Las Vegas Happenings

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

Well Buck My Bronco

Events For You, Buckaroo

A quarter century ago the weeks preceding Christmas were pretty quiet round about the Valley of the Dollars. Showrooms were dark. Entertainers left town to be with their families, and folks who would mosey on down to the casino any other time of the year would stay home or go somewhere else. Then some dude who probably drove a pick-em up truck got an idea how to change all that. A delegation from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority ambled on down to the headquarters of the National Finals Rodeo (NFR), sashayed into the offices and sat a spell with the head honchos of the NFR. Those dudes had a problem - the annual Rodeo Finale was getting too big for its Oklahoma britches. Brahmas and little dogies needed more room, not to mention the crowd that had to be shoehorned into the arena.

When they left the headquarters, the hindquarters of all the participants - cowboys, cattle, and conventioneers had a 10-year deal to saddle up their ponies in Las Vegas. The deal has been extended and for the past 23 years what had been nigh a ghost town in December saw thousands of people and millions of dollars pour into the winter economy.

The rodeo crowd is a great one. Cowboys have this way of talking straight. No fancy jawing or whistling Dixie, they say what they mean and mean what they say. And lots of those buckaroos and buckarettes who come to watch the Rodeo Finals sit high on their wallets. If you think bluejeans and shirts that snap are low-end clothing, you have not seen the outfits at the NFR. The past 22 years of hosting the event has brought an estimated $ 650 million to local coffers. Not too shabby for two weeks that used to be as lively as a graveyard on New Years morning.

The town changes its outfit for the rodeofiles just as quickly and completely as the Convention Center changes its motif for each convention. The main venue is where UNLV basketball plays its home games, which are, of course, never played during these two weeks. Hotels bring in entertainment that is far less hip-hop and lots more country and western. Mechanical bulls are brought into bars. There is even a Cowboy Christmas Show that is sort of like a swap meet but with nearly all products having a cowboy theme - hat blockers, boot shiners, western clothing and art for sale, etc. The entire ambiance of what is glitter and tinsel based for 50 weeks out of the year brings Las Vegas back to its old time western roots.

Participants vie for cash prizes in the tens of thousands of dollars. The entire rodeo is worth $ 5.5 million, and that ain't hay. So if you mosey on up to Las Vegas this week don't fret if all you see are big ole belt buckles, jeans, and rhinestone-studded denim jackets. Pardner, this is the 2007 National Finals Rodeo. How about a little blogging music maestro-dude.... do ya' know "Don't Fence Me In?"

Dr. Forgot