Halloween in Vegas & E Friday

It’s been a strange week here in Vegas; it looks like winter is coming a little early. No, nothing like the snow in Denver or anything that bad, but we went from a reasonable mid 80’s temp every day down to a high of 57 on Wednesday and winds gusting to 65mph. we’ve become used to strange winds coming up but I still would much rather have temps around 90 than under 60, but at least we aren’t getting snow.

We’ve got some plants blooming around the yard. Just before the winds came up our sage bushes were full of purple flowers, which now are in dramatic swirls around the patio where the wind has deposited them. The rosemary bushes are full of blue flowers and bees, and the shoestring acacia trees are full of little yellow puffballs, which are great for people with allergies. There are also lots of bright yellow flowers on some small bushes scattered around as well. Nice to see flowers instead of snow.

Halloween is a very popular holiday here in Las Vegas. Most of the casinos and fancy clubs have theme oriented parties, but most of the themes are adult oriented. Yes, Circus Circus has converted their AdventureDome into the Fright Dome, with a number of haunted houses inside, but places like the Hard Rock are having a $3000 costume contest and entertainment by the Genitorturers (no idea who they are, but I’m not sure I’d like to find out). The Palms is hosting Fangoria Trinity of Terrors, with celebrity appearances, make up applications and some of the best movies and producers, including Roger Corman, Malcolm McDowell, George Romero, Ken Foree and John Waters. If you don’t know who any of those guys are then just go upstairs to the Playboy club as they are having a contest for the best Playboy inspired costumes, so expect to see a lot of bunny ears and not much cloth. Most of the fancy clubs have costume contests and big parties like the Fetish & Fantasy Ball at the Joint in the Hard Rock, but they are looking more for the sexy French Maid outfit or smallest thong rather than the rotting zombie corpse.

Our Halloween evenings have been a change here from our place in San Diego. Down there we were in a nice walking neighborhood and the house across the street used to go all out, creating a graveyard on the front lawn complete with coffins and corpses that wandered around and sometimes a live zombie band. This usually resulted in visits from a few hundred kids and a big candy expense. Our house here in Vegas is in a more quiet neighborhood; we don’t have sidewalks or street lights or many kids (besides the trips plus one across from us) resulting last year in a grand total of eight kids coming by.

Last year E had a homemade lion costume, this year she went as Cassie from Dragon Tales. We haven’t seen any pictures yet, but they had a costume parade that she went to (in the Portland rain of course) along with other activities. At four and a half she is the perfect age to enjoy those types of events. But for now she is learning to cook. Rice crispy treats were on the menu one day


And when she was visiting us she helped make a cake, here helping put a fair measure of jelly and blueberries between the layers (I think some of the blueberries made it down; of course there had to be much sampling to insure the berries were acceptable)


But everything does go better with milk

Twin Creeks

Periodically we get out of the house and hit one of the casinos or nicer restaurants around town. Las Vegas is filled with fancy restaurants; unfortunately most of them are rather expensive. I am usually hesitant about spending that much money for something that I’ll just flush the next day, but every once in a while I really like going out. Our favorite place for steaks is Fleming’s, a national chain that has an outlet not far from my house. The atmosphere is nice and the food is pretty good and consistent, the staff is very friendly and we really like it.

But at times we do go elsewhere, and recently the Silverton Casino had a special offer - two for one meals at all their in house restaurants for locals with a players club card. We hadn’t been to the Twin Creeks steakhouse for a while and figured it was worth a return. It provides fair quality food at about the lowest prices in town; a full steak dinner with salad, desert and sides is usually under $25. At half price it was getting down pretty low.

The Silverton is not located on the Strip or downtown but far south on I-15. It was the first casino you drove past coming in from LA but now the new M resort has taken over the extreme southern position, not counting the casinos at Jean or Stateline which aren’t really Vegas. They recently had a makeover, with a realignment of some local roads and construction of a big parking garage. The Silverton used to be all country, with logs and wood and the Nevada site of the Bass Pro Shop full of boats and sporting stuff, but now they have gone a little more upscale.

