Marc’s Musings Reality from Marc’s point of view!

TAM6 is “The Amazing Meeting” ’s 6th incarnation. Since I’ve been listening to and reading about many of these folks for years I thought it would be a lot of fun to attend this year to see these folks live and interact with some like minded folks.

TAM spans Thursday through Sunday but my chief interest was with the core Friday and Saturday presentations so that’s what I signed up for. Michelle and I flew down on Wednesday so we could enjoy some time in Las Vegas doing some of the “strip” stuff together before I went off to attend the TAM presentations.
As luck would have it, my mother decided she could join us, so Mich and her could have fun together when I’m not there. For the uninitiated among you, Mich and my mom get along together famously so this is actually a *good* thing… just ask her yourself!

On Wednesday (June 18) Mich and I arrived in Las Vegas at about 3:30 pm and immediately headed out to do a bit of exploring on the strip. Wow! It’s as hot as I remember from my last trip back in 2001. Every time you go outside it’s as if you are opening an oven door. 106 degrees and 5% humidity. Oh yeah baby!

Anyway, after bopping over to Treasure Island to pick up our show tickets for that night (Mystere) we headed over to Margaritaville and enjoyed some libations and split an excellent club sandwich (I recommend it).

Mystere was superb. I’m not sure if there’s a bad seat in the house. I sat 4 rows back from the stage about 45 degrees off of center. What a spectacle that was!

This is the third, permanent venue (not in tents), Cirque de Soleil that I’ve seen and I would recommend any of them. As amazing as Mystere was, my absolute favorite so far is “O” and I would go back and see that one again any day in a heartbeat.

Just one gripe so far, I’m sure this applies to all the hotels here, but I’m staying at the Flamingo (since that’s where TAM 6 is being hosted and I wanted to be close to the action) and MAN, do they ever nickel and dime you to death for EVERYTHING! When I got to my room and tried to access the internet I found that there was a daily charge for it ($13). In checking back to see the room descriptions I see that I had interpretted “Internet Data Port” as meaning actual access rather than merely the (needed to be paid for) potential for access. I haven’t had to pay for internet access in a hotel room in years.
Also, I just came back from attempting to access the fitness center where I was surprised to find there was a $10 a day access fee. Since I had shown up with just my workout clothes room key and my iPod I was not in a position to shell out for this. I’ve *never* had to shell out for a fitness center before.

I suppose it’s truly a capitalist venture. Not everybody who uses a hotel room needs internet access and far fewer still take advantage of the fitness center, so it could be argued that it makes sense to have folks pay for exactly the amenities that they use.

Thursday had us exploring the city (visited the Stratosphere - it’s definitely past its prime). As with the last time we were here, Caesar’s Palace is always entertaining. Enjoyed lunch at “Mon Ami Gabi” one of the restaurants associated with the Paris Casino and Hotel. On the outdoor patio you can watch the fountains of the Bellagio hotel go through their gyrations, something we really love.

That evening we attended “The Blue Man Group” show and, as expected, we loved it too. We saw them when we were last in Las Vegas and they didn’t disappoint this time either. Always lively and fun! Afterwards we had dinner in the Venetian “The Grand Lux Cafe” - another recommendation from me - the food is great. And the server girls in the casino are sporting easily my favorite outfits on the strip.

Friday saw me at TAM 6 so Mich and my mother went on the town. Check out my Flickr set for pictures and some brief opinions from TAM 6. I won’t go into the content because, frankly, many others have already done that and they do a better job of it than I would. I *really* enjoyed watching the recording of “The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe”, Neil deGrasse Tyson gave a great talk and, surprisingly, Alec Jason’s talk about forensics was fascinating. In truth I have to say I loved pretty much everything. The exceptions I noted in my Flickr stream.

That evening we ate at “The Eiffel Tower Restaurant”, again in the Paris Hotel. We had a great view of the Bellagio Fountains which are truly breathtaking at night.
The meal was incredibly expensive, but in Vegas you largely do get what you pay for. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a filet mignon as wonderfully tender as the one I was served. Exquisite!

That night I came down with a terrible cold and ended up missing the 2nd day of TAM 6. I was very disappointed (frankly I just slept and blew my nose all day) I REALLY wanted to hear Phil Plait’s and Michael Shermer’s talks. I understand there was a problem with the audio recordings made of TAM and that there is a chance that the DVDs may not be available for that day. I’m keeping my eyes open, I hope they are able to piece those together from audience-captured audio.
Just as bad, I missed Penn & Teller’s show that night. Mich ended up going alone as my mom had already purchased tickets to see Elton John that night.
Michelle as quite thrilled that she was seated only a couple of rows away from Adam Savage (one of the few TAM folks that she would recognize). Penn & Teller’s show was, I am told, fabulous too. Next time!!!

