Category: Musings

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Reflections on Las Vegas

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I have no clue what people are thinking bringing their children to “Sin City” and expecting… What? No booze, prostitutes, gambling?

We accidentally offended some woman coming back from the pool with her kid.

She saw us as we got to the bank of elevators leading to our room. As we approached, she stormed into an elevator and we followed her in.

We didn’t even realize she was stressing until we were in the elevator. Wow, what a tense situation.

I’ll admit it took me a bit to figure out why she was shooting daggers at us and keeping her kid from looking around.

My Brother and I were both looking a little raw, and he was carrying a big ol plastic cup of booze. When I finally had the “Ahh Ha” moment all I could do was smirk.

Come to think of it we both probably smelled a bit boozy too. I think we were coming back from a shopping trip that included whiskey, rum, stetsons, lunch and beer. Hey, you only live once and we were having fun.

It’s not like the hotels have a “Boozed Up” elevator! We have the right to get to our room too. What the hell did that lady expect? It’s VEGAS, you know, it’s for adults!

She should count herself dang lucky we didn’t have some companions for the evening. Her kid would have gotten a real education!

If you want no smoking, no booze, and no guys walking into an elevator looking like they’d been rode hard and put up wet, then just 4 and a half hours southwest by car is a place designed for good clean family fun. Have at it! They call it the “Happiest Place on Earth”.

Eh, maybe, I like the house of the mouse but only in small doses, separated by decades. I prefer the mouse house in Florida if it comes to going there.

I think I prefer the more adult diversions, lord knows, Las Vegas has those in abundance.

There’s an entire side of Las Vegas that I haven’t sampled yet. The next time I go, I think I’ll explore it.

Hopefully I won’t get in too much trouble.

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I got practically nothing done yesterday

But I did manage to pick up a shiny new set of trial contact lenses.

“I CAN SEE!”

My eyes have been changing about every year, to year & a half, and that bites the big one.

It’s just another reminder that I’m getting old. As if looking in the mirror isn’t enough of a reminder!

I started the day pretty normally and then went to run just a couple of errands which turned into more errands and rapidly spun into a fur ball of stuff that I needed to get done but that took a lot longer than I thought it would.

No complaints, just one of those things that seems to happen with some frequency.

Recently, I was having a conversation about the narcissism of Twitter. In point of fact all social media is about narcissism. I include blogging in that wide brush stroke as well.

After all who cares that you’re at a particular restaurant or store? Who really cares that you’re having a good or bad day aside, from perhaps your mother or spouse?

And lets be real, who really cares about your opinion?

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Yeah, I’m sure that’s a somewhat sobering slap in the face to a lot of folks who claim to be “addicted” to social media.

Even knowing all this, we still cast our opinions and daily events onto the digital stream, for all the world to read and judge.

I still write blogs that people sometimes read. I still occasionally tweet my opinion out into the world.

Sometimes people find those blogs or comments funny and other times, not so much.

The point is none of us should be taking any of this social media stuff seriously. My opinions are like everyone else’s, plentiful and in the end, to be taken with a block of salt.

A little narcissistic introspection isn’t a bad thing.

Just remember to look critically at yourself when you look into the mirror.

 

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I do like some things about this town!

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I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos. I wasn’t planning on doing a photo essay. So I left the Nikon in the hotel room.

Too late I realized there were some interesting photo ops.

SO I figured it was time to learn how to better use the camera in my iPhone.

Las Vegas is a place where you buy a Stetson, and they serve you Jack Daniels.

This is of course probably necessary, have you seen the price of a Stetson 20X lately?

Not that I’m complaining, Stetsons hold up for ever with minimal care and I wear mine a lot in the snow & rain of winter and early spring.

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Las Vegas is a place where if I lived here, I’d walk or ride my bike more than I drove.

Traffic is nuts, but walking isn’t too bad in and around the center of town. That being said, once you get out of the unreality of the strip Las Vegas is a pretty normal slice of suburbia.

The thing is, like most of suburbia it’s spread out and homes are usually at a distance from business areas. So it’s still possible just as in California that covering the distance from “home” to work would be impractical walking or riding a bike. Is it any wonder we’re becoming a nation of fat asses, myself included?

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The tramway is cool but it should really go a lot further. I think it would be great if they made it connect all of the “Strip” even if you had to walk through casinos to access the next station. I think they’d have to do that because of the shapes of the hotels and the layout of the strip itself.

Right now it just goes from The Monte Carlo to The Bellagio. You can access Caesars via a bridge and then walk on to The Flamingo. I didn’t explore much further than that.

I will say this, it’s very disconcerting to get off at “Crystals” (A mall) after having had a drink or two. God help you if you also had recently taken Viagra because you’d be absolutely sure you were going blind. Or perhaps having a flashback to your drug hazed hippy phase.

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FYI, It’s not you… the lighting changes to blue, pink, and a couple of other colors. But at night when you exit the tram into that intense color it can really mess with you.

