Cash in the Garage

Last weekend I helped my dad have a garage sale



I manned the cash register and watched over the customers. It was quite fun, as I haven't had a garage sale with dad in over 20 years. We had much fun and we made about $200 bucks total. I was amazed at how much cool vintage stuff dad had, and was happy to take a good amount of stuff that no one else bought.

My favorite find was this space heater. It has two settings: plugged in (on) and not plugged in (off). It was made way before things like "safety" went into the design of small heating appliances, so it could totally burn the house down if left unattended.



But there were also some great items from my past for sale that made me a little nostalgic. This is what I used to type my papers up in high school before I got my first computer. It was so cool to be able to type in a paragraph and preview it on the little screen sentence by sentence before hitting the 'print' button!



And then I found my pac-man phone from when I was a kid! Turns out dad had 3 of these, so I snagged on in the original box, in case I decided to eBay this someday...



I remember thinking this phone was the coolest thing ever, especially since it played a tune when you put someone on hold, I felt so grown up putting people on hold.

I also got this super cute speaker that still works! I won't be taking it to Belgium, but I will keep it for my next apartment in America.



The biggest sellers on the day though, were these little doorstops for ten cents each. Almost everyone that got something usually picked up one or two of these. I suppose that this is the season for home improvement projects.

Happy Nevada Day! Oh, and Halloween too!

On this date in 1864, Nevada was admitted to the union of these great United States. And so in all my years growing up in Las Vegas, we got Halloween off from school. Today the holiday is observed on the last friday of October, which this year happens to fall on actual Halloween.

So BFF and the family went off to enjoy their long weekend in a cabin in the mountains, and I am here with her mom and the pets giving out candy on Halloween for the first time in years. So far there has only been 1 set of trick or treaters, but it has only been dark for about half an hour so we'll see.

Part of my Halloween celebration involved getting some fabulous wigs to wear throughout the weekend*




The cat was very interested in the wig trying-on process, he wanted to get in all the pictures.



BFF was kind enough to leave a pumpkin behind for me, and I got to use my mad carving skills that I perfected at the pumpkin carving parties I used to go to in Pennsylvania. I am a big fan of the classic triangles and funny teeth look.



Of course the best part about carving a pumpkin is getting the messy yet delicious seeds, yum!!



I also put the spooky skull by the door to lend to the aura of halloween-ness and the cat certainly seemed intrigued by this new addition to the porch.



There have been a couple more sets of trick-or-treaters while I have been writing this post. I have noticed that when they say "Trick-or-treat" I say it back. Each time it seems stupid, like when you are at the movies and the ticket person tells you to enjoy the show and you say "you too".

Happy Halloween everyone!

*and especially to wear at Burning Man next year!

quality time with my dad

I've been helping my dad out a bit while I am in Vegas. It has been good times, but occasionally I am dumbstruck by his politics.

Today he told me that public schools teach communist and socialist propoganda.

I had to laugh because he told me this while were were collecting bread to donate to local charities.

I told him that I hope he appreciates the irony of that statement, since donating food to the needy is about as socialist as you can get. If he really wanted to be anti-socialist we should take this bread to the needy and then burn it in front of them while taunting them for not working hard enough to put food on the table. Don't talk the talk unless you're prepared to walk the walk.

We still brought the food to the needy, so I think he saw my point.

Bright Lights, city gonna set my soul on fire

It's funny how different the "Las Vegas experience" is for those of us who were born and bred there. Many people come back with stories about the crazy goings on at the casinos and clubs.

Me, I went to some kick-ass museums!!! Woo hoo! Vegas Baby!

One of the first days I was there, I saw an article about the must-see musuem exhibits for 2007. Turns out, the Las Vegas Art Museum was on this list. I didn't even know there was a Las Vegas Art Museum! So I went to check it out. The exhibit is all about how Frank Gehry designed the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute being built in Las Vegas. It was a small exhibit, only a few rooms, and very inexpensive. When I walked in, I thought that the place was so small, why is it in the must-see of 2007? Then I started looking at the exhibit and reading the details of the process of making this beautiful building. It started with amorphous sketches on tracing paper, of just lines and circles, then there were different arrangements of blocks used to determine how the space inside the building was to be organized, and then the outside of the building, the glass, metal and brick designs. It was fascinating. I normally don't think about the creativity involved in making a building, but this exhibit really opened my eyes. By the end of my walk around the rooms, I totally understand why this is a must-see.

A couple of days later, I ventured to the Strip to the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, where thier current exhibit is a collection of photographs by Ansel Adams. I enjoyed this exhibit very much. Adams' pictures of the American desert southwest are just gorgeous. The price of admission was a little high, but they did include an audio tour. I don't normally do audio tours, but this one was cool, it had quotes from Adams and stories about the areas he photographed. There was also a room of personal stuff, like letters and his Presidential Medal of Freedom. I was happy this was in town, since I like Ansel Adams, he put American flags on all the dolphins' dorsal fins.

Next was Bodies: The Exhibition. It was a very big exhibition, and SO COOL. My favorite was the room of the circulatory system! My only complaint was that pretty much all of the bodies were male, I would have liked to have seen more female forms, there was only like 2, and they were in the reproduction room. I noticed on pretty much all of the whole bodies the belly button was left on. So, even though there was no skin anywhere else, there was a little circle of skin with the belly button on it. I wonder why. Maybe to remind us that they were once real people walking around in the world?

Last, but certainly not least, I went to the Atomic Testing Museum. For many years, tests of nuclear weapons took place in the desert north of Las Vegas. This museum chronicled the history of nuclear weapons. There were letters to the president from Einstein and Oppenheimer on display as well as a kiosk showing how to use a Geiger counter. One of the samples was some orange Fiestaware, the ceramic plates that used uranium in their orange and red glaze, and the counter went crazy! I can't believe people were eating of those plates in the thirties and forties. And we worry about radio waves from cell phones. Back in the day they ate of radioactive plates and they liked it!

I think next time I go back to Vegas, I will see if I can tour the test site itself.

I love how Las Vegas has so many sides, it has the glitzy, crazy Strip casinos and night clubs, but it also has museums and art galleries, schools and parks.