Dispatch from Sin City

I left my home in northern VA Monday for a 3-day business conference in Las Vegas, NV. I've never been to Las Vegas before, so I was looking forward to having my cultural horizons broadened, in addition to networking and gaining useful insights from the conference.

The flight out was uneventful. I scored an aisle seat which is good since I'm bulky - too much weightlifting and schweinshaxen in my younger days. That's the best I can hope for these days - my current sugar daddy doesn't spring for business class, even for trips to Asia.

Okay, here’s an avionic poser for you - at one point in the flight, the stewards told us to buckle our seatbelts because we’re about to hit some turbulence. How do they know? Turbulence is invisible. And besides, if they know ahead of time, why can’t they just go around it? Personally, I think it’s intentional. Pilot must be the dullest job in the world, so they have to invent ways to make it interesting. Either that or they’re trying to shake the gremlins off the wings.

The first thing I saw in the gate was a bank of slot machines. There were a bunch more in the terminal. In fact, there are slot machines pretty much everywhere. I didn't see one in the bathroom, though.

I stayed at the Venetian, which is one of the newer, gaudier resort hotels on "The Strip." I had a very nice room, suite actually, with a good view of the mountains to the west and some colorful neon on the strip. The problem with the hotel, and certainly it's deliberate, is that you have to pass through the casino to get anywhere. And once you're in the casino, it's nigh impossible to retain your bearings, which is also certainly intentional. I won't miss wandering around the Venetian casino floor desparately looking for landmarks.

A few of us did some exploring and people-watching on the strip in the evenings. It's sensory overload, kind of like Disney World, the Barnum and Bailey Circus, and the Superbowl halftime show all rolled up into one, spread out over two miles, going nonstop day and night, and filled with seedy tourists. We caught a comedy show on our last evening there, in which the first performer described himself as "upper middle white trash," i.e., not trailer trash getting pulled over shirtless on COPS, but not quite thoroughly refined and civilized. I'm sure I'm offending at least half my readers when I observe that that term pretty well captures the human element at street level.

Las Vegas is everything they say it is, and then some. It's so thoroughly over the top gaudy and tasteless, and so full of unappealing characters, it makes me embarrassed to be human. But I guess some people like that sort of thing; there certainly were a lot of them who did not appear to be there under duress. Our conference spanned the middle of the week and it was wall-to-wall drunk overweight tourists wearing cheap clothes and tattoos everywhere. I can't imagine what it's like on the weekend.

Normally when you're at a business conference, you only wear your credentials when you're actually in the conference; it's just not cool elsewhere (as if your light blue polo shirt and khakis don't scream "conferee" anyway). Well, not this time. I made sure, at least while I was in the hotel environs, that I wore my nametag everywhere. I didn't want anyone getting the idea I was there of my own volition.

We did get a little unintended comic relief during the conference - a Korean guy asked a detailed question with an absolutely opaque accent - the speaker initially pretended to understand but feigned the need for clarification, but then had to just give up and admit that he couldn't understand a word of it. After a few rewordings and some help from the floor, the rather innocuous question was finally understood and answered.

Fortunately, my buddy Arlan, an erstwhile Detroiter now living in Las Vegas, was able to provide a degree of redemption for his adopted home town. I played hooky from the conference for part of Wednesday afternoon while Arl graciously toured me around the non-strip parts of Las Vegas, which turns out to be a fairly normal city outside of the neon and concrete hell. We visited the local Amateur Electronic Supply where I picked up a 1:1 HF balun (1500 watts PEP; I'll only use 100) for my dipole, consumed some appetizers at a little Thai restaurant, and stopped by his house where I had the pleasure of playing his Brian Moore electric guitar while he gathered up pieces for a low-power portably ham radio station. We made our way to Red Rock Canyon State Park, which was not too far from Arl's QTH (house). The park was stunning, but the radio station we set up there failed to yield any contacts. Actually we made several contacts in the form of tourists asking what we were doing or telling us about their tangential acquaintances that use CB radios. We followed that up with a nice Mexican dinner, a trip to Fry's, which is an electronics and appliance superstore, and then topped it off by taking in a set of Chicago-style blues at the Sand Dollar, a lovely little hole in the wall not too far from The Strip but thankfully not polluted with upper middle white trash tourists.

Plane trip back, Friday p.m.: whoever is farting, please stop.

Epilogue: "Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," goes the puerile expression on the lips of every upper middle white trash "Vegas" tourist laboring under the delusion that his or her life is somehow more interesting as a result of drinking watery beer and throwing money into colorful, noisy sewers. Here's my corollary: Whatever happens in Vegas, please, for God's sake, leave it there, I don't want to hear about it!

