Active Shooter Bizarre Attack at OSU Campus

UPDATE: Apparently, it's NOT an shooter at all. Seemingly, the same apparatus in place, and policies for an active shooter were used to deal with a kind of bizarre and convoluted attack. Which doesn't make it a whole lot better, but there you go. Here's a link to the updated story at: Columbus Dispatch

I think it's all over, and as far as I know, nobody (except the shooter) died. But having moved back home to central Ohio, I'm a bit surprised to have a What Happens in Vegas moment back here. All kinds of weird news events end up being central to Las Vegas, my formal home. Here, I'm always surprised when something becomes a national news story. But there you go.

[Excerpt]

Ohio State shooting: Nine transported to hospitals, one suspect killed

Law enforcement sources say nine people have been transported to hospitals and a suspect has been killed in an active shooter situation at Ohio State University.

Read more (with video) at: Columbus Dispatch

Forget Pot; Why Hasn't Big Liquor Fixed Antiquated State Laws?

This past election cycle, I was onboard our "Legalize It" effort here in Ohio, both for personal and logical reasons. Marijuana should be regulated, taxed and legal in my estimation. It is demonstrably safer than alcohol, which is legal. Moreover, there is a wave of acceptance sweeping the nation for legal pot, rivaled only by the same-sex marriage wave that successfully swept through over the last several years. So, why not?

Ah, dare to dream.

But when you think about it, it's rather amazing that pot is making such headway, when liquor has such a confusing and often times stupid set of restrictions in place against it, from state to state. I'm not talking about age restrictions, here either. I really don't have much problem with 21-and-over being the place we draw the line. Though, honestly, it does make you wonder why "adulthood" is legally scattered from 18-to-21 depending upon what area of law we're talking about. But that's another issue for another day.

If you wants it, you points to it, you
sick, degenerate drinker you!
But NOT on Sunday!!! Heathen!!!

The reason for my interest in this issue has to do with having moved back to Ohio after 20 years in Las Vegas. Liquor laws in Las Vegas are quite liberal, and I was used to being able to run down to Lee's Discount Liquor and buying whatever I wanted, just about whenever I wanted. Prices were reasonable, and there was a lot of competition. You could by most kinds of alcohol just about anywhere in Vegas, from a liquor store to a Walmart, to a grocery, corner quickie mart or even Sam's Club or Costco. Obviously, a dedicated store would have more varieties in both brands and higher proofs, but if you wanted honest-to-god vodka, you could find it just about anywhere.

Not in Ohio. Ohio restricts where you buy it, and when you can buy it. Beyond that, they further slice it by what kind of alcohol, and what proof. I can walk into most grocery or warehouse stores and pick up wine, beer and a bewildering variety of beer- and wine-based pseudo liquors. Sometimes, if you're diluted by half. No joke. Watered down. Most times, if you want a full variety of choices, you have to go to a dedicated state-run liquor store, or be lucky enough to have a grocer that has a full-fledged liquor store within their store. Most don't. Even stores that say they do often don't. Those that do charge far more than I used to pay back in my desert home. And there are restricted hours. Want to pick up something for a party before 1pm on a Sunday? Tough.
lucky, they also have spirits. But virtually always, those spirits are

Paradise in Las Vegas!

Dedicated stores are often dingy, sorrowful looking affairs that make you feel dirty when you walk in the door. If they have any browseable liquor, it's the cheap stuff, with top-shelf brands behind the counter. You literally have to point to what you want, and have them hand it to you. It feels like you're buying porn or something. But there is a world outside of Ohio, and even Las Vegas for that matter. When we've ventured out of our newly re-adopted state, we've made stops in other states, checking out how they do things. West Virginia has more liberal laws, though I can't say the stores I've visited have been particularly inviting. Pennsylvania may have arcane laws, but I must've hit one store at the right time in Pittsburgh, because it had a decent selection, and decent prices. Still nothing like Sin City. Iowa offers a decent grocer-based option, with separate-but-attached liquor stores by the main grocery. Prices are better than Ohio, if not great. And time restrictions are also better.

Binny's! Now that's what I'm talking about!

