Ron-Ron Juice, Episode 2: The Week That Was

Ron-Ron Juice is what the guys of the Jersey Shore drink when they wait approximately four hours for the girls to get ready to go out to the clubs. The basically sit on the couch and drink into oblivion, yelling random and probably obscene nonsense while the gals cake their makeup on and bathe in perfume. This is me, waiting for Pam. Not nearly as long, not even close, but long enough to blog. And this is me, drinking a little bit. Not nearly as much, not even close, but enough to be considered "pregaming." And this is me, blogging, during that time. Ron-Ron Juice Time. CABS ARE HEEYAH.

For those of you joining us this time searching for tales of extravagance and lunacy, you've yet again come to the wrong place. We're having fun, but sometimes schedules just don't work out. When you picture Vegas in your mind, you're picturing the never-sleep non-stop party, but that's for people who are here for three days and then have their normal lives to recover from that bender. When you actually live in Vegas for more than a long weekend, it's harder to get into that lifestyle, because it's not a vacation. It's life (for the time being, anyway).

So no, we didn't have a Hangover-esque night in the past week. Since we've last updated (which was about a week ago, sorry fans! And by fans I mean our immediate family!), we've had some good times, but not really blog-ready times. We took it easy last weekend because Pam worked Friday and Saturday. Saturday night it rained (it rained!?) so we stayed in and drank a little bit and played Trivial Pursuit and enjoyed each other's company.

This whole past week was all about work, unfortunately. Pam worked her requisite three full days at Sunrise, and I my requisite three not-so-full days at my place of employment that I'm weary of posting on the Internets in case I ever decide to trash talk it on said Internets while still gainfully employed by said place of employment. After hours, we watched Sopranos, we cooked meals (how have I never used a crock pot before this month?), and we took it easy. Consider this a work/vacation. We're on easy street here.

Today was finally our day of respite. I have work Sunday through Tuesday (had to take off for Phillies opening day, right?), and Pam has off until Wednesday, so today and tomorrow are our proper weekend, and it's been darn lovely thus far.

We slept in today (despite the damn elephants living upstairs, apparently. Seriously, walk lightly, my neighbor!). That was nice. After a few errands (bank, post office, Target, boring) we hit up the Atomic Testing Museum. We hoped it would be informative, exciting, and fun. One out of three ain't bad, I guess.

Don't get me wrong, learning about the atom bombs was neat. Neat is the perfect word. I never realized how complicated the bomb testings were, or how often they occurred, and frankly how darn close they were to Las Vegas. Stand at the corner of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard in the mid 50s, and you could see that mushroom cloud explode into the suddenly cloudy sky a mere 65 miles away. Despite the thick layer of propaganda underlying the whole exhibit ("those damn hippies that were protesting the bomb were against freedom, dammit!" was an ongoing theme of the museum), I found the exhibition pretty swell.

However, what we expected to be a highlight - the brand spankin' new Area 51 Exhibit - turned out to be a huge dud. What can go wrong with aliens and UFOs and cigar-smoking men in dark suits? I'll try to explain. What's the main reason you'd go to a museum as opposed to reading a book? The actual artifacts. You can read about an atomic bomb, but to go to a museum and see an actual piece of it is the real thrill of an exhibit such as this.

But what the hell can you put in a government funded alien exhibit when the government is actively seeking to put to rest the notion that aliens exist in the first place? Answer: jack. We walked through what amounted to a few dark hallways with a few placards pasted on the wall that copied newspaper articles about supposed UFO sightings. Oh, and here's a room for a journalist who wrote an article one time about a person that saw a UFO. Oh, and then here's a glass viewing case for a picture of a guy that knew someone who met an alien once, but haha not really because aliens don't exist.

Booooo.

We're having a good day though, despite the minor disappointment. We spent the rest of this 87-degree day at the pool, hanging out with some nice single-serving friends from Minnesota. And now we're doing something called spontaneity and taking a bus to Fremont for some beers and some arcade games.

Gotta go, Pam got ready in record time! Blog ya soon!

The List

Four months to go in this neat little western experience. What shall we do until we take the trek home? Here's some stuff we have yet to do but definitely plan on doing.