Rick Sneezed

I used to work with a fellow engineer named Rick (not his real name, but close). Rick was one of the “old-timers” at my former employer, having survived a couple of recessions including the big one in the early 80’s. He had a few strange proclivities, including the most disorganized cubicle I’ve ever seen. It boasted a philodendron that had grown so large and become so intertwined with the shelves that after he departed, the millwrights had to dismantle the cubicle walls to get it all out. Rick had made some accomplishments in his career as well, but neither his idiosyncrasies nor his accomplishments will be remembered quite as vividly as the day Rick Sneezed.

Once while talking with Rick in his cube I casually opened and started eating a small snack bag of pretzels that he had on his shelf. I did this without asking, which was kind of the point. Next time you’re in close proximity to a bag of pretzels, take a look at the expiration date. It will probably be at least two years from now. I started eating the pretzels and immediately had to spit them out, then quickly motivate to the restroom to rinse out my mouth. They were dry-rotted. Amazing, a rotten pretzel in a dry, sealed bag. This was in the early 2000’s, mind you, and when I looked at the expiration date, it read 1993. So this innocent little bag of pretzels had been sitting on his shelf for 10 years. Most marriages don’t last that long!

But anyway, Rick Sneezed.

Rick and I worked together on a project or two, and we went fishing a few times in Lake Erie as well. I kind of miss him. He got transferred to a different department, then got the axe during my former employer’s recent cutbacks. Schade, as they say in the Fatherland. At least he left us with one keepsake memory:

The Sneeze

A group of us went out for Middle Eastern food one snowy December day. Our employer was located in the middle-eastern section of Detroit, MI, so we had quite a lot of M-E cuisine available to us, and many of us have developed a taste for it. There were about 8 or 9 in our group, and as we often did, we ordered the “feast.” It goes by different names in the different restaurants, but the “feast” is basically a big Lebanese combination plate that will feed about twice as many people as it says it will. It typically includes lamb chops, various grilled kebabs of beef, chicken, and lamb, pilaf, kibbie, falafel, stir-fried vegetables, and some sauces and salads on the side, including tabbouli and fattoush. I’m getting all Pavlovian just thinking about it! There’s usually leftovers, but that day nobody was fighting over them.

Rick was in the middle of the table on the side opposite from me, but as luck would have it, I was not directly across. That position was held by an unfortunate young, demure Chinese woman. The poor thing is probably in a mental institution in Shanghai right now. The large platter containing the “feast” was in the middle of the table, and we were all within reach of it. Fortunately we were pretty much all full and done eating, and just a few of us were still picking at the tastier morsels remaining when…

Rick sneezed.

It came completely without warning, like a sonic boom. Not like I’m totally sure he’d have turned his head anyway; engineers do not exactly occupy the top rungs of the ladder of sophistication. But there it was, a blast of phlegm such as I’ve never seen in my life and hope to never see again, accompanied by a great gust of noxious exhalation; it was neither redirected nor blocked in any way, but detonated right into the middle of the table. Products of The Sneeze went in all directions, mostly onto the remains of the feast, but also distributed across those of us opposite him. The brunt was received by the hapless Chinese woman.

We all just kind of sat there for a minute. Those of us who received direct hits of course discreetly wiped ourselves off. Sneeze byproducts dangling from Rick’s moustache needed a good wiping-off as well, and to our collective dismay, he took his time attending to them. He didn’t say, “excuse me” either. That was understandable - it would have been like Mrs. O’Leary saying, “sorry about my clumsy cow.” Someone mercifully broke the ice by asking for the check. When the waiter asked if we wanted anything wrapped, there was a palpable shudder as a few of us replied, “no, thanks.”

As I mentioned above, we had a lot of good M-E food places to pick from in the area, and we all had our favorites. IMHO, the best hommous can be found at Al-Ameer, although some claim that Al-Berdouni has the best (both restaurants have accrued the moniker, “Uncle Al’s” in various circles, by the way), and the best tabbouli can be found at the Lebanese Village if it’s still in business. You can’t beat New Yasmeen Bakery for desserts including baklava and custom pastries. But Cedarland offers the best overall package, so that’s where we usually go. Al-Amani also has great food and a very good overall meal deal, and it’s located more conveniently close to the Southfield Freeway, but I can never go there again because… that’s… where… Rick Sneezed.

