I was asked by my good friend Bryan
Pearson from the north pole if I want to go to Vegas. Well I couldn't
say I didn't, so late this past November me and Bryan set out for the
city that never sleeps after spending a night sleeping my car
outside of Hope BC because I couldn't go quicker than 20 km an hour
because the fog was so bad on my way home from work :)
I meet Bryan at the Pan Pacific Hotel
in down town Vancouver (probably the nicest hotel in the whole city),
where we had lunch overlooking the Vancouver Harbor. After walking
around downtown and showing Bryan a bit of Vancouver we head for the
airport. I'm just gonna skip ahead to Vegas now because I don't like
talking about flight delays and waiting around....
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| Me an Bryan at the Pan Pacific |
The first thing I notice when we arrive
on the ground in Las Vegas, is there airport worker who was dancing
to his hip hop the whole time he drove the luggage cart and unloaded
the suitcases. It was seriously awesome, but I think I am the only
person who noticed, but it goes to show that you gotta make the most
of what you do with life, because he was definitely having the most
fun of anyone on the plane, and he was the only one working, everyone
else is just coming into Vegas.(My guess is he was listening to the Notorious BIG).
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| The aiprot terminal coming into Vegas (yes those are slot machines) |
Bryan had booked us into the Wynn
hotel. He said it was one of the nicest hotels in Las Vegas, that was
an understatement. When we walked in, the main hall was a art gallery
with all these crazies displays like a carousel with horses but the
whole thing was made of flowers. All the hotels in Vegas on the strip, you have to
walk across the whole Casino in order to get to your room, so I would not
suggest it for anyone with a gambling problem. At are hotel the
minimum bets at black jack was $25, and the maximum was $10,000, and
then there was a special area for those who wanted to bet more.....
chump change :p
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| My home for five days |
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| An art display which you could buy at the Wynn for 5 million American dollars |
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| What you see when you walk into the Wynn |
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| the hotel pool, where I spent hours swimming and relaxing |
It was sad how encouraged and
normalized the gambling seemed there. There was a special room there
with four desks and four workers where you could take out a line of
credit from the casino if you ran out of money. I saw a guy try to
take money out of the ATM on four different cards, and then after
failing to do so, took it out on the machine.... I did gamble and
lost $75 in two minutes playing black jack, losing every single hand!
Bryan liked the slots, so I played a little bit, but am not a big fan
of just giving my money away, although he seemed to win.... Back in
Canada I actually played poker a lot, something I picked up from my
brother who is trying to become a professional poker player. This
past fall I banned myself from the casino for life, as I just got
tired of sitting at a table with people I don't really want to
associate with, and in the end losing my money slowly, because your
playing against people who play non stop, and unless you are really
dedicated they will eventually beat you, and it isn't something I want
to do with my life. I did make an exception to gamble a bit in Vegas
because I had always wanted to. I did play poker in Vegas. The first
night was cool, broke about even but met some cool people and a guy
about 30 named Doug who lives there and is a professional dealer took
me for drinks after with some of his friends and told me about life in Vegas. He was trying to start a company where he would take high profile clients around Vegas, especially those who want to golf.
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| Me at the poker table in Vegas |
The average wage in Las Vegas is only
about $12-13 an hour, but the cost of living is so much cheaper down
there, and housing is like a third of what it costs in Canada. Doug
was saying though that gambling is a major problem for a lot of local
residents in Vegas because they will often gamble away the money they
make, and makes it hard to get ahead. Even the local bars in Vegas
have virtual slot machines on the bar counters, so its constantly in
your face. Even in the airport waiting terminal there are slot
machines.
Anyways enough about gambling, I truly
do love playing poker, because it is fun when you are trying to out
play someone and hundreds of dollars are at stake, but I just want to
find a better way of living for myself s it can be very anti-social. Me and Bryan went and saw a
live show every night, and wow, three out of the four shows were absolutely amazing. The first show we saw was stand up comedy at the
Improv at O haras. I am trying to become a comedian myself and have
done quite a few shows, but the three guys on stage that night were
the funniest guys I have ever seen. The main headliner named James Steven
the third is apparently staring in this upcoming movie showing Bill
Cosby's life. He came out on stage trying to get the audience to
“bounce” with him. Then he said, “oh wait its a white audience,
let me do my white person entrance” and then came back on stage
acting like Frank Sinatra. After the show I bought a CD from the
first comic and from James Steven I bought his “Your mama.... joke
book” that he wrote and drew himself. My favorite joke from it was:
“Your mama so stupid, that when she went to KFC she saluted Colonel
Sanders”.
