Jellied Moose Nose

Thursday, September 27, 2012

$500 Vegas Tax

Firstly, Thank You to everyone who called or wrote after the passing of my grandmother. The outpouring of caring was awesome. I'm blessed to have so many good friends in this life. You guys rock.

Now onto the title of this entry, the dreaded Vegas Tax. So it seems that I simply cannot make a trip to Vegas without $500 disappearing from my account in one fashion or another, take this past weekend. My good friend Ryan works for Caterpillar designing very big trucks, earthmovers really, crazy giant yellow earth devouring monstrosities. Caterpillar held an international sales and tech conference in Vegas this week. Since I didn't get to see him very much last time I was home, I told him I'd come spend some time while he was out this way. Saturday, he got in and had some time off from their busy schedule, so I rolled over first thing in the morning to pick him up when his flight landed. I got up, had a leisurely coffee, hopped in the golf cart Prius and cruised over, no problems, great weather, easy drive, not much traffic. I guess I should have known something bad was going to happen. Anyway, I hit Bass Pro Shop in LV to watch the big fish swim for a little bit then cruised over to the airport. LV is made for car drivers. I parked in the short term parking, about 200' from the terminal entrance and headed in, checked the baggage monitors and found his carosel. I sat down, waited about 10 minutes and here he came, bags already in tow, with his work buddy Rod, who was going to be working the show as well. We cruised out to the car and headed towards Caesars. I hopped on the wrong ramp on the way out of parking, so we ended up going to the far south end of town, which was fine since we would just be cruising the strip. There was quite a bit of congestion on teh strip but we made the best of it, joking back and forth about the sign trucks and people walking around. We even ran into a line of convertible mustangs, like 50+ of them. I rolled down the window and asked what the deal was and the nice ladies in the mustang next too us explained that they were part of a tupperware contingent from Germany. No shit. You can't make this stuff up. Cool. We worked our way down and turned into the self parking garage for Caesars, turned up the first ramp, Rod asked if i had bought the Priuws new, I said no, it was used and blackout. The damn thing died on the ramp into the first level of the garage. All the lights still worked but the system would not turn on. Just dead. The Prius is computer controlled, almost everything relies on the CPU to work, even the transmission. So with it dead, there was no way to put it in neutral, no way to push it, roll it, or carry it, well not with just three of us, to get it out of the way. So there it sat with flashers on with a steady stream of casino staff and hopeful gamblers flying by with confused and oftentimes annoyed looks on their faces. The CAT engineers quickly assessed a blown fuse to the CPU, we tried a spare and it blew too. Great!! We decided there was little we could accomplish, technology being so esoteric as it is, and I decided to call AAA. The boys headed into Caesars to check in and I waited on my tow truck, which took about an hour. The driver, Daniel, was a real nice guy and we were out of there in maybe 10 minutes and headed to the dealer. Once at the the dealer it took 20 minutes to diagnose, 45 minutes to fix and 30 minutes to wash. Verdict. A secondary cooling pump had failed, pretty common apparantly. This particular pump cools the inverter that provides power to the cpu and keeps both cool, so its a big deal, about $500 worth of big deal. Ugh!! Vegas Tax strikes again.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Loss

It has been awhile since I've written on here. Since my trip to Vegas to hang out with my Dad and his work buddies something profound has happened and it has changed my outlook on life in ways I didn't really expect. The Friday after my Vegas trip my mom called later in the day, probably about 5 my time, just as I was getting redy to head home for the day, and told me her mother, my grandma Lorene was in the hospital. She went in due to being in a lot of pain. She had very impacted bowels. Her second husband, Al, who passed many years ago, had had the same complaint and passed only a few days later, so I was prepared mentally for the worst, but mom reassured me by saying they had given her some pain meds and she was sleeping comfortably and they were talking about doing surgery. I was hopeful. My dad called a few hours later and told me she had passed. I sat on the couch in a daze. Wow. I know there are people out there without any grandparents left, others who have lost parents, brothers, sisters and best friends. I haven't. So this is a huge loss for me, one that I am still reeling from a bit.
When I go back, I try to make an effort to see all of my granparents, because you never know how much longer you'll have with them. I was very fortunate that when I visited Illinois for 2 weeks in June, I stayed at Lorene's the whole time. In part to spend more time with her but also due to my allergies always going haywire when I stay at my parent's house. We had breakfast a few days, dinner a couple nights, and were able to spend some time talking and joking around, but the best part was just being in the same space together, sharing time.
The visitation and funeral were kind of surreal. I guess everyone goes through this. She had touched so many people in the little town where I grew up, but I had no idea. At the visitation, there were videos with pictures of her through the years, some as recent as my last visit. My favorites were the older ones, from when she was in her 20s. Dressed up in her finest, likely headed out to some social event looking for Mr. Right. I especially liked the pics of her and her 2 sisters, both gone before her. they were so close in age, and the pictures said volumes about their inseparability in their youth. It's strange when I realize that they are all gone now, all three sisters. On my mom's side, a generation has passed on and another has stepped into their place.
As her kids worked together to sort out her affairs, I hid in the living room, trying to pretend that it wasn't most likely the last time I would sit in her lazyboy. Almost like an ostrich with my head in the sand, somehow, if I pretended hard enough, it wouldn't all be real. But it was. There are things that have to be dealt with, things have to get settled. Furniture, clothes, car, tools, you name it, it's got to go somewhere and something has to be done with it. Even though she was raised during a simpler time, she was as much a person of modern convenience as most of us. Maybe more so. I've always tried to live a life of simplicity, but even I have hoarded some things over the years, magazines, books, movies, things that others would have to deal with, if I were to depart this world tomorrow. Most likely my parents would have to do it. Bradley told me of one of his friends that has a box labelled, 'Mom- Just throw this one away. You can guess what is inside.
Basically the whole thing has made me want to simplify my life even more and to write a will to help in the process. After I'm gone I want people to remember how I made them feel, how much I loved, laughed and the enjoyment and wonder we shared, not how much crap I had in the place I lived. I want them to feel pride in the things I leave behind, I want them to be viewed as heirlooms not just stuff to be 'dealt' with. A freind once told me, he didn't want much, but what little he did want was nice as hell.
I've always hoped that I don't linger too long when I get old. I guess a lot of people wish that.
I loved my grandma very much, but I am thankful that she went with dignity, without much pain, and with her daughters by her side after 85+ years of life. Hopefully, we can all be so lucky.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Vegas Face

