Adventures In Vegas

Cat vs Ferret NFL Picks - Week One!

2007-09-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

If you look online. you'll find hundred of different sports betting experts each with their own can't-lose method for picking the winners in NFL games. They'll all be happy to let you in on their methods, for a nominal fee of course. Well, we came up with our own method for picking NFL winners and it's every bit as valid as the ones you can buy from those so-called experts! Not only that, but I'm going to give you these picks for absolutely NO CHARGE! You're welcome!

How did we do it? Well, we wrote the names of all 32 NFL teams on cheap plastic golf balls from Big Lots. Then we put the balls that represented all the teams playing this Sunday (only Sunday, no other days count) into a box, then dumped all the balls on the floor! Then we let our cat Sushi and our ferret Wasabi pick whatever teams they wanted! They get five picks. If one of them happens to pick two teams that are playing each other that week, then we let them pick from two separate balls representing the Over and Under for that game instead!

Now, I'm not going to say that these picks guaranteed winners, but THESE PICKS ARE GUARANTEED WINNERS! (not an actual guarantee)

So without further ado, here are the picks for Week One of the 2007 NFL Season:

Home team in CAPS - point spread listed is based on the Arizona Charlies betting line as it was posted on Friday, September 7th

The Cat Picks

Giants +5.5 over COWBOYS
RAMS -1 over Panthers
Eagles -3 over PACKERS
SEAHAWKS -5.5 over Buccaneers
Steelers -4 over BROWNS

The Ferret Picks

Dolphins +3 over REDSKINS
BROWNS +4 over Steelers
Patriots -6 over JETS
CHARGERS -6 over Bears
TEXANS -3 over Chiefs

These picks are for entertainment purposes only, but I'm totally going to fill out a couple of parlay cards on them anyway!

Mmm soylent pizza

2007-02-13T22:41:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T15:52:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to write an essay on what Christmas means to me, I'm far too lazy for that. Instead, I want to give you this scene from what is perhaps the greatest Christmas movie ever made. I am referring to, of course, Troll II.

Michael: Do you see this writing...? Do you know what it means...? Hospitality. And you can't piss on hospitality! I WON'T ALLOW IT! [reaching for his belt]

Joshua: What are you going to do to me, Daddy?

Michael: Tightening my belt one loop so that I don't feel hunger pains, and your sister and mother will have to do likewise. Okay, Joshua. You wanna get rough with me? You wanna show me that you don't like the choice of this house for our vacation by going on a hunger strike? Well, I'll accept the challenge. But just remember when I was your age, I really did suffer from hunger. We'll see who gets through this, but just remember I've got more practice than you. I'll see you tomorrow.

More Troll II goodness can be found here. The above scene occurs about 3 minutes 30 seconds in. Consider it my gift to you. Merry Christmas.

It's a Christmas Miracle!

2006-12-19T03:11:00.000-08:00

No, that's not sugar frosting. That is actual snow in Las Vegas. There is probably about a quarter of an inch of slushy snow outside as I write this at 3am. Stand by for school closings and people calling in sick from work. Mere words cannot describe how afraid I am to be driving in this weather. It's not the snow you understand, its the Vegas drivers. Seriously, they are the worst drivers in the known universe. We've seen people manage to flip cars over on dry, straight roads during broad daylight. There's no telling what a quarter inch of slush could do.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-24T00:02:00.000-08:00

NOW BURN IN HELL, YOU HEATHENS!
Oh, those wacky Christians. Saw this lady standing on in the middle of Freemont Street tonight as I took my parents Downtown to show them the sights. It's been awhile since the Christians have been down there with their signs, reminding the tourists that their souls are damned. I guess they just save it for the high-profile holidays for maximum visibility. Maybe you get more Jesus Points that way? I want to try and get my photo taken with one of them next time, like they're part of the Downtown entertainment.

The Good and The Beautiful

2006-11-11T21:51:00.000-08:00

You know, Captain, every year of my life I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and the best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful. If you just take the time to look at it. - The Phantom Planet

I give up. The NFL has completely destroyed my will to live. Therefore, there will be no picks this week. I'm so disillusioned that I'm not betting on a single game. We'll be back to the picks next week, maybe.

Instead I'd like to fix my attention on something that can be considered both Good and Beautiful, Mike Nelson's Rifftrax.com! Some of you may remember Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K as we fans know it). It was a goofy little show where a guy and his robot pals were stranded in space and forced to watch bad movies. Joel Robinson (later Mike Nelson), Tom Servo and Crow provided a hilarious running commentary to some amazingly bad movies . The show gained a huge cult following and ran for ten years on two different cable networks. Even after it was canceled, reruns lasted for five more years on the Sci-Fi Channel. Pretty darn impressive considering this was a show that took up a two hour time block and that many of the episodes can't be re-broadcast or released on DVD due to rights issues with the original movie copyright holders.

Since the show was canceled in 1999, there has been sporadic output from it's three main actors and writers; Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Crow) in the form of various books and articles. Not surprisingly, many of these focused on bad movies or the state of movie making today. Mike even did a few DVD commentary tracks for Legend Films on such movies as Plan 9 From Outer Space and Reefer Madness. They were funny, but never MST3K caliber. Fans such as myself hoped that someday we'd have MST3K back in some form, but I doubt anyone found the possibility very likely. Then this past July, Mike moved to San Diego to work for Legend Films full time. I just assumed it had to do with his commentaries for future Legend DVDs. A week or two after this vague announcement, Rifftrax happened.

So what is Rifftrax? To sum it up in once sentance, I'd call it MST3K for the Internet age. One of the biggest limiting factors to producing MST3K was the problem of available films. They could only do movies that were in the public domain for the most part, which goes a long way in explaining why so many of the movies were so horrible. With Rifftrax, you simply download a MP3 file that you can play on your MP3 player in sync with the DVD of whatever movie they're riffing, similar to the Podcasts that the Apple iPod has made popular. It's a totally freakin' brilliant idea. It nicely circumvents any copyright problems since they are not releasing versions of the movies, just an audio track that happens to sync up with them. It also means that they can now make fun of absolutely anything ever released. The possibilities are limitless!

Movies riffed so far have ranged from the outright bad ('Crossroads' starring Britney Spears, 'Cocktail' with Tom Cruise) to bad movies with a devoted following ('Star Wars Episode One', 'Top Gun', 'Roadhouse', 'Star Trek V') to movies that are actually pretty good in their own right ('The Matrix', 'X-Men', 'Halloween'). As you can see they're going for much bigger game than 'Manos: Hands Of Fate' this time around. Another thing that continues to impress me is just how prolific they have been so far. The first Rifftrack, for the Patrick Swayze movie 'Roadhouse', was released in early August. The most recent was for the horror movie 'The Grudge' and was released on November 10th. It was the 13th Rifftrack released so far, meaning that Mike Nelson and company have been putting these out at a rate of almost one a week!

About half of the tracks released so far have Mike Nelson riffing on the movie solo, with occasional help from the 'robotic' audio sync voice Disembaudio. The other half feature either Bill Corbett or Kevin Murphy as guest riffers. So far, they haven't released a track that features all three them but it's only a matter of time. The tracks featuring either Kevin or Bill are generally more funny, but Mike has done some pretty strong solo riffings such as 'Roadhouse' and 'Point Break'. Some movies just work better than others. The Britney Spears movie 'Crossroads' turned out to be a fairly weak outing while 'Halloween' was much better than I expected it to be but all the tracks have their high and low points. My top five favorites so far would be: Star Wars Episode One, Star Trek V, Top Gun, Roadhouse and Halloween. Any of these would be a great place to start with the Rifftrax goodness.

Since this is not on television and there are no sponsors to foot the bill, there is a cost for the files. What do they charge for all this joy? A mere $2.99 per download. (Plus whatever it costs you to buy or rent the movie being riffed but don't blame them for that.) Less than a cup of expensive coffee, cheaper than sponsoring one of those starving African kids. Truly, this is both Good and Beautiful.

Please note: I'm just a gushing fan who feels the need to spread the word. I'm not getting any kind of kickbacks from referring people to Rifftrax. It makes me happy and it sure beats more crappy NFL picks.

NFL Week 9 Picks - We Continue To Suck

2006-11-05T04:56:00.000-08:00

Our football picks just seem to get worse. I'm only posting them at this point out of habit.

Last week I went one for five. My sole win was the Packers beating the Cardinals. That puts me at 16 wins and 14 losses for the season. Andrea had two wins with the Chargers and the Browns, putting her at 15 wins and 15 losses. Exciting stuff huh?

My picks for week 9 - home teams, as always, in CAPS

ST. LOUIS RAMS (-2) over Kansas City Chiefs
NEW YORK GIANTS (-13) over Houston Texans
Green Bay Packers (+3) over BUFFALO BILLS
CHICAGO BEARS (-13.5) over Miami Dolphins
NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (-3) over Indianapolis Colts

Andrea's picks

NEW YORK GIANTS (-13) over Houston Texans
Green Bay Packers (+3) over BUFFALO BILLS
Tennessee Titans (+9.5) over JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS
Atlanta Falcons (-5) over DETROIT LIONS
BALTIMORE RAVENS (-3) over Cincinnati Bengals

My bet is on Andrea going five for five this week. Simply because she made her picks at the last minute and I wasn't able to make a five team parlay bet for her this week. Just you watch.

NFL Week 8 Picks - Pain Don't Hurt

2006-10-29T04:57:00.000-08:00

Wow. Week 7 of the NFL was our very worst week yet. I went 2 for 5, my only two wins being the Patriots beating the Bills 28 - 6 and the Jets beating the Lions 31 - 24. That puts my grand total at 15 wins and 10 losses. In fact, the only thing that saved me was Andrea getting completely wiped out on her picks. She went 0 for 5 making her season total 13 wins and 12 losses. Even our mutual pick failed in spectacular fashion. The Arizona Cardinals are so bad they even managed to lose to the Raiders 22 - 9. My picking ability was so off last week that I picked the Tigers to beat the Cardinals in the World Series FIVE games to one. Not the required four games, but FIVE. I liked the Tigers so much, I gave 'em an extra game apparently. In case you haven't heard, the St. Louis Cardinals shocked everyone by beating the Detroit Tigers in the more accepted format of four games to one.

So without further ado, here are this week's picks, posted mere hours before those games start. I only hope that since it is my birthday today, the gambling gods will have some pity on me and let all my bets win.

Peter's Picks (home teams in CAPS)

GREEN BAY PACKERS (-4) over Arizona Cardinals - screw the Cardinals, I'm never picking them again. I never normally pick the Packers because when I do they lose and I feel bad for those traumatized cheeseheads. But thePackers actually pulled off a win last week, they've got to be able to beat the stinky Cardinals in Green Bay, right?

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (-2) over Baltimore Ravens

St. Louis Rams (+9.5) over SAN DIEGO CHARGERS - It's week 8, it's time for the Chargers to start fading. Just cover, St. Louis. That's all I ask.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+9.5) over NEW YORK GIANTS - Umm, I'm still trying to remember my logic behind this pick.

New York Jets (+2) over CLEVELAND BROWNS

Andrea's Picks

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (-2) over Baltimore Ravens
SAN DIEGO CHARGERS (-9.5) over St. Louis Rams
San Francisco 49ers (+16) over CHICAGO BEARS
CLEVELAND BROWNS (-2) over New York Jets
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (-7) over Jacksonville Jaguars

So, we've got one pick in common again with the Saints and two picks for opposing teams. I'd brag about how our mutual picks never lose but that's no longer true. What this means in practical terms is that we're probably going to be tied again. It's funny the way your wins and losses average out over time. It's almost as if those sports books know what they're doing when they set those lines!

Crimes against punctuation

2006-10-27T17:36:00.000-07:00

Would you like one of our "hot plates"? They're over there by the potato chip's.

NFL Week 7 picks

2006-10-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, more football. But first, this important message: The world needs more Weird Al Yankovic.

It's the cover of Al's latest album, "Straight Outta Lynwood". C'mon. You've got to love that. Heck, I remember listening to him on Doctor Demento when I was a young lad growing up in rural Minnesota. That was long before there was an internet. I did have a computer, a Texas Instruments TI 99/4a. You could actually buy a primitive modem for it, but it cost like $500 and you'd still have to find one of the other people in the world who had the TI and the modem to connect to.

Twenty-five years later and the TI is long gone, consigned to flea markets and Ebay, the wonders of the internet allow us to find things a thousand times more "weird" than Weird Al in seconds and yet Weird Al still manages to put out a successful album every few years! How many musicians have that kind of staying power, let alone artists who get the bulk of their material from writing parodies?

Of course the sad thing is that now, since Weird Al always parodies current pop songs, he's writing parodies of songs I've never heard of! It's strange to feel out of touch with the music of Weird Al Yankovic. It makes me feel very old. Anyway, here's a great new song from Al that you can download for free. Enjoy.

Our Week 6 NFL picks were pretty ugly. Those two "can't lose" picks didn't turn out so well, did they? Both the Falcons and the Rams lost at home, but the Rams did cover the +3.5 point spread so that's one out of two. We're still 4 - 1 for our mutual picks and that's not bad. Other than the Rams, the only other team that came through for Andrea was the Oakland Raiders oddly enough. Not that they came close to winning, but they did cover the +15 point spread by losing 13 - 3 to the Broncos. Sports books must have cleaned up on that game. Andrea's total now stands at 13 wins and 7 losses. My other two wins for last week were the Jets and the Chargers, which ALSO puts my total at 13 wins and 7 losses. Yes, once again we are tied.

Peter's picks for NFL Week 7 (home team in CAPS)

New England Patriots (-5.5) over BUFFALO BILLS
NEW YORK JETS (-3.5) over Detroit Lions
Denver Broncos (-5) over CLEVELAND BROWNS
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (-6.5) over Minnesota Vikings
Arizona Cardinals (-3) over OAKLAND RAIDERS

Andrea's picks for NFL Week 7 (home team in CAPS)

Jacksonville Jaguars (-10) over HOUSTON TEXANS
Detroit Lions (+3.5) over NEW YORK JETS
TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (+5.5) over Philadelphia Eagles
Washington Redskins (+9.5) over INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
Arizona Cardinals (-3) over OAKLAND RAIDERS

Yet again, totally by chance we have a mutual pick in the Arizona Cardinals. Just so you know, these picks are generated completely independently of each other. I usually have mine worked out by Tuesday, while Andrea uses her System (patent pending) to generate hers on Wednesday or Thursday (whenever I can cajole her into doing it). I'm feeling pretty good about the Cardinals this week. Sure, they may not be that good, but the Raiders are far worse. I can see them winning by a lot more than three points. It should be interesting.

Oh and by the way, I'd like to congratulate the Detroit Tigers on their pending World Series victory. I'll give the St. Louis Cardinals the benefit of the doubt, Detroit wins five games to one.

NFL Week 6 and a cute cat picture

2006-10-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

It's a cat sitting in a pair of pants! How cute is that? Sushi is starting to look more like an adult mini-cat now. It's too bad we didn't get to enjoy more of the kitten stage, but she's a really wonderful cat all the same.

In other news, it rained yesterday. This would not be news in most places, but it is in the desert. It's not uncommon to go months without anything more than the briefest shower, so when it finally does decide to rain out here there's no messing around. It rained on and off all day yesterday, thank god we don't live in a flood area. We woke up around 8am to the sounds of hail on the roof and a downpour so loud it sounded like the world was going to end. Now we're back to blue skies and 66 degrees.

Okay, on to football.

Andrea has taken the lead in our contest, going 4 and 1 last week which brings her total to 11 wins and 4 losses. Her only loss came with the Dallas Cowboys who, thanks to the clutch quarterbacking skills of Drew Bledsoe, managed to blow a last minute drive and lost to the Eagles 38 - 24.

I ended up going 3 and 2 last week, bringing my total to 10 wins and 5 losses. The New Orleans Saints beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 24 - 21 but could not cover the 6.5 point spread and the Pittsburgh Steelers just plain sucked against the San Diego Chargers, losing 23 - 13. Between Dallas and Pittsburgh, we lost all of our parlay card bets. Thanks guys! Fortunately, I did have the sense to bet on our mutual pick, the Chicago Bears, and that saved our week. We are 3 and 0 on the mutual picks. Coincidence? This week will put that to the test.

Peter's picks for NFL Week 6 (home team in CAPS)

ST LOUIS RAMS (+3.5) over Seattle Seahawks
ATLANTA FALCONS (-2.5) over New York Giants
Cincinnati Bengals (-6) over TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
San Diego Chargers (-10) over SAN FRANCISCO 49ers
NEW YORK JETS (-2.5) over Miami Dolphins

Andrea's picks for NFL Week 6 (home team in CAPS)

ST LOUIS RAMS (+3.5) over Seattle Seahawks
ATLANTA FALCONS (-2.5) over New York Giants
Buffalo Bills (-1.5) over DETROIT LIONS
Houston Texans (+12.5) over DALLAS COWBOYS
Oakland Raiders (+15) over DENVER BRONCOS

Notice anything? Apart from Andrea's suicidal choice of taking two awful, winless teams on the road? We both picked the Rams AND the Falcons. Let me assure you these picks were completely independent of each other, I had most of mine worked out Monday night. This is either going to completely prove our mutual pick system or totally destroy it.

Week 5 picks and something unrelated to football

2006-10-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

Last week was not so magical for either of us. I ended up 3 - 2 and Andrea's system ended up 2 - 3. We are now tied at 7 - 3 for the season.

Once again our mutual pick was dead on. Atlanta easily beat the Arizona Cardinals 32 - 10. That was one win for each of us. I only wish I had put my money on that game!

As far as the remainder of the week 4 games, my picks looked like this:

Kansas City beat the 49ers 41 - 0 that's a big win for me
The Rams beat the Lions 41 - 34, another win
Indy beat the Jets 31 - 28 that's a loss because they didn't cover.
New England pounded the Cincinnati Bengals 38 - 13. Another big loss. That'll teach me to bet against my home team.

Andrea's picks weren't quite as good.

Baltimore beat San Diego 16 - 13 that's a win for her
Dallas beat Tennessee 45 - 14 that's a big loss.
The Rams beat the Lions 41 - 34, she had the Lions so it was a loss for her.
And the Bears whupped the Seahawks 37 - 6, another loss making her week's tally 2 - 3.

So, as I said, going into week 5 we're tied 7 - 3. Anything could happen this week. There are some obvious picks to win games but the spreads are very high. A no-brainer like the Indianapolis Colts doesn't look so good when they have to beat the Titans by a whopping 18 points. Lots of intriguing matchups but I think the one I'd like to see the most is the Oakland Raiders - San Francisco 49er's game. It's like the Clash of the Titans of Suck!

Anyway, here are my picks. Home team in CAPS.

CHICAGO BEARS (-10) over the Buffalo Bills
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (-6.5) over Tampa Bay Buccaneers
NEW YORK GIANTS (-4.5) over Washington Redskins
JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS (-7) over New York Jets
Pittsburgh Steelers (+3.5) over SAN DIEGO CHARGERS

Here are Andrea's, she seems to be playing it a little safer this week.

CHICAGO BEARS (-10) over the Buffalo Bills
MINNESOTA VIKINGS (-6.5) over Detroit Lions
CAROLINA PANTHERS (-7.5) over Cleveland Browns
ARIZONA CARDINALS (+3.5) over Kansas City Chiefs
Dallas Cowboys (+2) over PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (don't tell her dad!)

