Finally, some news from Vegas

So, a little over a week after Neil and Rebecca returned from Vegas I am now finally in a position to give people a little bit of an update on how things went down on their trip, or at least a few of the key aspects.

I guess I will cut to the chase on the particularly key aspect of the trip. Within a few hours of arriving Neil and Rebecca purchased a ring and made their way to the marriage license office. Shortly after their visit to the office, on the evening of the day of their arrival, they made their way to another office where a marriage ceremony was performed by a county employee. The witness they used was a friend/acquaintance of the security guards (had had already done at least two other weddings that day). Apparently the ceremony wasn't so simple that they got to skip the 'I dos' and associated statements of commitment to one another.



From what I can tell, much of the rest of the trip was spent either riding the pool's lazy river, taking advantage of free drink service at casinos, hunting for casino's new player deals, attending shows, or window shopping. All in all, things took a turn towards the less exciting after the first 12 hours that they were there.

I guess I should also publicly forgive Neil for not posting more while in Vegas (though it is possible he could have squeaked a single post in) as it seems that internet connections are a little bit more difficult to come by in Vegas than anyone expected. Not only do most places charge for connection time, it seems to not be particularly cheap. As Neil explained it to me, the casinos would much rather have in the casinos gambling than up in your room checking your various social networking sites or watching crappy videos.

How this impacted Neil and Rebecca was that it drastically reduced their interneting time so much so that they only went online while at the airport, where it was free, and once in a fast food restaurant to send us emails letting us know that they had been married (almost a week before).

A Few Quick Notes 351

-After a rainfall approaching biblical proportions yesterday, I was quite surprised to wake up to find that today was almost perfect.

-After what seemed to be about two weeks, but must have only been three or four days, I finally finished off the batch of beans I made after Neil and Rebecca's departure. I guess the question now is whether I make another batch for the next few days or try to diversify my diet slightly.

-Moments ago I emailed my MA thesis to my supervisor and the other two professors who will be reading it. It is a strange feeling. It is possible that I may have to give a presentation on the topic on either Thursday or Friday, though this has not yet been scheduled, though I imagine I will hear about this shortly.

-Still no word from the Vegas vacationers. At this point I am starting to think that they are actively avoiding communicating with us as they don't seem to be reading the blog, emailing, or phoning. Jeez, if I don't hear anything soon I may have to start looking for people to sublet their room.

-Yesterday I went to one of the local Chinese grocery stores and purchased a 1.5 Kg bag of instant noodles (kind of like ramen but without the flavouring packets). Once I got the noodles home I took a look at the nutritional information and ingredients. While only three ingredients are listed (flour, salt, curcumin) the nutritional information seems to suggest that for every 100 grams of noodles contains over 20 grams of fat, 75 grams of carbohydrates, and almost 10 grams of protein. Though I don't know much about these things, something seems a little off with this information (and the list of ingredients).

-For the past few days I have been on the look out for some wood with which I hope to make a plant shelf for my window. Given that we are in the move-out portion of the month I decided to go for a quick walk this afternoon to see if I could find any discarded shelves or other furniture from which I could salvage some wood. While I did see a number of piles of crap left behind by people who had moved out, I didn't see any wood that matched the dimensions I was looking for. When I was about a block away from home I noticed that there was a old election sign with a wooden post lying in the ground. Though this was a little dirty and wet, I was able to separate the plastic from the wood relatively easily.

While I was taking the plastic sign components off I accidently broke the piece of wood. At first I was a little frustrated, but eventually I saw that the break actually gave me an easy way to improve my design and allow for some taller plants on the windowsill. As I need a little more hardware I wasn't able to complete the project tonight, though I hope to have a beta version by tomorrow.

-For those of you in Halifax, and the South End specifically, it seems that the Sobeys on Queen Street will once again be offering its 10% student discount on Tuesdays this year and is now open until 8:00 PM on Sundays. These items are both great news as far as I am concerned.

-Because of yesterday's heavy rainfall an Ultimate game that I was supposed to play today was cancelled. While I am normally quite keen to play, this cancellation worked out quite nicely as I was then able to stay at home and put in a few more hours on my thesis. I presume that that is it for our season, but I really don't know.

A Few Quick Notes 350

-Today (Friday) was an absolutely beautiful day. The skies were clear, the temperature not oppressively hot, and there was even a nice breeze. This is exactly the kind of summer weather that I really like.

-Today I had to head into Dal to run to take care of some paperwork. Afterwards I made my way over to Quinpool to take care of a sale purchase I wanted to make. Last but not least on my list of errands, I made my way to a friend's apartment to pick up an aloe plant that she was giving me. My friend and I eventually decided to go get a coffee and ended up spending quite a while talking and having a good time.

Just after 4:00 we realized that it was after 4:00 and that we both had things to do and needed to get going. She made her way back to her place and I to mine.

Not to long after I returned home I noticed that the stove's clock was flashing. A little while later I was going through my RSS feeds and I learned that the South End had experienced a power outage for the better part of the afternoon. So it turns out that, inadvertently, I was able to use time that would have otherwise been unproductive to socialize. Slacking win.

