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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I 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.
Yep, couldn’t help seeing Madeline Kahn as I thought about writing this.
I’m tired of many things. Politics, War, Afghanistan, President Obamas speachifying.
At the top of my list and also something I can control is the hate, vitriol, and drama that I let into my home.
I’ve been a Twitter user for a long while now. I’m beginning to thing that perhaps that is at an end.
Recently, there have been several particularly nasty incidents that I’ve decided I don’t have to put up with.
First let me say, I’m conservative. I’m not Limbaugh conservative, but I do have more conservative leaning views.
I don’t like big government, I don’t think the government owes me anything more than my due (Social Security) springs to mind, and I know damn well that I’ll be whistling for that.
That being said, I’m not automatically drinking the Republican, Democratic, Liberal, or Tea Party kool-aid.
Some of those people scare the hell out of me because they’re just as draconian in their beliefs as the Puritans. (They popped into my head because of Thanksgiving.)
I’m more of a libertarian, constitutionalist.
All I’ve ever wanted, is to be left the hell alone in my personal life and financial affairs.
For me personally the ACA is anathema to the way I’d prefer to live.
It’s representative of a government intrusion into my personal affairs that I’d prefer not to have.
I’ve begun over the past decade or so to believe that the government has become too large and unwieldy to provide the primary services it was designed to.
Our government on both a federal and state level has become so intrusive in our daily lives that I chafe because I fear the loss of freedom that comes with each new regulation, regardless of whether the regulation or rule actually makes sense.
I don’t believe you can regulate common sense any more than morality. From the beginning it was obvious, prohibition wasn’t ever going to work stopping folks from getting drunk. Or the drug war, or “Just say No.”
As an example of intrusiveness on the part of government run amok, it’s no longer permissible to smoke in your condo in a Northern California town.
Yes! this is a Condominium that you OWN, pay taxes on, and a homeowners association fee monthly.
It seems that smoking on your own property is now forbidden because some smoke may at some point waft through a wall (god I hope not) and potentially harm a neighbor.
Were I in that town, I’d lobby for a ban or curry foods, microwaving fish, and kimchi too.
I find all of these offensive. Am I not allowed to demand protection for my sinuses?
The question for me is; where reasonably do my rights begin and end?
When I see the government either federal, state, or local, feeling that they have the right to extend their power into my home I become very concerned.
To me, this represents a fundamental lost of my freedom as a human being. What happened to fundamental concepts like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
How about this? Schools fining parents because the lunch a parent sent to school for their child was’t “Nutritionally acceptable”. Then the child is given additional foodstuffs to make up the perceived lack of nutritional value.
Yes, this is happening now and I believe we’ve lost our damn minds!
Who at the school is to say that the food left out of a lunch wasn’t part of a medical issue? The school feeling that they have the right to fine a parent as punishment for not feeding their kid correctly is completely off the charts.
The other side of the coin is also happening. Parents are being punished, as are their children for having too much food. In our headlong charge to prevent childhood obesity, some schools have implemented rules about snacks.
What these rules overlook is sports.
I, as a teen couldn’t get enough food. I ran on the track team, and walked or rode a bike everywhere in the town of Lexington.
I walked in the snow, and rain or shine. I liked walking. I loved being on the track and cross country teams…
I was also always starving! Not because my parents weren’t feeding me, the food bill was astronomical.
I was hungry all the time because my body was growing, and at the same time I was burning a ton of calories each and every day.
The day I topped 120 pounds I was amazed, I was also a senior in High School.
It’s hard to be fat when your caloric burn rate is off the charts.
But if I were in some of the “calorie regulated” the schools of today, doing all that I was doing then, I’d be unhealthy. Thin, isn’t always a sign of health.
That unhealthiness would be a direct result of a school policy that sought to enforce a restriction on my nutritional intake.
As a kid, I’d not even have been able to recognize the danger until my body shut down in the middle of a meet. And what about the damage done by malnutrition as I trained to win?
