A few weeks ago I was bouncing around links saved and came across one for something I ordered a while ago - the most marvelous cupcakes in town from Pick Your Poison. It's been a while, so I emailed the girls and ordered two dozen to use as dessert for some friends we were having over. Fortunately some were left by the time they arrived.


There are Lemon Drop, Cup O' Joe, Mimosa and PB&J. All marvelous.

The exciting news is that we are having a group over this weekend, and I've already ordered three dozen more for Friday delivery. Hope some are left.

E Friday (back on Monday)

Haven’t put up much of granddaughter E recently, how about a few? (formerly known as E Fridays, oh well):

She does like to read. We encourage by purchasing lots of books.


But everyone has morning hair


It does end up well in the end

Dr Who

Oh, spoilers, with Amy and Rory dead (yes, sorry about that) the Doctor is due to pick up a new companion for the Christmas special. It looks like Neil Gaimen has been scheduled to write another episode. My two favorite episodes are the first Angels show and the episode Neil wrote: The Doctor's Wife. Here are some of the best quotes from that episode:

Visitors

We were cleaning out the garage last weekend and came across three of these guys.


About an inch long, but not something we have seen in the ten years we've been here. B doesn't appreciate their arrival, and our bug man says they ignore most insecticides. Oh well, looks like it will be more frequent cleanups and searches.

Time spent

Las Vegas is a big city, but we still do not have all of the things that you might find in larger cities. One of the things we are missing is a branch of a very large store that is found all over the world. Evidently they looked at Vegas for expansion and the statistics showed we had a very low percentage of college graduates in the general population, which seems to indicate the purchasing preferences would not be in favor of large sales. So a few weeks ago I hitched up the trailer and we drove down to Los Angeles for s shopping trip. We left early in the morning, and due to spending a lot more time wandering around we did not get back until well after dark, having put almost exactly 500 miles on the car. I ended up with another weekend of work:


I’m sure most of you are familiar with those items, ending up with a little pile of them after tearing apart boxes. There are a lot more, but that is what I left on the counter. The work involved following multi page diagrams like this:


We now have new furniture scattered around. And one sample of what our kitchen will become. After almost ten years in this house we are finally getting around to redoing the kitchen. The house was built in the late 60’s, and the kitchen appliances and cabinets have never been changed, so it is time. We were about to start on the kitchen several years ago, and were just a few days from placing a $20,000 order for cabinets when I was called into HR at the Sands one afternoon and along with 3,00 others given a long vacation. Everything is now planned out, and while looking at the model kitchens we decided on a major change; instead of the ‘traditional’ wood cabinets I wanted we decided to go with gloss white, with stainless steel for the island. Our garage is not filling up, we have the ovens, cooktop and microwave there, and the sink and big stainless exhaust hood out in the shed. Cabinets and a new big window are being ordered, and work will commence in early November (after our European guests leave).

Besides working I also like to play. Yes, computer games usually but I also build little model train things. Traditionally model train layouts are built in the basement, but since so few Las Vegas houses have basements there are very few built in layouts out here. I joined a group that builds small table sized pieces individually, and then we get together once in a while to join them up and make a big layout. Last weekend a dozen of us got together in my back yard and played trains:


It’s called N Scale, a ratio of 160:1 in size compared to real trains. Each train car is about four inches long. The getting together and playing is fun, as is the sitting alone and making the modules. I do the major work, and B is great at details.


Let’s end up with something I haven’t shared in a while: our granddaughter E is still a poser:

Weddings

One of the laws that started making Las Vegas popular sixty years ago was a Nevada divorce law, permitting divorces by petition of one party as long as they were residents for at least one month, which was much less restrictive than the rest of the country. Reno was a bigger city than Las Vegas at the time, and was the first to actively promote application of the new law. Advertisements in California brought people in to stay for a month at local dude ranches, get divorced and go home. It wasn’t long before some large residence ranches were built around Las Vegas to pull in the Southern California crowd, and a number of Hollywood movie stars came to stay, ride horses and be entertained while waiting for their month to roll by. Floyd Lamb State Park is made up of one of these ranches, a bit northeast of town; you can still see most of the buildings, and the small lakes that were put in. It is now a popular fishing spot, and kids like chasing the peacocks.

I don’t know when Vegas shifted from being a divorce spot to becoming a place to get married, but we now have dozens of wedding chapels scattered around. Almost every big casino/resort has it’s own wedding chapel, and now there is a chapel in a truck that will drive to whatever location you want. For $99 they will marry you at any location in town, recent photos show the Welcome to Las Vegas sign is a popular location. The price includes a minister and wedding photos. You still have to go downtown to the clerk’s office and get your own marriage license, but that’s standard for all the chapels.