• The Atomic Testing Museum (in association with the Smithsonian!) is right up the street, and they are soon opening their Area 51 Exhibit. Neat-o.
• The Mob Museum is pretty close to Fremont Street, and would be a particularly fitting museum to visit as we are currently watching The Sopranos.
• Sing some karaoke at Champagne's over on Maryland. Pam's gotta warm up those pipes, I miss her voice.
• There's a bunch of other bars I'd like to hit up too: Beauty Bar at Fremont, Money Plays ("Cheers on acid" claims the website) on West Flamingo, Blue Martini (a fancy bar with a killer happy hour, NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH BLEU MARTINI IN PHILADELPHIA I FREAKING HATE THAT PLACE), and plenty of others. Never enough happy hours around here.
• One more bar: Paddy's Pub. Definitely not the It's Always Sunny bar, but I swear there is a bar called Paddy's Pub a few miles up Flamingo. I'd like to go just to say we were there.
• Visit the Grand Canyon. Not sure how we're going to go about this one yet. We definitely ARE going, no doubt, but should we stay for a few days? Sleep in a tent? Or a cabin? Not quite sure yet. As the season gets warmer and there's absolutely no chance of cold winds (it still can get chilly in March), we'll fit this in.
• There's other national parks around here too, apparently. I haven't done extensive research on the subject, Pam was the one looking places up. Zion? That name has been floating through some of our conversations about taking a hike one day. It's about three hours yonder.
• Get some Maryland crabs at the Crab Corner, knowing that we'll probably never have crabs better than the ones we had on the Baltimore waterfront ever again.
• I can't even begin to mention how many restaurants there are here, even in walking distance, that we'd like to dine at. First on the list is this Moroccan Belly-Dancing restaurant not a block from the Can.
• Drink some more Ass Juice (kidding, Pam!)
• Go on the rides at the Stratosphere. We went to the top, but it was too cold to go over the edge.
• Gotta hit a flea market at some point. This one looks like it'll do. Reminds me of somewhere we'd go when we used to go to the Poconos every year.
• See some shows. We're already hitting up a comedy show at the Mirage when the Kains come to town. It would be nice to get to at least one or two more besides that before we leave town.
• Some other cool things that we need to do on the Strip: go to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum (and not its haunted wax museum neighbor); go to the top of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris; see the outdoor Pirate show at Treasure Island; eat at Denny's.
• Buy one of those long mixed drink container things. You know, the ones that look like this and probably taste like sugar, rum, and armpit. It's such a tourist-y thing to do, I know, but I suppose we have to do it once, right?
• Every time we walk through a casino, we're harassed by a certain type of worker that tries to get us to sign up for a trip to check out a time share. If we go, they say, they'll set us up with a free dinner and show, etc., etc., if only we go check out the time share. I'd like to actually do this. Spend the day looking at a hotel or something, give them a resounding NO, and get hooked up with a free fancy dinner and a free fancy show.
• See the Pacific Ocean. This requires us to go to California, and I'm definitely not opposed to that (no hard feelings, California Nursing Board, we're doing just peachy in Nevada, no thanks to you). I wouldn't mind skinny dipping in the Pacific Ocean either, but I guess that will depend on the logistics of the trip.
• See the Phillies play in another stadium. I wish their schedule was just a little better, but perhaps we can make due. The games in Phoenix and San Fran are mid-April, and they simply do not look doable at this point. Perhaps we could go to Los Angeles mid-July before our drive home to see a game at Dodger Stadium. Again, that's too far away to plan, but it's something to think about.
• No MLB teams in Vegas (apparently the MLB offices believe Vegas sports betting will ruin baseball), but there is a minor league team around here called the Las Vegas 51s. They are an affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays and, like most minor league teams, they probably have some great deals.
• Order a Jim's cheesesteak and have it shipped to Las Vegas when I start to get really homesick. Yes, you can actually do that. And let's be real, I'll probably be ordering about six of them.

I guess that's all I can think of for now. I would hope we're never bored.

A Lull in the Craziness

Man, it is hard to write blog posts when nothing exciting happens. Since Pamela's birthday, we've been... going to work? I worked Tuesday through Thursday, and actually had some success at the job. It seems people want to donate money after all. Pam's in the middle day of a three-day stint as well, though please let the record show that I am not comparing jobs other than the fact that we both work the same number of days a week. 36 hours a week saving lives is a liiiiittle bit tougher than 10 hours talking to strangers. So God bless ya, Pam. I'm thinking of you as I sit around all day reading and playing Pokemon Blue.