That was a reasonable option on our recent visit, and we were set to pick up a carload for our home bar. But we ran out of time, and just didn't get around to it. Undeterred, we decided to find something on the way home. At a gas fill-up in Illinois, we noticed our truck stop had a dedicated liquor store. Cool! We grabbed a couple of bottles of whiskey (priced above Nevada, but below Ohio), but were told, in broken English, that we were too early. No sales on Sunday before 10 am! It was 9:15. Okay, then, back on the road. I plugged my request into my phone, and huzzah!!! A liquor discount store in Champaign called "Binny's." And it was right off the freeway!

This is not an ad, but let me tell you, it was a real discovery. It was like Vegas, only better actually. Illinois may very well have perplexing liquor laws that I'm not privy to. But this store was big, it had huge variety. It had low, low prices. And the people were super-friendly. Even Lee's Discount Liquor didn't manage that, most days. Suffice it to say, we stocked up. And just for example, a handle-bottle of JD was at least $20 cheaper there, no joke.

But all of this got me to wondering: why is it this way? Why does each state have a hodge-podge of antiquated, religiously tinged, ridiculous liquor laws in almost 2016? I realize, even Ohioans don't have it as bad as some other--particularly Southern--states, whose laws can be downright bizarre. But why do brewers, distillers and other liquor companies put up with it? Why would they make special, diluted spirits just for Ohio? These are huge companies in some cases. Isn't there a liquor lobby? Wouldn't Lee's or Binny's like to have big box stores in Columbus or Cincinnati? Wouldn't Costco, Sam's or even Kroger? I really don't get it. But I'd like to see a ballot initiative! Maybe if the liquor lobby scratched the marijuana lobby's back. . .

Trumpgasm in Ohio: Details, Facts Don't Matter

I'm greatly distressed by the state of our politics, particularly as it applies to the GOP race for the presidency. The continued success of carnival barker Donald J. Trump has just beaten me down. As bad as Trump himself is, I'm actually more concerned about his true believers. I'm somewhat bolstered by the fact that he has a 25% hold on the portion of primary voters of a portion of the electorate that boils down to a significantly smaller number of people than it appears on the surface. But I'm worried that America has become enough of an Idiocracy that he'll convert enough xenophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-liberal, anti-Hillary people to actually do damage.

Trump is a buffoon, and always has been. He's played fast and loose with the truth* to his own advantage in business and celebrity, since we've known who he was. He has roughly a third-grader's vocabulary and oratory style. And a third-grade bully's at that. His vocabulary is so stunted, that even after one of his huge applause lines, rather than expounding on what he's said, he just repeats the same words again and again, with his limited set of bombastic adjectives. But worse than his relentlessly negative and abrasive style, is his tenuous grasp of basic facts.

In just the last couple of days, Trump has unleashed a stream of easily disproven statements. Sometimes badly conflated and distorted memories, sometimes wildly exaggerated claims, sometimes just stream-of-consciousness lies. And none of it matters. None of it shakes off his true believers. Not the open racism, not the untruth of his claims, not the vagueness of his promises, not the true horror of having this reactionary, thin-skinned bully in control of the nuclear football. The same people who decried President Obama's "lack of experience" and "celebrity," are eating up every horrifying utterance of this braying egotist.

Even Ben Carson--once thought to be supplanting Trump as front-runner (a horror in itself)--briefly jumped aboard Trump's recent big lie about Muslims celebrating 9/11 in New Jersey, as the buildings fell. He quickly had to issue a "my bad!" retraction, which I suppose should be heartening. After all, Carson has had his own string of easily disproven statements recently. And they initially didn't seem to matter to his own base. But Carson has been slipping since then. Maybe that should cheer me up?

But I come back around to distress. How can such a large group of Americans be so vaguely pissed off, so ready to win, that they'll gladly make this cult-of-personality, reality TV star made of pure id the most powerful man in the world? Can the GOP really let this happen?

*Perhaps the most baffling claim in all of this, is the Trump supporters' claim that "Trump speaks the truth." He doesn't. He speaks what ever crosses his mind, often changing direction mid-sentence, often several times. He speaks in parentheticals--sometimes within parentheticals--wherein he more than occasionally contradicts the point he started out making. He is the embodiment of "truthiness," Stephen Colbert's "gut feel" explanation for believing something that feels right, even if the details are all wrong. And his supporters--who are almost to a person, Hillary haters who love to throw out that she's a "liar"--simply don't care. Yes. I'm distressed.