In June one of Vegas’ biggest weddings was held. Steve Wynn’s last wedding was an impressive affair, but not like the Ackerman wedding, held at the new Smith Center near downtown. Costing over $1,000,000 the food, flowers and entertainment was rather spectacular. So far the marriage has lasted longer than Brittany’s, and no, I wasn’t invited, but I would rather be married by Elvis and save the bucks.

I like IMDB

One of my most visited web sites is imdb.com. That stands for Internet Movie DataBase, and they have listings for almost every American movie and television show that I have ever looked for. We usually go to it when watching a movie or tv show and wonder ‘who is that actor, didn’t we see him in . . .’, which leads to imdb for the show we are watching, then down to the character being played and so over to the actor, which leads to the actor record and a list of things they appeared in, and so on and so on, which can consume quite a while. Sometimes that leads to YouTube to look for clips from other shows, and on to other actors.

I like looking for the British actors when watching the BBC, the comedies on PBS or the sci-fi imports. There seems to be a lot smaller pool of actors, and they all seem to bounce around on the same circle of shows. Look up a comedian and the will have been on Mitchell and Webb and Peep Show, anyone could have been on A Touch of Frost or Casanova or Summer Wine. If they are older then there is another list of shows – just look up Are You Being Served, and follow almost any of the cast – they’ll have a list of hundreds of shows they have been on. The newer ones should have a Doctor Who in there somewhere.

There seem to be a lot more American actors, and it’s rare to see any new ones with a very long list. But again find an older one and you’ll almost always find Love, American Style and Route 66 and Ben Casey and Medical Center and Mission: Impossible and Ironside and of course the Love Boat. Just looking up Elizabeth Ashley, who has a bunch. The newer actors either have a ton of movies listed, or else they are mainly TV, and would include things like NCIS and CSI and Cold Case and Law and Order.

Just heard of something going around town that I was not familiar with – a friend was talking about yelling at her neighbor’s kid for walking around with two apples, a red one and a green one, going all ‘loc up their face’. She said the two apples were to keep things straight, one for the spice and one for the bud. (got it?). Evidently you can purchase some type of salt mixture called spice that when smoked is supposed to give you a high. That’s smoked in a red apple, as the apple gives some additional sweetness. The illegal stuff (the bud) goes into the green apple. I didn’t know you made pipes out of apples. If you mixed them together then you hallucinated. Boy, am I out of touch.

October

Sitting here reading my favorite blogs, yes, I click down that list over on the right side periodically. Those are the people that I like to read, and I do revise it at times. Unfortunately it is usually revised downwards instead of with additions. I try to be sure my links point to people that post periodically, as I do like to go over and read their stuff, but when someone doesn’t post for six months then I usually comment out the link. When I edit the list and comment out a new one I usually grab the commented out ones and try them again, with hopes of some returning.

I’m sitting here listening to Neil Gaiman read Neverwhere on my iPhone. Still using my old model 2, waiting on the 5 that I ordered. B’s came in already, and I’m jealous. (I want a white one, Apple is not shipping white ones yet) But the audio books will not play any faster on the new ones.

October – one of the best months for weather. The mornings are cool and the afternoons warm, still very sunny (as always) without the top heat of summer. (22c morning, 38c afternoon today). We are preparing for some out of country visitors coming for a stay of several weeks at the end of the month; haven’t seen the group in quite a while, and while we will be going from a quiet house to a full noisy one we are looking forward to the visit.

We are also finally getting around to remaking our kitchen. Our house was built in the late 60’s and the kitchen has not been changed. Most of the appliances are ready to be replaced and we will be taking out a wall to open it up to the family room, in addition to new cabinets, countertops, floor and lighting. Also replacing the window with a much bigger one to make it a lot brighter (as if we need that in Vegas). Plans were to start in September, but with the crowd coming we will be delayed until mid November. Starting to fill up the garage with parts, picked up a sample cabinet a few weeks ago, and will be ordering the rest, so everything should be on hand when we are ready to start. I’ll have to remember the before and after photos.

Three things for Thursday

1. I spent an exciting week in training class, learning about Scheduling and Cost Control. Didn’t know what to expect, but I did pretty good at it as most of the hard stuff was math which I like, and am good at sticking numbers in formulas.

2. To sit at my desk and work on a Thursday afternoon and realize to me it’s really Friday and I have a long weekend free. (We work four ten hour days here and get Friday off).

3. To read blogs that I have on my list and are interesting, and get to share in the joy of some people that I have never met, but I can still picture the smiles on their faces.

OK, I didn't remind you this morning, but I hope you all realize that it was Talk Like A Pirate Day today, and acted inappropriately.

And look - the new teaser for the Hobbit movie is out - very amazing at the
Hobbit Site

Wicked pirates

Sumer is going away, and it’s starting to cool off here in Vegas. Looking at the range of temperatures we can expect it runs from 96 today through 98,99,95,96,95,95. Nothing with a one in front of it. I remember living back in upstate New York when having a one as the first digit sometimes meant that it was the only digit. I would much rather have a one with two digits after it than with no other digits associated with it.