What ever happened to teaching kids personal responsibility? Or, for that matter Phys Ed? All the so called affronts to our self esteem are in fact learning situations. Lots of those lessons are taught not in the classroom, but in the schoolyard.
You’re not always going to be the strongest, fastest, smartest, or the best.
That’s LIFE!
Knowing that simple truth provides a balance to me and my personal philosophies. This knowledge allows me to deal with most situations.
Mind you, I might not be happy about it, but I know how to deal.
Why do we insist on giving children completely unrealistic expectations? How about lessons on losing with grace and honor?
Liberty and Freedom aren’t just abstract concepts to me. I want nothing more than to live and breath those concepts.
So long as I’m not harming anyone, It is up to me to decide how best to live my life.
By extension, were I a parent, it would be MY call on what was best for MY child.
I deeply resent anyone who seeks to impose their will or belief structures on me. Note, I said belief structures…
You see, that leads to religion.
An Atheist, Dowist, Catholic, Satanist, Jew, or any other religious practitioner is granted the right to pursue their beliefs by the constitution.
At the same time, these folks are not permitted to force me to accept and practice their beliefs.
Yet, all around us we have people imposing their will on others not out of fact, but out of dogmatic belief.
What is the difference between the belief of a religion… and the dogmatic adherence to unproven philosophies that are ostensibly to protect us all?
I could make the argument my decision to convert all nonbelievers to Christ for the betterment of their eternal souls. You know, for their own good… Is not only right… but necessary because I know best what they need to be happy!
That would be wrong, and it’s already been done. A little tea party called the Inquisition, which may have led to a certain explorer finding the North American continent… again.
Back to the Twitter incidents.
Increasingly, discussions about current events are interrupted by people who, uninvited, start ramming their dogmatic beliefs down everyone else’s throats.
This happens on almost every subject and typically ends, only when the original topic of conversation is abandoned.
So called “Liberals” are to my mind, the worst offenders.
Whether it be in defense of the ACA while people are commiserating about the loss of their insurance and inability to access exchanges or obtain subsidies.
On the more vicious, hateful, strident calls, for more gun control interjected in a conversation about steel versus lead ammunition.
The result is always the same.
The original conversant says “Uh, please leave, we’re not talking about that here.”
The intruder replies “Fuck you, you stupid tea party moron.”
Original conversant “ Look, I didn’t swear at you or call you names, I’m trying to tell my friend how to adapt to steel ammunition in hunting ducks.”
Intruder “Fucking animal! you should shoot yourself instead of the ducks.”
Original conversant “Ok, hey @myfriend, I’ll talk to you later, DM your email address.”
Intruder “Yeah you run you fucking tea party gun nut, I hope your kid shoots your dick off!”
And then the thread dies.
It’s sad because I and I’m sure others, would have enjoyed gaining the perspective of someone who had made the transition for lead shot to steel shot.
Several weeks ago I muted someone in Twitter. I’d, up to that point, never muted anyone.
I can’t help but feel that everyone is entitled to the same freedom of expression I am. That being said, I rarely jump into a conversation unless I know one or more of the parties involved.
The guy I muted is someone that I’ve spoken with and whose comments I usually enjoy.
However, he went so far over several lines of politeness and decorum that I felt I had no choice but to silence him before he said something that I would really find offensive.
Incidents have been occurring with increasing frequency and outright hatred, over the past month or so.
In each one, even if I’m not speaking I’ve found myself offended and with no desire to read any further comments from any of the parties.
I can say the “evil bastard conservatives” typically don’t resort to obscenities during a heated discussion.
The Liberals on the other hand should have their mouths washed out with soap.
Last night for example, I was repeatedly called a moron, idiot, and tea party asshole.
This verbal abuse came from a woman who would never have taken that kind of verbal abuse from me. She inserted herself in the conversation calling me an idiot in her very first tweet.
All I said was “We lose our health insurance so that we may become dependent on the government.” To a friend of mine who’d just gotten his insurance cancellation notice.
He thought it was funny, gallows humor but funny nonetheless.
I meant it somewhat tongue in cheek but with a sting. If in fact you require a subsidy to pay for your health insurance you are by default dependent on the government.
