct before committing to a big negative, because with film you couldn’t tell if everything was right until development and printing, by which time the whole camera/setup would have been taken down.

Recently two of the tools that I worked with have gone away. Kodak has stopped making Kodachrome film, and Polaroid stopped making all instant film. A company in Europe purchased the rights to Polaroid film and produce it in small quantities, but it’s not the same.

I attended school in Rochester, New York, the home of Kodak and DuPont and cold dark winters. This song came out afterI was there, and seemed to fit the school but never was really adopted as the school anthem as I felt it should have been. Paul didn't do a music video of it, but this one seems to select images that fit the song.


I remember driving with our daughter a while back and a Simon and Garfunkel song came on the radio, and she asked why we were listening to old fogy music. Ah well, I still like it now (and she listens to it also, guess she became an old fogy too). After Garfunkel Paul still recorded some good music, his Graceland album is very listenable. Whenever this one comes on the radio images of this video flash through my head.


I like Chevy, and the size difference between the two of them is rather amusing. His year on Saturday Night Live was very amusing, he did a marvelous Gerald Ford impression.

Ladysmith Black Mombassa members sure look like they are having fun dancing to this one.

Cooking with Joe - spices

Las Vegas just finished up it’s hottest July ever. That’s not because of record high temperatures but because of the high average temperature. The average temp for July was 35.6 (96.2f) with only two days hitting 45 (113f). The records are kept from the measuring station down at the airport; temperatures can vary around the valley. We also had the longest hot stretch: five days straight with the nighttime temps not going below 32 (90f), we haven’t been under 27 (80f) since July 8. Usually we have a 16c (30f) change between daytime highs and nighttime lows, so that we get a chance to cool off just a little, but with the hot nights that hasn’t been happening. And no thunderstorms ran through the airport, so no recorded rainfall for the month either. Ah well, we knew it was a desert when we moved here. (numbers taken from a Review Journal article)

On to a brief cooking segment: the importance of good ingredients.

We signed up for cable TV service down in Temecula when we found a rooftop antenna would not pick up signals from stations on the other side of the mountains that surrounded us. Since then there has been a proliferation of cable only channels, resulting in the current dilemma of having 300 channels available buy yet there is nothing on you want to watch. Don’t say it has never happened to you: at some point everyone sits with the remote control just pushing the next channel button until eventually you realize that you’ve been around the entire selection list three times and there is still nothing you want to stop at. But I usually end up at one of the home improvement channels (we get three) watching somebody destroy their kitchen, or one of the cooking channels (three again) that are usually showing some type of competition. But I sometimes catch one of the cooks that makes things that I can make. No, not the Iron Chef, that is a little beyond me. The two I go print the recipes for are Alton Brown and Sandra Lee who always adds a cocktail at the end (and seems a bit tipsy from sampling them at times).
One of the things that Alton recommended was purchasing spices from a place that supplies good stuff rather than settling for those jars at the supermarket that might have been on that shelf for a few years. I took his advice and started ordering things from the Spice House on line and have been very pleased. I like to use a lot of cinnamon and vanilla in things, and they have several varieties of each, all very good. In one order I got three types of cinnamon and some ground cloves, and when the box showed up and was opened it seemed like heaven. The scents from that sealed box were magical, and made the whole place smell marvelous for quite a while. So go to their web site and get some good cinnamon and vanilla and whatever else you cook with; it’s all good. Here is a sampling of things I’ve gotten from them:


Let’s see, that’s one bag of cinnamon, two jars of vanilla, dried orange peel, a marvelous ‘French’ blend (great in omelets and soups), cloves and some smoked paprika. You have the option of getting these nice jars with shaker lids or bags of refill spices. I use so much cinnamon that I get the big bags (this is a smaller one of one kind). Their cocoa is also really good, nice cakes and all.

So there is my cooking tip for today – buy good spices.

E Friday - at the park

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 lives up in Portland Oregon, where it is usually a lot cooler (and wetter) than Las Vegas. Despite this, there seems to be a lot more outdoor things to do there. They have a lot of bike trails and large parks, a beautiful rose garden on the hill above downtown and a very nice zoo. E’s parents have an annual zoo pass, so that they can go as much as they like without paying each time. E likes the zoo, and so they go quite often. They sometimes have special events, such as the birthday of their oldest elephant, where kids get birthday cake and big paper elephant ears to wear.

