happy nevada day!

of course zach has the day off!

MY DAD

is the long-haired dude on the far right. playing with chet atkins on the jerry reed show. priceless.

Happy Bollywood Halloween

enjoy.

wow

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/15815494.htm

this is an article my uncle wrote. check it out.

re-start the countdown

one year from TODAY!!!!

Russian hooey

My co-worker has a fondness for listening to rush limbaugh and huey lewis and the news. I believe I prefer huey.

my daily commute

involves leaving my house at 7:10am and driving into the rising sun until i arrive at the office at 8:00 am. after work i leave and drive directly into the blinding setting sun for at least one hour. i have become so bored on these journeys that i have begun 2 photo projects that i am uploading into flickr as i take them. the first is that of the strange las vegas fascination with vanity plates. the 2nd is just random images that i see every day on my way to and from work.

blue hawaii

of course i watched blue hawaii last night!

of course i feel asleep half way through!

all hail the mighty letterpress

i visited this archaic machine last saturday that will hopefully help me with my wedding invitations. yay letterpress!

news flash

it's raining.
in the desert.

happiness is . . .

a new beck album.

jack white's nashville abode

once upon a time back in the early 70's? my dad moved from texas to nashville to become a professional musician. he made the move with his best bud don. they lived together for awhile, then married off, etc, had babies (i was one of them). don went into publishing. dad remained a guitar player.

his family and ours tend to spend xmas eve's together and this past year i asked if we were going over to don's for our holiday get together. dad said that we were not - don had just sold his house to some kind of rock and roller. i don't go to don's house anymore.

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2006/10/03/jack-white-happy-
homemaker/

jackson hole, wyoming

we have returned from our wyoming weekend in jackson hole having seen no moose. is the plural of moose moose? anyhow, it appears to be as elusive as the mighty las vegas burro. it was a good time. rented a cabin with abby, paul, and company and attended the beautiful wedding of matt erman.

i listened to channel 9 on the headphones on the plane on the way in. this allows you to hear your pilot communicating with air traffic control. i heard him say that he had the airport in site. i sure didn’t see it. oh, yeah, its that TINY spec of runway. i guess they are unable to enlarge the airport bc it is in a national park (teton) and there are strict laws.

we were greeted at the cabin by what i initially found to be beautiful magpies (birds). i later discovered they are kinda pyscho killers. anyhow, they are really big and blue. we watched one of them eating entrails of some sort on the deck. wow. real wildlife.

the first day we took a tram (ski lift type box on a cable) to the top of a mountain and found ourselves in the clouds. pretty cool. i guess that matt has parasailed off of the top of it. yikes.

at the rehearsal dinner cocktail hour zach found a crab claw in his local lager. a brown boy joke no doubt. we were treated by being served buffalo sliders and other delicious foods. got to know matt’s parents, who live in nashville. great people.

our transportation to the various events were our own 2 feet. unfortunately our cabin was at the top of a hill, so i got some needed exercise. we entertained ourselves on these strolls with a game called versus. if it was interesting i would explain it.

later that night zach did his best to bond with the dudes by drinking with them in the cabin’s sauna. 4 harry guys in towels. bonding. in the sauna. i heard some commotion. apparently he misjudged the distance from the bench to the floor and hit the wall. glad his face didn’t hit the coals. then he would have suffered more than a hangover. the first time drinking in over a month was a bit of a shock to his system.

the wedding itself was very sweet and the reception rocking. so much in fact, that the bass player for black sabbath was one of the guests. zach wanted to tell him that it was one of his many infamous basslines that helped him learn the bass, but never got the nerve. matt and his bride, liz, danced to the flying burrito brothers “wild horses”. then barth took over the floor with matt’s mom. quality entertainment indeed. zach had the elk for dinner.

the next morning we were greeted at the brunch with bloody mary’s and venison tarts!

on the way to white water a song that the black sabbath bass player wrote came on the radio. in another coincidence 2 michael mcdonald songs came on (he was one of the versus options in car before the songs came on). gosh. michael mcdonald. what a musical wonder.

white water was fun. and funny. the funny part being how ridiculous we all looked in wet suits. some people braved riding “the bull” meaning sitting on the front tip of the raft being pummeled by the waves. those who one-handed it got thrown into the boat. better in than out. anyhow, i survived white water.

on the way back from the trip i got my lip balm from anthropologie and clinique lipstick confiscated at the airport. the lipstick was returned after talking to the supervisor. the balm however was new and expensive and thrown away. but you never know, i could have made a bomb out of that strawberry substance to blow up a whole plane. jeez. then the band gets lifted the very next day. go figure.

all in all the trip was good. i like that jackson hole.

back to the DOUBLE DIGITS!

the weather is amazing today!!! we were out and about early this morning and my car thermometer read 63 degrees!!!! much better from 100! i love it. i hope we are not being tricked that summer is over. i am looking forward to the declining power bills!

i wanna see

the science of sleep.
too bad it will NEVER come to vegas.

i wanna be a tetrachromat

my art director mentor at work stumbled upon this article and is very jealous. he wants an extra cone. and he can't have it.