We spent several pleasant hours yesterday morning trimming the trees out front. B did the small stuff but it’s up to me to haul out the saws and ladder to get the bigger ones. When we moved in nine years ago we pulled out all of the grass around the house and converted to desert landscaping. Part of that was putting in quite a few low water requirement trees along with a lot of bushes, so that we might have a shady enjoyable lot rather than just rocks and gravel that so many houses in Vegas favor for landscaping. Some of the trees did well, some required replacement, but those that are in are now large enough to require saws for shaping rather than the large clippers we were able to use in smaller days. About a mile down the road from our place is a large Catholic church that has a very well done side yard, we liked it so much we tried to model ours on that, and now that we can walk under the trees and have full shade down one side it seems we have done quite well in that regard.

Last Thursday evening we went to see the traveling tour of Wicked at the new Smith Center. It was over two hours of very enjoyable singing, with the familiar OZ background twisted just a bit. A very nicely done production that I would recommend to anyone. The Smith Center is our new performing arts space near downtown, in a large area that used to be the train yards but now is becoming a nice mix of things. The large theater holds just about 2,000 people, and was built in the new style of vertical seating. Rather than spread everyone out on a huge floor there are many levels rising high. Along the sides are three levels of box seating and in the rear are two levels of balconies. Due to the popularity of the show I was only able to obtain two of the cheap seats way in the back in the upper balcony. This space had about twenty rows of seats and was built at about a 45 degree angle, so that all of the seats have a nice view of the stage without looking through the heads in front of you. Each row is raised above the one ahead, so that my toes were about at the top of the seat in front. We could see the entire stage very well, unfortunately it required binoculars to get a good view of faces. Watching the girls all dressed up in tight short skirts and tall heels try to walk down the steep steps was very amusing, but I was unable to turn around all night due to the seats of the row behind being at about eye level, them being filled with said girls in short (and I do mean short) skirts and mostly my wife sitting next to me.

I have been in a new job for about six months and am having changes. As a programmer I usually work on short term projects, which does involve changing jobs quite often. Most people comment on my long resume and poor ability to stay at a job for very long, but most of the programmers I know do similar things so I am surprised when prospective places mention that. An interview usually goes along the line of ‘we are looking at people that are willing to make a long term commitment, and you don’t seem to last very long at places’, and then go on to say the project should last from six to nine months, would I have any problem with that? I had one friend that stayed in one job for over ten years, then found he could not get a new job because he was viewed as being stale (in computer programming everyone wants you to be up-to-date in the latest technologies). But my change here is moving from being a contractor to being a full time employee. Some places do that, as it is easier to tell a contractor to move on than an employee that doesn’t fit in, and then if they like you an offer of a permanent position is made. I will have to get a security clearance which requires a six month background check, so I’ve alerted all of my neighbors and friends to be ready for the men in black to come calling. I like the work, and we are on four ten hour days (to get the American ‘standard’ 40 hour work week) so I get every Friday off, for a nice long weekend., and the people are pleasant. The work is also different, with only half emphasis on programming the other half on guidance and management, so I am looking forward to those changes.

Arggg, just a reminder that Wednesday is the official Talk Like A Pirate Day, so prepare yourself.

The Doctor is back

The new Dr. Who series started up on BBC last Saturday. I almost missed that first episode, as we haven't been watching TV very much recently, and for some reason have been skipping that channel - perhaps it's because we have grown tired of reruns of three guys driving cars. Anyway, the Asylum of the Daleks was a really good episode. There are a number of British blogs that I usually read - Lisa over there on the right usually talks about the Doctor, but she hasn't mentioned him in a while. I've been watching Dr. Who for quite a while, having caught an episode on PBS probably 30 years ago and really like the current series.
The Doctor always has a companion, and I was surprised to read that his new companion was introduced on this show. Spoiler if you are a Doctor fan, but it's the noisy girl that ended up being the main character - you can read about her over on The Guardian site. I like Moffat's comment that she is the only one he's found that can keep up with Matt Smith. She is a fast talker.
Anyway, another month where I can look forward to watching the Doctor on Saturday nights! Yea!

Three things 1. Warm water in the swimming pool, to float in and watch the sunset and bats come out in the darkening sky. 2. Clouds over the mountains in the distance and the sound of distant thunder, and then heavy rain on the metal roof. 3. The smell of dust in the air from the unexpected rain.