I don't know about the rest of these, but my advice to you would be to put your money on the Bears this week. Once again, we both picked them completely independently of each other and our mutual picks have yet to fail.

I also feel the need to add something non-football related here since if you're basing our lives strictly off of what I post, it must sound like I'm totally obsessed. It's not true. Honest. There's just not much else going on. We're been in our new house for about a month now and really enjoying being able to walk around in our underwear again. There are plenty of things we want to buy for it and some stuff we want to fix but overall we're really happy with it. About all I can think to report on is that we came up with a name for our crazy little cat. She is officially called "Sushi Buffet" now. The "Buffet" part is her middle name, so it's totally optional, but I feel like it really rounds it out nicely.

One other thing, GO TIGERS! They just knocked the evil Yankees out of the playoffs, beating them three games to one. Weren't the Tigers the laughing stock of baseball a couple of years ago? I love it when the underdogs win. The Red Sox may have let their season implode but at least someone else came along to beat the Yankees to the World Series once again.

That's about it! We'll see what Sunday brings.

Week 4 NFL Picks

2006-10-01T05:47:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. This is all I've been writing about for the last couple of weeks. I promise to write on a different topic when something interesting happens. I just want to get this posted quickly. It's almost 6am here and it's time to go to bed.

Peter's picks for week 4 current record 4 - 1 (home team in CAPS)

ATLANTA FALCONS (-7) over the Arizona Cardinals
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (-7) over the San Francisco 49ers
Indianapolis Colts (-9.5) over NEW YORK JETS
ST LOUIS RAMS (-5.5) over Detroit Lions
CINCINNATI BENGALS (-6) over New England Patriots

Once again, I'm going for the easy favorites. Only one of my picks is playing on the road.

Andrea's picks - current record 5 - 0

ATLANTA FALCONS (-7) over Arizona Cardinals
Seattle Seahawks (+3.5) over CHICAGO BEARS
TENNESEE TITANS (+9.5) over Dallas Cowboys
BALTIMORE RAVENS (+2.5) over San Diego Chargers
Detroit Lions (+5.5) over ST LOUIS RAMS

Again, Andrea's picks are a little more daring. Four out of the five are underdogs. One of her picks is directly opposite of mine. It'll be interesting to see how these work out.

Again, we've got one game in common, we both picked Atlanta to cover versus the Cardinals. Last week we both picked the Rams and they covered the spread. So if you're going to bet on one team this week it should be Atlanta. We're batting a thousand on this so far (oops, mixing sports metaphors there).

That's all I've got time for right now. We'll see how these look when I wake up!

NFL week 3 results

2006-09-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

It's weird watching football when you live in the Pacific time zone, especially when you work the graveyard shift. The early games start at 10am local time. So by the time we got up on Sunday afternoon, the early games were already over and Andrea had a 3 to 1 lead on me in our picks contest!

Here's how I ended up:

The Colts beat the Jaguars by a score of 21 - 14, just covering that 7 point spread.

The Seahawks beat the Giants 42 - 30

The Eagles beat the 49ers 38 - 24 (Both of these games were much more lopsided than the final scores make them appear. The Eagles and Seahawks both stopped trying after the 3rd quarters.)

The Rams squeaked out a victory over the washed-up Kurt Warner and the Cardinals 16 - 14

My only loss was the Ravens beating the Browns 15 - 14, they won but didn't cover the 6.5 point spread.

So I ended up 4 wins and 1 loss for our first week of competitions. Not too bad at all!

Andrea, however, ended up with a perfect 5 and 0!

The Vikings lost to the Bears 19 - 16 but still lost by less than 3.5 so it's a win.

The Jets beat the Bills 28 - 20, another win for her.

The Titans lost to the Dolphins 13 - 10 but more than covered the generous 10.5 point spread.

We both picked the Rams to cover the spread so that's another win.

And the Broncos outright beat the Patriots to the tune of 17 - 7!

All of these wins are more impressive when you consider that a) every team she picked was the underdog and b) four of those five teams were playing on the road! Is there something to this new system of hers? Only time will tell. In the mean time, her system says to pick the over in Monday night's Falcons - Saints matchup (combined total of points scored by both teams needs to be over 44). Call your bookies!

NFL Picks Week 3: Allez Cuisine!

2006-09-22T03:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to week three of the NFL season! Our week 2 NFL picks weren't so hot. The Cincinnati Bengals were the only team that managed to cover the spread. For the remainder of the season, we have revised our little contest. Each person is going to pick five teams for the week. The team has to cover the point spread to win.

For those of you who do not understand sports betting which is, roughly, everyone reading this - let me explain. Sports handicappers are almost always going to consider one team in a matchup to be better than another. For instance, the San Francisco 49ers have little hope of beating the Indianapolis Colts unless Peyton Manning is hit by a truck on his way to the game. So for a game between those two teams, they might set the "line" at San Francisco +14. Meaning that if you bet on the 49ers, they only have to lose by 14 points or LESS to be considered a winning wager. (If by some miracle they win, that's good too.) However, Indy will be at -14 and if you bet on them they will have to win by 14 points or MORE to be a winner for you. This is called "covering the spread", but more commonly referred to as "keeping inconsequential games interesting". You can bet on many other things of course, but betting on the spread is the most common and it's what we're going to use in our contest.

As I said, the teams in our contest have to cover the spread to be considered a winner. At the end of the season the winners will be tallied up and one person will be declared the victor. No prize will be awarded (apart from whatever money we happen to win) but in the words of Iron Chef's Chairman Kaga: "He or she will gain the people's ovation, and fame forever".

Andrea, who knows very little and cares even less about football, has an amazing new system for picking the winners. She's made me swear not to reveal it just yet however. We'll see how it holds up.

Picks for week three. Pick is listed first, home team in CAPS.

Peter's Picks:

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (-7) over Jacksonville Jaguars
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (-3.5) over New York Giants
Philadelphia Eagles (-6) over SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
Baltimore Ravens (-6.5) over CLEVELAND BROWNS
St. Louis Rams (+4.5) over ARIZONA CARDINALS

Andrea's Picks:

MINNESOTA VIKINGS (+3.5) over Chicago Bears,
New York Jets (+5.5) over BUFFALO BILLS,
St. Louis Rams (+4.5) over ARIZONA CARDINALS
Tennessee Titans (+10.5) over MIAMI DOLPHINS,
Denver Broncos (+6.5) over NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

As you can see, I went for the easy favorites. Mainly because I really want to win this thing. The one exception being that I took St. Louis over my newly adopted Cardinals. Given my record with picks, I figure this will give the Cardinals incentive to win.

Andrea's picks are a bit more interesting. We'll have to see if there's a method to her madness. Note that we both picked St. Louis independently of each other. Based on this amazing coincidence, my advice to all of you out there would be to put every cent you have on the St. Louis Rams this week. I think we have proven that it is a mathematical impossibility for them to lose!

Who's teams will reign supreme? The heat will be on!

Week 2 NFL Picks

2006-09-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ah, a new NFL season with many opportunities to foolishly lose money! Week 1 was a washout. I picked the Lions straight up to beat the Seahawks and they lost 9 to 6 in a thrilling all field goal game. I also picked the Packers to cover on an otherwise perfectly good four team parlay. My god, those poor Packers fans. They're all happy to have Farve back one more season and they get utterly humiliated by the Bears to the tune of 26 - 0. I'm never picking the Packers again. Maybe they'll stand a chance of winning now.

Anyway, for week two I'm picking just one team. I picked the Arizona Cardinals to cover the seven point spread against the Seattle Seahawks. Why? Because the Cardinals are my new adopted team. The Patriots broke my heart when they didn't re-sign Adam Vinatieri. I needed to find a new crappy team to help bring to greatness. I did it for the Patriots, I did it for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I can do it for the Cardinals. Of course, the Patriots and the Bucs both won Superbowls BEFORE I started betting on football and ruining their chances but never mind that.

I also cajoled Andrea into making her own football bet. I figure since she has absolutely no interest in football, her picks could not be much worse than my own. She decided to pick three teams named after felines (in honor of our new cat who is still nameless at this point).

She picked the Carolina Panthers (-1.5) over the Minnesota Vikings, Cincinnati Bengals (-10.5) over the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions (+8.5) over the Chicago Bears. We rolled it all into one parlay bet, meaning all three teams have to cover the point spreads to win. Perhaps we'll get more scientific with this in future weeks. The great part about this is that if she wins we get THIRTY WHOLE DOLLARS and if she loses she can say she didn't care about it anyway.

In other news, I found my goldfish Brain floating belly up yesterday. I knew I should have gotten a bigger tank for him. Goodnight sweet Brain, may flights of angels sing you to your rest. Or something.

Name that cat!

2006-09-10T16:47:00.000-07:00

A new house and a new cat! Yesterday we adopted a cat from the Friends Of Feral Felines organization, one of the many animal rescue groups and shelters in the valley area. The Las Vegas valley, sadly, has more than the normal share of abandoned and abused animals due to the highly transient nature of the population. (Isn't that a nice phrase? "Highly Transient"? Sounds so much better than "deadbeats".) Worst of all are all the Pitt Bulls and Rottweilers you see listed at the shelters. I'd be wary enough of raising one of those dogs from a puppy, can you imagine taking in an abandoned one? Yikes.

Anyway, that's our new cat. She's a five month old female and she's very sweet. She looks very much like an adult cat in this picture but really she's just entering that lanky adolecent phase. She's actually pretty small still, she looks like a minature full grown cat to me. This was the best picture I could get of her, kittens are not known for their ability to sit still for long.

The cat came with no name whatsoever, so we don't have to go through that ridiculous feeling of guilt when we change it from one of those generic cat names like "Tigger" to something we like. We've tossed around a bunch of different names, mainly ones that are specific to this city like "Sahara", "Fitz" and "Luxor". I also thought of other street names like "Nellis" or "Sloan", but they'd be better for a male cat. My friend the Professor of Omaha suggested "Starbuck" or "Boomer" but that's because he is a tremendous dork. Any other suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment!

I also got an Oranda Goldfish. I've wanted one of these for years and goldfish are about the lowest maintenance pets there are. He already has a name however, "Brain". Below is a picture of one, it should be obvious where I got that name.

Ooh Crikey!

2006-09-04T00:47:00.000-07:00

Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin is dead. He was killed by a stingray while filming a documentary. Most people I've talked to seem vaguely disappointed that he was not eaten by a crocodile. I'm just glad that he died doing what he loved; pissing off deadly poisonous animals.

The Greatest Movie Ever

2006-08-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

When you go to see a movie entitled "Snakes On A Plane", you have a certain level of expectation. That level may not be particularly high, but if it isn't met you're going to be severely disappointed. Case in point, "Friday The 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan". Jason Voorhees does not spend the movie slaughtering his way through New York. He spends most of it on a cruise ship filled with stupid high school students. Only about the last ten minutes are shot in some empty back alleys that are supposed to be New York City but in reality were probably Toronto or something.

"Snakes On A Plane" does not disappoint. It does, in fact, have snakes in it and they are on a plane. It also has Samuel L. Jackson fighting the snakes. That's pretty much all you need for 90 minutes of entertainment.

We ended up seeing "Snakes On A Plane" purely by chance. We had gotten a flyer from a casino in North Las Vegas that was advertising a free video poker tournament. Since we both had the day off, we figured we'd drive up to check it out. So after driving all the way up to Fiesta Rancho we find that the tournament had been moved to another date. To compensate us, they provided us with a complimentary buffet which was pretty good. Looking for something else to do since we had driven all the way up there, I happened to notice that the Vegas 6 Drive-In was right across the street.

Out of the three drive-ins I've been to now, this is clearly in the worst condition. It's in major need of repair and the North Las Vegas neighborhood it's located in is certainly less than inviting. But since the next closest drive-in is located 160 miles away in Barstow, California - it's pretty much the only game in town. Besides, you can't beat $6 a person for tickets these days, especially for a double feature. Plus, since the place had four screens showing separate movies, you could always turn your head and watch something else if the movie you picked wasn't to your liking.

Anyway, back to the movie. Well, there's not much more to say about it. The plot is one of the thinnest I've seen in years. It exists solely to get Samuel L Jackson on board a commercial jet with a bunch of poisonous snakes. Jackson is an FBI agent, see, and he is escorting this murder witness from Hawaii back to L.A. where he is going to testify against this mob boss.

The mob boss wants to stop the guy from testifying of course so he loads the plane with poisonous snakes and pumps a pheromone through the air conditioning so they go nuts and start biting everyone. He does this because it is clearly a more efficient way to get rid of a witness than, say, shooting him in the head.

And that is what makes this movie so damn brilliant. It's completely critic proof. If someone starts pointing out the gaping plot holes (as Andrea is fond of doing), all you have to say is, "The movie is called 'Snakes On A Plane', what did you expect?". The movie offers 90 minutes or so of very enjoyable, if predictable, entertainment and it appeals to the kind of people who thought going to a movie with such a title would be fun in the first place.

"Snakes On A Plane" was the number one movie in America last week. I don't know what that says about the state of our society but I'll be the producers are feeling pretty smug about the silly title that generated so much buzz now. The only problem I see now is that it's going to be almost impossible to follow it up. Do they dare make "Snakes On A Plane 2"? Would that just be pushing it too far? Or are there other "dangerous animal meets mode of transportation" concepts to be exploited? 'Piranhas On A Bus'? 'Scorpions On A Hovercraft'? 'Dingos On A Recumbent Bicycle'? No, that would just be silly.

Zappos made Carrot Top cry

2006-08-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

Six months ago now, I wrote about the massive Zappos holiday party. Without a doubt the wildest company party I'd ever been to. I never thought I'd see anything like that again but several fellow employees told me it was nothing compared to what the Vendor party would be like. They weren't kidding.

The Zappos Vendor Appreciation Party has been held at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino for three years running. It's a huge event to which not only are the employee invited, but reps from hundreds of different shoe brands as well. Total expected attendance? Three THOUSAND people!

A little about the Hard Rock, I'm sure you've heard of it. It's very possibly the single coolest place to be seen at in all of Las Vegas, and that's truly saying something. When the celebrities are in Las Vegas, this is where they go to party. Heck, legendary Who bassist John Entwistle DIED there. You can't get much cooler than that.

What I find truly amazing as a resident who has come to know the area a little, is that the Hard Rock was a success at all. I wrote a few months back that I doubted the Hooters Casino would be a success due to it's off-strip location. The Hard Rock's location is ten times worse. It's located off of Paradise Road which is a fairly seedy area with very bad traffic. If you are staying on The Strip and you do not have a rental car, you will never find the place as it is well past walking distance. It's also fairly close to the airport and right in the flight path so the rumbling sound of jets is pretty common. It's really a terrible location and honestly it should have been a failure, but a fantastic staff, gorgeous rooms, and the most amazing pool in Vegas have assured that people would be willing to go out of their way to find it.

Andrea and I had booked a room well in advance for the party, we could not resist the price of $69. It certainly was well worth it. The rooms aren't too large but they are very tastefully furnished. Every amenity was available including an iron, wall safe, mini bar and plenty of fancy shampoo and conditioner.
The room also contained a large flat screen TV. It seemed to be there mainly for decoration as it only got the same four local TV stations as any other hotel TV in town.

Another amenity that you'd only find at the Hard Rock? A lingerie "menu" placed conspicuously on the bed. Where else can you get cheaply-made, over-priced lingerie delivered directly to your hotel room? When you consider this along with some of the more "adult" items available for purchase in the minibar; you feel as though you're not so much being encouraged to have sex in your room as being obligated to.

Anyway, that certainly isn't a complaint. The Hard Rock is all about being treated like a rock star while you're staying there and they have done a very nice job making sure this theme is carried throughout the hotel. They're not exactly handing out free coke and hookers during check-in, but you really do feel like you get your money's worth out of the experience.

So about this party. As I mentioned, the Vendor Appreciation party had an expected turnout of 3000 people and it was taking place at The Beach, which is the Hard Rock's incredible pool area. This in itself would be sufficiently amazing. However, in addition to all that, Zappos employees and their guests were invited to The Joint (the Hard Rock's concert hall) for a pre-party party. I think there were quite a few that didn't even make it as far as the main party, Zappos employees being the hard drinking bunch that they are. Judging by the condition of some of the people in line for the pre-party, it looks as if several had attended their own pre-pre-party beforehand.

We had been told that there would be a "surprise performer" at this pre-party event. Since The Joint is a small concert venue, I figured it would be some band I never heard of and didn't give it much thought. Much to my surprise, the guest performer turned out to be CARROT TOP, the infamous prop comedian whom people either love or hate. (I found out recently that Tony Hsieh, our CEO, is a big Carrot Top fan and arranged for the private performance.)
Everyone was excited and laughed at Mr. Top's crazy props... for about ten minutes. Then people started milling around and talking. Of course it didn't help that they had opened up the buffet right around the same time. God help you if you get between a Zappos employee and free food. So here's world famous comedian Carrot Top, on stage at The Joint in the supercool Hard Rock Hotel, bombing like an amateur on open mic night.

Now, I'm not a Carrot Top fan, I'll be the first to say it. But I admire him if only for the fact that he keeps on performing in the face of all the abuse he gets from other comics. Carrot Top currently has a long term contract to perform at the Luxor Hotel & Casino so obviously the man has his fans. However, if my employer is nice enough to hire a guy that can command $55 to $65 a ticket from Las Vegas tourists for our private company party, I'm going to watch the show no matter what it is and be appreciative.

Poor Carrot Top couldn't get anything out of us no matter what zany prop he tried. He was just no competition for free food and free booze. I think we may have made him cry. Seriously, I felt so bad I wanted to write him a letter of apology for our behavior. I just picture the poor guy going backstage after the show, punching a hole through his dressing room wall then cruising Fremont Street to find a hooker to kill out of frustration. Ah but I kid, Carrot Top...

As for the actual Vendor party? Let me put it this way; it looked like a party out of a movie. You know the kind of movie I mean, usually it's one of those teen comedies from the 1980's, inevitably it's in California and the kid's parents are gone for the weekend. So he invites 3000 of his high school friends, has a rockin' band playing and hot babes all over the place. Meanwhile you're scoffing at the television thinking that these things do not happen in real life? Well the do happen at the Hard Rock I can safely say. The Zappos party was just like that; hot babes pole dancing, free booze everywhere, the coolest pool I've ever seen, a great 80's cover band called The Spazmatics and if that weren't enough, it also had midgets in KISS makeup walking around. Much like Miracle Whip, midgets make a good party great.

Not much else to say really. We got very drunk, walked around and said hi to lots of people, somehow ended up in the pool near the end. A bunch of the drinks had these flashing plastic ice cubes in them. I became obsessed with collecting them. I stuck my arm in a trash barrel up to the shoulder at one point to get one. Certainly not the move of a sober person. We ended up with 15 of them in all. Unfortunately, in the morning all the batteries were dead. We got so little sleep that night that in the morning we drove home and went back to bed. Here are a couple more pictures. They really don't do the event justice, though.

Back in December 2001, I was a guest at a holiday party for a company called Putnam Investments. It was held at the World Trade Center in Boston in a space that was obviously used mainly for trade shows. It was gigantic, I have no idea how many people were in attendance. The economic slump was not hurting Putnam any, they had clearly spent insane amounts of money on this event. They had numerous open bars and buffet areas, a live band, a fortune teller, a place where you could get your photo on a t-shirt, a spot where your kids could get their picture with Santa, a craft station where kids could make necklaces and such, wandering entertainers like jugglers and even a full petting zoo. There was probably alot more that I've forgotten too, it was five years ago now.

