The Pursuit of Happiness

Music and Art, my two favorite things

As of April 10th, my 41st birthday, we have now been in Vegas for one year.  What a whirlwind of a year!  When all the dust finally settled, we find ourselves in a most wonderful place and we are very happy.  We have a great house which has been dubbed 'T & T's Paradise' because we are just off the Paradise Road here in the town formerly known as Paradise, now known as Las Vegas.  What a year!  And so far, we've had a lot of friends come to town and dropped in to see us which is great too.  We are finally happy, and true happiness is something that has eluded me for most of my adult lifetime.  I am very grateful for this opportunity.

Happiness should be such a simple thing, but I have never been able to allow myself to be completely happy.  I just think too damn'd much about things I cannot change.  How the world is and how it works.  These mad political games, fueled and fixed by the wealthy to maintain this lucrative, suicidal plunge of mankind.  I am not equipped to deal with it or accept that that's just how things are.  Watching the political madmen has caused me a great deal of personal unrest and I have truly lost my faith in the people's ability to see and understand what is happening around us.  Most people don't care and won't change unless it becomes absolutely necessary.  And those in control want to keep it all exactly the way it is.

I started fighting authority very early in my life and have never been able to be comfortable under any kind of leadership that I felt unworthy.  That is a wiring problem, my own personal agenda to be my own man and do my own thing.  But thinking like that has created much unhappiness for me, and I've decided I'm getting too old to continue doing anything that makes me feel less than happy.  While my wiring is something I will always struggle with, I fixed my 'heavy-world' syndrome by simply tuning out and shutting it off.  I have decided not to care, to recede into my little happy-bubble and live my life as carefree as possible.  Time will take care of itself without me trying to fix things or inform people of the consequences of our recklessness.  The Great Reckoning will come, but I won't be here to see it and I don't have kids so why do I care?  I don't.  Not anymore, and that is a world off my mind.  Let's just forget about all the shit so we can keep this toxic party going eh!  The kids will clean up after us... that is, if THEY are smart enough to appreciate this cesspool of a planet we've left for them.  But I reckon we're breeding a new kind of stupid these days and they won't see it either.  Not until we break the food chain or run out of clean air and water and are forced to scramble and salvage for whatever is left of this life.  The difference between this day and age and the age of our parents' generations, is that now we KNOW we're destroying the planet and choose to do nothing about it.  Shame, shame.

Tanya comes from the absolute other end of the spectrum, happiness is in her blood and she radiates it.  Our relationship has always been a tit-for-tat to meet somewhere in the middle.  She really helped me get over myself and I was left with no choice but to decide that she was exactly what I needed in order to live a happier life.  But that black hole burning in my soul is a tough little bastard and it takes some effort to keep him down and out.  He fuels my creativity and makes me a passionate person, but he is also very destructive and violent.  Tanya has helped me with that all along and I am indebted to her for her patience and understanding.  Moving here, happiness seems so much easier to achieve.  Tuning out on politics and shutting off from the world was a huge thing for me, and a decision to do more things that make me happy is another thing.  Like painting, writing songs and playing guitar every day.  But the weather, or more precisely the lack of bad weather, we've found has had a massive impact on our everyday state of mind.  I didn't realize how much the dreary weather affected us until now.  We awake, and its another beautiful sunny day and we are happy to get at it.  Its sunny EVERY DAY here.  Such a simple thing.

But money has been the root of all unhappiness for people all over the world since its inception.  We never had money in Canada... EVER.  And we are still considered to be in the top 5% of the richest people on the planet.  We never wanted for much mind you, we were comfortable, but we could never get ahead to build any sort of savings either.  It was just the daily grind and at the end of two weeks you were totally broke and dependent on that next cheque to come in.  We always lived in fear of something big, bad, and expensive happening that would take our financial legs out from under us.  Its a terrible thing to live in fear.  And not real 'fear' as fear is known, just a constant ache in the mind.  A knowledge that you're sitting on the edge, blindfolded, and fate is pacing in circles behind you.  The edge was ever-present in all our days in Canada.  But now, that great blanket of doubt has been cast aside.  Our move here was a money-making adventure of course, so we are making more and taxed waaaay less.  And we don't have that same Canadian anxiety that our roof might give way under the deep snow, or having to fix a leaking basement, or having to buy 4 new winter tires, or having to shovel the driveway for the 5th time this week.  For the first time in our lives we are finally able to save money and it is a very liberating feeling.  Down here our major financial concern is healthcare, and having that savings in case we ever need to go to the hospital.  But somehow, saving that is less concerning, less of a mental ache than worrying about your house collapsing or worrying about when your old car might die on you.  Living without the fear of financial collapse is the single biggest relief of stress there is.

Zuma's terrible haircut

Tanya always used to tell me, 'Happiness is in your head.  Its a choice you make whether to be happy or not'.  I'm not sure I agree with that.  The downtrodden will always be a pessimistic crowd and the system itself is set up so that you won't be able to get ahead of the game.  Life is tough and happiness can be a difficult thing to achieve if your perspective is mired in its stress.  But I'm happy to report that from this perspective, there has been a huge shift in the paradigm of happiness for Tanya and I and at least for now, we have truly found it!

Thanks for reading.

TRJ

Adventures in the Desert... Mountains, Rocks, Fossils, and Horses!

Some good friends passed through Las Vegas this past week and brought me on their crazy adventure tour around the city.  They thought, as many folks do, that Vegas is this one thing but came to learn that it is much different than what you think if you are willing to get out of the city and into the wild.  Las Vegas is an island city in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by vast stretches of desert in all directions.  Within half an hour we can be out to Red Rock conservation area which has many hiking trails and is unfortunately swarming with tourists.  But, its good that so many people are getting out and exploring, there's lots of room for everyone.  Lots to see and do.  My guests were floored by the beauty of the land and how many different adventures were within an hour or two of our home.

