Vegas Day Six. Geek day, last day...

The last official day in Las Vegas for us and the first half was dedicated to being a Star Trek Geek... We took the monorail over to LV Hilton and the Star Trek Experience. We went on the 2 interactive, 4D type of shows. They were pretty fun and I even think I got a bit motion sick! They had a nice display of props and stuff from the TV series and the movies and a pretty cool gift shop full of stuff for Star Trek fans. We then headed down to Quark's bar which was made up to look like the set from the DS9 tv series. The food was pretty good and decently priced. My wife even got to rub the ears of the resident Ferengi owner. Apparently not every one can do that for free! I even enjoyed a glass of Romulan Ale, direct from the Neutal Zone! It was a good time and a good way to spend part of the last day. After that we went to the convention center where there was a Cowboy Christmas going on that was there for the Rodeo Finals. I have never been to something like this but there were more hats and boots and creased denim than you can shake a stick at. I many ways, it was no different than the gaming conventions I have been to, except that the geeks at this convention call themselves cowboys and cowgirls and the ones I go to, we call ourselves geeks....

Later than night we decided to eat late as we had been eating pretty much all day long, and we had a free $50 certificate to Nine Fine Irishmen, compliments of the Tahiti Village sales seminar... So to pass the time we walked over to the M&M store again for some gifts for the kids and then over to the Coyote Uglybar at New York, New York. Coyote Ugly, if you have never been before is a bar run for and by women. And the women who work there are smart, sassy and sexy. They control everything that goes on at the bar. The only male presence I saw were the two bouncers and they were under the direct control of the ladies at the bar. They gave all the women in the establishment free shots. (my wife did partake of about 6 of them!) and they made the guys pay for the music on the jukebox and required us to do certain things to get shots. I volunteered to get shots but didn't know what to expect. Luckily they only made us do a dance off. Me and three other guys in the middle of the bar dancing for a shot from between the bar mistress's legs... what guys will do for a pretty girl with free drinks... I did my best but got beat out because some cowboy had like a 1000 of his friends there and I lost and took 2nd. he got the shots, I got a kiss from my wife... I think I won in the end after all! It was really cool and very fun. I would definately go back there.
After that we had reservations for 9pm at Nine Fine Irishmen and eat some great(Free) food and listened to a great Irish band with a stepdancer that could have been in RiverDance. It was a great way to end the week in Vegas. It was very late and we were to leave for home tomorrow in the morning so it was the end of the vacation. Time well spent and much money not very well spent. Next time we go we will have to go with a bunch of friends. I think it would be even more fun!

Time to go!

later!

Vegas... Day five Real estate and proof that real men eat PINK!

Okay.. so this is day five and we are gonna pay for being naive and obvious tourists. The very first day and not more than three hours on the ground and we get suckered into one of the many "Free show and dinner specials" that it seems everyone wants to give you. We got snagged in New York, New York, and we were talked into doing a 2.5 hour seminar/business pitch to look at some time share property in Vegas. For doing it, we would get a free show... Lance Burton, magician, and $50 in meal tickets to a decent restaurant. Ok. So we did it. We were picked up at 8:45am to go tot Tahiti Village to have people talk to us about how cheap and smart for us to buy into a time share. Sure it would be if you liked coming back to Vegas every year and you consider $1200 a year cheap for a vacation. It was funny though that the guy trying to sell us on this deal was from Broadlands, Illinois! Small freaking world. He should have known right off the bat that midwestern, central Illinoisians are not going to give over $4,000 down in a matter of minutes while on vacation... Anyway, we got our tickets and certificate and a thank you and we were dropped back off where we got on. So now what... It was near noon and we would have to try and get and get a ride to the Star Trek experience. Sounded like a lot of work so we decided to go back to the hotel and make use of our room..............................................

Later that day..... We headed out and got some food at Planet Hollywood and then hoofed it over to the Monte Carlo to see the show. Surprisingly, we had some good seats and the show was darned good and fun! Not bad for sitting through a sales pitch! On the way back we caught another Bellagio fountain show... very nice as always... and decided to go get some more fabulous desserts at the little French style dessert stand. That is when I got my Rose Macaroon. The bright pink dessert! Man was it good, and man was it pink! It had a rose petal encrusted in sugar, fresh raspberries and custard inside with cookie type top and bottom. You had to work hard to get the goodies in between the pink parts but once you got there, it is sooo good that you want to go back and get more as soon as possible! (Breakfast??!?!)

Well, then it was late and we headed back to the Caesar and its friendly confines. Oh and I have not mentioned... one of the coolest things about walking the Strip.... there is a constant music soundtrack everywhere you go. Like carrying your XM radio on your favorite channel all day long! It was off for a short while at the hotel and it was like everything was shut down. I missed it! Weird...

