Start Off the New Year with The King's Ransom

As you know I try as much as I can to let folks know about interesting places, people, and attractions across the land.

Over the years, this blog has spoken about such places as the SPAM Museum, the National Mustard Museum, Prairie Dog Town, Bryce Canyon, Hash House A Go-Go, Big Elvis, and many others.

Well the time has come to let you know that Elvis has entered the building! Not Big Elvis (though I still recommend his show at Bill's Gambling Hall & Saloon), but rather THE Elvis. You can now check out a wide assortment of Elvis Presley's personal treasures & items at Las Vegas' Imperial Palace at the newly opened exhibit, "The King's Ransom".

April and I were there to check it out yesterday and absolutely loved it. Of course, we're always into such exhibits, but this one really had some rare and amazing artifacts, all personal items from The King of Rock n' Roll. Moreover, seeing it through the eyes of my friend, and occasional boss (he's a booking agent in town), Paul Sanders of Las Vegas Talent, the place took on a whole different meaning.

Paul was on hand to give us a tour and he really has put his own heart and soul into this project. It was not just the personal items from Elvis that made it special, but seeing the dedication and effort on the part of Paul (and so many others) to make this new attraction find a home in Las Vegas is quite remarkable.

Elvis will always be associated with Vegas. Now, The King has returned and found a home at a Palace, no less. I can strongly recommend" The King's Ransom" as a worthy distraction from your drinking & gambling duties when traveling to Las Vegas.

Some info for you...

Address: 3535 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Pricing: $10 admission (Keep your eyes out for Two-for-One coupons. At either price it is a BARGAIN for an attraction on the Strip!)
Phone: 1-888-777-7664
Hours: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. daily
How To Get There:
Las Vegas Boulevard between Flamingo Road and Desert Inn. Across from Caesars (Next to Harrah's).
Parking: Valet and self-paring garage

Also at Imperial Palace...

The NEW Strip location for Hash House A Go Go
The Auto Collections
Embers (our FAVORITE steak house in Las Vegas!)

Some Bryce Canyon Photos

Yeah I'll post some here too.
I just posted a rather large album at my Facebook page
so I thought I'd post a link first.
This is from this year's trip.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ALBUM

Obligatory Year In Review: CRITTERS!

As you know, April and I are very much into animals. Whether it is at a zoo, scratching up our furniture, or out in the wild, we try to see critters as much as possible.

I was warned about how little wildlife there was out here when we moved. I think that is a big ole lie. You just have to appreciate the fact that there are different types of animals out here and you have to know where to look. Every animal on the planet can't make it out here in the desert ya know.

Since we often head out to Red Rock Canyon I may as well start off with the Wild Burro. This is a great example of an animal that is suited to our landscape, but doesn't get much attention from folks who believe there's nothing to see out here. The fact that these burro are wild and NOT in a zoo makes it all the better. Getting the chance to see them is always a treat.

It would appear that the burro were also happy to see us.

On our first visit to Red Rock (2007) we saw our first Big Horn Sheep. This year, thanks to my job as a tour guide, I learned of a spot in Boulder City where most anytime I wanted I could see 60-100 of the darned things.


There is a city park near the mountains where the Big Horn love to come and hang out. Quite literally they come down from the hills and hang out in the park. It is not uncommon to see kids playing on the playground equipment and just a few feet away will be several of these majestic wild animals. Very cool!

They're only around in big numbers during the warmer months and they head back up the mountains when the temperature drops. I finally had a chance to bring April late in the summer and that was a big thrill for both of us.


On our trip to Bryce Canyon we saw a Uinta Ground Squirrel, a cute little bugger common to Utah specifically. Very adorable. We'd hoped to see some Prairie Dogs that are found at Bryce but they were not around. However, what WAS around was something that is supposed to be a bit rare in the section of Bryce where we were.

BEHOLD! The Pronghorn Antelope!

Yeah, baby! That's the stuff! We'd heard they could be seen "occasionally" there, depending upon a variety of conditions. We figured we'd have no hope of catching something like this. Then we nearly hit one with our car. Soon after that we saw a couple more...and then about 20 more! We had a good day for spotting the critters.

Almost everywhere we went over the year brought us some sort of lizard. We really enjoyed stumbling upon the Southern Desert Horned Lizard though. how could you not enjoy finding this cute guy, right?

Our own little zoo here in Las Vegas provided some great fun. Sure we could have seen the new Komodo Dragon at the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef or the baby Dolphins & baby White Tigers at the Mirage. We love our little zoo and are members there, dammit! We take pride in our local efforts to make the town more fun!

At our zoo, which is the only place in North America you can see a Barbary Ape, we were treated to something we'd never seen before, the Fossa. Fossa are critters that must have been the inspiration for the "Jeep" character in the Popeye cartoons. Very crazy looking, bouncy cat-like things. Hard to describe and harder to photograph sometimes. Our zoo has two of these buggers from the San Diego Zoo and they are awesome. However they are not quite as awesome as...

