Vomit Comet photo log, day 4: Drive to Grand Canyon (2009/09/20)

0819h: On our way to pick up our rental car we walk past the Excalibur casino.  Even in the morning it's hot in Vegas.

0824h: Inside New York, New York casino.  An unusual clash of Greek styling and American consumerism.



0827h: Just like the Venetian contains a little Venice, New York, New York contains a little New York.

0832h: Rolf sleeps with some hookers.  These were just the discarded cards.  On most of The Strip there were Mexicans wearing shirts with "Girls to your door in 20 minutes" written on them trying to hand out cards to everyone who passed.  And I mean everyone.  Me, Lisa, the pregnant woman walking behind us, the grandma walking behind her.  Most of the cards had prices on them between $35 and $135.  Some had "2 girl specials" for $99.  Others said, "no hidden fees" which leads me to believe that most of these have extra fees.  I kinda expect hidden fees from Thrifty car rental and Rogers, but can't I buy a hooker without any hidden costs?  I mean other than herpes.

0837h: MGM Grand is the largest hotel in the world with over 5000 rooms!  Unlike most other casinos, it has no obvious theme.  When you are this big, you don't need a theme!  It's my favourite casino because it has game tables, like "Casino War", for people too chicken or unskilled to play "real" games.  At the War table, the house has no statistical advantage; the rules are simple enough for anyone to master in 30 seconds; and the minimum bet was only $10.

0901h: Bubble butt!

1432h: Panoramic view down the Hoover Dam (click it to get a bigger image).  You can see the construction of the new freeway bypass in the distance.  They decided to make the styling a little more unique to reduce the unsightliness in the view.  It was friggin' hot on the dam.  Somewhere around 42°C.  There are a couple washrooms scattered along the dam for tourists.  I would stop in each one and soak my hair in the sink to try to keep myself cool.

1438h: A statue on the West side of the dam; a monument to the workers that built the dam in the 1930s.

1630h:  This sign was in the tourist information centre in Kingman, AZ.  Right beside this sign was the "Anti Meth" Coalition sign.  It had fewer names on it.

1632h:  The entrance to the Route 66 museum.  It's normally $5 to enter, but since it closes at 1700h, and since it was completely empty, the old lady let us in for free.  The lady was older than most of the exhibits in the museum and had an oxygen tank behind her chair.

 

1636h:  This androgynous character used to pilot this "historic railroad ice cart" before Lisa stole it.

1637h:  The Grapes of Wrath done in mannequins.

1640h:  Creepy mannequins driving an old car.

1641h:  Ever wonder what people did to cool their cars before the invention of car air conditioners?  This is a wind-powered air conditioner.  I'm not exactly sure how it worked.  It may have just deflected some of the oncoming air into the car.  I doubt that it used the wind in any active cooling method.

1642h:  This mannequin is going to kill you.

1642h:  I had always thought that credit cards were a fairly recent invention, but apparently there used to be lots of types before the big 3 killed the rest.

1717h:  We leave Kingman and continue along route 66 towards our hotel for the night.

Vomit Comet photo log, day 3: The Vomit Comet (2009/09/19)

1251h: In a conference room at the Four Seasons hotel for our pre-flight orientation.  They split us up into 3 groups and each group had to wear a certain colour of sock: gold, silver or blue.  We were in the gold group.  Each group had a "team leader" which was an employee assigned to babysit us during our flight.  The socks allowed them to easily keep track of who was in their group.

1352h:  SWAG!  Socks, t-shirt, and now a flight suit!  It even came with its own vomit bag in a pocket.

1430h: Even Jesus would die quickly of exposure in this heat.  Las Vegas was 35°C or 37°C that afternoon, but the black tarmac combined with bright sun and no breeze raised the air temperature to over 50°C on the runway at the executive terminal of McCarran Airport.  The heat was smothering and gave me a massive headache.

1433h:  We were told not to take any photographs of anything other than our aircraft.  There were a bunch of private aircraft and some military jets we were not supposed to photograph.  We were in line to board the plane.

1433h:  Our aircraft was a 727 with some minor modifications.  Some you can see here: very few windows, rear entrance.  On
the way up the stairs we were very close to a lot of wiring and
tubing and lots of internal parts of the aircraft that passengers are not
normally exposed to.  Since the aircraft was sitting on the hot runway
with it's rear open, it got uncomfortably hot inside.

1437h:  You can see more differences here: There were only 6 rows of seats.  The front 75% of the aircraft had no seats and had a layer of padding covering all surfaces.  There were no overhead bins.  There were ropes along the side.

1516h: We sat for a half hour while they set up 6 video cameras and prepared for takeoff.

1523h:  Here we are.  The plane is the right altitude to start the parabolas.  We are just waiting for the notice of the first parabola.  This is the last photo I took before we got off the plane.  There was a professional photographer on board taking lots of photos.  As of the writing of this, I only have the low-resolution versions of the photos and none of them have time-stamps.

Here's another angle of us waiting for the first parabola.

If I look shocked in this photo it's because I AM!  It's very shocking to be floating around without your lifelong friend: gravity.

This is Moon gravity.  We both tried to do push-ups.  Lisa's tiny girl arms have no trouble with the reduced gravity and my massive muscles are so strong, just the act of doing a push-up throws me up into the air uncontrollably.

We were told not to jump and Lisa is learning why.  But you can totally do flying ninja kicks at moon gravity.

I think this was our last Moon parabola.  Most photos of me just look like I'm falling down.  You can see Lisa in the background here doing a flip.  Her hair was flaring in every direction like Medusa's snakes, and she was constantly laughing.  Laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing as she spun in the air.

