Vegas, baby! - Part V

"Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in."

After the previous night, I figured last night would consist of some dinner followed by an early bedtime. This was not to be.


A couple docs who work with Lago were going to eat at the Paris buffet and then go over to the Bellagio. They wanted to tour the art gallery and the gardens there. Lago wanted to try a restaurant at the Bellagio and then meet her pals. We decided to eat at Sensi, which has a fusion of American, Mediterranean and Asian cuisine. It’s on the garden side of the Bellagio and filled with glass, metal and waterfalls. The kitchen is centered in the restaurant and surrounded by glass walls. I had the lamb chops and Lago had lobster. We paired it with the Mac Murray Ranch Pinot Noir. Everything was excellent.

Lago’s pals decided to call it a night and never made it to the Bellagio. Lago was feeling wide awake and wasn’t ready to go back to the room. We went over to the New York, New York and found a cover band playing in the Big Apple Lounge. They played all classic rock tunes, including three or four Journey songs. I should have called ol’ Lazy Acres and let him listen in. I know he would have enjoyed a call in the middle of the night.


We even managed to meet up with the New Orleans doc from the previous night and at that point we were out. The only bad thing about a Tuesday night in Vegas is that even though the casinos and bars don’t close, most entertainment stops at 2 a.m. We looked around for a $10 Blackjack table, but they were all full. We stopped and asked a guy playing alone at a Three-Card Poker table how to play. It seemed like he lost a lot more than he won. He was dealt three 6s while we were there and won big. I was thinking maybe the dealer gave him that in hopes that we would sit down and play. Who knows, but we didn’t play.

When we left, the New Orleans doc found himself a “non-working” lady to chat with. We heard that after 2 a.m., most single women in the casinos are “on the clock” so to speak. We wished him good luck and good night sometime after 3:30 a.m. PT.

"You're money and you don’t even know it!"

Vegas, baby! – Part IV

Slow getting up this morning… scratch that, slow getting up this afternoon. Last night was a late one. We started the evening by going over to the Rio. We had dinner at the Voodoo Lounge at the top of the hotel/casino on the 50th & 51st floors. A glass elevator on the front of the Rio takes you to the top. We had a drink before dinner in the bar where you can walk outside on the rooftop for amazing views of the city. After dinner, we went back down to the casino level to see Penn & Teller. I think I’ve seen most of their TV specials and it was great to see them live. Even when they’re showing you how a trick is done, like using clear plastic cups for a simple cup & balls trick, you’re still amazed at their slight of hand.

We were thinking about heading back up to the Voodoo Lounge after the show, but Lago wanted to go over to The House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay for their RockStar karaoke. It’s not affiliated with the TV show on CBS, but does employ the same format of singing in front of a house cover band instead of singing along to some lame recording. We had a good time, even though Lago didn’t sing. We got their too late for her to sign up.

The Queen of Karaoke was there with her date, a cardboard cutout of Elvis. Mojo Nixon was right, Elvis is everywhere! My camera-phone picts do not do justice to the crazy Queen, who pulled off her skirt during her performance. Believe me, this is something no one wanted to see! OK, well maybe that one guy in the photo below, but that's it.


We met up with a couple doctors from Lago’s hospital and another doc who had interned there, but was now practicing in New Orleans. He was a funny dude who sparked a debate over the greatest rock ‘n’ roll song ever. He swayed between Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” I liked the Stones choice, but I thought there were better Led Zep tunes than “Stairway.” I posed another Stones tune, not for its writing but for its simplicity and I think one of the greatest recordings ever, “Gimme Shelter.” That song gives me shivers every time I hear it. Look up the definition for “rock ‘n’ roll,” know what you’d find? The definition for rock ‘n’ roll, of course.


The House of Blues closed at 2 a.m. PT, so we meandered over to the casino lounge for a couple more drinks before calling it a night an hour or so later. It's not easy livin' large in sin city, but dagnabbit we're giving it one hell of a try!

Vegas, baby! – Part III

Yesterday, Lago returned from her first day of the conference and we went out to dinner at Smith & Wollensky’s, one of our all-time favs. The S&W here is just down the strip from the MGM Grand. The food was excellent as always, and we think it even tops Morton’s, another fav. We had the Clos Du Val Cabernet, as we often do, but this time we had the 2001, which I don’t think we’ve had before. Wa-owh! Was that good!!!