end of summer, big wheels

Still warm here, due to be 38c today (101f) but thunderstorms due for the next few days. We had a lot of rain last week – a full 1.58 inches (about 4cm) which might not seem like a lot, but it broke a few records and doubled our recorded rainfall for the year so far. Yes, it is dry here in the desert. There is still some new construction going on down at the Strip. Not just one but two big wheels are being built by competing firms. Caesar’s is building the Linq on the center Strip, by the Imperial Palace across from Caesar’s Palace. It is a redo of an older area (well, 20 years is old here in Vegas) rebuilding several restaurants and putting in a 550 foot tall big observation wheel, similar to the London Eye. A second one is being built by a private firm further south, across from Mandalay Bay. That one will be about the same size, but not attached to a casino but rather a new shopping complex is being constructed with the wheel at the center. Each location is spending around $500,000,000 on their wheels and surrounding buildings. We finally got the pool cover fixed on our swimming pool – it’s an automated cover that is really good at keeping the pool clean and the water warm. One of the ropes that pulls the cover closed broke a few months ago and we have been having a hard time getting it fixed. There is only one company in town that can repair this brand of cover, and they seemed exceptionally busy. Well, we finally found out that they were having employee problems, and the manufacturer pulled their franchise and contacted a company up in Utah to handle things. They sent a bunch of employees down to work on all off the built up problems, and somebody came out last Friday and did the repair. With the cover on only one week the water warmed up eight degrees, and it now sits at a comfy 92f (33.3c) which is just where we like it. And it will keep the water warmer longer – so it should be pretty nice swimming come the end of October (when visitors are due out from cold country)

Summer rain

It’s early afternoon and raining! Las Vegas just gets an average of three inches (8 cm) of rain a year, which normally comes from just a few thunderstorms that blow through rather quickly, drop a half inch of rain in ten minutes then move off over the valley. Today there is continuous cloud cover, and it’s been drizzling fairly steadily for the past three hours – something that I’ve only seen once before in the ten years we have been here. B’s already called to report roof leaks, so it looks like a new big expense in the near future. Nice, but I’d rather have the thunderstorms come and go and be back to sunshine.

I’ve been show writing here, waiting for photos and a big story to post, but Terri started blogging Tweets, and I figured if she can put up a sentence at a time I could also, so at least there would be movement here. Or more than a sentence. At our last doctor visit she was concerned with our blood oxygen levels, so she ordered a minor oxygen test, which involved us sleeping with one of those finger clips on all night. Still concerned, we end up with a full sleep study, where we went last Thursday night. Hooked up with about thirty wires and clips and bands and tubes it felt like I didn’t sleep at all, but evidently enough, B is OK but it looks like I’ll be back to sleeping with a CPAP machine. Uncomfortable, but at least I sleep well; better than being fuzzy all day from poor sleep. Unfortunately they want me back for another night of testing, this time with a machine. Oh well, wired again. Having to use Chrome at work for postings, looks like it pulls out the paragraph and line breaks. Sorry for the run together stuff.

Summer and new shows

It’s the middle of the summer, and it’s finally warmed up. July was relatively warm for us, didn’t hit 115f (46c) even once, when we usually have five or so days up there. August is usually our wettest month, though that isn’t saying much because the average rainfall for August (according to the National Weather Service) is 0.55 inches (1.4 cm), but it seemed we had a lot of thunderstorms in July and quite a few days where the highs were only around 98. So far this year, since January 1, we’ve had only 0.66 inches of rain, down from our normal of 2.6, so it looks like we are suffering from the same drought that the rest of the country has. But the forecast for the next five days or so indicates temperatures over 112 (45c) so I can enjoy some more sun time. This is coupled with a humidity of 4%, so when you get wet it dries off rather quickly. Yea statistics on line! It looks like Vegas is getting back to being a country entertainment town. Two years ago Garth Brooks got a regular gig over at the Wynn, and is still doing quite well. Last year it was announced that ShaniaTwain would be in the rotation at Caesar’s with Celine and Elton John, her shows starting this coming December. Now that ‘Country’s Golden Couple’ Tim McGraw and Faith Hill will have a ten week forty show run over at the Venetian – tickets from $95 to $295 – with a possibility of more, but they are planning a regular summer tour so they won’t be exclusive here. The Venetian has lost all of it’s major shows. The Blue Men will be moving to the Monte Carlo in a few months, the Jersey Boys have already moved over to Paris and the Phantom of the Opera will just close down at the end of the year. This leaves three big theaters open, with no announcements yet as to what will be replacing them. Tim and Faith will be in the small 1,800 seat theater, not in any of the big rooms. All of the Cirque du Soleil shows (except for Elvis) are doing fine. Elvis will be replaced by Zarkana, and a new Michael Jackson themed show will be opening at Mandalay Bay to replace the lost Lion King. We’ve seen most of the Cirque shows (well, all of them except for Elvis) and I would recommend them to anyone, especially my favorite ‘O’ at the Bellagio and Bobbie’s favorite Ka at MGM. One tip for Cirque shows: don’t sit close to the stage. Too much goes on all over the stage, from the extreme edges into the center that you miss too much if you are close up; get a seat farther back so you can see it all. At O I like the very last row – the seats rise up at a steep angle from the stage, and at the back you are high enough to look down into the pool and see what is going on underwater, something you can’t see down in front where you are eye level with the stage. And the Ka stage is so huge that you have to be back to just gather it all in. We’ll probably be back at Mystere next, the first Cirque show to open and it’s still here, as they have a local’s Tuesday two-for-one ticket special, and I’m basically cheap. Well, it’s still over a hundred dollars for us at that rate. Most of the Cirque shows do special pricing for locals, usually during the slow winter times.