And uh, hmm, so yea, that's it, unless you count the two dinners we went out for in the past three days. We finally got to Del Taco, and it cost $2.88 for six tacos, so let's say it was pretty much the opposite of our meal at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion in every capable way. Horrible, horrible, cheap delicious tacos. Last night we finally hit up the Freakin' Frog, with their claim of "Over 1000 beers." Not sure about that one, as we only saw about 15 on tap. Maybe the other 985 are in the cooler in the back? We didn't bother, as our mission was mainly food. The cheeseburgers and chicken tenders and fries were all standard bar fare - plain, moderately priced, tasty.

What else, what else... oh! Look what's parked in our parking lot:

Never thought I'd actually see the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile in person. According to Wikipedia, there are eight actively driving around the country. Guess they couldn't withstand the appeal of the Can.

Whoo boy! Excitement!! Ha. It's okay. We had a crazy weekend last weekend, and the rest of the week is a cool-off period. We'll try to get into some trouble this weekend, starting with a ton of pizza and Bud Light tomorrow night at 8 p.m. when Pam gets home (damn Sunrise keeps her late sometimes, those bastards!).

Vegas Birthday Celebrations!

As I'm sure most of you know (judging by the facebook birthday wishes and Philly gifts) yesterday was my birthday.  I turned 27 this year in the great state of Nevada and we had a lovely day. The day started off great with pancakes made by chef Joe and a number of care packages from home stuffed with Philly goodies. Now, I'm pretty sure that I'd have been happy with Tastycakes for my birthday back home, but the fact that they are essentially unattainable out here made them even sweeter.  And now whenever I get really homesick for Jefferson, I can wear my new Jefferson nursing t-shirt and it'll remind me of where I came from and where I am lucky enough to go back to in a few months.  And now Joe and I have yummy fruit to snack on for the rest of the week!

Fremont street for ziplining was our first destination of the day.

You actually zipline right over the street! And it doesn't look that far up until you actually get ready to jump! Now I'm sure for those of you that have skydived before this looks like cake but I was pretty nervous until we actually got in the air. It was definitely cool to see all the people under you walking around and shopping and some even cheering you on. I think the harness was the scariest part for Joe (and every guy that was in line with us it seemed).

 

Later on we headed over to a restaurant right down the street called Roy's Hawaiian Fusion. Both the service and the food were fantastic. Joe ate the surf and turf and I ordered the shellfish trio and both were delicious. There was even an insert in the menu that said Happy Birthday Pam!  Not to mention the standard happy birthday dessert with a candle, done in a pretty classy way (no singing of happy birthday TGI Fridays style).  They even took a picture of us and printed it out at the hostess station with a little Roy's frame.  All in all, a great place to have a birthday dinner.

Ziplining and dinner were wonderful, but Joe really made my birthday the great day that it was. Despite being so far away from home and missing everyone, I still had a fabulous birthday. Thank you so much to everyone for making it so special for me. I feel so loved.

Stratosphere

Not much to say. Last night we took a quick jaunt over to the tallest tower in Las Vegas. Check it:

The view from the observation deck from east to south.

Looking down.

Saint Patty's

Is St. Patrick's Day a lot bigger in Philadelphia than in most other places in the country? I mean, I know New York gets wild, and Scranton's celebration is surprisingly huge, but I guess I never really thought about the rest of the country. Las Vegas, strangely, doesn't have big St. Patrick's Day festivities. That didn't stop us from dressing in green and hitting the town to find some fellow Irish folk with green beer on their minds.

Yes, I figured out how to set a timer on my camera.

There was no parade to go to, none in walking distance anyway. There was a small-town parade in the neighboring hamlet of Henderson, but that would've required us to 1) be there at 10 a.m., and 2) take an excruciatingly long bus ride (and 3, I guess, would be us betting our horses on being allowed to drink at the parade. Vegas is more lenient about open container laws than anywhere in the country, but the town next door might not be). So we skipped the Henderson Irish party and stayed local.