There is a new food court with some of the ‘standard’ fast food places in addition to the in house restaurants. We’ve never tried their buffet, just hitting the steak house. They cater to locals, and it seems that every time we’ve been down there they were giving away a piece of crockery or some other home item (like Sham-Wows) for accumulating players club points to a lot of old people. It’s a lot different than the Strip casinos. They also have a huge salt water fish tank near the front of the Bass shop, and it is entertaining just to stand and watch the fish. They also periodically have mermaid shows, and the divers jump in to feed the fish by hand, insuring everybody gets the proper diet and amount.


The tank is about six meters high and probably twenty meters across, and just full of big fish, sharks and rays swimming around and around.

In addition to fancying up the casino the Twin Creeks steak house has changed from a country place with log furniture and wooden walls to a fairly upscale place. The lights were a little dim, but the décor had a full makeover, resulting in something that was nowhere similar to what it was before.



We spent a nice few hours, had a pleasant drive down, a nice time watching the fish and divers, wandered the new casino and had a great meal. All for joining the player’s club - our first in town, just to get the low prices, and ended up having steak dinners for two with wine and a resulting bill of under $30 total for the both of us. Not bad, and the food quality has not decreased at all. The steaks are a little dull, and are greatly enhanced by ordering one of their special sauces (only $2 or so) but are just fine, providing a nice night. A warning if you go - on weekends be sure to call for reservations, the wait can be up to two hours if you just drop in. During the week we have not had any problems, and with the lower tourist numbers in town the place was fairly empty when we sat down, and only rose to about 2/3 occupancy when we left.

Around town

I realized that I haven’t done a Vegas post recently - sorry, I know you are all dying to learn what’s happening around town. (yea, right) Well, this weekend we host the U2 tour - supposed to be a terrific stage show (120 semi trucks to move), with them doing something even larger and more spectacular for Vegas. I hear that Nancy at F&P will be attending, so look for a big review there next week, Bill Clinton is also supposedly in town for the concert. Also Alice Cooper will be at the Orleans, for you C&W fans Faith Hill at the over 50’s convention at the Sands (see what I’d get to view if I was still there?) and her hubby Tim McGraw also in town as well. Garth Brooks will soon be a regular at the Wynn (opening Dec 11), but before he gets there Regis & Kelly will be taping there show at the same theatre. Also this weekend: Rob Thomas, Peaches, LeAnn Rimes (here for three weeks), Chaz Palminteri in A Bronx Tale (supposedly pretty good), Stone Temple Pilots, Everlast, Rob Thomas and for you old dancers the Village People.

For those of you that haven’t been here for a while, here is what the Wynn looks like from across the street, in front of my former employer


Impressive building to have your name on, isn’t it? Turning the camera westward we see the fancy shops located inside of the Wynn, and across the street the big Cloud in front of the Fashion Show Mall with the gold Trump tower behind. Think I’d rather have my name on the first one.


And if you are thinking about coming to town, we always liked staying at the Luxor before we moved here, the entrance to the pyramid is about the most impressive hotel entrance you will ever see. Rates are pretty good


And for DM - sorry, yes, it is E Friday, almost forgot

The same old thing

Did you ever get used to doing something in a particular way, and then have it kind of flow into something you don't really think about but just continue doing? I think of the old turkey joke:

A woman was married for many years and every Thanksgiving she prepared the typical American turkey dinner. One Thanksgiving her husband looked down at the turkey as he was about to carve it and noticed the back end with the tail was cut off. He stopped for a minute and then asked his wife if she had cut off the tail or if it came like that. She replied that she had cut off the tail, and had always done it like that because her mother had taught her to do it that way. The next day they called mom and asked why she had taught them to cut off the tail. Mom replied that she had always done it like that; her mother had shown her how to prepare it. A few weeks later they were visiting grandma and asked her why she taught her kids to cut off the tail of the turkey before roasting. Grandma thought about it for a bit, and then replied: "well, we were poor and could only afford chickens, and then one year grandpa got a big bonus and we were finally able to buy a turkey. I asked the neighbors how to prepare it, and went to put it into the tiny oven in our little apartment and found out the bird was bigger than the oven, so I cut off the tail and it fit. I've been cutting off the tail ever since."