We spent a good day of hiking out at Red Rock, and another day we went out to tour Mount Charleston area.  Colin and Desiree are horse people, so we were on the lookout for the elusive wild mustangs that roam the desert.  That whole day out at Mt. Charleston was pretty magical.  Colin likes to go off the beaten path, as does Desiree, as do I.  And on our way down the mountain we kept passing these offroads leading off into the desert.  Colin finally decided that THAT was the road we were gonna take, and off roadin' we went in the rental SUV!  We drove til we couldn't drive no more, then we parked the truck and got out to walk.   Up and up, to see what was over the hill.  It turned out to be miles and miles of more hills and desert, so remote... so still... the joshua trees were all around us.  Evidence of the wildlife in the area was everywhere but we saw nothing.  Zuma, my adventure pom, was right on my heels the whole trip.  What a dog!  The rocks in that area are amazing.  Here we were, 7000feet above sea level, and the ground was littered with fossils from an ancient seabed!  My dad was the one who infected me with this nose-to-the-earth, always on the lookout for fossils but hardly ever finding any.  Indeed, the geology of this area is an amazing story and the rocks are sooo interesting.  The workings of Mother Nature's great cauldron and a wonderland for a nature geek like me.

Further along the highway I spotted them on a hillside, the mustangs!  Three of them.  We were able to stalk in quite close to them to get a really good look and some great photos.  For Colin and Desiree, it was an incredible experience to see how the wild horses compared to their own horses back home.  How they looked, how they moved over the rough terrain, their personalities.  Its really cool that wild horses still exist here.  We spent a good hour watching them, capturing a couple hundred photos.  They weren't too put off by us being there, but of course Colin and Des knew how to move in unthreateningly so as not to spook them.  The mom and the young one were edgy, and the old one didn't care at all.

That really made our day, but had we known we'd find the motherload of the herd on the other side of the mountain, we might have spent less time there.  We went up the Cold Creek road and there they were, probably 40 to 50 of them, spread out across the desert right to the base of the mountain.  Wow!  What a sight!  We got out and roamed among them, they were a little twitchy and wouldn't let us get too close, but we still got another couple hundred photos.  And what a collection of photos!  A grey day, perfect lighting and a surreal landscape.  There was a mare, a matriarch, who never moved from her spot close to the car (within earshot of yappy Zuma who was quite upset at being left out of this adventure), she just kept an eye on us the whole time.  We were all quite a distance from one another, off on our own walkabouts when something amazing happened.  Desiree had worn out the batteries on her camera (it was a pretty cold day) and put it away in her pocket and was just standing there watching when she heard the cloppity clop of hooves over rocks coming up behind her.  Not knowing what the horse was up to, she stayed still as the mare came up beside her and nuzzled its nose in against her arm, took a few good whiffs up and down her sleeve, decided that Desiree was not a threat and casually strode along on her way.  Too friggin' cool!

(I'll post more horse pics at the end of this post)

There were wild horses all the way up to Cold Creek.  One band of youngsters were hanging out by the road.  Its obvious that people have been feeding these guys from their vehicles because they were pretty brazen about checking us out.  One came right up and stuck his nose right in Desiree's window while another one circled the front of the truck and decided to bite into the hood to see what it was made of!

But the best adventure was our trip to Death Valley, California.  Death Valley... I've always loved that name.  It evokes a chill, especially when you're talking about one of the hottest places on the planet.  It set out as a simple day trip, 2hours from home, seeking out a few ghost towns.  There really wasn't much to speak of in the ghost towns, mostly all of the buildings having been reclaimed by time and the desert.  Certainly not the old west ghost towns that Hollywood had imprinted on my brain.  Rhyolite's train station was the only intact-condemned structure with no visible rail lines anywhere to be found.   But the search got us into some remote areas.  I don't think we knew exactly what we headed for when we entered Red Pass to find the second ghost town on our agenda, Leadfield, right dead in the middle of the Grapevine Mountain range.

We bombed across the open desert on a one-way lane with the tires rattling over the rocks and great clouds of dust billowing out behind us.  We reached the small rise of the trailhead and the road narrowed and led us into a series of quick turns around thick vegetation and rocks, then a steep decent into the valley.  Nature closed in all around us, and that's when it struck us, that we were going mountain climbing!  The road was rough, a one-way pass not intended for cars.  It was well maintained, grated regularly, and very intense.  Climbing, decending, on the very edge of the mountain, every turn revealing a new and breathtaking vista of the valley.

Up and up we went, the rented SUV spitting rocks out behind us, then down, down, into the valley below, only to climb again.  We could see the roadway zigzagging up the up over the next series of mountains, and we marvelled at the rugged, twisting roadway.  

Leadfield itself turned out to be nothing more than a group of small buildings like woodsheds in various states of disrepair.  Those early settlers didn't last long here.  Its so remote, it must have been so difficult.  Desperate even.  I mean, even now, that mine is a long friggin' way from anything that could have resembled civilization at the time.  It was all for money, a wild goose chase for riches in mountains that all went down the tubes in three months.

The decent from Leadfield brought us through Titus Canyon, a mind boggling drive right through the very heart of the mountain itself.  Humongous rock walls closed in tight around us as we decended through a very deep crevice which some ancient river had decided was its natural course and spend the next couple billion years carving out.  It was amazing!  The colors, the textures, around each and every corner a new angle to the mountain until the eyes and mind were boggled by the sensational imagery.  The sun began to beam in the closer we got to the exit, but the canyon just kept closing in tighter and tighter until we thought it would never end.  Finally we exited and were in the wide open desert again and then back onto the highway.  That whole drive is something Tanya and I would have never done on our own, so we were glad to be along for that one.

