Las Vegas

Love



Citycenter Complex


Just to rest from our strenuous trip to NYC with kids in tow, Hector and I drove over to Vegas on Sunday the 15th. We got a good rate at Bellagio ($149 a night with an extra $50 upgrade for a lake view) and Vegas was the quietest I have seen it in years. All the local workers said it's always pretty quiet this time of year, but that usually just means 95% capacity as opposed to 100%.

When we drove in it was 109 degrees but I love that baking desert heat. We had a low-key few days by the pool, in the spa, ate at Olives and Noodles, I got a professional shave at the salon, we saw LOVE at the Mirage. It was a very fun show, this is the 6th or 7th Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas now and we've seen them all. They're very entertaining but they all tend to have pretty much the same expensive look, the same acrobatics, the same exorbitant ticket prices. I have to say, though, that the sound system was absolutely superb and the very best part was hearing the Beatles so loud and clear.

I kept myself on a tight gambling budget so I didn't really lose much. I wandered around, looking at all the changes. Wynn is building a 2nd tower, The Venetian is doubling its size, The Aladdin is gone and is now the Planet Hollywood Hotel. Serious work has begun on the Citycenter complex, next door to Bellagio. So I guess Vegas is still booming. There were a lot more foreigners this time: the standard Japanese of course, English, German, Arab. I like that.

New York

All-American Vanessa & Carlos at Battery Park



Eating NY Pizza with Uncle Steve (notice bruise on Carlos' left cheek where his Uncle Steve kicked him in the head on the trampoline 3 days previously)

New York

All of us made it back alive after the trip to NYC. There was no doubt about me and Hector but I wasn't sure about the kids. Actually, we all had a great time. We flew to Cincinnati where we spent the night (my first visit to this very middle American city), picked up the kids, flew in to La Guardia and were hammered by the heat the instant we stepped out of the airport. Remember that scene in Ab Fab when the girls go to Morocco? They've been boozing it up on the plane and the instant they step out into the heat, they both pass out.

Here's what we did: Statue of Liberty (the days are over when you can climb to the crown), Central Park featuring Hot Dogs and Ice Cream, Museum of Natural History, Times Square (countless times), shopped for junk in Chinatown, Ground Zero viewing (very uninteresting, don't do it), Double decker bus tour, we saw Harry Potter when it opened, went shopping at FAO Schwartz, Apple Store, Bloomingdales, saw Blue Man Group, had room service (amazing the mileage we got out of that) and a lot of aimless walking designed to wear down their little resistance quotients so they'd go right to sleep.

It took a couple of days to figure out that if you give a kid a soda, they go fucking nuts for about 2 hours, needless to say we clamped down quick. They were dying to ride the subway but the one day we did it there was a lunatic preaching on our car so they pleaded for taxis after that. And regardless of your feelings toward Starbucks, I thank God for them. At last, in New York there is someplace to pee every block.

I think I enjoyed the trip to the Statue of Liberty best. The ferry ride was fun, and I love all that old time Americana. Overall, a fun trip. We flew out on Friday, dropped the kids back home and continued on home to San Diego to find that all our luggage was scattered all over the country. It took 24 hours to reel it all in.

I Heart New York

Hector and I are taking his niece and nephew to New York for a few days. This was their choice after we offered to take them someplace fun this summer. How did a 9 and 11-year-old in Kentucky get the idea to go to Manhattan? It will be fun to see their reaction to the big city.

I guess we'll take them to all the usual stuff: Harlem, the Midtown Baths, Hell's Kitchen.

Happy 4th of July

In a move that surprised no one on the face of the earth, Monday George Bush commuted the sentence of old pal Lewis "Scooter" Libby, convicted of lying and obstructing justice in a CIA-leak case. This is not exactly the same as a complete pardon, but when asked if that might eventually happen, Bush replied, "I rule nothing in or nothing out."

In more patriotic news, Minnesota has passed a law stating that flags sold in the state have to be US-made but they stopped short of requiring all flag-holders to be Christian.

And locally there is still no agreement in talks between grocery store chains and union workers. I fear a strike is impending.

The grocery workers strike in 2003 went on for nearly 5 months and one risked harrassment if one went through the picket line to purchase some turkey sausage or shampoo/conditioner.

Seasons Greetings

We're expecting a really terrible "fire season" this year. May 1st signalled the end of the official rain season and the beginning of fire season, although there's usually very little difference.

Flying into San Diego it's completely brown, as we're having the driest 2-year period in a century. Already, areas around Julian are burning, even though I'm surprised there's anything left to burn after the fires there a few years ago. People forget that we're in a desert, even though we are sitting right on the ocean.

And the really sad thing is that most of the time the authorities find out later that these really big fires were intentionally set, sometimes by pyromaniac firemen. Figure that one out.