Search Results for: didn't see that one coming

How Vegas Says Bang

The fact that I even heard that the Stardust was going to be demolished was, as usual, by shear luck. Bailey and her boyfriend, Shaun, were going to be in Vegas for a few days and we were going to go grab something to eat. She sent me a text message:

Do you know they are leveling a casino tonight

Me:

No! Really?!? Which one? We should go watch!

Response:

I know! The stardust at 230 am. We were warned we might lose our windows

That’s how I found out about the Stardust.

I headed out early so I get finish shooting some other lights on the strip before I headed up north to the Stardust. A funny thing happens when you walk around by yourself with a nicer looking camera and a nicer looking tripod: people ask you questions. Here I was, not even 3 days in Vegas and people already thought I wasn’t a tourist.

DSC_8777I started heading towards the Stardust around 1 am. I wanted to find a good spot. As I got closer, I could see the building lit up with fancy lights that moved around and changed colors. They were the kind of lights you might see in sets of three at the opening of a new store that shine a tower of light into the night sky.DSC_8789

I scoped out an area south of the building. All the media was setup there and people were all setup, lawns chairs and all. I continued walking north trying to find a few point that would be well lit, aesthetically pleasing, and unobstructed. I finally found a spot right in front of the Denny’s across from the Stardust.

There was an older gentleman next to be with somewhat curly flowing black hair. He wore jeans and a wool trench coat. He spent the entire time talking to his mom, who was standing next to him, recounting stories about such-and-such a party in this room, this-girlfriend in that room, who’s friends stayed in what suite, on and on. Did I mention he was drinking Miller Genuine Draft? He was. Quite a character.

About five minutes prior to 2:30am, a single firework went up.
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Everybody grew silent. It was a test, just to make sure the prevailing winds wouldn’t blow the fireworks right into our faces. There was an ever-so-slight breeze blowing toward us; other than that, it was pretty calm.

A few minutes after 2:30 am, the something that sounded like an air raid siren went of. The time was here at last! Glorious destruction!

Almost.

First, an exquisite fireworks show.

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The question I kept asking myself the entire time was, “How are they going to signify the start of the actual destruction?”

This was Vegas though, such foolish questions should not be asked.

After the main fireworks ended, a box of fireworks began to appear…
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…and then it all made sense!
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Despite the fact that it was past 2:30 in morning, the people started chanting. Seven! Six! The crowd became louder as the numbers became smaller. Five! Four! Three! Two!
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Everyone started screaming. It was loud, but it was about to get louder.

Like the lightning before the thunder, bright shimmers of red light flickered on each floor. Then the most deafening sound I’ve ever heard. We weren’t that far away to begin with, only a mere 200 meters or so. My best guess is that the sound wave was in excess of 140dB at the point I was standing.

And then she began to fall back to the ground from which she was erected
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Ashes to ashes, Stardust to dust. (I never promised no horrible puns)
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DSC_8876The real excitement was when the dust started coming towards us. Everyone decided they didn’t want to stick around for that and cleared out pretty quickly. It turned my camera around, snapped a quick shot and then zipped everything up. As I walked back towards Caesars, the dust cloud kept growing more dense. Everything became covered with a rather thick layer of dust. As I walked, my shoes left marks in dust. I thought about Mount Saint Helens exploding, walking on the Moon, or the destruction of the World Trade Centers. As I neared the Fashion Show Mall, horns were blaring. I wonder what the people who hadn’t know about the implosion were thinking?

I drew a bath and soaked for a while, listening to the latest headlines on CNN. Then I went to bed.

Update: Some of my photos were published.

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Website as Graph

This is cool! It takes a URL’s HTML code and converts it into a tree view and then color codes it. Here’s a snapshot of my page just before this post:
Andrew Ferguson dot NET1149214619623
and here’s the HTML tree:
Web Site Graph

From www.aharef.info:

Everyday, we look at dozens of websites. The structure of these websites is defined in HTML, the lingua franca for publishing information on the web. Your browser’s job is to render the HTML according to the specs (most of the time, at least). You can look at the code behind any website by selecting the “View source” tab somewhere in your browser’s menu.

HTML consists of so-called tags, like the A tag for links, IMG tag for images and so on. Since tags are nested in other tags, they are arranged in a hierarchical manner, and that hierarchy can be represented as a graph. I’ve written a little app that visualizes such a graph, and here are some screenshots of websites that I often look at.

I’ve used some color to indicate the most used tags in the following way:

blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

via MAKE: Blog

You can see the original HTML after the break
Read More »Website as Graph

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Why Mike Webb Was Fired

Around the beginning of the new year, I noticed something interesting while listening to KIRO 710 AM in Seattle, Erin Hart was filling in for Mike Webb, but she played her show intro music. Typically when a host goes on vacation, the person filling in plays the hosts intro song, not their own. Curious as to if Mike Webb had finally been dooced by KIRO, I check the KIRO website and sure enough, Mike Webb’s profile and show page were gone.