Too many supermen.  The idea was that we would all push off and fly like superman.  But we timed it poorly and Lisa took off before the rest of us.  I got squished between her feet and some teenage girl who couldn't even fly straight.

Without gravity to keep things ordered, Lisa's hair looked like a peacock's tail.

Shortly before this photo was taken, Lisa and I tried to quickly crawl around the outside walls of the cabin.  If you move fast enough, your inertia will hold you against the wall.  You can see Lisa approaching the floor.  When I started, my feet quickly got away from me and I ended up standing on the ceiling.  You can see me there happily hanging around upside down.

In this photo, you can see Lisa and me in the background.  We were trying to dance, but I couldn't get Lisa to straighten her legs.  It was tough to get enough space for two people to completely stretch out without kicking someone in the face.

What you don't realize inside the bounds of normal gravity is that when you sit on something you have an enormous amount of potential energy stored in the elasticity of your butt, and the cushion it's on.  Remember, it's holding you up, which requires that the cushion push you the exact amount to counter your weight.  I weigh 160lbs, so when I'm lying on a cushion, it's pushing "up" with 160lbs of force.  When gravity is suddenly removed from the equation, the cushion continues to push you up with 160lbs of force until the cushion returns to it's normal shape.  This causes you to be thrown upwards at the beginning of a parabola.  Here's a shot of us hitting the ceiling because of that force.

Here's our attempt at a "space kiss".  The camera-man kept yelling at us to look at the camera.  It's awkward to kiss when you are both looking in the same direction.

Here's our group shot after our 16th parabola.  I'm the guy over at the left wall holding my mouth so I don't puke.

1861h:  On our way back to The Wild Wild West hotel, we passed by the Luxor casino.  It has a full-scale replica of the Great Sphinx of Giza and Khafra's pyramid.

1818h:  She was the oldest woman I've ever kissed.  Well, oldest cat-woman.  Wait, is it a woman?



1826h: One of the many sci-fi themed money-stealing machines.

Vomit Comet photo log, day 2: Las Vegas (2009/09/18)

1440h: After walking up to the Rio, we find the Rio Casino.

1442h: Giant, creepy, 20 foot head at the Rio. I'm guessing this androgynous head is what Duran Duran is singing to in their song "Rio". The eyes moved back and forth. (S)he is watching you!

1606h: After lunch, we find some penny slots in the Rio. I play poorly.

1708h: The lobby in the Venetian. I used to wonder why the societies of the past (Romans, Greek, Egyptians, etc) built giant, extravegant palaces and we did not. Then I spent some time in Vegas. These multi-billion dollar casinos are our pyramids/temples.

1717h: The trouble with tribbles is they take all my money! It's hard to play when Kirk keeps throwing tribbles at you. There were slot machines of all kinds in Vegas. Lots of them were Sci-Fi themed to get all the nerd money.

1725h: Lisa tries to win a car at some penny slots. We later realize that you have to make the maximum bet to win the car. We were making bets between 1¢ and 9¢, to win the car you had to bet $2.25.

1729h: We started a contest to see who could cash-out with the most money starting with a $1 cash-in. I'm in the lead with $1.05. The nice lady in the background with her ass hanging out is a "bevertainer". She spends some of her time delivering drinks, and some of her time table-dancing.

1731h: Lisa beats me with $1.06.

1737h: Lisa stays in the lead with $1.20.

1738h: Lisa darts ahead with a dolla-fiddy!

1742h: Lisa attains her maximum cash-out at $1.52. I still haven't beaten $1.05.

1748h: A ceiling at the Venetian. So much of the Venetian was very intricately decorated and painted. It's easy to see where the money went.

1749h: Rolf joins Blue Man Group but forgets his costume and drum at home.

1751h: This is the fake Venetian street inside the Venetian casino. It's an elaborate, long street with lots of shops and a fake, partly cloudy sky. The sky was just convincing enough to give me a slight headache -- my brain expected a certain parallax but because the sky was actually only 20 feet above my head, it got confused.

1753h: The fake Venetian street included a real canal with gondolas you could pay $20 to ride in.

1806h: The canal went all the way through the casino and ended out on Las Vegas Blvd.

1836h: Caesar's Palace was one of the largest complexes I've ever seen. It was ridiculously enormous; seemed to go on forever. One of the best examples of extravagance in the modern world. Someone told us about how people now come and ask for the Hangover suite. That "Villa" in the movie was just a set, although it was inspired by The Emporer's Suite in Caesar's Palace ($4000 to $5000/night).

1840h: Southbound view of The Strip from outside Caesar's Palace. Bally's, Paris & Planet Hollywood are visible.

1840h: Caesar visiting LV

1843h: Half lion, half bird, half woman, half metal boobies.

1855h: Lisa & I waiting for the Bellagio 1900h water show to start. It's been very hot all afternoon -- about 37°C. It's a little cooler near the giant, man made lake.

1900h: The water show starts. As soon as the water is thrown into the air, you can feel the air cool down a few degrees. Maybe down to 33°C which seemed very cool after an afternoon at 37°C. The show started off pretty tame. The water was dancing around with 10 foot jets. But as the show progressed, the water was shot up 40 or 50 feet into the air with popping sounds.

1910h: The 5/8ths size (541 foot tall) replica of the Eiffel tower at night.

1920h: This was the biggest slot machine we could find. I had to play it. Do you remember that game Lisa & I were playing trying to see how much we could cash out with only $1 cash in? After 1 play on this machine, I won the contest with a $2 cash-out.