Lake Mead...sort of

This is from the northern part of Lake Mead Blvd. on the extreme northwest area of the Vegas Valley.
A view of the Strip in context of the "valley" we live in:


A closer shot:


Marked "For sale $400"

Over priced if you ask me. It has a large hole in the back!!!





Something had a bad, bad day!!


On the road:


This may be a Bendire's Thrasher. While not rare here, they are uncommon. Ofcourse, I may have gotten the ID wrong!


The road I was on led to a gypsum plant. Here is a trucker opening his hatches before entering the plant:


Downtown Las Vegas:


We decided to go the the new iMagine casino located very, very close to our house. We wanted to try the buffet. Well why else would you go to a casino?






These are from the buffet:




The iMagine reminded me very much of the Red Rock Casino, but less expensive. From what I've read about it, that was what they were reaching for. I think they did well.

Just saying

if you spent one million dollars a day, every day, from the time Jesus was born, until today, you would have spent less that the Congress and President Obama did in the first 30 odd days of his Presidency!!!!

Contradictions

Death Valley is a place full of contradictions. Named in 1849 during the gold rush in California, only 1 person died there during that time. If you visit there in the summer moths though, the name seems fitting. We were there in July of 2005 and the temperature was 132F with 20-30 mph winds.The record high in Death Valley is 134F. It was like standing in front of a very large hair drier. None the less, I enjoyed it immensely.
The below picture was taken on our way out of the park back to Las Vegas:


This is the Devils Golf course, named for the difficult terrain and the small roundish white puffs of salt that resemble golf balls:


Artist's Pallet:



20 mule train that was used to haul borax out of the desert:


Scottys Castle:


Ashford Mills:


A golf course located within Death Valley:


The Ubehebe Crater:


The sand dunes:


Death and Desolation right??


Not exactly:




These photos were taken in 2005. It was a banner year for flowers in Death Valley. Because of the heavy rains that year(2005), Death Valley had a one in a hundred bloom. There were flowers everywhere. This year may also be like that. April is the time, this may be the year.I want to go!!!!

Chester

the molester Stiles was found guilty on 22 charges today. 21 carry life sentences. Unless you live in the Vegas Valley you may not know of Chester.

He molested young children ranging in age from 2 y/o to 6 y/o. Luckily for us, I guess, he videotaped his assaults. That video was found by Darrin Tuck in the middle of the desert near the city of Pahrump. Darrin apparently kept and watched the video for a while, eventually, after a while, when he got around to it, turning it over to police. Las Vegas Metro launched a manhunt for the survivalist Chester Stiles. Darrin, second photo, is now also facing child pornography charges. Chester was eventually arrested in the city of Henderson at the intersection of Green Valley Parkway and Sunset, only a few miles from our house.
He was pulled over for driving a car with no plate on it. By the way, that is a common practice here in the Valley. I see many, many cars with no plates on them. He told the police his name and who he was. He said he was tired of running.

MGM

which operates 10 Las Vegas Strip resorts is headed for bankruptcy. They also own the $10 billion dollar City Center Project.

Its really, really

disgusting. After pouring in more than $150 BILLION dollars into AIG, we are now giving them another $30 BILLION. We are quickly going to reach the $.5 TRILLION dollars to just one company!!!!! LET THEM FAIL!!!! After giving them $150 BILLION, they report a $64 BILLION dollar loss, and we give them another $30 BILLION. where does it end????? $.5 TRILLION, a cool TRILLION????? FUCK'em, we can't be any worse off if they fail. They need to pay the price for their stupid decision!!!! God knows the working stiff is. Recently a lady who had refinanced or bought a house in one of those exotic home loans acknowledged that she got into a mortgage that she didn't understand. She also acknowledged that it was her fault for entering something she didn't fully understand and accepted the consequences, mainly loosing her home. But, she asked, why are all of these so called "financial" firms, not reaping what they sowed when they got into financial arrangements that they did not fully comprehend????
Simply, they are being bailed out by the government!!!! The individual suffers the consequences of their poor choices, as they should, but companies do not have to??? We are bailing out these companies for their mistakes, yet the CEOs keep their jobs????

Work

has been going "ok". As you may know we are on a 32 hour work schedule. I've been getting more than 32 a week, but less than 40 a week so its working "ok" for now.