A New Admiration

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. James Barany...



For more (an entrancing more), please visit The Barany Show. Be sure to watch "Recital in Solfege". It's remarkable.

Everything is Mostly Nothing

Brace yourselves. I'm about to drop some science.

According to a really kickass link I received yesterday, the amount of empty space within an atom is far, far greater than the amount of actual...er...stuff.

Put another way, "Holy fucking shit! At the subatomic level there's hardly anything to matter at all!"

Check out this scale model of a hydrogen atom showing the proton as a 10,000 pixel-wide blue sphere and the electron as a single pixel waaaaaaaaaay the hell off to the right. How far? On a monitor displaying 72 pixels per inch it works out to about 11 miles.

Yes, an 11 mile-wide web page.

I practically fell through my chair when I saw this.

What Happened in Vegas

Back from another trip to the desert, this time to the teeming den of iniquity that is Las Vegas, Nevada.

It was my first time.

I'd like to thank my wife for the brilliant idea and persistent urging that led to this trip. It was a birthday present for her but it was also no small gift to me.

Vegas was great. Vegas was HOT. The daytime temperature hovered around 110 degrees during the day and mid-80's at night. My lily white ass and scalp were grateful for the SPF 45 which I generously slathered on at the start of each day. If it weren't for that measure you'd be reading the words of the world's first ever typing strip of bacon right now. The Bacon Blog.

But I digress...

Here's the recap: we stayed at the Venetian, which was gorgeous from top to bottom. We had a suite on the 31st floor with an amazing view and all the appointments one might expect and then some. We macked. We represented. We drew the curtains to create a perfectly pitch black cave in which to sleep well into the late morning.

First night there, we ventured down to the casino where Yours Truly scored $1,250 on a quarter slot machine called "Ten Times Gold". That was bitchin' since it meant the trip was basically paid for right then and there. After that we tooled around the hotel and surrounding areas for a while just taking it all in, with me taking pictures along the way.

The days were spent darting from casino to casino trying to minimize time in the sun, which felt like it was parked on Las Vegas Boulevard. We hit Bally's, Caesar's Palace, Treasure Island, the Bellagio (which was stunning), and even made a quick stop at the Frontier on its last day on Earth just to say that we were there. We were. I have pictures to prove it.



See?

Throw in some shopping, some good eats, and some quality people-watching and you've got our Vegas experience in a nutshell. I'm looking forward to going back.