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!

Almost Christmas, and Vegas is well decorated. All of the casinos have some form of generic holiday stuff up – usually trees and lights. We’ll go wander the Strip later in the week and take lots of photos so you can all share.
In competition with the Santa race earlier in the month there was also the Rock ‘n’ Roll Vegas Stiletto Dash at the Palazzo, where young women dressed in short skirts and very high heels (minimum three inches) ran across the casino floor. Not to be sexist, there was a separate run for men in heels (no word on short skirts there). Over at the Bellagio there was the Downy Unstoppable Scavenger Hunt with a $20,000 first prize. Downtown at the Beauty Bar was the Freakshow Wrestling, one of the main events was a guy in a banana outfit wrestling a big, pink furry Elvis. (Hey, it’s Vegas). On the other side, Catholic Charities ran a ‘Phone Home’ event, with free phone calls for the homeless with clothing and toiletries given out. At Aliante Station there was an event for our local Army reservists being deployed to Afghanistan. In Boulder City the railroad museum ran train rides with Santa. Quite an assortment of things to do.

We were at the Harley Davidson Café for my companies’ holiday party. As usual I parked a distance away so that we could walk through a few casinos to get there. Being old folk we normally hit the Strip during the day, this was our first evening outing in a while. The tourist style does change after dark. Though it was only 9pm and not the opening time of all the fancy clubs (they open doors sometime between 10pm and 1am depending on venue) there was a definite switch from sweat suits and jeans to nice evening wear, with quite a few young women wearing very short, very tight dresses. My wife is convinced that the absence of visible panty lines was due to the wearing of Spanks, but I think there is a simpler explanation. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your (or my wife’s) point of view) I was not able to investigate thoroughly.

Just to throw in a few photos, here are some more of Tivoli Village. Yes, the sun is shining, though cold at night (around freezing this morning) it does get up near 60f (15c) in the daytime.

Outside the Scoops Ice Cream parlor


Main street


Security didn't seem very busy

MIB coming back? more 80's music

Oh, I really liked these guys – nice to see them coming back


As long as we are doing Monday videos (on Tuesday) let’s continue with those 80’s hits that we all love so well. I loved the ears on these guys


For standing on the street corners, these guys had a good beat


At the start of that video there are some clips of fans greeting Johnnie Ray, someone I had never heard of him. Wikipedia says he had a number 1 hit in the UK back in 1956 with this one


Personally, I’d rather hear Huey, who else would be brave enough to wear an orange suit?

Cupcake Sunday

For those of you in Las Vegas, the lovely ladies at Pick Your Poison cupcakes
(who make absolutely the best cupcakes in the world) will be shown competing on Cupcake Wars on the Food Network this Sunday night.

The girls are also having a viewing party at The Lady Sylvia speakeasy, 900 LV Blvd south, from 7 to 10 on Sunday, with drinks and cupcakes to sample. If you follow them on Facebook there is a map and link.

weekend events and E

A new restaurant is opening at the Excalibur – a BBQ joint partially owned by Lynard Skynard. Yes, these guys


Older versions of those guys of course. If you show up tomorrow for the grand opening they will be putting on an acoustic performance inside to kick the place off. I like that song, but most people would list this one as the band’s most played, so I’ll include it.


Other events this week include the ongoing Grand Finals Rodeo, directed at that audience are performances by Dwight Yoakam, Charlie Daniels, Tanya Tucker, Merle Haggard and more, for other directions there are Jay Z & Kanye at the MGM, Jane’s Addiction, Andrea Bocelli, Ron White, Bill Engvall, Jenny McCarthy, Skrillex and a lot more scattered around town.

But on Fridays I usually post photos of my granddaughter E, so here are a few from back when she had more hair:
She still likes to read

And drive

And eat cereal for breakfast (she goes along with Grammie for Honey Nut Cheerios)

City center lights and the marathon

It was a busy weekend here in Las Vegas. The marathon ran on Sunday, and I didn’t realize that this year they ran it at night – the start time was 5pm. Starting at Mandalay Bay on the south end of the Strip, runners proceeded up Las Vegas Boulevard north to downtown, running on Freemont Street and back. The half marathon returned to Mandalay while the full marathon turned west and wandered around a bit to get to the full 26 mile mark. This was put on as a Rock N’ Roll Marathon, with live bands playing every mile or so. It must have been a nice run, between the casinos and all the lights to the Freemont canopy with music along the way. It was cold though, at the start the temperatures were in the low 50’s (around 12c) and cooled off from there. But moving the run to the evening hours did spark attendance – over 44,000 runners, the third largest marathon in the US.

The timing required that Las Vegas Boulevard be closed for most of the day, which caused a lot of problems with our other big event: the National Finals Rodeo. The Rodeo itself is taking place at the University center, which is a few miles east of the Strip down Tropicana. When it let out at 3 there were thousands of people that had to get back to their hotel rooms, which was a challenging task with the Strip closed and traffic not being able to cross except at limited points. But the rodeo went well. We walked the south end of the Strip on Saturday night, and cowboy hats and very short skirts were much in evidence. The hats come and go, but the skirts are around most nights, no matter how cold it is. We also walked through the Monte Carlo and New York New York casinos and noticed the new trend in the big places of putting scantily clad dancers up on a bar right on the casino floor. (one in Monte Carlo did have on a cowboy hat, which probably covered more skin than the rest of her outfit). I was distracted walking past, I wonder how the players like it. It must work at attracting and keeping gamblers putting out their money or the casinos wouldn’t do it.

