I worked late on a M&A transaction we've been putting effort to. Then I go to drive home and find that the parkade is being painted, and that my car is "saran wrapped". Nice of them to do so rather than painting it, but it's more humorous a day later than when my tired eyes saw it last night.
I woke up with a combo wake up call/room service breakfast that contained motivation to make something of the day... so I rented a Porsche, changed my flights, and drove to Utah to visit my aunt and uncle, two cousins, and almost husband of one of the cousins.
Andrea (and Andy) are going into town for her 10 year high school reunion, which will be a dry affair. Bob, Peggy, Tammy and I are soaking up the St. George heat by their pool and catching up on old stories.
The combo of the reunion and old times was pure comedy, talk about good times.
We dined at TWIST which is one of these places where preparation effort rates way higher than quantity of meal, it was all fancy pants and generally delicious. After that it was Pure nightclub on the roof of Caesar's Palace. Dan and Karen managed the lineup "requirements". Karen being "the chick" and Dan being 270lbs of Grande Prairie muscle with a handlebar mustache helped. Dan just asks the bouncer "hey big guy, how do we get in" and the bouncer entirely saw the humor that he sure as hell wasn't the big guy, but seemed to appreciate the politeness. Skipped the big line and in we go. I told Dan I was appreciative and that I'd arm wrestle him for who pays the bill.
Great night temps on the rooftop with a view of the strip. I made friends with some bouncer who played a year of second string NFL and probably weighed 2.5x me, fun to hear his take on it all. Surprisingly, even at an upclass place, he said a lot of people do the liquid courage thing and want to fight, even though he described his job as mostly customer service. I said "seriously, people get wound up and want to fight you?" He put 74lbs of meat hook on my shoulder and said "yup, not everyone is like you"... and I just thought to myself that anyone who's dumb enough to rile up this guy deserves to be tossed to the street many floors below. He and Dan side by side looked like 500+lbs of whoop ass you don't need to get involved with.
Somehow the 7:30pm dinner turned into 5am departure from the patio after what seems like 2,000 dance songs later. Holy cow. Let's just say fun was had, and that its not often I order room service breakfast at the same time as going to bed.
The Las Vegas motor speedway is huge, I've never been around NASCAR, but knew it was big... just how big is surprising. This place has enough hot black pavement and stands to last me a while.
600 hp V8's tearing around is ear splittingly awesome. I for years have drawn the line at never having owned a V8; 6 cylinder engines do the job and that's a mild bit of under consumption to leave it at that. That's so-un American of me. I'm not sure if I can hold that rule anymore, letting a V8 scream at high RPM and wide open throttle at maximum speed is pretty unreal when coming out of the corners and down the straight. The muscles in the left side of my neck will be sore from working against g-force. You can't even hear yourself think. You can never supersize your fries enough in America, nor have too much horsepower, or a stadium too big to enjoy both of the above.
Karen, who on this trip is "the chick" (as there's only one) learned how to drive standard today. I've never met anyone who learned to drive stick in a car with that much power. She also had the highest to speed of the day. That'll come in handy if she ever teaches kids to drive stick "yeah just shift up to 4th at about a hundred miles an hour and keep it pinned".
NASCARs and track driving was awesome. Very different obviously than Baja. It's a science of small variables, whereas in Baja the act of being smooth is very different, more dealing with randomness than minutiae of setup on each lap. Being out there with 20+ other cars would be total mayhem. It's basically crits vs. BC Bike Race.
Richard Petty made himself a legend and dominated a sport that seems very hard to dominate. He must have had a very canny mind for strategy and details developing as the race unfolded.
There's many more car types and places on my to-do driving list, and the NASCAR experience was pretty enlightening. "Shake 'n bake" has a whole new level of appreciation for me.
I don't make it to this city particularly often, but it never ceases to amaze me. There's a few acres of desert that exist in seeming disconnect with the world as a whole. Recession may happen broadly, but as the recession noose constricts, some blocks are cut off, and a smaller area is undisturbed apparently - the core of this city seems buzzing. Capitalism exists here, whereby on the way to a dinner and back, anything that one could spend money on is advertised for purchase. Drugs, watches, booze and women in particular. Apparently the forces of supply and demand have determined that these are the goods needed in Nevada at all hours, the invisible hand of economics works in odd ways. This little part of this city is an odd place with its own economics. It's probably good there aren't too many of them, but having a few probably takes the pressure off many other places.
We dined and partied at Tao. I like both dining and partying, and it was a superb night. It's key apparently in Las Vegas marketing to have monosyllabic, or at lease single word adjectives as business names. Tomorrow, in the spirit of fun, we drive NASCARs, then we hit TWIST for dinner and PURE for fun (all caps apparently important too?).
The hotel room I'm in is literally a third the square feet of the house in progress I may live in again sometime between now and infinity.