It was as if someone had handed the partly planner a list of all the possible things they could get and the planner had said, "Fine, we'll take two of each.". (There were no midgets however.) Putnam is a big company and their party was most likely more elaborate and expensive than the Zappos one; but no way was it better. The atmosphere at that party was very subdued in spite of all the free booze. It was like one of those corporate dinners where even though you are free to order drinks nobody does because they know the boss is making a mental note of all of it. Not so at Zappos. Hell, at the holiday party, our call center director got personally thrown out for drunken behavior.

What is my point? I'm not sure I have one except for that I work for a very cool company with management that knows how to treat it's employees and have a good time themselves. These are not "crappy supermarket sheet cake in the break room" parties. These are "party like a rock star and fall into an alcoholic coma" kind of parties. I guess I admire individuals who can do that and still run a successful company. It makes it worth sticking around, at least until the next big party.

Serendipity

2006-08-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

For those of you who weren't aware, Andrea and I are in the process of buying a house. We're pretty excited about it. If all goes well, we will be closing on it in less than two weeks. After a year of living out of one and a half rooms, having our own space again is going to feel like luxury.

The house we are buying is in a complex called Sunrise Gardens which is in the eastern part of Las Vegas near Sunrise Mountain. It's a very quiet, well maintained development that has a lot of seniors as residents. The house currently belongs to an elderly widow who is going to be moving back to California. When we first looked at the house it was filled with all the typical older lady kinds of furnishings... with one rather curious exception. Here is a photo of the living room. See if you can spot the unusual decoration in this picture.

Pink drapes... check. Floral patterned furniture... check. Porcelain figurines... check. Giant cheesecake pinup... che- wha?? Here's a close up of that very large photo...

Now, I'm not one to ignore a detail like that. Why would an elderly woman have a giant photo of a cheesecake pinup in her house? That's not something you see every day. An even greater mystery was why the pinup girl looked so familiar to me. I had to know the answer. The owner was out of town so I could not find out from her. First off, I was pretty sure it wasn't the house owner herself because from the big hair the girl in the photo is sporting, it's obvious the picture was taken in the 1980's. All along, I had a vague suspicion that I know who the woman was and after I got home I did some searching on the internet. It didn't take long before I was convinced. The woman in the photo was Teri Copley.

I remember Teri Copley from the crappy sitcom she starred in in the early 1980's, We Got It Made. She was a babe and I lusted after her. She pretty much dropped out of sight after the show was cancelled but it looks like she continued to model because it is not hard to find photos of her on the internet. She has since turned to Christian ministry. Here's a picture of her hanging out with a couple of creepy looking mustachioed Christians.

I still had no proof, however. Then a couple of days ago the realtor called us to let us know that the woman was interested in selling her big sectional sofa for cheap money. We'd been dying to have our own sofa since we had to sell Andrea's when we moved out here. So we met the realtor at the house to check out the furniture and sure enough the lady was there this time. I kept looking at the photo, trying to find a way to work it into conversation, when our realtor just flat out asked her who it was. Sure enough, I was right. Teri Copley is her daughter.

I don't know what is more amazing; the fact that I was right or the fact that I remembered it was Teri Copley in the first place. All I know is, now we will be able to say that we live in a house that used to belong to the mother of a very minor celebrity. We should probably get the house listed as a historical landmark or at least charge people to take tours of it. It all feels so... West Coast somehow.

2006-08-01T17:46:00.000-07:00

I'm still recovering from the monsterous Zappos Vendor Appreciation party at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino last night. How big was it? I can sum it up in two words: Carrot. Top. More on this later.

Weather is fun!

2006-07-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

Just because I could, I just added some cool weather icons that I found from Wunderground.com. I've been wanting to add this feature for a while and I finally figured out how to do it. Now you can see what the temp is here as well as in a few other areas of personal importance! Neat! By the way, our high temperature for today was 116 degrees. That is DAMN hot.

So, what have we been up to?

2006-07-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

This is the question I get from friends and family more than any other. Well, actually it's more along the lines of "why the hell don't you update your blog?" but the spirit of the question is the same. The answer is (apart from the obvious one of sheer laziness) that we've been to busy living our lives same as everyone else, working two odd jobs at odd hours and having to share one car to do it. It leaves you pretty tired by the end of the day. The heat of the summer doesn't exactly fill you with ambition either. Believe me, I'll take this any day over the humidity of the northeast, but 105 degrees is HOT no matter how you look at it. Tomorrow is supposed to hit 112! The good news is, this is about as bad as it's going to get (hopefully). A couple of months of 100+ degree weather is a small price to pay for six to eight months of beautiful, mild weather.

So here's a brief summary of stuff that's happened lately as best as I can remember it, along with some pictures.

Andrea's mother came to visit for a few days in June. Andrea hooked her up with a good room rate at the Westin. I think they spent most of the time lazing around the pool and the luxurious room at the hotel. Here are a couple of pictures of the two of them on Freemont Street. I know they look goofy but you can't blame the photographer for that! The highlight (for me at least) was the night the three of us saw Rita Rudner at New York New York casino. She's been headlining there for something like five or six years which is a pretty impressive run in Vegas. Her act is still very funny although you could sense that she had been telling most of the jokes for a long time. After the show I somehow resisted the urge to get an autographed copy of her book (I love autographs). It was easier when I realized I could come back any time I wanted to get one, seeing as how I live here and all.

Hey I took that picture! Pretty cool huh? A couple of weeks later, we did something that I've been wanting to do since my first trip to Las Vegas. We finally went to the top of the Stratosphere Tower. It's one of the tallest towers in the world and it was the dream of a guy named Bob Stupak who was quite the colorful Las Vegas character. One of the most entertaining articles written about the man can be found here. I would have been to the top of the tower much sooner (the first time Susie and I came to Vegas we stayed at the Stratosphere) but they charge $12 to get to the top! After finding out that they only charge Nevada residents $6, we thought it was time to give it a try. Let me tell you, even for $12 it is totally worth it. The nighttime view of the valley is unbelievable! The photo above is the best one I managed to take, it looks much more blurry at full size unfortunately. They let you bring cameras up, but they don't allow you to bring tripods. So you can take all the nighttime shots you want, but there's no way you are going to get a GOOD one. Still, totally worth while trip.

That ugly little fella is the Great-tailed Grackle, probably the most commonly seen wildlife we have in this area (unless you count cockroaches). You get quite an interesting variety of birds near areas like Lake Mead, but in the urban areas you pretty much just see these guys. They have a loud, shrill call that made Andrea and I dub them "Squak Birds" until we found out what the real name was. Grackle is a fitting name, however.

I took this picture near the pool area of the Tropicana hotel. I didn't take any close up pictures of the pool area because, well, I would have looked like some kind of pervert what with all the sunbathers. A few weeks ago, we stayed at the Tropicana for two nights. They had sent us a "buy one night get one free" room offer in the mail, and considering that the other night only cost us $49 it was well worth it. The room wasn't so hot, we had a scenic view of the parking garage and some dumpsters where they put the dirty laundry, but we had a good time especially at the pool.

Let's see, what else did we do... Well, we didn't do much for July 4th. We both had the day off so we stayed home, grilled burgers and lit off some of the bottle rockets I had purchased a few months back in Pahrump. Turns out we didn't need to fight the crowds to get to a fireworks show because people were lighting the damn things off everywhere. As I've mentioned before, fireworks are technically illegal in Clark County. You never would have known it, however. Everybody seemed to have them and people were lighting them off casually in plain sight. People in our neighborhood seemed to be responsible with them and it was fun watching them all go off.

The most recent thing that happened was that I got my hair cut today, as you can see in the stunning self-portrait I just took. That brings us up to the present. Anything that happens from here on out is fresh news!

Well, I guess that's about everything. As busy as we've been, we still manage to do some fun things from time to time. It's easy to forget these things unless you write them down and take the time to look back at them.

Oh, and by popular demand, here at long last is a picture of the astroturf in our front "yard" as well as our local mountain, which we're pretty sure is called Black Mountain. Until next time... which hopefully will be a lot sooner than last time.

Happy Memorial Day

2006-05-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

Six times points in honor of our war heroes.

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Luck is a funny thing...

2006-05-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinking. "Does he take a picture EVERY time he gets a royal flush?" The answer is yes. Yes I do. Before you roll your eyes at yet another story about how Peter hit a big jackpot, bear with me and keep reading.

So I'm playing at the Eldorado Casino in downtown Henderson, right? I stop there on my way home from work and put a $20 bill into a 25 cent deuces wild machine. We don't normally play 25 cent machines because we don't have that kind of money to throw away. Twenty dollars is all I have on me and I expect it to last about five minutes. Lo and behold it doesn't. The machine is hitting like crazy. Before long, I've got it up to $60 so I cash out figuring my luck can't hold out much longer. So I get my three $20 bills and I figure what the heck, I'll put one back in. If I lose it I've still doubled my money. Besides, the machine is really hot and I suspect more good things may be coming to me. (It's always easy to say this in retrospect). I'm playing along and I've got that $20 almost up to $40. Then it happens. I hold Jack 10 suited, pretty standard play that rarely yields anything and BAM! I am treated to a Royal Flush. On a quarter machine. That pays out exactly one THOUSAND dollars! I've never had a jackpot this large. I tip the change lady out very well for the hand pay (it's all cash, sweet!) and I get outta there because there is no way things can get better than THAT.

I've been wanting a new digital camera for quite some time and I now have an unexpected one thousand dollars in my pocket. There is a nice Kodak camera that I've seen at our local Wal Mart. I know they are open 24 hours so I feel totally justified in going there and plonking down $300 in cash for it. I get the lady to open the display case for me, there is one left. I get the box and happily pay for my purchase.

I come home... open the box... there is NO camera inside!

See? Camera-shaped hole.

No camera at all. I checked twice, even. There IS a serial number on the little cardboard container where my camera should be. I'm willing to bet that the serial number will match the one on display at Wal-Mart. Happens all the time, stores need to keep ahold of that box that the display came in for inventory purposes. Still, I'm not feeling too hopeful about this because honestly it sure sounds fishy and I've got nothing to back up my claim except that number. Sure enough, I drive back to Wal-Mart and they aren't buying it for a second. They are doing everything short of accusing me of trying to get a free camera. I understand where they are coming from. I worked at JC Penney and saw people try to pull some really blatant stuff. But I'm in customer service too and it really, really pisses me off when people don't even attempt to handle a situation properly.

I explain about the serial number and we go and check the display. There's no serial number showing anywhere. My guess is its on the bottom of the camera, which is underneath the security device they put on the displays. You know, so untrustworthy people don't try to STEAL them. Now I've gotta come back to Wal Mart in the morning and talk to the manager of the camera department because apparently the night shift Wal Mart people have nothing to do with it. It's some kind of alien world to them and they find it hostile and disturbing I guess.

If you're reading this you probably know me. You know I didn't try to screw Wal Mart out of their $300 camera. I just mention this because if I don't get results tomorrow I'll need someone to vouch for me and maybe write angry letters to the store manager. Justice will be served, dammit.

That's the problem with luck, everything averages out in the long run. There's always a price to be paid to bring things back into alignment. The better the luck, the bigger the price.

UPDATE

I went back to Wal-Mart this morning and spoke to the supervisor of the camera department. She was very nice. She checked her stock and could not find an empty box for the display so she gave me the benefit of the doubt and gave me a new box complete with an actual camera inside. She also told me that the people last night should have OPENED the box right there to confirm that all the contents were inside. (They didn't, all they did is get very defensive and say that the box was still sealed when I bought it.) Everything is now right with the world, there is no need to write letters to your congressperson.

But I still meant what I said about balance. Andrea's old boss at the truck stop used to tell her that she'd stop playing video poker for a week or two after hitting a royal to let her luck build up again (and she plays video poker constantly). Of course, she also used to tell her employees that a lucky dealer could "will" the right card to come to the top of the deck so you have to take what she says with a grain of salt. Even so, I'm not going to take any chances with my luck. I think I'll stay away from gambling for a while, my luck has been way too good lately. I'd better wait until things even themselves out.

Susie's Visit part 1 - Adventures with Larry G Jones

2006-05-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

One of the best parts about living out here is having people come out to visit us (hint). It's not only a vacation for them, but it can also be a vacation for us. We get to do and see things that we do not have time for normally. So when my sister came to visit we took a few days off and had some Vegas-style fun.

Susie is a veteran of many Vegas trips (we came out here together for the first time in 2001) and she's seen most of the usual stuff several times over. This time I wanted her to see some of the cool places we'd discovered since moving here. She arrived on Saturday and we had checked her into the Westin hotel where Andrea works for the first night of her trip. I had to work and I didn't see her at all but the two of them hung out by the Westin pool and Susie was spoiled by the luxurious room (the likes of which we wouldn't have been able to afford without Andrea's employee discount). Sunday we picked her up and went over to the Peppermill restaurant. The Peppermill has been one of our Vegas traditions since the beginning. They've got great food and a cool old-school Las Vegas theme. Andrea and I hadn't been there once since moving out here since it's not in a part of town we're normally in.

We got there and discovered that the place was PACKED! Our schedules are so odd, we're in our very own personal time zone so we had completely forgotten it was lunch time on Mother's Day. There was a good half an hour wait so Susie went to a souvenir store and bought a bunch of junk that said "Las Vegas" on it. It had been a good year and a half since we were at the Peppermill last and I must say I was a little let down. The food and service were still good but they had raised their prices by several dollars. They did not have an omelet on the menu for less than ten bucks. And we all agreed that they were significantly smaller than they used to be. If you're going to jack up the price, don't make your food smaller or you've lost all ability to justify the price increase! Mind you, that still makes them twice the size of your regular omelet and none of us were able to finish but still it was disappointing. I'd still take someone here who was visiting The Strip for the first time no question, but I guess we're a little spoiled by the food at the omelet House these days. Oh, they did add a smokin hot chick who just seemed to be there to refill water glasses so maybe that explains the price hike.

After the meal, we drove to Downtown to check Susie into Fitzgeralds. Between the three of us we've stayed at Fitz several times. It has a fun, party atmosphere and pretty cheap rooms. Our cousin Shelly and her friend Angie were also coming out the next day and Susie had convinced them to stay there. The rooms certainly aren't in the same ballpark as the Westin though and the one Susie ended up with was pretty shabby, not that she spent much time in it anyway!

Going back to Fitz, Susie got her first taste of this Larry G Jones guy we'd been talking about since moving here. Fitz has a small stage set up right next to one of their blackjack pits and Larry was up there doing a Neil Diamond cover with the karaoke machine. It was a very respectable impression I have to give him that, but what does it say about your headline performer when he has to give out free samples to get people to come his show? Their Elvis impersonator doesn't have to do that! To make things worse for Larry G, when we were checking Susie into her room, we noticed that Fitz has added ANOTHER act to the list. A guy who ALSO sings and does impressions. He seems to have gotten about half the shows Larry used to have and the tickets to see him are also a couple of bucks cheaper! This can't be good news for our friend Larry. (I tried to find the new guy's name on the Fitzgerald's web site but their entertainment section appears to be blank! Rut roh, better start working on the resumes, guys.)

Later, Susie and I walked down to La Bayou so she could get one of their yard long frozen drinks. Most of them taste terrible but they have enough alcohol to paralyze an elephant. Well, after TWO of these drinks, Susie was feeling pretty good. Larry G Jones was still in the Fitz casino, annoying the patrons with his Elvis impersonation. See, he's got these big 1970's-style Elvis sunglasses with big sideburns attatched to them. He puts them on for an instant Elvis effect. So he's kind of a prop comedian as well; like the world needs more of those guys.

Anyway, Larry's walking around the casino practically begging people to come to his show, Susie sees him there and figures it would be a great idea to get a picture with him. I was more than happy to help since it was her and not me. Larry, too, was more than happy to pose for us as you can tell from that photo I published at the time. In fact, I think we took FOUR pictures altogether trying to find enough light to make my crappy camera phone happy. I could tell he was thrilled to hear that this was going up on a blog. Now, if he happens to actually READ this blog... well that's another story. I'm starting to feel bad for the guy, I've got to admit. Clearly he's working very hard trying to make it. We've noticed that almost every casino around here, even the tiny local ones, will have some form of live entertainment. So trying to get by as an entertainer in this town probably isn't that hard because there is such a huge demand for it. On the other hand, trying to be the next Wayne Newton or Siegfried And Roy is next to impossible. There are many guys at the top and they are not going anywhere until they die or get eaten by their own white tigers.

Susie went to bed around 9pm, mainly because she couldn't stay vertical any longer. We left the craziness of downtown and head back to our normal lives for the night. We had a big day planned for tomorrow, I'll get to that next time.

Susie & Larry G Jones!

2006-05-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's my sister with the infamous Larry G Jones! Okay and here I thought you people were reading this blog! Everyone seems to be confused about just who this Larry G Jones guy is. First off, check out the above link to his site if you dare. And secondly, re-read my previous thoughts on Larry here.

A Helpful Hint from Boo-loise

2006-04-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a tip:

Between trips to the dry cleaner, you can freshen up your suit pants by throwing them into the dryer for a few minutes on the delicate setting along with a half-dry load of clothes. Take them out, give them a quick press, and you're ready to face the day.

Important caveat: it is VERY wise to check your pockets to be sure there isn't a tube of L'oreal Cranberry Pop lipstick in there before you start the process.

Trust me on this one.

Over The Hump, again

2006-04-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

Almost two months ago now, Andrea and I took a little road trip out to Pahrump. I started a blog entry about it at the time and never finished it. Mainly because I suck. This last Thursday, we went out to Pahrump again, so by golly I'm going to finish this blog entry even if I have to copy and paste from my previous one to do it.

If you live in the Las Vegas Valley, there is very little reason to go out to Pahrump. It's a small city of around 30,000 people that lies on the other side of the Spring Valley mountain range in bordering Nye (named after the Science Guy) County. It's about 60 miles from Las Vegas on a two-lane road known as the Blue Diamond Highway. This drive across the mountains is locally known as going "over the hump to Pahrump". Despite the workout the drive gives to your transmission, a growing number of people have purchased houses in Pahrump and make the daily commute since it is a much cheaper place to live than the Vegas area. Apart from the real estate, the only reasons to go to Pahrump are fireworks, prostitution and the DMV.

Ah yes, the famous legal prostitution in Nevada. Many people are under the impression that prostitution is legal in Las Vegas. Seeing all the billboards for the scantily clad "entertainers" who come to your hotel room does nothing to change that image. But the reality is that prostitution was outlawed in Las Vegas decades ago and in fact it is illegal in all of Clark County, which is a good sized chunk of southern Nevada. It is most of the rest of Nevada where brothels are a legal business. For people visiting Las Vegas, Pahrump is the closest place to find those infamous legal brothels.

There are exactly two brothels in Pahrump, Sheri's Ranch and the Chicken Ranch. That's it. And from what I gather, they're not much to look at. We never did find the brothels but also we didn't spend much time looking for them. Nevada brothels are not allowed to advertise (although a quick online search will turn up more information that you ever wanted), which is rather ironic when you consider you can't go five steps with out being bombarded with ads for sex in the Las Vegas area. Interestingly enough, while Pahrump only has two brothels, they counteract that by having twenty one different churches (according to the official city website). I guess that makes it all okay.

