E Friday - with hair

Just a mixture of things about granddaughter E today. One of her recent visits down resulted in a trip to the local park – local parks are important in Las Vegas because almost everyone has followed the advice of our water district and we have become more water smart (their advertising term) and pulled out our lawns and replaced them with gravel and native vegetation. For those of you not familiar with our ‘native vegetation’ it has evolved to be unattractive to eat, resulting in plants with no big leaves (that are easy to munch), tough bark and lots of thorns. Usually the plants also are low growing and not very colorful. They also depend on wind born pollination, which results in the creation of tons of pollen, which also produces allergies in people that didn’t have allergies before moving here.

Anyway, we went to the park, where E likes the big swings and the tube slides and climbing stuff.


Grammy went up to Portland for her fifth birthday (she is SIX now, say it loudly please). Back when she had more hair


Her favorite breakfast is cheerios. This trip it has changed to banana cheerios, due to grandma seeing that new flavor on the supermarket shelf.


And sometimes a muffin.

Mt. Charleston flowers

Last week we went up to Mt. Charleston again for a picnic. It’s a lot cooler there, two patches of snow were still high up in the shade. We weren’t that high, but did have a nice picnic next to a small stream and walked along the nature trail. It’s still a mountain desert, with very little water besides the winter snows, so the vegetation is not very lush. The trees are scrawny and the weeds very low, but there were some flowers scattered here and there.






It is pretty remote down from the road, with no traffic and hikers that wander through every few years or so. There are some streams, and it looks like some Californians have moved in. Last week a police helicopter searching for a lost hiker found something else: several acres of marijuana plants growing. The TV news yesterday showed scenes of an assortment of workers hiking down to the location, finding a complex drip watering system fed by some springs and evidence that the growers had been there for several years. The estimate is of several million dollars street value of plants, which will be cut down, hauled out by helicopter and burned. I don’t know why they go through all that trouble, people had planned on burning the plants anyway, just in smaller quantities wrapped in paper.

Talk like a Pirate day coming

An advanced reminder that International Talk Like A Pirate Day is coming soon, on Monday September 19


As discussed in this Wiki entry, and you can go to the official site to learn exactly what to do.

A hot week predicted

This week is looking to be the hottest week of our summer. Highs for the next four days are predicted to be over 44c (110f), a point that we have only hit twice so far this year. Normally the middle of July is the hottest time, and August is the start of a cool down towards Fall. Thank you Oklahoma (and the rest of the country) for taking our heat for most of the summer. Though we love the sunshine and summer warmth it is still nice to be a little bit cooler than normal.

To help you think happy thoughts here is a cooling view of the Palazzo center court.

Caesar's Linq

The largest employer and biggest company in Las Vegas, MGM, completed its City Center complex a few years ago (except for the Harmon Hotel thing). The second largest company is Caesars Entertainment has just announced its next large project, not quite as big as City Center, but for more than I could spend. The Linq is a $550,000,000 “outdoor retail, dining and entertainment district patterned after The Grove in Los Angeles and anchored by the world’s tallest observation wheel.”

It will be constructed in the center of the Strip on the east side, across from Caesar’s Palace between the Imperial Palace and the Flamingo. Currently O’Shea’s casino is located there, and it will be demolished to make room for the new stuff. I wandered through O’Shea’s a few times, the only notable thing about that small casino was their on-staff Leprechaun, dressed in green standing out front trying to entice people to enter and get some cold beer. The Imperial Palace will receive a major facelift and be renamed and the Flamingo will get a new entryway.

Caesar’s Entertainment is trying to provide an entertainment destination for the ‘younger’ crowd, those that don’t find acres of slot machines appealing but would rather have multiple things to do. Drawings show a mixture of rides, bars and restaurants along with the big wheel. (Don’t call it a ‘Ferris Wheel’; it’s an ‘Observation Wheel’). Caesar’s Entertainment covers Caesar’s Palace, Harrah’s, Planet Hollywood, Paris, the Flamingo, Rio, Imperial Palace, Bally’s and several other casinos.

