Vegas: Round 1

Friday:

After the call that I won't be flying on zero-g this weekend I was pretty disappointed but still wanting to go to Vegas and have a good time. We arrived about 1 pm and made our way via shuttle to the Bellagio. Having never been to Vegas before I figured a few things: it would be hot, it would be crowded, and it would be expensive. I was more or less right on all three. The crowd was surprisingly small though. Maybe it's the economy but we didn't have too many problems with lines. Surprising since we went on the worst days of the week. Friday-Sunday.

The first stop was the Star Trek experiance at the Hilton. Ate lunch at Quark's Bar which despite not looking exactly like one on tv was pretty fun. Blue Beer!

The museum was pretty cool but a bit small. It seems though that I am a few years late in visiting here. Unfortunately, the whole Star Trek Experience will be closing this fall. A real bummer. Even though everything is closing up shop and there isn't as much to look at, it was still quite a bit of fun. The museum contains a lot of neat stuff from the movies including the toaster Mac that Scotty 'talked to' in Star Trek 4 ("Hello, Computer..") and the hover boots that Spock wore to chase after Kirk when he fell off El Capitan in Star Trek 5. I got my pic taken on the bridge of the Enterprise D from Star Trek TNG (I'll scan it and post it later). Right before leaving I also had a chance to meet Beverly Washburn. She played Lt. Arlene Galway in Star Trek TOS as well as roles in Old Yeller, Dragnet, and Superman. She was really nice to talk to and since it wasn't horribly crowded it was even better.

Following the Hilton we took another cab and headed to the Stratosphere. I was disappointed to find out that they no longer had the rollercoaster up there and didn't really feel like riding any of the other rides so I basically went up and took pictures and watched people freak out. It was a nice view complete with thunder and lightning from a quickly passing storm. Seems a bit unsafe standing on the tallest thing in Las Vegas during an electrical storm but hey, i'm still alive. The storm was short lived and we didn't even get wet but we saw a few bolts of lightning out in the distance. I didn't do much more than look around up there. When we got back down to the ground level I played a few hands of blackjack and actually didn't do too bad. I made a few bucks and called it good. It was the only thing I played that I actually won. Of course though, I didn't play much of anything else.

Back to the Bellagio afterward to find dinner. We managed to survive the cab ride (other thing I learned: cabbies are crazy O_O) and hung around until it got dark. It only made it to something of the order of 103 degrees but my feet were starting to get a bit sore from all the walking. It also seems like it is easier to get alcohol than water in Vegas so I was somewhat thirsty. The Bellagio has a huge water fountain in front where they play music to the water fountian spraying up into the air. It was starting to gather quite a crowd so I wasn't in the best of spots but it was fun to watch never the less.













Saturday:

Woke up way to early in the morning (ok, so it was like 10:30 am.. whatever.) and we continued our journey to somewhere. We started at the Bellagio and headed towards Bally's and Ceaser's Palace. Little did I know that Ceaser's Palace is like a black hole of casino and shopping. I have seen it from the ground, seen it from the air, but nothing seems to compare to the physically impossible large-ness of inside. It goes on forever! (and ever, and ever...) It took us probably 4 hours to meander through the shops and slot machines that go on through eternity. This isn't the best shot of the forum shops as they are called but it was the best of the several attempts I made. The ceiling is painted like sky and the lighting is weird which apparently confuses the living daylights out of the little Canon camera I was carrying.

Somehow we made it out of Ceaser's Palace and we headed towards the Paris. It's half scale Eifel Tower was too much for me to resist so up I went. Yep. Total tourist. It was actually pretty cool. It wasn't over crowded (albit, a bit overpriced) and since it was something on the order of 450 feet in the air was nice and breezy compared to the hot air down on the strip. There is a cage that emcompases the whole observation deck which made taking pictures a bit interesting but every so often there would be a hole big enough that I could stick the camera out and take an unobstructed picture. The pic of one of the swiming pools
at Bally's gives a good indication of how high we were. (btw: I know the page formatting is getting a bit weird with all the pics, click on the pic to enlarge.) Pretty much the rest of the day was more of the same. Looked around, took lots of pictures, walked past a lot of fancy clothing stores that I had no interest in, etc. It was fun though.

