Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Las Vegas Bloggers Make the News

In the Las Vegas Review Journal's Sunday edition a couple of weeks ago, reporter Corey Levitan (that guy who writes a Las Vegas-based, "Dirty Jobs"-flavored column for the RJ) wrote about popular Las Vegas blogs in "Viva Blogs Vegas: Just being based in the city can be enough to draw in readers." Check out his article for links to ten popular Las Vegas blogs.

I recommend the Classic Las Vegas Blog at:
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Photo courtesy of Pete Crumpton at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/743897

Phone Scams Are Alive and Well

Last month I heard from my friend Valerie that she’d been taken in by a phone scam run by inmates. In her case, she was thrown off guard by someone claiming a loved one had been injured in an accident; read the articles below to check out the other common stories and tactics used to perpetrate this scam:

From ConsumerAffairs.com, “Arkansas Warns of Prison Phone Scam” at
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/03/prison_scam.html

From SNOPES, “Call Forwarding Scam” at
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/scams/forward.asp
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Photo courtesy of Jay Simmons at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/864770

Friday, November 21, 2008

The OJ Team: Hit and Run

Are you an OJ follower? If so, you’ve probably heard of my friend, Paul Connelly, the jury foreman on the Las Vegas robbery case. The OJ Team has been taking pot shots at him ever since the conviction, but a couple of weeks ago they engaged in what I thought was outright slander.

Media outlets spread the story far and wide that a Team OJ investigator found Connelly was fired from a job at an unnamed soft drink company because he made racially disparaging statements. Since this isn’t true, I’ve been waiting to hear some sort of retraction or other statement. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not holding my breath.

I’ve known Paul for over ten years, and at one time he worked with my husband at the Unnamed Soft Drink Company of recent media reports. I remember when Paul left the job in question, and racial comments had nothing to do with it. He was not fired; he resigned. I’d like to know where this investigator got his information. Where is the paperwork that supports what he is saying? Who did this investigator talk to? Why is it okay to smear someone’s name without backing up the allegation? Or is silence supposed to erase the thousands of Google hits that Paul’s name now returns?

Paul Connelly is an average guy, a hard-working family man who is tired of finding a media circus in his front yard. He is a conscientious citizen who did his best to do what he was instructed to do: look at the evidence and render a verdict on the case in front of him. The trial is over, and Paul wasn’t the defendant. Besides that, is all this mud-slinging getting Team OJ anywhere? From the state of their client’s case, I guess I’m not the only one unimpressed with their tactics.
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Photo couresty of Jason Morrison at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/952313

Friday, November 07, 2008

Las Vegas to Amarillo: 12.5 Hours

I took a trip to Texas a few weeks ago. Two days of driving eastbound on I40 takes you directly into Amarillo, Texas, but I’m a scenic route kind of gal, so that 12.5 hours was only the tip of the driving iceberg for me.

This Vegas Girl may be a Vegas native, but both my parents were Texans by birth. My dad avoided admitting he was from Texas; my mother was a proud Texan all her life. I remembered Texas as our eternal summer vacation destination, a place full of farmland, grasshoppers, armadillos, aunt and uncles, and snakes. When I added up the time it had been since my last road trip to Texas, I was shocked to find it had been 18 years. The most notable change since then has to be the wind farms, which I noticed throughout New Mexico and Texas. Giant wind turbines sit in rows far out on the flat plains and atop mesas. They’re fascinating and out-of-place, and they’re almost pretty.

During this road trip, we visited the Petrified Forest, Palo Duro Canyon, and Montezuma’s Castle. We spent time with several friends and family members in Lefors, Lubbock, and Lamesa, with a stop in Amarillo. I finally got a chance to wander around the countryside with a camera. (On those long-ago childhood trips to Texas, Dad did not permit stops. For anything.)

My first stop was in Lefors, just north of Pampa. Over the next week, I drove south about 250 miles, with a stop in Lubbock, to Lamesa, the town closest to the farm my mother grew up on; then I returned to Lefors before making the trip home. The country along the farm roads is beautiful; fields of crops and grassland stretch to the horizon with occasional bursts of rock outcroppings. Every 30 miles or so, I ran into a village, many of them with populations well under 1000. It feels lightly inhabited, wide-open and unrushed, and a huge relief from the crush of people in Las Vegas. Lubbock, at 212,000 people, is close to the same size as Las Vegas was when I graduated from high school.

After a week and half, I had to come home. My husband was out of frozen food and my son was homesick. My mom-in-law, Bonnie, and I were ready to keep on going, but we knuckled under to the pleadings of our two males. Besides, we’re already talking about driving back in spring. Our journey was both brief and fun, and many green dots--they mark the scenic routes--are left to explore. As a child in the backseat of the station wagon, Texas felt as far away as the moon. This time, it felt like a quick trip. Isn’t it strange how age changes our perception—of everything?


Photo information: Above, a water crossing at Palo Duro Canyon, which is the second largest canyon in the United States. Below: the Petrified Forest; the view into Palo Duro; on a trail at Palo Duro; FM669 southbound (click to enlarge--notice the wind turbines in the background); Montezuma's Castle in Arizona, just outside the Cottonwood/Sedona area; and the area at the base of Montezuma's Castle. The sycamores are changing colors for the fall. All photos are mine, of course.