That whole day in Death Valley was amazing.  Further along the highway we came to Mesquite Flats sand dunes... I mean, REAL sand dunes, as high as buildings and stretching far out into the desert... like something you'd see in the Sahara.  This is a place I need to go back to visit and spend some time walking around because those dunes are really cool!  It is also on record as one of the hottest places on the planet.  We didn't have time to explore the dunes fully.  Red Pass had eaten up a lot of time, so we were on the clock to try and get in as much as possible before the sun went down.

Further along the highway we visited Painter's Palette, where the mountains are colored with intense reds, greens, pinks, and oranges.  The greens were so intense, it really looked like it was painted on the hillside.  From there we visited the Devils' Golf Course, which just blew my mind all over again.

I'll try to describe this for you...  if you know what an ice-jam looks like in the spring, all those chunks of ice pushed up together and the dirty water just underneath, this is what it reminded me of.  It is a massive salt deposit with jagged chunks of salt are propped up out of the ground, solid as rock.

Our last stop was at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the western hemisphere at 282feet below sea level.  Here again, the eye was tricked because in the fading light, it looked EXACTLY like a frozen, windswept New Brunswick winter.  Salt swept, with a glass-like layer of salt underneath.  It stretched out across the basin and you could smell the sea in the air.

With darkness setting in it was time to head home.  We stopped on the desert highway to do some stargazing, and though it was a black night without any light whatsoever, I think there was a lot of airborne particles in the sky because it wasn't as spectacular as I'd hoped it would be.  Definitely a wider sky, but not nearly as crystal clear as the black, densely populated star filled sky up home.

It was great to see Colin and Desiree again, and we thank them for being so adventurous and getting us out into the wilds to experience some of the wonders so close to home!

Here's some more pictures.  Enjoy!

Thanks for reading.  

TRJ

Lost keys and the universal push...

Have you ever thought about your universe, and how you can influence the way it responds to you?  That YOU are controlling IT instead of IT controlling YOU, and that you can make it do what you need it to do for you?  Its a crazy concept, but these last few weeks I've needed it.  I've needed to use that power to bring back something very dear to me, my lost keys.  Stupid Jones... how did that personal commandment go again??  Thou shall not ride drunken'd bicycle in the dark of night, somethin', somethin' about helmets... something like that.  I always forget the second part of that, usually after a couple beers it changes to something like "Get up fatty!  Let's go for a ride!"

I'll admit it folks, my bike and I have been in many stupid accidents.  Silly things like my last post, running headfirst into a construction sign.  Now that's just stupid.  Those ones are fine enough on their own, but then there are all those rumm'd up collision courses that are totally avoidable but yet... I buy the ticket, an' I take the ride.  Oh man!  I love it!  I've often relied on my bike to get around at the end of the night, and I always wear my helmet because I know by now, I'm just one of those guys.  And on this one fateful friday night somewhere around midnight, I was havin' a few, home alone, and just got a real bad hankerin' for a cigar..... a cigar??!!  WTF Jones???  Really, it was only half the cigar, and half the ride.  Off I went on my merry way, and somewhere along that ride back from the gas station, my keys... unbeknownst to me, fell out of my jacket pocket.  I had the garage door opener to get back in, so I had no idea my keys were even gone until a couple days later when I really couldn't find them and started thinking, then worrying, and having to retrace the memories of that evening.  I searched everywhere and scoured my brain, what did I DO that night when I got home?  I know what I did.  I smoked that horrible fucking $2 kiddie cigar is what I did!  The gas station didn't have REAL cigars, just the ones that "all the kids are smoking", is what the cashier said.  Two thinnies in a sealed plastic baggie that tasted like they'd been dipped in cough syrup and hung out to dry with the cod.  Fucking disgusting shit.  I was disgusted with myself.  But not as disgusted as I would be, when I'd given up hope of finding my keys and made an appointment at Volkswagen to go in and get a new key floppy and found out that a replacement would cost me FOUR-HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!

Ooooh, so many regretful drunken'd nights in my lifetime.  And this one was so damn'd stupid.  Its not even a good story, one that you'd want to tell your friends.  I reckoned that I would not get a replacement until I had gone the full distance in trying to find my lost keys, and use the emergency 3rd key for the truck in the meantime.  The emergency key is like a dunce-cap key, oversized and not exactly user friendly.  The VW's keyhole is actually hidden underneath a small pop-off panel just behind the streamlined doorhandle, not convenient at all.  I tore the house apart and searched desperately for those keys but they weren't anywhere to be found.  I put an ad up on Craigslist and retraced my route several times, went back to the gas station a couple times just in case, but nothing.  Then I began trying to mentally pull them back to me, to push the universe to give me something and I got several bubbles of reaction.  The first was from a guy who suggested a website where lost things get posted.  And then, I was scouring the same route again and all of a sudden, there they were!!!  They were sticking out of a pile of dirt on the sidewalk.  I picked them up, and it was a set of keys for an Acura, complete with the house and mail and another key, just like my set but all chewed up from traffic.  Oh well, the universe had responded.  I couldn't complain about that.

My last and final step was to put flyers up along the route with a $100 reward for their safe return.  I figured, if nothing else, that reward money would get the kids to dig up dirt for me and leave no stone unturned, or hopefully connect me with the people that might have found them.  The posters went up last thursday night and just last night, a guy emailed me to let me know he had my keys!  Actually, he emailed me on behalf of his neighbor, who had my keys.  She had found them the saturday after I lost them and held onto them.  I picked them up from her tonight on my way home and happily gave her the $100 reward.  It has been just short of a month, and I finally got my keys back!