Perhaps it's just Vegas: things change so quickly here. Well, not recently due to the financial problems, but last week I drove down a road I hadn't been on in a few years and there was a whole new shopping center that I just didn't remember being there. If you haven’t been to Vegas for ten years then the Strip will look very different, and if you wait another ten years it probably will be changed even more. I can go back to my old home in New Jersey and it looks the same as it has for the past fifty years, some areas of New England have been unchanged for even longer, and perhaps parts of Europe have lasted even longer. When we visited Arles, France we saw a Roman amphitheater that has been there for a few thousand years, and there is an art walk following Vincent van Gogh's path that has reproductions of his works at places where he originally painted them, and most of the scenes still look exactly like they did a hundred years ago.

Whenever I start a new job and am taught how things work I wonder if they are doing it that way because the oven was too small and usually if something seems strange the answer is yes. Which means that someone in the past started doing it that way and it's been done that way ever since and we don’t question it we just do it like that. I work as a computer programmer/analyst, usually for small companies that don’t have very many (or any) other programmers. A portion of my job is to figure out how a job is done, and how a computer might help with the process. Most of the time I find there are aspects of a company’s workflow that are there for no reason other than because ‘we’ve always done it like that’. It just takes someone new coming in and looking at things, asking questions and suggesting simple changes to change a system that has been in place for years. Most companies, and people, would benefit from a fresh look at the way things are done. Then again, sometimes it is just comforting to keep doing things that you have always been doing without thinking about why.

Usually it’s the little kids that ask "Why?" and we respond "because I'm the parent and we do it my way", but perhaps sometimes if you stop and think about it you too might ask why? Sorry, don’t know why myself, guess I’m just in one of those moods.

Right now I am just thinking about all of those blogs listed over there on the right hand side that I like to read. Several of them have not been updated in months, and it looks like I’ll just put them in my favorites so that I can check periodically and drop them from my list. It’s over there for my use, that way I can just click on down the list and see what is going on with people I have come to enjoy. That is a strange thing now that I think of it, here are a bunch of people that I have never met, probably never will, know little about except for the small glimpse they chose to give us and yet they seem like friends. I miss them when they are not posting, and wonder what it is they are not saying when they do, trying to read between the lines and figure out just what is going on.

E Friday - coloring

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.
When E and her folks came to visit she packed her own carryon bag, as seen in a previous post. One of the interesting items in her bag (well, they were all interesting) was a big yellow banana. This banana had a zipper, and was full of little wooden items, each with a single letter. I assume this is part of a game played like Scrabble, but E uses her Bananagram letters to spell out words she is learning. With the aid of Sesame Street (and mom) she knows all her letters and can spell a lot of words.


Unfortunately she isn’t up to reading all of Garfield’s comments, but she still looks at the funny papers when available.


One of the other things she likes to do is color, whether it’s in a book following the lines or on plain paper just doing what she feels like


Coloring is also a good time filler in restaurants while waiting for the good stuff to come.

Monday music - New Zealand

I sit at the computer a lot, well, it is my job being a computer programmer, and usually have ear buds stuck in to mask background sounds and provide a source for music. I switch between all the stuff I have built up on my IPod and internet radio stations. I used to listen to a French station a lot but a while back I became hooked on Zed FM, a New Zealand station. I don’t know if it’s the different city names or the accents but whatever it is the morning crew are just amusing to me.

One of the other things that is different is the music. They play a lot of local NZ and Australian groups, ones that we don’t usually hear on my local Vegas stations. One of my favorite groups is called Flight of the Conchords, two guys that come up with some interesting things. Apparently they have a series on HBO (which I don’t pay for and thus miss all their neat programming) and on BBC radio. The latest song receiving a lot of air play is


A number of the artists played that I like have videos on YouTube, unfortunately most of them are set as embedding disabled, so you’ll have to click on some links to hear, but please do as the songs are nice and the videos interesting.

Adele - Chasing Pavement

Ladyhawke - My Delerium

Oh, here’s one I can link to. I like the way she pronounces things, kind of harks back to the nasal tones you hear in old recordings from the 20’s, Gin Wigmore.


Finally, she’s British and not from NZ, but they play a lot of her. I first saw Lily on Graham Norton’s show doing this show, and talking about an old boyfriend that was the inspiration for this song.
Lily Allen - Not Fair

Sunday in the Park with Joe

Today was cold and windy but we decided to travel around town and visit a few events we wanted to see anyway. By cold I mean it only hit a high of 73, and windy means gusts up to 45mph, with more smoke blown in from California fires and dust advisories.