Later Saturday night Mich came in after having won something like $80 on the slot machines (I was still recovering from my cold so I stayed in), but my mom came in at some crazy hour (2 am?) after hitting a jackpot and cleared $2,940 (before $900 was expropriated by “da gummint” - something puzzling to a Canadian where winnings are not taxable).

So Sunday morning started with a grand room service feast which we enjoyed before packing up to head back home.

Posted under Photos, Science, Skepticism, Travel

We spent the weekend at a great little cabin up in Ellijay, Ga.
The cabin was located on a really steep hill on 6 acres of property. It was very nicely appointed, having everything you would need to spend a week there except food. We took the opportunity to visit and hike in a couple of local parks, Fort Mountain the first day and, after a great twisty-turny drive, Raven Cliffs Falls.

The hikes were pretty long for me, I’m not much of a walker (I run for exercise, drive everywhere else :)) but it was a satisfying romp in the woods and I got some nice pictures out of it. Click on the picture of the falls to see more.

Posted under Photos, Travel

We’re here in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina eating breakfast at “Joseph’s”. The food portions are generous and the atmosphere convivial. There is a live band playing sax, clarinet and guitar about 15 feet from us.

Here is a link to the growing album. I’m trying to blog more or less real-time.

We had a bit of a SNAFU when we arrived last night, they assigned us to a room that had plenty of space, but few amenities:

There were a couple of other hiccoughs but I used the “comments” section on their internal website and the manager called us this morning to apologize and is moving us to a new room. I’ll let you know if things are great now.

Posted under Retail Experiences, Travel

We met up with the Naidus in Savannah over Thanksgiving. We spent a couple of days at the “Westin Savannah Harbor“. Hint, if you’ll be spending a lot of time in your room, shell out the extra $30 a night and get the River view. The golf course view is OK, except it’s really the “parking lot, marsh, roadway *then* golf course view”. No worries for us since we spent so little daylight time in the room but it *does* explain why there were no images of that view on their web site.

Check out the pictures here:

Largely the place was a ghostland for Thanksgiving. I was *very* surprised. The River Street that I was expecting is completely packed, you know tourists in the sidewalk, kids in their parent’s cars cruising up and down the boulevard. So we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Since we arrived later in the day we were looking for a place to eat right away, but most places were either closed, or their kitchens were closed.

Fortunately, a friend at work told me about

Kevin Barry’s (Irish) Pub. They were open until the wee hours (at least *much* later than we were going to be up), but they had some great live music - Irish songs, of course.

We ended up at the Bacon Park Golf course before heading home. Not one of my best games, but I’ve been unable to practice much lately at the driving range…

Overall a great trip and a nice diversion. We only spent the Thursday and Friday there so we still had the rest of the weekend available for getting the Christmas decorations culled (still haven’t set those up yet!).

Posted under Photos, Travel

If you know me, you know I love chocolate (yeah, yeah, and fries too..), King sent me this link to a resource that shows a little promise.

Heh, maybe someday this will grow into a useful resource. I took a peek and couldn’t find any of the places I like. Most notably absent is Rheo Thompson Candies in Stratford Ontario (their milk chocolate mint smoothies are out of this world!).

I wanted to add them but they seem to only want the actual chocolatiers to do that. I’m pretty sure this site won’t *really* take off until they encourage chocolate *lovers* to keep it up-to-date. It’s been my experience that “artistes” and the computer savvy crowd frequently do not overlap…

Posted under Gastronomy, Travel

I’ve done a much smaller, but still thrilling zip line up in Collingwood, Ontario:

3rd Person:

1st Person:

But this looks to be a very slick one-up on that experience. Holy cow!  The speed really does not come across in the “zipper’s” footage so I’m glad they had a camera in the landing area so you could see how fast you can go!

Posted under Travel

I just added these videos to YouTube as a more practical way of hosting them.

These are from our August 2005 trip to Canada where we visited Collingwood and did the Treetop Walking Adventure.

This video shows my perspective of the zipline at the end of the walk. I inverted myself to get a more exciting perspective:

This video shows the same scene but from the ground:

Posted under Travel