Fall and Fear in the Air

Sunday came early today, enjoying beautiful weather after an exceptionally long summer Vegas has begun to cool down…only 95F (35C) for the high and 73F or 23C for the low.

The city is preparing for the anniversary of 9/11 tomorrow…flags everywhere, messages of “We will never forget” in every newscast, paper, live-feed ticker etc. The atmosphere of Fear always paramount in our media…CNN- america’s infallible provider of Fear is only bested on occasion by Fox in a constant battle to provide a one-sided perspective to the worlds’ events…always perpetuating the cycle of violence thereby justifying secret prisons, torture, illegal confinement, internal spying and thanking an inept and horribly corrupt government for “protecting” us. Is it 2008 yet? americans had better get their heads out of the sand and start to question what they see on the almighty black box…this filtered media is scary in the land of the “free”. It was years ago when I saw “Kill your TV” as a saying on a t-shirt in Amsterdam

It’s more important to most about what’s happening with “Brad and Angelina or who will Jessica date next or the constant Paris Hilton updates that flash across the pages of People Magazine”

And to question the almighty W and the “war on terror” (?) is unamerican bordering on treason and siding with those “al keeda types”…”hell, they better git rite with God”.

September 10th…Five years later…are we any safer? I don’t think so…I think our governments’ ill-conceived and poorly executed “war on terror to let freedom reign” has made us even less safe and has emboldened a new group of haters or freedom fighters(depending on which point of view you’re approaching this issue) to take up arms against us. I mean really…the rest of the world can’t be wrong, how arrogant must one be to think that we are the only righteous and true people on the planet…when the reason for all of this is OIL and not the “spreading of democracy”. If we are going to use the “mandate to spread Freedom and Democracy” justification to a region, why don’t we go after a country that already possesses WMD’s? Why don’t we “eye-up” North Korea?… Aren’t THEY “testing” nukes right now? They sure are but there is the glaring absence of OIL…wake up people!

And I think of the young kids who have given up their lives to “protect our freedom”… I’ll definitely be thinking of them as well as those who died in the towers and in the planes that struck them.

I believe will God bless everyone and not just america.

All the best,

VP

Writing Inspiration

Back at SB enjoying some chill-out on Live365.com - French Lounge…great little station to relax to when writing or researching. I miss Paris when I listen to the various tunes.

Vegas is slowly starting to cool down…low 30’s to low 20’s…nice time of year actually…Fall is just around the corner…although there is no real changing of the colors here until much later in the year…the big indication of fall here is the shortening of days - great if you’re a nocturnal being. Clear mornings bright and early…go go go go go. For Conor.

All the best,

VP

Vegas Love...ever present

So we're in our favourite SB having a coffee, surfing the net doing what we do every morning...the locals are in getting their Fraps and Soy Lattes to go...when I see these 2 guys getting into an argument - they are sitting with each other when this erupts and one guy punches the other in the face...the puncher then gets up and hammers the other in the back of the head....lovely, except for the fact that the receiver of these blows is in a frickin' wheelchair...with limited use of one arm!!! WTF :o

There are no less than 8 people watching this as the striker is lining up to give this fella another shot - but they don't want to lose their place in line...hell no. I had to get into the middle of these 2 to make sure the beating didn't continue...I mean whatever happened to non-violent conflict resolution? It's fucking 7:30 in the morning...what's so wrong with some people that you beat on a dude in a chair??? I mean I don't care what he said...get up and walk away.


I want go travelling again.

Thanks for listening...

Pat

New Work

Well it's Monday afternoon, Tom is planning his wedding in the other room with Rita and we're all still struggling with the warm temps here in the desert. The pool is 86F and it's solar heated! Can't complain though, we're not dealing with the floods that are wreaking havoc elsewhere in the country. The funny thing about Vegas' weather is that the inevitable cool down is right around the corner and when it comes the temps drop 20-40 degrees overnight..the fluctuation is amazing.

So my pal and I are starting a new T-shirt company...geared towards teens and pre-teens with positive messages. We don't have kids but are kind of suprised at seeing 12 yr old girls with the word "Juicy" on their butts...something just isn't right about that in my mind. To each their own but I hope to put a more positive saying on our product to boost self esteem. We have been planning things out for a few months now and have to work out a few kinks with suppliers and designs and we should be on our way. I'll be ssure to share when we get things going with that - so that's it for now. I"ll be sure to update again soon.

All the best,

Pat

Looking to Fall and New Blog

So...I'll be moving myself to a new blog located at www.pathickeytravels.com. I registered the name and got the first entry out of the way.

I'm using Word Press and I'm still trying to figure out some things...like uploading photos. I'll get there. We also signed on for another year of support for the world famous, Las Vegas Blackjacks. We had some bumps at the end of last season but have now started to work out some of the kinks....I'm looking forward to a new year and sharing some ideas with the new executive and the returning players.

Come visit me at my new blog and see some of my work at www.lasvegasblackjacks.com...we should have the site restored by the end of September.

All the Best.

Pat