While Las Vegas Sleeps…

Las Vegas, Nevada, is famously dry in the middle of the desert. Most people think of the desert as a place where things are dry as a bone - barely supporting life as we know it. The truth is, everything needs water. It rains here. It even snows here upon occasion (though it almost never sticks to the ground anywhere near the Strip.) In fact, it snows here every year on the mountain. That’s why we even have our very own little ski resort, The Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort (owned by the same people that own the Park City Mountain Resort, incidentally.)

The last couple of nights we’ve been experiencing one of two parts of what I think tend to generally constitute our “rainy seasons” here in Las Vegas. The Winter portion of that takes place at any time between December and February and usually happens when conditions in the Pacific Ocean cause a low pressure area to set up off the California coast and allow for sweeping bands of moisture to move in, resulting in the closest thing Las Vegas has to an actual “season” of rain. This is because it’s one system that’s affecting our weather for several days, as opposed to just several hours. This may or may not happen more than once or twice during the winter. Slow, steady rain is great for us around here just like it is anywhere. The difference for guys like me is that whenever it rains for a night or two here in Las Vegas, forty minutes away up on Mount Charleston, they’ve probably gotten a half a foot or more of fresh powder. That means it’s skiing/snowboarding time, baby!! Tomorrow I’m heading up to Mount Charleston on what will probably be the best conditions day up there in a couple of years. *crosses fingers*

[The other "rainy season" is when we get a monsoonal flow of moisture in late July and August that causes brief thunderstorms to zoom across the valley floor, often times causing flash flooding in some places while other parts of the valley remain bone dry. This slow, steady sprinkling rain is where it's at, for sure.]

Tags: fresh powder, Mount Charleston, rain, skiing, snowboarding, winter

It’s all about the ponies. That’s all I’m saying! Last night Bravo, Nick the Cabbie, and myself went out to do a little gambling at the New Frontier on it’s last night as an operating casino. It was fun! You know it’s funny how when you live in this town you can forget how much fun it can be to just go to an old casino with a couple of friends and roam around laughing while you pump “silver dollars” into a machine like they have no value. Okay, well they are made of aluminum and aren’t legal tender making them literally worthless in of themselves, but you can cash them in for the real thing! And besides, it’s really easy to forget how much fun that is when so few casinos actually have a “hard count” (coins) anymore.

There’s something just a little too sterile about the whole paper-in/paper-out method of gambling. I mean, I like those big clanky silver dollars - their grit from a million hands having used them, their sheer weight, the sound it makes when they hit the bottom of the machine as they come out. I mean, I realize that since most major economies of the world have left the gold standard or some other practice of tying metals with intrinsic value to paper, the only reason money has any value at all is simply because we agree that it has value and use it as though it was precious in of itself. It’s not. And even though those two inch wide aluminum coins have the same lack of real precious value as paper does, the experience is enhanced by its tangible qualities. Yeah, I’m going to miss all that. The New Frontier was one of the last places on the Strip to have those machines. You can find small amounts of them here and there around town, but it’s all gone paper, now.

I hadn’t been in there too long and I’d already fed these beasts 100 of those wonderful metal discs. Unlike my friends, I wasn’t even drinking last night. The whole vibe in the place was just fun. It was the most pleasant time I’ve had doing that sort of thing in quite some time. Bravo and I decided we’d better play some 21 so we put a bill each in and said we’d either double through or bust, just playing with one hand between the two of us for fun. You can probably guess how that went We just laughed as “The Dry Martinis” did Rat Pack era covers - the lead singer could be Sinatra’s twin.. it was uncanny! He was even small in stature like Sinatra was. It was the best cover band I’ve heard in quite some time. Everyone was singing and laughing - one couple nearly danced right over me on my way towards the blackjack pit. It was a great scene..

For the longest time I’ve loved the old school, car-sized gambling machine in the Frontier that’s a big racetrack complete with horses that bob up and down to simulated hoof noises. You just don’t ever see games like that in casinos anymore. There’s room for like ten or twelve people to play at once, too, so it can be a lot of fun when there is a crowd. I played a few rounds with the crowd there as Nick looked on. I won a few times. Once I won 230 quarters! I guess it’s kind of true: they don’t make ‘em like they used to. It’s all about the ponies!