Vegas face (n): either the wild eyed look people have as they check into the hotel as they dream of the fun times ahead or the worn out, glazed over look after staying up for 40 straight hours, losing hundreds of dollars, chain smoking and binge drinking.

Thursday, I drove over to Vegas to hang out with Dad and his work buddies. I hit up Mad Greek on the way and then rolled into Harrah's about 9. I met Dave and his buds in the sports book room and had a couple drinks. The night flight contingent from Illinois called and told us their flight was cancelled and they'd be in on Friday afternoon. Okay. Dad was in that group. We checked into our rooms and since Dave and the others had been drinking all day, they crashed out at 10pm and I headed downstairs to lose a $100. Friday, we decided to hit Fremont Street before the group got too big to move easily. Fremont is the old Vegas area. Dave wanted to hit up the Gold Nugget. We parked in Binion's Garage and hit the covered roadway. We were on a losing streak at the Nugget so decided to walk and grab some lunch. I had to use the little boy's room, so we stopped at an anonymous casino. G walked up to the bar to order a drink and the bartender told him is he played $10 on the video poker he'd get a free drink. He put in $10, got his free drink and 2 hands later hit $1000. Guess who's buying lunch. We hit up a restaurant in one of the casinos and I had prime rib. The whole place smelled like au jus. Heavenly. We then headed back to chill out before the rest of the crew got in. I snuck down to the spa for a massage and got back just as they were all getting ready to head to the floor for another round of craps and slots. I lost some more money. Then we headed to dinner at the HofBrauHaus (see next blog entry) then back to the casino. Saturday was a long day of hitting up lots of casinos, chilling in their Diamond lounges and playing some cards. We made it to Harrahs, Caesars, Paris, and the Flamingo. Lots of drinks and lots of free food and of course further losses at the craps and blackjack tables. Let's just say I should have been playing the no pass line and got way too many 12s and 13s. Ugh. By Saturday at 7 I had hit my loss limit and tried to call it a night, but was summoned back down to the lounge for a few more hours of watching other people lose money at Blackjack. While I love Vegas; the architecture, the shows, the food, the hustle and bustle, and enjoy the casino, I hate losing money. With the money I lost, I could have bought some sweet stuff, but I guess all vacations are like that.

The Mad Greek. Heck yeah.

Shawn Blair is alive and working in Vegas.

G with his $1000 voucher he won during my pee break.

Dad getting his just desserts.

Heather, blurry from running away after the paddling.

Zac from Fairbanks.

Caesars has its own bottled water. Fancy Schmancy.

yes my legs are that white. A new Vegas tradition, getting my Docs polished up.

Diamond Players Lounge. Free Food. Free Drinks. This is at Flamingo. Lots of tempura shrimp and hot wings. Tons of veg tray, chips and dips. Oh, so full.

HofBrauHaus

Friday night we drug ourselves from the casino for dinner out on the town. I had to juggle two groups a bit, my friends from Alaska were passing through on their way to Palm Springs and my dad's groups of hard partiers from the midwest.

The group decided on the HofBrauHaus and we were off. I love german food and beer and this place took it to the next level and made it an experience. Awesome is the best way to describe it. Beer was big, food was tasty and fun was had by all, even those that got a paddling. Yep, the waitresses would bring you a shot of something then paddle your behind, fun fun fun. We also sang songs, did the chicken dance and just had a great night.