Last year they had a dinosaur exhibit, with models scattered all over. E liked the dinosaurs


And evidently they didn’t bite. (and stripes for Lisa).

When they come to visit we go to the park near our house. There are not near as many trees as at the Portland parks, but it is a pleasant place to go play in the wintertime.


E still likes the slides, and has no problem climbing up the big structure to get to the tall ones. There are shorter sets for smaller kids as well.


Of course, we always have to bring a snack in order to keep up our energy.

Assorted July

This summer seems a bit warmer than previous ones. We had our first 43c (110f) day back in June and for most of July the afternoon high hasn’t been under 38 (100f) with nighttime lows above 29 (84f). There has been no rain for quite a while; thunderstorms were predicted for yesterday and we woke up to lots of clouds. At our house it was 30 at sunrise and we soon heard some noise out in the back yard. We’ve got a large metal cover above the back patio, which makes for a very noisy sounding board when it rains. The rain yesterday started out with just a few plinks every few seconds and quickly grew to a roar and just as quickly tapered off to nothing. We ended up with an official rainfall of zero – not enough to measure, but I did step outside and get wet just a little bit. Right now there are a few puffy clouds up in the bright blue sky with a 20% chance of precipitation

The cicadas are out in force, filling the trees with constant buzzing all day and night. If you haven’t seen them, cicadas are small beetle type insects, about 2cm long and a dark brown. They can fly, but usually just sit on tree branches buzzing for mates. The then lay eggs on the ground, with the young spending a year or more as grubs underground before coming up for a few days to buzz and breed before dying. And the buzzing is loud – you can hear them from over a block away, and if you are under a tree where one is then you cannot really hold a conversation with someone because of the continuous sound.

We have a cover on our pool which we normally keep closed; it stops evaporation and keeps the water clean. It’s a rather large backyard pool, being about 7x12 meters (22x40 feet), and I’ve learned over the years to set the pump timer and have it run the filter at night. If it runs during the day the water temperature gets really high because of the sunshine on the cover. Right now the water temperature is about 35 (95f) which is a bit high. I’ve got to keep the cover off for a few nights so that evaporation will cool things down before it gets too hot to swim in. But it is really nice to float in and watch the sunset at this temperature.

We have some palm trees running down one side of the pool. When we first moved in I was able to use a ladder and get up to trim them, but they have now officially gotten too high for this old guy to do that. I don’t like having someone spike their way up to the top for trimming; it can introduce fungus into the tree leading to decay, so we now have the tree guy down the street do it for us. His crew stopped by last week to take care of the four trees, as they did last year. They only get trimmed once a year, now in July when the trees flower. This type of palm has long spikes filled with little tiny flowers, and when they fall off our pool gets filled with them. So we like to get the trees trimmed after the flower spikes come out but before the flowers dry out.


I would highly recommend these guys: Ryan's Tree Care, call him on his cell at 702-497-0435. They use a boom truck instead of spiking up the trees, do not over trim, and do a great job at cleaning up. They also take all the fronds instead of bundling them and leaving them in front of your house for trash pickup. Ryan also lives just a few houses away, so I can walk down and yell at him if they mess up.

Just to post another picture: a few months ago we went to the Red Rock Station casino and I stopped to take a shot of the houses to the west. This is one of the latest areas of the valley to get filled up with housing tracts. Most of these houses are less than five years old, and there is a lot of empty space for the developers to start up again when the economy improves. It’s just a few miles around that hill to the Red Rock park, a great area for hiking and biking, and where Michele Obama appeared a few weeks ago to talk about childhood obesity.

Monday vids - MoTown

Several weeks ago our local PBS station was running a pledge break – we watch a lot of things on PBS, the documentaries are pretty good and we like the Sunday Night Mystery shows – and they were playing a show about MoTown and the Fabulous Funk Brothers. There are several YouTube videos posted from the show, but most cannot be embedded, I’ll still put click links to a few, but it also brought to mind some musical groups from the same time period. One of them that was really big was the Temptations:


I like the coordinated outfits and choreography. I also liked Marvin Gaye


Ray Charles was a big voice then. Whenever I hear his rendition of Georgia I think about this claymation short that came out when president Jimmy Carter was in office

E Friday - performing

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.