Some women may see 100 million colors, thanks to their genes

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

By Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Susan Hogan can't be sure, but it wouldn't surprise her if she turned out to be a tetrachromat.


A tetrachromat is a woman who can see four distinct ranges of color, instead of the three that most of us live with.

A genetic test would be needed to verify whether Mrs. Hogan truly fits that description, but it could help explain why the interior decorator can hold up three samples of beige wall paint, "and I can see gold in one and gray in another and green in another, but my clients can't tell the difference."

It may be impossible for us trichromats to imagine what a four-color world would look like. But mathematics alone suggests the difference would be astounding, said Jay Neitz, a renowned color vision researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Each of the three standard color-detecting cones in the retina -- blue, green and red -- can pick up about 100 different gradations of color, Dr. Neitz estimated. But the brain can combine those variations exponentially, he said, so that the average person can distinguish about 1 million different hues.

A true tetrachromat has another type of cone in between the red and green -- somewhere in the orange range -- and its 100 shades theoretically would allow her to see 100 million different colors.

That may be why Mrs. Hogan can look out the windows of her Mount Washington home and tell the relative depths and silting of the three rivers at the Point by discerning the subtle differences in their shades.

"I have a very hard time even giving names to colors because I see so many other colors inside them," she said.

Dr. Neitz, who conducts his research with his wife Maureen, said only women have the potential for super color vision.

That's because the genes for the pigments in green and red cones lie on the X chromosome, and only women have two X chromosomes, creating the opportunity for one type of red cone to be activated on one X chromosome and the other type of red cone on the other one. In a few cases, women may have two distinct green cones on either X chromosome.

But it's unlikely, Dr. Neitz said, that all of the women with four types of color cones will have the potential for superior color vision, because for many, their two red cones will be so close to each other in the wavelengths they detect that they won't see things much differently than a three-color person does.

He estimated that 2 percent to 3 percent of the world's women may have the kind of fourth cone that lies smack between the standard red and green cones, which could give them a colossal range.

Finding tetrachromats through genetic screening is one thing. Proving they can see tens of millions of additional colors is another.

One research group that believes it has identified a true tetrachromat is headed by Gabriele Jordan of Newcastle University in Great Britain.

Dr. Jordan started by working backward from certain "color blind" boys to their mothers.

About 8 percent of the world's men have color deficiency, which is the term vision researchers prefer to color blindness.

Most of them inherit two red or two green cones along with the standard blue cone, making it impossible for them to distinguish between red and green peppers, or tell how well-done a steak is, or pick out matching clothes.

Dr. Jordan's team used vision tests to identify more than a hundred schoolboys in the Newcastle area with that kind of color deficiency.

She knew that the mothers of those boys would have either two red or two green cones, and she is now in the process of testing those women to see which of them might be "strong tetrachromats," as she put it.

To single out such women, she came up with a clever test. Each woman looks into an optical device that shows her three tiny discs in rapid succession. Two of the discs are a pure orange wavelength and the third is a nearly identical mixture of red and green. The women aren't told which is which.

Dr. Jordan reasoned that women with two distinct red cones would see the red-green disc differently than the orange discs.

Of the 20 women she has tested so far, only one was able to instantly and accurately identify the red-green disc each time. She is now conducting genetic tests on the woman's saliva to verify whether she has the genes for distinct red cones.

Dr. Jordan said that the woman, who has not yet been identified, is a physician near Newcastle.

For a doctor, she speculated, super color vision might give her the ability to tell whether a patient is ill just by noticing subtle changes in skin tone that a normal doctor wouldn't see.

Based on Dr. Neitz's estimates, there could be 99 million women in the world with true four-color vision.

But before they pat themselves on the back for their superior evolution, he said, it's important to note that humans are just getting back to where birds, amphibians and reptiles have been for eons.

Those creatures have long had four-color vision, but a key difference is that their fourth type of color detector is in the high-frequency ultraviolet range, beyond where humans can see.