BABY FOSSA!

These guys are amazing and thanks to a special little tour given to us by a gal at the zoo, we got about as close to them as you could without having Fossa all up in ya'! We got to see them long before they were "officially" on display at the zoo and we couldn't be happier about that.

The zoo has recently gotten a Siberian Lynx and the first Bornean Binturong in Nevada. It is a great little zoo, even though it is not as "pretty" or "fancy" as some snobby locals would like.

Speaking of zoos there was a great nature preserve/desert garden/zoo-kinda place in Palm Desert, right next door to Palm Springs, CA.

The Living Desert Zoo & Gardens was a wonderful way to finish off our trip to Palm Springs. I hope to go back there as there are some great trails following the scenic canyon that we didn't get to see.

There were loads of beautiful animals and plants to walk through and see.

Aside from many a desert creature there were cactus gardens, a butterfly exhibit, and all sorts of beautiful things to photograph.





April also snapped a damn near perfect photo of a Hummingbird. Hard enough to photograph when they're flying. Try to get those bastards to stand still for a spell!

So you can see we had a most successful year with regard to our love for nature and the critters that inhabit it. All told though, we have more than enough animal love around this house. Of course I am speaking of Phil. Phil is all the animal we need. After all...

SOMEBODY has to keep our favorite chairs warm!

Obligatory Year In Review: Places I Visited

I was fortunate enough to visit many beautiful places in 2008. As an example, April and I would frequently head over to Red Rock Canyon for a little sightseeing and that is always a treat.

My job as a tour guide for Big Horn Tours allowed me to get a more intimate view of the west rim of the Grand Canyon, though I never once had a camera with me. I also spent a lot of time in Boulder City to see the Hoover Dam, as well as many a Big Horn Mountain Sheep!

This post will deal with some of the special trips taken by April and me, starting with my birthday trip to what stands (for now) as the most beautiful place I have ever seen, Bryce Canyon. Without a doubt, this place is amazing. The whole area is breathtaking. We started out with a visit to nearby Kodachrome Basin and were blown away with the beauty of the place. Little did we know (well, I did since I did a report on Bryce Canyon in the 5th grade) that there was even more to be found.


Words cannot describe everything we saw, and we only saw a tiny portion of the place. A return trip is in the works for 2009!

After Bryce we made a brief stop to Red Canyon where the beauty seemed to never end. We even found a rock formation that resembled Homer Simpson. Not bad!

All of it - Kodachrome, Red Canyon, Bryce, was reasonably priced (free in some cases) and worth ANY penny spent on the experience. My hard drive is near capacity with all the precious photos.


Later in the year, sort of as an anniversary trip, April and I spent a couple of days in Palm Springs, Ca. We absolutely loved the 50's & 60's feel of Palm Springs, Palm Desert, and the whole area. Everything from the windmill farms leading up to our destination to the gorgeous landscape at Palm Desert Canyon exceeded all expectations.


We stayed at a very swanky resort nearby that featured 8 pools, all of which were fed by the natural hot springs underneath the Earth. Open 24 hours and never any cooler than 85-103 degrees, the relaxing soaks in every damn one of those pools made for a most relaxing trip.

As it happened there is an art festival that goes on every Thursday in Palm Springs and that made for an even better time. MMMmmm...Serendipitous festival!

The last place I'll tell you about was a more local destination, the Valley of Fire.

GODDAMN that's some mighty fine lookin' nature there. Amazing colors, unreal rock formations, giant canyons, and MANY a petroglyph to astound and amaze. This is only about an hour away from us and we can't wait to go back.

All told, we had a lot of fun enjoying the world around us in 2008. Sure, we got to go to other places together, but I doubt you are all that interested in hearing about my attempt to be Best Man at a friend's wedding in Batesville, Indiana.

In all, 2008 was a great year for seeing beautiful things in Andy Land.

Coming Up: People I Met in 2008

More from Bryce Canyon

Still working hard. Still nothing new to report. Still not much I can talk about.

Let's just say that things are a bit more settled at Big Horn, life is rather bizarre at Houdini's, and one day I hope to be able to talk about some of the entertainment stuff I'm working on.

Oh yeah, people who use the Yellow Pages are cheap & unrealistic. OK, maybe not all of them...just the ones who've called me recently. I'll give a Yellow Book update sometime soon.

I know that I have not been the prolific Andy of the past. I'm just too tired and far too unmotivated to share much of anything right now. Lots of work and little to show for it. This town is nearly impossible to get ahead in if you're an entertainer new to the area and that is far too depressing for me. Therefore I don't blog much. When I do blog, vague or not, you get something to read. Sending me e-mails asking for more details only makes me more upset so just be glad I'm posting something.