And staying local pretty much just means walking up and down the Strip and drinking. Which was fine! I enjoy the Strip, and I enjoy Pam's company, so we had a swell afternoon. It started as any day at the Strip should, at the Bellagio water show. We have already seen one of their shows, yes, and in fact we already saw the same specific show that we saw yesterday afternoon, but goddamn is it beautiful.

The water itself is pretty, but when paired up with this song, I swear to God I got a tear in my eye. I didn't want to take a video and have it look bad and ruin it, so you'll just have to see it for yourself.

But enough crying, it was time to party. After a lunch of a few slices of pizza, we found a cool little block party next to an Irish bar named O'Sheas. They had a cover band playing classic rock, and they were killing it (the drummer was awesome).

Pam was dancing a lot, as she is often inclined to do. But there's only so much Irish dancing you can do, so we packed it up and decided to travel downtown to Fremont Street.

"Why do all the pictures have to be of me?" "Trust me, the world thanks you they don't have to see my ugly mug."

Fremont Street wasn't as crowded because by the time we got there, due to it being cold and rainy. No joke. It was most likely the one and only day the weather is worse here than it is in Philly. You guys got to enjoy sun and pleasant breezes. Meanwhile, Pam and I were huddled under a roof, shuddering with only a 24 oz. PBR to keep us warm.

Fortunately, that didn't last, so we kept walking, and hit some of our favorite Fremont spots - The Heart Attack Grill for huge cheap beers and french fries (fried in pure lard, of course), and the Mermaid Casino, whose bar sold huge Piña Coladas. Check it:

Mixed drinks aren't really my thing (though, I'll admit, the blood orange mojitos we had at a tapas place the other day were indeed pretty bangin'), so I stuck with the green beer.

After the rain cleared up, again, we rocked out to some Irish Bands. There's nothing better than drinking and listening to some Irish rock music on St. Patrick's Day

The Fremont Street Experience is really neat how it's set up. It's one long street, and go right down the street a few dozen feet in the air is a zip line. I took a video of the set-up for ya'll (making it my official second uploaded youtube video. The first).

Tomorrow is Pam's birthday, and we're definitely zip-lining tomorrow afternoon.

Look who we met:

I figured Aunt Dee-Dee would appreciate this one.

All this dancing and walking was making us hungry, so we went to a fish place on a deck where another cover band was playing (seriously, a lot of bands got work yesterday) and I got the most delicious grilled Mahi Mahi sandwich I've ever had, rivaled only perhaps by the fried grouper sandwiches we were eating in Clearwater exactly one year ago (no Crab Traps to wash them down this time though).

For once, Pam was the load that spilled her drink.

It was still really cold and we had a long journey ahead of us to get back to the Can, so we called it a night at Fremont Street. As always, good times. And, as always, we got lost YET AGAIN trying to find the bus. Seriously, the freaking Bonneville Transportation Center is like our Ark of the Covenant; we've tried for millions of years to find it, always to come up short every time.

But find the bus we did, on some random street, somehow, and made it home for some nice hot tub time.

Homeless man walks by outside the (locked) gate. "What, are you guys from the North Pole or something?! It's freezing out here!"

Erin Go Bragh

It's Saint Patrick's Day today. We're out walking and drinking and celebrating with general merriment and gaiety (and not blogging, I set this up so it'd post automatically in the afternoon), but we're doing so with a heavy heart. It's been about a month since we started this western journey, and homesickness is creeping in ever so slightly. So we drink to family and to friends today. We hope you are having a good time back home.

Miss ya'll.

Love, Pam and Joe

Friendly Folk

I've been noticing something more and more as I walk around and explore the finer parts of Las Vegas on foot. Walk down any street around here (minus the Strip), and you'll start to notice it too. It's interesting - everyone here is so damn friendly. Why is that?

You would think that it would be the opposite, wouldn't you? It seems like a town that could crush your dreams pretty quickly. You're surrounded by absolutely nothing but booze, gambling, and prostitution. How is it that so many people are chipper enough to wave and wish me a good morning?

I'm not complaining. I love it. Salutations exchanged with a stranger brightens my day. I'm just not used to it. (And I don't mean to exaggerate. It's not like this.) I like walking around here. If perhaps it doesn't quite feel like home (besides Philly, nothing will), I at least am starting to feel comfortable.