Along with the announcement Caesar’s said they have all the plans and money in place, would be applying for permits and be ready to start construction almost immediately. This would create several thousand construction jobs which would be great as all other construction has halted. However, because of the lack of jobs most construction people have moved out of Nevada looking for work. I don’t know who is around to do that work. Then it would provide 1,500 permanent jobs.

The Wheel would be 550 feet high, 107 feet taller than the London Eye, with 40 passengers in each glass sphere. I don’t know if people will pay $20 (or whatever they end up charging) just to go up and down slowly, but the planners must expect riders. The rest of the design looks pretty nice, and will create a fun destination that doesn’t include just gambling. It should take two years to build, so the next time you come to Vegas you’ll have an additional place to take up some of your time.

The Elvis billboard is gone

Well, it looks like having the world’s most expensive billboard did not help out Elvis, or the billboard.

When City Center was built it was comprised of several separate buildings, each of which would function independently.


Most of them were designed by different architects and built by different construction companies, but they all seem to fit together quite well.


One of the showcase buildings, right on the Strip next to the Cosmopolitan and the Bellagio was to be the Harmon Hotel. The design was for 27 floors of hotel rooms, with 20 floors of condominiums above. Unfortunately, the construction company putting up this building had problems converting the engineering blueprints into an actual building. The reinforcing steel bars (rebar) that ran vertically in the walls were supposed to be firmly connected to the horizontal rebar in each floor, thus making the building one giant linked object. Concrete is then formed over the steel, creating the building. This is the common form of construction for most modern large buildings. The construction workers however had problems making the rebar connections, which resulted in the steel in the floors not being tied to the steel in the walls. For some reason the inspectors that were supposed to be examining everything as it went together were not doing their jobs either, and the difference between the blueprints and reality were not noticed until concrete for the 27th floor was being poured. (private inspection companies were used, not government inspectors)

Work stopped at that point as the county building department was called in. Unsure if it was safe to continue upwards, it was decided to put up the glass and leave the building unfinished until full inspections could be made. MGM put up a big sign for their new Elvis Cirque du Soleil show on the Strip side of the building, thus turning it into a $79,000,000 billboard.


MGM and Perini Construction are involved in a series of lawsuits about the building. A few weeks ago MGM released inspection reports by several firms they hired to review the building. The reports showed the building would be unsafe in a large earthquake. MGM took some time to decide whether they could fix things, and last week decided they did not want to. So a request was placed with the court to let MGM just tear the place down. Perini says they can fix it, and that MGM was going to destroy evidence and just wanted to take down a building that the economy was making unviable. A court will decide the fate of the building.

Meanwhile, the Elvis show has turned out to be so poorly attended that Cirque and MGM decided to close that as well. The plan is to modify the show, and take away a lot of the Elvis background and make it more of a Cirque acrobatic performance, like most of their other shows. They plan to be closed for at least three months while the show is revised. So the big Elvis wrap has been removed from the building, and probably the whole building will soon be gone as well.

The overall cost for the entire City Center project rose from initial estimates to a final $8,500,000,000, so the Harmon building is just a minor part of the big picture. It seems the only people that will benefit from the Harmon part are lawyers, many of which are working for both MGM and Perini. It looks like lawsuits will be around for this part for quite a few more years.

E Friday - fashion

Granddaughter E has developed into something of a ‘fashionista’. She likes selecting her own outfits, and mom has given up making suggestions. I find most of the combinations to be interesting, along with some of the poses.

scenes

We went over to a restaurant in Summerlin a few days ago – just an area west of the Strip built up by the Howard Hughes Corporation into some fancy neighborhoods. One of the restaurant areas has a nice view of Red Rock


South of town, down I15 headed to Los Angeles about twenty miles is the big city of Jean. Just east is the site of the Nevada State Prison, now closed but used by CSI for most of their prison and jail scenes.

Bathroom's done

A while back we remodeled our hall bath. No knocking down walls and making it bigger, just new tile all around, new fixtures, new cabinets and counter and sink and lighting and floor tiles. Just minor things (that for some reason took weeks to do). Did it all ourselves, and found out it’s hard to lay tiles with consistent grout lines if the tile saws that you rent from Home Depot don’t cut a straight line. Anyway . .

