On the Town

The following photos are just some random snippets from our venturing out about town on Friday and Saturday.


Rainbow Palms


Five o’clock shadow


Not quite on fire yet



The following pics show the inside and surroundings of the Mirage Hotel & Casino on the “Strip”









Here now the new Spring display inside Bellagio’s Conservatory







These are photos we took on Saturday evening on our way to the theater. We saw “The Cradle Will Rock” at UNLV’s Nevada Conservatory Theatre. It was the best performance of the season so far.



On southbound U.S. 95, approaching the Spaghetti Bowl



Driving on I-15 West, with the “Strip” hotels in the background



Just us having some fun with the camera

Resonating Logic

No, I'm going to rant today. I'll let the comic strip above kinda do that for me. I'm too stoked that it's finally Friday. It's the weekend, people! Took long enough to get there...a whole week!

George and I are having dinner somewhere on the "Strip" right after work tonight. Tomorrow evening we'll enjoy more theater. And in-between we will just enjoy the spring-like weather. Yes, the desert is warming up. Spring is here. And we're enjoying every little moment of it.

A great weekend to all of you out there.

Tackylicious

Obama Fingers?



You have got to be kidding me!



And I thought only America could be so tacky.



Then something like this comes along. And it's made and being sold in Germany, of all places. Seriously, I'd expected a little more class from the country where I grew up in.

Change of Pace

Okay, let's change subjects here. Enough with rants, political opinions or natural disasters. Let me slow down the pace and just share some photos of our neck in the woods. The following pictures just show stuff that George and I have been doing the last two weekends.


Here is George, enjoying this amazing dessert at one of our favorite restaurants in Las Vegas, Planet Dailies at Planet Hollywood Resort on the “Strip.” It consisted of crêpes, covered with warm apples and pears in caramel sauce and real french vanilla ice cream. Absolutely divine!



It is a bit on the pricey side, but the Planet Dailies coffee shop serves the most scrumptious food, prepared always fresh with the best ingredients.




The trendy casino floor of the Planet Hollywood Resort.




The new face of future Las Vegas. Gone are the themes of pirates, white tigers and the Wizard of Oz. This is MGM Mirage's new City Center project and will open by the end of this year.




We love our home. Why would we even want to leave?




Well, it's spring time in the desert and it's starting to warm up again. Wherever you look, it's blooming and sprouting. This is our joshua tree in front of our house. And after 17 years it is blooming for the very first time. We are beyond excited.





Details of our joshua tree blossoms.





More detail pics of one of our palm trees and a snail vine bud.




Speaking of “The Wizard of Oz.” Last Saturday evening we both went to see the stage production of “The Wiz” at the Lowden Theatre of the Las Vegas Academy.

As usual, the students were amazing and one could not ask for a better performance. Not even on Broadway. The live orchestra was flawless. However, we did notice one thing. Since this play is in essence a black musical, it was interesting that most of the white singers and dancers were better than the black performers. Does this observation make me a racist? See what Political Correctness does to us? Geez!




Right outside the theater one has a perfect view of the Stratosphere Tower, the tallest structure west of the Mississippi.



Well, there you have it. Another perfect weekend in Sin City.

In God We Trust...Not?

According to a poll there's a rise in Americans with no religion.

Maybe there's hope for America yet.

Typical Americanian

Isn’t the American education system great? There are kids out there who actually are less informed than this ditzy character from the “Luann” comic strip, which appeared on Sunday. At least Tiffany, the comic character, knows that there is some war going on in a land called Iranistan and wants to bring the troops back home.

Noble...I guess.

Most children in the United States of Delusions don’t even know we’re at war. Well, not really. War was never officially declared by the U.S., but that’s another story. Many children don’t even know what 9/11 was about. I wish I was kidding but I have heard it with my own ears. Is it any surprise that most children can’t even find their own country on a world map? Since most kids attending American schools are already kind of dumb anyway, let’s cut the budget for education even further.

Besides, what is really the benefit in knowing where one’s own country is located? Or Iranistan? I was reading in Homer’s blog the other day that some Republican politician in Arizona was quoted saying: “Education does not create jobs.”

Wow!

Am I shocked? Yes. Am I surprised? No. Again I wonder why there isn’t more of an outrage about such a comment. I guess a career in flipping burgers and barely making minimum wage is every American’s dream. Americans will fight to the death for the useless right to bear arms but won’t move a finger to achieve something beneficial like...oh, let’s say...having universal health care for every single citizen. I forgot to mention that health care too is a “privilege” in this country. Some Republican politician said so on TV a few days ago.

In most of the industrialized nations around the world, free access to education and health care is an undisputed basic human right. In the United States of Cluelessness people have the right to own big guns and beat up gay people.

Is this a great country or what?

Earthquake

It most definitely gets never boring in Sin City.

There was a small earthquake just north of Las Vegas this morning. According to the Las Vegas Sun it was 2.7 magnitude earthquake and occurred at 7:10 a.m. PST.



The location of the epicenter of this morning's earthquake,
just north of Las Vegas.

I did not feel a thing.


Of course, this was a very small tremor and people usually start to feel earthquakes when they reach 3.0 or higher on the Richter scale. I remembered the Northridge quake back in January 1994. Even though I wasn't even near Los Angeles that morning, I did feel that one. I was still lying in my bed at home in Las Vegas that morning when it started to shake. It felt endless. I knew immediately that this quake wasn't centered in Las Vegas. I can't explain how but it felt differently. I knew however that the shock waves were coming from the Los Angeles area. And they were strong. I really thought at the moment that this was "it." The Big One. It's been talked about long enough.


It was not. Nevertheless, it was still a devastating disaster. Many people lost their lives, thousands were injured and the damages were immense. George and his family were right smack in the middle of it all. Fortunately, this event left them unscathed. And luckily for California...if one can call this lucky...this was not "the Big One."


Compared to the Northridge earthquake, our little tremor here in the Las Vegas Valley this morning was rather insignificant. People here tend to forget that Las Vegas is still part of Earthquake Country. The city sits on many fault lines. Even if the earthquakes here are few and far between.



The official map of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Considering, we are pretty safe here from any kind of natural disasters. Besides the occasional little tremor, we have no hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes or blizzards. We barely get a drop of rain here.


Still, this makes one stop and wonder. What if? Well, if there really was going to be an earthquake then there's pretty much not one damn thing I could do about that. If it happens, it happens. All one can hope for is to survive and make the best out of a dire situation.


We only have this one life, people. Go and live it. One never knows what's brewing right under our feet.


Or over our head, for that matter.

Oma

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Oma