Summer is coming

It’s warmed up here in Vegas. While Australia and New Zealand heads into winter we are enjoying the warm weather. We have already had several days of over 40c, anticipating a hot July and August when the temperatures really get high. Two organizations are building big ‘observation wheels’ on the Strip – one at the south end across from Mandalay Bay and one mid strip being built by Caesars, which has blown up a parking garage and closed down Fitzgerald’s Casino prior to tearing that down to make room. Both of these wheels will be over 150 meters (500 feet) tall and have big observation cars. So you can take your big margarita filled plastic guitar and look down on the Strip while enjoying your stay. The Smith Center for the Performing Arts recently opened, so we now have a very nice venue for concerts and events. The Broadway musical Wicked is scheduled for next month, and the symphony orchestra has already performed several times, and the ballet is scheduled. Opening night was mainly country performers including Willie Nelson, not sure why the dichotomy but the newspapers reported that a gentleman named Fred Smith loves country music and for some reason the board of directors approved that opening entertainment. In addition to the big concert hall there are several smaller rooms that are being used several times a week for smaller more intimate performances. Casinos are mainly aimed at older people with money (the over 21 crowd) but Las Vegas also tries to attract the younger crowd. Last year the Electric Daisy Carnival moved here from Los Angeles, and it appears to be a popular event. It is running for three days this weekend, with crowds of around 150,000 expected each day. It looks like a fun place to be

Spring fixup

It’s springtime, which leads to work around the house. The weather is warming up and it will be time to swim soon, so the pool has been opened from its winter sleep and cleaned up. We think the pool was installed around 1990, we’ve been in the house ten years and found some blueprints with that date and are assuming the pool was put in at the same time. The equipment is starting to wear out, last summer I replaced the pump and yesterday I replaced the filter. Used to have a diatomaceous earth filter but I never could get the hang of how much stuff to put in and the correct cleaning cycle so I went with a cartridge filter. Of course the new filter is a different size than the old, so it took some time to cut out the old pipes and put in new piping, but everything is working now.


The water temp is only 21c, but today it was sunny and 30c, working its way up there. With the pool cover on we should have the water up to the 32c (90f) temperature I like for swimming by the end of May. So if you are in the area come on over for a dip.

B also wanted to change around the front room. We got a new carpet (I put in hardwood floors out there about seven years ago) for the sitting area, and are doing new drapes, so B picked out some new wall colors to go with the carpet and has been painting. I finally got the crown molding she wanted and put it up today.


It looks pretty good out there. Now to see what else she wants to change.

Not much Monday

We had a nice weekend, it was sunny and warm (temps around mid 70's (around 25c)), with more of the same today. Seems like Spring. Last week there were a few clouds


Sorry, haven't posted any photos of my granddaughter in a while and I missed on Friday again.


This is a 'why not!!!' look, we see it often

Venetian Christmas

Still working on my Christmas photos. After walking through the Palazzo we wandered into the adjoining Venetian, walking through the shops by the canal up on the second floor. (yes, the canal is above the casino, I keep waiting for it to leak onto the gamblers).

Not many decorations, just holly and red bows scattered around.

Mirage fish

Walking through the Mirage atrium we looked up to see a school of flying fish



And snowflakes. Well, it is winter and there have to be snowflakes somewhere, so Vegas snowflakes.

Venetian skating

Not many people ride the gondolas outside of the Venetian in the winter, it's just too cold, but the ones inside are still being used in where it's warm. This year they put a plastic skating rink on top of the water and rented skates - something to do on the Strip that's a little different.

More Palazzo Christmas

The Palazzo is one of the newer resort/hotels in Las Vegas. That’s a hard sentence to write as almost everything in Vegas is new – anything that starts to get dusty gets blown up and replaced. City Center and the Cosmopolitan have been constructed since the Palazzo opened.

The Palazzo is owned by the Sands Corporation, which also owns the Venetian Resort and the Sands Expo/Convention Center in addition to other resorts in Macao, Singapore and other places across the US. Each property is set up as a separate company and run reasonably independently but reporting back up line. The Venetian, Palazzo and Sands Expo are all located together about mid strip, on the corner of Spring Valley and Las Vegas Boulevard. You can walk between them, but employees of one cannot participate in activities of the others. Combined the Venetian and the Palazzo hotels have over 7,000 rooms, making it the largest hotel in the world for number of rooms (oh, wait, just looked and a new hotel in Moscow has 300 more rooms, so it’s only second now). The Venetian in Macao is rated the largest hotel in the world based on square footage (almost 1,000,000 sq. meters). The Sands Expo is the second largest center in Las Vegas, at 110,000 sq. meters. I worked at the Expo for 2 ½ years and really liked being there.

