World of Concrete

I have now finished my first week at Hi-Z and it doesn't feel like I've even been to work yet. That is the way it used to feel back when I worked there before. That is the way it should be, you should enjoy what you're doing so much that you look forward to going to work. On Friday Lisa and I got up at 5:30 with the kids when they got up for seminary and we headed up to Las Vegas. Dixie and Mark were there taking courses at a concrete convention. It is difficult to imagine a concrete convention but when you think about it, there is a lot more to concrete than mixing water with a bag of premix from Home Depot. Mark tells me that they have the convention in Las Vegas because that entire city is made of concrete.

We arrived in Vegas about 11:00 and Mark finished his last class at noon. It was so fun to just sit there and visit. Lisa and I were starving because all we had was a piece of toast at 6:00 so Dixie came with us while we had a hamburger at MacDonalds in their hotel. Mark joined us and we visited there for a couple of hours. We then decided to go and walk around the strip. Las Vegas avenue where all the casino's are located is called the strip. I really have little memory of where we went but we walked from hotel to hotel and the whole time I was talking Marks ear off. It is so fun to visit with him because he actually understands (and critiques) all of my wild ideas. He shot down several of them and it is like losing a good friend to give up on ideas that I've had for years. Let me see if I can remember at least some of the hotels we walked through. Bellagio, Casino Royal, Excalibur, Luxor, Stratosphere (Dixie and Mark stayed here) and the Venetian. I'm sure there were others but as I said before, I wasn't really paying attention. We stopped and had lunch at an all you can eat buffet and I had several helpings of prime rib and many glasses of chocolate milk. It was delicious and it is probably a good thing I walked as far as I did. By the time we decided it was time to go back to the car we were a good two or three miles away from it. By this time my legs were turning to rubber and that was a long walk back.

The plan was to leave at 9:00 so we could be home by two in the morning but it was well after ten before we got left. I did well but that last half hour was pretty tough. It was so wonderful to see Dixie and Mark again. I don't think I've seen her since Kira was married in 2003. I really am sad that I've missed the last two family reunions. I promise to repent and get to the next one.


Yesterday was a fairly typical Saturday. Alex coached, reffed and played RPB (community basketball) and Sarah took the stats for a wrestling tournament at Mount Carmel High School. Alex's team is now 4 - 2 and one of their losses was because he wasn't at the game. What is so frustrating is that all of their wins are so very close. Yesterday I thought I could relax because at half time we were up by more than twelve points. In RPB however they have rules to make the game more fun for the less talented players. Every player has to sit at least one quarter and every player has to play at least one quarter. Yesterday Alex sat the third quarter and when he started again in the fourth quarter we had a one point lead. The fourth quarter was extremely frustrating with the only point being a foul shot by our team. We won by two points. A real nail biter.




Lisa really wanted to go into the M&M place. There were at least four stories of M&M stuff. They had a fairly interesting exhibit showing how M&M's are made. I guess that was OK.















The Venetian was made to look like Venice and it seemed quite authentic. Do you see the sky? That was painted onto the ceiling and even though it was dark outside you truly felt like you were on a city street outside. They even had pigeons flying around but I'm really sure that was intended. That pigeon flew into a store and he was not happy. Neither were the people in the store. They kept ducking.

This is the Luxor. Not much to say about it. That is one bright light on the top.










This is the Belagio. It was very cool. They played music and the water fountains were choreographed with the music. They had many different songs and we could have stayed there all night long.

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Salt Lake City is the only city in the United States that has three words in its name.

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