First stop was an arts and crafts fair held in Boulder City. Boulder City was created back in the depression when the great Boulder Dam was being built, to house the laborers. It now is a very pretty small town near the dam, with very restrictive growth laws to prevent it from getting too big. Neighboring Henderson by contrast wants to get as big as it can, and is continuously annexing land to the south and east and trying to circle Boulder. The arts fair was held in a large park in the middle of town, and comprised of hundreds of those little tents and awnings, filled with all types of crafts, handmade items, stuff that it looks like it came right from China next to stuff obviously made on someone’s back porch. B wanted some small things to put in our recently improved front courtyard, and we ended up with a metal scorpion and a metal dragonfly, which should fit very well.


There were also lots of booths filled with assorted foods for sale, but we held off on that.


One of the most popular areas was up on the hill.


After wandering for a few hours we headed down to Mandalay Bay, the site of the world’s largest tattoo convention. Admission was free for locals with ID, I wasn’t about to spring the $35 to get in. (Lots of events are open to locals, just to beef up the crowds). Iphone pictures, sorry, a little blurry.


But you could sign up and have some of the best artists in the world ink you right there.


On the way out we passed by the big wave pool, with lots of people sitting in the sun even though it was cold to us.


And of course I had to add to my portfolio of weddings caught around town. The chapel at Mandalay is down near the convention center and Shark Reef.


Walking back we passed part of a previous wedding party. I don’t think they were the principals (not yet)


After wandering through the convention center we walked towards the Luxor and ate at the Burger Bar, one of my favorite burger places. I’ve written about it before, they have about the best tasting burgers around, though a little expensive. You basically build your own burger, picking out the type of meat, bun, and accessories from a menu of about thirty different items such as type of cheese, sauce, onions, jalapenos, and so on. They also have sweet potato fries, not found in most other burger places. The menu has changed and now there is also a build your own milkshake section, where you can pick out the type of ice cream and then select from a few dozen toppings. I didn’t notice if jalapenos were listed there also, but if not you could probably get them if you really want to. I noticed the section on predefined shakes, and found some rather unusual, such as the Guinness with vanilla ice cream float. Don’t know about you, but that does seem rather unusual, thinking about it that combo might work, but I was hesitant to try it out.

Even though it was late Sunday afternoon the place was full. The little booths do have individual TV screens, in addition to a number of big screens over the bar, all tuned to Sunday football, so perhaps people were there to watch the games and eat. The Mandalay sports book was packed; football betting seems to be popular. There were quite a few tattoos in evidence, probably spillover from the convention (which is why hotels have convention centers attached).

Very visible elements to the Burger Bar atmosphere are the waitresses. Sorry, I tried to get some pictures but the lighting was a little dim and I just didn’t catch anyone in an appropriate position. All of the waitresses are rather slim (or downright skinny, depending on your attitude) and wear the same black outfits, which consisted of thin legged tight black pants and a black T shirt with the BB sparkly logo. What was apparently a management decision was to supply shirts that were too small for the wearer, meaning they were very tight and very short. This resulted in the appearance of several items that are probably appropriate to a Vegas bar; spillover from the top and exposure from the bottom. Some of the girls were either well endowed or well enhanced, and poorly contained by the shirts. There were also large gaps between the bottom of the shirts and the low worn pants, making it very obvious that the tramp stamp tattoo is still popular. Most of the girls wore pants so tight and low that I wondered how they were able to keep them up. Due to the thin-ness most did not have very large hips (if any at all) and not very large, how shall I say, butts. The pants were probably pulled up to the waist when put on, buttoned and belted (with sparkly belts) then pushed down as low as they could go: combined with the short tops this left the stamps very visible from the rear and evidence of probably waxing visible from the front. As when skinny girls wore tube tops, whenever some walked by I wondered why those pants didn’t just slide on down to the floor as there didn’t appear to be anything preventing the downward movement. But close intensive study was inhibited by the presence of B at the table with me, though there was one blond serving a distant area that was very difficult to ignore when she walked past. No, this is not an adult club, and there was nowhere near the amount of skin visible here as at those places, it still provided some entertainment. And the burgers are good.

So, what did you do on your Sunday?

E Friday - stories

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 got her first haircut back around her fourth birthday. It took a little getting used to, but now it seems really cute. She also has started talking even more, and loves telling little stories and acting things out. Looking at the pictures I can’t remember what the discussions were about, but they are still amusing to look at.