So why do you think people are all smiley? Here's some possible explanations.

1) I'm just really used to Philadelphia. It's a well-known fact that people outside of Philly think the natives are brutish savages, but growing up there, I never really saw a ton of evidence to support that. I just kind of assumed that walking down the street ignoring stranger was the way the world worked. Could it be that I've simply been sheltered by the cold-shouldering of Philadelphia?

2) The weather affects people's mood. The sun has been shining since pretty much the moment we arrived a month ago. I can't imagine many people here suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. On a scientific level, sun boosts your vitamin D, which could affect your happiness level. On an intrinsic level, just think about how happy you are when you open up the windows in your house on that first beautiful day of spring, and imagine that day happening every day.

3) Everyone can just appreciate my boyish good looks. That's not it.

4) Everyone is drunk. I know it was 10 a.m. on a Thursday morning as I walked around a few hours ago, but you'd be surprised how many people I saw with alcohol in their hands (side note: People in my age group carry around beers freely, and homeless men carry their beers in paper bags, which is the exact opposite situation that you can often find at the Broad and Olney subway stop). I guess there's always a chance that people are being polite as they float through a boozy haze. Can't rule that out.

5) All the people that are sad are huddled around bars and slot machines. Perhaps the people that are more inclined to say hello are those same people that I would find on the street at 10 a.m. anyway. I'm sure the old man on his way to get bagels for his wife is infinitely more happy than the old man that stumbled home from Bally's at 5 a.m. without anything to show for it.

6) The people that say "Hi" are just the tourists on vacation. Maybe I'm wrong, and it's not the people of Vegas that are friendly, but the people that aren't from Vegas that are happy to be in Vegas. Vacations can give you a certain high that leaves you all smiles, and Vegas is no different.

In any case, it's nice to be surrounded by happy, worry-free people. I don't mind strangers cheering me up as I walk to my job that I don't particularly enjoy at all. Chin up!

Poolside

Sorry about not posting on here for a few days. Sunday we were both working, Monday we got very drunk, and Tuesday we got very hungover, so not much time for blogging.

Sunday was work day, since I have to work two Sundays a month, and there's no way in hell I'm working the day after St. Patrick's Day. Work continues to be challenging. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but my phone calls have all ended in the person on the other end of the line not giving me their damn money. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm calling mainly 95 year olds from poor rural Pennsylvania, but that doesn't seem to be a hindrance for anyone else. Oh well. I get paid whether I'm making successful calls or not, and I have at least two more weeks of total failure before they decide to fire me. So we'll see.

Monday was a bit more pleasant, as Pam and I had our first pool day. What a beautiful day it was.

The pool area is pretty nice, isn't it? It's weird because we've been pretty much the only ones out here whenever we come out. I'm not sure if this is because it's still March and 70 degrees is considered "cold" to Nevada natives, or people just don't go to the pool at The Can. I guess time will tell on that one. There was a couple there when we showed up Monday morning, but I think they saw a young couple with a cooler of beer and thought it'd be better to get out of there. Hmm.

Nice set up, right? We had our iPod set up for some Springsteen tunes (not too early for the songs of summer with weather like this), and a cooler full of what seems to be THE cheap Mexican beer around these parts - Tecate. Cold, crisp, refreshing with a lime.

We had a great afternoon. At one point we were sitting with our feet in the pool, and I, as I am wont to do, started joking around like I was going to push Pam in. I'm surprised it took her this long to threaten to send me back to Philadelphia.

What a beauty.

What the opposite of beauty.

As nice as the weather was, it still got a little chilly at points during the day when the sun went behind the cloud. I said it before and I'll say it again, the sun makes or break the weather here. With the sun, it's too hot. Without the sun, it's too cold. And there's only so many times you can hop in and out of the hot tub.

So with the sun dipping behind the clouds yet again, we called it an end to our pool day, already a little tipsy. Life is good when you can do all this on a Monday, isn't it?