B wanted to go for big tile, so we found some 24” x 24” things that looked pretty. Then decided that they looked good on the floor but too big for a small bathroom wall, so they were cut down to 12” x 24” and stuck on vertically. That was boring so we came up with an accent stripe in a different shade. And of course I had to figure out how to do niches for soap and stuff in both the shower and tub areas. All of those home improvement shows we watch on cable aided us, and I was able to order some fancy waterproofing for the shower stall (pulled out a plastic one we put in when we moved and made it all tile) and figured out the right way to do tile. We can see the imperfections, but our visitors think it looks pretty good.

Here’s B working on grouting the tub area


And this is what the shower ended up like. Tile color is the same all around but the lights are different, so the camera auto color correct didn’t make them match in the two photos. To my eye they are more beige like the below photo

Cosmopolitan art

The Cosmopolitan has many art pieces scattered around. These guys were interesting, over a meter high, having an intense silent conversation.

City Center fountains

City Center is a large complex on the Las Vegas Strip just south of the Bellagio. It is comprised of several structures; a casino, some hotel towers (managed by different companies), a shopping center and some residential condo towers. There is a central court with a driveway for vehicles, a special cab only driveway and ramp and some fountains. A monorail runs from the Monte Carlo to the south through the complex and ends at the Bellagio. It was the largest privately funded construction project in the history of the US, with construction on the 76 acres costing over $ 9,000,000,000 (wow).

There are seven parking garages at City Center, six are valet only and one is public access. Whenever we visit we usually park at the Luxor located across Tropicana to the south, walk over through the Luxor and Excalibur, cross the street on the elevated bridge, through New York, New York (so nice they named it twice) and into the Monte Carlo, where we catch the monorail to the Bellagio where we look at the latest decorations in the conservatory, then walk back through City Center. (yes, it is a lot of walking).

Here is the central court


Over to the west is a large water wall fountain


The central fountain has the same water jets located in the Bellagio fountain, so you get to watch a miniature version of the big water show


The blue building in the center background of the last photo is the Harmon Hotel, which due to construction defects is now the most expensive billboard in the world, displaying a large sign for the Cirque show Elvis, individual construction of this building estimated at over $400,000,000. Sounds like it is going to be demolished due to problems with the construction steel and rebuilt.

Friday!

For some reason I am glad it’s Friday


Just love Katy’ Perry’s response.


We were talking about music videos being short stories compared to movies – I miss when MTV used to show videos instead of reality shows. But at least YouTube is available. NZED plays this all the time, and it still sounds like fun.

Birds

I found out why, within two hours of putting a pound of seeds in my bird feeder, the thing is empty:



Birds come by and eat all the seeds!!! Imagine that.

wet

We had a lot of rain this weekend. Thunderstorms Friday evening really dropped the rain at our house, Saturday a little wet and then Sunday it rained steadily all day. Because of the hills and winds different parts of the valley get different amounts of rain - might have rained all day at my place but the Strip could have been sunny. No telling.

But the high humidity (well, for us 25% is damp) brings nice sunrises


The colors don't come out in the camera as nicely as they do live.

Mt. Charleston

We went up to Mount Charleston one Sunday to see just how much cooler it was up there. Mt. Charleston is the big hill just northwest of Vegas, a forty five minute drive from our house. The peak is around 12,000 ft (3,700 meters) high, and gets a fair amount of snow in the winter. There is a small ski and snowboarding area with lifts, which is scheduled to greatly expand over the next few years. You can gamble down on the warm strip (winter highs are usually close to 80f (26c)) and then go up and play in the snow.

Driving up to the parking area near the ski lifts we can see that even though it’s the end of July there is still snow up here. Temperatures were about 30 degrees cooler than down in the valley.


There are a lot of walking trails through the pines. Even though it is high and they get snow in the winter it is still a desert, the trees are not as large as other mountains have, there are no low growing bushes, the grass is sparse, but still different than the open flats far below.


There are lifts up the slope, the skiing is nothing like the big ski resorts but it is close to town.




Trails are open, most are fenced to keep people off of the surrounding hills as feet tend to kill the plants, resulting in a lot of erosion due to the poor soil and slow plant growth.