[Excerpt]

Trump wastes no time bashing Kasich during Columbus speech



The day began and ended in a fight over Donald Trump’s incursion into the home turf of 2016 presidential rival John Katich. In between, Trump tweeted that the Ohio governor is a “dummy” and “one of the worst presidential candidates in history.” And in a speech before 14,000 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, Trump pointed to polls showing the billionaire re-establishing his lead both nationally and in early voting states — with Kasich far behind. . .

Read more at: The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio’s Confusing Marijuana Fight: Why Do Some Progressives Oppose?

Adding to my previous post on the marijuana vote in Ohio on Tuesday [Vote Yes on 3, No on 2], Bob Cesca has this outstanding piece in Salon. Check it out.

[Excerpt]

Ohio’s head-scratching marijuana fight: Why do some progressives oppose legalization?

While Ohio politics are normally unremarkable unless in a presidential election year, the midwestern swing-state will vote this week on the “Marijuana Legalization Initiative, Issue 3,” a ballot measure that would legalize recreational and medicinal marijuana use. This is a controversial constitutional amendment that’s almost evenly split across supporters and opponents. The most recent polling shows supporters barely outpacing opponents by one percentage point, 44 to 43. . .

Read more at: Salon

To Weed or Not to Weed? Ohio Voting on Legalized Pot on Tuesday

2015 is my first election back in Ohio, after 20 years away. And though there isn't much on the ballot in this off-year election, short of some local municipalities, Ohio does have a short list of ballot initiatives on the slate. One has to do with voter redistricting, and seems like a no-brainer. The two others seem to have Ohioans rather confused. And have created some odd alliances on both sides.

Marijuana decriminalization--both medical and recreational--is on the ballot, specifically the "Yes on 3" side. It has attracted all sorts of medicinal marijuana supporters, from many different walks of life, not the least of which are the families of patients who could greatly benefit by both the legalized sale of marijuana pharmaceuticals and from the installation of the International Cannabinoid Institute, a medical research facility that would be built only if Issue 3 passes. It's also supported by a large number of people who enjoy recreational marijuana, would like to try it if it were legal, and those of us who simply think pot prohibition is silly in this day and age. In addition, it has the support of those who think that law enforcement and prisoner incarcerations ought to be focused on "real criminals."

Proposed medical marijuana research facility in central Ohio,
International Cannabinoid Institute (ICI).

So, who are the "No on 3" people? That's where it gets a little weirder, and even a little opaque. Some are prohibitionists, oft-times conservative people who adamantly oppose the legalization of marijuana in any form. Some are pro-medical, but anti-recreational (though they rarely give reasons, are scarcely asked why). Some are undoubtedly from the shadowy network of people who currently supply illegal weed to the masses. It's not too much of a stretch to think some are probably also decidedly less savory folks who deal in scarier drugs than weed. Oh yeah, and it includes idealistic stoners.

"What?" you might wonder. Why would (one would think, ordinarily liberal) pot smokers be against legal weed? That has to do with how Issue 3 came to be, who came up with it, how it was funded, how it is worded, and who stands to get rich. It also--oddly, to my way of thinking--hinges upon the word "monopoly." But how did it come to this?

Boiled down, it goes something like this. Advocates have attempted many times to get a legalization plan before the voters, and they've always come up short for one reason or another. This time, a group of investors came together, and devised the 2015 plan, and they got the signatures. The details of the plan are complex, but amount to initially allowing the investors--those who devised the plan--to own the initial grow sites, 10 in all around the state. These grow sites are to be vast, indoor, year-round growing facilities, and they will distribute the product to the various dispensaries around the state. And every citizen over 21 can apply for a license to home grow a set amount for themselves.

By definition, it's not a monopoly, though many have likened it to an oligopoly. This is because the assorted investors (apparently 50 or so individual for the grow sites, many more likely involved in each site) are seen as a cabal, as a single unit. I personally think this is a stretch, and don't see how there would be a lack of competition with so many sites and people involved. And I certainly don't think it sets up any more dire of a situation than we have with virtually any industry, commodity or service in the United States.