We’ve had this electric guitar for a long time. It doesn’t have strings, but buttons on the neck that you push to play different notes, and buttons on the bottom you push for it to play a background drum thing or even whole songs by itself. E used to like setting it on the floor, pushing a song button, and walking in circles around it. For hours. Now that she is bigger and taking violin lessons up in Portland (I don’t think she asked, her mom thought it might be good for her) she is learning how to hold and instrument and even though it doesn’t have strings she is playing songs herself instead of letting the guitar do all the work. When visiting last she wanted a stage set up (with backdrop) so that she could put on a performance.


It seems to have been well received.


I think a cake was made to celebrate the event. Yes, she did help with the preparation and icing of it (photos posted a while back on those)

Cooking with Joe - quiche

I frequently stop at a French bakery near our house and partake of their fine products. For those of you in Las Vegas, it’s Bonjour Bakery at 4012 south Rainbow, near Flamingo. I would highly recommend it – their pastries are great, but I mostly love the baguettes – crisp and light inside (yum). I started stopping there more often after reading somebody’s suggestion of supporting local businesses. The suggestion was to partake of locally owned (non chain) stores in your neighborhood and spend $50 a month or so, to help stimulate the economy in your home town. I don’t spend that much at Bonjour, but my waistline says I spend more than I should. Anyway, when there a few weeks ago I purchased some almond croissant for breakfast and saw on the counter some little quiches (quichies? What’s the plural?) and took some home. B mentioned how we used to make quiche a lot back when, and wondered why we stopped.

Last week I was over at Anna’s place reading about her making quiche, and was prompted to try out her recipe. It sounded simple enough, and when shopping at my local Von’s I picked up some pie shells and cheese to start.

Here is the recipe right from Anna’s, with a few changes:

1 9 inch pie crust
8 slices bacon
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup Gruyere, grated
2 large eggs
1 egg white
3/4 cups half-and-half
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (depending on your taste)
dash of nutmeg

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Brush the pie crust (already placed in a 9 inch pie tin) with the beaten egg white and bake for 5-8 minutes. Or follow the directions that came with the dough or crust.

Lower oven temperature to 425 degrees. Fry bacon until crisp, drain onto a paper towel, reserve the bacon grease. Saute onion in the same pan with the yummy bacon grease until translucent, drain.

Fill pie shell with crumbled bacon, onions and grated gruyere. Combine beaten eggs with half-and-half, salt, cayenne pepper and nutmeg. Pour over bacon and cheese. Place quiche on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until firm but jiggly in the center. Let quiche cool before serving.

I used readymade pastry, and put it into a pie pan and baked according to the directions on the box (after brushing with the egg white). The egg whites make it shiny, and keeps it from absorbing the liquids of the filling.

Anna uses more eggs, but she might have a bigger pie pan than I did.


It came out pretty good. I paired it with some fresh corn and a green salad – Von’s had a sale on corn, which we buttered and spiced and cooked on the grill outside, after which I cut it off the cob; much easier to eat than directly off the cob even if not as satisfying. And you are probably saying “grill in Vegas in July?”. Yes, even though it was about 42 (108 f) like it is right now we still fire up the grill and cook. We don’t sit out there to eat in that heat, we might be dumb enough to live here but not that dumb. Much better than canned or frozen corn. It was great fresh, and just as good cold the next day. And it has bacon – who doesn’t like stuff with bacon?

If you have a bigger pie pan then double the eggs and half and half part. The rest of the stuff is filler, so feel free to put in things that you like instead. Instead of bacon (OK DM, don't get mad here) use fresh tomatoes and zuchini from your garden, or add basil or whatever herbs you have. Replace the onions with green onions, use turkey or ham instead of the bacon, that kind of stuff. It's just a not sweet pie and you can make it however you want.

So today let's thank Anna for posting that recipe.