The party continued up to our room, where we finished most of the rest of the Tecate, ah that sweet Mexican elixir of life, and made some tomato and onion omelets. The night was still young, so we headed to our neighborhood bar, the Double Down. I love that place. Pam finally tried the Ass Juice, and she was just as perplexed as I was about the taste of it. I still think it tastes like grapefruit. Pam thinks it tastes like they took all the leftover alcohol at the end of the night and mixed it together. Whatever is in it, it certainly didn't make me any better at billiards - Pam killed me both games.

And hey, look, we have friends! Actually, it was someone from the university near us that I had met on Friday. We got drunk together, I'm not sure if you can tell from the above picture or not. That was sarcasm.

The Double Down was cool, but we wanted to explore a bit, so we ended up at the Hard Rock Hotel just down the street. And guess what I found.

Yes, folks, it's the pool that I got lost at a few weeks ago. And I think I was a little drunker that time I was here, because there's literally a door right from the main lobby that leads to the pool. I'm an idiot.

It's creep as hell though, isn't it? Imagine being lost here for what seemed like an hour.

Anyways, that was our day. It was good times. Tuesday, yesterday, was not quite as fun. Advil was on the menu for breakfast. Pam wasn't hungover though. She just had a headache. And a stomach ache. And she was tired. But she wasn't hungover.

We're both working today and tomorrow, unfortunately, but then we have an awesome four day weekend to look forward to, one that includes St. Patrick's Day and my Pammy's birthday. More adventures to come!

Day Off

Pam has work all this weekend, and that sucks. I miss her when she's gone. But, no use moping around like I usually do when she is at Sunrise, so I decided to try to make some friends yesterday afternoon.

A website that I often visit was having a meet-up at a local Mexican establishment, called Yayo Taco. Only four people including myself showed up, but it was pretty cool meeting new people and sharing a few drinks and tacos. (And I'll definitely be bringing Pam back to this place. There was a huge beer collection, tasty tacos, and - always important for me - at a good price.)

There's only so many tacos you can eat in one sitting, so we took a quick jaunt over to a little-known gem of Las Vegas, called the Pinball Hall of Fame.

It was exactly like it sounds, a huge warehouse with nothing but pinball machines and old-school video games. I feel like one could spend days in this place.

I spent most of my money on Mario games, because I'm nostalgic and they are the only games I've ever been good at. Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., and this treasure, a Super Mario World pinball machine. I thought a score of six billion would be good enough for a top score, but this is the Pinball Hall of Fame, so I guess some pretty good pinball players have passed through here. I didn't even place.

Here's another neat one. It must've predated most of the games in the building. It only took nickels, and you'd have to use the little metal knobs on the sides to flick the nickel across each platform, getting points. It's more fun than I can describe, I guess.

The pinball hall was the only place I thought to take pictures today, seeing as it would be weird to take pictures of people that I just met for a blog, and our subsequent destination was the Double Down Saloon, quickly becoming an old haunt, and way too dark a dive bar to take pictures in.

So after a few rounds of billiards, Hamm's beer, and Ass Juice (I still have no idea what it tastes like, grapefruit maybe?), we called it a day.

The highlight of my day was Pam coming home with a big Little Caesar's pizza and bag of breadsticks, because I love pizza, and I love Pam. For a day, though, it was nice getting out of the apartment. Otherwise, I would've been like a lost puppy dog, waiting at the window for my Pammy to arrive.

Blustery Day

I can't say I've ever gone to Weather.com and seen today's weather as "Windy" before, but such is life in Las Vegas. It was quite the blustery day yesterday. I'm surprised Pam's car didn't get flipped over. Thank God it didn't, because there's no way I would've been able to walk to work. The power did go out though, briefly. I know, how could we possibly survive an hour without internet?!

The winds were terrible, terrible enough to knock out, um, Terrible's casino sign.

Today was a little better.

Crown and Anchor

The Crown and Anchor English Pub. Serving authentic English food and drinks.

Not sure what this was about, but I'm hoping that means if you get wasted at Crown and Anchor, they drive you home for free. One can dream.

Oh Christ, they had soccer everywhere. Excuse me, football. That we live in a town that has a pub where you can watch soccer, but nowhere that you can watch the Phillies, is a sad state of affairs indeed.

I wimped out and got a beer brewed in the US. It's just too tough to turn down a Fat Tire Amber Ale, though. That stuff is the elixir of life.