In keeping with the Strip theme, here are a few shots taken at the Crystals shopping center at City Center: first, I liked the birds on this store’s windows


From the upper level the center shows it’s interesting interior shapes


Down at the bottom is this sculpture, where the plastic sculptures keep changing colors

Almost December!

We just went through a nice long Thanksgiving weekend and are preparing for Christmas. December used to be a quiet month in Las Vegas, but that has changed with several groups converging here. This weekend will see the annual Cowboy weekend with the Nationals Final Rodeo at Thomas and Mack center with sub events all over, Nascar will be back at our speedway up north, the Rock and Roll Marathon takes place on the Strip, and on Saturday will be the Santa Run (the one I participate in). So whatever your interest there seems to be something.

Out in our backyard it is finally Fall, the leaves on the peach tree have turned yellow and almost all fell off suddenly, and the ash tree is a nice bronze color.



The only unfortunate thing is that all the Thanksgiving turkey has been eaten up. I just love turkey sandwiches.

Steam engines

I play with toy trains, and at times like to look at real ones also. This year is the 100th anniversary of the Union Pacific Railroad, and as part of their celebration they are having one of their two steam engines, UP844, tour the country. It's in Arizona right now, and on Sunday will be coming to Las Vegas from San Bernardino. Due to arrive Sunday afternoon and be open for tours at the rail yards downtown Monday from 9 to 5. This is the first steam in Vegas in eleven years, there are only a handful of running engines around the country and it is something you don't see very often. If you haven't seen a live steam engine then this might be your only chance - they are big and impressive. This one was built in 1929 and has been restored by UP.

It's pulling a train of pretty yellow UP passenger cars.


Not many computers in the cab.


It is more impressive up close (in Gilbert, Arizona last week).


There are some nice Videos here.

All photos from the UP Facebook page

I plan on driving down to Kelso on Sunday morning to see it running through. Probably joining a big crowd of steam enthusiasts, but we'll see.

from space

Kevin posted this, and I really thought it beautiful, especially the lightning in one pass

Monday videos - 80's girls

Looking up the YMCA video last week just forced me to look at a bunch of 80’s videos that were listed along the side as related. But before we get to those, LMFAO just came up with a new one that I found rather amusing. It even has Ron Jeremy dancing:


OK, back twenty five years. Let’s do the girls and girl groups today. I don’t think this one would get airplay today, much less back then. It would have been remade with a different top. Those things sure want their freedom


I rather liked Bananarama (at least the name). They came through town a few months ago.


Did you ever walk like the Bangles


Go-go
 


Cyndi is still around having fun


And a young Kylie


OK, enough big hair already

YMCA

I knew Vegas was the destination for entertainers, most names come into town for a few hours or weeks (or years) to put on shows and make some money. Usually tickets to a show here are three times the price of the same show in any other city. Sometimes we even get acts that have been around for a while (Elton John? I remember him from . . ., and Cher?) but was surprised to read in yesterday's paper that the Village People will be putting on some shows next week. You remember them, of the YMCA fame? (sorry, no embedding allowed). (I really like that leather guy's mustache) Anyway, that YouTube search led me to many hours of old videos.

Normally I put up a few photos of my granddaughter E, so let's get back to that.

When Grammy was up visiting over the summer they wandered through fields of flowers


And put some in their hair (even though it was Portland and not San Francisco)


They put a lot of time into visiting restaurants and smiling too.

Cold already?

I sure don’t like this daylight savings time change. Now I drive in to work heading east with the sun in my eyes and I drive home driving west with the sun in my eyes. I was used to getting to work when it was dark and watching the sun rise through my window, and having some time in the afternoon when I got home to do yard stuff. Now the sun is going down and I’m stuck inside. This is ignoring the cold – it was only 0c (33f) when I got up this morning (outside - yes we have the heater on inside) which probably has already taken out our tomatoes. We usually can pick tomatoes until the first frost, which some years has been around Christmas. This is much too early for it to get cold here. In the afternoon it warms up to around 17c or so (62f) but I would much rather have a longer fall with warmer days. This year it came too fast. Friday we had some light rain, and on the mountains just north of us it came down as snow - not much, but the hills and mountain were all white. I wanted a photo, but by the time we dug out the camera Saturday morning it had all melted. Oh well.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Dr. H's open house

I've written about Dr. Hammargren before, about how I much admire his collections (and would love to have a Statue of Liberty arm sticking over my back wall). He had another of his annual open houses last Sunday, and someone posted a few minutes of video taken around his place. (now what would my wife say if . . . )

Halloween

E was a kitty this year, in costume made by Mom and face painting by Grammy.



This just in - sorting the haul (looks a little light to me)

E Friday - short hair

We haven't done an E Friday for a while, and I've got a small backlog of photos, so here are some of them.

As a new reader E really concentrates on understanding what books are trying to tell her. Usually you can almost hear the gears grinding in there as she studies things, and sometimes it shows. But I guess learning to read is a serious thing


Since that photo she has had her hair cut. Recently they went on a trip up to Seattle, and ended up in the top of the Space Needle looking over the city. I guess this is more fun than reading, so a smile can come by once in a while


Also in Seattle is a flat maze for kids to figure out. I guess it was easy, because it looks like she's running through it