We had blown up some balloons and drew faces on them, creating a mommy, daddy and little girl balloon. As they were chased around the rooms and down the stairs many concepts were thrown around about what they were doing chasing each other and bouncing up to the ceiling. Not sure exactly what part of the story was being told here


But the flash catching her hair at a different angle almost makes it look like a bad wig.


One evening the weather was nice (strange for Portland) and we were dining al fresco, which as every Fancy Nancy reader would know means you are eating outside. As we were waiting for dad to grill up some hamburgers the discussions revolved over to something that required a bit of expression to tell completely


But in the end everything came out OK.

Pirates missed

Arrrrrrggggg maties, here I be postin piraty photos all week and then I be missin out on postin my own piraty post yesterdee; sorry bout that.I be readin all the ways to talk like a pirate, and have to say I be failin miserably.

At least we have a joke for the day (it’s piraty, remember the ones be tryin ta roast Capn Jack?):

Two cannibals be eatin a clown, when one turns to the other and says "Does this taste funny to you?"

Cheap hotels and vampires

Just a couple of late Friday images for you. First, since we’ve stayed there a few times and I’ve signed up for the email promos, we have been receiving a lot of advertisements recently from some of the Vegas hotels. One of our favorites to stay at was the pyramid at the Luxor - the rooms are unusual, I recommend about the tenth floor, so the views, whichever side you are on, are really nice, and the casino entrance from the front door is about the most impressive buildings ever. I particularly like looking at the mountains to the west. With the economy doing poorly a lot of the local hotels are not booking as well as they would like, and so are offering some pretty good deals. This one seemed particularly nice:


If you want to take some time off, look at that, $35 rooms at the Luxor in December. Wow. You could probably get some good airline rates, booking this early. It’s at the south end of the Strip, between Mandalay Bay and Excalibur, a short walk over to NYNY and MGM. I would highly recommend it if you want to just get away for a few days. Want something fancier? The Venetian and Wynn are both also advertising cheaper rooms, but those are around $98 week nights, and also both very nice places.

For you Twilight fans, with all the stuff floating around about the new movie, let’s not forget:


Angel would so kick Edward's butt . . .


As would Spike

Park Friday

Aye mattie’s, I was readying for a piraty post this day but that thar email comes from Cap’n Jack saying it be tomorra just leaves me speechless. Almost.

Friday entertainment update, just to let you know who is in town or coming shortly, this weekend in Vegas we have Cher and Carlos Santana (their ongoing regular gigs), the Killers, B-52s, the Yea Yea Yeas, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, John Legend, Australian Pink Floyd, Cheap Trick’s Sgt. Pepper Live, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Temptations, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Sheena Easton; and in the next few weeks AC/DC, Britney Spears, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Liza Minelli, Brooks & Dunn, Dionne Warwick, the Beach Boys, Kenny Rogers, Rick Springfield, Van Morrison, Wynonna, Steve Miller Band and a bunch of others. Remember, if you want to see one of these shows in Vegas then the seat rates are usually two to three times higher than in other cities.

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.

Today we travel to the park on a summer morning. E managed to get dad out of bed before 8 and drug him off to our local park, two blocks from our house, in order to use the slide and swings. She tried earlier in the week, but by then it was 11 and already 102, unfortunately in August even at 8 it was around 90, and the sun had already started making the slide a little too hot to go down without long pants. Our local schools have put up big shade covers over their playground equipment, but the city and county parks departments didn’t have money to do it as well. But E had fun climbing stuff. One of the structures had a chain and bar think kind of like the big nets pirates used to use on ships, so we are close to pirate day.


There are several towers with slides of assorted lengths, most of which are spiral tubes rather than the long metal ramps I was used to.


It was still hot, even on the steps.


So the park excursion didn’t last long. At least the swing in our back yard is in the shade of the peach tree, and there is granddad to push her.

Piratey change notice:

Email just came from Cap'n Tom:


Arr, ahoy me hearty! PIRATE DAY be THIS SATURDAY!

I be sendin' this year's final Pirate Day email a couple o' days early, just t'keep things clear. As hundreds o' ye told me, I be makin' a slight cock-up in me last message: I be sayin' "Friday 19th" not "Saturday 19th". I be as clear as I can now: Pirate Day be THIS SATURDAY, th' 19th September!