Most of the upper mountain is rock, with no paths to the top. I haven’t heard anything about it being a big climbing area.


There are picnic areas, but due to the dryness and high fire danger most of the summer open fires are not permitted. Bring along sandwiches, or a camping stove if you want to cook something. It’s a cool diversion for summer activities.

Monday, not much to do videos

Some videos have been on my list to post for a while. My New Zealand radio station plays a lot of Justin Beiber. I can just see this at the biker bar near my house


What Santa does in his off time


Or fast clapping

721 Claps Per Minute - Click here for the funniest movie of the week

And back to one of my favorite singers

Green Valley Ranch

A few weeks ago we went to Green Valley Ranch to meet some friends for dinner and a show. Green Valley is part of the Station Casinos chain, with all of their places off Strip and aimed at locals more than tourists. We mainly went to see Lyle Lovett in concert, having seen him with his Large Band down in San Diego a while back. This time he just sat on stage with a friend and a guitar, told stories and played and sang by himself – quite different than having twenty musicians behind him.

Green Valley Casino seems to mirror other Station casinos, having an ‘old time’ feel with stained glass and wood.


The buffet is fairly cheap for locals, with dinner at $12.99, so the line is usually long.


The food is good if not exciting, but you can sit as long as you want and eat as much as you want, and the crowd seems to be mostly the over 60 group.

Thanks for the reminder from Tricia:

Everyone knows Amy Winehouse died. Who are Justin Allen 23, Brett Linley 29, Matthew Weikert 29, Justus Bartett 27, Dave Santos 21, Jesse Reed 26, Matthew Johnson 21, Zachary Fisher 24, Brandon King 23, Christopher Goeke 23, and Sheldon Tate 27....? All Marines that gave their lives this week for you. There is no media for them... not even a mention of their names. Honor THEM by posting this!

Tivoli Village - Sophie's fountain

Last weekend we drove over to the newly opened Tivoli shopping center. It’s similar in style to the Towne Center and the District at Green Valley; an open air shopping area with a mixture of standalone and attached buildings with shops and restaurants, living space above, and an atmosphere that is supposed to be like a small town rather than just a shopping center, with streets and parks and things. Since the weather in Las Vegas is rather pleasant most of the year a lot of shopping centers are not enclosed, as they are in colder climates.

At one end of the main street near the kid’s playground is an interactive fountain, the kind that is designed for kids to run through, with soft rubber underfoot and jets and sprays that alternate. There were a few small kids playing nearby when we walked up, and I stepped on the button to start the spray sequence and we sat to enjoy the cooling mist – it was 102f and we could use the cooling part. The kids saw the activity and came running over. One was named Sophie – her mom kept yelling “Sophie – don’t do that… Sophie, don’t …”. Evidently this was the first time Sophie had seen a fountain like this. Her grandmother kept urging her to go on the fountain, and it did take a while for her to brave the water.


My wife B said that once Sophie started running through the water her mom would have a hard time getting her out of there, and it seems she was right.


As we walked down the street we could hear Sophie laughing as she ran through the water and played with the fountain, and kept urging grandma to start it again when the sequence ended.

Mandalay bride

A few weeks ago we went to Mandalay Bay with a friend to eat at the Burger Bar and show her the views from the Fire & Ice Bar on the top floor; she’s lived in town for ten years and had never been to either place. I like going to Mandalay Bay and the attached Luxor for several reasons, the main one being access: it is on the same side of the Strip as our house and thus is relatively easy to get to, the parking garages open onto the road behind (Frank Sinatra Drive), and the parking garage is large with big aisles, wide parking spaces, and escalators within the parking garage between levels, taking you right down to the back entrance. It’s also a rather pleasant place, with good restaurants and an atmosphere that I like.

Anyway, the back door from the parking garage brings you in between the restaurants in the south western corner of the property. As we walked past the statue of Lenin in front of the Red Square restaurant (voted the Best Bar in America by Playboy Magazine according to their web site) we walked past one of those sites that I love to see on the Strip; a bride in full wedding gown walking around. This one appeared to be by herself, no spouse or fiancé in evidence, and was heading towards the garage, walking very quickly.