It was all-you-can-eat fish and chips night at the Crown and Anchor. We both indulged. I especially enjoyed the hearty portion of peas that came with the meal. I freaking love peas.

Monday Morning Update

Besides our Boulder City adventure, I'd say it's been a relatively low-key weekend. That's not to say we aren't having fun; rather, most of the merriment we get into doesn't warrant a big blog post written about it. Here I am, to type a few words about what hijinks Pam and I have been up to, because no doubt our parents are dying to know.

Jobs

While I can't speak to the specifics of Pam's new (and permanent) job at Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center, I can say that she seems very happy about it. And if she's happy, I'm happy. I'm also happy that she is working day shift as opposed to nights. That would be rough to be without her for three nights a week.

As for my job? It's okay! Not amazing, not horrible, but just okay, and I'm fine with that. First of all, it's only ten hours a week, so even if it was the worst job in the world, I would have absolutely no right to complain about it. Secondly, the biggest perk of an otherwise humdrum job is that I get to pick my own schedule. This affords Pam and I the opportunity to work the same days during the week and, more importantly, have off the same days. I'd say this all worked out just about perfectly. Now let's hope I do adequately enough at my place of employment so that I don't get fired and ruin all this.

Weather

Have I mentioned the weather here is different than Philly's yet? I forget, but I guess it's worth mentioning again. Obviously, it's a lot warmer in general, but there's more to it than that. The temperature varies greatly when the sun is out and when it is not. I guess that's self-explanatory, but I'm trying to say that the extremes are more extreme here. It gets colder anywhere when the sun goes down, but it gets A LOT colder when the sun goes down in comparison.

That might have to do with the wind too, I suppose. The winter wind can be brutal here. Again, this is all relative, because nothing cuts like the sharp Philadelphia winter winds. Just the other night, though, I thought Pam and I were going to blow away on the way back from the bar. It was intense, and a big transition from the sunny days around these parts.

That being said, today is beautiful, and I think we're finally going to go in The Can's pool.

Phillies

Speaking of beautiful, it's finally Phillies season again! It's so damn nice to be able to wake up and put on the Phightins on gameday. And pretty soon, I'll be able to wake up to the sultry sounds of Scott Franzke and Larry Anderson on the radio (when I finally get around to buying the season-long internet radio package). I know the games don't matter at this point, but just the sensation that a Phillies game gives, it's a great feeling. Baseball is back, baby!

Casino Food

There's a big casino across the street called Terrible's Casino. The name doesn't bode it well, but for some of the advertisements we've seen, it looked awesome. Food-wise, I mean. Cheap food. With a A-Club Player's Card, you can get things like a Double Deuce (2 pancakes, 2 eggs, and 2 bacon) for $3, a New York Steak platter for $10, and various breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffets for $4, $7, and $10, respectively. These are good deals.

Pam and I finally bit the bullet and walked over to get a Player's Card. We didn't have to pay for it (or play for it), and we even got a free T-shirt for signing up. I guess the main purpose of the Player's Card membership is so that people will have incentive to spend more money in the slots at Terrible's. Pam and I just wanted the cheap food.

And it did not disappoint. We were there on a Saturday afternoon, and on the weekends from 9-3, they do a Champagne Brunch. Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like - all the breakfast food you can eat, and all the champagne you can drink. So we feasted like kings (why did no one tell me country fried steak was so good?) and drank mimosas out of huge tumblers. Pam's a lightweight so she was a little tipsy when we left. And all this for nine dollars.

I have a feeling there's a three a.m. breakfast buffet in our future.

Home Cooking

Don't get the wrong impression - we don't eat out for every meal. I'd say out of the twenty-one meals a week, Pam and I go out for four or five of them. Other than that, we're home-cooking, and it's been a blast. Not having an oven has challenged us, but it's working out great. My parents sent us a crock pot, so this past week Pam made some turkey meatballs in there, and those lasted for three meals. Then two nights ago, we cooked up some breaded chicken in a pan without any kind of recipe guiding us, and it was awesome.

That was mostly Pam. I was on mash potato duty. However, I did make French toast last week for the first time in my life for Pam when she got home from work. Hey, watch the beginning of Kramer vs. Kramer, that stuff is tough to make!