I'm so friggin' happy about that.  It all worked out.  Besides the ridiculously expensive floppy replacement, I have a precious aluminum fish as a keychain, given to me by a good friend at a very good time in my life that is invaluable to me.  That fish hasn't left my side for 15yrs so above all else, its good to have my fish back.

A big shout out to Jennifer and William who brought it all back to me.  Hey universe, do something nice for those folks would'ja!

Thanks for reading.

TRJ

PS ... I've been told that my 'comments' section for this blog was inactive.  I'm going to fix that for any of you who want to leave comments.  The best way to reach me is my email address (trjonz@gmail.com), as I probably won't come back to the same post to comment on somebody's comment.  Maybe I will, I dunno.  I appreciate the readership immensely, but these posts are a mark in time designed for your entertainment and tomorrow we'll be onto the next chapter.  Keep moving forward, the new motto.  But, if you wanna drop a line, please do so.  I'll get it.  Once again, I thank you for reading.  Sincerely, Troy.

Random monday blatherings... Golfing... Criss Angel...

Just random blatherings today.  Its monday night, and I feel like writing.

I've started this online challenge called 'Songfight' (songfight.org).  What happens is, they give you the title of the tune and you have 2weeks to write and record your tune.  I nailed the first week challenge in a night, but this week's challenge has been difficult.  This weeks title is, 'Canadian Girlfriend'.  Its due thursday and I'm going to do my damnedest to get a submission in.  Runnin' to the wire though.  If ou want you can still go and check out my last recording, its still up there on the site.

I got sick yesterday and it walloped me today.  I went to work but I regretted doing that afterwards.  I also regretted biking in today in freezing temperatures.  I checked the temperature and it was 7degreesC but the windchill made it a minus celcius day.  I had to decide whether to wear my touque or my helmet, and I chose the helmet.  Both of those were the right decision.  What I needed was a snowsuit.   I only wore a sweater and a pair of cotton pants and froze myself stupid going in.  The helmet saved my head when I slammed into a road construction sign.  I just didn't see it, I was bent into the wind giving it everything I had to try and get there.  It spit rain on me, then snow, and eventually the icy wind took all my strength away and got deep into my bones.  My muscles gave up and the fever set in to stay with me all day.  Its been a pretty miserable monday.

So yeah, I'm workin!  I had my eye on this print shop pretty much from the beginning.  I dropped Tanya off to work one day and noticed it.  Then we moved to where we are and it became an even better prospect.  Its right across from Tanya's office, a 40min walk to home or 15mins on bike.  I'm pretty lucky, jobs have always materialized right when I needed it to happen, and I dropped off a resume at exactly the same time another fellow was leaving.  Being able to walk to and from work is a huge bonus with me cause I like to walk.  Its a pre-press position, back to what I was doing in Ottawa 12 years ago.  Lots to learn.  Here's a kicker too, I'm making the same amount of money as I was in Moncton, except I'm taking home about 30% more money.  This was one of the reasons we wanted to move here, the taxes are low.  I mean, we were making decent money in Canada, but it was utterly impossible to build any kind of savings.  Me personally, I have never had or have been able to save any of my own money.  As long as I've been working I've been poor as hell, just barely surviving.  If not for Tanya, I think I'd live a pretty down and out, mean existence.  I don't know how families do it.  And it kills me to see all that money being so carelessly thrown away on the machines and tables here in Vegas in the name of fun... I just don't understand it.

Tanya's dad was here all last week so we visited quite a few casinos.  We also got out golfing which was our first outing here.  It was a nice little community course called Desert Willow in Henderson.  It was a beautiful day and I shot as well as I always do, on the green in two, plus 3 or 4 putts.  The greens were pretty horrid.  The beer cart came around the 10th hole and Tan and I each got one, and then we learned a hard lesson about golfing on a community course in the desert.  Its not like back home where you can run off to the woods!  There was absolutely nowhere to piss!  I lost my first and only ball of the day on the 18th hole into a water trap that had a big fountain spurting water.  That was it, I just couldn't finish the game in that state of mind so I left the cart and Tan and her dad and ran to the clubhouse.

We also went to see Criss Angel's show at the Luxor.  I didn't really know who he was, or that he had a TV show all those years.  But his show and the supporting cast was pretty good.  I could use less of the rockstar screaming and crowd pumping stuff, but he seemed like a genuine guy who loves his craft so he sold me on it.  And he IS a rockstar.  He did some pretty cool tricks that I'm still trying to unravel in my mind, so I'd go back to see him again just to focus a keener eye on things.  He has an amazing collection of custom motorcycles as you walk into his theatre.  It wasnt' a full house for a friday night either.  I've heard that his show isn't doing too well.  No matter, I liked it and I'd recommend it.

Tha's all for tonight folks.  Thanks for reading.

TRJ

Meatfest... Cirque du Soleil: KA

Ahh, another year of adventuring in Las Vegas.  This week, I'm going to offer you a glimpse into the wonderful worlds of the Cirque du Soleil and what I like to call Meatfest at a local eatery called 'Fogo du Chao'.

