Category: Uncategorized

One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background.  They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.
— Stephen Sondheim

I know a lot of you who read are music aficionados, so in an attempt to encourage commenting, I borrowed this from Low Resolution, one of my favorite, catch-all pop culture blogs.  Here’s the directions:

1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Post the first line of each of the first 25 songs, no matter how embarassing.
3. Strikethrough an entry once someone in the comments guesses both the artist and the song correctly.
4. For those who are guessing, googling or otherwise searching for the lyrics is CHEATING (we use the honor system around here).
5. If you like the game, feel free to post your own.

I’ve got some real fluff on my iPod currently, so I hope I don’t get wildly embarassed doing this.  Let’s roll the dice, shall we?

1. I will follow [ok, that sucked]

2. This is what you do

3. Steve walks warily down the street

4. Naked lovers feel the blood beneath their veins

5. Cuantas veces he pensada ya [oooh, I forgot I had Spanish music on there!]

6. What’s the matter, Mary Jane, you had a hard day Mary Jane, Alanis Morrisette

7. No, I would not sleep in this bed of lies

8. Somewhere deep inside

9. I think it’s time we give it up

10. In my mind I’m goin’ to Carolina Carolina In My Mind, James Taylor

11. How dare you say that my behavior is unacceptable

12. Well, I’m a steamroller, baby Steamroller, James Taylor

13. She says it’s cold outside and she hands me a raincoat 3AM, Matchbox Twenty

14. I can’t fight this feeling any longer I Can’t Fight This Feeling, REO Speedwagon

15. Seven-thirty-seven comin’ out of the sky Travelin’ Band, John Fogerty/Creedence Clearwater Revival

16. I hear a wind [I’m going to give credit for the original artist on this one, because none of you would ever guess what version is on my iPod]

17. I don’t know what, what I’m gonna do

18. So tired of broken hearts Cherish, Madonna

19. I laid a red rose

20. He left me cryin’ late one Sunday night outside of Boulder Stand Beside Me, JoDee Messina

21. You take Sally and I’ll take Sue

22. We met as soul mates

23. I’m laying it on the line to show you

24. I heard the door slam and I just couldn’t tell

25. One man come in the name of love Pride (In the Name of Love), U2

Ok, that wasn’t too bad at all. Have at it – some of them are super easy and there’s at least one I bet no one will get without cheating – and have fun!

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
— Lao Tzu

I’m such an un-prolific blogger that it’s taken me nearly a month to write a 4-part series on our trip to Las Vegas.  I suck.  In any event, Tuesday was my favorite day there, I think, so this is the best part.

It was, of course, Inauguration Day, the reason we fled the D.C.-area to begin with, but we didn’t want to miss the big event.  Unfortunately, the captions on the TV in our room didn’t work (and we’ll let it slide how that’s a violation of the law), but we needed breakfast anyway, so we headed down to the cafe in the hotel, where they were showing the Inauguration on three screens, one of which was captioned.  We watched, and I teared up when President Obama took the oath.  I remember saying out loud to David, “I can’t believe it really happened.”  What a day.

Then we headed to Red Rock Canyon, about 20 miles outside Vegas.  We were lucky enough to have another gorgeous day, and I couldn’t stop marveling at the beauty of it all.  This is what we saw on our approach:

We stopped at the Visitor’s Center for a look around, but then we drove up to the first stop on the 13-mile road through the park.  We got out of the car to take some pictures, and I thought we’d move along to the next stop, but instead, we started walking – hiking, really – and before we knew it, we’d gone far enough toward the next stop on the road that we just kept going til we got there, and then we walked the road back to the car.  Here’s some of what we saw on our hike:

I don’t know that the pictures really do justice to the scale or the intensity of the color of the mountains.  It was truly amazing.  I loved being there.  We’d be hiking, and all of sudden I’d just have to stop to just take in the moment, to really focus on the beauty of this place I was in, to simply be present.  It was such a breath of fresh air, in more ways than one.  At one point, I looked at David and said, “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in with you.”  And it’s true.  And wherever we travel together in the future, it’s going to be hard pressed to live up to this day.

Speaking of David, I did promise you another Pouty Picture:

And, yes, he is kind of smiling here, as he is in the one from the last post, but I call them Pouty Pictures because he only grudgingly posed for them – the pouting came before the shutter snap.

There are so many good pictures from our day here that I want to share, but the Gallery feature on WP is what messed up the last post, so I’m just going to share this Photobucket slideshow I made (I’m sure I’m doing something wrong, which is why it won’t embed, but just click on “view all images”):

We spent more time than we intended to out there, which is why we ended up missing our last chance to see the dolphins, as I mentioned in Part 1, but it was definitely worth it.  We headed back to town to shower and change; I had promised David dinner at House of Blues, and I had to deliver on our last night.

But first, we headed to the Bellagio, for the fountain show.  This is a 5-minute or so water show choreographed to music and lights, and it is amazing.  I should have taken video of it, but I was too busy taking pictures:

When it was over, I said to David, “It’s like water fireworks.”  He said, “That’s exactly what it’s like.”  I bet you could find a video of the whole show on YouTube, if you’re interested.

