Ogii writing Christmas letters sent with chocolate-covered macademia nuts.
We bought a few new rolls of wrapping paper from Costco.
It's double-sided and very thick.
We used up all of an older one, which we used as a funnel to water the tree.
I bought these new shoes at a thrift store. They seem to be brand new, but they squeak a lot when I walk.
Apparently it happens a lot with Adidas. New insoles or baby powder are a few solutions.
As is putting a dryer sheet under the sole. This worked.
Our building had a little Christmas party.
With food.
Drinks.
And Santa.
These sweet potato and taro chips are very expensive for a little bag.
The vacuum cleaner wasn't working and this filter light came on. It's a $600 vacuum, so if I can't fix it, I'll have to take it to a vacuum repair store.
Checking Google.
Time to take the vacuum apart piece by piece to see where the obstruction is.
Still doesn't work, so it's not the head piece.
Now it works, so it must be in the long tube.
Yep, a big chunk of Christmas tree needles.
Easy fix.
Pretty sunset.
Ogii noticed the door for the 21st was double and larger when she pulled it off to get the chocolate behind it. Except she had actually pulled off the 24th, the last one.
The airport has all three types of charging plugs here; I like that.
It's very cold outside the airplane.
There are slot machines right out of the gate in the Las Vegas airport.
And an enclosed section for smoking.
The taxi area is just outside of the airport.
But the ride share pickup is a bit of a walk.
Over here.
Some employees ensure you wait on this side until your vehicle arrives; then you can walk over to the other side.
Our first driver went to terminal 1, even though I indicated terminal 3 in the app. Then he stayed there and didn't answer any messages, so I canceled that one and ordered another one, which we had to wait a bit more for. Maybe we should have taken a taxi instead.
The Sphere with Christmas presents.
The registration line is rather long.
But some self-service kiosks are open; those are much faster.
We got a room at Planet Hollywood.
Nice bathroom.
A tub and a shower.
Not too much of a view, and the window is quite dirty.
A few people dressed up for Christmas.
Crossing the strip.
To the Cosmopolitan, which had this nice lounge area.
We met Kat and Kendra there, then went to South Point to meet Lance and Sarah to play in the 6:05pm poker tournament.
There were a lot of players.
Lance, Kat, and Ogii were at the same table, Kendra was behind them, and then Sarah and I were on separate tables.
Lance made his flush against Ogii's aces.
You could hear the music from this musician just around the corner.
Grabbing dinner from one of the many restaurants in the casino.
All-in preflop, and his 88 beat my 77; he even made quads, just to make sure.
We all got knocked out around 30th place.
They pay 15th place, so we would have had a bit of a ways to go.
First place is $1,700.
Beautiful stained-glass.
We don't play slots, but Ogii likes to press on them to see if there is an animation.
The trees in the parking lot are lit up.
A sculpture back at Cosmo, Connected by Kasey McMahon.
Back across the strip.
I like the super-tall drink far to the left. There's nothing I would want to drink that much of, though.
There's an ABC Store in Planet Hollywood.
It has all of the same stuff the ones in Hawaii do. Good to know; if we come back, we don't need to bring these with us.
The view from our room during the day.
One of the pictures in our room.
I really like this one on the tiles of the bathtub.
On the wall outside.
Wavy fire at Gordon Ramsay Burger.
Paris.
The High Roller, a huge Ferris wheel.
Caesars Palace.
Seems very opulent.
Engravings. Of course, with a scooter in front of one.
David.
Famous visitors.
Brunch at Bacchanal Buffet.
No line.
Lots of food.
Pork.
Bread.
Cheese.
Pizza.
Mexican.
Breakfast.
Meat.
Crab legs.
Seafood.
More meat.
Desserts.
Mochi donuts.
More desserts.
More.
Freshly-baked cookies.
Finally ready to eat after collecting all of our food.
What we picked.
And a birthday dessert tray for Kendra.