Which is why I come back around to wondering, why do pot aficionados suddenly care so much about monopolies? And that makes me wonder even more, who was behind getting that concept, that word, so ingrained in the opposition toolbox? Particularly when you find out that Issue 2, a state-written proposition, was created using the word monopoly, and was crafted to thwart Issue 3. This sets up the strange scenario where Issue 3 could decriminalize pot, and Issue 2 could nullify issue 3 in the same election. Or some other combination of pass/fail, depending upon how the vote goes.

Inside the proposed research facility.

It's got a lot of people confused. Matters aren't helped by the fact that the prohibition side has co-opted the graphics and messaging of the pro-legalization side, down to copying their (possibly ill-advised) cartoon mascot! And let's face it, any time you tell voters to vote "Yes" on one thing and "No" on another, in the same election, you're going to cause some confusion.

Here's my take: Vote Yes on 3, and No on 2. This will legalize medical and recreational use in Ohio. It will decriminalize home grow. It will come with restrictions and guidelines, true. Yes, my friends, to get this on the ballot and through a vote, it had to. Is it perfect? Probably not. But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, here. Get it legal. Get it moving. Find out what works. Find out what doesn't. Rather than waiting around for a "perfect world" proposition that may never come, put your energies into tweaking and retooling this plan in the future, if necessary. It would be a much more realistic way to go.

Meanwhile, small-time users and home growers won't go to jail. Sick people can get relief, whether they are the doctor-going type or not. Ohio gains tax income, and a potential boon to the economy. And yes, some people will get rich off it. Someone gets rich off of every industry. Be one of them! There will be ample job opportunities, and countless ways to get involved. Were there great odds you were going to own a facility capable of doing this anyway? Would you rather enrich drug dealers and cartels? Really?

Vote Yes on 3, and No on 2

That's my take.




[Full disclosure: I have family members involved in the effort to pass Issue 3, most notably on the medical side. While this has certainly helped sway my opinion on the matter, it has also allowed me to become informed on it, to the point where I believe I'd hold this opinion regardless. Thanks.]

Halloween Horrors: Razor Blade found in Candy in Reynoldsburg, Ohio (My Town)

Since I was little, back in the 70s (and for a long time before), there have been stories about tainted Halloween treats. Well-meaning neighbors would make caramel apples, popcorn balls and other homemade treats, only to have parents chuck them in the garbage, in the unlikely event that they contained needles, poisons, razor blades or other potentially  lethal items.

Everyone heard stories, but no one believed them. Parents would rifle through our candy sacks (usually a pillowcase), in the name of finding tears or needle pricks in the wrappers, but really just to steal the best chocolate. The rare occasions when there would be an actual case of tainted goodies would invariably turn out to be a hoax or a prank, either by a kid or a parent looking to scare people or garner attention. If you check out Snopes.com, they back me up on this.

But, especially after the Tylenol scare in the early 1980s, communities started changing Halloween. They'd have X-ray machines to run candy through, they'd hold mass indoor events instead of allowing trick-or-treating, they'd hold "trunk or treat" events, where kids got candy out of the backs of people's cars (and my, my, folks, doesn't that sound like a perfectly idiotic idea to teach kids?). A lot of over-the-top "safety" over a handful of mostly urban legends and hoaxes.

Well, last night it happened not only in the state of Ohio--where I recently returned after 20 years in Las Vegas--but right down the street from me. Seriously, we walk the area almost daily. It's a legit case, insofar as the Reynoldsburg police are treating it seriously, and there are actual photos of the Snickers bar with what looks like the razor blade from a disposable safety razor inside. But, I smell a rat. There was one piece of tainted candy found, period. That doesn't sound like a crazed lunatic trying to hurt people to me. It sounds like almost every other case like this, like a hoax or a prank gone too far. I'd lay money on it.

For the record: yes, central Ohio has "Beggars Nights," on various dates ahead of Halloween, a tradition dating back to the 1950s (with several origin theories). And no, I didn't pass out Snickers bars from my house, only Kit-Kats and Twix. Honest!