Well that is all for now... Tomorrow... Geek Day.

Later

Vegas Day four...Chocolate and gambling

Today was a very lazy day, and at some points, boring. Yeah.. go figure! Bored in Las Vegas... but it can happen, especially if you can't justify over priced shopping or are not going to gamble and you don't have a car!

The conference was in its final day and was expected to last well into the afternoon, so i spend a big part of the day doing some reading and some tv watching. No Star Trek Experience today...
I did go out and do some people watching which can be quite entertaining in itself.

I talked with the kids and even got to talk to the dog, all of which made me a bit homesick, but it was better once my wife was done with the conference. When we got together, we decided to walk over to the Bellagio, the one hotel we had not been in yet. When we got there, we saw a very impressive set of Christmas decorations made up of giant polar bears and reindeer made up of carnations and pecans. They also have a huge tree with dancing water spouts around it. But that was nothing compared to the chocolate fountain at the little shop around the corner at Jean Phillipe's You can see part of it on the last photo. We couldn't resist the temptation to buy come good European chocolate and shared a small chocolate mousse cake. WOW was it good!

Later we went back to the Caesar and had some food and did a bit of gambling. The photo was not supposed to be taken in the casino, but the guy at the wheel of fortune said he would look the other way. We did not do to badly, turning $10 into $34. So, there. We gambled in Las Vegas. Now we are official non-virgins to Vegas.

Tomorrow we are planned to do a tour at a time share to get free tickets and dinner, something most wide eyed tourists get roped into while in Vegas. So. until day Five, see you later.

Vegas... Day three... lots to do!

Day three and I think that we had our busiest of the days so far. After my wife's conference was done in the afternoon, we headed out on foot to go see the sites. And we did a bunch! We went and hobnobbed with the stars at Madam Tossouds Wax Museum. It is creepy how life like they are!

Then we were off to see some of the other sites at the hotels along the strip. We went in to most of them and compared to the Ceasar's, they seem to be of lesser quality. We have yet to see the inside of the Bellagio so we will can't comment on that yet.

We did take the ride up to the top of the Eiffel Tower at Paris-Las Vegas. It afforded a great veiw of the strip and the surrounding countryside. We even saw the fountains do their dance again from 50 stories up!

We headed south on the strip again and checked out the Luxor which is just HUGE! But like so many of the others, the Casino is the main attraction and it looked just like all the others. On the way back up the strip we stopped at the M&MM World store and shopped around. You can see in the photo all the 22 colors of M&M's bu we only ever get to see about 7 of them in the commercial market. We bought some for the kids. It was neat to see the colors you never see in packages.

We got back to the hotel later that afternoon and made use of the huge jaccuzzi and got ready to head out for dinner. We got to eat at SPAGOS, which is the famous restaurant owned by Wolfgang Puck. Man, it was some good food, but like everything else in Vegas, expensive.

Later we headed over to the Venetian for a gondola ride and a bit of shopping at the Blue Man Group store. My son Julian would love this store...

I purchased tickets for the Star Trek Experience which we will do on Wednesday so expect some photos of geeks tomorrow!

Gotta run! Later!

Las Vegas .. Day 2. The expensive and the ridiculous

Hey! Day 2 in Las Vegas and we still have not gambled. Probably because it cost so much for everything else that I can't hardly stand to give out the last few dollars in my pocket... Let's see, $5 for a water, $35 for breakfast, and $12 a day to just use the internet. But in the end, a big portion will be paid back from the conference re-imbursement. Monday was a lazy day. I headed out to the Forum Shops and quickly found that if you do not make at least $100.000 annually, you really can't afford to shop there. There are some high class establishments there that sell some really nice stuff and I would love to relieve them of some of their inventory, but alas, it is far to expensive. We did alot of window shopping which can be just as tiring as the real shopping. A nap was definately in order for the afternoon. We did not really have any plans other than exploring the strip a little more and a nice dinner out, especially since the last place was kind of a disappointment.
We set out but not before my wife tried her hand goosing the 16ft DAVID statue in the middle of the Appian Way in the Hotel.

Our dinner reservation was at a place called Sushi Roku, which looked nice from the description. And we were not dissappointed! It had a great selection and a great view. Nicely priced and great service. I even found a new appetizer that I will have to try to make at home!