Apparently, at least according to this “Lady” (Grand inquisitor more like) that made me an idiot.
She repeatedly told us all that the government didn’t pay for insurance.
Really? If you get a 100% subsidy the government is picking up the tab aren’t they?
I tried to get her to explain her position. Thats when she called me a moron, and we went down hill from there.
Somewhere in the middle of her hate ridden tirade against everyone who even questioned the policies of St Barak Obama I realized that by accessing Twitter, I’d willingly let this bitch into my home.
Before you ask, No, at no time did I call her any names… I thought it. I thought it a lot, but I didn’t call her anything that sprang to mind.
With that knowledge came this, I could in fact, throw her out just as easily.
I closed Twitter and took a deep breath.
My first inclination was to kill the Twitter account too.
I slept on it.
I’ve decided that I’ll keep the account, instead of killing the account, I am going on hiatus for a few weeks.
You see, on the one hand, I feel like I’m inviting all the hate, and vitriol the liberals, and any other nutjob can spew into my home.
On the other hand if I fold my tent and simply don’t participate, these spewing fountains of sewage will appear to represent the majority of America.
This is, I believe how the Republican party came to be regarded so poorly.
The moderates got tired of fighting the ultra right (or left) nutjobs, and they simply stopped engaging.
After all, as a responsible person I know I can turn off the TV, the computer, or anything else that bugs me and my day will progress quite nicely.
Most moderates understand this and exercise the option often.
However by doing that, we the moderates, abdicate our control to the sewage spewing nuts on either side of the political divide.
That, my brothers and sisters is why we the moderates must fight on.
We must not be silenced, we must not allow ourselves to be lumped into a group.
We must speak, politely, firmly, and honestly.
If we don’t, we’ll all end up ordering tofu tacos from an approved government vendor and only be allowed to have 90 calories per meal.
I know, not a good thing and certain to give you indigestion.
They caught my attention because they did this “shooting timeline“
Essentially, they plotted all the “Major” ie “Newsworthy” shootings in 2012 & 2013 and concluded that these shootings typically happened about 6 weeks apart.
They ended of course with the LAX and Westfield Mall shootings. And a grim total of 84 dead.
I should point out that the Westfield mall shooting resulted in no shootings except the self inflicted fatal wound of the shooter himself.
What struck me was that CBS didn’t include police shootings which I would argue are far more terrifying because the police are supposed to protect us, not shoot us.
The most recent of these was in New York where officers shot at and missed a perpetrator but managed to wound innocent bystanders on the street.
They also said nothing about the 13 year old who was shot and killed on the street near his home by a police officer in Northern California less than 10 seconds after the encounter began. The 13 year old was carrying a bb gun…
CBS also completely ignored the incessant shootings in Chicago and Washington DC. I would argue that the daily violence in Chicago rivals or exceeds the violence we saw in the Nigeria mall shooting, which CBS included in their mass shooting timeline.
How many people per day have to be shot in Chicago’s “Gun Free zone” before the magnitude of this national tragedy and fallacy of “Gun Free Zones” is newsworthy?
Don’t misunderstand,mass shootings are horrible. They’re the product of a deranged mind or minds. Shootings during the commission of a crime are horrific.
Often these shootings are used as circumstantial evidence in support of stricter gun control.
This was evident in the CBS report as one to the CBS reporters was shown asking Harry Reid if he would push additional gun control legislation given the recent LAX and Mall shootings.
I find myself on the other side of the argument.
I can’t help but think if one or two citizens had been carrying concealed weapons, or if an off-duty police officer (who could shoot straight) was carrying a weapon that the mall shooting, or the Colorado theater shooting, or the LAX shooting, or Sandy Hook, would have ended very differently.
By differently, I mean with the deranged individual bleeding out on the floor and the innocent citizens either physically unscathed or far fewer number among the injured.
I’m not suggesting a wild west scenario, I’m suggesting, putting down an obvious and dangerous threat to the society.
We’d have no problem, and in fact in the past we didn’t have a problem shooting rabid animals in the streets when they posed a threat to the community.