[Excerpt]

Reynoldsburg police: Razor blade found in Halloween candy

Reynoldsburg police are asking parents of children who trick-or-treated in the suburb to check all candy tonight, after a razor blade was found in a candy bar. Lt. Shane Mauger said police have no reason to believe the situation was a hoax. He said that the razor blade was in a Snickers bar. . .
Read more at: Columbus Dispatch

Vegas Vacation

Oh, hi! I forgot all about you guys! I've returned (for a short time) to my old stomping grounds in Las Vegas to pick up The Other Half, who has finally finished work obligations, and will be moving back with me to Ohio, at long last. And I plumb forgot about this here bloggy thing in the process. I meant to get back here, drop by with a brain nugget or two, and it has just completely fallen by the wayside.

Apologies of a sort. . .I mean, this is after all my hobby blog, and I say right up top that I blog when the mood strikes. But thought I'd better put up something to let folks know that I'm just away, not gone gone.

I'll be back with more later in the week, maybe sooner if something strikes me. Ciao for now!

Back to Ohio: Why do the Roads in Central Ohio Suck so Badly?

There was a common joke I heard in my youth, that the state flower of Ohio was the orange construction barrel. Every spring, the barrels would spring up, complicating any work commute in every direction. When I moved to Las Vegas in the early nineties, I realized that it's not a geographic thing, particularly. For the entire two decades I lived in the Vegas valley, I don't remember a time when Interstate 15 didn't have construction somewhere along its stretch through town.

Upon my return to Ohio this year, I had another revelation. There are huge differences between these two places as to what's going on behind those barrels. In Las Vegas, if there is a choke point on a highway, they fix it. If there is too much traffic trying to join or exit a freeway ramp on a daily basis, they build new interchanges, either replacing the existing exits, or adding new ones at different intersections. Complicated pinch points yield astonishing changes, like fly-overs, superstreet intersections, criss-crossing (and high-flying) ramps, extending and expanding roads that were previously inadequate, access roads, express lanes, and other improvements. Yes, Vegas still has The Spaghetti Bowl, and the Rainbow Curve--nobody's perfect--but by-and-large, if a section of town experiences terrible traffic, NDOT goes to great lengths to find a solution, and usually a quick one.

Not in Ohio. Sure, there have been changes. During my 20 year absence, State Route 161 was rerouted and expanded (with the efforts of Limited owner, Les Wexner), I-670 was completed as something of an innerbelt from Downtown Columbus to the Airport (it peters out in the suburb of Gahanna). I'm sure there have been other improvement projects (I saw a novel interchange at Roberts Road and west I-270, for example), and roundabouts have sprung up in both logical and unnecessary locations. Roundabouts seem to be a prestige thing for some reason, even in Las Vegas. But there are a distressing number of congested areas that are absolutely inadequate, and were inadequate in 1990, 1980, 1970.

Many of the freeway exits and junctions, for example, are of the original design: cloverleafs. They force drivers to cross each other, often requiring not only cooperation with other drivers (yeah, right), but also snap decisions. One in particular, at I-270 and State Route 3, allows almost no time to complete the maneuver. It's been that way since it was built. Traffic jams abound, and need have no other cause beyond competing drivers trying to cross each other to exit and enter.

Getting off the freeway, things can be just as bad on surface streets. Traffic jams can happen anywhere, at any time, and have no obvious cause. I can't tell you how many times I've found myself driving on a major road, and having to make a snap decision, because my lane is coming to a sudden surprise end or "turn only." Attempting to drive about three miles down State Route 256 (a major road), I had to change lanes three times to continue south, and this occurred no matter which lane

you're travelling in. Going through the town of New Albany (Les Wexner's baby), there are sequential intersections where through travel requires shifting lanes twice, neither particularly intuitive. I find this all over the place, left lane, right line, or middle lane (if there is one). Even in prestigious areas like Grandview Heights.

And while I'm on a rant, I'll point out that this is a state of few legal U-turns, and many intersections with signs that say, "No turn on red, except curb lane." Both of these things cause traffic tie-ups, the former because it forces drivers to make snap decisions, and the latter because many Ohio drivers are clueless, and read the sign as simply "No turn on red." That's a problem that funding roads can't fix, I suppose. Many Ohioans can't properly yield either, whether at roundabouts (something that I admittedly had problems with at first), or on continuous turn lanes. People in Ohio are also permitted to talk on the phone while driving without the assistance of Bluetooth, which is a huge traffic issue, just from my own observations.