The second show we watched was called
La Rev. This show was something that you could barely think of
creating, let alone actually having. The audience sat in a circle of
rows around the stage. The stage was a pool, with these crazy structures that would come out of the water. It was a love story about
a guy and a girl, and the girl wasn't sure if she should fall for the
guy. There were about 30 gymnasts, and they did some crazy flips, one
guy diving from as high as about 17 meters. If you want to marry a
girl, take her to this play, and then ask propose at the end, she
will be much more likely to say yes ;)
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| La Rev |
The third show we watched was from Jan
Rouven, the German illusionist. Me and Bryan sat close to the front,
and I would say there were about 200 people there. About 10 minutes
into the show, Jan walks into the audience and introduces himself to
me, and asks me to test his knife to see if it is real. It was, and
he said “great, come with me Ciaran” and pulls me on stage. He
then calls another woman on stage. He gives these five stands with
bags over them, and puts the knife under one of them. Me and Jan then
turn around to face the audience while the lady behind us mixes up
the five stands so we do not know which one of the stands has the
knife under it. Jan then starts hitting the bags, and if he hit the
one with the knife he would badly cut his hand. After there are only
three bags left, one with the knife, he asks me which one he should
hit next. I point to one, he hits it and the knife isn't there. He
then asks me if I am nervous, I say a little, and he says “You are
nervous?” I say “not really actually, more excited because you
are the one hitting the bags”, he says “wrong answer", and then
put me in front of the two remaining bags. He told me to really
listen to my intuition and I would be able to determine which bag
didn't have the knife. After about 10 seconds of intense thought I
tell him the right one is safe to hit. He then slams my hand down
over the bag on the left, and there is no knife, and then he shows me
the bag I thought was empty. and had the knife. He reminded me to always
follow my intuition, as it is very strong :p Anyways overall a great
show with some crazy awesome stunts, I would highly recommend going
to watch him in Vegas.
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| Me with illusionist Jan after the show, he said he would take me on as his student, I am still considering it :) |
The other great thing about Vegas is
the FOOD! Bryan took me to some of the greatest restaurants in the
world, where we had prime rib, Japanese Tempura, and the best buffet
I had ever seen or tasted where I had 8 plates and bottomless champagne and mimosas (Champagne and orange juice) (Look at the
pictures below:
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| Chicken and waffles |
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| The best calamari |
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| Turkey sliders |
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| Breakfast pizza and pasta |
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| Chicken deep fried in waffle batter |
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| Me and Bryan |
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| Chocolate dessert mask |
My favorite part of the trip was
renting the Mustang Convertible and driving out into the desert to go
see the Grand Canyon. It was so freaking cool driving the
convertible, and just looking at and walking around in the desert, it
is so different then anything I had seen before, and yes the cactus
needles hurt like a B$@%#.
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| a top of the hover dam |
We stopped of at a place called bullets
and burgers. I have always wanted to shoot a machine gun, and I
finally got the chance as they had an AK47 automatic for hire. They
gave me 50 rounds. What I found surprising is they didn't brief me at
all on safety, and the guy who gave it to me just stood beside me and
did not seem worried at all that I had a fully automatic machine gun
loaded with no safety, but then again, with a guy as intelligent and
trusting as me, who would worry ;) I did some single burst firing at
a paper target, and some fully automatic burst. It was surprisingly
accurate and easy to use, and yes it does feel really good, although
it probably would be better if they didn't exist because of all the
problems they cause around the world.
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| Say hello to my little friend |
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| ricochet from the AK47 on my shoulder |
The burgers were good to, and the waiter was seriously one of the friendliest guys and most helpful that I had ever met. Americans for there bad rep around the world sure are some of the most friendliest. The funniest part of the trip
was at the end of the day. We got to the Grand Canyon at like 3pm,
but they wouldn't let us in saying it was closed because the sun was
going down soon, so I only saw it from a distance... I was a bit
disappointed, but it was such a fun day it didn't bother me to much,
and I could see it from a distance. On the drive back to Vegas, we
had to drive around a bit to get into the hotel. At one point we were
at a complete stop on the highway in are lane, so I gunned it from
0mph to about 70mph in about 5 seconds to get into the other lane. Bryan
said “ I think I will take a taxi home because you have no idea
where you are going, your pulling dangerous stunts, and it is F#$%@#$
Freezing with the top down!!!!” I laughed a lot that day :s
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| The desert in Arizona |
After five nights in Las Vegas we
returned back to reality, Bryan returning to the north pole, and
myself returning to camp for my final shift! I am still contemplaitng
what exactly I will be doing after camp, but I do have a one way
plane ticket booked to SanDiego for the new year. I would highly
recomend doing Vegas once in your life, it is very expensive though,
and you only need about three nights. It would be best for a bacholer
or brides maids party, or going with you significant other, I had
a great time with Bryan and got some good advice on life.
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| The Ferrari Museum at the Wynn hotel |
It is obviously a different lifestyle then I am currently used to living, going from being homeless to staying in a high class hotel. It was a great experience and got a taste of a bit of the good life. It makes me want it in one way, but I feel finding a balance that suits you is best, as it was great, but I feel for me being close to the land, and having genuine relationships with people, and being able to really and truly able to help others as the most important thing in my life right now. Also you need to make a lot of money to maintain that lifestyle, and you have to think at what cost?
A little history on Bryan:
Bryan moved from England to Australia
when he was 15 by working on a ship. At the age of 21 he arrived in
Canada, and agreed to move to Frobisher Bay (now Iqaluit) to work on
the Dew Line (The Radar strip built by the Americans to detect
Russian aircraft. He has since lived in Nunavut until now ( he is in
his 80's). In his time in Nunavut he has owned different business,
been the Mayor, met the Queen and Prime Minister of Canada who stayed
over at his house, and is the longest lasting southerner to stay in
Nunavut. He has some great stories, and is a very funny guy. If you
ever end up in Nunavut make sure to stay at his bed in breakfast at
his house over looking Frobisher Bay!
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| Bryan Pearson |
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| A view of the sunrise from his house |