However, I didn’t know if Webb just up and quit or if KIRO finally said enough is enough and fired him. Well, I came across a little post from blatherWatch while Googling another KIRO host:

IF YOU WERE IN KANSAS FOR XMAS, maybe- or in a coma (or…Tacoma) you might not have heard that KIRO Talk host Mike Webb was fired in December after being arrested and charged for felony insurance fraud.

Very interesting. I did a bit more Googling, and came up with this from Northwest Progressive Institute:

In the interest of fairness to Mike (since we’ve been critical of him) his comments are reprinted below. Here’s his say:

If you think KIRO will get a progressive more assertive and accurate and challenging than me, think again. I literally put my life on the line by Coming Out on the air when we had no Will and Grace or Queer As Folk. I told the truth of my life to shocked listeners. At age 15, I was dodging billie clubs and rocks fighting to get stories of Vietnam War protests on the air at KMPX in San Francisco .. Probably when you were in diapers.

And about this thing called “journalism.” Someone told me it’s supposed to be where you get some facts to report. Like: I was not arrested. There was no bail. There was no jail. Someone neglected to include the police report where I was hit by a driver running a stop sign, but I guess that doesn’t matter.

That I shelled out a ton of money because somebody didn’t want to honor their deal. One thing there will be is vindication. If you think journalism – even advocacy journalism (which I strongly support) requires only to link to or reproduce the rantings of a “fake liberal” such as michael hood at blather watch who very “liberally” said I ordered a “BIG DICK” at Dick’s (how nice and “liberally” homophobic) and published a piece that said I should load my “gun, place it to my head, end it all, it’s over”, well maybe a little night school is in order. Another piece of “liberal” enlightenment.

Peace,
A Real Progressive, Mike Webb

The plot thickens. I dug deeper and finally found an article written by The Seattle Times:

Radio talk-show host Mike Webb has been charged with submitting fraudulent documents to get money from his insurance company after a June traffic accident.

Webb, who has a left-leaning evening radio program on KIRO-AM (710), allegedly produced a forged document indicating he bought a car-insurance policy from Geico before the June 28 accident, police say. The insurance company says Webb bought the policy online one day after the accident, according to charging papers filed in King County Superior Court.

Webb, who pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the charge of filing a fraudulent claim, denied he had forged the document.

He said he believes the charge is a mistake that may have originated from a clerical or electronic error on the insurance company’s part.

He also said that he and his lawyer, Bradley Marshall, are considering the possibility that somebody who “hates” his talk show may have hacked into his computer records. “We are looking into hacking. Some people will do anything to damage you,” said Webb, 50.

In addition, Webb said, he’s suspicious of the timing of the charge because he’s involved in a dispute with Seattle police.

Webb claims he was assaulted by an officer while he and the officer both were waiting in line at a Seattle fast-food restaurant in 2004. He said police made a settlement offer to him the day before the insurance-fraud charge was filed. Seattle police spokesman Rich Pruitt declined to comment because the case hasn’t been resolved.

The Times article goes on and introduces some interesting evidence, definitely worth a read. In the mean time, various personalities have been filling the time slot, I have a sneaking suspicion that Erin Hart will be getting seat in the end though as KIRO has moved the weekend’s “When Radio Was” from the 1am to 3am spot to the 10pm to 1am spot, which it actually used to be years ago.

So, that clears up somethings, although probably opens more doors than it closes. It will be interesting to see what final deal is with Webb.

[tags]mike webb, erin hart, kiro, 710, seattle, geico, seattle police department, radio[/tags]

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Peeved Off

I’m pretty agitated right now. It all began on Friday. This person I know, we’ll call “Pat”, remarked that s/he was going to see Warren Miller tonight. I asked if I could come and Pat said sure, but I’d have to get a ticket. So after the chem test I go online get a ticket. Pat pops up online and I inquire about the plans for Warren Miller. Pat decides that “I’ll be honest, I’m not crazy about you coming on a date with us.”

Ok.

Me: “i was under then impression that I could get a ride with you guys, did misinterpret that?”

Pat: “well, yes. I didn’t think you were actually serious about going. I do apologize. But, I think you’d have more fun if you went with someone else.”

Ugh.

So I spent some time seeing if someone else wanted to go. Um yea. Last minute on a Sunday night when everyone is doing homework. I would probably have a better chance of winning the lottery.

Fucking shit. Why do people flake out on other people like this?? I wouldn’t mind as much if it was something small (read as: I haven’t invested money or significant amounts of time into it), but when I have over $20 riding on plans I made three fucking days ago. Not okay.

I hate doing it, but as a last resort I’m borrowing Ben’s car (thank you so much Ben, you rock and now I owe you…or something like that).

I just need to vent.

Pat: “Well, just use someone elses car. It’s just boulder.”
Yes, it just Boulder, only a half hour each way and $7 in gas.

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