The Strip was crowded last night following the NBA All-Star game, but it was good to see the police out in force with the huge crowd. We never did catch a glimpse of anyone famous, as far as we knew, and I imagine most are headed out of town today.

Not much on tap for today. I took a walk over to the Mandalay Bay this morning, where Lago’s conference is taking place, and picked up a coffee on the way back. Tonight we’re venturing out to the Rio to see Penn & Teller. Hopefully we can get a taxi as it’s supposed to rain here later this evening. There was a taxi shortage during the NBA All-Star festivities. I heard some people waited up to two hours for a taxi. Luckily, we’ve walked everywhere so far.

Wednesday there’s a special concert for conference attendees & guests featuring “one of the greatest rock bands of all time.” Yep, you guessed it… Styx! It’s a free show, so we figure, why not.


This morning, workers were taking down the NBA All-Star banner draped across the pyramid.

Vegas, baby! - Part II

Yesterday we walked down to the Bellagio and Caesars Palace. We were planning on returning to the room before meeting Dave and fam for dinner, but after walking through Caesars we stumbled upon Planet Hollywood where Dave planned to meet us. Lago wanted to do some shopping so we decided to spend the whole afternoon over there. After lunch, Lago went off to her shopping and I played some video poker while waiting. I really didn’t think she would take almost two hours, but she loves to shop. I didn’t do too bad especially for playing that long. I only lost $6. I’m a high roller yo – that’s right I throw down at the 25-cent machines, that’s how I roll dawg!


It was great to see Dave and his fam and we had a good dinner catching up on old times.


We stopped at the Bellagio fountains on our way back to the hotel. That’s Brad Pitt on the left (photo below), but he was feeling shy. I know what you’re thinking, yep Angelina took the pict! That’s her M&M bag on the railing. She loves those M&Ms, I don’t know how she keeps her figure!


It was a long walk back to the hotel, so of course we had some “road beers.”


Lago and I changed our clothes and headed back out to the Coyote Ugly Saloon in New York, New York. Lago has wanted to go to one since she saw the Coyote Ugly reality show on CMT. We have one in Charlotte, but have never been. There was a Playboy Playmate there, Miriam Gonzalez. She walked right past us on her way to the back to sign autographs, but if she didn’t have security around her, I doubt anyone would have known who she was.


Some lunk head stepped on Lago’s toes in the saloon and her feet were hurting from all the walking. She traded her shoes for some Las Vegas fabulous flip flops and we walked around the NYC-themed casino. That's aged beef at Gallagher's steakhouse in the photo.


When we saw the big sign for the Elvis slot machines… we gotta play the Elvis slots! But the King showed us no love on this night.


After Elvis stiffed us, we decided to call it a night.

Today, Lago started her conference – the real reason why we’re here. I’m just kicking back today still feeling a little tired, maybe from the walking, the time change, the beers. Lago is done at 6pm PT and my task for the afternoon is to figure out where we’re having dinner. Tomorrow evening we’re going to see Penn & Teller at the Rio.


In case you’re wondering, the photo in the last post with my face on the Luxor pyramid was not PhotoShopped. That’s my reflection in our hotel room window.

Vegas, baby!

The only thing I’ve found humbling about turning 40 – statements such as the following… It’s been 20 years since I was in Las Vegas. Or, a couple years ago noting that it had been 20 years since I first saw U2. You think that’s bad? Twice since we’ve been here I referred to my iPod as my Walkman. Boy-o-boy, pack my bags and send me to the nanny home!

As you can tell we made it here. Our flight was delayed three hours and it was about 3 or 4 a.m. PT when we checked into the hotel. We slept in yesterday, but it was kind of a fog and I still felt tired all day. Today, feeling back to normal after getting some regular allotted sleep.

Yesterday afternoon we walked over to the MGM Grand and had lunch at Emeril’s Fish House. Very good! Thanks for the recommendation ol’ Lazy Acres. We plan on returning for dinner before we leave. We had dinner last night here at our hotel in the Luxor Steakhouse. It was very good and we had a bottle of 1999 Saintsbury Reserve Pinot Noir – wow was that good, with its age it tasted more like a Cabernet than a Pinot. After dinner we walked over to the Mandalay Bay before returning to the room. We were probably the only ones in town who called it a night around midnight, but we needed to catch up on our sleep.