(In me defence, I be sendin' that first email - genuinely - usin' a cell phone while sat on me pirate barge, sailin' down a canal in th' valleys o' Wales. I not be havin' the easiest time proofreadin' it!)

Anyway, that mean this Saturday be time fer swashbucklin', pluderin', an' talkin' like the buccaneer that ye be!

And sorry to disallusion you with the last post. Instead of putting up pictures of pirates like this


Or this


I should have put up one of this guy. He talked much more like a pirate than the other two, and somehow better fits the image I have of what they were really like.


Or perhaps this guy.

Pirates again!

Just a reminder, coming up this Friday, Sept. 19th, it’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day, so be prepared. Hopefully you can all come up with a piraty posting for that day. Go to the website for more info.


What's Apple's latest product designed for pirates? Either the EyePhone or the IPatch, waiting for consumer testing.

Monday Videos - Just a Gigolo versions

Well, we are into September and it’s starting to really cool down - well, at least according to Vegas standards that is
only due to hit 93f today, and we have all the doors and windows open to take advantage of the beautiful cool, breezy day. I was on YouTube last week listening to some old Van Halen music and was directed to David Lee Roth doing California Girls.


Which linked to Just A Gigolo, which uses California Girls as it’s intro, to another of his that I remember from early MTV days. (with most of the same girls)


Wow, talk about big hair (no, never teased mine up like that); on Dave as well as those ladies. Somewhere I read that this was a remake of an older version of this song,also paired with I Ain’t Got Nobody, which naturally lead a search for earlier versions. One of the biggest sellers back in 1956 was Louis Prima


With his wife Keely Smith helping out. I remember seeing some old tv shows with the two of them, and they seemed a really unique couple. Guess I should point out Louis and Keely should be given credit for making Vegas the entertainment capital of the world (depending on who gives out that definition), at least as it relates to shows and entertainment performances. Back in 1952 Louis Prima was unemployed and broke, and called a friend for a job. His friend was a manager at the Sahara Casino, and offered the couple two weeks in the bar. At that time Vegas was known for gambling and quick marriages, while Reno was home to quickie divorces and some gambling. Entertainment amounted to small groups playing in the background at bars. Evidently Louis Prima as so successful with his humor and dancing, with Keely providing the beauty and straight man role to the comedy side, that their two weeks ended up being eight years. The bar was quickly rearranged to move the small stage from behind the bar over to where it was the main focus, and soon was moved into the big showroom. The couple’s performance style of funny guy/straight girl was supposedly copied by Sonny & Cher.

But on to even earlier versions, 1932 Betty Boop introducing Irene Bordoni’s version


Oh, Wikipedia lists the song, written in 1929, so I don't think there is an earlier version posted than the one above. Wiki mentioned another version that didn’t first appear – in a really sad style was Marlene Dietrich’s version, from her last movie in 1978


I like the way she sings, have a CD of her songs from earlier, in a voice that no one has come close to.

So much for music comparisons today.

Thursday recipe - crepes

Today we’ll shift gears and do a little cooking lesson. To backtrack, around my house I do the majority of the cooking. I don’t know when this started, but it was quite a while ago. I think it was when the kids were complaining about something B made that she remembered her mom making, and I said that I could do more generic stuff and was probably told to go ahead if I felt that way. Not sure there, it was a while back, but most of the stuff out of the kitchen has been stuff I create.

I like watching the Food Network on TV, and realize that a majority of stuff being shown there is mainly for entertainment purposes, but there are a few cooks that I like and have purchased cookbooks for and downloaded recipes, including Rachel Ray, Alton Brown and Sandra Lee. All three of them show how to cook things easily, use simple recipes that are easy to make, and use ingredients I have or are available in my local (limited range) store. Except perhaps Alton, at times he is a bit picky on some ingredients and I have to order those off the web, then try to remember what they were for when they eventually show up. But one good place Alton sent me to is the The Spice House, which I would highly recommend even if all you get is their cinnamon and vanilla (which are both great).