Sorry I don’t have a good photo, the camera wasn’t in my hand and I have not fully developed my quick-draw technique, though there are times I wish I was faster. I will have to pull all of these bride photos together, the average seems to be one bride for every three trips we take down to the strip; time of day or day of week is immaterial, I’ve seen fancy bridal gowns in early morning on the way to work, seen weddings on a pirate ship at noon, crossing the street in late afternoon, on late night walks, and everything in between. This one was at around 5pm on a Thursday evening.

Back to the Burger Bar – this time I tried one of their named burgers, with buffalo meat and an assortment of stuff on it: it was really great. But when we tried to get upstairs we found the bar was closed for a private party, so our friend still hasn’t seen the view of the Strip from on high. Next time you are in Vegas go up to Mix and catch the sunset – no cover charge if you’re early, you can even get by without buying a drink, but take some time, have a coke or something stronger and enjoy the view. Be sure to hit the restrooms – at my house we don’t even have a window in the bathroom, there you have a floor to ceiling glass wall looking down the Strip to the south.

Wow, looking at the menu for Red Square, the first thing listed is Imperial Golden Osetra 000 caviar at $ 275. One reason we haven’t eaten there. Of the other restaurants, Strip Steak at least lists the ‘average bill per person $110. A 30 oz Porterhouse steak at $69 – you better be really hungry.

Bunnie gauge

The building I work in is rather far out in the middle of nothing. The nearest other building is about a mile away across open desert. Because of this we seem to get a lot of animals around the place. Sitting in the upstairs conference room I look out over the front parking lot to a big empty field. I usually see rabbits, chipmunks and quail. Once in a while a coyote wanders through, but they are usually night stalkers that sleep during the day. Some people have seen rattlesnakes near the doors as well.

A family of rabbits comes by to nibble the grass each morning, hanging around out there until about noon. They don’t seem too scared of the people walking by, but do run away if you stop or get too close. I’m trying to gauge what kind of day it will be based on the number of rabbits that are out there when I come in. Today was a one bunnie morning, some days have more than others.
Two bunnie morning


Three bunnie morning


Four bunnie morning


Haven’t seen more than that all gathered together, but others are hopping around.

E Friday, more random

Here we are again, and I am finally doing E Friday on a Friday. Wow, I am impressed with myself (if I really do get to post this.) Inspired by Clare I am posting three photos of my loverly granddaughter E. She now lives up in Portland, and my wife and I get to go up and visit periodically. She is due down in August for her yearly swimming in warm water vacation, which we are looking forward to. Here are three random photos with no relation to each other taken on past trips up there.

E is taking violin lessons, and at one of the group sessions the instructor has the students play as they walk. I don’t know what this has to do with violin playing, unless there is a marching orchestra someplace. (E’s the one in white and red)


Not far from her house is an old amusement park named Oaks Bottom that she likes going to. The place looks like it’s been around for a while, and it’s nothing at all like Disneyland, but being her size and experience level it’s still pretty good. As with most places you end up waiting in line to get on the rides. Being short you grow tired of staring at the butts in front of you.


Grammy picks E up from school, and on the walk home sometimes stops for an ice cream or other treat. These seem to be appreciated.

Video Monday, TV themes

Last week I posted a few bits from the TV show Route 66. Watching television this week emphasized to me how much time was spent in the past on tying songs to television series, with people being able to recognize what’s coming on from the first few bars of the opening music. Here are a few others that I remember, some with just music




Some even had words, of course they were fairly easy to remember





OK, I could go on for quite a while, but that’s enough for now.

more Red Rock

Red Rock is the 'conservation area' just west of Vegas. We go there to hike and walk around, but it also has a long bike route that is very well used.

A while back several companies started renting scooters so that tourists could get around town easier. Realizing that people often fell off of these two wheeled vehicles they then came up with three wheeled motorcycles which don't require a fancy drivers license to operate, and are fairly easy to use while still keeping the rider out in the sun. Somebody thought of putting a fiberglass body on these to make them seem more like small cars, the result is these vehicles, seen on the Red Rock loop




In response, here is E riding her bike around the living room. I don't ask, she was 5.





