Viva Las Vegas!

During winter break from school, my husband, Scott and I went to Las Vegas for a week. We planned this kind of at the last minute and chose the perfect week to go. It was bitterly cold at home and perfect 50 to 60 degree days in Vegas. We had talked about going there a few times in the past, but never really made an effort to go. With air and hotel prices at bargain basement levels, we jumped at the chance to go. We are not gamblers, nor did we go there just to gamble. Sight-seeing and buffets were our primary goals, and we excelled at both.

We didn't anticipate, however, the amount of walking that entails a visit to Vegas. The "strip" isn't that long, only about 7 miles or so, but the hotels and casinos are so BIG that walking from one end to the other can take as long as a half hour. We also chose not to rent a car, so we took the bus, a double-decker known as The Deuce. When getting on The Deuce, a recorded message was broadcast at an ear splitting level that informed you to HAVE FUN! RIDE THE DEUCE! By the end of the week, we were mimicking it perfectly. It was more frugal that the taxis, which are really expensive.

We saw two shows, Louie Anderson and Mac King. Both were very good and we recommend going to them if you find yourself out that way. We wanted to see Penn & Teller, and had planned to go on Thursday night, but the guide book we had was incorrect in its listing and they are off on Thursdays and Fridays. So much for making a plan. We also used the half-price ticket booths, and that turned out well for us.

I got to go horseback riding in the Red Rock Canyon, which was something that I had wanted to do for years. Not necessarily the Red Rock Mountains, but originally the Grand Canyon. Red Rock was closer, less expensive, and a much smaller group. There were only five of us and it was a really "personal" tour. We didn't ride in the canyon, but followed the mountain up and down and rode along the canyon rim. I've never been nervous riding a horse before, but had a brief glimmer of it when I realized that if she wanted to, my horse, September, could have flipped me into the abyss without a second thought we were so close to the edge. One slip on a stone and that would have been the end of happy trails for me.

We went to five buffets while there. The Belliagio, Harrah's, Tropicana, and two others that were not so good and I can't remember their names. The buffet at the Belliagio was by far the best, and although pricey at $35 each, was well worth it. Go hungry and be prepared to eat. It is a huge buffet and has delicacies from around the world on it. Heavily influenced with seafood, my favorite was the lobster ravioli and Scott's was the African Blue Nose fish. Outstanding.

While we didn't do a lot of gambling, it was surprising how fast the week went. We had a beautiful hotel room at The Signature at MGM. It was on the penthouse floor, 30 stories up. A balcony and a great view to boot. There is a considerable amount of construction going on, and it seems like each casino keeps trying to out-do the one before it.

All in all, a fun trip and a great break from the dreary Wisconsin winter.

And the secret is.....

Spoiler warning: I'm discussing the book "The Secret" and giving away the secret. If you want to find out for yourself, read no further. You have been warned.







I just finished, or well almost finished, the book "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne. I had heard a few people here and there talking about it, and finally decided to read this book and discover how I could make everything I want happen, happen. The secret is the law of attraction. And in her book, Ms. Byrne has interviewed several experts on the secret. They all state the same thing. If you truly believe what you want to happen, you will transmit that to the Universe and the Universe will give you what you want. The book states that we are all transmission towers and that the Universe "hears" us and then gives us what we want. So, if you are in a bad mood, bad things will happen. If you are in a good mood, good things will happen. As I was reading, I began to wonder if at the end of the book, there was a gotcha! line coming along. So, I did something I NEVER do. I skipped ahead to the end of the book. Nope, the interviewees believe that if you feel good, are a positive thinker, and can really convince yourself that what you really want IS what you really want, you will get it.

I'm a skeptical person, and I freely admit that. Life experience and years of practical jokes and not so practical jokes have taught me that you can't take everything you experience with your senses for real. Especially when the husband tells you stories about earwigs. To have someone then tell you that you just need to think positive and feel happy and you will be positive and happy leaves me with the feeling that someone has been heavily medicated. Same with wanting money or wealth. If you imagine yourself living in wealth, you will get your wish. If you want to be fabulously beautiful, you just have to think and believe that you are. I guess somehow, faeries or gremlins will somehow transform you while you sleep and you will wake up with whatever vision you want yourself to be. While this is all good and wonderful, I began to wonder what would happen if someone REALLY wanted an enemy dead, or disgraced, or ruined in some way. Would it happen? The book only addresses how negative feelings impact you, not if you can transmit negative thoughts to that annoying neighbor's dog barking at 2am.

I read all the summaries and skipped the last 1/3 of the book because I could no longer stand the exclamation points, the Stuart Smiley like text and the trite way of how we should deal with life. If this utopia described in the book is possible just by the power of positive thinking, does that mean that there is also a doppelganger version that accounts for all the bad things that happen in the world? Good and Evil are as old as time itself and are found everywhere. But wouldn't the majority of the human race want good? Shouldn't we have a very small percentage of people that can't help themselves and want bad? The question then becomes do we really have so many people in the world that want bad? Crime, disease, corruption, war, poverty, slavery, apathy, deceit, disgrace, hate, rage, could all be eliminated just by thinking happy thoughts. The book states that love is the most powerful feeling you can experience or transmit. If you could live in a perpetual state of feeling love, you would never know unhappiness. It was at this point I stopped reading the book, because while I don't disagree that love is a very powerful emotion, it is impossible to live in a perpetual state of that blissful, flower-child sentiment from the 60's. Just watching the evening news will put a dent in anyone's love-o-meter.

The idea of the book is wonderful. If you could really pull this off, there would be no mental illness. I would say it is a safe bet that if you ask most people who suffer from say, depression, that they could cure their depression just by feeling happy, they would. In fact, there are probably many of them that have tried to help themselves just by doing that very same thing. "Maybe if I just put on a happy face....." Maybe they should be thinking that they should fix the chemical imbalance in their brains? Do you have to be that specific for the secret to work? "Oh, I know my serotonin levels are normal today!" And *POOF* depression cured? Could we really put the medical business out of business? Do we bring on our cancers ourselves by our negative thinking that we are going to get cancer?

So, I guess the only real thing I believe from this book is the money part. I got the book from the library, but I know there are many people who bought this book and went to see the movie that was based on it. I guess the author must really have wanted wealth because she found a way to make that happy thought come true.