Snack Meat GPS

July 19^th, 2007 was the first anniversary of our big move to northern Virginia from the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan following my career change from automotive engineer to bureaucrat. Over this past year we’ve gone through many changes in lifestyle and perspective, and have generally grown accustomed to the cultural offerings of our new home. But one question remains unanswered for us, namely, do we live in The South or not?

We initially thought we were moving to The South; after all, Virginia was clearly aligned with the Confederacy during the American Civil War, which is the most common political/geographic definition of The South. However, many people consider it in relative terms: if I asked you where The South is, you’ll likely answer somewhere south of where you’re at, and vice-versa for The North. In Thunder Bay, they consider Toronto the south, go figure. As for me, guilty your honor - I used to think that Ohio was a southern state. Part of me still does. Even within Virginia there’s some dispute - pretty much everywhere south of Fredericksburg considers us in NoVA to be part of The North, or at least in some sort of undefined no-man’s-land, but certainly not The South.

Opinions, everyone’s got one, let’s be objective. What variables can we measure to give us a definitive conclusion? Why don’t we start with the usual: southern hospitality and southern cooking.

Hospitality

Let’s simplify hospitality to friendliness to strangers and new acquauintances, okay? I realize that there’s more to it than that, but hey, I’m not writing a dissertation here. In general, it’s true in the US that people are friendlier the further south you go. But…, and this is a big but, I’ve encountered enough exceptions to this rule to call its validity into question. In my visits to New York City, for example, the only genuinely objectionable person I’ve encountered was the tour guide at the New York Stock Exchange, and conversely, the fine, upstanding citizens of Charleston, SC were so singularly rude during my last visit, we’ll let’s just say my last visit and leave it at that. If I ever go there again, it’ll be to, never mind, I don’t want to write something I’d have to explain under oath later.

Actually, the friendliest town I’ve ever visited it Ft. Wayne, IN, which is right up there with South Bend, IN, both of which are clearly in The North. So while friendliness, generally speaking, is inversely correlated to latitude, it’s not a clear differentiator.

Cooking

I learned at a very early age how to pronounce chitterlings from my paternal grandmother and great-grandmother, who feasted us regularly with fried chicken, sugar-cured ham, black-eyed peas, collard greens, mustard greens, bacon and beans, cornbread with pork cracklins, I could go on and on, at their dinner table in Warren, Michigan. Cooking style is a good indicator of southern-ness, but like friendliness, there are enough exceptions to render it an ineffective litmus test. Now peanuts in Coke, that’s one thing I’ve never, but never seen in The North. Can someone please explain? Aphrodesiac? Miracle cure? Help!

Pork Rinds

The one truly scientific indicator I’ve been able to surmise is snack meat products. As you go from north to south, you definitely encounter a gradual change in pork rind offerings. In Michigan, for example, if you find pork rinds at all, there’s usually only one brand, one variety (deep-fried, dry, air-puffed), and at most two flavors: barbecue and regular. As you travel south, you’ll encounter a wider and wider variety: numerous brands, for one thing, but also different styles: “cracklins,” which are heavier and pretty crunchy (be careful not to break a tooth!), “fatback,” which are also not air-puffed, a little juicier than cracklins, then there’s “washpot style” (my personal favorite), which uses thicker skins and I believe is cooked at a lower temperature. And you’ve really arrived when deep-fried peanuts accompany the pork rinds on the snack food shelves, and up near the cash register you can get a carton of home-made boiled peanuts. For purposes of scientific integrity I’ll report that a driving trip this spring through the Carolinas to Atlanta served as our experimental basis, and a subsequent driving trip to Michigan provided the control sample.

Okay, fine, pork rinds tell you you’re in The South. How do you know you’re in The North and not Idaho? Easy: beef jerky. Going up 75 on your way “up north” through the middle of MI, you’ll pass actual beef jerky outlets which offer a stunning array of different home-made jerkys, with different flavorings, styles, and textures, sold by the pound right next to the walk-in beer cooler. As you travel south, however, the more limited the selection of jerky, to the point where if you find it at all, it’s one brand (Oberto), one kind of meat (beef), and one style (flat). And south of VA, you’re lucky to find it at all.

A funny thing happens when you hit Florida though - according to the Pork Rind / Beef Jerky Factor, you’re in The North again. Who cares, you’re not going there anyway. Getting back to the original question, is Northern VA part of The South? The stores around here have a fairly anemic selection of pork rinds, but the beef jerky is pretty much just a couple national brands as well. So here’s the clear, definitive answer: …sort of. We’re certainly not in The Deep South. Let’s say we’re in… ”The Shallow South.”