Mr. Sheldon Adelson is the founder to the Sands Corporation, current CEO and largest stockholder, and because of his holdings is rated as the eight richest person in the world with a net worth of over $21,500,000,000 – that’s twenty one BILLION dollars (depending on stock prices). He is a long time Republican, and when President Bush came to Vegas he stayed at the Venetian (I did a write-up on that day, and how it took employees over an hour to get into the employee parking garage because of the security checks and car searches). Currently he is backing Newt Gingrich for president, he and his wife both donated $5,000,000 each to the super pac supporting Newt, with promises of another $100,000,000 if Newt gets the nomination. Mr. Adelson is also a devout Jew, and makes trips and donations to many organizations in Israel. When the Republican Caucus was held a few weeks ago it was on a Saturday, and the local Jewish organizations petitioned for a special evening caucus so that those that observe the Sabbath on Saturday would be able to participate. Supposedly Mr. Adelson was not involved in that request, but strangely enough the evening caucus was held at the Adelson Center and he and his wife attended.

I think the Palazzo is the prettiest property in Las Vegas. The lobby and entry is very impressive, and the waterfall area between the Palazzo and the Venetian is just magnificent. In addition to the large casinos there is a very big shopping center upstairs, and Venetian gondolas ply the canals up on the second floor between the shops in addition to being out in front of the building on the Strip. The Sands Expo has huge halls and the Venetian Meeting Tower has rather impressive ballrooms and smaller meeting rooms.

There are a lot of fancy restaurants and bars between the properties, with the Bouchon Restaurant being my favorite place for breakfast – I would highly recommend going there if you ever make it to Vegas. The Tao and Lavo nightclubs are very well attended and usually are written up for the movie stars and musicians that attend. The Canyon Ranch Spa on the second floor is rated as one of the best Spas in the world. Unlike other Strip resorts the Palazzo/Venetian/Sands complex fills all of the property area, so the swimming pools are located on the roof of the shopping area rather than down on ground level. There are a lot of pools scattered around, with a nice small one in the middle of the old Venetian tower and some really big ones in the main central area.

All rooms at the Palazzo and Venetian are considered suites, with separate sitting areas and very large bathrooms. We spent one Christmas Eve at the Venetian – usually the cheap rooms start at $179, prices going up if there are big conventions and on weekends, with a basic room rate around $500 on busy nights. There are larger suites and penthouse rooms as well if you are a high roller or big spender. But when traffic is slow the Venetian offers locals specials, and Christmas Eve filled the properties to only 10% of capacity, so it was a $79 night (plus the fortune we spent at the restaurants). Most nights the two hotels are usually over 90% capacity.

Gee, I sound like a commercial for that place, don’t I? (no, not getting paid unfortunately). Back to the Christmas photos. This is what the Palazzo lobby looked like back in December.


The central statue also was decorated.


And the other side of the lobby was celebrating Chanukah, I think it was the only place in the city with blue lights and a menorah.

Palazzo Christmas

Still on Christmas, this is what the Palazzo central courtyard looked like for the season

Wynn Christmas

Finally got around to pulling photos off my camera and getting them down to size. Here are some shots of the Wynn Christmas decorations.

Scots shoes

In honor of A Daft Scots Lass and her weekly ShoeGasm; some items recently seen in the shops at fancy resorts around the Strip.

Santa Run

Finally pulling photos off of my camera from Christmas, thought I would follow some others listed to the right and try to do a photo a day (or more).

Here is the Great Santa Run of 2011, a fund raising event sponsored by Opportunity Village. They wanted to set a record for the number of people in Santa costumes, trying for over 10,000 - didn't hear if they made it or not, but there were a heck of a lot of us

Done with the jury

Last weekend was the big Sevens world rugby tournament here in Las Vegas. I don’t know anyone that is a rugby fan and have never seen a game myself. But those DJs I listen to on the New Zealand radio station are big rugby people – always talking about their All Blacks. Seems the Samoa team beat the New Zealand team at the final game, so those guys were probably talking it up yesterday.
I just finished up a stint of jury duty here in Clark County, assigned to a murder trial. Three days of mainly sitting waiting. The first day was in the jury lounge, then in mid afternoon called up to a courtroom for the initial talk. Second day was questions by the judge and some by the attorneys, with a lot of people being excused for cause and thanked for their service. I was impressed with the average juror, and how evidently nobody gets to talk in their real lives as so many had quite convoluted stories they were very anxious to share with the courtroom, as when we were asked if we had any relatives that were arrested there were a lot of stories like ‘my wife’s third cousin twice removed that we haven’t seen in fifteen years once got a ticket for jay walking in Cleveland’ or something else equally traumatic. Well, there is one woman who’s brother is on death row in Arizona for a murder but he is appealing because of the evidence so it can be dropped back to life in prison and because of the appeal they shipped him to California to be on trial for another murder and her other brother is also on trial for murder in California but that was a different crime and the cops framed them, so she was excused. Yesterday we had to be there early but ended up sitting on the hard metal benches in the hallway in front of the courtroom until called in right at noon to be told there was new evidence that came to light over the weekend (for a crime that occurred in February 2010) and because of that the attorneys had long discussions and there was a plea deal made and we weren’t needed so thank you for your service, then another long wait back in the jury lounge to be signed out.