Don't know if the training wheels have come off yet.

Rt 66 revisited

Sorry, meant to put this up yesterday too. Not sure what came first, the song or the tv show. I think it was the song that inspired the show writers.

Rt 66

A few weekends ago I drove down to 29 Palms with a friend. We went to a train show there, but mainly the trip was the purpose not the destination. It's a three hour drive mostly on two lane roads through some of the most (try to think of some descriptions that aren't too worn out), well, what I thought was ‘Why the heck do people live out here?’. It was all flat, barren landscape with low scrub and distant mountains. (oh, yea, kind of like Vegas) with no water and an hour drive to the nearest store. But there were little shacks scattered all over, most of them vacant now. Must have been even harder to live out there years ago when cars weren’t as reliable. There were not farms, gardens, flowers, or anything green beyond the native shrub.

Part of the drive was along old Route 66, a road that used to be the main way from Los Angeles to Chicago. It’s been bypassed by much larger freeways now, but some nostalgic people still travel the road. We passed an old motel that is still open, even had a big grand piano in the lobby visible from the street. Comprised of that interesting lobby building and individual buildings for the bedrooms.


I was raised back east, but remember Route 66 from the old 1960 television series starring Martin Milner and George Maharis. There are lots of episodes on YouTube, one has the theme song


The series followed the two stars as they drove along Route 66 in their classy Corvette running into different adventures along the way. This opening showed more of the western area


But my favorite (after watching a variety of clips for a while) is an episode staring Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr. and Boris Karloff. This episode takes place on the eastern end of the highway, at Chicago.

Olives

We’ve had a relatively cool spring, and our summer isn’t warming up very quickly either. This week the predictions are for high temperatures to be under 37c (100f) all week. Last year we were up over 43c (110f) every day. I still love the hot weather, but it really is nice to sit out in the morning, have my coffee and listen to the birds without having to sweat.

We have been getting out on weekends and visiting different spots around town. Last Sunday we drove up to Mt. Charleston, before it was Red Rock. Perhaps another road trip south might be next. Last time B flew back from Portland she took this photo of Red Rock from the plane


Makes it look pretty, but stark. I would still rather do trees, but then it wouldn’t be the Vegas desert, would it?
Out in our front yard the olive trees are full of fruit. We don’t do anything with it except let the birds feast, but even then there are quite a lot of olives left over. Right now they are bright green and starting to weigh down the tree branches, eventually they will turn deep purple and start falling off. That’s when are yard will be filled with pigeons pecking the olives apart. They seem to be the only birds that do that, all the other birds just use the olive trees for nesting rather than eating. The pigeon population is still limited, and more olives just lay untouched. The ones from last year are now all dried and hard, but we’re too lazy to gather them up.


An older couple does come around in early fall and asks if they can pick the olives, evidently it is a time consuming process to make them edible, I find it much easier to just open a jar.

Go To Sleep

I've heard of this book but not gotten it yet. I love the way Samuel Jackson reads it. (something a lot of parents would be saying to their kids, at least in their heads)

Quiet weekend

We had a quiet holiday weekend. The weather wasn’t as warm as expected, and Sunday brought some interesting lightning and thunderstorms, but we were able to hit the pool


And made up some grilled salmon following a recipe in the recent Sunset magazine


Sitting on some fresh summer corn (yea sweet corn!) and tomatoes from our garden (yea fresh garden tomatoes!) served with margaritas, made one afternoon enjoyable.

Last week it finally started getting hot. I walked out to my car after work, started it up and looked down at the dashboard thermometer saying 113 (45c) and yes, felt pretty hot in there. It took a while for the air conditioner to cool the car down, but it was cold in there by the time I got home. Usually I just drive with the windows down, a throwback to my convertible days, but it’s a little too noisy on the freeways to do that at high speed. Mornings are really nice – it’s around 78 (26c) when the sun is coming out, we sit on the back patio watching the hummingbirds fight over the feeder and listening to all of the birds chirping in the bushes, drink our coffee and just enjoy the atmosphere.