The first time we went to Pahrump just out of curiosity. I love driving out here, so it doesn't take much provocation to get me to drive any weird little town at all. Once you get used to the quirks of living in the legalized gambling capital of the world, a lot of every day life is just like anywhere else. You've got your regular jobs, your McDonalds, your Wal-Marts, your bad traffic, everything that you have in any other city. So it's kinda cool to know that you can drive 30 minutes out of the city and suddenly be surrounded by nothing but barren wilderness.

As you drive through the Spring Valley National Forest area, you see signs for wild burros. Wild burros! I've never seen a burro outside of a petting zoo let alone a wild one. It's a nice wake-up call to help you remember that this area is very different from what we grew up in. Driving out in the middle of the desert makes you feel more like you live on a colony on Mars.

It's amazing the differences you see in the terrain out here after driving a relatively short distance. There are a number of underground springs in the Pahrump Valley and the result is a much larger variety in plant life. It's still very arid, but much less desert-like. Pahrump even has it's own dairy and a small amount of farming. It's something that is fairly common to see in the Northeast, but out here it seems totally out of place.

This time, we made the trek just to go to the DMV. That may sound like quite a trip just to get a new license and new Nevada plates, but I have been hearing horror stories about the lines at the local DMVs and a coworker suggested going out to Pahrump as an alternative. This is another great example of the explosive growth in this area. There are only five full service DMVs in the Las Vegas Valley. That's five DMVs for an area who's population is pushing two million people. Not good.

So we drove out to Pahrump and had no trouble finding the DMV, which was basically a pre-fab shed on a back road. Andrea remarked that it looked like the kind of buildings prisons probably use for conjugal visits. Not that either of us would know. Anyway, the whole process took about an hour and a half which was a little longer than we were expecting but given the mix of people we were seeing it was obvious that we weren't the only ones who drove up from Clark County that day. The people at the DMV could not have been nicer (when was the last time you heard that?) and they took care of the entire process very efficiently. We are now 100 percent legal to be driving around out here and people can no longer blame any poor driving on my out of state plates.

We ate lunch at the Pahrump Nugget casino, they have a very nice cafe. They've also got a buffet but I cannot bring myself to eat somewhere called The Nugget Buffet. That just does not sound appetizing. It's a nice little casino and it's the only place I've found that actually has hand dealt Three Card Poker and Let It Ride.

Before heading back, I HAD to check out a fireworks store. I had noticed several of them on our previous trip out here and I had reasoned that any place that had legal gambling and prostitution probably also sold some kick-ass fireworks.

I stopped into Phantom Fireworks, a national chain of stores I remember from living in New Hampshire. I was greeted by a friendly but fairly creepy guy and his slightly deformed coworker. Pretty much exactly the kind of people you expect to see working in a fireworks store to be honest. He enthusiastically pointed out all the cool stuff they carried, some of which he admitted was in a "legal grey area". It was way better than the sparklers and mortars that you can get in New Hampshire, that's for sure.

Of course like any other state, Nevada has its stupid rules when it comes to fireworks. Safety is understandable but we are talking about a state that is mainly radioactive desert, what are a few fireworks going to do? Nye County residents cannot buy fireworks. Clark County residents can but they can't set them off outside of Indian reservations. In fact I had to sign a paper saying I wasn't going to light them off in Nye County at all. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the damn things but I had to get some.

Personally, I wouldn't mind living in Pahrump but I don't see that commute being feasible for us. Real estate is still reasonably priced and the people are friendly. It's very much a small town, probably not unlike Las Vegas of 30 or 40 years ago. Most everyone we have talked to seem to be former Las Vegas Valley residents that got tired of the growth. As long as you could make a living out there, I don't imagine you'd have much need for Las Vegas. But our immediate futures are in the Las Vegas Valley. As much as I enjoyed the drive, I doubt we'll be back in Pahrump before my plates expire.

Andrea hasn't been abducted by aliens...

2006-04-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

I'm still out here, honest. It's been a busy time...I do need to keep writing though. Too many odd things happen out here to let them all fade into the mist.

For instance, a few weeks ago I'd planned to tell you all about the guy who came to my blackjack table with a bunch of rubber ducks glued to his shirt. Now, anyone who's been to Vegas has seen stranger things than that. But what I found amazing was that NONE of the 4 other players sitting at the table even batted an eye. Me, I was bursting with curiosity, but was even more intrigued by the fact that everyone else was just being all cool and pretending not to notice that this young man was covered in rubber duckies. I went on break...my relief didn't say anything either. When I came back, I finally couldn't wait any longer...
"So....how long have you been wearing the ducks?"
Smile. "All afternoon."
"And?"
"Funny, you're the first one to ask...."

Turned out that it was a show of support for his favorite NCAA basketball team, the Oregon Ducks? I think.
You have to love a town where a guy can wander around with half a dozen rubber duckies hanging off him and NO ONE STARES.

4/13

Today I'm attending a 2 hour seminar on problem gambling...it's required for all gaming workers by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

Summary: 1) Compulsive Gambling is a serious problem and it really sucks. 2) If anyone tells you they have a gambling problem, give them a brochure with an 800 number to call for help.

...you can see why it's taking two hours to get through this material, and why I have time to doodle a blog entry on the back of the seminar material while the lecture goes on.

Question of the day: Why is it "Gambling" when it's a problem, but "Gaming" when we work in it? The whole lecture has discussed addictive gambling, problem gambling, compulsive gambling....but then asks, "What can we do as GAMING employees?"
........
There are 7,000 photographers in town for a convention this week. You can't walk ten feet without being blinded by flashbulbs. Photographers are fun to watch; they take the same goofy, touristy shots as any other visitors ("Here's Annie with a giant margarita, there's Mike at the slot machine"). The difference with the photographers is that four of their friends are holding light meters and portable spotlights while they get that pic of Jim-Bob doing a kamikaze shooter at the Wheel of Fortune machine.

4/17

Yesterday was Easter. Hope everyone had a great day, missed you all. Peter and I both worked. As you might guess, Easter is not a big party day in Vegas. Hotel occupancy at the Westin was only 42%, and the tables were empty - and so were the all-important tip boxes. I dealt roulette for 3 hours last night, and had only ONE spin - a guy who came and put $100 on black. (Red 19 came up, alas, so away he went again.)

I'm patting myself on the back, though. For the first time since I've been a dealer, I put myself on the "Early Out" list - the list of dealers who'd be happy to be sent home early. So I escaped after only 4 hours, in plenty of time to join Peter for a nice dinner and a little relaxation.

Sunny Skies Again

2006-04-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

When you live in this area, getting a Royal Flush is a different experience than it is for a tourist. For a tourist I imagine it to be a very exciting (and quite possibly) once in a lifetime event. When you live here and play video poker semi-regularly (as almost every valley resident does whether they admit it or not), getting a Royal Flush is like getting laid when you're single and not in any kind of a relationship. It ends of a long period of anxiety and self-doubt, makes you deliriously happy for awhile, and you walk around getting congratulated from everyone you tell.

But enough about me and my $200 Royal Flush last night...

The late Douglas Adams had this great character in his book "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish"; it was this truck driver who had bad weather follow him wherever he went. As it turned out, he was actually a rain god although he had no idea. I'm pretty sure my mother is some kind of rain goddess. My parents drove down here from Minnesota and spent the last week camping at Lake Mead. They really enjoyed their stay here (which we are very happy about since it means they won't hesitate to do it again) and while the weather was better than what they left, it wasn't nearly as nice as it could have been. It actually rained more than once (a true rarity), it was cloudy most of the time and only once did the temperature hit 70.

Of course, since my parents left for the trip back yesterday, it's been beautiful here. Blue skies, temperature in the mid-70's and according to the forecast it's going to stay that way for the next few days. If it wasn't for the occasional heavy gusts of wind, it would be just about perfect. Meanwhile, my parents are in Wyoming where it is cold and snowing. I do believe there are higher powers at work here.

Just another day in Las Vegas...

2006-04-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, turns out you can't really read the text on that yellow sign, the sun glare is pretty bad right now. This is in a local strip mall where I just dropped Andrea off so she could catch the bus to work. The name of the eating establishment in the picture? "IDAHO FINGER STEAKS". Now that's good eatin'! I did not have the nerve to ask them what the secret ingredient was.

We stopped into the Sav-On Drug store in this strip mall just before this picture was taken. There was a woman at register in line ahead of us. She was probably in her early forties, wearing a tiny zebra-striped miniskirt, very high heels, and a head of platinum blonde hair in a huge 1980's style perm. She very matter-of-factly made her purchase and clopped out of the store. I could not help but think, "Wow, she looks exactly like a hooker!". Which led me to the further conclusion that she probably wasn't a hooker. There are plenty of hookers here and most of them have the sense to be more subtle than that. If you were going to an office Halloween party and decided to go as a hooker, this is the kind of outfit you might come up with.

Or say you were watching a 1980's cop-buddy movie about two mismatched cops forced to work together in some really seedy precinct. You know how the director will inevitably do one of those establishing pan shots of the police station where they always have a couple of hookers standing around looking surly while they're waiting to be booked? She would have been listed in the credits as "Hooker #2".

I don't know why I mention this, it's not all that important. In fact, both of these things almost slipped under our radar. It makes me wonder what other weird stuff we barely even notice now. This is where we live, folks. A place where Idaho Finger Steaks and aging hookers can coexist in peace and harmony and nobody bats an eye at it.

I'm wearing sandals... somebody shoot me.

2006-03-28T16:50:00.000-08:00

This is a sure sign T've worked at a shoe company too long. I'd never thought I'd be wearing sandals ever. But this is the kind of job where wearing sandals to work is not only acceptable, it's downright normal. And this is the kind of climate where sandals are going to feel pretty good in a couple of months. I compromised and got myself a pair of closed-toe "fishermen's sandals" which kind of look like Roman footwear I guess. They have shoe-like support and keep your feet cool but at the same time I am not frightening the world with my hideous toes. I never thought I'd be excited over a shoe purchase, especially sandals. Lord help me.

There is a new post, honest there is

2006-03-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

Scroll down this page to February 14th and you'll see my review of the new Hooters casino. For some reason Blogger isn't letting me change the dates anymore.

A tale of two casinos...

2006-02-21T17:54:00.000-08:00

Hi all! Long time no blog. As usual, just when life gets really interesting and bloggable, there's no time to write it all down.

I've been working at the Westin Casuarina for 22 days now as a dual rate - that's a part time dealer/part time pit boss job - and today is my third day off since I started. Kinda had to jump right into it there! Also have been trying to adapt to a swing shift/graveyard shift schedule. I've always been a night owl, but working 7AM-3PM for the past few months made it a bit tough to make the jump to 5PM, 8PM, and even 10PM start times!!!

Scheduling adjustments aside, I have no complaints about the new job. The people who work at the Westin have been very warm and welcoming, and the customers are pretty cool too.

Some comparisons between the old job and the new one...

New employee orientation and benefits: At the truck stop, consists of, "The bathroom is over there, you can put your purse here. You can get a 10% discount at Burger King, and free coffee. Once you're here for 6 months you can buy insurance...never mind, no one stays here for 6 months."

At the Westin, orientation is a 5 hour paid meeting, where fresh fruit, danish, coffee and juice is provided in the morning, lunch is brought in at noon. Executives are introduced to the staff, videos and power point presentations are provided. Benefits are carefully explained, which include medical, dental, life, vacation, and free access to the employee dining room for hot and cold meals, salads, fruit and drinks.
The timing of this meeting left something to be desired though - got off work at 1AM, then had to be back at 7:15AM for the orientation. That's like a 9-to-5er getting off work at 5, then having to return at 11:15PM for a meeting till 4AM. Ugh!

Location: Westin - a block away from the center of the famous Las Vegas Strip on Flamingo Ave.
Truck stop - a block off the glamorous interstate highway on Industrial Drive.

Players: Truck stop - Mostly drivers, a few locals and some stranded travelers. The teeth-to-people ratio just barely in the double digits. Some of the more clueless ones split 10s, double down on hard 14s, and hit on hard 17.
Westin - Full compliment of teeth, primarily business travellers at conventions, a few locals. Some of the more clueless ones split 10s, double down on hard 14s, and hit on hard 17. (Cluelessness abounds in every walk of life.)

Comps: At the Westin, we rate customers' play and award them comp dollars to use towards lodging, at our restaurant, or at the gift shop. At the truck stop, customers who buy in for a couple hundred dollars may be offered a free creamsicle from the freezer conveniently located in the pit. If a customer bitches enough or is tipping really well, we can give them a coupon for Burger King. they can eat at burger King, bring the receipt to our cashier's cage, and be reimbursed for it.

Drinks: At the Westin, silicon-enchanced servers in short black dresses bring free cocktails to players. At the truck stop, any dealer who is on break will be happy to bring you a can of soda. If you're a real high roller, they just might overlook the bottle of Ripple you're hiding in a brown paper bag under the table.

Stakes: At the Westin, when a player is wagering black cheques (one black cheque = 100$), dealers must alert the pit bosses by calling "Black action". The truck stop...has never bothered to have black cheques made. Max bet = 25$.

That being said, I have no regrets about breaking in at the Truck Stop. I learned an awful lot there, met some interesting people, some very nice ones, and some surprisingly educated and sophistcated ones too. I mostly had a good time there. Boy it feels good to move up a bit though!

Working again tomorrow, so grabbing some rest while I can. Will try to write more soon though!!

2006-02-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

I hear the Northeast got a foot and a half of snow. We've got lawn sprinklers going here.

The Trouble With Hooters

2006-02-14T16:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, Hooters, the restaurant chain known for shapely waitresses wearing tight shirts and short shorts now has its very own casino in Las Vegas. On the surface you might think this is a can't lose idea. How could such a concept NOT work in a town like Vegas? Well, I checked it out today and honestly, I have my doubts.

Without question, the one constant in this area is change. We've been here just six months and already we've seen three casinos close (Bourbon Street, Westward Ho, and Boardwalk) and two new ones open (South Coast and Hooters). A third new casino, Red Rock Station, will be opening in a couple of months. The new Hooters Casino is located just off Las Vegas Boulevard on Tropicana Ave. It's a terrible location even though it's right off of the Strip. Nobody knows it exists except for locals and people like me who spent way to much time locating all the casinos in Las Vegas. This particular building has been several casinos over the years, most recently it was the San Remo. I think it has been four or five different casinos in all. That should tell you something right there. It's sort of like one of the restaurants you may have in your local downtown area. One of the ones that changes owners, names and themes every six months. Nobody ever eats there but for some reason every sucker thinks they're going to turn it into a successful business. But anyway, I was dropping Andrea off at the Westin, so I thought I'd check it out as it was close by and they had just re-opened as Hooters a few weeks ago. Here are some observations for what it's worth.

First let me say they've done a nice job remodeling the building. I was only in the San Remo once and it seemed fairly bland and lifeless. The sign is the same as the San Remo only with the new Hooters logo but the outside of the building has been painted white with large black shadows of palm trees on it. It looks pretty cool.

The inside is strange, I think the best way to describe it would be to say that it looks like a casino designed by people used to designing chain restaurants. Bright lights, funky decorations, unnecessary chrome fixtures. All they are missing are those fake antique signs offering "Mustache Rides - 10 Cents" and other stupid things. I think they were going for an "intimate" feeling but instead everything feels very cramped. The isles between the slots are very narrow and there isn't very much space separating the slots from the gaming tables. When I was in there, there was a live band playing. I was sitting at a blackjack table and the stage felt like it was about ten feet away. Needless to say, I couldn't hear a damn thing. I can't imagine how hard it has to be for the dealers and pit bosses to communicate in that kind of environment.

They also made the biggest mistake (that I'm aware of) in casino furnishing. Hardwood flooring. They do have some carpeted areas, mainly by the slots, but all the walkways were highly polished hardwood. There is a REASON you don't see casinos doing this! It's slippery, it's a pain to keep clean, and its going to be scratched to hell in six months. Casinos use colorful, patterned carpets so you can't tell just how dirty the damn things are getting.

The primary draw of Hooters is not the chicken wings, it's the shapely Hooters girls. Clearly this gimmick has served them well in the restaurant field. But what exactly is so special about an attractive, scantily clad woman in a Las Vegas casino? It would be like opening a strip club in a nudist colony. The Hooters outfits are tame compared to many casino cocktail waitress outfits. I can see much more cleavage a couple of miles down the road at Fiesta. Plus Fiesta has cheaper food and better games.

Another thing about the Hooters girls; they're aren't that many of them in there. They had a few Hooters girls dealing blackjack - they called them Calendar Girls tables I think - there was a Hooters girl opening the door for people and of course the cocktail waitresses but the rest where just the usual suspects of dour looking local dealers. When I first heard about the idea of a Hooters casino, I envisioned them being everywhere. They did have an amusing poster in one corner protesting Equal Opportunity (it had a picture of a guy in a Hooters outfit), I guess that's their way of saying "Don't bitch to us, the government made us hire these ugly people!".

So if the whole point of Hooters is negated in Las Vegas, how do they hope to compete? Sure, the curiosity factor is going to bring some people like me in (those that can find the place) but who's going to be coming back? What Hooters customer is going to be so slavishly loyal to the name brand that he's going to have to stay there every trip? I think their only hope is to have the entire casino staff be Hooters girls from the upper management on down. Make them wear their Hooters outfits during all company functions, even board meetings. Because let's face it, that's the kind of thing you need to do to stand out in Sin City.

Redemption!

2006-02-06T10:48:00.000-08:00

That's right, redemption. No, not for coach Bill Cower and his long lost brother Sgt. Slaughter. Not for the legions of Steelers fans that still remember the Neil O'Donnell Superbowl debacle from ten years ago. Redemption for me and my football sports betting season.

I gave up betting on football several weeks before the post season even started because my record had been pretty miserable. I only had two weeks where I came out ahead. If I picked a team it was a sure bet that they were going to lose. I'm pretty sure I'm the entire reason why the Patriots did not have a better year. My one pick in the post season playoffs was the Bengals over the Steelers in the AFC Wildcard game and we all know how THAT turned out. Second play of the game, Bengals star quarterback Carson Palmer goes down with a crippling injury that may not even be healed by the start of the 2006 season. The Steelers proceeded to crush the Bengals and Bengals fans curse my name to this day.

But I HAD to bet on the Superbowl. If your team is not involved in the game and you don't have a Superbowl party to go to, its the only way to have any interest in it at all. (No, I'm not watching a four hour football game just for the funny commercials.) I was torn on who to bet for. I have nothing against the Steelers and the way they tore through the playoffs was impressive. On the hand, I always like the underdogs and the Seahawks had never been to the big game before. I think my ultimate solution paid off the best. I put a money line bet on the Seahawks to win outright (no point spread) and then I filled out a couple of parlay cards.

Parlay cards are fun but they've also been the bane of my existence. They offer huge payoffs if you win, but to do that you have to correctly pick the winners of anywhere from three to ten or more matchups. One loser and you can throw the card away. Normally, you pick the winners of several different games, but since there is only one game at stake in this case you pick the winner of several different situations during the game such as who will score first, how many fumbles will there be and so on.

As a way to counteract my Seahawks bet, I filled out a $10 parlay card taking the Steelers -4, total sacks by both teams under 5, most points scored in second half, and the Steelers final score will end with an odd number. Picking 4 for 4 had 11 to 1 odds meaning my payout would be $110.

