The British Invasion.

I had read of a British foods grocery store in Vegas, and decided to find it over the weekend. British Grocer is my new favorite grocery store in town. (Except the price tag for all that imported grub...)

They had everything I could think of wanting, and plenty of things I never would have thought of. I stocked up on soups, spreads, pastries, sweets, crackers, drinks, you name it. here's what made it through last night to today. As you can see, the supply is already dangerously low.

No stopping here, however. I then made my way over to the Crown & Anchor, a "British Pub".

I expected to be disappointed by yet another pathetic attempt at capturing a British pub (and it's food) often found on this side of the pond, but this place was different, and I knew it from the minute I hit the door, because it smelled exactly like a true English Pub. This has to be a good start....(Read the 4 page menu here. Not recommended if one is hungry.)

Full range of fine British beer on tap. Great menu full of home style favorites. English girl taking my order. So far so good. Now the true test. Food!



Ahh, yes. Sausage rolls for starters, traditional Sunday roast with all the trimmings, a pint of Boddy's. And, it was deee-licious. The kicker? It's 2 minutes from my office. If it turns out the night life in there is good too, I must just ask them if I can move in.

Expect many more field reports from both of these places....

How 856 dynamite sticks reduced the Stardust Resort to a mammoth pile of rubble

By TONY ILLIIA

Once the site of the most notorious 'skim' in Vegas history, the venerable Stardust Resort & Casino went down in a plume of dust on the Las Vegas Strip at 2:30 a.m., March 13. The 16-year-old, 315-foot-tall hotel tower and an adjacent, 43-year-old,nine-story low-rise were imploded using 428 pounds of explosives. It took just 10 seconds for the twin buildings, representing decades of history, to tumble, leaving a broad cloud of dust.

The 49-year-old hotel casino had closed Nov. 1, 2006. Boyd Gaming Corp., Stardust's parent company, is building a $4.4 billion, 10.5 million-square-foot development called Echelon Place on the 63-acre, Strip-front property. LVI Services of New York, was the demolition contractor, with Controlled Demolition, from Phoenix, Md., as explosives subcontractor.

The Stardust now becomes the fourth-tallest building ever imploded, trailing the 439-foot-tall J.L. Hudson department store in Detroit, which went down on Oct., 24, 1998. The Stardust, however, is still the tallest Strip tower ever imploded. It's also the sixth local implosion for LVI Services. Other notches on the company's belt include the previous Aladdin, the El Rancho, the Sands, the Desert Inn and the Castaways.

They snuck this one in at an hour when I was in bed, and they made no prior announcement, otherwise I would have been there for sure. The only evidence I saw of it was the dust cloud hanging over the entire city for the next 24 hours....

But, really. Where else in the world does an implosion look like this??

Red Rock Canyon

...Barely scratched the surface, but got a nice look at Red Rock Canyon this past weekend. Hard to imagine it's only 15 minutes from my front door. Feel's like I'm 100 miles from nowhere when I'm out there!

Some Photee's....These are of the White cliffs area I opted to walk instead of the bright red Rocks...("See? racial". - D. Brent)

My Mountain, and I.

From Vegas

Office View

Just a little bit of it, anyway....

From Vegas

From Vegas

How to make a martini with the mayor

Mr. Goodman said he had already turned down pleas from fellow Democrats in 2006 to run for the Senate. He added, however, that whoever is elected next year should not be a teetotaler.
“I do think this country needs a president who drinks,” he said.

Read the whole NYT article on Las Vegas' beloved drunken mayor, here.

Dad is funny.

Hahaha. This is for you, Pop.

The trees are alive with the sound of electromagnetic microwaves.

This town is littered with cell phone towers. Not unusual, however I've never seen cell phone towers not so cunningly disguised as palm trees until I came to Las Vegas....

From Vegas

From Vegas

The 215.

..Or the Las Vegas Loop. 2/25/2007

From Vegas