The Flamingo Las Vegas

Good morning.
As I said previously,  we were in Las Vegas for my 60th birthday.
We left Lansing late Wed. afternoon for Detroit, where we spent the night at a Clarion Hotel near the airport. Because we were taking the rest of the week off work, we worked an unusual Tuesday, besides Wednesday. The Clarion had free shuttle service to and from the airport. and free parking while we were gone.
Thursday morning, we flew to Vegas, arriving in the early afternoon. We flew Spirit Airlines and the plane was packed! Not one empty seat. We were glad we paid extra for exit row seats.
After picking up our luggage, we caught a cab, and went to our hotel. We stayed at the Flamingo, right in the middle of the strip. This is now one of the older hotels on the strip. It use to be called The Flamingo Hilton, but now it's just The Flamingo. It's now owned by the Caesars hotel group, which owns several other properties on the strip. It's now considered a mid priced hotel. They have recently upgraded the rooms. Some as what they call Fab Deluxe. And others what they call Go Deluxe. We went with the Go rooms because they were remodeled where as the Fab rooms were just redecorated.
Here's our room....

Frosted doors on the closet, and frosted sliding door on the bathroom.

I liked the TV in the mirror while I was getting ready for the day.

It was a very nice room.
I was surprised that being a Thursday afternoon, when we got to the hotel, there was a ridiculously long check-in line. 2 pm on a Thursday? Where did all these people come from?
Fortunately, we have a Harrah's players card that got us into a shorter line and waited on fairly quickly.
Heading out onto the strip, we discovered the place was packed! It's been over 10 years since we were in Vegas, and with all the newer hotel resorts they've built, it's just one big crowd all the time! We went over to Margarita-ville at one end of our hotel for an early dinner, since it was 6pm back in Michigan, and that place was packed also. But found a table and had very good food.
Did a little slot playing that afternoon, before retiring back to the room. We had a busy weekend planned and I'll share more of that when I get some more time.
Now it's time for a very busy work week, since we were gone for a few extra days.

Vegas baby!

Just a quick note.
Just returned home from my big 60th birthday trip to Las Vegas!
No...I didn't win enough to retire.  :-(
But....I did have a great time!
I'll tell you more when I get a chance.

termite update

Good morning.
I can't believe I haven't posted since last Friday!
Oh well.
It rained most of the weekend, so not much done then.
Now it's back to work for another very busy week.
In other news...
Rose Pest Solutions came out and checked the bait stations. It was suppose to be a month, but somehow got scheduled a week early.  They found termites in 4 of the stations. All on the side of the house where the infestation was. I was happy they found them so soon. I was hoping for even just one.
That means the beginning of the end for them. How soon? It all depends on a number of factors. How many termites in the nest. What other food sources they are also eating, and how soon the ground gets to cold.
And I've seen a couple of spots inside the house become active again. The tech said that was normal, as when they found the new sources of food, they pulled termites out of the house to go there. But once they have enough feeding at those sites, they'll send excess workers back to other feeding sites. Once the bait starts working and some start dying, they should pull out the rest to go feed on the bait, since they will prefer the bait over my house. It's just a slow process, but it will work.
Now you all know I'm not a very patient person, so this whole thing has been unsettling, but I'm trying to be positive about it all.
Anyway, time to go..

cautiously optimistic

Good morning.
It's been a crazy busy week in the Salon, and I booked today and tomorrow also.
And I'm cautiously optimistic about our termite issue.
It's been 2 1/2 weeks since the bait stations were installed. After about a week, I noticed a definite decrease in termite activity.  4 days ago, I removed all traces of the mud stuff they were pushing out the cracks, and as of today, still no signs. It's like they've all just left.
And that's why the installer didn't want to put the bait inside. He said when they find the bait, they will like it sooo much, that they may even pull termites from the house to send to the better stuff.
Termites, he said, prefer wet, rotting wood. If none is available, they will eat any wood. The reason we saw them around the windows, is when they found a way into the house, they weren't crazy about the hard, dry 2x4s in the walls, and soon found the softer wood the windows are made of. Well Dow, through research, created this bait that termites like 4 times better than wood.
Soooo, I'm cautiously optimistic, that they found the bait, told all their friends, and soon they'll be all DEAD!
We won't know for sure until they come out and check the bait stations. That's in another week and a half.
So cross your fingers and hope what I'm seeing is the end of the little bastards.
Now I'm off to work.

weekend in review

Good morning.
It was a busy beautiful Monday and Tuesday, and I was busy!  :-)
Sunday, did some indoor cleaning and spent the rest of the time on the puter.
Monday and Tuesday, we did our usual running and at home I started cutting down the flower beds. I believe I'm about half way done in just the two days.
Tuesday morning, while I was on the puter, I heard a crash outside the window. Peaked out the blinds to see my portable gas grill knocked over and had fallen off the table. Didn't see anything, but figured it must have been a raccoon, since we had just grilled chicken the night before. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, I hear something outside the window. I peek through the blinds to see a small raccoon on the windowsill, working on trying to eat my grill scraper brush.  Then it climbed down and into the grill that had opened when it fell. As daylight approached, I discovered that the gas regulator had snapped off from the fall. So while we were out that morning, I tried to buy one at Lowe's where we originally bought the grill. Of course, they didn't have the part, nor even the grill anymore. It has been 8 years since we bought it for the mo-ho.
So back home, online I went. I found the part on 3 different sites, but including shipping they all wanted $35. I only paid $46 for the grill originally. Finally, after much searching, found a site for $24 with free shipping. Should have it by the end of the week.
And Craig tried a couple of new recipes this past weekend, and since I'm to lazy to post them on Cooking with Craig, I'll just post a link to site Craig got them from.

 Parmesan glazed acorn squash

Slow-cooker barbecue beef brisket

They were both very good!
And with that, time to get ready for a very busy week in the Salon. I start early today, 8:30, and will be there until 6:30.  I'm getting to old for these hours.  :-)