It had been a long week, my first full week of work since I moved here actually.  So as a congratulatory meal to myself, Tanya and I and Frank decided to visit a Brazilian steak house.  These places are special.  What happens in a Brazilian steakhouse is, you have a marker on your table which is green on one side, red on the other.  There are many waiters roaming the restaurant with long skewers of 10 different kinds of the most succulent, fire grilled meat you will ever have!  And so, if your marker is 'green side up', they come to your table and offer you a slice off of their skewer.  It could be beef, pork, chicken, lamb, ribs, ... All meat.  If your marker is red side up that means you've had enough, for now.  Maan, what a meal!  That meat is friggin' fantastic!  We settled in for a good hour and a half of piggotry.  That's not even a word but I'll use it and you know what I'm talkin' about.  The salad bar is great too, with all the fixin's to go along with all that meat.  It had some of the best smoked salmon I've had yet here in Vegas.  But the meat.... oh man!  It was pricey at $45/person, but that's what you normally pay here for a meal so its not extraordinary.

On saturday night Tan was able to get some 'locals' deal on the Cirque du Soleil show KA.  So it was a lot cheaper than normal for us and we wanted to see it again.  The first time around, well folks,... it blew my freakin' mind.  Words cannot describe what I witnessed that night.  This second time around, I'll give it a whirl just to try and share that experience.  They won't let you take pictures in there, so I didn't find any worthy of sharing.  You'll just have to take my word for it, or come and see it for yourself.

First off, its nice to get a good jag going before you go in.  The Cirque shows are mind benders, so its good to be nice and lubed up for it.  Beer was relatively priced at $7, water was $6 and a bag of chips was $4.  Luckily I knew this and had a good rum-soak going for me before I went in.

The KA theatre was built especially for this show and upon entering, its as though you've entered into the hull of an old wooden ship.  If you wait long enough in the lobby, high above you, an old man will come out and play this huge wooden piano-like instrument with its strings strung on the outside over its wooden shell, far over your head and across the room.  The music is pumped in through the sound system, a bass cello or something, but to your eyes, that old guy is playing some fantastical instrument with a deep foreboding sound.  Like an ancient seaman warning you to stay away.  You get into the theatre and its like you've entered an otherworldly village.  There are many towers hanging from the ceiling on both sides of the stage, and from those towers the native characters are chirping and getting all worked up.  They are dressed up in full-body, skin colored tattoo suits and meager leather armor.  They rule the roost before showtime, and are jumping from towers which are probably 75' high, swooping in low on bungee cords and bouncing to land on another tower.  They also roam the audience, climbing over the seats to get in your face to wonder who you are and what the hell you are doing in their theatre.  They don't like us.  They're harmless creatures, but strange and a bit unnerving nonetheless.

This Cirque show follows a story, unlike any of the other Cirque shows.  Two royal twins get separated  and the story follows their struggle to find one another again.  But the thing that makes this Cirque show so worthwhile is the theatre and the stage.  That stage is a whole thing all its own!

Picture this.  Its a theatre of course, but the stage is hovering there before you over an open void.  There is no 'stage-proper'.  When the show starts, that hovering stage rotates and tilts towards you so it changes your viewing perspective.  And for the rest of the night, the whole stage area... up and down, becomes an enormous performance area that seems to defy space and physics.  The main movable stage is 50' wide and 25'deep, and the main set for many of the acts.  In the beach scene, it is covered in sand (granulated cork actually, which looks exactly like sand), and as the scene goes along, the bad guys attack and the stage begins to rise and turn 360degrees, more and more steeply as the main characters try to get away.  All the sand drains off and you can hear the arrows hitting the ground which produces rippled graphics (projected digital) that go out from each strike.  Those ripples (arrows) that have hit now become pegs that have popped out of the stage itself to become pivot points for the characters to use to climb and swing from as the stage rises ever so higher.  The chase ensues as the stage rises steeper and steeper until its almost a straight up and down, a 50' drop!  A hundred feet into the chasm below.  It is absolutely mind blowing seeing that chase scene.  Its like the scene has all of a sudden become a two-dimensional thing, like its on TV and we're watching it from a sky-cam.  The sheer scale of that stage and the mechanics involved is incredible.  Its so well done.

The next scene, with the stage still elevated to 90degrees, is that of an ice cliff.  The ice cliff is projected onto the stage surface, very convincing, as the characters climb up the pegs, 50' up to the top, complete with the cracking sounds and falling ice graphics as they climb the wall.  There are so many tricks of the mind and eye in there, that's why I had to see it again.  And of course there are all the aerobatics and circus stuff built into every Cirque show that defy normal human abilities, so its always great entertainment.

Truthfully I don't think it was as good the second time around.  The story got in the way this time, but all the mind-bending stuff was still there so its still just as potent a visual treat.  If you see one Cirque show, though it may be pricey, I would highly recommend KA.

Thanks for reading.

TRJ

PS ... for those geeks out there who love the science of things, here's a cool site on the mechanics of the KA stage.

Tisfoon Ulterior Systems

Trip to Sedona... Spirituality... and the Bell Rock trek

Pondering Courthouse Mtn, and the Vortex...

Hey folks, welcome to 2013.  I'm way behind on my writings, so I'll get right to the adventures.

Tanya had some time off for Christmas so we decided to take a little jaunt over to Sedona, Arizona to see what that was all about. It was a fitting trip, considering our planet's passing from the Piscean Age into the Aquarian Age, and that Sedona claims to be one of the spiritual power centers of the universe. They claim that there are 3 vortexes of spiritual energy that converge in Sedona. And indeed, Sedona's 'New Age' tourism industry is doing very well.  I am very sceptical when artists and hippies and religulites start talking like frootloops about whimsical things that cannot be scientifically proven. Spiritual energy vortexes? Crystals and minerals, gemstones with metaphysical properties with which to heal the physical world? There's absolutely no scientific proof to prove nor disprove any of it. So like all spirituality and blind faith, if you believe it to be true, then it is.  And in this day and age, or course, it all comes with a price tag attached to it.

