Yes, it's me.
Superbowl Sunday was a great day for us – we watched the game at the Venetian where they suspend 10 foot screens with four viewing sides from the ceiling of a huge ballroom with probably 600 seats around big round tables. In the middle of the tables was candy bars and small bags of chips, plus tables around the outside of the room with more chip bags and popcorn and candy bars in case there was one particular brand you were looking for. Mr. Troutbend was happy because there was scoopable ice cream, but he’d have been as happy with ice cream bars, as long as it was cold and creamy. There was a taco bar/nacho bar and hot dogs, plus a couple of guys on each corner of the room were handing out your choice of Italian Meatball and Philly Steak Sandwiches and Italian Subs. There really wasn’t time to sample everything, and there weren’t any healthy choices – I was expecting celery and carrot sticks, but no. I did come home with a couple of bags of Apple Chips – like potato chips made from apple slices.

Gary missed the very end of the game because he had to go bowl – he missed the miracle pass where Eli escaped from the clutches to throw the pass that the other guy caught on his helmet. My cousin in England stayed up until 3 am to watch the game, but he had to go on the Internet to see our commercials. Everyone watching in that huge room with us was as interested in the commercials as the game, literally holding their breath waiting for the punch lines.

Here’s the sandwich guys in the corner with the red marquee, plus you can see the screen up above.


The people sitting next to me were from Maryland, but I didn’t get a chance to ask them what part. They flew out of Baltimore and had stayed at a hotel near the airport the night before, so maybe they were coming from the west part of the state. He retired from Lockheed-Martin (where Mr. Troutbend also worked in a different division for 26 years) where he worked on missiles deployed from ships for defense systems. He said the retiree health insurance was too expensive so they are using his wife’s coverage as she retired from working for the state of Maryland. The wife won a $90,000 jackpot in 2007 and we talked about the issues that come with that and big-time gambling in general.

See the end of that rainbow? That is exactly where our house is; so it surely must be a pot of gold. If you look at Google Earth or one of the mapping programs, our street is the only perfect rectangle off of west Cheyenne Blvd in northwest Las Vegas – you can probably almost see it from space. Notice how the world reflects in the Trump tower – the ground versus the sky. At night, the brightly-colored lights from the strip reflect in the earth part, and it looks transparent because there are twinkling lights around and behind it, too.