Today, we’re meeting Dave and his fam for dinner. They’re driving out from Orange County, Calif. Should be fun. Haven’t seen Dave since the Big 40.

The NBA All-Star game is going on this weekend and New York, New York’s Lady Liberty and the MGM Grand Lion are decked out in East and West basketball jerseys.

798 Songs, 2.6 Days, 3.6 GB... and counting

The Ultimate Shuffle
This weekend I converted Lago’s old computer into an iTunes jukebox for the Lounge. Not only was it an “old computer” sitting in the closet not being used, I mean it was running Windows 98 with a 16 GB hard drive, 95 MB RAM and a 600 Mhz processor. Can you believe they make video iPods with 80 GB drives!

First, I pulled all Lago’s old files onto a CD and then I upgraded the operating system to Windows XP (iTunes will not run on Windows 98). Next, I downloaded and installed all the Windows updates from the last 4-5 years, about 20 of them. The copy of Windows XP was a version I had gotten back in 2001 for my old computer, which is now defunct. Once all the updates were done I installed the latest version of iTunes. Although I doubt I needed it, I also installed an old version of Roxio Easy Media Creator. And as far as programs go, that was it. Next I needed to load the iTunes music. I had to do this via CD instead of DVD since Lago’s old computer can only read CDs. I burned about 4-5 data CDs of iTunes from my computer and Lago’s laptop and loaded them into the “jukebox.” I connected the “jukebox” right into the stereo receiver using a stereo mini-to-RCA cord. We gave it a test run last night. It was pretty cool playing on shuffle and having any song pop up. This morning I added a data CD’s worth of jazz and then created a playlist for jazz only. That gave me a playlist of 123 songs (12.4 hours) of some of the greatest music ever recorded. Then I added another data CD’s worth of some Billy Joel, Dave Matthews Band and others topping our new iTunes jukebox with a grand total of 798 songs, or 2.6 days, or 3.6 GB worth of music. It’s playing now, and just went from U2 to Miles Davis to Grateful Dead to Grover Washington Jr. to Red Hot Chili Peppers.

We have a workhorse Sony 5-disc CD player in the Lounge that I’ve had since 1994. Instead of popping CDs in and pressing shuffle, I’ll fire up the jukebox for the ultimate shuffle.

I’ve wanted to take an old computer and do this for some time now, mostly so I wouldn’t have to burn CDs of my iTunes except if I wanted to play them in the car or use them in a mix CD.

As much as I like the ease of being able to purchase and download almost anything, the thing I like most about CDs, DVDs and even the old vinyl LPs, you can put them on your shelf – something you can’t do with iTunes or Napster. That’s what I really love about “owning” the CDs. You have them sitting there on your shelf, and as long as they’re factory produced they’ll last a lifetime. Unlike a computer drive or burnable CD, which has a life expectancy of roughly five years, give or take. Oh well, it’s the digital age right? And I just “recycled” an old computer into a digital home jukebox. I suppose I could have saved the time and effort and bought a new video iPod, but where’s the fun in that?


As you can see from the photo, the home jukebox is quite a bit larger than Lago’s 4 GB iPod.

SNOW!

*** UPDATE - 11:15 a.m.
Full on rain now. Let's hope it doesn't freeze too much.
***

*** UPDATE - 9:30 a.m.
Just when I thought it had switched over to rain & sleet, and the snow in the driveway had turned to a clear slush, it just switched back to a heavy wet snow. ***

8:02 a.m. - We finally got snow this morning. They're calling for 1-3 inches here in the city before it changes over to sleet and freezing rain this afternoon and then all rain this evening. I just got word they closed our office this morning. The snow is really coming down and sticking to the road. Lago left for work very early, but she has her 4x4 truck. Hopefully by the time she gets home the snow should be gone.

I heard from my big sister Donna that she and George should arrive around noon today. They're stopping in on their way down south. We're supposed to go out to dinner tonight, but we'll see what the conditions are like.

For those of you up north, looks like the "weather" is headed your way.