But because of these side-issues about the driving-challenged in Ohio, improved infrastructure is just that much more important. And it's not getting done. I just wonder why. Yes, it's expensive. But it's important. I'd also like to point out that in Las Vegas, we had no city tax, no state tax, and property tax that was about 1/3 the amount in central Ohio. With all of this extra cash at their disposal, where does the tax money go in Ohio? Sure, those orange barrels are out all over the place, so clearly a lot goes to fixing the existing roads after the harsh winter destruction every year.  But here we are in the middle of May, and every excursion out of my house in Reynoldsburg is like a driving obstacle course. So, even that isn't getting done at a very rapid clip.

It's a daily aggravation, for me. I can only assume that your average Ohioan has come to accept the status quo as "just the way things are." When stuck in a traffic jam on East Broad Street out in the relative boonies of Blacklick to Pataskala at 2pm on an odd Saturday, they must just shrug, and think, "it's always been this way." But it doesn't have to be! I've seen it done better! There are many things about my Vegas experience I could bitch about, but attention to infrastructure isn't one of them. Why does Ohio allow this woefully inadequate condition to go on indefinitely?

Behind the Blogger: You Can Go Home Again. . .But Everything is Smaller

As I've noted many times in this space, I've recently transplanted myself from Las Vegas--where I'd spent two decades of my  life--back home to central Ohio. The move had been many years in coming, with the timing only becoming "right" in recent months. And yes, the timing was right in several ways, primarily economically, which had not been true until very recently. It was also spectacularly bad timing for some other reasons, not the least of which was landing in Ohio during some of the worst of winter, and in the midst of some coincidental personal turmoil happening amongst some Las Vegas friends' lives.

But on the positive side of the line, we found a house that is already feeling like home. And spring is on the horizon (though I had forgotten Ohio's very moody, very changeable early spring climate). As I live out this stretch of days, wherein I acclimate to my new--if familiar--surroundings, and The Other Half continues to commute back "home" to Vegas for an uncertain amount of time, I still wander in a slight haze. As of this writing, there is no rush for me to attain permanent employment (which is  sweet, don't get me wrong). I've got errands and the many chores of new house set-up, along with my part-time work. I have had no shortage of things to do. And I've still got to get my blogging bug back.

Our poor, desert cars, after just over a week in Ohio.

Mostly, I'm still trying to shake the notion that I'm "just visiting." Every year of the past twenty, I've spent at least some time visiting Ohio, sometimes two or three times. A portion of my (seldom paid) vacation time almost always entailed "coming home." Because of this, and the gauzy reality I feel like I'm living in at the moment, I still don't feel completely gelled. So, I've wandered out quite a bit, to get a stronger feel for my area, my family's areas, and everything in between.

I've done much more driving than I'm used to. Which is necessary, because there's so much more land to travel than back in the Vegas Valley. There, outside of town there just isn't much besides desert and mountains. And my friends were almost exclusively within 5 miles driving distance. A "big day out" for me was the 11-mile drive to Costco I'd occasionally take on the weekends! Sure, once in a while I'd go out to Calico Basin, Valley of Fire, or venture to Primm or down into Arizona for lottery tickets or something. But mostly, I lived inside a 5-8 mile little area. All the time.

Now, in Ohio? Everyone is 20-30 minutes from here! Trips out to the store and back (beyond the grocery down the street) typically take at least an hour, something that really wasn't the case in Vegas. I'm much more likely to group my trips, plan them better, and have had to fill up my gas tanks much more often. At the same time, however, it's kind of startling how close things are.

A) Downtown Columbus B) My Old Stomping Grounds
C) My New Digs: Close together, worlds apart.
(Click to embiggen)

I know that's paradoxical, but what I mean is, areas that my memory holds as "worlds away" from each other, are actually smack-dab beside each other, often with no buffer whatsoever. For instance, I grew up in the small enclave of Whitehall. I'm now in Reynoldsburg, a larger suburb to the east, at one time considered an "outer" suburb. In truth, it's only separated by a ribbon of freeway and a thin strip of Columbus (which long ago oozed between the cracks of any other community here, just about). Moving west from Whitehall is a rather depressing--and Whitehall ain't joyous these days--strip of Columbus again, bumped up against the still quite frou frou Bexley. Then, train tracks and boom, you're in Olde Towne East/Franklin Park/Bronzeville, a hodge podge of enormous Victorian homes that range from dilapidated and condemned to gorgeous and renovated.

