Vegas

Worked out bigtime tonight and feel great - too great, in fact. I can't sleep. Here are some thoughts from my trip to Vegas last week.

If someone asked me to sum up Vegas in one word, many would come to mind.

Noisy, constant, buzzed, corrupt, lavish and hip come to mind. But one is the winner and that is smoky.

Holy crap! Everywhere you go it seems that everyone is smoking all the time. Even in the non-smoking sections of restaurants it wafts over to your seat - how gross. I am an early riser; even at the breakfasts people were smoking. I don't know what it is, but the older I get, the worse smoke affects me. In college it was no big deal, but now it is like someone punches me in the face if I get a whiff. Remember when jets had a smoking section in the back of the plane? I would literally die if I had to sit on an airplane today with smokers. The air is bad enough without them.

To expand on this, it seems like the younger set is bent on destruction as far as tobacco use goes. The vast majority of adults 25 and younger are smoking. My anecdotal evidence from last week shows that the pattern from the bars in Chicago continues in Vegas: everyone young smokes. I don't know if there is any proof, but it seems as though the tobacco companies are having their way with the kids.

Vegas isn't all bad, though. They have increased the shopping in a huge way as each of the large hotels has a big shopping mall now. Caesars was very impressive as they had all of the designer boutiques. The food was excellent. People like Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck, Emeril and all the rest are opening restaurants. I ate at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Caesars and it was outstanding. I also had some great seafood at a restaurant in the Rio and a great steak at the Mirage. Nothing is cheap, though. Those days of the $5.95 all you can eat buffet are long gone.

The shows are probably the best part of Vegas. If I go again, I will go to one every night. I am not a fan of Celine Dion but my dad is and he dragged me along. I have to admit, I didn't really dig the singing, but the band was good and the stage show was absolutely dazzling. I am not an easy guy to impress, either. If you go, get some of the nosebleeds for $87. She plays at Caesars. Also, when you go inside, don't forget to purchase the most expensive plastic bottle of Bud Light ever at $7 each. Penn and Teller were funny and great as usual. I think next time, if there is a next time, I will try to catch some of the Cirque du Soleil shows. There are 4 or 5 of them playing the big hotels and most of the people I talked to said they were unbelievable. Darn it I wanted to see Wayne Newton, but didn't have time.

Oh I almost forgot - I went to a Monet exhibition at the Bellagio. It cost $15 but was one of the most unbelievable things I have ever seen. I wasn't really a Monet fan before but now understand quite a lot better what a great painter he was.