Turnstile Travels

I attempted to go to "the strip" one night, but it didn't work out so well. Basically, I walked the wrong direction and ended up walking briskly for two hours. Dodging ashes from Grannys' cigarettes wasn't exactly my idea of fun.

I really didn't have much of a desire to go back down there, but I decided I had to ride the roller coasters, at least. Plus, I hear there's some servo-controlled fountains down there, so I must see those as well. (Yeah, yeah... Make fun of me. But hey, when was the last time you saw a robotic garden hose? Yeah... See???... No, you don't see... Ok, I'll go back to my corner.)

After discovering I could be walking for hours, I decided to buy a day pass for the monorail. The monorail basically travels the length of the strip and is completely automated, as far as I could tell. To get to the monorail loading platform, you have to put your ticket in an automated turnstile. Once you do that, it opens up and you're free to pass.

George was curious, but Ben was even more curious. "What keeps people from getting through without a pass?" thought Ben. There were no attendants. Ben walked up to the turnstile gate and nothing happened. Discouraged, Ben put his pass in the big machine and the gates opened. Suddenly, an alarm started up, and Ben realized he had tricked the machine into thinking that two people had gone through with one pass. After a few seconds, the alarm stopped, and Ben jumped up and down for joy. "I'm SO cleaver!" thought Ben. "I tricked the big, nasty machine!"

On his way out, Ben discovered he had to go through a different set of turnstiles. Unlike those he used to get in, Ben found that these turnstiles didn't require a ticket to open. Ben walked up to the gate, and it opened. Ben walked through, but he was curious. "What keeps people from walking the wrong way?" Ben reached over to the adjacent turnstile and put his arm in the exit gate. Suddenly, the alarm started going off again! "I'm SO cleaver!" though Ben. "I tricked the big, nasty machine into thinking I was going in instead of out!" Ben became so excited that he started setting off the alarm over and over, but he suddenly discovered something strange. If he set the alarm off before it stopped, the alarm sound would play on top of itself... "This can only mean one thing," Ben scowled defiantly. "Some idiots put single-board computers running Windows XP in every turnstile!"

Ok, so it wasn't that dramatic and I'm not cleaver. It was just surprising to me that someone would install a single-board computer in each turnstile when a simple Rabbit microcontroller would have sufficed.

And, yeah... I did feel a little embarrassed. The first alarm incident was accidental. The second... well, I didn't think anyone was around until I saw an employee staring at me and giving me a look that seemed to be indicative of his low esteem for my mental constitution (well, at least he got that right!) while I danced around the turnstiles like a monkey. I looked the employee straight in the face and exclaimed, "Don't take candy from babies!" and walked off. To tell you the truth, I was in a shady area of town and being alone and in a deserted area, I wanted an escort, so getting the police to trail me really was my goal.

Ok, ok... So the story got a little embellished. Gotta keep it interesting! Most of that was made up, and all I discovered was they're probably using Single Board Computers (SBC's) in their turnstiles. :-)

Grocery Stores in Nevada

Requirements to owning a grocery store close to Las Vegas:

1) You must place slot machines near the front entrance.
2) You must have a good speaker system.
3) You must blare heavy metal over the speakers.
4) You must have a very grumpy clientele.
5) You must charge $4/lb for ground beef.
6) You may not put up a store directory.
7) You must have at least one isle for beer and wine.

Other than that, the only funny thing is that the grocery store next to me (equivalent of King Snoopers) has a recorded "mooing" sound that comes from the little room with windows where they cut up meat behind the meat freezers. Seems a little graphic since the recording stops abruptly. (Mooh! Mooh. Mooh? Mooooooo\) :-)

“You’re right! How dare he use up my “Me” time talking about God!”

I love that comment. Nathan made it in response to someone complaining to him about how long the sermon was. It's kind of a convicting response, but at the same time, it’s absurdly funny.

Wow… at this rate, I won’t ever have time to post on my blog. It took me three and a half hours to make/eat dinner, make lunch and breakfast for tomorrow, and catch up on my email and blog comments.

I’m debating about what to talk about tonight. I have the following topics upcoming: the church I visited, Vegas, the rides in Vegas, more rides at Knott's Berry farm, work, and random rants.

I think I’ll pick “church” for tonight.

When I learned I was going to be down here in Henderson, Nevada for three months, I decided to look for a church to visit. After some looking around on the Internet, I found that there are a myriad of churches down here. A good number of them seem to be LDS (Mormon), but there were still quite a few candidates. I didn’t really have any interest in going to a church where you are reminded of morals you knew at the age of three every week, so it took me a while to sort though everything. I finally found one that looked promising and headed out to Sunday school.

