Christmas Day

While Karen was at work I went up to Mt Charleston in the Spring Mountain Range to the west of the Vegas Valley.


Here is Karen in her Santa hat going to work.


This is a picture of a Baptist Church up by Mt. Chalreston. I edited it using a photoshop plugin that is supposed to give High Dynamic Range(HDR) type results. I think it came out pretty nice.


On top of a mountain looking down on the main road in.


Me on top of the world!!!



They were in the process of getting about 1' of snow up there. There were police check points to make sure that you had either snow chains or 4 wheel drive. If not, you couldn't go in.

Station Casinos

Station Casinos is the casino chain that bills itself as the casino for "Locals". It includes the Red Rock Casino, Station Casino, Palace Station(O.J. Fame), Aliante Station(Brand New at a cost of $662 million), Texas Stations, Sunset Station, Fiesta Station and the Wild Wild West Casino among others is widely expected to be in default on its massive debts and to file for bankruptcy protection later this month as it runs out of money. It just drew down the last of $250 million of credit that it expects would not be available after filing bankruptcy.

Some corrections

Apparently there are salt trucks/plows in Vegas....sort of. Clark County has 3 snow plows and during the storm we borrowed several others from other cities in southern Nevada. We had 13 salt/plow trucks in use during the recent storm.

Also it was snowing here this morning. Not enough to accumulate. Almost not enough to see, but it was there.

The airport did not technically close although all incoming and out going flights were either cancelled or delayed.

And for all the news media reporting that we had the first snow in Las Vegas in 30 years, please do a bit of fact checking first.(I'm not in the media so I don't have to fact check things like "how many salt trucks we have?" or "Did the airport actually close?")

It snowed here in 2006-trace amounts
and it snowed here in 2003 with several inches of accumulation.

The 30 year statistic the media erroneously reports as the first snow in Las Vegas in 30 years is actually this was the largest accumulation of snow in Las Vegas in the month of December in over 30 years!

In other news, our company is composed of 4 divisions. Mining, Construction, General Impliment(Farming) and Material Handling. With the recent run up of commodities, our mining division has been making money hand over foot and are basically carrying the company right now. The construction division is losing money and the material handling division treading water.

One thing our company does, which most do not, I think, is to lay every thing out. We spent like 3 hours in a teleconference with ALL employees from the CEO down to the lowest employee. In that time the CEO, CFO and each division manager went through every dollar(in aggregat) the company generated. Profits, losses, expenses, ROA(Return on Assest), and budget numbers for every branch of every division for everyone to see. Boring? Yes, quite so. But not so boring if you are one of the branches making money and you know you will get a bonus or two!

Our branch here in Las Vegas though actually made money and was above target for profits for 2008. So not only did we get some nice bonuses(that rivaled many, not all, that I received at Fords) we were also allocated funds for raises and yes I got one. It was actually twice the amount that I thought I might get, but WAS the amount I was HOPING for. They even said that they would have doubled what I did get if not for the economy. Lesson learned...hard work pays off....the next UAW contract may not!!! After the latest round of news about the big 3 and with Ford stock dropping into the $1.50 range my boss asked me if I felt like a genius for leaving Fords when I did. I smiled and said "no", but that I felt good knowing that my prospects relied on me and my abilities, not the next contract I got!

Red Rock Canyon

I went to Red Rock Canyon to see the snow there. Unfortunately, most of it was gone. There must have been quite a bit at one point, but I was too late.


This is from the Red Rock Canyon overlook:


Well it IS Sin City:


I decided instead to go to Spring Mountain which has an elevation of about 5900 feet hoping to see more snow.

Let it snow, Let it Snow.....

Today it is snowing heavily in all of the Las Vegas valley. This may turn out to be the biggest snow storm in Vaegas in over 30 years. I took my camera hoping to get some pics of the snowy mountains and instead got to take pictures of a blizzard, well for Vegas its a blizzard! They have extended the winter storm warning for 4AM-10PM to 4AM-4AM with up to 6". It started snowing where I was at about 12 ish. It was mostly a rain/snow mix that turned to mostly rain until about 2PM. Then it became all snow as I drove home.
First off is the Spring Mountains to the west from early morning:


They were more stunning yesterday because the sun was out but oh well.


