Myriad miscellany

Arizona-Ho
Memorial Day will see the OC Mehls in the blast furnace of the Arizona desert, cooling our hypothalamus glands with friends and family. We'll be taking a nice long four and a half days...the Friday before is my 36th birthday. Hopefully I'll survive the maelstrom of work in which I'm currently swirling to see that birthday!

Iowa-bound
The family is now set to visit the Hawkeye State the last week of September. Due to a business function, I will fly out on Monday, September 26th, joining the girls who leave on the 24th. We get back on October 1st. Looking forward to Fall in the Midwest. Hopefully this isn't a hidden message to any sleeper cells looking to bomb something else in the Homeland. Memories of our last trip to Iowa will unfortunately always be linked to 9/11 for me...

12-Steps to breaking WOW addiction
I've now set time limits on my WOW play. Yes, it's gotten to that point. I now only play until 10pm on school nights, and midnight on the weekends. I'm three days into the program and so far so good. I have to see how my first weekend goes! Sacrificing my gym schedule and alternating between zombie and a**hole on the weekends due to sleep deprivation ain't worth it.

(By the way, I'll be 40th level by Friday. A riding tiger and the ability to wear mail await! tee hee)

Hey, wow...I managed a whole 25 minutes for today's lunch. Whoop de friggin' doo! The phone rings...

Adios

What happens in Vegas...

Friday's photoshoot went well. Although I expected that we would have lots of excess time on our hands since the only flight we could book got us in town far earlier and left far later than necessary, it ended up being just about right. Friday morning, Steve and I took a taxi down to downtown/Old Town (whatever they call it) to Binion's Horseshoe. We had a few hours to kill before the afternoon tournament began, so while we waited to meet up with our client, we went into the Horseshoe casino.

Turns out, they were filming a movie there. We realized how easy it is to get through "security" -- particularly when you're carrying a tripod and a few shoulder bags yourself. The 19-year old security guard asked us if we were with the crew, and although I said it was probably not for the one he was asking about, he sent us in.

The main lobby casino at Binion's is nothing to write home about (although I guess that's what I'm doing, so I stand corrected.) Take the gaudiest Vegas environment you can envision and then subject it to about 60 years of cigarette smoke, foot traffic and general wear and tear and you've got the dungy pit this place was. I'm guessing the movie crew wanted "authentic".

The whole area was cordoned off and had about five various concentric zones surrounding the main set. It was interesting watching the various hives of activity and, as Steve mentioned, how the level of authority was dictated by how many cords or rolls of tape you had strapped on. The fewer, the more elite you were. We stood behind the outermost ring -- next to the very elaborate craft service setup -- and peered into the set. After a few inquiries, we determined the movie being filmed starred Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall. Working title is "Lucky You" and is slated for release next year some time.

The red head beneath the main lights we were staring at for some time turned out to be a stand-in, but was replaced by Drew Barrymore herself (in curlers) shortly before we headed out to breakfast.

I'm not saying anything revolutionary when I say that no place in the world (or at least in my limited exposure to the world) packs more wackos per square foot than Sin City. Standing next to a movie set posed a curious dilemma: were the people around us extras in the movie selected for their eccentricities, or just the average stand-around-a-casino-in-a-green-polyester-leisure-suit-at-10-in-the-morning-smoking-a-cigar- and-wearing-JackieO-sunglasses-and-a-porkpie-hat kind of weirdos?

Meeting up with our client, we walked to the Golden Nugget for a decent breakfast. The entire downtown is under a roof that, at night, has a trillion or so lights that orchestrate some overhead presentation. In the day, it's like a mini Times Square assault of advertising. That morning, and later in the afternoon as we set off to find a taxi back to the airport, I was struck by that strange, "only in Vegas" type phenomena. There, beneath the dome of lights, in the middle of the desert, walked families with 4- and 5-year old children, retirees, pimps (I'm presuming), aluminum can-hording bums, silicon-insufflated bimbos and every other type of endomorph and ectomorph in between -- all showered in the light of large screen TVs showing topless women (breasts covered with dual lines of type stating "WOW" to protect the prudish sensibilities of passersby, no doubt) eating Deep Fried Twinkies in various poses of seduction. Only 99 cents, those Twinkies.

Anyway, my lunchtime Blog session is coming to an end. The event we shot was interesting itself, but went off pretty well. You should be seeing the results of it on retail shelves later this summer. Minus the Twinkies.