Vegas & the value of money

I drank a lot of water today so the completion of this blog depends upon my famous bladder capacity since the plane will board in about 20 minutes.

Well as you can tell I'm on the road again. As I am VERY vocal about--I don't like Las Vegas. I have many people (Scott, David's sister--Janell, Jerry Barber) telling me how wonderful it is so I keep trying it (usually not my choice). I think if David and I finally get to go to Barry Manilow's live show I'll be hooked but that hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, on to my main thought about the value of money. It used to be that the famous Vegas buffet was very cheap--draw people in for the food and they will gamble away all the rest on their money. I think the new philospophy is if the visitor is willing to just lay their money on the table for really nothing in return why don't we see how many places we can use that. So, the buffet is now $21 (instead of $6.99) and my steakhouse dinner was $70.

I saw a pair of sun glasses I liked in a shop window. I thought, maybe it's time to get myself a pair of $100 sunglasses. A glance at the price tag--$385. Are there really that many people out there making that much more than me? I think I make a good salary but I am sure I could not afford $385 sunglasses.

The seminar I went to gave us a $15 voucher for lunch. You could choose your own components. I had gathered up $12 worth and then thought it might be nice to have milk with my brownie. They had 1/2 pint cartons just like you spend 35 cents for at school. I figured it couldn't be more than the $3.00 I had left in my allowance. When I got to the counter, the lady rang it up at $5.00. I exclaimed with shock! "$5!" I expected this horror to cause the lady to recheck her price list but it did not. She just said, "Yup, $5." I told her I didn't want it anymore and left it on her counter. Now, I found out later that it really was only $1.75 but I guess here the regular people aren't shocked by $5 milk.

I am still open for people to market Las Vegas to me. I am waiting for the grand secret of what makes it so wonderful. Asha says its the Liberachi museum!

Kids say the darndest things

Here is a quick post, since it is nap time. Friday was Career Day at Sunnyside school and for some reason they keep asking us back. Here are three things kids said that I thought we pretty cute.

1. After the first of our four sessions, I asked "Who has decided to become a food scientist?" One second grader said, "I don't know yet, I still have three classes left!"

2. For some reason we thought showing the kids a fruit and flake cereal experiment would be a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, even with a wet paper towel, the flakes only got a little bit stale. So we just had to talk about it. We talked about the water activity of the raisins (about .7) and the water activity of the flakes (about .3) and asked the first & second graders what would happen if we put them together. One girl raised her hand and said, "The flakes will become soggy and the fruit will become hard." Just like that, water activity understood by a youngster--too bad she's not around to explain it to the people in our seminars!

3. One first/second grader, apparently seeking a confidant, took me aside and very seriously told me "I am going to be in the Army. And, if I survive, I am going to be a stunt man"--A strange dose of reality with regular childhood dreams!