In fact, that finding allowed scientists to figure out recently why the males of some species of birds did not appear to have brighter plumage than the females, Dr. Neitz said.

The problem was in the observers, not the birds, he said. When those species were viewed through ultraviolet detectors, the males had markedly different feathers than the females.

In a similar way, he said, our eyes aren't capable of seeing the world the way a true four-color viewer perceives it, and so we have no way of knowing how many advantages that might give to the tetrachromats.

"There are many things in the world that are physically different from one another that you can't tell apart now" with three-color vision, he said, but a four-color woman presumably would see the distinctions.

And sometimes the edge may just be aesthetic.

Which could be why, when Susan Hogan's husband puts a new piece of fruit in their fruit bowl, "I have to rearrange it so the colors go together right," she said with a laugh.

dining with borgs n such

this blog entry could be really funny if i had ever watched star trek and knew ANY trekky jargon whatsoever. i will just post a picture of the restaurant we ate at the other night (can you believe i forgot to blog about this place? i mean weird.) so here are some of the characters that bring you your food. only vegas.

rumor has it that this is one of the many rare vegas gems that is going to get torn down.

the latest of life in vegas

asleep in our beds last night we were awoken by a spotlight shining in our room! a low flying helicopter was obviously searching for someone bad along our neighborhood streets. very strange.

then today a mr. hilton (as in paris' uncle) came to our office for a meeting. a very friendly wealthy man.

more vegas characters

as if lonnie hammargren wasn't enough. the first vegas character that graced my day was the AMAZING JONATHAN. i have never seen this guy's show but apparently a famous magician in vegas was sitting across from us at lunch today.

then on the way home i got my usual dose of mr. happy on the corner of ft apache and sahara. sometimes he is in different outfits or holding different props. but one thing is for sure, he is ALWAYS very very happy. puts some kind of interest to my hour of sitting in traffic. here is a photo of him:





below is an article about this mr. happy dude i see on the corner every day:




Sorry, Mom. I know you told me not to play in traffic. But today, it's my job.

"Kick higher!" screams the 52-year-old man I'm replacing, Larry James Johnson, who dances in outrageous costumes at the intersection of West Sahara Avenue and Fort Apache Road.

Advertisement

"The kick is my trademark!" he says, cackling and clapping.

Johnson, an Army veteran, works as a night watchman for a company that places him in temporary assignments. That's only his Clark Kent job, however. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., 7 days a week, he's Mr. Happiness, dauntless foe of all frowns.

"This world is full of negativity," Mr. Happiness says, "so I try and stamp it out."

Hundreds of thousands of cars pass each day through what Mr. Happiness says he makes "the happiest intersection in Las Vegas." He waves and blows kisses to as many as he can -- when he's not spinning like a top or balancing on his coccyx, legs flailing.

"If somebody's having a crappy day," he says, "I want them to smile for a moment."

Mr. Happiness also spreads extra-intersectional happiness via his role in infomercials for Towbin Dodge, the local dealership featured on the A&E reality series, "King of Cars."

"They call Wayne Newton Mr. Vegas," Mr. Happiness says. "But I'm the real Mr. Vegas!"

My training begins in the parking lot of the Blockbuster Video at 9420 W. Sahara Ave., where Mr. Happiness parks a white SUV loaded up like Cher's closet. The pharaoh, mariachi and samurai outfits represent only a small fraction of a collection procured from San Francisco's Pier 39 and a Laughlin hat shop.

Mr. Happiness chooses a jester cap and military jacket for me. Luckily, we're the same height (5-foot-5, or as he likes to refer to it, "5-foot-7"). He then hands me an unplugged and unstrung electric guitar. (An important part of Mr. Happiness's routine is air-wailing along to the rock music on his FM Walkman.)

Many cities sport colorful street characters. "Melrose" Larry Green stands at Melrose and Highland avenues in L.A., holding home-scribbled Howard Stern placards. Ronnie "Woo Woo" Wickers wanders Chicago's streets in a Cubs uniform, shouting supports of "woo!" for his team. Peoria's Willie York is a homeless Vietnam vet who dresses like the devil and commits petty crimes, reportedly to spend warm nights in county lockup.

At first, Mr. Happiness -- who resembles rapper Flavor Flav as a squeegee guy -- seems equally nuts. In fact, most uninitiated motorists roll up their windows.

"They think I'm homeless, asking for money," he says. (He's not, and he doesn't.)