My sister had also wanted to bet on the game. She didn't really care what I bet on, so long as she could have the chance of winning a bunch of money for a $10 investment. So I filled out a parlay card picking five bets. Total fumbles lost by both teams under 2, most points scored in second half, Steelers final score will end in an odd number, Seahawks final score will end in an even number and here's the capper - the Steelers had to be the last team to snap the ball. 20 to 1 odds with a payoff of $200. I also did a couple of stand alone proposition bets. No score in the first 7.5 minutes of the game and no team would score three consecutive times.

Final score Steelers 21 Seahawks 10. I lost the Seahawks bet (obviously) and another parlay card bet. I won everything else. Total investment = $70. Total return = $355. Not a bad day at all.

The Seahawks' botched final drive really saved my sister's parlay card bet. They wasted the final two minutes of the game in a fashion that would have made Donovan McNabb proud. The Seahawks failed to score a touchdown (which saved my Steelers -4 bet) or a field goal, tried to go for it on fourth and long and ended up turning the ball over with three seconds left on the clock. If they had just kicked the field goal when they had the chance and gone for the onside kick - which was the intelligent thing to do - the Steelers would not have had the ball back for the one final snap.

The Seahawks had numerous opportunities to win the game, their defense shut down Pittsburgh for most of the first half. But they kept making dumb plays and the Steelers were there to capitalize on them. The Steelers did not play that well either. Roethlisberger and Jerome Bettis were not factors despite all the media attention. In fact, Roethlisberger's boneheaded interception in the red zone saved my "no team will score three consecutive times" proposition bet. My theory is simple. I think that somehow, some way, the Seahawks knew I had money on them and they were going to have to find a way to blow the game. By doing so they allowed me to win my other higher payoff bets. I'm pretty sure that if I had bet on the Steelers outright, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would have been mauled by wolverines and we would have seen Tommy Maddox suiting up.

Against all odds, everything magically worked out. I'm happy, my sister is happy, everybody is happy. Well, everyone except for Seahawks fans. Bring on NFL season 2006. I've got this all figured out now.

FYI

2006-01-30T17:28:00.000-08:00

This is The Western

This is The Westin.

Big difference. One caters to drunken vagrants, the other to drunken businessmen. Andrea started working at the latter one tonight. It's not The Strip, but it's a big step up from the truck stop!

Beware Arizona Long Legs

2006-01-29T15:39:00.000-08:00

Today we went to Searchlight, Nevada. Yes, that's the actual town name. We went there mainly because it's called Searchlight. This website claims there's tons of stuff to do there but we really didn't see evidence of it. Searchlight is "The Gateway To Lake Mohave". I just love places that call themselves the "gateway" to something. What that really means is, "you HAVE to pass through here to get to something interesting". Anyway... not much to say about it because we didn't stick around too long. It's an old mining community that seemed to be made up of trailer homes nestled into some small dull mountains. The drive out there was nice anyway. We should have kept going at that point, we were halfway to Needles, CA by then and I've always wanted to go there. Just because it's called Needles.

I'm a sucker for weird town names.

After this we went to the Hoover Dam, just because it was on the way back. It's amazing to think one of the greatest feats of human engineering is less than 20 miles from our house. Not that it's something I'd want to visit all the time, I'm finding that once every five years is sufficient. The traffic getting there was fairly horrendous (we somehow forgot it was a Sunday) but I didn't mind driving it because it's beautiful scenery out there. We spent as much time as we could there ( I wanted to justify waiting in all the traffic and paying for the parking) but there's just not that much to see if you're too cheap to pay for the tour.

I uploaded a picture of the dam to the blog but I took it down because I'd taken the exact same shot in 2001 with my real camera and it looked much better. I just wanted to post something to confirm that we'd been there. Instead I've replaced it with a photo I took of a poster we saw at the Searchlight Nugget Restaurant & Casino. It was a driver alert letting truckers know about a particularly skanky and devious hooker. I doubt the text above is legible, so let me transcribe it for you:

DRIVER ALERT / DRIVER ALERT

PHOENIX, AZ

ARIZONA LONG LEGS IS A TRUCK STOP PROSTITUTE WHO FREQUENTS THE OLD LIBERTY FUEL STOP @ 1201 N 59TH PHOENIX, AZ

MEXICAN FEMALE/48YRS/5'11"/HABITUAL USER OF CRANK/ IN AND OUT OF ESTRELLA JAIL / HAS COLLECTED INFO ON DRIVER'S THAT LET HER IN TRUCK UNDER PLEAS TO LET HER USE C.B. RADIO / HAS THEN SHOWN UP UNANNOUNCED AT DRIVER'S TRUCKING COMPANY. DO NOT LET HER IN YOUR TRUCK!!! DON'T RISK HAVING YOUR EQUIPMENT CONFISCATED BECAUSE SHE CARRIES DRUGS AND PARAPHENIAL (sp) AND IS UNDER SURVEILLANCE BY T.D. WALL. IF APPROACHED BY ALICE/ALICIA CALL MARICOPA COUNTY SHERRIF'S 1-800-352-4553 OR PHOENIX POLICE 1-602-426-1231

TRUCK DRIVER'S WIVES AGAINS LOT LIZARD'S(*) - T.D. WALL

You know, I don't even know where to start with this poster. I guess I'll just allow you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions. I get the feeling there is quite an interesting story behind it. But I'm not here to judge, I'm just providing a public service by passing along the information.

It's a different world out here, alright.

(*) What's a Lot Lizard? Try the following links below or consult your local library.

Wikipedia definition

Handy Lot Lizard stickers

The Day After The Night Before

2006-01-22T09:14:00.000-08:00

My mouth is dry and gluey. My head is pounding and feels like it's the size of a beachball. I can barely see, other bodily functions seem to be having random difficulties and I can't get the song "Funkytown" out of my head. I'm more hungover than I have been in quite some time and I've got the Zappos holiday party to thank for it.

Okay, I've had a hot shower, I walked to downtown Henderson and had some breakfast and got a couple of four-of-a-kinds playing video poker. I still feel like someone stole a couple of pints of my blood while I was sleeping, but I think I can continue with my story now.

We need a little compare and contrast here so let's flash back to almost exactly one year ago and the Comcast holiday party. It was a dinner cruise down the Delaware River aboard the "Spirit Of Philadelphia". It sounds like a wonderful idea on paper but there were some huge drawbacks. First, it was mid-January and it was frickin' freezing. Temperatures at the time were below 20 degrees not adding in the windchill. The only people that ventured onto the deck were the ones desperate for a cigarette. It really defeats the purpose of a boat cruise if it's too cold to enjoy the fact that you're on the water. Secondly, the Delaware River is lovely as long as you don't look directly at it. Then you start seeing just how polluted and dirty it really is. Plus it's not like a cruise on the Delaware offers you a nice nighttime view of Philadelphia. There is quite a lot of industry along the river so what you mainly see is a large number of gloomily lit piers and loading docks. Very romantic.

So what we had was a couple of hundred people crammed in a claustrophobic dining area below decks (Comcast didn't spring for the nicer accommodations on the upper level) with low ceilings and windows that kept frosting over. As the the boat slowly trundled down the river passing floating tires and dead seagulls we were treated to a very limited and bland buffet (not as bad as the Gold Strike however, thanks again for setting that bar for me) and given a couple of tickets for complementary watered down drinks. Oh, and then there was the entertainment. This group of young women and men would occasionally swoop down to our cramped quarters and start singing and dancing. Badly. One of the sound system's speakers was directly above our table. I had such a pounding headache from these "entertainers" that I just wanted to reach out and throttle one of the crooning assholes.

I know, I know, it was a free meal and I got to leave early from work. How bad could it have been, right? Let's put it this way. The cruise was scheduled to last three or four hours I think. About an hour and a half in, someone became ill so they had to turn around and go back to the dock. They apologized for this but said that the boat would stay at the dock for the remainder of the evening and we could continue the party there. The minute we got to the dock, people started exiting for the parking lot so fast you would have sworn the ship was sinking.

So here we are, a year later in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. The Zappos holiday party was held at the Studio 54 nightclub in the MGM Grand hotel/casino. This is the kind of club people wait in line for hours just to get into. Extremely hip (like am an expert), all sorts of minimalist art around the place. The walls are covered with black and white photos depicting coke-fueled, bisexual debauchery from what I'm assuming was the original Studio 54 disco in the 1970's. Large, well-dressed security guards greet you politely and then keep a close eye on you. They've got a dress code and everything. Most places we frequent just require shoes and a shirt.

Studio 54 normally opens at 10pm, but ours was a private party from 7pm to 10pm. We had the entire club to ourselves, complete with appetizers and a totally free open bar for the duration. As if that weren't enough, after the club opened a VIP room was available to Zappos employees where we were promised 30 to 40 more bottles of hard liquor. 30 to 40 bottles of hard liquor for maybe 300 people tops, most of which had probably passed out by then. And the entertainment? Scantily clad go-go dancers in cages hanging from the ceiling. It sure beats singing and dancing idiots on the Delaware River, I'll tell you that.

As I already said, Studio 54 is a hip nightclub in a 24-hour town filled with hip nightclubs. Don't ask me how it compares to any other place because I couldn't tell you. Dark surroundings with flashing lights, pounding music and pressing crowds are not something I like to wait in line for. Add booze into the mix and the whole thing is like an exercise in sensory deprivation to me. Make no mistake though, my employer offers me a private party at such a place with free booze and I'm there with bells on.

Another problem with that Comcast party I mentioned is that Andrea never really got an opportunity to talk to my coworkers, many of which I wanted her to meet. Everything was laid out banquet style, so once you picked a spot you were pretty much stuck with it. After dinner people did get up and mingle a little but it was fairly awkward. This was not the case with Studio 54, but then again I imagine half the point of a nightclub is mingling and meeting people for whatever deviant reasons you may have. The interior of the club is done up in black and is a maze of stairs and alcoves and tucked away bars. There are plenty of darkened, isolated corners with couches where people can get up to god knows what. Shortly after we got there, we found my friends Shannon and Kathy and located a place to sit with their respective husbands. None of us could really hear and after a while our communication skills were deteriorating anyway but still it was fun.

I have vague recollections of introducing Andrea to several of my coworkers over the course of the evening but quite a number of them I never managed to locate. Most were probably out on the packed dance floor. I'm sure they were there somewhere. I didn't know of many people not planning to attend. The people that didn't go really missed out, I've never seen such a wild company party. There were no speeches made, no awards given out, no attempt to force everyone to participate in some asinine group activity. Just a lot of people partying like shoes were on sale for $19.99.

There were very few things at all that reminded you that you were at a corporate function and none of them could be blamed on Zappos. Here's my short list of complaints:

No top shelf booze. That was disappointing. Everything was mid range. And the bartender refused to make me a Long Island Iced Tea when I asked for one, which in retrospect was probably just as well.
The appetizers were fantastic and trendy. Lots of seafood, lots of stuff with cilantro in it. But the banquet staff swooped in and packed everything away around quarter to nine. While this was happening, an announcement came over the speakers saying "Last call for food, everybody." Bastards.
The party ended abruptly at 10pm. The music stopped and the bright house lights came up leaving us standing around blinking and confused. "Thank you Zappos and good night, now make way for the paying customers!" (okay, they didn't really say that but you get the idea)

True to the partying reputation of the Zappos crew, everyone seems pretty well tanked by 10pm. Andrea and I each had five drinks in what was about two and a half hours. It really did make sense at the time. And these were STRONG drinks! Nothing was watered down here. I think I realized how drunk I was shortly before the party ended. I caught up with Kevin, one of the guys from my training class. While Andrea chatted with Kevin's girlfriend, we tried to have a conversation. It was nearly impossible to hear and just as hard to concentrate on the act of forming words. But that was okay, he looked as drunk as I was. I think the whole conversation was something like this:

"Good party, huh?"
"Yeah!"
"Have you seen Jen around?"
"Who?"
"Jen!"
"What?"
"Having fun?"
"Yeah!"

I could tell we both wanted to communicate but it just wasn't gonna happen.

We staggered out at 10pm. Both of us knew that getting home from this was going to be a problem, so the plan was to walk around the Strip until we sobered up. I can safely say I've never been quite that drunk on the Strip. It was fun, I've never felt more like a real Las Vegas tourist than I did last night. Even though I only remember bits and pieces of the next couple of hours one thing really struck me: this town is really made for drunks. It's filled with pretty lights, easy to navigate walkways, a million ways to lose your money, and the casino staff will leave you be as long as you're not causing trouble. Plus none of the other tourists are going to be offended by your antics because most of them are as drunk as you are. Like Hunter S. Thompson wrote, "This town loves a drunk. Fresh meat."

I remember walking across the street to New York New York and finding myself at the Sic Bo table. The dealer wouldn't let Andrea play because she didn't have ID on her! I guess it should have been flattering, but considering we weren't carded at Studio 54 where we drunk our brains out, it just seemed annoying. I remember walking past the now closed Boardwalk Casino, thinking that no one was really going to miss it. I remember passing the "porn slappers" (groups of illegal Mexican immigrants who get paid to hand out pornographic cards advertising escort services) on the sidewalk, taking all the cards they would offer me, laughing and saying "Gracias!" to them. They seemed pretty happy that someone appreciated their hard work.

We went into the Monte Carlo after that just because it was there and observed how gay magician Lance Burton always looks in those photos. After that we went into the Bellagio and to the conservatory. I remember being disappointed that they were using the exact same Chinese new year decorations as last year, with the exception of the gigantic cocker spaniel to signify that this is the Year Of The Dog, apparently. We then took the tram back to Monte Carlo simply because we'd never done it before and eventually found our way back to the MGM parking lot. I think it was as this point that I realized Andrea was a lot more sober than me. I can't figure that one out, we drank exactly the same amount. Maybe she's been practicing in her spare time? (just kidding!) Either way, it was a good thing she was, we were able to get back home with no problem. Of course it was one in the morning and she had to be up in about five hours, but other than that everything was peachy.

So here I am, with a head full of fuzzy memories and a pocket full of porn cards. Yes sir, those are people that really know how to throw a party.

Buffet or alien autopsy?

2006-01-12T04:14:00.000-08:00

It's often been said that the best things in life are free. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to dispute that. Pictured above is a slice of cherry pie from the Bonanza Buffet at the Gold Strike in Jean, Nevada. I got two coupons for a free buffet just for being a member of the player's club. It was not "one of the best things in life". It was, without question, the worst buffet in the entire world. The food can best be described as "institutional". Indeed, with the number of senior citizens with walkers and oxygen tanks in the room, it felt much like lunch time at the nursing home.

The white board outside the buffet listed all the items available and it was a short list indeed: instant mashed potatoes, sweet and sour pork balls (?), mini-pizzas (which looked like they had bought frozen by the gross from Sam's Club), and pototo chips. Yes, they ACTUALLY LISTED POTATO CHIPS AS A BUFFET ITEM. Potato chips may be an appetizer, a side dish, a tasty snack, maybe even a garnish but they're NOT a buffet item. And you should certainly never proudly advertise it as one of your featured dishes. We should have known we were in trouble right then and there.

They even managed to mess up bread pudding. Bread pudding is one of the things you can find in the dessert portion of every Vegas area buffet and it's usually a pretty safe choice assuming you like it in the first place, which I do. It's almost always made the same way no matter where you go. Like all the casinos get it from the same Bread Pudding factory or something. So after eating some disturbingly bad food I figure at least I'd be safe with that. That's when I discovered to my horror that the Gold Strike puts candied fruit in their bread pudding. Candied fruit! So it doesn't taste like bread pudding at all, it tastes like friggin fruitcake and who honestly likes fruitcake??

In a way, I've got to thank the Gold Strike and the Bonanza Buffet. They've really set the bar for bad buffets. No matter where we go to eat from on at least we know it's not going to be as bad as the Bonanza Buffet.

Anyway... that was an awful lot of pointless venting over what was, after all, a free meal. But it needed to be mentioned and I feel better having said it.

Odds and ends

2005-12-29T12:12:00.000-08:00

I was running day shift the other day, and it occurred to me that I'm living in an off-color joke:

A Chinese woman, a Korean, and a Thai guy are dealing at a casino. A guy with cerebral palsy sits down at the blackjack table and says -

I have no idea what the punch line is. I think perhaps I am.

----------
So anyway, on a more politically correct note...

We've been gloating over the fabulous weather, cheap food and entertainment, and anything else we can think of, but it's finally time to tell you about some of the things we lack here - the DARKER SIDE of living in Vegas.

Before we moved here, we knew there were things we wouldn't be able to find here that we'd loved about the east coast. We knew that autumn leaves and a white Christmas were out of the question. We knew that Utz pretzels wouldn't be available here (because every billboard in Philadelphia has taunted other, presumably lesser cities about their Utzlessness). We knew that if culinary homesickness really struck we'd have to mail order pork pies from Thwaites in Methuen, MA and beg for care packages of TastyKake Jelly Krimpets from Philly.

But we had no idea that some of the most basic staples of life would be unavailable in a city as large, diverse, and sophisticated as this one. In this city, you can buy duck eggs, beef brain, or anything you could possibly need to make sushi. You can dine on savory goat and send clam jerky to your dearest friends. You probably won't be surprised to hear that you can get a good fuk in this town at any time of day or night, although the golden fuk is a bit tougher to find. (According to my boss, a fuk is a Thai vegetable resembling a zucchini. She had an embarrassing moment in her early days in the US when she asked her grocery boy for one while shopping with her American mother-in-law. Needless to say, Mom was not amused.)

Coffee, however, is a completely different story. Unless you're one of the trivial few gazillion people who enjoy Starbucks coffee, you're SOL here. If it weren't for Sue's care packages of Dunkin Donuts beans, we'd have forgotten what good coffee tastes like.

Apparently ginger ale never really caught on here either. It's never on the menu at restaurants, and supplies at grocery stores are pretty limited. And the only DIET ginger ale - which we consumed by the truckload back home - is a store brand we found after a search of several stores. It tastes like it's been run through the carburetor of a 72 Chevy. Weird, huh?

The biggest mystery is the whole pizza thing. Pizza places aren't on every street corner the way they are back home. I was delighted then to find one pretty close to the house in Henderson, and gleefully ordered a large pizza with onions and mushrooms. When, taste buds tingling, I picked it up, I almost fell over when the pizza guy said, "That'll be $19.78." In honest confusion, I tried to clarify: "Oh, no, my order was just for a large pizza." "Yes, large pizza, two toppings, $19.78". I really SHOULD have walked away, but it smelled sooo good, and I had nothing else for Peter and my dinner. So I paid it, feeling dirty and furtive. I couldn't even bring myself to admit to Peter until well after dinner what I'd paid for it.

I admit, it was good pizza, but I just can't justify paying THAT much again. Since then I've extended my search into other areas of town, and have found equally extortionate prices for a simple slab of dough with sauce and cheese. I just don't get it. Within a mile of the house we can get two eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, AND coffee (although as previously noted, it's not GOOD coffee) for NINETY-NINE cents. There are terrific buffets for under 10 bucks, and plenty of coupons around to get two for one on top of that. Maybe pizza costs more to produce here; the pizza trees just don't grow well here or something.

Really though, the food here is pretty great overall. I think the only reason I find these few culinary gaps so remarkable is because there is SOOOO much good food here that it seems really strange that these few odd lacks exist.

