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Yes, for the first time since whenever we've gone a whole two weeks without updating. But we have an excuse, sort of. We got trapped in Las Vegas! But before we left for Vegas we did some stuff here, too. Lessee if I can remember anything. Oh, yes. I was interviewed for a podcast radio show, for the Haiku Movie Reviews. The interviewer, Chris Vallence of BBC fame, did his best to keep me from stammering, and I must say he's quite talented at the interviewing skills. I'll post a link if anything ever comes of it. Our friends Amy and Erin cooked us a yummy dinner and took us out to a free Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, at the Carter Barron amphitheater. The Shakespeare Theater's production was the best version I've ever seen of Midsummer Night yet; it was a kind of cross between Shakespeare and Cirque du Soleil, with hints of City of Lost Children, the Nutcracker, and Where The Wild Things Are. The actors knew their characters so well that even the children in the packed theater got the gist of the story. It was very funny and exciting, and the weather was perfect for me, though the three women I was with got a bit cold. We left the next day, Saturday, for Las Vegas. We went to attend the wedding of Gina's high school friend Gregg. We started having a great time right off the plane. The shuttle driver was a quick witted, good humored man with a heavy Asian accent. He kept teasing the passengers by loudly changing his mind about which hotel he was going to first. "We stop at Caesar's Palace first!" he would yell. Then, half a minute later, "Gold Coast! Gold Coast is first stop!" After about the seventh time, I yelled back, "Nobody back here believes you." People laughed, and the shuttle driver yelled, "That's good! That's good! Don't believe anything! Only believe in God!" Gina yelled back, "We don't believe in him either." Nobody laughed that time, but the driver shot back, "Same with me! I don't know what anybody mean about God! I think he some kind of weird alien or something." Then he chatted a little more about the universe and all that. He was quite the philosopher. I enjoyed his offbeat humor. He ended up dropping us off after the Caesar's Palace crowd, but we didn't mind a bit. The next day we walked to the Strip, the main street of Vegas, visited some casinos and got our bearings. We saw a huge Peter Max art exhibit, at the Peter Max Gallery (and almost saw Peter Max, but he was too late for us). G: I had a good time window shopping, although everything was very expensive. But there was marvelous stuff to look at, and the interiors of places like The Forum Shops were amazing. I've never seen curved escalators before! J: Then we found a sister hotel to the Gold Coast and took a free shuttle back, just in time to get ready for the wedding. The wedding was held in the Rio, a casino-hotel next to ours, in a little chapel room. It was a fantastic wedding— it lasted about five minutes (wish I timed it) and was completely god-free, though the officiant looked and sounded like a Baptist minister, a great contrast that gave the whole affair a happy, celebratory atmosphere. By the time he said, "And SOOOuh, by the POWER of neVADuh..." I was convinced that Nevada was very powerful indeed.  We
met up with more of Gina's high school friends after the wedding, Bill
and Mark, and they tagged along with us while Gina shopped for flowers
and stuff to decorate the vase she brought for Gregg and his new wife
Paolina. We saw an amazing show in the Rio with big floats on ceiling
tracks and dancers and glitz. Hard to explain and I'm feeling lazy,
sorry.Later we went to the reception which was a lot of fun. I met one of Gregg's friends from New York named Jerry and I spent most of the party talking with him. He's had quite an interesting life, and while he was in Vegas he won thousands of dollars, in slot machines no less! Gregg said he'd made a deal with the devil; that Jerry always won money when he came to Vegas. Gina reminisced with her high school pals, and we ate and danced. Monday morning Gina and I hopped in Bill's car and headed out to Red Rock Canyon, where we spent the morning hiking a lot and climbing a little. It was nostalgic for me— the last time I went to Las Vegas was on a nine-day technical climbing trip in Red Rocks with friends, about 10 years ago or more. That park was the most beautiful part of our trip this time, too. We got back from our visit to the rocks, just in time for a wedding brunch given by Gregg's parents (very nice people). All you can eat, so I ate a lot. Gregg's friend James passed around a laptop with lots of wedding pictures on it.  After
brunch Gina and I went to the Strip again, and bought same-day
half-price show
tickets at a little place Gregg had told us about. We also
bought tickets to the Star Trek:
The Experience, at the Las Vegas Hilton Casino. The Experience has
two
"rides" which were fun, except for the waiting in line part. The
Klingon ride had a great simulation of teleportation, and the Borg ride
gave me a four-dimensional Borg enema. Needless to say, I enjoyed the
Klingon ride more. They also had a really nicely done Federation Museum
there with displays from many shows; I spent a long time perusing the
extensive timeline, from Captain Pike to Whoopi GoldBorg.After that we went to an honest-to-goodness burlesque show called La Femme, which was a replica of shows put on at the Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris. It was alright, very artistic lighting and the dancers were all very beautiful, but once is enough, thanks.  The
next day we spent the entire day with Gina's Uncle Sam and Aunt Millie,
a wonderfully classic Italian couple who celebrated their 65th(!!!)
wedding anniversary the next day. Uncle Sam was quite a character, and
Aunt Millie was sweet. They both told lots of stories and made friends
with people wherever we went. I hope I'm as
alive and healthy when I'm eighty-odd years old. They
took us to breakfast at their favorite little local
casino/restaurant/brewery, Barley's, then we spent a couple hours
hanging around their place. Then Uncle Sam said we'd take a ride,
and drove us far out of the city to an older
casino, Nevada Landing, that still accepts coins in the
one-arm-bandits. We had a little lunch, and then I stuck two quarters
in a machine and got back 90 dollars! I cashed out and brought my
bucket of quarters to the cashier. Sam got the bug after that; he put
20 bucks in a machine next to mine and cashed out 56 dollars. We took
Sam and Millie to dinner that evening. We were going to go to the Olive
Garden, but the line outside looked long, and we were right by
Barley's, so we ate there again. By the time we got back to
the hotel we were worn out from the day.On Wednesday I bought into a Texas Hold'em Poker tournament, which I performed well in, considering the company. I played against about 40 players and lasted over an hour, pretty good for a two hour tournament (and my first!). I learned a lot, and I'm ready to give them more money when I return to Vegas next time. After poker Gina and I went to The Venetian with Gregg, and ate lunch in Postria in the simulated square next to the canal. After that we admired the sites and store windows in Venice, then Gregg drove us to his house, which is absolutely huge with a little pool and jacuzzi in the back. We took advantage of the jacuzzi. Then Gina's Cousin Joe (Sam & Millie's son) and his wife Sharon showed up to say hi; we chatted for a few minutes and took pictures all around, then they left to surprise Sam & Millie. We went for a short walk through the neighborhood with Gregg, then he and Paolina drove us to a fantastic Thai restaurant where we ate too quickly so we could make it to the airport. We could've eaten more slowly. Our flight was delayed, then cancelled. After sitting in the airport from 9:00 PM till 2:30 AM, we got free tickets and a bad hotel room. We didn't get settled in until almost 3:30 AM, and we had trouble sleeping. The next day the hotel people told me that the shuttle to the airport was full, so we had to get a taxi. I let the hotel pay for the taxi, an appropriate punishment for putting us in a lower priced room than AirTran had paid for. Finally, after enduring more needless oppressions posing as "security", we flew home to our kitty Mango. Then we had a big party on Friday, saw Dorian's photographs in his art opening at the New Deal, and have been hosting Kory's brother Kyle while he's in town watching the Nats destroy his team, the Oakland Athletics. |
THE HEAP where we wade the web inside
a tornadoe |
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| INDEX gets you started |
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| FREQUENCIES we're addicted to these links boingboing |
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| THE 'HOOD links to friends and such wts |
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