Today’s recipe is something that didn’t come from any of those however, I think it did come somewhere from the Food Network website, though I can’t find it now. Today we are discussing crepes. My grandparents were all from central Europe and never learned much English, but my mother learned her mother’s Polish recipes and I have become attached to a few. Some I can’t make, and some I remember but don’t have recipes to recreate, and some I’ll share here. Her version of this was called palachinki, for which there is a really simple recipe over at cooks.com. She used to make stacks of them, and we would either just fill them with sugar and cinnamon or jelly sprinkled with cinnamon, roll them up and inhale.

My recipe is even easier: one cup milk, one cup flour, one egg, and one tablespoon melted butter. This will make four, depending on how big your pan is. That is an OK amount if you are home alone and want to test it out, if you are doing this like I did, spread with jelly and rolled, then plan on four per person, more if the kids are hungry (and when aren’t they?)


Just scoop a ladle full into your pan (medium heat), I put a little oil in first just for the heck of it, swirl it around to spread things out and let it sit one minute, then turn it over, wait another minute, and take it off. If it’s too thick to swirl then just add more milk, sometimes I like really thin ones. I try to build up a pile of them, but usually just end up eating them as they come out of the pan. If you are doing sweet filling then add a tablespoon of sugar to the recipe to make the crepe a little sweeter.

On a plate just make a line across the middle with a tablespoon of sugar, sprinkle on some cinnamon and then roll it up with the sugar line ending up in the middle. As an alternative I use grape jelly, about a tablespoon smeared in a line across it, more cinnamon (yes, I do love cinnamon) and again roll up so the jelly ends up in the middle. You should end up with a tight tube about a half inch in diameter that you can then pick up and hold as you eat from one end.

What motivated this photo session was berry season a few months ago. Wandering through the produce section of my local supermarket I passed a big display of blueberries and raspberries. Grabbing a few containers because they looked so good, I then got home and wondered what to do with them. E really likes blueberries on her morning Cheerios, or rather she likes some Cheerios to add crunch to her bowl of blueberries. I thought some type of desert would be nice, and didn’t really want to wait and put in the effort to make a pie (though that recipe will come soon) I figured crepes would be fast and easy.

So I just put a handful of each in a pan along with some sugar and heated it up.


I mashed some of the berries in the pan just to get it all a little wet, and some cooked down a bit. I just left it on the stove and stirred for a few minutes to get things to blend. Then laid out a crepe, put a line of fruit down the center, a line of whipped cream inside too and rolled it up. A little more spooned on top to make it pretty, along with a squirt of whipped crème from a can (yes, a can, it was easier) or a scoop of ice cream and there you are, something fast and sweet.


As an alternative you can make a savory crepe to serve with dinner. Instead of that pinch of sugar in the recipe add a little salt and then mix in some dried spices - we have a big shaker of Italian, but you can just use dried tarragon or whatever you have handy or like. Put in a tablespoon or so, or enough so it’s noticeable in the batter. Then cook the same way. B likes creamed spinach, so I buy a packet of frozen, microwave as suggested, then but a good helping in a line across a crepe, roll, and put on the plate with whatever else you are serving. I would suggest using a veggie with a sauce, like the creamed spinach, or peas or broccoli in a cheese sauce, or whatever you want to use. It makes a little change from plain veggies and if using frozen veggies then it is quick to make alongside whatever the main dish is.

There you go, easy crepes, or palachinki or sweet tortillas or really flat pancakes or whatever you want to call them.

E Friday - local transportation

It’s still summer here in Vegas. High today predicted to be 105 again, water temp in our pool is still 92 and I am enjoying floating around at sunset. We have some pretty smoggy skies due to smoke blowing up from the fires in California, providing some colorful sunrises.


Usually our sunrise and sunsets are not very dramatic because the humidity here is so low, but right now we have a thunderstorm overhead, and temps have dropped ten degrees down to the mid 90’s, with lots of wind and lightning – nice.

This weekend in Vegas we have a number of acts playing; there’s the Def Leppard, Poison and Cheap Trick tour at the MGM Grand, Santana at the Hard Rock, Puddle of Mudd, Bette Midler, Chris Botte, Jay Leno, Joan Rivers and Bill Cosby at assorted places if you don’t want music, and assorted other groups along with our Cirque du Soleil standards.

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.