Another disappointment here is the wildlife, particularly the local birds. I always enjoyed the cheerful robins and cardinals on the east coast and loved listening to the antics of the mockingbirds. Visiting Peter's parents in MN, we found even more varieties of birds. A bird lover would visit the Northeast and die happy. He would visit Minnesota and hope to go back there when he dies. That same bird lover would visit Las Vegas and just wish he were dead. All we have here are these little brownishgreyishblackish birds that go "SQUACKKKKKK" all day. In the more urban neighborhoods there are pigeons too, but mostly just the ugly little brackish squacking birds.

So those are my gripes about Las Vegas. I'm really bitter about them. And when I go out in a minute and see the sunset setting the mountains aglow after a perfectly blue 64 degree day, and watch the lights come on, turning the city into a glittering jewel, I hope you feel some sympathy for me. After all, after you finish shovelling out your driveway and scraping off your windows, you can go to Dunkin Donuts for a good cup of coffee.

It's a Christmas Miracle!!!

2005-12-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

Hmm, well maybe it's just Christmas Serendipity. OK, OK, it's only Christmas Happenstance. Still, it's pretty cool. Peter's mother gave me the kit for this amaryllis when she visited in November. Despite my herbicidal tendencies and much to my own surprise, the plant grew like crazy almost immediately after I planted the bulb. Maybe this is because Cecily's kit included the bulb, soil, planter, and - most importantly - instructions. It was pretty well Andrea-proof.

After just a couple weeks of rapid growth, we came home on Christmas Eve and found this flower! Isn't it pretty?? It bloomed all at once while we were at work on the 24th. It was a fun Christmas surprise, that's for sure. Thanks Cecily, we really have enjoyed watching this plant grow!

Oh Tannenbaum....

I think everyone who reads this blog knows about the fairly seedy casino where I work, so I don't need to name names here. This particular casino attracts some colorful characters, so I've learned to answer any unusual conversational gambit with a nonthreatening smile, a noncommital nod, total avoidance of eye contact, and a rapid getaway.

In my first few weeks at the casino, I hadn't mastered the fine art of the escape (now a seasoned veteran, I am to unwanted conversations what Houdini was to handcuffs). I collected some real oddballs then, especially when I was working the graveyard shift.

For example, one night in the ladies' room, a woman explained to me that she'd been Pochahontas in a previous life. She pulled a feather from her garishly pink sequined handbag, and held it to her head so i could get the full effect and truly appreciate the likeness. It took me a good five minutes to get away. In later encounters, this same person enlightened me about the dangers of Halloween (the demons fight to the death at midnight, and human souls are in jeopardy) and many other issues of social and political import.

My favorite fruitcake was a man who played blackjack with me one day, and seemed completely normal, despite an annoying tendency to whine after each losing hand, and a complete blind spot about tipping. I was happy enough to get away from the whiner when my time was up, so was quite irritated when he followed me to lunch, where he explained that he was the heir to the family who created 7-Up. The Mafia kidnapped him - the family's seventh child, and thus the inspiration for the famous soft drink's name. In order to ransom him, the family had been forced to sell all their 7-Up stock to Pepsico (which is owned by the Mafia, doncha know). He's currently in the Witness Protection Program. When I finally made my escape, I advised him in confidential tones that he needs to be very careful who he shares such information with, that anyone could be listening to us, and I'd hate for anyone to catch up with him because he was talking to me. "Shhh," I said. "Keep your eyes open...I'll keep watch back at the tables."

I'm learning though. So when a few weeks ago, a woman with a suspiciously kind smile walked up next to me and asked, "Would you like a treeeee?" in a singsong voice, I looked her warmly in the left earlobe, said, "thanks, I'm good...nope, really, all the trees I need, thanks" and sidled away. Little did I know that the speaker wasn't a participant in our Visiting Mumbler program, but an actual normal person engaged in commerce. I learned later that she was selling little bushes like the one pictured above. I ended up buying one from her for 5 dollars, and that's our little tree for the year. It's little, but it's festive, darn it. Especially with Susie's Dunkin Donuts ornament hanging jauntily from its boughs (thanks Sue!!)
-----
I've been thinking of you all this Christmas, and I'd much rather be with YOU nutjobs than the local crazies. =) I hope everyone had a great day!! Big hugs! -Andrea

Back to the beginning, part one

2005-12-19T19:11:00.000-08:00

There's just one problem with having Experiences - you get so busy living them that you don't have time to think or write about them. And that's a shame, because I really want to record this stuff.

I STILL haven't said much here about the trip from NJ to Las Vegas itself. Peter has done a masterful job of documenting the journey, but I have just a few thoughts of my own to add.

Leaving New Jersey on August 23 was pretty hard. I'd known it would be, but still wasn't prepared for just how painful it would be to lock the door of the house that had been the happiest home of my adult life and drive away. Sure, the biggest reason FOR that happiness was sitting next to me holding my hand, but it was still tough. South Jersey had always been my touchstone, my point of reference. Peter and I would drive down some street, and I'd be able to tell him how I'd taken dancing lessons right THERE when i was a kid, or that was where my soccer games were.

I knew too that I'd miss autumn leaves, the first snow of the winter, and most of all, my wonderful family and friends. My feelings on that last part are so deeply rooted I can't even chat here about that, but let's just say that was a big drawback. BUT (deep breath) I knew the internet, telephone, and airlines would allow me to stay close to the people I care about, and that they still love me just as much as I love them.

I was still thinking about home and my parents in particular as we sped through Pennsylvania and into Ohio. Despite myself, I started to get excited about the journey - and of course, the destination!

The Trip

It's one thing to recite the well-known fact that New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the US. It's quite another to get out past the eastern seaboard and FEEL what that really means.

As early along the trip as Indiana, we started to feel the vastness of the country stretching out before us. There's a whole WORLD out here to explore!!! Peter gave you the details of the trip in earlier entries, so I'll only hit the highlights. My three favorite parts of the trip:

MN - I loved Minnesota, and immediately saw why Peter's parents might have chosen to live there. Garrison is green and lovely, with the feel of unspoiled country, yet within arm's reach of anything you could possibly want or need in the Twin Cities. MN is renowned for its lakes, of course, but I have to believe that Mille-Lacs is a particularly beautiful one.

Just one thing about Minnesota that puzzled me. I'd describe the average Minnesotan as unflappably calm and endlessly resourceful and competent; they'll move the whole house two feet to the left if it needs to be done, and they'll do it quickly and efficiently too, but won't make any fuss about it, and appear to do it without stress. But these same people drink coffee CONSTANTLY from sunrise till bedtime. You'd think they'd be bouncing off the walls from the caffeine, but no, solid as rocks.

Wisconsin - Driving through Wisonsin is like slipping into a swimming pool that is exactly the perfect temperature - cool and soothing, almost nourishing. The green rolling hills were delightful, and I was sorry we didn't have more time to stop and visit the Dells. I know we'll be back there to visit again sometime.

Oh...and it's not just something that people say, Wisconsin really IS all about the cheese.

Wyoming - Wyoming is kind of the Anti-Wisconsin. Bleak,dry, almost jarring. But somehow, Wyoming was my favorite state to visit. The desolate beauty and wildness really hit me. I couldn't believe there was a state whose largest city was smaller than Cherry Hill, NJ (by quite a bit, actually). I could never live in a place like Wyoming, and I suspect it takes a very special kind of person to carve a life out of that arid country. But it still haunts me, and I know I'll be back again.

------

Stay tuned for part 2, dealer school. If I keep up at this same pace, I should have this blog entry done by, oh, say, May.

God Bless the USA

2005-12-12T19:25:00.000-08:00

Monday night we went down to Freemont Street. It's always fun to go down there (especially now when we're not there every day living out of hotels). We hadn't made the trip since my mother was here a month ago. We ate the buffet at Main Street Station, something that we'd manage to miss in the three months that we've lived here, excellent as always and worth checking out if you're staying downtown. After that we walked under the canopy of the Experience down to Fitzgeralds so Andrea could play her favorite Loose Deuces machine.

It was fairly busy for a cold Monday evening in December and all the usual suspects were out. The timeshare guys were out in front of Four Queens, the bead girls were freezing their butts off in front of LaBayou, the Kenny G wannabee sax guy and the sidewalk airbrushing guys were drawing their usual crowd, and some generic country rock band was banging out cover songs on one of the stages. The only thing we missed seeing was the Piano Rig guy, who was actually pretty talented. In his place was some sort of Charlie Daniels-type person who was probably singing songs about loving the USA and kicking foreigner's asses. It's odd because you see these same faces so often that you feel like you know them, its like being a part of a very strange little community.

So little of the entertainment in Las Vegas is original. Everybody here seems to be a watered down knockoff of somebody else. Even acts that are original; old Vegas mainstays like Wayne Newton, The Doobie Brothers, The Moody Blues, Neil Diamond and the like, are pretty darn safe. They're tried and true and they've got a well established, aging fan base. Vegas may be risque when it comes to entertainment but it sure isn't edgy.

Fitzgeralds has the perfect example in one Mr. Larry G. Jones. Fitz seems to have trouble keeping entertainment acts and Larry G. Jones is their latest attempt. He's the generic form of "comic entertainer" that describes about 90 percent of the acts in Vegas. Which means he sings, tells jokes, does impersonations. Hell, he probably dances and does magic tricks too for all I know. He's billed as "The Man of 1002 Voices" or something like that. Which means that he does impersonations of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Pee Wee Herman - you know, all the impersonations that absolutely everyone else has done to death. The posters in Fitzgeralds claim that he has been called "The next Danny Gans". But be honest here, if you don't live in or regularly visit Vegas, do you have any idea who Danny Gans is? For the uninformed, Danny Gans is a similar kind of comic entertainer except his show is at the Mirage and will cost you a hundred bucks a ticket. (As opposed to Larry's which will cost $22.) He's a big name in Vegas and his picture graces the huge Mirage sign that used to hold the frightening visage of Siegfried And Roy. So basically - Larry G. Jones is considered (by somebody) to be ALMOST as good as a guy who has made his living imitating other, more talented people. That's quite a statement!

All the promotion for Larry G Jones' show has the smell of desperation about it. Flyers are plastered everywhere with pictures of Larry in various "hilarious" costumes pulling goofy faces like an eleven-year old class clown. There's advertising for his show everywhere within a hundred yard radius of Fitzgeralds. Even worse, if you're downtown on the right evening you can see Larry HIMSELF out on the street trying to get people to come to his show. That's just sad. It's like some poor kid begging people to come to his own birthday party.

Larry is a short guy with bleach blonde hair and if you see him downtown he'll probably be wearing a pair of huge plastic ears. (Because nothing says comedy like huge plastic ears.) Like most short guys, he's overcompensated in the gym by giving himself huge biceps and chest muscles. The sight of him annoys me to no end, you just want to smack this guy repeatedly.

Wow, where was I? That was quite a tangent. We walked down to Fitz and Andrea headed up to the Loose deuces machine. I had no real gambling money on me and walking to the escalator would mean walking past Mr. G. Jones himself and I didn't feel up for that. I'm really tempted to go up to him one day and ask him for comped tickets in exchange for a review on our blog. I'd half expect him to say yes to that.

So I walked back up Freemont to LaBayou to get one of those big-ass frozen drinks. I hadn't had one in a couple of years I think. I've been dying to get one since we moved here but whenever we were downtown previously it just didn't seem like an appropriate time. It's so much harder to drink in Vegas when you actually have to think about driving home afterwards and getting up in the morning. I got the yard long Brainfreeze which supposedly contains Everclear. Eight bucks but oh so worth it if you want a buzz. I wisely turned down the extra shot for another dollar. I felt the effects of that drink well into the next day as it was.

I walked back down towards Fitzgeralds, taking my time and sipping my frozen drink in the 40+ degree weather. (I didn't see many other people with them I can tell you that.) I love the Freemont Street Experience. It's without question my absolute favorite place in Vegas. After all our trips and three months of living here I'm still not tired of the atmosphere. In part its all those weird regular characters I mentioned earlier but it's also watching those tourists who are taking it all in for the first time. It's a real sensory overload and it makes me happy just watching all the boggled folks walking around drunkenly.

As I'm walking back Andrea calls me on my cell phone, she tells me I've got to come see what just happened. She has finally hit a royal flush on this machine! This was Andrea's second ever royal flush. Just like me, she had got her first one just about week before while she was idlely playing a penny machine at Emerald Island. This time it's for nickels so it was a $200 jackpot! Andrea got her payment from the coin guy and decided to play down the rest of her original $20 that she had put in the machine. I'm was still drinking my drink and I had a good buzz going so I asked her for $20 that I could put in the quarter video poker machine next to her. I wasn't expecting much from it, but a couple of minutes of playing and I hit a four of a kind that paid $150!

We left a short time later, over three hundred dollars richer between the two of us. As we walked back up Freemont towards our car at Main Street Station, one of the older light shows was going off overhead. It was a patriotic one with the song "God Bless America". Maybe it was the booze, but I must admit it made me kind of misty eyed. After all, where the hell else could you have this kind of an evening?

Severe Weather Warning!

2005-12-10T09:10:00.000-08:00

Temperatures today are expected to only reach 57 degrees, the National Weather Service has suggested that Las Vegas residents may want to wear an item of clothing known as a "jacket". More information will be provided on where to obtain this strange item of clothing, emergency stations may have to be set up to hand them out. Sunny skies are expected with visibility of only 10 miles. Keep a lookout this afternoon for a meterological phenomenon known as a "cloud". Do not panic, we have been informed that they are harmless.

(Nope, I won't be getting sick of this any time soon.)

Lucky in Jean... Again

2005-11-28T10:48:00.000-08:00

No that's not some holy statue, its a reverential shot I took of one of the big cowboy statues out in front of the Gold Strike in Jean, Nevada. Although maybe he's some kind of gambling god. The cowboys are on either side of the entrance and they are stooped down panhandling for gold. The cowboy's image is all over the casino, I've never seen a name attached to him but it's probably something clever like "Panhandlin' Pete", because these guys always seemed to be named "Pete" or "Bart". As I've mentioned before, Jean isn't much of a town. In fact, I don't think it counts as an actual town at all. There are two MGM-owned casinos, Nevada Landing and The Gold Strike. There is also some kind of correctional facility, an airstrip, a gas station, and a sign that says JUSTICE COURT with an arrow pointing off in some vauge direction. JUSTICE COURT sounds like one of those cheesy daytime court TV programs. "Judge Jack Justice lays down the law on JUSTICE COURT! Weekdays on UPN!" Anyway, the strange part is that there don't seem to be any houses, I'm pretty sure everyone who works here has to commute the 20 or so miles from Vegas to do it.

The fact is, there is no good reason to go back to Jean once you've seen it. They try to lure tourists with low room rates and "Old Vegas Atmosphere" but from what I've seen most of their clientelle are truckers stopping overnight and seniors who are shuttled in from god knows where. So why do I keep driving back down there every few weeks? One reason is that I really enjoy the drive, it's a nice stretch of open desert with mountains all around but it's mainly because I keep having incredible luck when I go there.

True story. I went down there Monday morning and threw a five dollar bill into a old reel nickel slot machine. Most of the machines in Jean are pretty old and everything is still coin in/coin out; which has gone from being the norm to a novelty in a space of about four years. This is the same machine I hit a sixty dollar jackpot on a month or so ago. I end up cashing out for $20 after a couple of minor jackpots. I take that $20 over to the Bonus Poker machine that I won $100 on when I went down here last with my mother (see a trend here?). After a decent amount of play I hit four queens and I'm able to cash out for $40. I take this $40 over to their one open $5 blackjack table. (They've got a $3 game as well but it's dealt out of a shoe.) I buy in for a total of $60, figuring at the very worst I'll play away my $40 and leave having only spent five bucks. I ended up cashing out... no kidding... for $190. I would have played longer too, I was having incredible luck, but seeing as how it was early and I was the ONLY person playing, the pit boss and the shift boss were watching me like hawks once the red chips started piling up. I colored up for a black and three greens, gave the dealer the extra red and took the $10 in silver I still had over to a $1 Deuces Wild machine. A couple of minutes later I cashed THAT out for $25. So I ended up walking out of there after a couple of hours with $175 more than I came in with.

All that entertainment on a five dollar bill? Reason enough to go back to Jean if you ask me!

reposting...

2005-11-27T09:44:00.000-08:00

Mom at the monsterous Bass Pro Shop in Silverton Casino.

Just reposting this picture I took while my mother was here.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-25T07:09:00.000-08:00

A Thanksgiving meal of our very own! It may not look like much, but our Thanksgiving spread was more than enough for the two of us and it made a welcome change from eating out. Andrea did a great job on everything. My contribution was an attempt to make Norwegian potato lefsa, when done properly it should resemble a potato crepe or very thin tortilla. Unfortunately mine came out more like chewy hockey pucks.
We may be thousands of miles away from our families this year but we have a great deal to be thankful for.
We both have jobs, I seem to even like mine despite the fact that it's in a call center. We live in an area where it still hits 70 degrees at the end of November and we still see plants flowering. I talked to my parents and it was 16 degrees and windy in Minnesota. We live in a nice area and we've got a very cool landlady/roommate. We're far enough away from the craziness of Las Vegas but close enough that we've got 24 hour entertainment when we want it. I can watch (and bet on) any sports team I like every weekend without having to pay for a sports package. We engineered a cross country move pretty much totally by ourselves in the space of three months. When I look back on everything we did I'm still amazed by it.

Pete's can't lose NFL picks for week 11

2005-11-19T10:08:00.000-08:00

(home team in caps)

Panthers -3 over BEARS
Jaguars -4 over TITANS
Dolphins +2 over BROWNS
Seahawks -12 over 49ERS
BENGALS +5.5 over Colts
BRONCOS -13 over Jets
Chiefs -6.5 over TEXANS
PACKERS -4 over Vikings

Giving my accuracy with NFL picks and the fact that my gambling luck in general is bound to go south, just do the opposite of everything here and you'll be a guaranteed winner.

The Luckiest Place On Earth

2005-11-19T08:48:00.001-08:00

That is what I am offically changing the name of the Rebel gas station on Warm Springs and I-215 to. For the second time in just over a week, I got a royal flush there as I was killing time before work. Even better, this time it was dealt to me. Meaning that I did not have to draw a single card. I was just playing away and BAM! the machine throws me a royal flush. (And to confirm what the fine folks at the urban legends website Snopes.com already reported, it pays you off immediately when that happens. There is no chance for you to accidentally draw cards and lose it like so many hard luck gambling stories state.) Oh and the best part of this story? I had just increased my bet from pennies to nickels when this happened. Two hundred bucks, baby! Not bad for throwing a couple of dollar bills into a machine to kill half an hour. I tell you, I'm due for some really terrible gambling luck soon. Whatever happens, don't listen to my NFL picks for tomorrow, they really have to tank at this point.

Umm...

2005-11-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

Saw this sign on the dairy case at Food 4 Less the other day. I really don't want to know where "homo milk" comes from, do you?

Fears of Tears - Songs from the Big Chair *

2005-11-15T19:47:00.000-08:00

We hit town on August 30. I started my first dealing job on September 19. And today, less than two months later, I supervised the gaming tables in my little casino for the first time.

Are you impressed with my rapid ascent to the big chair? Well don't be. This dubious honor was bestowed on me for the simple reason that I was the dealer on day shift with the most experience - a definite sign that it's time for me to move on!!

