The Latest
Ask a Native
If you could erase a few things from Las Vegas’ skyline and return them to their pre-1990s boom state, what would they be?
April 19th, 2012
My dreamy Lost Vegas mix-tape includes the Desert Inn (now Wynn and Encore), where Frank Sinatra played and performed; the Sands (Venetian) and its lush pool oasis beneath the expansive glass windows of the 24-hour Garden Room Coffee Shop, and the Dunes (now Bellagio), home of the perfectly kitschy Dome of the Sea restaurant. Read more »
About Town
Exploring the Hemispheres
In Henderson, a fresh approach for special-needs kids
April 19th, 2012
As a parent of a special-needs child, the best way to cross a raging river is to have a vision of your child’s future on the other side. To get there, sometimes it feels like you need to walk on water, but most parents take action by juggling their kid to myriad after-school therapies: speech, occupational, visual tracking, sensory-motor and more. Just getting from one place to the next can be exhausting and demoralizing. But the new Brain Balance Achievement Center in Henderson offers all those therapies in one place, in one program, drug-free. Read more »
Green Felt Journal
The Man Behind The D
April 19th, 2012
Although the energy of Tony Hsieh and other non-gamers has helped fuel the transformation of downtown Las Vegas, a cadre of Fremont Street casino owners also deserve credit. Derek Stevens is prominent among them. Stevens is overseeing two downtown remodeling projects: the addition of a new high-roller gaming area and 16 suites to the historic Golden Gate (the building housed the city’s first hotel, which opened in 1906), and the transformation of Fitzgeralds into The D. Read more »
The Deal
Bloody Good
April 19th, 2012
Where’s the best Bloody Mary in Vegas? With hundreds of places to choose from, that’s a tough question to answer. Price, bar ambience and individual tastes all come into play—anyone for a bacon Bloody at the Double Down? I’ve certainly had some good ones at big price points in Las Vegas’ finer restaurants, but for me it always comes back to the deal. Read more »
Character Study
Animal Magnetism
April 19th, 2012
Tara Gearin grew up riding on her parents’ Christmas tree farm in eastern Oregon. It was her love of horses that sent her to Oregon State University on the pre-veterinary track. She’d planned to be a horse trainer when an oceanography course led to an even greater passion for sea creatures. But even with a degree, aquarium work is hard to come by without experience, so when Mandalay Bay’s Shark Reef had an opening for an education assistant in 2006, Gearin packed her bags for Las Vegas. Read more »
Social
Am I Blue?
April 19th, 2012
Bishop Gorman High School star Shabazz Muhammad announced live on ESPNU on April 11 that he would attend UCLA instead of Kentucky or Duke. Read more »
Site to See
Evergray
(InsideInsides.blogspot.com)
April 19th, 2012
Magnetic resonance imaging is creepy. It almost always spells out stress and worry; unlike colonoscopies, no one gets an MRI because they’re fun. Read more »
The Latest Thought
The Upside of Greenwashing
How a low-down, double-dealing dark art just might be raising our consciousness
April 19th, 2012
Green marketing purports to sell us products, but what it really sells is a more benign vision of the world—and of ourselves. It starts from the assumption that we know something is wrong with the way we’ve been living, proceeds to flatter us with the assumption that we care about fixing what’s wrong, and then proposes that we can fix it by buying the right stuff. Read more »
Vegas Tech
Not the Usual Bedtime Story
April 19th, 2012
As the Internet grows up, more things we once thought amazing have become ordinary or even antiquated. I was reminded of this in a recent conversation about a decidedly non-Internet topic: bedtime stories. Read more »
Labor Smackdown!
In an old-school unionization battle, the gloves come off. Why Station Casinos and the Culinary Union are fighting as if their lives depend on it.
April 12th, 2012
The Station Casinos ads aren’t pushing a product or a service, and they’re not burnishing the company’s name, at least not in the sense of a traditional image campaign. They’re asking you to take sides in a nasty labor battle between Station and the Culinary Union Local 226, which wants desperately to organize at the non-union Station properties. Read more »
