What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas
After sufficient recovery time, I am prepared to talk about my trip with my pirate friends to Las Vegas. However, I intend on only hitting some of the highlights as opposed to rambling on and on as I do normally.
Any time you can spend four days in close proximity with roughly twenty other people and not actually have to urge to bury one of them in the desert means that your friends are truly that.
That first night, the crew decided on dinner at the Bellagio and the atrium had a huge display of glass from this guy. It was absolutely breathtaking... though it didn't detract from the wonderful topiary display in the next room. For an initiation into the Vegas experience, we picked very well.
Several of us got tickets to shows for the first evening. Our crowd of six picked Tom Jones because how could one not go see Tom Jones if the opportunity presented itself. The dude still brings a lot of energy to the show and to suggest it was simply fabulous... well, the term understatement has a certain application in this case. What really drove it home was, in the middle of his set, when he settled into a boogie-woogie groove and started off with a cover of "All Shook Up" by the King himself. Tom Jones... doing a cover of Elvis... in Las Vegas. It was as if all the matter in the universe had compacted itself in preparation for the next big bang.
It is no secret that I enjoy cooking. While breakfast isn't the most complicated exercise of culinary expertise, it does require the coordination of many small tasks to pull off well. Successfully feeding the horde during our stay ranks as a personal achievement that I'll privately treasure for years to come.
There was at least one planned dinner at the house. You have a few options in these situations: Big pot of stew, big fricking casserole, or grill party. We opted for the last one figuring that it would provide the greatest variety for differing tastes. In narrowing it further, shish-kabob quickly became the favored choice along with grilled chicken. As luck would have it, the folks who went shopping brought back nearly all the fixings for my favorite marinade for kabob. It was a grand meal when it was all said and done. Squid's got mad skills when it comes to grilling stuffs.
Say what you will about any of the other forms of gambling on the strip, I've found a certain passion with the game of craps. Though my two experiences had me more down than up, I enjoyed myself immensely and have learned a lot about the ebb and flow of the table. Next time, I think I'll be in a better position to ride the odds better. A dangerous concept seeing as the cabin where I frequent in the summer is a scant drive from a casino with craps tables...
While waking up one morning, we happened across a commerical for a show on the History Channel illustrating how Star Trek influenced technology and science, in a kitchy Shatner-centric sort of way. Interesting program in spite of its fluff. And, in retrospect, both the series and Shatner himself have had a profound impact on our culture and science. Some guys have all the luck.
The Luxor is the one that looks like a pyramid. If that alone does not make it stand out, the capstone is lit at night such that it can been seen from space. Impressive, no? Then what would you say if I told you that the rooms of the hotel are a series of tiers that line the outer perimeter of the pyramid leaving the inside cavernously hollow? When we came in, my focus was on looking for our friends we were meeting there so I hadn't bothered to look up until about ten minutes after we got there. When I finally did, it felt like was staring into some Lovecraftian sanctum santorum. All that was missing was a gibbering formless horror from the outer void to complete my journey into insanity.
Yeah, so this is me... not rambling.
Any time you can spend four days in close proximity with roughly twenty other people and not actually have to urge to bury one of them in the desert means that your friends are truly that.
That first night, the crew decided on dinner at the Bellagio and the atrium had a huge display of glass from this guy. It was absolutely breathtaking... though it didn't detract from the wonderful topiary display in the next room. For an initiation into the Vegas experience, we picked very well.
Several of us got tickets to shows for the first evening. Our crowd of six picked Tom Jones because how could one not go see Tom Jones if the opportunity presented itself. The dude still brings a lot of energy to the show and to suggest it was simply fabulous... well, the term understatement has a certain application in this case. What really drove it home was, in the middle of his set, when he settled into a boogie-woogie groove and started off with a cover of "All Shook Up" by the King himself. Tom Jones... doing a cover of Elvis... in Las Vegas. It was as if all the matter in the universe had compacted itself in preparation for the next big bang.
It is no secret that I enjoy cooking. While breakfast isn't the most complicated exercise of culinary expertise, it does require the coordination of many small tasks to pull off well. Successfully feeding the horde during our stay ranks as a personal achievement that I'll privately treasure for years to come.
There was at least one planned dinner at the house. You have a few options in these situations: Big pot of stew, big fricking casserole, or grill party. We opted for the last one figuring that it would provide the greatest variety for differing tastes. In narrowing it further, shish-kabob quickly became the favored choice along with grilled chicken. As luck would have it, the folks who went shopping brought back nearly all the fixings for my favorite marinade for kabob. It was a grand meal when it was all said and done. Squid's got mad skills when it comes to grilling stuffs.
Say what you will about any of the other forms of gambling on the strip, I've found a certain passion with the game of craps. Though my two experiences had me more down than up, I enjoyed myself immensely and have learned a lot about the ebb and flow of the table. Next time, I think I'll be in a better position to ride the odds better. A dangerous concept seeing as the cabin where I frequent in the summer is a scant drive from a casino with craps tables...
While waking up one morning, we happened across a commerical for a show on the History Channel illustrating how Star Trek influenced technology and science, in a kitchy Shatner-centric sort of way. Interesting program in spite of its fluff. And, in retrospect, both the series and Shatner himself have had a profound impact on our culture and science. Some guys have all the luck.
The Luxor is the one that looks like a pyramid. If that alone does not make it stand out, the capstone is lit at night such that it can been seen from space. Impressive, no? Then what would you say if I told you that the rooms of the hotel are a series of tiers that line the outer perimeter of the pyramid leaving the inside cavernously hollow? When we came in, my focus was on looking for our friends we were meeting there so I hadn't bothered to look up until about ten minutes after we got there. When I finally did, it felt like was staring into some Lovecraftian sanctum santorum. All that was missing was a gibbering formless horror from the outer void to complete my journey into insanity.
Yeah, so this is me... not rambling.