Sin City Living

I15 Construction. . . ends early

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:26:35 +0000

This would never happen in LA.

Today the Las Vegas Sun reports that the widening project of Interstate 15 will come to complete a full 10 months ahead of schedule.

Consider it a Christmas gift — major construction on Interstate 15 north of the Spaghetti Bowl will be finished and all lanes and ramps will be open on Christmas Eve.

Compare that to the 10+ years of road work we had to deal with on the 405 freeway from LAX to Santa Monica and Valley freeway projects seem downright lovely.

Family Friendly Christmas Activities

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:43:52 +0000

Here are two fun activities for the wee-little ones to enjoy leading up to Christmas:

Magical Forest at Opportunity Village
Decorated trees, carousel rides and photo-ops with Santa Claus

Open Nightly at 5:30pm
$7.50 child
$9.50 adult

Winter Lights Festival at the Springs Preserve

LED light decorations, entertainment, craft activities and food.

Open Nightly at 5pm
$4.00 child
$8.00 adult

Nation’s Largest Christmas Tree

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:59:34 +0000

This year Las Vegas is home to the tallest Christmas tree in the United States. That’s taller than the one at Rockefeller Center in New York and even the one on display on the national mall in Washington DC.

The M Resort is displaying a 109′ tall tree – the tallest cut tree in the country. We’re planning to go visit later this week to see it for ourselves.

See how the M Resort’s tree compares to others across the nation.

First Snow of the Season

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:20:06 +0000

We woke up to beautiful white-capped mountains this morning! It’s been very cold the last few days with temperatures in the low 30s at night. Will we see another day of real snow here in Las Vegas?

CityCenter Fills 12,000 Positions

admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:21:21 +0000

A very small percentage of the 160,000 people who applied for new positions at CityCenter got some good news starting today.

CityCenter expects to fill some of the positions with employees transferring from within the parent company (MGM Mirage). Of course, not all of the 12,000 positions can be transfers so this will create many new job opportunities. There will also be positions available when existing employees transfer out of their current MGM jobs.

The first phase of CityCenter is scheduled to open this December.

Unemployment Figures Soar

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:33:50 +0000

Some sobering statistics about people out of work in Las Vegas and Nevada:

The unemployment rate in Las Vegas is 13.4%
Statewide that figure is 13.2%
There are 182,000 unemployed workers in Las Vegas
This is double the number we had at this time last year

Feast of San Gennaro

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:59:02 +0000

The Feast of San Gennaro Festival starts today and runs through this Saturday. Visit the official website to buy tickets and get discount food coupons.

Las Vegas Farmers Market

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:51:43 +0000

When we lived in West LA we would wake up every Sunday and walk across the street to the farmers market just off Santa Monica Blvd. There was always fresh fruit, produce and other neat little vendors to buy from. We just assumed that this activity was a thing of the past when we moved to Las Vegas.

So imagine my glee when I read about the Molto Farmers Market. The market is the brainchild of casino restaurant chefs who wanted to source locally grown ingredients. They started sourcing from a few local growers and soon had a network of over 28 producers. Recently they made the market open to the public!

They’re not open on Sunday, but Thursday seems as good a day as any to buy from the same producers that supply the expensive casino restaurants.

Molto Vegas Farmers Market
7485 Dean Martin Drive, #106

Open 11am to 1pm every Thursday.

Early Morning Fire

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:31:07 +0000

There was some excitement in the Southwest part of the valley early this morning. We heard helicopters circling overhead and my initial (sleepy, groggy) thought was that we were back in Los Angeles and that the Ghettto Bird was paying us a visit.

Turns out that some homes under construction in Mountain’s Edge were on fire. Nearby, occupied homes were scorched but none were damaged.

Is it suspicious that these houses caught on fire? Yes. One has to assume that somebody didn’t want the construction to continue. Another crazy sign of the times.

Job Postings vs. People

admin — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:35:28 +0000

Las Vegas shows up at #39 in this interesting chart on about Job Listings per Capita