I'm not sure that we can finish it off after all of the other food.
Walking through Venetian; the Peter Lik gallery is still there.
To the Sphere.
A stained-glass pattern.
Us in front of it.
A bit of a line to get in, but it moved quickly.
Inside. We overheard some Mongolians talking on the walk over, so Ogii chatted with them. Two of them lived here and weren't going to the sphere, but two of them were visitors and were going to the Sphere. The visitors didn't speak any English, though, so we had them come with us so Ogii could explain what was going on to them.
There were a few different robots.
They spoke about different things. This one was in front of directional speakers, so you only heard the sound from each speaker if you stood in the light directly in front of the speaker.
A hologram screen.
With changing images.
Us by another robot.
This one answered questions from the audience.
A few clips of the robots.
Then we went into the dome theater to watch Postcards From Earth. The screen started small.
But then filled the dome.
It was very neat to watch.
All done.
The four of us.
Back through the Venetian, with a quick stop at the Love sculpture for a picture.
Then out to Area 15, which has a few different venues.
Including Meow Wolf.
It looks like a made-up grocery store.
Except there are hidden passageways to get into the main area.
Which is huge. I wonder if anyone only visits the fake front store and never realizes they can go back here?
Tons of pieces all over the place.
Lots of bending over or even crawling to get between areas.
Very psychedelic.
Back out to the store.
And back in through this tent.
Many lights and screens.
Ducking into another section.
This looks like a ring of electricity.
A more relaxed area.
A secret, one-way staircase. I wonder if we can find the entrance later.
Mirror room.
I read there's actually some sort of story you can follow throughout the entire place as an employee.
With pieces of it scattered in each section, but we just wanted to look around.
A few more semi-hidden passageways.
An employee break room.
The hidden door is through the lockers.
Funky hallway.
Skinnier corridor.
Flowered walls inside.
Fake pet food in the front store.
Weird animal cleaning products in the janitor tunnel to the back.
Weird overlays on faces in this mirror.
Ooh, this is the entrance for the one-way staircase. Found it!
Some of the products in the front store are real, like this fun sweat shirt.
Not for $75, though.
Fake cereal.
Stapler.
Avocado coin purses.
A camel made out of Camel's Soup cans.
Dehydrated water.
A video of a few of the rooms and secret passageways.
A bar out front.
With some cool drinks.
Area 15 wasn't only Meow Wolf. The cool tree was in a central open area.
There was also an axe-throwing place.
We went back to Kat and Kendra's at Cosmo. We had dinner reservations in an hour and a half, and since it took a while to walk across all of Cosmo, across the strip, and to our room at Planet Hollywood, we just napped on the couch on their balcony, which was pretty comfortable.
The check-in area at Cosmo had screens on these pillars.
With different artwork displayed on them.
This was people moving around behind frosted glass.
The we went to Primal Steakhouse.
For dinner.
It had a medieval theme.
Candles with lots of wax.
The menu.
Bread to start.
Bone marrow.
Smoky.
Flaming sangria.
Tomahawk.
Delmonico.
Wagyu.
Cooked tableside.
All of us.
In helmets.
A few video clips of dinner.
We went to Westgage to play poker, but their room was temporarily closed.
That's OK; there's always more poker in Vegas. We called MGM Grand on got on the list.
We were first in line when we arrived.
And got right onto some tables.
Ogii won with queens.
And then again with kings.
I was all in with three kings versus a flush draw, but he hit his flush on the river.
Walking around the mall section of Planet Hollywood the next morning.
Some restaurants.
And bars.
We ate at Sbarro; it tastes good and it's cheap.
DeRubeis fine metal art also has a gallery at the International Marketplace in Honolulu.
Checking out.
You can see all of the hotels on the strip from the airport.
A huge picture.
By Peter Lik.
Butterflies on the ceiling.
That's a great idea.
Some accessories for sale.
A lion made out of tires.
Goodbye to Las Vegas.