Until life is better, here are a few more snapshots of my birthday trip to Bryce Canyon National Park. I can't wait to return there and see more.


We've got many more of these on the ole hard drive and you'll be seeing many of them along the way.

Trying to Cheer Things Up

Since I have no news to share about all of the entertainment things I can't talk about and I don't really feel like bitching about how cheap people who use the Yellow Pages really are I will simply post a few photos from my birthday trip this year to Bryce Canyon National Park.

I'll put up one or two every so often to remind me and those who still read this blog (both of you) that there are some good things out there.

Besides, I need a pick-me-up.

Linky Love for Andy Land!

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!

Lots of linky love within the past week. Where to start...

Gordon has included me in some sort of meme that I've absolutely no interest in continuing nor even learning about. However, I do enjoy the photo and caption he created to fulfill the requirements of this blog and I always enjoy the free publicity, so I happily thank him here (since I can't get into his comments field on my own). If you want to learn more about the meme, check out this site, which also mentioned Gordon, my blog, etc. You should also head over to Gordon's blog to congratulate him on landing a job. Kudos, sir!

I was fortunate enough to receive three links in one post over at the Delenda est Carthago blog the other day. I got a link to the main blog, a link promoting my Ten Things Tuesdays, and a link to last week's Find the Penguini game. Since I can't tell you how cool that is, I'm just going to expect you to see how much fascinating information and fine content is available at Delenda est Carthago by linking to it three times. I like the photos of Bryce Canyon myself. I think I did a report on the park when I was in sixth grade.

The always enticing, certainly seductive, and moderately high maintenance Jessica stopped by to comment on my "Did You Know..." post the other day. Since she seems to be interested in both Tommy Lee and semen, she took the time to not only plug me (I WISH!) but extrapolate on the concept a bit and share many fine acts about semen. She also has many tidbits about improving her own (if not any woman's) personal flavor, though I have a sneaking suspicion she has no problems in that area herself. Since then she's added more info on aphrodisiacs and other tempting treats for the reader's eyes. Of course, there aren't as many photos of herself as in the past, and she was the tastiest of treats for the eyes, in my humble opinion.

It seems as though I'm very popular among trailer park dwellers. Well, I hope I'm popular at one trailer park; the Blog World Trailer Park. Jade was kind enough to nominate me for membership in the community, and speaking as someone who has actually had to live in a trailer at various points in his life, this would be the ONLY trailer park in the world that requires nominations and voting procedures to allow new members. I'll keep you posted about my potential membership. At least I'd be "closer" to lovely trailer trash hotties like Jade, Kim, & 3T. I'm thinking that I may have to don the Nicky Vegas togs for some late-night fun in da park!

Golfwidow was having a touch of writer's block. For whatever reason she took the time to mention me in her post about creativity. Since she does WAY more with her writing and her creative bones than myself I just want to make sure you head over to her blog and tell her how much you love reading her work, listening got her podcasts, and - wait, she knows all of this. She's nominated for a Bloggie, and recently won $200.00 for a post she wrote about consumer no-nos. She just wants my attention because I'm so freakin' cute. Well, young lady...You had me at "I worship you and everything you stand for". In honor of the great Golfwidow, I present an article my wife believes to be the worst from my catalog of crap, "A Write of Passage". That should make her feel much better.

Amanda is the sister of Em and they are both the daughters of Sue. I don't know if Amanda is as adorable as either of the other two since she's never posted a photo of herself. I do know that she's been having a rough time at work and really wanted to shoot the ever-livin-crapola out of her co-workers. I sent her a link to a gatling gun-rubberband shooter and she was most pleased. So pleased, she blogged about it. I just hope she calls herself "Amanda Commando" or "Commanda" or something clever like that and she thinks of me as she rains Hell upon her deserving co-workers.

In the "Mystery Drive-By Linking" section, we find ourselves lollygaggin at the Lollygaggin blog. I'm assuming Pammy found me through the "I'm sexy enough to have a stalker", Livey (AKA, Northwoods Woman). However I don't know for sure. I just know that if I am aware you've added me to the links list I always reciprocate. Thanks for the link.

Also among my recent silent linkers list is Brain Poop. Judging by the template and the tone I suspect this is one of my Canadian friends adding me to the fray. Many thanks as always.

WHEW! How's that for some blog-whoring? You'd think with all these incoming links I'd have more actual readers and comments. Perhaps the newbies take a gander and realize what a total prick I am. LOL!

Finally, since this is Groundhog Day, please allow me to direct you to some groundhog links from the Brookfield Zoo. Have you ever seen a groundhog wearing braces on his teeth? Well, the Brookfield Zoo has the only damn one around!

Also, CLICK HERE to read, "The Groundhog Mall" at Malicious Bitch.