The weird thing about the casinos is that after a short time they all look alike.  They’re on the darker side and they’re a labyrinth of tables and machines & lights. Even the faces of the people begin to blur together after a while.

Instead of perceiving the “grandmother in the corner happily playing the two cent slots” she becomes “generic old woman type #5 playing slots” it’s weird.

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Where the Casinos excel is in their shopping  and hotel areas.

I really like Caesars Palace! Yes, it’s all a big set piece but I like the marble and columns. I like the statuary and I appreciated the illusion of an open sky in their mall.

You have to understand these are all pretty high end shopping centers and I’m betting that they make money hand over fist.

The traffic through these places is very high and I noticed that in almost every one of the mall areas, there were Tiffany’s, Coach, Vuitton, and half a dozen other high end vendors.

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I even sampled the latest in Tom Ford scents. Although the sales lady spritzed me with some really nasty floral smell.  I washed it off in the mens room, rather, I tried.

The thing about really good colognes, & perfumes is that they’re made with more oils and far less alcohol. This means; first, that you need very little. Second that it soaks into your skin almost immediately, and stays with you for a long time.

The sales lady did me a favor. I like tobacco & wood scents, they work for me.  Gardenia is just right out of the picture. Gardenia is exactly what one of the major components of the cologne she spritzed me with was. Just as well, had I stayed I’d have probably purchased one of the new Ford scents, they’re pricy! a single bottle lasts a long time but it will put a dent in your budget.

IMG_0254I did enjoy the art and architecture of the shopping centers.  I liked Crystals the best, they’ve got a nice open air plan and some really cool or dramatic architectural elements.

Yeah, I’m not a gambler. Could you tell?

I’ve gambled, I’ve put quarters in slot machines, I’ve even won!

The odds are so not in your favor. While I enjoyed the heck out of spending a few quarters, winning, then spending the next few hours losing my huge $40.00 winnings, I can’t see it as a regular thing.

I like walking through the hotels, and shops, and treating Las Vegas like a Disneyland-esq place for adults.

I like being able to drink anything, almost anywhere on the strip. I like the general feeling of immorality of the city. I like that you can offend someone, (as my brother did by carrying a beer in a plastic cup into the elevator going up to the room.) and that they can’t really do or say anything about it.

I guess the bottom line is that I enjoyed the trip. I needed the time with my brother. I needed the time away.

As always when I come back from trips like this I ask myself why I don’t take more short trips more often.

I’m not sure that I have an answer. I guess it has to do with the other half not having weekends off and while I was working, not being able to take time off during the week.

I suppose that over time, that scheduling conflict has created a habit and the habit became a “normal” way of life.

I’m thinking it’s time for me to break that habit and do more. I need to find a traveling buddy, and spend more time doing fun stuff.

Time is the one thing we can never get more of.

Don’t waste yours.

 

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Its Vegas Baby!

20140117-101803.jpg Before you get the wrong impression. It’s not been a trip of debauchery, not yet anyway!

Hanging with my Brother has been great.

Vegas is a strange place, it truly is configured as an adult playground.

Everything is designed to make all your common sense go out the window and make you more likely to spend money in one way or another.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, it’s just interesting to note.

Connectivity is hit and miss. I was thinking that was strange, but then again the last thing the hotels want is you looking at your iPad or computer. They want you wandering in the shopping areas, or casinos.

As I’ve wandered around I can’t help thinking this is a proof of concept for our future in space or a future on a hostile planet. It’s possible to go from hotel to hotel without ever seeing the light of day.

The movie Wall-e springs to mind.

Today’s picture is from the hotel room.

Those mountains look inviting.

The noise and hubbub of the city is something I don’t think I could put up with for very many days.

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Right! That’s IT!

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I’ve long posed the question; 

“Where do my rights end, and yours begin?”

That question has been a guiding principal in my life. If I thought what I wanted to do was going to infringe on someone else’s rights then I typically wouldn’t do it.

I’d restrain myself, not because I was afraid of the person, or the law. I’d restrain myself because in a polite society it’s easier and more profitable to respect each other. And were I to put myself in the other guys place, I’d appreciate being treated with respect.

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You’d be AMAZED how that simple philosophy is received when you’re traveling outside the United States! I take a great deal of pride in not being the asshole American who expects everyone to kowtow to my requests. Great food and awesome local drinks being the least of the rewards I’ve received for being a decent human being.

I’m over certain segments of our population demanding more than their fair share. I’m even more over the arbiters political correctness giving in, again and again.

Let me explain what led to this particular rant.

I was watching a YouTube video of the Airforce Orchestra performing in the Air & Space Museum over the holidays.

In the past, all the craziness in my mind would have silenced and my mind would have been focused on the absolute beauty of the music and the cool way that the orchestra made its entrance.

Picture a “Flash Mob” but with musical instruments.