-At a point this afternoon, while walking between Quinpool and my friend's apartment, I noticed a number of flashing lights and emergency vehicles ahead of me. In many ways it looked like the scene of an accident, but it appeared to be missing the requisite crashed vehicles. As I drew closer to the emergency vehicles it became clear that it was an accident with two vehicles, but that one of the vehicles was a motorized scooter (as might be used by individuals with problems walking) that appeared to be on its way across a cross walk. Talk about a downer of a scene.

Not too long after I found the story about the power outage, CBC also had a story about this incident.

-For some reason I wasn't able to go to sleep until about 5:00 AM this morning. Not surprisingly, this left me quite exhausted today. After returning from my errands and then having dinner I ended up crashing for about an hour and fifteen minutes. It turned out that it was one of the most intense naps that I have had in weeks. I was really out. The best part, of course, was that I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to work.

-At about 1:15 AM this morning, after several hours of work, I decided to take a break to make some humus. Though it isn't as nice as my last batch, it is still pretty tasty. I am eating some of it as I prepare this post.

-I have alluded to today's productivity already, but I guess I might make a more conclusive statement for the sake of posterity. Though I got a bit of a late start, I eventually managed to put in a few hours of good work. My plan for tomorrow is to do some tidying of footnotes and my conclusion. I can't wait to get the party started.

-The seems to be an overwhelming, almost deafening, e-communications silence coming from Las Vegas these days. Since shortly after their arrival in Nevada I have heard nothing from either Rebecca or Neil. Even more troubling is that our user stats suggest that no one in Nevada has been checking the blog.

This evening I realized that Neil could even phone his reports in if he wanted (we could use Google Voice and then post the messages) if typing is too trying. I hope that he at least remembers how he as been passing his days so he can eventually post a rather nice, well-researched travelogue that would outline what he and Rebecca did while they were in the proximity of such opportunities for sin, and winning money.

A Few Quick Notes 349

-Today was quite pleasant, though a little breezy at time. The most significant feature of today's weather, at least as far as I am concerned, is how much it has cooled down this evening. At the moment Environment Canada is suggesting it is 12, but that it may go to as low as 8. I guess I may soon need to start thinking about moving my plants in to avoid frost.

-Early this evening, or maybe it was late this afternoon, I went for my daily walk along the waterfront. The number of cruise ships then in port immediately stood out. Actually, maybe it was just that there were multiple, large cruise ships.

I had the feeling that quite a bit of the harbour front traffic was related to the cruise ships. My sense was that people were heading back to their ship after a day on their feet in Halifax.

As I was heading back one the ships was in the process of leaving. The departure was actually quite impressive as the ship had to do a 180 and then immediately navigate around George's Island. Maybe the most impressive aspect of the entire manoeuvre was that it all took place in only a matter of minutes.

-As I was returning to our apartment I passed through a small park. I was immediately struck by the apparent similarities between photos of tobacco plants that I have seen and these plants. Anyway, now that I have had a chance to look at the plants a little more closely, and also examine a few more photos, I am pretty sure that HRM is growing tobacco, or a related plant, in at least one of its parks as a decorative plant.



-My own tobacco plants aren't as large as those that I spotted this evening, though they definitely are making some progress. I am hoping that in a few weeks they may even start to look a little like HRM's crop.



-The thesis party is still going strong. I think I will have to put in another few hours tonight before I can pack it in for the day.

-So far we have received no word from the Las Vegas contingent. I presume that this means that they managed to lose just about everything on their first afternoon and are now frantically trying to win their life savings back so they can save face. If this is the case I hope Neil isn't so frazzled that he strays from Blackjack and starts playing the slots or some other loser game.

-Most of the bean plants took quite a beating during our recent Hurricane. Fortunately, I don't think any of them were killed. Most of the other plants, because they were indoors, seem to have managed to pass through almost completely unfazed.



As things have gotten a bit cooler growth really seams to have slowed down. I think it would be nice if in the next few weeks would could get one last spurt of growth that would allow for the production of all kinds of consumables so that the entire effort can be justified.

Let's get this (thesis) party started

So Neil and Rebecca will be heading off to sunny Las Vegas for a week in a few hours. The main consequence for me is that I am now free to throw a week-long thesis party while I have the apartment to myself. For the most part I plan on hopping between a few quick shots of supplementary reading and some slow, sensuous editing. It is going to be a week-long thesis party like no other. I can't wait for the fun to start. Actually, in case I am being watched, I should acknowledge that I have actually already started the thesis party, though it isn't quite as happening as I would like it to be (maybe I should do a few a few quick lines of writing to speed things up).

To free me from my blogging obligations and responsibilities, which will allow me to focus all of my energies on the thesis party, I have asked that Neil try to make regular posts from Nevada. While he has suggested that this may be difficult as he doesn't expect to have regular internet access, I am hoping that Rebecca will be able to guilt him into at least a few posts (which will hopefully contain photos).

If he doesn't make the requested posts, I hope that he at least the legal limit of cheap American beer or a few bottles of MD 20/20 (or some Wild Irish Rose).

For those of you wondering, it seems unlikely that Neil and Rebecca will have the chance to engage in legal prostitution related activities, or even just see a brothel as, at least according to the Wiggy, prostitution appears to be illegal in the Las Vegas area.