Fortunately I brought along a new book, a 485 page complex detective novel (from the Preston & Child Pendergast series) which I finished just as we were called back into the courtroom yesterday. Shows you how much time we had waiting (or how fast I read).

Don’t know why, but it made me think of this song. Created a few years ago in honor of Pat Robertson’s comment on gay marriage, the next step permitting sex with ducks.

Videos - OK Go!

I like the guys from OK Go ever since their first “Treadmill” video showed up.


After that they went to a lower budget one in the backyard


Then they did things with Rube Goldberg devices


And Muppets (what could be better? Anything is better with Muppets)


And Rob posted their latest (he does seem to come up with things I like – thanks Rob). Looks like they are doing well, as this seems to have a much bigger budget for accessories than their earlier ones

Monday videos - around Vegas

This has been a busy week in Las Vegas – most of our hotels were booked solid for Super Bowl weekend, with people partying and sitting in bars and sports books to watch the game, place bets, and get drunk. This has no impact on the majority of residents, other than filling up the Strip and bringing money into our economy: thanks visitors, we appreciate you (and your money).

I was reading some stories about the Luxor, the pretty resort that started with an Egyptian theme but as with most Vegas resorts is trying to change. It’s pretty hard when your building is shaped like a pyramid and has a giant sphinx out front, but they have been removing the giant statues and desert scenes and trying to be more generic inside. Over the course of a year the Luxor property puts up more than two million (2,000,000) guests, in addition to all of us that just walk through and hit the restaurants, shows and casino floor. There are a half dozen other places on the Strip with more rooms than the Luxor, so you can see how we get over 35,000,000 visitors in town during a year. That does keep our airport busy and a lot of cab drivers on the road.

Entertainment in town this past weekend included Motley Crue at the Joint, they’ll be there for the next three weeks. Dana Carvey was at the Orleans. Studio 54 had a big closing party. The Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian has two for one locals tickets. Moksha was at the Country Saloon, George Strait and Martina McBride at the MGM Grand, Daniel Tosh (of Tosh.o) at the Mirage and Tim Allen at the Venetian. If you just like seeing music and movie stars then just hang around the MGM or Caesar’s fancy restaurants at lunch or dinner, with Vegas being so close to LA a lot of people drive up for a few days.

Monday videos – how about a few that for some reason remind me of partying in Vegas

The Naked And Famous - The Sun from The Naked And Famous on Vimeo.

E Friday - Barbie!

It’s E Friday! Where I post photos of our loverly granddaughter E (when I remember to suck them out of the camera and put them up on my server). On one of her trips down we went to the Golden Steer restaurant (one of Vegas’ old style places) and after dinner (a place with Steer in the name and she and her mom ordered fish?) she followed my heart and asked for chocolate cake.


She liked it. The rest of us went for the Cherries Jubilee, flamed right at the table. Evidently the fire code requires a special permit for flames in public places, and not many restaurants get one. It was nice (photos posted a while back).

We also found out about another love


For five days it was “Granddad will you play Barbies with me?”. She is very imaginative, but for some reason we always ended up walking over to a club and having something to eat, then taking Tanner (the dog) to the dog park, after changing outfits of course. For five days. Granddad kept waiting for Ken to step up and help, but he always wanted to go dancing.

Speaking Scottish

Rob has been very kind in trying to educate me in how to speak like a Scotsman. I was able to work my way around France quite well, but I think I might have a problem in Edinburgh. To start you out slowly with Billy Connolly


But then we can step right into Rob’s posting, which doesn’t allow embedding but please go listen to it: do you understand it?
Thanks Rob.

Around our house our little dog Buster is really slowing down. Not sure how old he is, but he joined us from the animal shelter back in 1994, the vet then thought he was about four years old. Whatever it is, he’s put more hours in our house than any of the kids (they left every day for school while he stayed home). He’s almost blind and deaf and pretty shaky walking around, and sleeps most of the time. He usually finds the soft little bed we got for him, but sometimes he just lays down wherever he ends up.


He does move around once in a while.

Literal videos

OK, I know it’s Thursday and I missed posting all week, still haven’t isolated all of those Strip photos from Christmas, but came across this video on Persephone’s blog. Since I love the Doctor it seemed interesting.