The day should have been pretty easy. I had a bunch of paperwork to do, and had to count and divide all the tips for the dealers from the previous day, but no worries. It really should have been smooth sailing. I was actually kind of looking forward to it - after dealing for 15 days of the previous 17 (the last 7 in a row), I really didn't mind the idea of having a day where I could sit and watch and instruct rather than stand and deal.

But of course it wasn't that simple...you'd guessed that already, right? Today ALL but 4 of the slot machines in the casino were down today while the Ticket In/Ticket Out system was being installed. This kind of massive system overhaul might take place once every 5 years or so, so it's REALLY rare. My lucky day. =) So all the folks who wanted to kill some time and spend a few dollars gambling had nowhere to go but the gaming tables. Now, this would be good news normally. We like to keep busy, and empty chairs don't tip anyway. Having both tables jam-packed all day is the surest route to a full toke (tip) envelope.

But today's crew consisted of me (the supervisor - been dealing for almost two months, and supervising the pit for the first time today), Chris the "old timer" (he's been dealing for almost two weeks), and two new folks, both of whom are on their second DAY. And one of those two -let's call him Joe - clearly has NO idea what he's doing.

An example: Player stands on 13. Joe flips his cards, has a 16. He starts to take the player's money. When asked why, he says that 16 is higher than 13, so the house wins. (for those of you who don't play blackjack, the dealer must hit until he has 17 or more).

Well this would not necessarily be a nightmare. I could just make sure that I watch Joe very closely, and let him know when he needs to fix something. If only....if only...if only he spoke English.
Our conversations went something like this:
Me: "Joe, could you please make sure you pay from the right side of the rack first, not the left?"
Joe: Nods, smiles, deals another hand, pays from the left again
Me: "Joe, take chips from right (points to the right) when you pay, ok?"
Joe: "Right side, ok" Deals another hand, pays from left
Me: "Joe, take chip right side" (Trying desperately to pare away unnecessary words)
Joe: "Ohhh, RIGHT side. OK." Deals another hand, pays from the left again.
Me: Comes to table, taps out Joe, deals a hand "Joe, watch me please." Demonstrates paying from the right side of rack.
(In the meantime the players are snickering, and commenting about dealers not knowing right from left)
Me: "See? You can pay from RIGHT HERE." (Physically performing action the way it needs to be done). "Not HERE' (Shaking my head and making insane frowny face while pointing at the left side of the rack). "OK?"
Joe: "OK"
Me: "Great, tap me back out now"
Joe: Nods, smiles
Me: Tapping my own shoulder, "Tap"
Joe: "OHHH, tap"
Me: Tapping my own shoulder again"Tap me out please now Joe"
Joe: comes back to table, deals new hand, pays from left side.

Players are hooting with laughter by this point. Meanwhile, the Three Card Poker table has had two alert calls and one approval call that I've missed because I'm performing a vaudeville act on Blackjack. One player is talking on a cell phone (Nevada gaming violation). Another one just might be underage (we must check for ID). And the cage is calling to verify that another player took away 250 in chips to cash out.

The other new dealer needs a little help too, and her English isn't too hot either. She is SO much better than Joe that I'm not giving her the time she deserves anyway. It is so hard to communicate with both of them about the GAMES that I don't have the intestinal fortitude to try to explain some of the other dealer functions (I tried once to get Joe to get sodas for our players, but the order "One RC, one 7Up and two cream sodas" didn't fit in with his limited vocabulary. So I ended up running around getting drinks and emptying ashtrays too.

You know, I'm really impressed with people who take on a second language. I try to imagine not only learning to SPEAK a foreign language, but WORK in it, and know I couldn't manage it. But it's still very frustrating to try to explain procedures that need to be performed just SO to someone who can't understand, and who won't say when they don't understand. After a while, I also began to suspect that ol' Joe wasn't a rocket scientist in his first language either. I guess time will tell...the big boss speaks the same language as Joe, and when she comes back from her weekend, she may have better luck with him.

My extra compensation for taking on this responsibility today? 2 dollars and 57 cents. No, not per hour. For the DAY. If, heaven forbid, I start running a shift on a regular basis, I'll get an extra $6/day on top of that. I've already selected the perfect Happy Meal to buy with the extra money.

OK, I'm done griping...there really WERE some good things about this experience. And I think if I'd been working with folks who could speak the same language as me OR who had even a few days of experience OR we hadn't been insanely busy I'd have really enjoyed it.

*Note: For those of you who are of the wrong age group to know this, this title is an oh-so-witty reference to an album from the 80s by Tears for Fears. ....well, *I* thought it was funny anyway ;)

Squint really hard...

2005-11-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

And you just might see the royal flush I got yesterday! Andrea drops me off early on her way to work and I usually throw a couple of bucks in one of the penny video poker machines at the gas station down the street. First ever royal flush for me, the other players where not quite as impressed as I'd hoped. But then, most people who spend a lot of time gambling in convenience stores aren't the happiest sort. I got a whopping $40 return on my $3 investment. Too bad it wasn't a dollar machine!

(Yes, Blogger is still doing weird things to my cameraphone uploads.)

Mini vacation at home

2005-11-10T14:30:00.000-08:00

We dropped my mother off at McCarran International Airport yesterday morning. It was a very full three days and I'm sure she'd agree with that. I picked her up around 9am on Sunday, she was already pretty disoriented because she'd been up since 2am central time and walking into the Vegas-themed baggage claim at McCarran can be pretty hard on the sleep deprived brain.

Right from the airport I drove from Tropicana all the way up the Strip then over to the Sahara Commercial Center to where the Casino Gaming School is located. It was closed Sundays so there wasn't much for her to see anyway but the neighborhood is colorful enough on its own what with the churches, gay bars, transvestites, crack whores and Koreans. After that I drove her all the way back down the Strip ( just to make sure her brain was sufficiently overloaded) and got back on 215 (I refuse to call it THE 215 just yet) and headed to the Fiesta Henderson.

It was still too early for her to check in so I got her a players club card and parked her in front of a machine while I went home and got Andrea. Andrea was enjoying an amazing two days off after having work eight straight days and I had just put in five ten hour days myself but that didn't stop us from giving my mother the best time possible. We went back over to Fiesta and got their brunch buffet. Andrea and I have been to the Fiesta buffet more times than I'd like to admit in the last couple of months but we'd never had the brunch. It was really good and worth the price. I think it was $8.99 with the players card which is still a damn good deal for a Sunday brunch.

Later on we took her down to the Klondike Sunset Casino in Henderson for some 10 cent roulette. My mother likes cheap gambling even more that I do, it must be genetic. We got an awful lot of enjoyment out of our paltry buy ins. I think my mother bought in for $10 and cashed out for $8 after a good hour and a half of playing.

After that we took her down to Freemont Street. She did not get the proper exposure to the Freemont Street Experience on her last trip out with my sister because it was daytime and raining. We arrived just in time for one of the light shows, the only bad part about it being that the sound was blisteringly loud that night for some reason. After that we took her over to the Golden Gate for some of the big shrimp cocktail and watched the Piano Rig guy outside pound out "Flight Of The Bumblebee". If you've never seen this guy he's worth checking out. He's got a baby grand piano on the back of a semi truck parked in the middle of Freemont Street. Cheesy, yes, but he's pretty good.
Thankfully, there was none of the usual weekend live music downtown apart from the Piano Rig guy and the thoroughly annoying saxaphone player that we just refer to as "Kenny G". I know the live bands add to the party mood but it makes it unbearable to walk down the street because they tend to be very loud and surrounded by lots of drunk, disoriented tourists.

I also got a look at one of the new Binion's neon signs, the other side of the building is still a blank wall. Although I like the logo, I'm really not impressed with this new sign. It looks very cheap and plastic. On top of that, quite a lot of the neon on it wasn't working. The original was certainly a hard act to follow but I'm sure they've displeased some of their regulars with this new one.

After the shrimp cocktails and another light show we took my mom back to Fiesta for the night because she was pretty well exhausted.

Monday morning we picked her up around 9:30 and took her over to the Emerald Island Casino in downtown Henderson. The little cafe in Emerald Island has possibly the cheapest breakfast specials in the whole Las Vegas area and that's really saying something. They've got a steak and three egg special for $2.99, all you can eat pancakes for $1.99, and a two egg, bacon, toast and coffee special for 99 cents! Okay, so sometimes you've got to put up with a lot of secondhand smoke and people that aren't always friendly but the food is good. Our total for three people including a generous tip was less than $10.

Following that, we brought her over to see where we are living (I think our parents have been concerned that we're living in a cardboard box somewhere) then we took her down to the Strip. She had caught a glimpse of the monorail the day before and she really wanted to ride it so I figured why not? It was easier than fighting the Strip traffic. I parked at the Las Vegas Hilton and we walked through the cheesy Spacequest casino to the revamped monorail. I'm guessing they must have needed funding to get the monorail running again since it is now plastered with ads instead of being a simple white and blue like I remembered. I've always said that the monorail was great if you needed to get from one end of the Strip to the other so that's what we did, we rode it all the way to MGM Grand which gives you a perspective on the hotels that you couldn't get otherwise.

So we got to MGM, and after what felt like three hours of walking past trendy shops and restaurants, we finally ended up outside. We walked across the bridge to New York New York and proceeded to pay far too much for snacks at Starbucks. I guess in an effort to create an authentic New York City experience, everthing is ridiculously overpriced. Andrea wanted a can of soda until she was told it was $2.25. She laughed and walked off without buying it so you've got to admire her for that!

Another thing she didn't get to see on her previous trip was the conservatory at the Bellagio so we decided to head up there next. I suggested we take the bus, partly so we wouldn't get too tired but also so we could get to ride the new Deuce busses that have started showing up on the Strip route. They're basically a Vegas version of a double-decker bus, it's a great idea since it's such a busy route. So we crossed the street again and waited a good fifteen minutes along with a crowd of other people. During that time, a guy drove up in his sedan and announced to the crowd that he'd take up to four people in his car for $2 a person. He said he'd been doing this for twelve years (I've never seen anyone trying to pull this before) and that he'd give you plenty of free advice about Vegas as well - like that's in short supply! A couple of people actually got in! I'm sure most of us were brought up not to accept rides from strangers but I guess everyone has the "what the hell, we're in Vegas!" mentality when they're on vacation here. We finally got on the bus a few minutes later, and went what only felt like a few feet up to the very next bus stop and got off. I was SURE the Bellagio was farther away than that! Oh well, we got to ride the Deuce anyway.

We saw the fall display at the conservatory which featured some gigantic pumpkins that I still believe were fake, then we got a good spot right out front and saw the fountain show. After that we walked over to the Imperial Palace, laughted at the crappy "dealertainers", and got the monorail back to the Hilton.

For dinner we got the buffet at Boulder Station and while it's not one of the greatest buffet in the world, you really can't beat the price with the player's club card.

Tuesday morning I took Andrea to work and then my mother and I went across the road to Silverton. I'd never eaten there but I figured it was a fairly upscale place so maybe the food was good. My mother got some scrambled egg thing and I got the eggs and giant ham steak. I've become a huge fan of the giant ham steak since moving out here, I never saw this particular breakfast meat on the east coast. It's basically a huge slice of ham, bone and all, and normally it's about as big as your head. I can justify eating this because ham has less fat than steak, right? The ham steak at Silverton was a little disappointing. It was pretty thin, a little dry and not as massive as I like. Plus it was twice as much as the ham steak at Emerald Island. But the atmosphere at Silverton is much nicer without a doubt.

We checked out the Bass Pro Shops store in Silverton after that. I'd only seen the entrance of it and it certainly looked big but it's much larger when you get inside. I swear it must be about half the size of Silverton itself! We looked around for almost an hour and didn't see a quarter of the place. If you're a hunting or fishing enthusiast it's well worth checking out on your next Vegas trip.

In search of more good, cheap gambling, we drove down to Jean. I've talked about Jean previously and I've visited it since that first trip. I'm really getting to like it, much more than Primm, and the drive is very relaxing. I wasn't having much in the way of luck until I walked over to a quarter Bonus Poker machine and literally only put in five quarters. I got four aces on my very first hand, worth $100! I cashed out right away and took a bucketload of quarters to the cashier's cage. I spent the rest of the time there playing single deck blackjack. Unfortunately my mother didn't have the same kind of luck.

She wanted to see California since I explained we were very close to the border at that point so I kept going south on I-15 to Primm. We drove past the Primm exit and "presto!" we were in California. (For the record, it looked exactly the same as Nevada although when we crossed over the border I suddenly felt superior to everyone else and I wanted to elect an actor to political office.)

We stopped at the Nevada tourist information center in Primm and got some nice, free state maps. I also saw a curious thing. Right over the border, there is a tiny lottery store. People were lined up AROUND THE BUILDING to buy lottery tickets! Lottery is illegal in Nevada, apparently it's considered a conflict of interest. So residents drive miles out of their way so they can participate in the one and only form of gambling that they can't get in their own state! Yep, it's a different world out here. Behind Primm there is also some kind of dry lake bed, apparently it is some kind of wildlife preserve because you couldn't drive out there without a permit. Not exactly sure what was so amazing about it honestly, I took a picture of the sign and when I can actually upload it I will.
Apart from another bout of 10 cent roulette at the Klondike Sunset, that was more or less the end of our mini vacation. Now we're both back at our jobs and my mother is back in cold, cold Minnesota. I guess this is one of the advantages of living in Las Vegas and having a (more or less) regular job, I don't really get sick of going out gambling and seeing the tourist stuff since I don't see it during my normal day. Plus there's no jet lag and no expensive plane tickets or hotel rooms to pay for!

Having my mother here made me realize just how used we are getting to this area already, though. She thought the weather here was beautiful every day (it was in the 70's) while we thought it was just so-so because there were CLOUDS in the sky. She was gaping at the amazing nightime view of the valley from Henderson while for us it is already commonplace. So everyone, please keep visiting us! I never want to forget what a truly extraordinary place we're living in.

Technical difficulties...

2005-11-08T21:37:00.000-08:00

Ok, well as you can see from the pictures below Blogger is having some kind of image problems. It is not due to supernatural forces as I first surmised. I was able to upload these images from my camera phone to my email with no problem but when I try to upload them directly from my computer to Blogger they come out all strange like this

It's all my fault

2005-11-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

Well, the Patriots have finally blown their six game winning streak against the Colts. The game just ended, final score Colts 40 Patriots 21. The Colts are now a perfect 8 - 0 for the season while the Pats are a mediocre 4 - 4. If you want to know who to blame for this look no further. I picked the Patriots and made them lose.

I swore earlier this season that I wasn't going to pick them again. I got burned when they played Carolina and then later when they played the Chargers. But I just couldn't pass up the Colts game. I mean, c'mon! The Pats - Colts rivalry is a bit like the Sox - Yankees at this point. The Sox NEVER beat the Yankees (until last year of course) and the Colts could never get by the Pats. Even way back when the Pats constantly sucked and the Colts were in the AFC East you could always count on them winning those two division games. That's all over now, I guess.

What makes it worse for me personally is that had money on them. Not a LOT of money by any means but it was rather special circumstances. I did one of those silly mega teaser parlay cards which offer pretty poor payouts considering the long shot odds and the Pats - Colts game was the only one that didn't work out for me. Check this out:

Detroit / Minnesota under 45 (check)
Cleveland / Tennesee under 46 (check)
Chiefs +4 (check)
Chicago / New Orleans under 41 (check)
Cincinatti / Baltimore under 41 (check)
Texans +21 (not even they could blow that point spread, check)
Dolphins +10 (check)
Packers +13 (check)
Redskins +6 (check! alright just one more game...)
Patriots +11 ARRGH!

Why on earth didn't I just pick the over? What was I thinking?? Oh well, it was only a $5 bet. But it would have paid 9 to 1 which would have meant $45. So close. I'm never betting on the Patriots again, not even +11. I promise.

Hello, I'm Robert Stack

2005-11-07T09:22:00.000-08:00

Well, this was supposed to be a post with a picture of my mother. I picked her up at McCarran airport yesterday morning and she's been wandering around in a state of bewilderment ever since. I took this picture of her last night on Freemont Street shortly before we drove her back to Fiesta Henderson where she's staying. I just tried uploading the photo from my phone again and I'm getting a very weird result. The original picture is in the upper left. I have NO IDEA what the hell the photo of the baby in the pumpkin patch is all about.

Could this be our first clear evidence of ghosts? Why did this innocent camera phone upload produce an image of a child who died over twenty years ago? Next... on Unsolved Mysteries.

Pete's Lock of the Week

2005-10-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Buffalo Bills (+3) at Oakland Raiders
The Bills are coming off two home wins. Oakland sucks and I hate them. That's enough reason for me to pick the Bills. Trust me, you can't lose with this pick. I am 3 for 3 in my picks (if you don't count the ones I lost).

*UPDATE*

Final Score: Oakland 38 - Bills 17

The moral of the story is: I haven't a clue what I'm talking about.

Nevada's not all desert. Who'da thunk it?

2005-10-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

Some pics I took with the camera phone last Saturday at the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area. Pretty darn cool, we got up to 7,650 feet and the climate was totally different. We even had to wear jackets! More on this later when I've got the time.

2005-10-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

2005-10-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Hey, jerky!

2005-10-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

So I dropped Andrea off at work this morning and I decided to go downtown so I could get a good cup of coffee. We haven't seen any decent coffee since we left Omaha, it seems to be an alien concept in the western United States. There are no Dunkin' Donuts in Vegas at all for some strange reason. There are a few Krispy Kremes but they are strictly in the tourist areas. Outside of that the best coffee you're going to find is at 7-11. A scary thought.

So I went to the Krispy Kreme in Fitzgeralds and walked up and down Freemont Street with my coffee. The Freemont Street Experience canopy on a weekday morning is one of my favorite places in Vegas. Very few tourists are awake yet so it's just you along with a couple bicycle cops, timeshare hawkers, and maybe a bum or two. It's a great time just to walk around and see the sights. It was very cool and breezy this morning and it felt very peaceful. As I was walking, I saw a plain green and white sign that just read "BEEF JERKY STORE". I'd seen this plenty of times in the past but I'd never checked it out. Well I had no particular place to be so I figured what the hell, today's the day.

Personally, where beef jerky is concerned I'm pretty indifferent. But out west it seems to be nearly as essential as good coffee is to people in the northeast. Still I couldn't figure out how you could base an entire store around beef jerky. Sure enough though, I entered the store and was confronted with a wall to wall assortment of every kind of jerky imaginable.

Beef jerky, turkey jerky, pork jerky, venison jerky, bison jerky, elk jerky, ostrich jerky, smoked salmon jerky, CLAM (yes, clam) jerky, tofu jerky and even soy jerky. Yes, apparently there isn't a meat that you can't jerkify if you really want to. And if it isn't a meat you can still dry it and salt the living hell out of it. There was also a huge selection of dried fruits, nuts, seafood and some stuff I couldn't identify.

Like all the best and strangest stuff in Vegas, there wasn't a hint of kitch or camp value at the Beef Jerky Store. This was pretty serious stuff, marketed to people who needed their specific dried meat product right away. The Las Vegas area has a large asian population so you know stuff like the shaved fish, dried shrimp and spicy dried baby crabs weren't there just for show. It's like the first time you see an "exotic dancewear" store (aka "stripper supplies"). That's a pretty specialized kind of store and you'd be lucky to find one in most larger cities but I've seen numerous ones here. The exotic dancer population in Las Vegas is so large they could almost be considered their own minority. I won't even get into the number of wig stores you run across.