Around 6:00 pm we made our way to the Rio for the show we had bought tickets to. Penn and Teller. I am not much of a magic fan but these two guys are different. They are *funny* and the magic they do reflects that. Penn is a very tall, very flamboyant person while Teller is very much smaller and quieter but they make the perfect pair. The show was fun and I am very glad I went. After the show I had the oppritunity to breifly meet the two of them whilst they signed autographs and took pictures with the crowd. Yeah, I was one of them too. I had my program and a book signed and got to have a pic taken with each of them.

It was about 11:00 pm when we started our trek back to the Bellagio once again but I wasn't quite done yet so I stopped to take some last minute pictures. I figured I would be too tired on sunday to want to do anything (I was right) so I finally ended up crashing somewhere around 12:30 am.

Sunday:

Sleepwalked my way home.

4th chance?

Ok. Maybe I am nuts but whatever. I am giving them a 4th and final chance to actually go zero g. I hadn't planned on it and I am still pretty unhappy with them for canceling on me AGAIN but they have made me and offer I can't in my right mind refuse. Next month barring meteor showers, full moon, the FAA, or some other excuse I will be going back to zero g not only for the normal flight but for their Platinum flight. Half the people, twice the room, more stuff, and get this... Buzz Aldrin. Normaly this flight goes for about $9,000 a person. Nearly twice as much as I paid for their normal flight but they have offered me a seat on that flight (no extra charge). So. That means back to Vegas I go next month so more hotel and airfare but if all goes according to plan (you can probably understand my skeptisim) I will be in for a pretty awesome trip.

skydive photos

These are from last November but I thought I'd stick them up here. It was fun. It was cold (being November and all). I'd do it again. :)

The pics like this one were taken by a photographer who jumped with us but they are still using film in their cameras. I used a negative scanner to get most of these digitized hence a few artifacts in the images. The guy at Walgreen's who developed my film did a not so good job so I didn't scan the prints.
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Flugtag Portland 2008

It's peeeeeople.
According to the Red Bull website I was somewhere in the crowd of ~80,000 people who turned out to watch people jump into the Willamette today. In addition to the flying creations launched into the river, there were the Red Bull skydive team, music DJ'ed by Gustav of 94.7 KNRK, and did I mention more people than you can shake a stick at? I was in the main 'mass' of people at Waterfront Park and in my pictures I didn't much of any shots behind me because it was just too crowded but notice the people in boats, people on the other side of the river, people stacked up on the hawthorne bridge, and just rows and rows of spectators lined up as far out as OMSI. Never really been to anything this crowded.

We got really lucky with parking and getting in and out. We found parking about 6 blocks or so away around 9:30 am which was before the parking attendent showed up (or knew about this event) this was nice because we only had to pay the flat weekend rate of $4. (by the time we left he had jacked up the price to $10 and there was not a parking space to be seen for quite a long ways.) We didn't stay for the whole show. I had to be somewhere else later in the day plus we wanted to avoid traffic. So we left about 45 minutes early. The last craft I saw launch ended up being the winner. A giant tricycle with a hanglider like structure built on top.

The skydivers were pretty cool. They jumped from a helicopter only a few thousand feet up, did a bunch of crazy looking spins and dives and all three landed right on the launch ramp. My favorite one I think was team 'Lego My Red Bull'. They had not only a craft made of what looked from a distance like perfect jumbo sized lego blocks but had awesome lego people costumes to match. For the record though, their craft flew like a brick ;)

It was fun, I would go again but I would not want to get there and leave at the sametime as everyone else. Get there early!
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