Nightlife

We hadn't been to the Strip in a while, so we walked down Saturday night just to soak in the scenes, and maybe drink some dollar beers. Seriously, Casino Royale has $1 Michelob Lights. We grabbed a few of those and drank and walked. Open container laws are so laxly enforced that they practically don't exist on the Strip.

The highlights of the night were checking out the various fountain shows up and down the strip. First was the volcano fountain show at the Mirage. That was really neat. Far superior, though, was the fountain show at the Bellagio. It was downright beautiful, in fact. Really something to be seen. (Sorry, we didn't bring a camera that night. However, I don't think a picture would have really done it justice.)

Today

It's going to be another lazy day in Vegas. We slept in, and are about to hit the gym. I wanna get nice and sweaty for our first time jumping in the pool. I have work from 2:30 until 6:00, but afterward we're going to hit up an English pub that sells cheap beer and all-you-can-eat fish and chips. They'll probably have soccer on the telly, unfortunately, so pray I get through the night without stabbing my eyes out with a fork.

I Gotta Crow...

In Boulder City, NV, there were a number of strange/awesome statues.  I came across this one of Peter Pan, and I just had to take a pic with it. This one's for you, JStone and Britt:

Not me. Not I. 

Hoover Dam, Hoppy Hour, and mostly just pictures

"Well, what should we do today?"

"Screw it, let's go to the Hoover Dam."

The ride there was gorgeous in and of itself. Lots of mountain terrain (though, actually, they looked a lot more refined from far away, up close they just looked like piles of dirt with weeds growing out of them).

After a while on I-515/93S, the mountains gave way to the deep blue waters of Lake Mead, America's largest man-made lake.

Hey, it's more mountains. Wow.

There's that bridge that goes over the Dam. Consider this a preview, I guess.

Here's where all the tourists gather as they wait for their tour buses to pick 'em up.

This is us looking straight down into the Dam. Please note that I totally did the whole "grab Pam and act like I'm going to throw her over the edge to freak her out" thing. She was not happy.

God Bless America.

What am I doing with my life?

Hyrdroelectric power!

Pretty far away from Philadelphia.

The other side of the dam, where the water is stored before it is converted to electricity. This water level is 500 feet higher than the other side of the dam.

Hoover Dam, the Tomorrowland of 1935.

Flowers are growing out of the side of the dam. I would go down to pick them for my girlfriend for her birthday, but that's not for two weeks.

A model of the dam, in case you missed the real thing.

That's actually a lot farther down than it looks. Can you see the workers down there? No, you can't, because they look so darn small. It's safe to say that you wouldn't survive the fall.

The obligatory picture. Resplendent!

More water at the bottom of the dam. Yawn.

God Bless America II.

Small-town America lives on in Boulder City, Nevada. Widely considered the happiest town in America, it looks like a ghost town in this picture. And it kind of was. Lots of antique shops and corner pubs. And a UFO store. Good times.

Here's where we called home. The Boulder Dam Brewing Company. "Hoppy Hour" was from 4-6. We drank many a freshly-brewed beer and ate some great brewpub food.

Here's that cutie that I'm kinda dating. I forget her name. The blonde. She's at the bar. You can see the big vats of Boulder City natural brew. I have to say, the one beer I was drinking, called "Dam Brewtal IPA" was - no exaggeration - the best beer I've ever had the pleasure to drink in my life. They don't sell cases of it. Had they, and I would be poor right now.

P.S. Yes, pretty much everywhere in Boulder City, it was required to make puns on the words "dam" and "damn." There was the Dam Brewtal beer. There was the Best Dam Salon. And so on, ad nauseum.

Clever.

Driving home, it was hard to get a good picture of the sunset behind the mountains. Here's the best I could do with my standard digital camera.

The Hoover Dam visitor's center was infinitely interesting. Really, there were four reasons why the Hoover Dam was awesome: 1) Learning about how it was built; 2) Learning about how it works (as in, the way the water flow through and the way that flow generates electricity); 3) How the Dam both serves as a symbol of the wonder and beauty of America itself, and how it also literally helped America survive the Great Depression (both by giving citizen's job opportunities and by being a shining example of the American willpower); 4) Quite simply, there's a sense of awe in seeing this behemoth for yourself.