She spent most of her time down here visiting us a few weeks ago outside. Her favorite place was the pool, after all, the warm water is the main reason she requested an August visit. But as with most summer days here in Vegas the afternoon sun is just a little too direct for daytime swimming. We did get in one early morning swim, but most of the time we hit the pool around six or so and paddled around until sunset, or bedtime, or however late she could talk momma into it. The rest of the day was spent under the trees in the grass or on our covered patio. When on the patio she was usually in motion anyway. One of the less strenuous items there was an old yellow rocker that she used.



But she really liked things that moved. The little blue car was foot powered


Or granddad powered if she could talk him into it. The jeep however was battery powered. Last time she had some coordination problems with backing up and turning the wheel to get out of tight spots, this time she practiced a lot and got pretty good at it.

Road trip - Ely to Vegas

We’ve driven up to Portland from Last Vegas to visit our daughter and granddaughter twice now,driving due north from Las Vegas, up into Idaho, then heading west to Portland. The total drive is about 1,000 miles, and we spend one night at a hotel in Twin Falls, Idaho where we have dinner and rest a bit. The speed limits out here are usually 65 or 70 on the open road, with all of the Nevada portion on two lane asphalt like I’ve documented before, where you drive in a straight line without turning the wheel for an hour, then a few curves, then another hour of straight. In Idaho and Oregon we are on interstate, which is usually two or three lanes in each direction with a big center divider. That portion is more interesting, with lots of ups and downs and curves, with trees and rivers to look at instead of flat desert terrain.

Driving back this last time we took a different road for the last segment, Ely to Vegas. We drove on a road a little to the west of our normal route, on the other side of a mountain range along what’s called the Extraterrestrial Highway. It’s named that because it is near Area 51, the supposed site of space ship landings, and close to the Air Force secret test range, where new planes and weapons are developed. It’s been a while since I’ve driven across country, so my memories of open Kansas and the Midwest are not too current, but driving in Nevada desert country is unlike most areas of the US. The first indications that things are a little different are the signs just as you leave Ely: ‘Next gas 100 miles’, providing a little reminder that perhaps you should go back and visit one of those half dozen gas stations before continuing onward. There also isn’t too much going on around you either.


Sorry, the ‘next gas’ sign flew by too quickly for me to get a photo of it. This day was a little unusual for us in that there were clouds in the sky, and we even got to drive through a bit of rain. I’m always talking about how dry it is out here, and according to today’s paper our precipitation so far this year (and it is September already) is 1.28 inches. Usually the summer is our monsoon season, with thunderstorms coming up from Mexico, but this year was pretty barren as far as rain. Again, in eight months we have had an inch and a quarter total of rain. Our humidity is usually around 3%, mostly because of evaporation from everybody’s lawns. This week we have unusual hazy conditions, because of all the smoke blowing up a few hundred miles from the California fires (sorry to everybody out there).

During the drive we would periodically see a house or two off in the distance.


This one was in the middle of a little rain shower, you can see some of the rainfall against the sky. I know some people don’t like neighbors, this guy probably complains about all the traffic on the road we are on which is about two miles from his house. We probably passed two cars or a truck every hour or so on this road, and as you can see from the first picture we weren’t really in a line of cars going in our direction either. Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Ely, I see part of the road we were on is officially labeled ‘The Loneliest Road in America’ by Life magazine.

Some of the mountains just north of Ely still had snow on them. The general elevation around here is about 6,400 feet above sea level, so I guess Ely, Nevada ties Boulder, Colorado for being called the ‘mile high city’. The snow on these mountains is probably around the 12,000 foot level, running alongside the Great Basin National Park. You can see how green the desert has gotten because of the summer rains.


After the 100 miles of no gas we came upon a small town in the midst of a thunderstorm.


I don’t know the name of it, there probably weren’t 50 houses spread out in town and on the surrounding farms, but there was some farming down in a river valley (which only had water on the surface when it rained). I might like living on a bigger lot, but it sure is nice to be five minutes away from a supermarket and restaurants, not a two or three hour drive like these folks (and that’s to Ely, population 4,041 not Vegas). Eventually our road ended up driving through a hard rock ridge where the periodic river had carved a canyon.


The road followed the bottom of the canyon, rather than somehow going over the ridge. This was a pleasant change from all the flat, so B ended up taking quite a few photos as we drove through.








And then down back into the flats, and another two hours into Vegas. So there it is, the last quarter of our road trip back down from Portland into Las Vegas. I’ve got some shots of Twin Falls; have to pull those together as well.