There were many crystal and gemstone shoppes in Sedona, each stone having a detailed description of the metaphysical properties that it holds and what it could do for you. The descriptions were so wild and varied, so artsy and whimsical that I just have to shake my head at it all. A peddler at one of the shoppes we were in was having fun with a little kid, trying to explain to him what the energy of the gemstone would feel like in his hand, "a slight vibration," she said. His older sister exclaimed, "Yeah! I feel it!". And the little boy kept saying, "its not doing anything..." After the saleswoman tried some more convincing, his mom chimed in to defuse the little boy's frustration and asked her husband, "David, is Tony left handed?" as if maybe he was using the wrong hand.  I think the kid had it right. But who knows. I purchased some stones for myself that had descriptions of the metaphysical properties I'd like to work on in my life, wondering if maybe they'd help me envision a better future for myself. My new blue goldstone is supposed to help me develop my telepathic abilities and attract success and fame. I also got a Lapis Lazuli, the Philosopher's Stone, which I'll let you read about if you follow the link. I can't even begin to summarize the powers that the lapis holds. But I have it, so I'll let you know if I suddenly am able to do miraculous things :)

Its a 4hour drive to Sedona, a really nice drive. To sum it all up, it was like we had a mini-trip across Canada, just across the border into Arizona the highway begins to climb and soon you are passing through high mountain passes and then out onto great plains of golden-silvery grasses as far as the eye can see, dotted with clumps of green trees. On and on, an hour of straight, flat highway across the desert prairies. Eventually we started climbing higher and higher into another mountain range. This is what is referred to as the high mountain desert, higher and higher, until snow appeared in the shadows of the mountains and the trees started getting bigger and bigger and closer to the highway. And then, before long, snowbanks(!) appearred where the plows had pushed it off the highway! You folks back home won't get any kicks out of this, but for my desert-adjusted eyes seeing nothing but boring brown for the last 9 months here in Vegas, the snow was quite a welcome sight. Especially at christmas to counteract the freaky Vegas christmas phenomena, which is a whole other story. There were cars stopped all along the highway with the tourists getting out to take pictures of themselves in the snowbanks. When we reached Flagstaff, Arizona at 7370 feet above sea level it was certifiably winter! We stopped at a park to let the dogs out for a run and test my tires on the icy park road. There were lots of families out with their kids in full winter-gear, building snowmen, sliding, snowshoeing. The dogs loved the snow and I found out my car isn't equipped for winter driving, which is good to know. I still had my sandals on, so I wasn't dressed for this at all. It was cool to find winter so close, but at an arm's length away.

We left Flagstaff and noticed our onboard navigation system displaying a most unusual road pattern that resembled a small intestine. We soon found out why as we started down a steep, narrow, curvy mountain road that hugged the cliffsides, a quick drop of 3000 feet down to the valley on the other side. Down and down we went, and I couldn't shake the thought of a boulder landing on our car as there was rocky debris on the road everywhere. Eventually the road straightened into a deep valley and came out of the mountain's shadow to skirt along a deep gorge with bright orange cliffs and lush greenery surrounding us on all sides. Then we came into Sedona.

What a beautiful place! Sedona is nestled snuggly into a lush valley landscape, so neat and tidy. Its a small town, about 15,000 people or so, and it seemed to my eye that many of the buildings are built into their landscape setting as to not disturb the scenery. As such, there were lots of earthy colored houses camoflauging themselves into the landscape with big windows to take advantage of the magnificent views. The whole valley is so lush and green and the mountains surround it with a bright spectrum of orange cliffs on all sides, everchanging with the day's light. There were lots of wow moments, I couldn't imagine living here. I would love to have the time and money to play and explore this area. There are about 150 hiking/biking trails so its very much an outdoorsy, artsy lifestyle sorta place.

We stayed at the King's Ransom hotel which thankfully accepted dogs. We're always wary about bringing the dogs with us, but we wanted to go on a hike while we were in Sedona and wanted them with us. They were pretty good. They got a good dose of 'mommy and daddy don't care if you're howling' sorta treatment when we left them in the car for several extended periods of time. They work each other up and explode in a howling two-part harmony. Its funny, but also annoying.

Sedona seems to value their small-townness, and they seem to want to keep it like that.  As such, their buildings are reminiscent of a long gone past, an old farmtown existence, very natural.  There are three main streets and very few traffic lights.   Most intersections still rely on traffic circles to direct the flow, which were quite annoying.  I'd hate to see it at peak traveller season.  They also had slanted parking which I haven't seen in a long time.  It is also a haven for artists to come and set up shop, so there are a ton of studios selling art that no normal working person could afford.  It seemed to me that the powers that be want to keep the town small and endearing while keeping the prices extraordinary to maintain the high value of their community.  It was very inspiring to visit all these shoppes and galleries, and made me wonder once again why the hell I am not making art that sells for thousands of dollars and setting up shop in Sedona.  In a lot of the galleries the artists were present if you wanted to talk to them.  It was a really cool experience visiting all those art studios, some of the artworks we saw were absolutely amazing.

Sedona truly found its stride as a community when Hollywood came to town to film the old western movies.  Then it became a destination, and the big names started passing through and taking up residence.  On the whole, I got a mix of a ritzy sorta country vacation feel to Sedona.  Touristy but not trashy and plastic-like.  Touristy more in the sense that this was a spiritual trip to experience a lot of art and enjoy the nature of the area.

We visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross that overlooks the valley. It is a magnificently simple building that, standing at its altar and looking out, ... I've never been to the holy land, but the stillness and the peace and tranquility that pervades the whole scene at the Chapel is a very moving experience. The building is so simple and magnificent, a giant concrete box built into the mountain with a long curving walkway leading up to the rear main level and full, building-height doors that humble you as you enter. And then there was the high pitched, two-part harmonized howling coming from our car and echoing off the canyon walls. Beautiful. But that cross... its sooo massive and imposing, built into the front wall of windows so it extends through both sides with a most impressive view of the valley. Its very impressive.

Then we took a hike out to Bell Rock, one of the supposed Vortex sites. For a nice December 23rd day, the sun was really warm and the worn down orange-dirt trails were screaming for mountian bikes, which we seen a lot of. Thankfully we packed a lot of water for the trek. Tanya has finally learned not to depend on me for her own water consumption. I packed a trail pack with food and bottles and a first aid kit, but I forgot to put it in the truck when we left Vegas. So all we had were Tanya's water pack and Reese's Xmas chocoates. We rounded Bell rock and explored its trails and climbed atop the gentle giant. Zuma, for his 12" height, is a mighty little trekking dog! He doesn't stop for anything, unless one of his pack starts lagging behind. He will always wait to make sure the last person is still coming or he'll go back to find you. Clancy is our forward scout and hardly ever looks back unless you tell him to wait.  

Bell Rock is supposed to be a tranquil spot with unusual spiritual energy, and it was tranquil and beautiful but the only energy that was ever-present was that of the tourists everywhere climbing and playing on the mountainside. Other than the incredible views at Bell rock, I can't say that the Vortex had any affect on my day or my perspective. It was just so nice to be out hiking with Tanya and the dogs, that was my ultimate satisfaction. But then, as has so often happened in our lifetime, my sense of adventure and direction once again led us astray and the hike ended up being much, much longer than expected. I figured there was a connecting loop, there wasn't. The only connecting loop was around another mountain, Courthouse Loop. 2hrs into the trek, we stopped to consult the internet (!!!). At that point, we found ourselves to be directly in the middle of the big loop, 2miles to go in either direction, and so we forged onward around Courthouse which was a much more rugged trail and the right decision. The change of landscape was awesome around that mountain, very harsh and frozen in the shadows, then around to the sunny side where the sun beat down on us, eventually winding out into great wide plains of golden grasses. What an awesome day! A 4 hour trek with the family that left us all winded and tanned and needing to sit for a while to recouperate.

That night we decided to go to an Irish Pub beside the hotel for a final capper to the weekend. There were only 4 people in the bar including us and one of the patrons was a cowboy who tipped his hat to us upon arrival to say hello with a big smile. He reminded me of one of the north shore boys up home. He left and said his goodbyes but then a short time later he came back into the place and made a beeline for us and asked me who I was, which was very strange but not unwelcomed. He said I looked like the type of guy who enjoyed a smoke every once in a while and dropped a christmas present into my palm. Wow! I can't even describe how much I appreciated that. What a great capper to 2012!

We left Sedona the next day with the threat of a snowstorm in Flagstaff, so for the first time in a long time, we had to actually tune in to a weather program to see what we'd run into at the top of the mountain. We knew we had to get out early to beat the storm, so we grabbed a quick breakfast on the way out of town and began our ascent into the mountains. So strange to go from the orange desert environment of Sedona into the winter wonderland of Flagstaff, what a dramatic change. We gassed up in Flagstaff and standing out alongside the car with the ice cold wind relentlessly whipping through my cotton pants, I was right back in Campbellton NB. We left winter behind over snowswept highways, through the mountains, back across the wide open plains, and down down into the sunshiney, dull, boring desertscape of Las Vegas. Home, our home away from home.

Thanks for reading!

TRJ

Vegas Adventures in the Fall

The Joneses at Red Rock

Howdy folks!  Its been awhile, sorry 'bout that.  Lots has been happening and I just haven't had a whole lotta time to sit and write.  We had company through our house for the entire month of August and into November which kept us busy, and November is the annual NaNoWriMo month (that is, National Novel Writing Month), an online challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  This is my third year doing the challenge, and my second failure!!  Dammit!  I got to 30,000 words and lost perspective and then got self conscious about not having found a job yet and all the other things I've been neglecting around the house, so that kind of knocked the air out of my writing balloon.

I really got into recording over October and November.  It started out as just a promised gift for some friends, but then the whole project turned into something bigger.  I ended up recording a collection of cover tunes for all the parentals and friends for christmas presents, plus I did another collection of all my own stuff that I just needed to get down and get off my plate.  I didn't think the covers and my tunes would work well together as an full album so I decided to do the two.  Its been a lot of work and a lot of fun.  And its made me want to learn more of those old country tunes that Frankie always wanted me to play for the Stokes' family parties, so I'm getting there folks.  I guess once you're over 40 your perspective changes a bit and you start looking back more and more.  I even pondered the idea of heading down to busk on the strip as the 'Naked Maritimer', a play on the 'Naked Cowboy' theme you might know from New York.  Only, the Naked Maritimer would be pronounced 'Nekkid', and have rubber boots, suspenders and rubber pants, a Sou'Wester hat, lots of scruff, a beer gut, and play country and maritime tunes!  Pretty much right up my alley!  Speakin' of beer guts, its finally pants season here in Vegas.  And wouldn't you know it, I came to find out that none of the pants I brought down here with me fit anymore!!  That friggin' sucks.  So I gotta go pants shoppin'... AND lose weight.  Tan's having a ball with that one.

Well, there have been many adventures with our guests over the past few months, so I'd like to give you a quick rundown of the Mountain Man's experiences.  Here we go!

