My view of the world

A bronze of Joe Kline, one of the highscalers who helped build the dam: by Steve Liguori.

Steve is originally from Las Vegas, but these days he lives in Boulder City.
He’s one of those rare individuals who seems to have found a way to make a living doing what he really enjoys, instead of punching a clock.
He’s a former jewelry maker turned sculptor, this bronze, is probably his best known work. It’s located just in front of the High Scaler Cafe at the entrance to the dam’s parking garage.
Here’s an article on him in Boulder City Magazine.
I put this in, partly because I know Steve, and partly because I like his work.

For more information on Highscalers try this link.

Laughlin is 90 miles out of Vegas, across the river from Bullhead City, see “nowhere,” middle of.
I am, perhaps unkind, in my comparisons, but if you’re from Vegas, you tend to be rather jaded.

Going down from Las Vegas, we chose to go through Searchlight, It’s the shortest and probably still the fastest, but, since they’re not allowed on the dam, all the big trucks have to go that way. The road narrows from two lanes to one just outside Searchlite, prepare to be passed by joggers, and when we went through they had the road torn up with steel plates covering both lanes and some sort of crew, with a backhoe working on one side.
Coming into Laughlin from the Searchlite / Needles side there are a number of steep grades, both uphill and downhill, with some fairly serious curves, but the road is well maintained.

My first impression was, that, at 55, I was always going to be the youngest person in the room by 10 years at the very least. This is not far from the truth.
On the upside, this time of year, you get winter rates, $29 a night at the Edgewater gets you a clean comfortable room, with two queen sized beds, a bathroom that’s larger than some bedrooms and a shower with instant hot water and enough room for a man who’s stands 6′4″ and weighs 300 pounds.
My only complaint about the bathroom is the height of the toilet, it’s much too low. If you’re 4′6″ this will present only one problem, and that’s that your arms may not be long enough to comfortably reach the toiletpaper, on the other hand, if you’re my size or larger with bad knees, it’s a bitch getting back up.
Actually, I have one other complaint, the towels are not only too small, they’re rough enough to make world class back scratchers.
The beds were much softer than I like, but they were comfortable enough.

If you decide to go to Laughlin, this is the right time of year, the temperature was in the mid to high 90’s.
Laughlin is always several degrees warmer than Las Vegas, in fact one year they reported a high of 129F and then said there was no weather report available the next day. Either they lied, or their equipment spontaneously burst into flame. ….welcome to Laughlin in August.
It was cool enough at 7am to make the walk along the river from the Edgewater to the Riverside or up to the Golden Nugget and back quite pleasant.

You should plan on standing in line everywhere that has food specials.
In the Edgewater, the Hickory Pit has excellent food, with prices that are better than a lot of Las Vegas joints, there were five of us and we ate for around a hundred dollars. They were training at least one new food server, but they were taking him along in fairly small steps, so things flowed nicely. They also understood things like char medium without have to ask what it meant.

I’m going to Laughlin for the next three days. Yes, I said Laughlin, Hell was booked up.

I haven’t been to Laughlin while I was sober, in probably 15 years. I used to go to the river run and party, but now they give you a jaywalking citation for hanging your toes over the edge of the curb. Their excuse is the trouble they had between the Mongols and the Angels. Sorry guys, but all the BS tickets and arrests in the world wouldn’t have even slowed that down.
On the other hand it’s a great way for the gestapo, excuse me, I mean those fine upstanding members of law enforcement, to maintain the peace, while generating a huge cash flow.
It’s strange, Sturgis is a small town, and they handle hundreds of thousands of bikers every year without turning into a bunch of goosestepping goons, the same applies to Daytona.
No matter, I go to the “Fuck Laughlin” run instead.

This year I think I’ll just wander around with my camera and a small note pad. I probably won’t come back with anything interesting, but you never know.
The trouble with being from Las Vegas is that we’re rather jaded and our automatic response to Laughlin, is that we’d rather be in Mesquite, it’s cooler and they have trees.
As is, I’m expecting an hour or so of conversation with a couple of relatives I happen to like and don’t get to see very often, followed by three days of unmitigated boredom. I wonder how many movies I can watch in three days?

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday it fired a systems technician who allegedly recorded phone conversations between the company’s public relations office and a newspaper reporter. The case is now being investigated by federal authorities.
Wal-Mart said the technician, whom it did not identify, also intercepted text messages using his own personal equipment. The retailer said he was acting alone, but declined to say what his motive may have been.
The company said that any and all equipment that could be used for such purposes has been removed.
Only the legal department can order the use of such equipment.
Wow, lawyers in charge of recording equipment because other departments cna’t be trusted. ROTFLMAO

Compusa is closing 50% of their stores and having clearance sales.
The minor stuff like cables seem to be 20% off, but the computers are 5% off and the nicer laptops all seemed to be locked up in those rolling cages.
In other words, the good stuff is going to the local superstore, and the stuff they don’t want to move is discounted, although, I think that with a little effort I could find the cables online, more than 20% cheaper than Compusa’s normal prices.

Best Buy is under investigation by Connecticut’s attorney general after consumers complained they were denied deals found at the electronic retailer’s Web site by store employees who pulled up a lookalike site that listed higher prices on some merchandise.
Dawn Bryant, spokeswoman for the Richfield-headquartered retailer, confirmed that store employees have access to an internal Web site that looks nearly identical to the public BestBuy.com site. But she said company policy is to always offer customers the lowest quoted price, unless it’s specifically identified as a deal available only to online shoppers.
“It’s unfortunate, some of the situations being described,” Bryant said. “What we’ve learned very quickly is we have not been clear enough in communicating to our employees the policy, and how to execute it in our stores.”
If it’s not a scam. why do they need two almost identical websites? Perhaps, it’s because Bestbuy can’t afford a fast internet connection.

M$ has their new onecare built into Vista, and surprise, surprise, it fails every test.
They should build vacuum cleaners, then they could say they make a product that doesn’t suck.
(I know, it’s an old joke, but it remains true, even after all these years.)

From Eweek:
The auction behemoth is being skewered by Vladuz, the Romanian impaler, and the e-villagers are whispering that he’s sucking customer and service rep account lifeblood directly from eBay’s internal databases. Is he that spookily talented, or is he just another, albeit talented and lucky, phisher who also stumbled on an e-mail with internal accounts?
I’m certain that Ebay, being the fine upstanding company they are would admit to being hacked, without hesitation, in spite of the hit to their profits, just like they admit there are Paypal issues.
Would I lie?
In their defense, there is the other minor problem encountered when chasing bad guys in eastern Europe:
Back in 2002 when eBay was dealing with a separate hacker issue in Romania, the police knew where the criminal was. Unfortunately, he was some 30 to 40 miles away from the station, and they couldn’t afford the gas to go get him.
EBay was more than happy to lend a helping hand.
For sale: One former soviet bloc country, a place of great scenic beauty and cheap labor. Best known for it’s vampires and hackers. $5.00 down and $5.00 per month for 10 months.