Done in the style of dascottjr, who makes literal versions of music videos, like this one:

Red Rock

Nothing special going on right now – CES is in town, filling up the expensive hotel rooms. I thought rates on New Year’s Eve were outrageous, but evidently hotels charge even more than that on CES week. Wow.

But for now we can travel out west a few miles from the Strip and visit Red Rock. You can drive around the loop, walk the trails, or bike the long paths, but many people stop often and take photographs.


A new visitors center was recently constructed, with lots of interesting art and large patios so that you can just gaze at the vistas, while reading plaques to learn a bit of history and desert lore.






As you can see, we ended going out there on a really cloudy day.

Monday videos - waiters

Some interesting videos for you – nto standard top 10 music. First is the Waiter Anthem – look over there on the right, there are several links to waiter and waitress sites, go see how your waiter really feels


Along the same line, not a song but a series on The Bartender Hates You


For Kevin, another series on the Sassy Gay Friend


OK?

Morning drive

I like driving to work at this time of year, traffic is rather light and the sun isn’t in my eyes. Somehow all of the places I have worked at here in Las Vegas are east of our house, so I get the sun in my eyes driving in and the setting sun back in my eyes driving home. I usually work early, and for this job try to get out of the house before 6. It’s a 27 mile drive out to Henderson for me, but fortunately there are large freeways all of the way. Unfortunately the drive curves from due east to south and back again, so that no matter where the sun comes up for half the year it is directly ahead on some portion of the road. But for now I can make it in before it shows


I like the open sky, and the shape of the mountains all around. In the southwest US there aren’t any trees on the mountains, just rocks, so there are always interesting shadows.
We also get a lot of high level moisture over the mountains to the south, resulting in clouds that we don’t have in the summertime


Some of you have asked about the trains I play with – they are small ones, in the US it’s called N scale, with engines and cars that fit in the palm of your hand. This is the type of module we create


This one is five feet (1 ½ meters) long, so you can see how small everything is. People in my club build and decorate pieces like this, then we get together and hook them up to make a big layout and run trains. Nobody has a basement or extra room in their house for building a big layout, so we all make small parts that we combine. I like doing the wood work, and build most of the core shells for everyone, then each person puts down the track (according to a standards manual), wires it up and decorates with scenery and buildings. Most people do southwest scenes, with few trees and lots of sharp hills and rocks. Each piece is about the size of a coffee table, there are different size legs so I and set one up in front of the couch and sit watching TV while playing. Everyone needs ways to spend money, right?

New Year's in Vegas

It’s been a quiet holiday season for us here in Las Vegas. The kids are all big and off doing their own things elsewhere, so we just had a quiet Christmas. I’ve been looking at people’s posts about the little kids under the tree, and watch the trips plus one across the street (they are 8 now, getting bigger) screaming in the front yard and I can remember our busy Christmases past. Sorry, right now I’d rather do the quiet one.
This was our last sunset for 2011


We usually sit in the front room having coffee in the morning (days I don’t have to drive off to work). This is the view we have out of the front window. There is a small courtyard out the front door, about 6m x 8m. I put a slotted cover over it to keep the sun level down in the summer, and B put more tropical type plants out there. It still gets hot in the summertime, so the plants have to be able to handle the low humidity and bright sun and 46c (115f) degrees so it’s not as tropical as our San Diego yard (no bananas for example). We can hear the kids across the street when they are noisy (when aren’t they?) but don’t get much traffic.


The Las Vegas tourist economy is picking up. We had over 314,000 visitors out on the Strip for the New Year’s Eve fireworks display, with another big crowd downtown on Freemont Street. Fireworks were set off from the roofs of a eight Strip hotels, all timed to music, producing a $500,000 eight minute display. This was on the corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard, with fireworks from nearby Caesar’s Palace and some of the other hotels


This was the Strip a block away down in front of Paris


The view from a few blocks away, looks like it was the roof of the Hard Rock Café

Fremont Street, the original gambling district in downtown Las Vegas, has been closed off and is now a walking street, so if you see any movies with car chases down in front of the older casinos you know they are old shots or the street was closed for the filming. Three blocks are covered by the world’s largest video screen, so instead of real fireworks people got a big video display. The Strip was free, but it was $30 to go on Freemont for 30,000 people, as they had a dozen ‘tribute’ bands playing from 6pm to 2am and other entertainment activities.


The weather was better than previous years – it was around 9c (50f) at midnight, with clear skies and a light breeze, which blew away the smoke from the explosions, rather than being calm and having it settle and create a thick haze as it did a few years ago. The city was at 100% occupancy level, with over 150,000 rooms rented. Rates were higher – rooms at the Bellagio last year were from $659 to $799, this year $1199 to $1998, but you could have stayed at the Luxor further south on the Strip for only $250, a little lower than last year.

Or you could have done what we did: go to bed by 10pm and sleep through it all. Happy New Year to you all!