Another ribbon of highway to cross going west, and you're Downtown. The entire drive from my old stomping grounds to the center of Downtown Columbus is a little over 5 miles or so. Walking distance. But with at least five distinctly different areas, and several sub-areas, all of which don't fit in my brain into the same space. That's to say nothing of venturing north with the Downtown/Short North/Victorian Village/OSU Campus/Clintonville stretch, which to me has always blurred into one big thing. And I've been grafting onto these areas all of the places in between, shifting my young adult compartmentalized brain over to a middle-age cohesive whole. It's adding to the surreality  of everything.

And don't forget three big factors: a) the enormous amount of changes made to infrastructure and landscape in my absence; b) the simultaneous sameness--but subtly different nature--of many places around those changes; and c) the unreliability of decades-old memories. None of my memories, seemingly, can be absolutely trusted. As a navigator, I'm only as useful as my Swiss-cheese memory and horribly twitchy Android phone let me be. And on top of that, the scale of everything just seems off.

Google Earth promises a greener world than my camera
can currently deliver.

Whitehall in particular seems smaller. Much smaller than I remembered. Much closer to some surrounding areas that I'd have ever thought. And not particularly nice to look at. It's wedged in between two major thoroughfares, both of which were part of US40, the National Highway. And it was settled post-World War II. As such, there wasn't much zoning or thought put into beauty and
aesthetics. It's hemmed in by Columbus, and sits below and airport and a defense construction facility. There's nowhere to grow, and not much to beautify. When they tried, they shoe-horned in a completely anachronistic Victorian theme that still baffles me. But, I'm probably looking with jaded eyes, and at the tail end of winter too.

I know from experience (even with my unreliable memory) that spring and summer bring beauty, even to somewhat unbeautiful places. The dire looking bare trees and brown lawns will give way to gorgeous greenery soon. My mood--as it always used to do--will be buoyed by the sunshine, flowers, grass and trees. Depressing drives across suburbs and country spaces will start to feel more filled with optimism. I'll get there. And soon enough, the surrealness is bound to fade too.

I doubt my experience living 2,000 miles away in the Mojave Dessert will fade away for awhile. I'll be comparing things (notably traffic and traffic infrastructure, liquor laws, and shopping hours) to the way they do it in Vegas for many years to come. I'll continue to miss my friends out there. But I'm finding you can go home again. It's just smaller. And bigger. And different. But also the same.

Behind the Blogger: The Return of Greenlee Gazette (for the Last Time, Again. . .)!

Though I've slowed down gradually over the last several years, it's only been since the Christmas and New Year's holiday season that Greenlee Gazette has really hit an iceberg and become a derelict craft of a blog. Bobbing around in the ocean, looking for all the world as though it's going under. And who could blame me if it did?

I've been captaining this ship for close to eight years, sometimes accompanied by a poo-flinging ship's chaplain (thanks for stirring me, Rev. Stu'!). And in that time, I've logged thousands of entries, and thousands of hours of unpaid blog-mastering. Though it's a hobby I greatly enjoy, it can be a slog. And some of my favorite bloggers--much more successful ones too, mind you--are actually throwing in the towel this year. Is blogging even still a thing? I'd argue it is, it's just more fractured than it used to be. For all of the social media we have these days, it still largely links to destination sites, and I enjoy being one of those destinations.

Chez Greenlee

But as I've said a few times here, getting back into the habit is difficult. It's kind of like trying to jump back onto a diet, when your schedule is all out of whack. And this past two weeks spanned a time when I was in transition between my parents' rural, snowed-in, remote house and my new suburban one. Now, finally, we're really in, with the bulk of the living space at least partially finished. Staple goods are re-stocked. Utilities are settled, appliances and electronics mostly placed. We've got some blank spaces and some place-holder furniture, and other assorted things to do, but at last, none of it really feels pressing.