I was apprehensive, too -- until I read that Oscar Goodman danced alongside Mr. Happiness at this corner last year, after losing a bet to KXMB-FM, 94.1 morning show hosts Mark and Mercedes. They raised $2,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation together. (Then I remembered who else our mayor is comfortable cavorting with. So I Googled "Mr. Happiness" alongside the words "murdered," "shot" and "stabbed," just to be safe.)

"People can call me crazy," Mr. Happiness says, "but I know what I'm all about."

And who's crazier, really -- a guy whose life mission is to make everyone happy, or the people who zoom by in their metal boxes, refusing to acknowledge him, gnashing their teeth en route to jobs they hate?

"Hey, cousin!" Mr. Happiness yells to a motorist. (Everyone he addresses is either a cousin or uncle.)

The blonde in the red Volkswagen Jetta headed south on Fort Apache flicks her thumb upward. Mr. Happiness introduces me as his apprentice. She waves as she waits for the light to change. Mr. Happiness instructs me to perform.

"Spin faster!" he commands me before asking the woman what she thinks.

"You're not retiring, are you?" she asks him.

Mr. Happiness, the eldest of six siblings, survived a tough upbringing in East Oakland, Calif. Three of his sisters were born addicted to heroin, due to his mother's habit. As an illiterate 13 year old, Mr. Happiness broke into houses -- until, he claims, something his great-grandmother said put him straight from then on.

"She said, 'Whatever you throw out in life is gonna come back to you,' " he says. "So if you treat people with love and respect, it's gonna come back to you, too."

This morning, Mr. Happiness brings a smile to a quarter of the passers-by visible behind their desert-tinted windows. And these are smiles with him, not at him, judging from all the honking and thumb-flicking. Las Vegas resident Roger Buss even makes a fast-food stop and doubles back.

"I saw you sweating, so I got you this," he says, handing Mr. Happiness an orange drink.

Reaction isn't always positive. Another guy once brought a cup of urine, which he doused Mr. Happiness with.

"But I love him anyway," Mr. Happiness says.

After the Army, Mr. Happiness spent 16 years in Sacramento, Calif., where he performed the same street act as Laguna Larry. (Laguna is a Sac Town suburb.)

"But I always wanted to live in Vegas," Mr. Happiness says. "I love the mountains. I love the 110-degree weather." Mr. Happiness relocated five years ago, adopting a new stage name inspired by something a 5-year-old girl once told him.

"She said, 'You make me happy, Mr. Happiness,' " he says. "That stuck with me."

A guy in a white Jeep flashes devil horns at me. But my reviews are mixed. Seconds later, a guy in a tan Frontier pickup refuses to turn his head while I scream "yes!" into his open window. I'm getting some smiles, but they're awkward -- like the ones my parents formed when I told them I wanted to be a journalist instead of attend law school.

I suggest a costume change. We step into Mr. Happiness's "dressing room," a shady patch between palms in a Rite Aid lot, and swap outfits. I also decide to take my act solo, to the thin island dividing Sahara's rapidly rolling eastward- and westward-bound traffic.

"Stay out of the street!" Mr. Happiness yells.

But standing next to the real deal is no way to sell an imitation. You never see Mr. Pibb alongside Dr Pepper in the same soda machine. Besides, I'm only doing what Mr. Happiness does every morning.

"I know," he yells, "but I live on the edge!"

One of the eastward-speeding cars slows. It's black and white, I notice, with letters and numbers painted on the side.

Instead of holding still and praying that a policeman won't notice a man in Bob Marley's dreads and Elvis Presley's gold lame suit standing on a traffic island, I decide to put my new training to use. I wail my guitar and flail my body, spinning and kicking like an Isley Brother. If I'm going downtown, it's for doing something.

"Uh-oh," says Mr. Happiness, who received his own $85 citation last month. (He goes to court on Tuesday.)

The officer stares me down as I wonder how I'm going to expense this back to the R-J.

But when the light changes, so apparently does his mind. He salutes before taking off.

"Yes!" Mr. Happiness yells.

The officer even smiles.

"You're spreading the joy now!" Mr. Happiness continues as he runs over to high-five me. "You da man!"

I suggest celebrating my success at Mr. Happiness' house. It's three blocks away, he says, in the Lakes. But he refuses to take me. Ironically, Mr. Happiness' superpowers do not extend here.

"Me and my wife, we're not on speaking terms right now," he says. "A marriage is up and down. One day you like her one day you don't.

"And I haven't been liking her for a couple weeks now."

Video of Levitan as Mr. Happiness is posted at www.reviewjournal.com/video/fearandloafing.html. Fear and Loafing appears every Monday in the Living section.

reading

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Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, *

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the word as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was
ipmorantt!