The hotel where I’m staying (and at which the conference is taking place) is the MGM Grand.  Here’s what it looks like, as seen from the southeast (on Tropicana Blvd, near where the bus from the airport dropped me off). Those ads near the top are static, so I think they might be some kind … Read more

So I flew to Las Vegas yesterday to attend a conference for work.  When was hunting around for fares, I found the best price on Southwest airlines, which I haven’t flown in a very long time.  I was surprised to discover that I could get a direct flight from Connecticut to LV.  The flight out … Read more

Over Memorial Day weekend, I was visiting Philadelphia, and went walking in the Heinz Wildlife Refuge.  I had not been familiar with it before, but it’s many acres of preserved wetland, located right near the Philly airport.  It’s surprising, but cool, that a chunk of nature has been protected in such a heavily urban area. … Read more

A month ago I made my way to a small, one-day comic convention in New York: the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival.  It’s a pretty new con – this was only its second year – but it attracted a great variety of talent. I drove part of the way there, but parked in Connecticut and … Read more

First, let me begin by stating that I am attempting to fulfill the requirements of NaBloPoMo this year (National Blog Posting Month).  Actually it’s just one requirement – I will endeavor to post something to this blog each day for the month of November.  This is the first of those 30 posts. This past August, … Read more

I went to NYC for the MoCCA Art Fest again this year.  The convention has generally been held in June in the past, but this year they had it in April for some reason.  I did it as day trip again, just going down for the Saturday, traveling part way by car and then taking … Read more

This is my final post from the trip to Canada last month.  Toward the end of the week there, I got a chance to go hiking in Kouchibouguac National Park, which is about an hour North of the city of Moncton. Something that’s interesting about the park is the variety of different types of forest … Read more

While in Canada we took a day trip to Belfast Mini Mills on Prince Edward Island, just as we did in June of 2007. The company makes small machines for every step of the fiber milling process (from raw fiber to yarn), and they also run a mill operation themselves.  This is the mill building: … Read more

No, it’s not another bike training post.  I’ll be alternating those with a few posts about our trip to Canada last month.  We went to New Brunswick, as we’ve done a couple of times before (2006 and 2007).  Where we were staying, we were only about 100 yards from the beach, and so we went … Read more

My last full day in Memphis began with the conference, but that finished in the mid-afternoon, so I had a lot of time ahead of me.  I first went to the National Civil Rights Museum.  It’s located South of downtown, in the old Lorraine Hotel – the site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. … Read more