Snowy Las Vegas sign.


I-15 near the strip.


The Luxor in a snow storm.


He looks cold.








Kids in front of our house playing.




Our house!




Plant in our front yard.








oppsss!









In Vegas, snow is a good thing!!!

Hanging out with Lindsay

We have gotten into the habit of stopping by Cactus Joes on they way back from Red Rock Canyon. It is a 7 acre nursery located off of Blue Diamond Rd. Ostensibly we went there last night because Betty wanted us to buy her something from there, but we all knew what the real reason was. We wanted to see Lindsay! As soon as we got there I began to look for her. Most of the times I've been there she has been in bed covered from head to toe under her blankets, so I set right off to where she often sleep and poked around in the lumpy blankets hoping to find her snuggled up in bed. She was no where to be found.

Karen brought one of the workers to help find Lindsay and he began to poke and prod the lump of blankets that moments before was being searched by me. After a few pokes we heard a gruntting sound and we knew we had found her!(Anyone that knows me would not be suprised I didn't find her in the blankets even though she was there!)

Here is a picture of Lindsay Loham after being woke up from a, no doubt, well deserved nap!





Lindsay, AKA "Pig" by the staff, never even moved......she just grunted here and there as I petted her.

Along came Ottis who, after deciding that we might as well pull up a chair because we were not going anywhere anytime soon, began to look about the Gallery room. He spied some little candies on the table and decided to have one. He grabbed one and turned to face outside while opening the candy up.

Lindsay, upon hearing the rattle of the candy wrapper being opened, bolted out of bed and came up behind Ottis. When Ottis turned around he saw a pig staring at him and it scared the crap out of him.....

Here is Ottis feeding Lindsay a "piggie" bone.

Here is Nancy feeding her also.

Pig decided to go hang out with Ottis for a bit.

A close up of Lindsay Loham.

They also have a large collection of dogs.

Here is one of them. They are all "rescue" dogs in that they are about to be "put down", as it were. Even Lindsay was rescued from immenant death.

They are lucky that they got to go from certain death to what must be heaven on earth for them.

The staff here are increadably nice. Lindays is treated as part of the family. They even have a piggie door for her to go into and out of the house as she wishes.

Some pig quotes in honor of Lindsay.....

Winston Churchill :

"Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will
look man right in the eye and see his equal."

George Bernard Shaw:

“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty; and besides,
the pig likes it.”

Martina Navratilova:

“The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The
chicken is involved; the pig is committed.”

Southpoint, Red Rock, Bellagio

That was out itenary for Saturday. A slow, relaxing day.


We started out with brunch at the Southpoint. $12 a person and you get omlettes cooked to order along with all the usual breakfast food. They also serve turkey, prime rib, fried shrimp. It was awesome.


This was my plate before I began to devour it. Hard to tell in the photo, but that omlette is almost 2" thick!!

Nancy told Ottis to go along the whole buffet to see what they had before choosing. Ottis said to heck with that, I'm following Rob to the good stuff.....lol



Then we headed to Red Rock Canyon.


Leaving the visitor's center.


Ottis taking pictures. The big problem with going this time of year is the crowds. There is virtually no parking available. I like going in August when we are the only ones dumb enough to be out there.....








I like this picture. Its often difficult to take this type of picture considering all the different exposure requirement competing against each other. I tried to exposed the camera for the a compramise between the mountains and the sunset. I used my flash(set way down) to properly expose Ottis. It came out pretty nice I think.


Here is Nancy trying to piss off whatever is living in that hole.


Here we are at the Bellagio. I think they re do the atrium with every change in season.










No trip to the Bellagio is complete without seeing the water show.






Waiting for the valet to bring our car.