When I got there, I parked in a Visitor place (after all, I was a visitor :-) and got out of my car. I don’t know how much “church shopping” you all have done, but the first fifteen minutes are always really awkward. You don’t know where to go, you don’t know anyone, everyone stares at you, etc. I decided to bite the bullet, so I walked up to a guy and asked him where to go. He directed me to the adult Sunday school class, so I headed into the building and sat down.

I gathered that a lot of the people were there as part of the “outreach ministry,” so I kind of expected the standard health and wealth gospel of “be good and you will be blessed, have a full life, etc., etc.” My initial hypothesis was quickly discarded when I received the notes for the class and read the title: “The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689; Of Adoption – Chapter 12.” “Oookay,” I thought to myself. “I shall learn something.”

Throughout the lesson, I was kind of surprised to hear some of the same phrases Pastor Culver frequently uses. Although the lesson wasn’t as in depth as I was used to, I still learned a lot and was glad I went.

After Sunday school, I headed over to the sanctuary for the morning service. On the way from Sunday school to the sanctuary, the congregation more than quadrupled in size. As it turned out, a lot of the people in the Sunday school class had a rather large family to go with them, so there were quite a few people in the church service. I also quickly realized that most, if not all, of the families were home schooled.

The sermon was, surprisingly enough, a week out of their Sermon on the Mount series. They had just started the beatitudes and were studying verse 4 that week. My first thought was, “Ok, now I get the light, “Here’s how to be good” treatment.” I was surprised when some of the first words out of the pastor’s mouth were, “Now as you remember, the beatitudes are characteristics of those who are of the kingdom of God -- a description of those who are of the kingdom.” His treatment of the Sermon on the Mount wasn’t quite as in-depth as Pastor Culver’s “light treatment,” but it was still really good.

After church, they had a potluck to which I was invited. Some new members were joining the church that week, thus the special occasion. I stayed and enjoyed spending some time with the kids. There were times I had a really hard time not laughing. Hearing kids comparing their food allergies and helping each other figure out what desserts they could eat based on their allergies was really funny. Another thing that cracked me up was the response I got when I asked a young girl if they had a big family. “Well… no… There’re only six of us including my mom and my dad.” You don’t expect to hear young kids talking about their diet, schoolwork, etc, but after being quizzed by my youngest brother, Jacob, on how church was, what the sermon was about, and what the overall thesis of the study was, I’m beginning to think kids can think on a lot higher level than most people give them credit for. Jacob can interact with Pastor Culver’s sermons at a deep enough level to ask meaningful questions about another pastor’s sermon that most adults would call, “too deep” and “too long.”

It was quite a pleasant day for me. The people of this church body, much like SGCC, seemed to be united in Christ, not in externals. Consequently, they were a close-knit body, and they all served to build each other up into Him who is the Head. It's always cool to see the body function as it should, and I felt quite blessed to be with the body of Christ even at such a great distance from home.

Ice Cream

Ben is eating ice cream with a fork since all of this other utinsels are in the dish washer.
-- Ben's Immaginary Friend

TV

Told you I had a TV AND DVD player!

Not bad for $40/night, eh? (Government rate over 20 nights)

Food

The land of Foodaround. Made for one guest and his/her immaginary friend.


(And no, I'm not that tall.)

Couch

The land of Sitdown. I'm guessing the hotel designer intended this suite to be used as a stage for a sitcom.

Bed

The land of Snoredom... brought to you by a king-sized bed and a computer.

FOOD!

Here's my mini "kitchen" :-)


I have two dinner plates, to salad plates, to bowls, two forks, two spoons, one butter knife one coffee cup, one serving spoon, about three frying pans, and about four sauce pans. I think they intend for you to eat out of the pans in your hands.

Since the time this picture was taken, I put things away, and someone stole my trash.

SUN!

See? No snow.

Dinner!

Dinner was a little humorous tonight as you can well imagine. Not only did I use bagged salad in place of lettuce, but my imaginary friend came up with a new joke! (He's posing in the adjacent chair.)
I'm not sure why I keep posting pictures like this...

Oh, and by the way, for those of you who wish to envy my current location, it's like 64 out right now... No snow.

Knott’s Berry Farm

After visiting the NAAM convention, I decided it was time to discover myself, so I went to Knott’s Berry Farm. (Ok, so I went to ride rides, not discover myself. :-) The rides I went on was really amazing… I had been told that the reason Colorado doesn’t have the big rides other places do is because Colorado has a lot thinner atmosphere and therefore people black out a lot easier. I’m leaning more for Denver can’t support multi-million dollar coasters, but who knows.