These deranged criminals, regardless of their mental health, their medications, or lack thereof are demonstrably more dangerous to the community than any rabid animal.
I find myself believing more and more that community safety is better preserved by having random people in the community carrying concealed weapons, and knowing how to use them.
If a criminal has no idea and no way to anticipate what kind of resistance they’re likely to encounter then only very stupid or very desperate criminals will commit heinous acts of mass violence.
When I say carrying concealed weapons, It’s implied that these folks are properly trained, and know how to use their weapons appropriately.
Some people go through the training, and simulated crime situations only to discover they don’t have the temperament to carry a concealed weapon.
Most, if not all of those folks take that knowledge and don’t go any further. They don’t carry weapons, because they’ve learned that their temperaments or beliefs won’t let them harm another person.
Other people may discover that they’re a little too quick to draw and that too is valuable knowledge which may prevent those individuals from obtaining a concealed carry permit.
Obviously the rules and permitting requirements vary from state to state, but training is almost always at the core of any concealed carry permit process.
Either case, desperate or stupid, I believe a criminal is more likely to be stopped before doing serious damage in a society where concealed carry (and appropriate training) is the norm.
The fearmongers would have you believe that guns are used only by criminals, or sick individuals, the deranged, or terrorists.
The fearmongers would present a case where we can only be safe if guns and gun ownership are reduced.
The fearmongers will sell you a belief that anyone who wants a gun is by definition; sick, twisted, insane, criminal, or a terrorist.
This is the worst kind of misrepresentation. It’s actually an example of conflation and to my mind it’s among the most despicable things of which the main stream media is guilty.
Last nights CBS broadcast was simply another in a long line of Anti “this” and Pro “that” rhetoric designed to manipulate our people, (For our own good, of course).
One need only compare and contrast the medias reporting styles from administration to administration to see manipulation time and again.
Recently I found myself finding this all too familiar.
It was as if I’d read it or seen it in an “reductio ad absurdum” form in a book or movie.
The propaganda of many governments and tyrannical regimes springs easily to mind. Those examples are paraded by all opponents of any government policy.
What was trying to surface from the dark recesses of my curdled brain was more extreme…
Then I was reminded of the movie Serenity.
In the movie, a Teacher is describing all the benefits of Alliance rule, and how it brought true civilization to many worlds.
One of the students asks why a rebel group would refuse all these benefits and fight against the Alliance.
Another student says, “People don’t like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don’t run, don’t walk. We’re in their homes and in their heads and we haven’t the right. We’re meddlesome.”
The teacher replies, We’re not telling them what to think, we’re telling them how.
Later, One of the heroes, after discovering that the Alliance has lied and carried out an experiment that was supposed to make people peaceful but which destroyed millions, an entire world and also created a group of very aggressive monsters says; “Sure as I know anything, I know this – they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people… better.”
I think my brain latched onto the movie because it was ironic coming from Hollywood. Hollywood has been a staunch supporter of public policies designed to make us better.
No plastic bags.
No smoking… not in bars, not in cars, not on the beach, and recently not even in your own apartment.
No guns, more government control, less individual responsibility…
Entertainment has reflected these messages.
But these reflections are from a dark and elitist mirror.
Hollywood celebrities who run afoul of the law receive only the lightest of punishments. The average person committing the same crime, finds themselves being gang raped in prison.
Congress imposes laws, punitive taxes, and creates draconian bureaucracies, yet exempts themselves as a function of the same law. The bureaucracies consider our lawmakers exempt from their tender mercies as well.
All of it of course is “in the public interest”, “for your own good”, “for the good of the children”.
Sometimes they’re even right. But even in being “right”…
They’re meddlesome.
Through it all, our media continues to repeat the accepted party line in a never ending sycophantic orgy, instead of asking questions, reporting facts and performing their duty.
Benjamin Franklins quote;
“Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see“
Rings truer today than ever before.
Give it some thought when you listening to the evening news.
I 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.
concealed carry (and appropriate training) is the norm.
