Snippets of Events
Ride 'em Cowboy: Plenty of goings on to celebrate the Valley of the Dollars this week. Pickup trucks have replaced limos as the primary means of transport among attendees of the National Finals Rodeo events. Of course, bucking broncos, Brahma bulls, and bareback steeds are among the means of transportation inside the Thomas and Mack Center, although some of the rides have been briefer than the cowboys had hoped. Wearers of huge silver belt buckles and their posses will have pumped more than fifty million smackeroos into the local economy during their stay. Yeeee-haw!
Palazzo Lallapalooza: One thing hotels and casinos do really really well is market. "Marketing idea of the season" goes to the Las Vegas Sands Corp. that decided to merge swinging hips with rose hips and enter a float for their Palazzo Hotel in this year's January Rose Parade. Never heard of the Palazzo hotel you say? That's why it is so brilliant! The $ 1.8 billion hotel will announce its opening to 40 million television viewers who watch the parade. The float will also show off the Palazzo's sister hotel, the Las Vegas Venetian. A brilliant idea by any other name doth smell as sweet.
Teaching is Taxing: Everybody knows that teachers are overworked and underpaid. Nowhere is that so evident as in Las Vegas. Reading, writing, and 'rithmatic may be taught to the tune of the hickory stick, but teachers need salary to pay for their cups of joe and celery. Each school year starts with thousands of teaching positions absent licensed teachers in large part due to poor salaries. The teacher's union did its homework and decided the gaming industry had not contributed its fair share of taxes. It hopes to send a discipline slip to the voters that will increase gaming taxes to pay for education.
Casino Execs Disrupt Classes: In junior high school many a fight has been started by talking about somebody's mother. In Nevada, fights start by talking about raising gaming taxes. Several big guns who collectively are building $ 14 billion worth of new resorts have told the teachers union, "Don't paddle my canoe." They are willing to write 100 times on the chalkboard, "We will not pay higher gaming taxes." The proposed 3% increase is not the new math gamers want to calculate. They want educators to look for the jackpot in another classroom.
Las Vegas Sings "O Solar Mio:" The Valley of the Dollars boasts more than 350 sunny days per year yet it continues to use the falling levels of the Colorado River, Hoover Dam, and Lake Mead as its primary source of energy. That's where the water turns the turbines that create electricity. With all the sun shining over the valley, developing solar energy resources seems to be a no-brainer. That's exactly what the solar company Ausra of Palo Alto, CA thought when it decided to build a huge solar thermal assembly plant in Las Vegas. The company makes solar power collectors. Las Vegas has as much solar power as anywhere else. With that we will end today's blog. Maestro, how about a little blogging music.... lets do, "You Are My Sunshine."
Dr. Forgot