Side-note: the former owner of the New Frontier owns a casino in Kansas, which was kind of surprising to me because I didn’t even know they had gaming in Kansas, but some workers have said that they think the horse racing game might be taken to his casino out there. That’s going to be one helluva drive just to bet on some wooden horses, but, I gotta say.. it might just be worth it!

Just as we did for the Stardust implosion, we’ll be producing a video of the New Frontier implosion when it happens either later this year or early next year and posting it here on “While Las Vegas Sleeps…”

Tags: casino, cheap Las Vegas, classic Vegas, Entertainment, Frontier, gambling, gaming, historic, news, Stardust Hotel

There’s almost nothing as mind-numbing and seemingly time-wasting as hitting the gym in your complex to go play hamster-on-a-wheel for an hour trying to burn a few extra calories, not to me at least. My brain has a marvelous way of getting hyper-bored in blazingly fast fashion and the distractions seem limitless. I think about everything I haven’t done that day, what’s on television, where I’d rather be, who I’d rather be with, and, probably what I want for dinner. It’s just not really conducive to the task at hand. I can’t take the monotony.

When we first moved to Las Vegas, like most tourists, we’d take off on the Strip and go see a few places. It didn’t take long for you to realize that a “city block” in Las Vegas is pretty damned substantial and you’re further away from where you started than you had originally imagined going. It hardly mattered, though, because you were walking around leisurely, drinking, laughing, and doing basically anything other than getting bored. You wouldn’t dare call it “exercise” because it was fun, although by the soreness of your feet at the end of the day, you know that’s precisely what it was.

Over the last couple of years I’ve slowly been changing my lifestyle for the better in the exercise and health department. I’ve lost weight and I’ve toned up. I’m not in Brad Pitt condition, currently, but I’m on my way. The only reason why the limited exercise I get has worked is due to the fact that I make it interesting and make it seem like it isn’t bore-inducing work (take my skiing addiction of recent years, for example.) That’s just how my brain has to see it in order for it to happen longer than 30 minutes and more than 1 or 2 times. Lately I’ve been rediscovering one of my first loves about this city - the Strip. It’s pretty easy to wander around down there like any regular visitor and before you know it you’ve gone 4 or 5 miles. Last night Nick and I went for like walk number three in the last two weeks down on Las Vegas Boulevard. I was in a bit of a hurry so we only went 3 miles, but on other occasions we’ve walked five and six miles. The six miler took over three hours and I burned about 6000 calories, according to my GPS trainer and if we didn’t have plans to go shoot some photos at the opening of The Pearl tonight I’d be going right back. The weather right now is just awesome!

Does it matter if I stop for a Viale Lemonade? (all the clear liquors ala a Long Island Iced Tea, plus fresh-squeezed lemonade) I mean, you get thirsty when you exercise…

Tags: cheap Las Vegas, Entertainment, exercise, gambling, gaming, Southern Nevada

The last couple of nights people have started arriving in town for The Las Vegas Grand Prix. This is exactly the kind of thing that is great for Las Vegas. Special events with a special brand of customer coming into town for a unique event that’s a first. Las Vegas’ downtown will definitely benefit from the exposure and the renovations and changes that are taking place, and the Golden Nugget in particular, will get a premier event to showcase the new look. Whether you love him or hate, Oscar Goodman is great for this town and this is a great example of the kinds of things that were not taking place before he went into office.

The only downside to the Las Vegas Grand Prix is navigating around downtown. The track is about 2.4 miles long and winds all around the downtown area, just south of the Fremont Street area. The city and hotel representatives are asking that people park at the casinos’ garages (big shocker there, right? hehe) and walk over to the grandstands. The city’s traffic has picked up immensely in the last two days and the big race days are still to come. The Las Vegas Grand Prix seems to be all that it promised to be, and probably more.

I will try and get some good photos from the racetrack area in the next couple of days and post them here on “While Las Vegas Sleeps…”

Tags: casino, cheap Las Vegas, Downtown Las Vegas, Entertainment, Golden Nugget, grand prix, Southern Nevada