We headed to dinner, and managed to get a table and our appetizer before the band started and made it too loud for any meaningful conversation.  The band was pretty good; the food was only average, so we were a little disappointed.  Afterwards, we walked the strip a little more and ducked into a few casinos – David was on the hunt for a $5 Let It Ride table.  We finally ended up at Excalibur, a medieval-themed casino, where I saw this funny sign:

Totally authentic.  David found a table and joined in, and his poor-to-average luck continued for several hands.  Then, with one lucky full house, he won $310.  And he cashed out shortly after that, wisely I think.  So he was a happy camper, and we headed back to the Palms for our last (very short) night in a really, really great bed.

The End.

It seems a long time since the morning mail could be called correspondence.
— Jacques Barzun

Check out the origins of this post (way back last week!), if you’re just joining us.

1. Getting mail from far away friends after you’ve had a bad day. (This was more prevalent in the days before email, of course, but that makes it doubly exciting now.)

2. Lying on the back of someone’s car with your best friend, looking at the stars, wondering if people are real and what fish think about.  (The answer, according to Aimee when we did this in high school, is “Girl fish.”)

3. Staying in the shower as long as you want and never running out of hot water.

I know you must be happy about something – tell me what it is in the comments!

This must be Thursday.  I could never get the hang of Thursdays.
— Douglas Adams

Some of you “long-time readers” may remember a feature around here called Tuesday’s Things to Be Happy About.  I stopped doing it about a year ago, but I decided I wanted to bring it back, both because I miss it and because I feel like I need something that forces me to post when I otherwise might let posting slide.  I was going to call it Ten Things Tuesday, but I like the alliteration of this a little better, plus it’s not so ambitious, which will help me not feel not so much pressure.

I’ve been thinking about this for a little while now, but I wanted to go back through the old entries first and mark off in my little Happy Things notebook the ones that I’ve already used.  That has proved to be a nearly impossible task, though, given the nearly 1400 items in the notebook.  I did about three entries’ worth and decided it was hopeless.  So, I’ll do my best not to repeat, but I’m not making any promises (I will, however, mark them off as I go along now so I won’t have this problem from here on out).  Also, some items will probably be topical and will therefore not come from the notebook, since I’ve been slacking about keeping it up, but I will add them as they occur to me.

So, here we go:

1. those tiny bottles of condiments you get when you order room service

2. Friday Night Lights recaps on TWoP

3. the secret way I found to use Google Talk at work, which is great since David started his new job this week and we can’t use the internal IM anymore.

Tune in next week to see what exciting things I’m happy about then!

Also: Happy Birthday, Nate!

(Apologies for the take down and repost.  Technical difficulties, you know.)

The engineer has been, and is, a maker of history.
— James Kip Finch

If you’ve never been to the Hoover Dam, I suggest you put it on your list of things to see before you die.  It is truly an astounding feat of engineering.  You can read all about it here.  The story of how it was built, alone, is worth the price of admission, I have to say.  Among other things, they had to divert the Colorado River, which, as you might imagine, was no easy task.  The dam is 726 feet high and 1244 feet long, and connects Nevada and Arizona.  Despite what you may believe from having seen Fools Rush In, the road over the dam does not have Arizona/Nevada painted on it.  The state line is marked by this little plaque:

It was an impossibly beautiful day, as you might be able to tell from the photos.  Mid-60’s, sunny, breezy, just a few clouds in the bright blue sky – the perfect antidote to the winter weather we’d left behind in D.C.

We walked across the dam into Arizona, and it was time for another pouty picture:

What can I say?  I’m a tourist at heart, I guess!  He was a good sport – there are about 10 different self-portraits of us, courtesy of his long arms.  Here’s a little gallery of more dam pictures (David got such a kick out of using dam in as many sentences as possible – “We’re going to have a good dam time today!” “That’s dam big!” etc, etc.  God love him.):

After the Dam, David had the idea to take me to a third state in one day, so we headed out to Primm, Nevada, right on the border.  We pulled into the casino complex there and drove as far west as we could, until we were about 50 yards into California.  Of course, I had to have a picture!

This is one of my favorites of us, ever, and it’s now the wallpaper on my desktop.

We spent the afternoon playing $5 blackjack – where David lost miserably and I walked away with $10 in winnings.  There was a log flume ride in the casino, and I made David go on it with me – it was so fun!

We headed back to Vegas around 5 or so.  By the time we got back it was dark, and I wanted to excercise my touristy inclinations again, so I made David take me to the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign (he spent part of his teen years living in Las Vegas, so he knew his way around pretty good).

I was going to take him to dinner at House of Blues, but by the time we got there, the band had already started and it was way too loud to try to have a conversation.  We ended up at the Mexican restaurant at New York New York, which was very good, and then we gambled the night away there (I won about $20 on the Deal or No Deal slot machine!).

Oh, I almost forgot – we rambled by all the shops in Mandalay Bay, and I came across the Lush store!  I had heard tell of their bath bombs, but I’d never tried them.  I bought one – Sakura, I think – and took a bath when we got back to the hotel: heaven.  It was so, so nice.  I could have stayed in there all night.  Yum.

It was a busy day, that’s for sure, but it was fantastic.  Up next in the final installment: Inauguration day, Red Rock Canyon, the fountains at Bellagio, and – you guessed it – more pouty pictures!