Tag: Las Vegas

  • Viva Las Vegas Mini-Vacation with Kids

    Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, May 2006 Our friends decided to get married in Las Vegas, and in all seriousness they had a wonderful traditional ceremony set in a beautiful outdoor area. We found ourselves with some free time though, and we had to figure out how to entertain two small children in a venue that…

  • What the Hill

    My wife keeps signing me up for running races. I guess she wants some company during her crazy pursuits. It seems harmless enough so I join her even if I’d rather be doing something less competitive. Those are the kinds of compromises one makes to keep peace in the house, and we’ve been together a…

  • Warp Drive

    Somehow Warp Drive slipped past my attention in the recent Drive Me Crazy article, a collection of several creatively-named streets such as Line Drive for baseball stadiums, Disk Drive for an information technology company, and Doctor Drive which became a study in redundancy. Reader Michael Hollinger rightly noted my omission of Warp Drive in a…

  • He Went Thata Way

    One little neighborhood in Las Vegas, Nevada fills me with such joy. It first came to my attention for Supreme Court and then played a starring role as Curdsen Way in Little Miss Muffet. Now it’s inspired me a final time with Thata Way. It’s pure geo-oddity gold. I’ve pretty well exhausted the neighborhood, though.…

  • Little Miss Muffet

    A map peculiarity reminded me of an old nursery rhyme, probably one of the most famous of them all, and likely familiar to each of us: “Little Miss MuffetSat on a tuffet,Eating her curds and whey;” I’ll get to the specific reason soon enough. Let me ramble and meander for a little while though, as…

  • History Vegas Style

    Going out-of-town for the holidays to a small town where temperatures never cracked above freezing provided lots of contemplation time. It also offered abundant exercise opportunities for my right thumb via a television remote control. I’m an historian by training, so as one might expect I gravitate towards the History Channel and its ilk. Has…

  • Frank Sinatra’s Drive

    As Ol’ Blue Eyes — Francis Albert “Frank” Sinatra — so famously sang: If I can make it there I’ll make it anywhere It’s up to you Hoboken, Hoboken Say what?!? Frank Sinatra arrived in this world in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1915, not New York City, and he lived his first couple of decades…

  • Would You Believe?

    Have you ever dropped into Google Street View and found terrain that just didn’t “look right,” and differed from your expectations? I think we all have stereotypical preconceptions of how a place is supposed to appear, especially if we’ve never fully explore the area in person. Below is the image that surprised me a few…

  • State Centers of Population

    The concept of population centers fascinates me. In the United States the U.S. Census bureau defines the Mean Center of Population. “The point at which an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if weights of identical value were placed on it so that each weight represented the location…

  • The Cult of Elvis

    Oddly I’m not much of a fan of the music of Elvis Presley but I’m a huge fan of the Cult of Elvis. His staying power and continuing impact upon the cultural landscape long after his passage to the great beyond (assuming one believes he’s truly gone) simply cannot be denied. Let’s explore a few…