Time Keeps On Slipping

Well, this has certainly been a fast week. I was aware that I'd missed posting for a day or two, but it doesn't seem possible that I haven't been here since Tuesday afternoon.

Last week I wrote about my days with Interlac and immediately afterwards I was contacted by a current member of the APA. He must have been doing some serious googling to find me so recently after I posted! It was a surprise and a pleasure to hear from him— I only wish that I knew him from my time with Interlac. Unfortunately, he was active for the first 80 mailings of Interlac and has since become active again, but he was not active during the brief time that I was on the wait list. According to him Interlac is still going... but the mailings are thin as so much of the personal communication that used to fill each zine is now conducted via email. He also invited me to create a zine for the 200th mailing, which is coming up in August, and I am sorely tempted to do so, but I just don't know if I want to add something like that into my life right now.

I awoke this morning— or yesterday morning?— with an idea for my serial story. I've already two ideas in mind, and I'm leaning heavily towards one of them, but this new idea intrigues me. It is about a man who works for a consortium of scientists. These scientists are world-renowned leaders in their fields, and most are independently wealthy off various patents and successful exploitations of their ideas. Together they maintain a secret set of laboratories wherein they can conduct research that is too precious or too dangerous to be controlled by a single corporation or government. From time to time, they require assistance in the field (outside of the lab) and this is where the hero comes into play. He is the agent for this consortium. He and his team conduct hands-on investigation and are also responsible for the security of the consortium.

I believe that's a fun idea with lots of openings for stories. Though it is in no way similar to the other two ideas I'm mulling over, it is indicative of what I intend to write. I'm a huge fan of pulp serials like Doc Savage or any of the worlds imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I don't know if there's a place in the world for their like, but I hope to find out.

Well, I'm getting up early— in just a few hours— so I'll cut this short. See you next time!

"Hero: Person in a book who does things which he can't and girl marries him for it."— Mark Twain

Ain't Technology Grand?

I'm sitting in the Las Vegas airport now. The last time I checked my flight was already running 70 minutes late. Fortunately, I made it quickly through check-in and security so now I have all this time to sit. And wait.

My number one rule of airplane travel is always take the first flight out in the morning. If you're on the first flight, the only way you can be delayed is if your flight is the fucked up one. If you fly any later, you're all held hostage to any screw-ups that might have happened earlier. But, since an early AM flight is always convenient for people who are dropping me off at the airport, I've lately experimented with later flights. Today, even though I only had to catch a shuttle from the hotel to the airport, I decided to stick with the later flight in order to carry the experiment forward. Turns out I should go back to earlier flights. I hope my next flights, to and from Florida, are OK.

The bad news is I didn't win enough money for a car while I was here. The worse news is that I lost a lot of money while NOT winning that jackpot. The slots were just dead to me. I couldn't get them to play with me even a little bit. The only luck I had was this morning, when I went downstairs to break a five-dollar bill so I could tip the shuttle driver. I put the five dollars into a penny machine, hit the maximum bet of one dollar (20 lines at five credits each) and thirteen bucks came back on the first pull. I pulled a few more times and left with fourteen dollars, my only real win of the weekend.

Oh well, it's just money, right? I already knew that I was going to have to start selling my possessions on ebay when I get back from Florida...

Talk to you again soon!

"I love blackjack. But I'm not addicted to gambling. I'me addicted to sitting in a semi-circle."— Mitch Hedberg

Viva

As I write this I am six floors up in the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Viva, Las Vegas!

I brought my laptop to Vegas— Yes, I did!— with the intention of blogging every night. However, when I got to my room, I discovered that a wifi connection would cost $12.99 a day. I wasn't going to pay that— not even for a day— but things changed a bit, and here I am.

Even if you don't know me well, if you've read my blog, you should know me well enough to guess that I'm not a party-Vegas person. I enjoy some slot machine action, a little bit of drinking, a little bit of sightseeing, a nice hotel room, and some good meals. I leave the wild nightlife to the frat boys who seem to be as thick as weeds in this town every Friday and Saturday night. I don't have any need for showgirls, and I can take in a nice show or not, it's all the same to me. One of the best times I have on any Vegas trip is kicking back in my hotel room and staring out the window. Unfortunately, I booked the Tropicana this time and my view is of the Las Vegas airport. If I look extremely leftward out my window, I can see the Hooters hotel.   :-/

My flight up was pleasant and quick. I dislike flying Southwest because of their seating policies, and their new method is more humiliating than the old one. Now, instead of first come-first served, you have to line up like school children. Fortunately the flight was not booked solid and was quick. I grabbed an aisle seat and had no one in the middle seat to contend with.

After checking in, I threw down my bags, changed into some walking shoes, and headed off to the Bellagio to meet my family. In all, there were 7 of us: myself, my parents, my brother and my sister-in-law, and her parents. We all found deals in different hotels, including the Monte Carlo, Harrahs, and the Bellagio. OK, so, my brother and sister-in-law weren't exactly saving as much money as the rest of us by staying in the Bellagio.

The highlight of the trip was on Sunday night when we all went to see Love, the Beatles show by Cirque du Soleil. It was simply amazing. From the first moments of the show I was swept up in it, and I even found myself crying with delight several times. If you've ever seen a Cirque show, you pretty much know what you're in for— a lot of aerial work, acrobatics, and physical agility. If anything, Love is much less about the feats and more about dance and costumes and a dollop of interpretation of the songs. It's a feast for the eyes and ears. It's also the single-most three-dimensional show I've ever seen. If you only watch the stage floor, you're going to miss half the show because the entire volume of the theatre, from stage floor to ceiling, and extending out on all sides even over the audience, all of this volume was the actual stage for the show. The floor was a mechanical wonder, with portions that skid back and forth and other portions that raised and lowered. At any time the performers were entering and exiting the stage by the 8 floor-level ramps, by riding  a section of the stage floor up or down, or by being lowered from or raised into the ceiling. Some songs leave you completely boggled by the amount of synchronization involved in moving the performers around. And all of this is set to a fantastic selection of Beatles music, played loud in a beautiful sounding theatre. My seat, up near the top of the theatre, was $150 and worth every cent. My brother was kind enough to buy the ticket for me, and I would let him buy me another ticket for that show any time! If you enjoy the Beatles, this show is a must-see!

Unfortunately, something hit my system pretty hard just as the show was starting. Had I not been so captivated I would have started taking care of myself earlier. By the time the show was over, I was well into a headache brought on by a touch of diarrhea. That night and today, Monday, I was pretty much under the spell of the diarrhea completely. I had to sit out most of today's activities, which is why I bought the wifi access for today. I did join most everyone for dinner at Battista's Hole in the Wall restaurant next to Bally's. (My sister-in-law's father was also under the weather and didn't make dinner.) I'm now sitting here with a belly full of Italian food, wondering what tomorrow is going to bring...

Well, that's it until next time!

"And life flows on within you and without you."— George Harrison