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It starts out with a guy playing single cello in a large open museum space, then the orchestra forms around that. 

It’s damn cool!

You can see more and more people who were touring the museum simply stopping and enjoying the music. The piece was Bach, jesu “Joy of mans desiring”.

Pretty soon it was standing room only and it is obvious people were enjoying the performance. I was too, the piece is beautifully done.

Anyway, where normally I’d have had absolute focus on the music and not been thinking of anything else, all sudden a thought goes through my head

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“I’m sure some atheist or muslim or satanist, is running for the phone to contact an ALCU attorney to file a complaint about having to endure hearing a piece of music at a nationally funded museum, which has become associated with the evil pagan holiday known to Christendom as Christmas.”

My brain rebooted!

I couldn’t “unthink” that thought. I wondered if I was seeing the last public exhibition of this kind.

It dawned on me; the Atheists, Muslims, or Satanists have TAKEN something from me!

I’m completely content to live and let live. I’m not going to shove my beliefs down an atheists throat. I’m not going to try to save their soul. Why? Because I don’t give a damn. Their soul or beliefs are absolutely none of my concern.

I hope their dirt nap is long and pleasant. As long as I don’t have to hear them whining about the inequity of death for all of eternity, I’m going to be just pleased as punch.

BUT, I enjoy the holiday season, I enjoy the music, and I enjoy the nativity scenes. I like the decorations and the wonder of the little children as the they anticipate Santa’s yearly delivery.

That I can no longer enjoy these things, without thinking about stupid assed lawsuits has taken something from me. 

INewImaget’s taken my peace of mind.

Really, Mr. Atheist, Muslim, or Satanist? It hurts your eyes to see a cross in a park? It offends you to see a nativity scene on public property? Your world view is challenged by a decorated pine tree? Brightly colored packages with pretty bows and shining faces of children offends you? Really?

What about the fact that I personally respect and enjoy these traditions? Why are you taking my right to enjoy these things away?

My beliefs are not mainstream Christian. I wouldn’t, however demand that these things be stricken from my sight. I don’t participate in Kwanza, nor do I participate in Ramadan but I’m not going to demand the Kwanza parade to be disbanded. I’m not going to force feed muslims during Ramadan for their own good either. 

This is the same revisionist PC crap as forbidding confederate flags to decorate confederate graves, once a fucking year, because of the “racist” overtones.

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Those men weren’t thinking about racism when they died, they were thinking about protecting their homes, families, fortunes, and livelihoods. Those men deserve to have their graves decorated with their flag, just as much as the union soldiers deserve to have their graves decorated with the union flag. 

Context is everything. Racism exists; however seeing racism everywhere or being offended about a cross, nativity, tree, or holiday is a matter of choice.

There’s a critical point here that many of the PC apologists have forgotten.

The concept of public spaces. 

That means everyone is free to use those spaces and that I OWN a fractional part of that space through my tax dollars.

If I, and 10,000 other people combine our fractional parts of the public space and decide to set up a nativity scene or hold a musical performance of Christmas carols it’s my, and 10,000 other folks right to do so.

If that offends one Atheist, TOUGH SHIT!

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Welcome to the real world. (It’s not about you 24/7 you selfish prick.)

I’m personally offended when someone decides the ten commandments shouldn’t be on a court house wall. I’m more offended that the removal of the ten commandments forces un-necessary expenditure of taxpayer dollars to remove and retrofit the building. 

It’s fairly safe to say, the ten commandments form some part of the foundation of our society. Why anyone would have a problem acknowledging that is beyond me. 

Yes we’re supposed to have separation of church and state. I agree with that; however,  I don’t see that a depiction of the ten commandments violates that separation any more than having the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, of Magna Carta.

I personally think “THOU SHALT NOT LIE” is a great way for everyone in a court house to start their day.

Politicians, Judges, Lawyers, and citizens can all benefit from a reminder to be truthful. That’s probably why the architects of many of these building thought it appropriate to include the Ten Commandments in the buildings design, in the first place.

For years I’ve more or less been able to ignore this bullshit.

I’ve gone on with my life and simply filtered my intake. 

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No, that’s not quite right. I’ve seen a Star of David, or Buddha, Cross, or Star & Crescent, or one of the countless other symbols of faith or political affiliations and I’ve respected their meaning.

I may not have any depth of knowledge about these symbols other than they are important to the group of people that erected them.

That is all I have to know. 

They’re important to the people who follow those beliefs and are therefore deserving of my respect.

I find myself now asking;

“Am I the only dumbass on the planet that still thinks that way?”

I’ve not preached coexistence, I’ve been living it. 

Now I’m demanding it!

Coexist! 

Leave me, my traditions, and beliefs the hell alone.

It’s high time we all remembered to engage in a little mutual respect!

BTW, Next time I fly into Minneapolis, I’m going to be carrying a bottle of whiskey!

Taxi drivers beware!