First off, there's an Ice Bar here in Vegas.  If you're visiting and itching to go into a meat locker-turned-ice bar that is carved out to resemble an ice-cave, then you can go there.  And for a mere $18 you can get a 4oz special mixed drink served in a tiny ice-cup that you can't 'Cheers' with.  Never again.  That was only my first experience with the $18 dollar drink.  My second came at a bar downtown, after spending an excellent evening of drunken carousing with the Sackville girls, we made another liquor stop at the Walgreens drugstore to pick up some cheap sidewalk travellers.  We really had too much, I did anyway.  The 4 hard iced-teas I downed took a mean hold of me before I even got to the last bar, Diablos, and when the dude told me "$18" for two draft that was served up in plastic cups, I nearly shit myself.  I felt that icy cold surge of adrenaline pump into my veins that brings an absolute drunken clarity that always precedes something bad happening, which means its the end of my night and I have to go home or else.  One of the girls flipped me a 2for1 card and so it was only a $9 draft, but that was it for me.  Friggin' drugstore beers on the sidewalk are cheaper than drinking at the bars on the strip!  I abandoned the girls and cabbed it home for $30.

Nat and a random group of tourists!

One of the best adventures I've had on the strip so far was with my friends Nat and Dan, who were here on a hockey trip but also their honeymoon.  They had initially planned on getting married here but it didn't work out like that.  So Nat brought her dress to Vegas and got dressed up for a day of photoshooting around town with me as the photographer.  Now, this is something every lady should experience in their lifetime, totally wild and unexpected.  I could never have imagined that a bride would instill such a wild amount of attention from complete strangers!!  It was CRAZY!!!  As soon as we got out of the car at the 'Welcome to Vegas' sign (Elvis was there), groups of people started coming up to her to get their picture taken with her and the cars started honking.  Her dress was beautiful and Nat has such a vibrant personality that she just attracted it all.  She was in her glory!  Wherever she went, cars were honking, people were yelling and everyone was coming up to her and wishing her the best of luck and congratulations, whole tables at restaurants stopped eating and everyone clapped as she passed by, large families would gather around her to get their picture taken with her, and a man got his 18yr old son to pose for a prank photo.  All day long we walked and she beemed like she was queen for a day as people flocked to her like a magnet.  The bottom of her silk dress was blackened from sweeping the sidewalk all day but it didn't matter to her, she'd gotten her money's worth out of it.

The Hoover Dam

I also was out to the Hoover Dam for the first time.  What an incredible structure!  726 feet tall, 660 feet deep thick at its base.  There's 500 feet of water behind that wall.  We went on a tour right down into the belly of it.  Its amazing to think that a superstructure like this was built in 1935, to see all the wood grains in the walls from the framing of the concrete.  What an amazing piece of history and an engineering feat!

Wood-etched Concrete

On the way back we went on another photoshoot with our friends through the Valley of Fire and on the way our car passed over a Tarantula crossing the highway!  He was big, about the size of your hand.  I zipped the car around to go back and get a picture of him but I didn't get out in time.  Adam and I went to the side of the road to look for him but he was off into the scrub, no doubt watching US.  Apparently, we later found out, fall is the time of year when the great tarantula migration takes place across the desert, when the males set out in search of a mate.  We passed over another one shortly after that.  That's good to know, don't tent out in the desert in the fall.

Last thing I have to mention is my initiation into the sensual world of bellydancing.  We went out to eat at an authentic Moroccan restaurant called Marrakech (please check out this link).  Its a dimly lit place with low tables and your meal is served without utensils.  They wash your hands before you begin and bring you your meal in several courses, no menu, just a shared group meal.  The food was amazing.  The music, I don't remember where I picked up these tribal rhythms in my head, but it hit me when I was much younger and it engrained itself in my bones so it seemed somehow familiar.  So entrancing.  Every so often, the music would get louder and you knew the girl was coming out to do her show.  Then she'd appear, swirling out from behind a velvet curtain in a flash of glitz and long, flowing scarves, clicking her finger cymbals (zills) to the music and moving like a shimmering desert fantasy around the room.  She was all curves, a dark skinned beauty with a head full of black curly black hair, a fixed smile and dark, engaging eyes.  She worked the room and when she got to our table she keyed on me... she knew she had me.  I had slipped into a trance like state and was totally disarmed by her, then she swirled her way deep into my subconscious where she could toy with me however she pleased.  My gawd!!  She could see right through me, so erotic, like she and I were the only two people there.  She motioned for me to get up and dance with her and I could not resist.  I must have looked incredibly goofy with her because I don't really dance to begin with and when I do its ugly at best.  But here I am in the middle of a restaurant with people all around watching, doing whatever it is that I call dancing, and just aching to touch her and take her all in!  The girls at the table and all the other patrons got a good kick out of it and my ugly dance broke the ice in the room for others to get up to join the performers.  There were three performers on the night, and they were all incredible ladies, and they all keyed on me when they came around to our table.  They were all very talented dancers, very sexy, beautiful women.  Some of the older guys called the girls over to slip money in their waistbands, but I didn't.  I kinda thought that cheapened the experience.  They're not strippers.  And it interfered with the flow of their dance to have to stop and wait for some old guy to pay for a slight brush with her skin.  Maybe that's the thing to do though, I dunno.  There were other patrons, women who were obviously into bellydancing who got up with the performers to dance with them, and two girls dancing sexily with each other is always better than one!  The music, the moves, the body awareness, the subtle, sensual spinning of the fantasy, fantastic!  Boys, I tell ya, you should encourage your ladies to take up this art!  You will not be disappointed.

Vegas Snowball out at Red Rock!

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading.

TRJ