Anway, next time you are Downtown enjoying the Freemont Street Experience, you really need to check out the Beef Jerky Store. It's in a little strip mall on one of the cross streets (I forget which one exactly but if you walk towards the Lady Luck you will see it on the right hand side). If you're not going to Vegas anytime soon check out their website and have a jerkyfest delivered right to your home.

Road trip

2005-10-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

We've been here for a month now and we've seen tons of new stuff but yesterday was the first time we ventured out of the Las Vegas/Henderson area. We drove about 40 miles south on I-15 to Primm, a small town on the Nevada/California border. Why? Just because it was there, really. You see a lot of ads for employment in Primm and once you get there it's not hard to see why. The town, if you can even call it a town, is really just a series of three large hotel/casinos. There are no real town-related buildings to be seen apart from the employee housing.

The three casinos seem to be owned by the same company and are connected by monorails since they are on both the north and south sides of I-15. Although there are only three of them they do mange to run the gamut of all your basic casino types. The first one we went to was Whiskey Pete's, pictured above. The name implies a drunken cowboy and sure enough, drunken Pete shows up on their logos and casino chips and whatnot. But inexplicably enough, the casino itself seems to be medieval-themed. Just take a look at that pic! You've got a medieval castle with a drunken cowboy sitting on top of it. It makes absolutely no sense. I can only assume that this place started it's life as something else and later became Whiskey Pete's but the owners were too cheap to remodel. The casino looked fairly old and run down, reminded me of Circus Circus only without the scary clowns and pink carpeting.

From there we took the monorail across I-15 to Primm Valley Resort & Casino. This place was nicer and looked much more high end. But then again, when you stick the word "Resort" in your name you're setting a certain level of expectation. You're telling people "Hey, this isn't just a tourist trap hotel/casino on a dusty, isolated strip of I-15; it's a resort!" And that's supposed to make you feel better. They did have a large mall attached to the casino (which we didn't venture into) along with a Bonnie and Clyde display. They had copies of newspaper clippings and some supposed genuine items used by the infamous criminals like a mirror and some jewlery; but most importantly they had the Death Car. In a big glass case they had an old car from the 1930's that had been riddled with bullet holes. On the back someone had painted "The Bonnie and Clyde car". In front of it were a male and female dummy holding guns, wearing period clothing and posed cockily. Add it all up and the implication was clear, this was the actual car the two were shot to death in. Interesting, and an odd thing to run across purely by chance, but was it the real thing or was it some old car that somebody just shot full of holes and put on display? Apparently the authenticity of it is still under some debate. Here's a web page I found with more info on the car.

After that, we took the final monorail over to Buffalo Bill's Hotel & Casino. Not surprisingly, this was an Old West theme too. But it was a much newer place and the western theme was present everywhere. It reminded me of casinos like Sam's Town and Mohegan Sun; lots of high ceilings, creative lighting and animatronic animals. Definately the kind of place that had lots of things to keep the kids entertained. There was even a rollercoaster. Interestingly enough, there was no monorail back over I-15 from Buffalo Bill's to Whiskey Pete's. You had to go back to Primm Valley then take their monorail back instead. I'm sure all that was done to drain a few more bucks from your wallet as you tried to get back to your car.

All in all, I can't ever imagine going back to Primm unless we were driving to California and even then it's doubful. It's too far away to work there, the gambling didn't look particularly good (we didn't play at all) and even if we just had to gamble we dont have to drive 40 miles to do it. I can understand that if you're making the long trek from California, it would be a good place to stop. But we got the impression that a lot of those people had driven out there to go to Primm specifically. I don't understand why you would stop there when you are less than fifty miles from the gambling capital of the world. But hey, that's just me.

On our way back we stopped at Jean, which is about 10 miles north of Primm. To give you an idea of how flat and empty some of this terrain is, we could actually see the casinos in Jean as we were leaving Primm. Jean is exactly the same kind of setup as Primm, only it has just two casinos, Gold Strike and Nevada Landing. The casinos look a bit more run down, but Jean does have it's very own correctional facility and an airstrip so I guess it's more of a real town than Primm. Jean does a lot of advertising saying that they have the "Old Vegas Style". Which either means cheap rooms, food and gambling or that it's run by the mafia. Since MGM owns both of the casinos, probably the former. Either way, they had $2 blackjack on a Saturday afternoon. We didn't see anything like that in Primm.

I doub't we'll be back to either place anytime soon, but it was fun to do the trip. Being in the city like we are it's easy to forget that we're in a very large state with a relatively small population and there's lots of little towns to discover.

Full frontal nudity!

2005-09-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

Handy tip, sneaking in to the pool at the Tropicana is easy.

10/01 Snapped this with the camera phone the other day. Ever since staying at the Tropicana last September, I've had the urge to try and sneak back into their fabulous pool and hot tub area. We still had our room keys from last year and we've been meaning to try it ever since we got here a month ago. I think you're supposed to show your room key and get a wrist band but nobody bothers to check. So we finally worked up the courage to bring our swimsuits along since we were going to be in that area anyway. Absolutely no problems at all. The only bad part was that the hot tub we chose was lukewarm at best and needed cleaning, not as nice as we remembered it. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Right before I snapped this pic of myself, I got a call from the temp agency Manpower. I'm already signed up to start a full time job through them next Monday, but in the mean time I told them I'd be available for any kind of short term assignments. Well apparently there is some kind of mock disaster drill being run at the Galleria Mall in Henderson this coming Thurday and they need people to play victims! The pay wasn't bad for playing someone who will be lying around bleeding but it was from 9pm to 5am and apparently they strip you and hose you down at some point. They had my interest up until that last part. I'd really want more money for that kind of humiliation. Plus I keep telling Manpower that I won't do nudity unless it is essential to the script.

We have lizards!

2005-09-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update to say that our lizards arrived alive and well yesterday morning thanks to my wonderful parents. Andrea picked them up at the post office on her way home from work.(Yes, everything went fine with her drug test and background check. She's been working graveyard at the Las Vegas Auto/Truck Plaza for about two weeks now although it seems longer. Fortunately she'll be starting to work day shift as of Sunday.)

My father did an amazing job packing the lizards, he really is a genius when it comes to stuff like that. We did some online research regarding shipping live reptiles and he came up with his own variation on it and as always he was able to improve on the existing method. The lizards are currently on the back patio, enjoying the bright Nevada sunshine (in their containers of course).

Eventually, maybe when we have our own place, I'd like to design some kind of outdoor cages for them. Maybe construct them out of chicken wire to keep out all the nasty, scraggly birds around here. Call me crazy but I think it would be cool to have my own backyard lizard ranch.

(And I'm really going to finish up the month old trip report soon, I promise.)

Playing the Don'ts

2005-09-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

Another gorgeous Tuesday afternoon. The sky is that same fresh-scrubbed, aggressive blue that I've so enjoyed every day I've been here so far. Today that same cheerful sky seems more like a high school pep squad on speed, trying to convince the hungover, strung-out Goths that singing the school fight song is an idea with merit.

Tonight is my first night of REAL LAS VEGAS WORK. My head is spinning, and I keep thinking of the many opportunities this day has to go wrong.

My gaming card is going to be denied because my fingerprints are a six point match with some bank robber in Duluth. Or because I forgot to mention the traffic citation I got in 1989 on my application.

I'm going to get a stain on my brand new dealer-white shirt in the first few minutes of my shift, making me look foolish for the rest of the night. But that's ok, because I'll make MYSELF look far more foolish than mere shirt marks could.

I'm going to forget how to shuffle, how to count cards. I'm going to throw the slippery silver $1 chips all over the place, and get myself fired within 10 minutes of starting. Damn, I forget, what's a blackjack pay on a $5.50 bet?

And how the HELL am I going to manage to sleep enough to survive a 1AM-9AM shift???

How on earth did I end up here anyway??? It's sure been a crazy couple of weeks!

I'll leave you on that note, will add more to this post later.

This is a sin

2005-09-14T14:49:00.000-07:00

The bare spot where the Binions neon was

Mmm!

2005-09-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

trip recap - Omaha to Ogallala

2005-09-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

When most people think of Omaha... well that's just it isn't it? Most people don't think of Omaha at all. At least people in the Northeast. We just have a vague notion that it's in the middle of the country somewhere, probably filled with cows and farmers, most likely in one of those red states. I once had a coworker say to me in all seriousness that we should nuke the whole midwest because it was unnecessary. I'd love to know where he'd get his groceries after that. I guess you'd really really better like seafood.

Anyhow, Omaha was very nice. My friend the Professor spent the better part of Sunday August 28th showing us around. Omaha has it's skyscraper filled commercial area and it's quaintly old-fashioned downtown area (complete with plenty of antique shops asking ungodly prices for the kind of junk we couldn't give away at the flea markets) and miles and miles of suburban housing developments and strip malls surrounding it. Apart from some large buildings like Mutual of Omaha and the Woodmen building most of the city is built out not up. And when we started driving west across the state we got a good sense as to why. There is just miles and miles of unadulterated flatness. Without pesky stuff like lakes, rivers, trees or other towns there really is nothing stopping Omaha from expanding until it reaches Wyoming.

Later that day as we were sitting around the Professor's tastefully decorated apartment discussing the nature of evil; we happened to notice that it had gotten dramatically darker outside. We took a peek and saw that the sky was filled with dark, nasty-looking clouds. You could actually see them rolling and boiling as you watched, it was unsettling to watch. It looked very much like tornado weather to me. A severe thunderstorm watch had been declared, and while there were no tornadoes reported, they did say some areas could get hail up to three inches across. Three inches! What's more, the TV weathermen did not act like this was the end of the world which implied to me that it wasn't the first time they'd heard of three inch hail in that area. Luckily, we didn't get any hail that large where we were, just some about pea sized. I'm sure three inch hail would be something incredible to see but I would have hated to see what it could have done to the Professor's windshield since he had kindly given up his garage parking space for us.

About seven o'clock that evening, we decided to get back on the road. We had planned to stay another night with the Professor originally but we calculated that if we could drive 300 miles that night we could get to Vegas a day earlier than planned. Even though we started out so late, doing 300 miles turned out to be no problem at all. Nebraska, as I've mentioned, is really flat. And the roads are very straight. And apart from semi trucks (of which there were plenty) there wasn't a great deal of traffic. Factor in the 75 mile an hour speed limit and that 300 miles melted away like nothing. We did close to 340 before calling it a night, stopping at a Super 8 in a town who's name I still can't pronounce, Ogallala. The motel had a little sign in the room telling you what to do in the event of a tornado. (I took a picture of it with the camera phone and posted it to the blog at the time) Any place where tornadoes are frequent enough of an occurrence that you need a permanent sign in the rooms giving instructions... well that's just too many tornadoes for me. Give me the desert any day.

trip recap - Garrison to Omaha

2005-09-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, I keep saying that I'm going to recap the remainder of our cross country trip in more detail. I guess I'd better do it before it fades from my memory completely. It's strange how your memory works. We only just got here last Tuesday but it feels like we've been here much longer. The trip itself feels like it was a million years ago. That's a shame because it was truly a once in a lifetime experience and one that I think every American should treat themselves to. You gain a much larger appreciation for this country as a whole.

We left Garrison, Minnesota on Saturday, August 27th, driving south through Minnesota to DesMoines, Iowa then getting on I-80 west towards Omaha, Nebraska. We got pretty familiar with I-80 on this trip. We took it across Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming. We had no troubles on it whatsoever. A great road only made better by the fact that while there were posted speed limits, they seemed to be more suggestions than actual laws. I don't think we saw any police outside of a couple of accidents that we passed.

Anyway, we drove through the beautiful, rolling farmlands of southern Minnesota and stopped near the Iowa border at a town called Owatonna. We had a paltry 540 miles to cover that day so we figured we'd take our time and see the sights. According to the AAA book, Owatonna had a natural spring that supposedly had healing properties. The water had once cured an ailing indian princess or some such thing. So we drove around for an hour or so looking for this spring, fianlly finding it in a small park near the center of town. The water was very cold and fresh but tasted very strongly of iron. The nearby rocks were stained orange from the iron and while we were there, a woman riding a mountain bike filled up her water bottle from the spring. Her bottle was deeply stained orange from the water as well. So my guess is that if there really was a sickly indian princess, she was probably anemic. Mystery solved.

We continued into Iowa, which was more rolling farmland that eventually gave way to miles and miles of cornfields. Admittedly, the novelty of this did wear off after a while. We stopped for a picnic lunch at a rest area but realized we needed a few supplies like knives and forks and plates. So we followed a small road for a couple of miles into a tiny town called Dows. It was so picturesque middle America, it borded on a cliche. One tiny main street with a bar, a feed store, and a grocery. A grocer who greeted us when we walked in and helped us find what we were looking for. He was so friendly I thought for sure he was going to lure us out back and kill us, being the cynical person that I am. I guess I just find it amazing that such places really still exist. Sure, there are plenty of quaint towns in New England but they are always the result of the city council deciding to put cobblestone on all the streets and only allow quaint stores downtown with names that start with "Ye Olde" in an effort to bring in the tourists. Dows felt like it had truly been unchanged through the years.

As we passed through DesMoines and onto I-80 towards Omaha, we really started to get the impression of great space and distance. With so few trees and relatively flat terrain by this point, you could see for miles. Approaching Omaha, we saw a gigantic thunderhead miles away, lightning flashing all through it. We were able to watch it's progress for at least an hour as we drove. With nothing in the way to block the view, you coudl really how high it went. I guess there's no way storms can take you by surprise out there anyway.

My friend, whom we will refer to as The Professor (who is actually a Professor and doesn't want his named published), gave me excellent directions through Omaha and we soon found ourselves in a very college-y looking area filled with bohemian shops, funky apartment buildings and students walking around drunkenly with keg cups. It was Saturday night, after all. It doesn't seem to matter what part of the US you're in, if you are in a town with a large college population you're bound to find a few similar things. You're always going to find at least three or four coffee shops with cute names, alternative music blaring from the speakers and posters on the walls for Socialist rallies and pleas to free some political prisoner or other. And you're always going to be waited on by a girl with dyed hair and multiple piercings who would probably be pretty cute if she wasn't so concerned about making a Statement and being Unique. Blissfully unaware than in a thousand other coffee shops in a hundred other college towns there's a girl just like her. The coffee is always good, at least.

The real temptation

2005-09-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

When we first told people that we were moving out to Las Vegas, most just thought it was very cool. Some people, however, asked if we'd be able to resist the urge to gamble seeing as how we'd have access to it 24 hours a day at every supermarket and laundromat around (and you really do see it eveywhere). I don't ever see this as being a problem because while I like to gamble, I also hate to lose money and the two don't exactly go together. It's also much easier to resist now that we're not living in a casino but a fairly normal suburban environment.

Still, you need to have some good self control to live here. Almost every vice is available to you. The supermarkets sell hard liquor, cigarettes are cheap and you're just a short drive from legalized prostitution. But the real downfall for both Andrea and myself is all the delicious, cheap food. I used to think that all the good, cheap food was limited to the tourist areas. Gourmet restaurants, shrimp cocktails, huge hot dogs and steak and eggs 24 hours a day. But it's not. Yesterday we found a place called The Omlette House just down the road from us on Boulder Highway. They must have had at least 40 varieties of omlettes! The price was about average, six or seven bucks, but the omlettes were absolutely massive and wonderful. I got the "Popeye" which had spinach and mushrooms and it came with a side of thinly sliced fried potatoes and a big piece of home made pumpkin nut bread. Sure, maybe you could make a similar, healthier meal for less at home, but it's pretty tempting not to.

I'm not worried about becoming broke and homeless out here. I'm much more concerned that I'll end up the size of a house.

2005-09-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

It's church, TO THE EXTREME!

big update coming soon

2005-09-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

I promise! The trailer is unloaded and the PC is online so when I've got the time I'll write about our trip in more detail.

164 Sitka Spuce

2005-09-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

2005-09-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

The trailer is here all the way from NJ

2005-09-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

the in N out burger, dude

2005-09-05T18:31:00.000-07:00

Elvis is alive in Vegas and selling time shares.

2005-09-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

There is no diet ginger ale in Nevada...at least none that we have found yet. That's it...we're outta here.

2005-09-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

Wynn Las Vegas yesterday, The Western today. About as different as casinos get.

2005-09-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

We are playing tourist today

We are still alive

2005-09-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

Just busy trying to figure out how to drive in this crazy town

2005-08-31T11:32:00.000-07:00

Our room at sams. Its one of the ones that sticks out, second from top floor. very nice

2005-08-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

We're finally in Las Vegas, well sort of. We're at Sam's Town which really isn't in Las Vegas proper, it's on Boulder Highway - the road that we'll be taking to Henderson. So we're really not amongst all the glitz and glamor of Vegas but that's just fine.

We were suprised to find that only maybe the last 150 miles of the trip was anything we'd really call desert, and even then there were still plently of plants and animals around. We even saw three mountain goats (at least we think they were mountain goats) grazing along the side of the the road in Arizona!
It was hot and beautiful but I guess when I think of desert I think of "Lawrence Of Arabia" and this was not exactly the shifting sands of the Sahara. So basically, no trouble at all to drive through if your car is in good working order.
We had originallly planned on getting here today so we had no lodging booked for last night. I called Sam's Town for the heck of it since I knew they often had cheap weekday rates and also because it has a lot of sentimental meaning to us, it was the first place we stayed together in Vegas. They quoted me a price of $31.95 (plus taxes and fees)! So even with the additional charges, it was cheaper than the crappy Vagabond Motel that we stayed at the night before. Not to mention that when we got here, they gave us a free room upgrade to one of the rooms that overlooks the indoor atrium park. You've got to love that.

There is tons of stuff from our trip to talk about and I would write more but using an internet connection that consists of a hotel television and a wireless keyboard is a real pain in the ass. Needless to say, it's been an amazing experience and it's really only just beginning.

2005-08-31T09:18:00.000-07:00

The pool at Sam's Town in Las Vegas. How's work?

At last Nevada

2005-08-30T14:45:00.000-07:00

We're in Mesquite, Nevada. Where are you? At work I bet. :-)

Arizona

2005-08-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

We travelled through fifty miles of arizona on our way to nevada. we're really in the desert now. beatiful, hot and dry

Utah!

2005-08-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

We're not too far from the Grand Canyon here! I have to say that Utah is a beatiful state despite all the Mormons. Speed limit here is 75 but most residents drive about 90. Crazy Mormons.

2005-08-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

cedar city, ut - near southern border of ut, temp still very mild, sunny and breezy.

2005-08-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Utah Lake Campground near Provo

On our way

2005-08-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

2.37 For gas in Evanston, wy! No idea why its so cheap here

Tomorrow... VEGAS

2005-08-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

Vagabond Motel - Evanston, WY. Certainly lives Up to its name. Looks like someones last known address but its was way cheaper than the Super 8. And WY Seems like a pretty safe state if you dont count the coyotes and rattlesnakes.

little america WY

2005-08-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

A rest area thats also its own town with a pop of 56

2005-08-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

I guess this just proves that NO where is too rural for gourmet coffee. Rawlins WY pop 8536

2005-08-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

Just saw my first antelope...more grazing than playing...still really neat to see. I think those discouraging words are rare mainly because there are so few people on the range to say them. It is really gorgeous here...completely different than anything i have experienced before

2005-08-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Where's the road runner?

2005-08-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

2005-08-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

Authentic WY cuisine, mexican food!