After eating a Burger King lunch, I headed over to the park… or, rather, I followed my GPS to the park. Anaheim is weird because it's setup for its amusement parks. Disneyland has its own short highway. Knott’s… well, it just has its own road.

Once I finally found a parking place, I started looking for the main gate while staring in awe at their huge wooden rollercoaster. The atmosphere is not at all like Elitches. The parking lot and front entrance actually feel like White Fence Farm. There’re tons of little restaurants and shops outside the park… so many that I couldn’t find the park entrance, so I finally asked an employee. Turns out I was on the wrong side of the park but whatever. I’m starting to get used to being lost.

I bought a ticket… I felt kind of dumb paying tourist prices for an amusement park, but… I guess I was a tourist. I felt really dumb when Abb easily found a $10 off coupon online. On top of that, I got there late, so it was $50 for 6 hours of rides... Ouch. Turns out the lines were really short, so even though I got there late, I was ready to leave an hour before the park closed. I basically didn’t have to wait in a line for more than a few minutes.

I walked into the park and started wondering if I had actually paid for an amusement park… as in a park in which you watch skits, go shop, and be amused. Knott’s is very, very themed, and it was kind of a shock to find that most the operators had to wear costumes. The ride operators sat in a glass-enclosed room while two or more employees loaded and unloaded rides. Contrary to the way Elitches operates, the employee’s goal was to move people through, not make you wait forever while they slowly shuffle back and forth, doing their absurd safety checks, and waiting to go home. In a way, Knott's Berry Farm felt like I was at Disney Land as they spent money on stuff that really mattered. It was amazingly clean, and instead of spending money on dumb things like blasting stock-music everywhere in the park (Elitches), they spent their money improving the park… even things as simple as using exhaust mufflers on air brakes can go a long ways for improving the experience.

The first ride I went on was called “Silver Bullet.”

It’s a suspended rollercoaster with two trains, each containing 8 rows x 4 people. No wonder the lines were short. Moving 64 people through for each complete ride makes a big difference. I decided to wait for the front car since it was the first big roller coaster of my life. I was amazed how silent and smooth the coaster moved. It didn’t rattle your brain to pieces, and the breaks didn’t make your eyeballs fall out of their sockets or blow out your eardrums. Turns out the coaster tracks and supports are filled with sand. The breaks are all magnetic. Check out the video for proof: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogbZnxqwa8o) See? You can hear the people above the noise of the coaster and there are no groans when the breaks are applied. I think I’m getting too old for rides like these because I could only take it a few times.

Next, I had to try out the big wooden roller coaster.
Someone on the Silver Bullet told me they thought it was the longest wooden roller coaster in the western U.S. Wow… Talk about FUN and SMOOTH. I don’t know how Knott’s did it, but their big coasters are extremely smooth. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKovrcmIj0) The ride was just really fun and I think I rode it about five times. The hill right after 1:50 in the video forced me to laugh every time… just too fun. (I’m normally silent and relaxed on rides.) After my first ride, I decided to try the back of the coaster. WOW! Talk about intense. You know the effect people refer to as “the back goes faster than the front?” Well… The trains on this coaster are so long that they whip you down hills at incredible speeds. REALLY fun!

Time for another coaster. The Xcelerator is AMAZING.

This movie doesn’t do it justice, but it’s hard to find "point-of-view" videos of this coaster… (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mW7cAf-uRA&feature=related) I don’t know how you’d hold a camera while riding this. The first hill is 205ft tall… You go up that at 82mph at 2.3 seconds into the ride. Then you go straight down at 90 degrees. It was SO much fun and the first coaster I’ve been scared on for a long time. Getting on that thing is as scary as getting on the tower of doom. A $13 million coaster is really fun :-)

Anyway, those were the highlights. I may post about some of the other rides if there’s enough interest.

Knott’s was really fun, but I kind of felt guilty the whole time… I was doing stuff that a lot of people I know (mainly my family) would love to do. I had a blast, but it would have been even more fun to have been there with someone.

Next up: Comments on the church I’ve visiting tomorrow, my trip to “the strip” (not all that fun and mainly just sad), and riding the “Tower of Doom” that forms the “needle” of the Stratosphere:

Dinner

Grilled roast beef and pepper jack, a pear, salad, and grapefruit juice... (The picture was taken before I swapped out the water for grapefruit juice.)