After the our meal we headed in the opposite direction that we traveled last time and went to see the pirate show at Treasure Island but found it shut down for renovation. Oh well. More walking and we finally ended up at the Venetian Hotel. Nice looking place but it smelled funny. It is supposed to look like Venice with a canal and Gondola boats and all. Very cool. We are gonna go back for a boat ride I think. We walked around the shopping area, which you can see looks like a town square. It was here that I found the most ridiculous and expensive thing I have ever seen. It was at a watch and timepeice shop. A watch caught my eye and I asked about it. The clerk said they carried it and there were only two of them left and were $56,000.00 each. It did not register to me immediately that he had just said $56,000.00 for a watch! It was about 10 seconds later when I saw the price tag that it sunk in. There is a watch on the market that costs more than it cost me to buy my house! And then looking more closely, my wife pointed out a pocket watch that was $66,000.00!!! You gotta be kidding! Who buys this stuff!?

anyway... we walked some more and made our plans for Tuesday and it should be fun. The Tossaud's wax museum, the Eiffel tower and the M&M store! Funny, no mention of gambling yet.. maybe we should do that.

Later!

Vegas... Day one

Hey Hey! We are in Vegas! Cool city! The flight was great as we got bumped to first class with a great meal, glasses of wine and a very talkative flight attendant. Nice comfy chairs too!

We got in around 1pm Vegas time and went right to Ceasar Palace where we a staying. Lots of cool Roman design! This is neat as I am exploring doing a Roman Persona for history demos and school demos and such. Very, very nice place! And Huge! I was a bit dissappointed that there are no Roman types here and it seems that there is no vomitorium.... dang... I thought for Vegas, something as tacky as that would be here.

Anyway, the room is nice and the bathroom is great! Big shower, jaccuzzi tub and two sinks. Big soft bed and plenty of room.

After recharging from the plane ride, we set out to find New York, New York, where we would eat and then see out first show in Vegas. We ate in an Italian restaurant that had great food but crappy service, so I will speak no more of it. The show we were to see was in the same area so we strolled around and waited for the doors to open. It is Zumanity by Cirque Du Soleil. WOW! It is a show that celebrates sexuality, sensuality and erotic humanity with a bit of drama, acrobatics, dancing, and singing with lots of great music. Performed mostly by primarily naked or topless Cirque peformers, it is a show that can take you out of your comfort zone, especially when the performers come down to your seat and interact with you in ways, that most strangers do not on a regular basis. (think groping and dry humping in some aspects) Overall, it was a fantastic performance! (the photo on the right is one of the performers... Antonio el 7", who made it his job to take us out of our comfort zone.)

After the show were walked back past the Bilagio and watched the fountains. It was cool.

Back to the hotel and to bed. My wife's conference is tomorrow. I will go out and explore and see what there is do see. More tomorrow then! I will try to post photos if possible!

The photos were added after I wrote this so, they are out of order. The first one is of me on a BED at the pool where you could relax, sleep or conceivably, have sex on (draw the curtains) if you so desired while visiting the pool. The second photo is one of my famous "arm shots" at the New York, New York casino. The thirds is explained above.

Later!

Rootin' Tootin' good holiday!

Hello all! It has been a while since I have felt the creative urge to write anything! I still do not feel all the creative, but I thought I would put down what a traditional Thanksgiving Holiday is for my family. Thanksgiving, is as you know, the forgotten holiday... it gets forgotten between Halloween and Christmas, except by those brave souls that venture out for the early morning Black Friday shopping extravaganza.

However, Thanksgiving is not forgotten by our family. No.. as a matter of fact, it is something that is looked forward to. Not just because we get together and eat more than we should, but because we break out our shootin' irons and have a great time shooting at clay pigeons, stationary targets, beer cans, dirt clods, etc. etc.... It is a great time. This last weekend for the holiday, we had wonderful weather and made the most of it. We gobbled (no pun intended) our food down and headed out behind my dad's barn and started blasting! This was even better for me, because for the first time, my son was able to join in with his own shotgun, and he showed himself to be a very good shot and very responsible with the gun... maybe more so than some of the adults! And to top it off, my wife joined in and also proved to be pretty good! I think she was the best shooter of the girls that were also shooting with us! It was kick ass! It is a real treat for me to see my family do well at stuff like this, especially since it is such a big part of my and my family tradition! But more importantly it is great to see us all having such a great time. My dad keeps talking about wanting to sell his place and move to the big city of 850 people down the road. I can understand his reasoning, but a move like this will kill a tradition like our Turkey Day shoot out. But, that is neither here not there and as long as we can get together as a family to do this stuff and keep on having a great time together, we will. Christmas is coming up and it is looking to be another big family get together. And I am sure that there will be more good times like there were for Thanksgiving. Who says that guns can't create family togetherness!


Later!

ps..
I am headed to Las Vegas in a day or two... Maybe I will post some stuff from Sin City! We will see! What goes on in Las Vegas is not necessarily supposed to leave Las Vegas!