Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenGum
I thought you'd been quiet lately, UG. How was Vegas?
I dread big fires, they can move so damn fast, and with the fire-spotting they are almost impossible to stop.
We discussed the presence of eucalyptus in California a few weeks back. Here is the downside: the buggers burn like hell. I think it may be to do with the oil in them, as well as their tendency to build up huge piles of dead sticks and bark. Best wishes to all concerned.
|
Yep, no kiddin'. The governor, indulging his (understandable) penchant for quoting from movies, spoke of the "perfect storm" for fire conditions. This year, rain was minimal, leaving the brush very very dry, though not growing a lot of extra foliage either, so to some degree there's equipoise. Then we got ourselves a strong Santa Ana wind condition, which crops up most often about this season of the year at the end of the drying season and just before the rainy one. The wind kicked up really hard, bringing hot dry desert air with it in a big way and then -- in a case or two, supiciouslyyyyyy -- the fires cropped up. This many fires all over the area makes one suspect they had a bit of help getting started. One blaze, I forget which, is reported to have been started by blown-down power lines arcing.
So far, two dead, some firefighters injured to varying degrees.
We don't go to Vegas to game -- that's for mugs, and for people who really really like to play cards. We may try to get back there in mid-December for a Squirrelnut Zippers concert. There is, well, pretty much everything in Vegas, including Indians. And bagels with lox -- your bagels are very secure when you put lox on them, you know. And the wife, who does know, tells me the blintzes are some of the best anywhere. The Vegas Strip, where the entertainments are most concentrated, is basically the east end of town, and it's the theme-parkish end of the place. It's designed to make you rear back and go, "Jeeezus Keerist!" -- but even though it's the town's main industry, it's also a triumph of determined artificiality. Just think of it as Vegas World: here's a desert city and the national dish is shrimp cocktail -- okay, prime rib dinners seem to run a close second. You can eat mighty well in Vegas. The cuisine on the Strip varies from fancy-schmancy restaurant fare to hotel buffet, which is plenty copious but more than a little Midwestern -- best for breakfast, in my view. A bit more effort -- mainly that of leaving the Strip -- can get you more ethnic and zippier fare out in town. The city is very open to the skies, and with a bit of altitude under it, you get a Mountain States sort of sky and feel in the air. I grew up in that, so the air and light around Vegas is very friendly to me.
It's a bit unfortunate for the psyche that the main Vegas industry, and its real money mill, is gambling and frivolity. I don't think I'd care to work in a casino in any capacity: they smoke in there. However, you can make quite a decent and honorable living catering for the punters: housing them, feeding them, taxiing them, and putting on shows.