More on NAAM

After seeing a lot in the main convention center, I headed over to Yamaha’s display… it filled up an entire convention hall in the nearby Marriot. I met Mr. and Mrs. Downs. They showed me around the place and told me which demos to make sure and see.

First, I saw the Downs' presentation of the new Disclavier. I was amazed with their presentation. It was so smooth and intresting while at the same time it maintained a wonderful scope. It was really cool to see and was the first presentation I didn't get bored through. Mrs. Downs is a very talented musician and I always thoroughly enjoy hearing her play. Here’s a sample from a show she did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we3uTrakD7s

Next, Mrs. Downs told me I had to see the demo of the new Tyros3 keyboard. It was played by the very talented stylist from England who modeled the voices. You can see his demonstration online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vZauXFY1_c&eurl=http://www.music-tyros.com/en/movies/index.html. (Once you get past the long introduction, he explains some of the features.)

The last show I saw was presenting the AvantGrand. It’s a digital piano that’s supposed to have the look, feel, and sound of a concert grand. I was quite impressed with it. I don’t play piano, so I don’t know how it felt, but it sounded just like a real piano… well… there were a couple places it almost sounded like a sythasizer, but for the most part, it was quite impressive. I believe it contains 12 speakers and 2 transducers. The transducers are used to vibrate the piano so it “feels” just the same. It sounded a whole lot better in person than it does on their demo video. (http://www.avant-grand.com/)

Mrs. Downs talked to some people and let me try a stick-cello! (http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/CDA/ContentDetail/ModelSeriesDetail/0,,CNTID%25253D5014337%252526CTID%25253D232400,00.html) It was kind of weird. To me, it sounded like a cheap cello, but it didn’t have any wolf notes. The entire G-string seemed to be a sweet spot, so that was kind of annoying. It was fun and would be great for practicing, but unless you were playing something like a quartet version of Coldplay, I doubt you’d want one.

I saw a ton of other things including the new LED stage lighting, green laser shows, cool connectors, really expensive microphones, some famous pop-stars, some famous bands, etc. but unless you want to read five pages of text, I think I should stop here. And, no, I didn't want to wait in the line to get autographs of people I only recognized the name of... Now, if I could sell it on eBay, that might be a different story :-)

After the show, the Downs very kindly offered to bring me out to dinner. It was a blast, and not having eaten with anyone but myself in a week, it was a very welcome reprieve. I was going to drive everyone to the restaurant… but… well… it’s a long story.

First, Mr. Downs asked me where I was parked. I didn’t know the name of the lot, but I knew which bus went to it. Well… the bus wasn’t there, so I told them I thought it was basically on the other side of the block. Mr. Downs said he knew of a short-cut, so we started walking there… Well… we walked to the other side of the block and there was no parking garage in sight. After humming and hawing for a long while, I got the brilliant idea of calling home to ask someone to look it up. Kellie kindly told me where to go, so we walked another city block and saw it… on the other side of a busy rode. That meant a long jog to an intersection and back. When we got to the garage, I was sure I knew where my car was, but when we got to the 3rd level, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I then realized the parking garage was divided into two, sub-garages and we were in the wrong half, so we all walked to the other end of the rather large parking garage. No car there, either. I then realized we had gone up a level while walking to the other end, so we had to go back down a level. STILL no car. The fact that I was embarrassed wasn’t allowing me to think clearly, either :-) I finally told the Downs to wait there and I’d go look for it. After running all the way across the parking garage and back, I found my car… right where I left the Downs standing. It was a rather embarrassing half hour of walking, but the Downs were really nice about it :-) Mr. Downs seems to know the city inside-out, so he was able to get us away from traffic and to our restaurant. (See? I know how to spell it! THANKS!) Anyway, the dinner was really good and I really enjoyed spending some time with the Downs. They’re an extremely nice couple and it was nice to be with someone, let alone someone from our church, for once :-) (I didn’t think I’d get tired of being by myself after the first week!) After dropping the Downs off at their hotel, I went to my hotel room, fat and happy.

Oh, I learned something new tonight – wash your new dishcloths before you use them and they work a whole lot better. I think Mom’s told me that before, but I’d never really been in the market for dishcloths until now.

I got more GRAPEFUIT JUICE tonight! YUM! No artichokes, though. It’s sad how such a great food has such a small corner of the store freezer. It should be the center of the store! The pinnacle of food! The icon of grocery stores! Ok, I'll go back to my padded cell.

Stay tuned for Knott’s Berry Farm!