The Other Half goes off on another extended work jaunt tomorrow, and my goal is to jump-start the blog--again--along with the diet! So, wish me luck! With all that is going on in the news, getting a few posts up should be no problem, and I'm itching to add my two cents.

For tonight, I'm staring down a 4 am call to get TOH to the airport, so it's early-to-bed. See you back here for the re-booted blog on Monday morning. Promise!

--Ed.

What Does a Tundra, An Igloo & Our Dear Editor's Windows Have In Common???...

EDITOR'S NOTE: While I can neither confirm nor deny any of what Rev' Stu has to say here, I will first a) apologize for the lack of posts over the last two weeks while I once again get my new life here in Cowtown USA on some sort of schedule, and b) note with some amusement and horror that Stu is taking advantage of my absence to fling some poo on the walls of my derelict blog! Now, on with the story, which may or may not contain a bare thread of truth (or possibly a woven, filthy tapestry of it).
 --Ed.

Ice.

My Heart

I was just monkeying around & thinkin' I should poke fun at our Dear Editor. I know enough about him & have a bit of a callousness that can beget me from time to time... So I figured why the fuck not? "It's all in good spirit...", which is what my lawyers, psychiatrists, spiritual advisers & judge's ruling said I should say. And so it begins...

I met Jamie on a cold and stormy night in the Las Vegas Valley, right behind the am/pm on Valley View & Tropicana... $5 seemed reasonable to me. I'm not gay, but he kinda seemed like he was. Funny enough, it was BFFs from the get go, since I had $15 that day. We chatted three times behind that filthy gas station... I left there with an empty wallet & an empty coin purse.

We seemed to connect & he offered to treat me to dinner afterwards. He allowed me to pick $7 worth of the nearby Burger King's $1 value menu items. Quite generous. In later reflection, I sorta felt like I bought my own dinner, but I digress again... I even had cheese on my Whopper Jr. that night. Very sweet.

Valuable & Heartbreaking Menu

It was awkward the first day Jamie came to work at the same place I did. How did that happen? Did he computer?? Did he scrawl with Crayons? I had no idea he was artsy-fartsy, which I contribute to my total lack of understanding "Teh Gay Culture". But suddenly there he was the in the same room... He's going to be working with me! When he walked thru that sliding glass door & saw me he immediately remembered the $13 worth of flame broiled Burger King value menu items connection we had shared that stormy, magical night. (Admittedly, I too reflected upon that night & remembered that the fucking bitch in the drive thru totally forgot my sweet & sour sauce request... Which I think may have been a gay-bashing crime?... But I'm not sure because I'm not a $16 gay.)

Jamie's Early Work - Circa 1999

Eventually I warmed up to Jamie being in my workspace in the non-$5 way. He was pretty good with crayons & hardly ever tried to make me gay. (He did offer to bring my coffee one morning which may have been Teh Gay for "Wanna fuck?"... But again I'm not cultured or gay, so I don't really know???...)

I decided to break the ice at the office one day... I asked him if he was going to the Cyndi Lauper concert that weekend.
Shocked & scared he said, "Yes, I am going to the queers only show."
I knew then that my suspicions about his gayness were close to confirmed. I beat the crap out him in the parking lot after work... For liking Cyndi Lauper, not teh gay thing.

Gay

After that he was more open about his sinful lifestyle & tendencies towards penii®. We became closer in a strictly non-gay way. We went to movies together, drank beers together, watched Sally Fields movies & even cooked together. It was just like being behind the am/pm again... $15 and limitless dreams. Good times. Again magical... Not cold, just warm loads of fun. Hopeful & playful.

Possibly Jamie's Flying Whore

Things were going well for quite some time until Jamie decided that hanging out at bars was a better route for him... The Burger King value meal was no longer his cup of tea. He started frequenting places that had free drinks, loose slots, looser guests & alleys. It was disturbing. Then he met Her. The tramp. He was enamored... Enthralled... Blown away. To make a long story short Jamie ended up marrying some stewardess from United Airlines. I was crushed, but not in teh gay way.

Fast forward to today. There Jamie sits happy in his big igloo, on the frozen tundra with $16 dollars worth of flying whore & a new world of exploration at his feet... And not gay.

The Devil's Sandwich

I hope you both fucking freeze to death in a White Castle drive thru window.

Much love & luck to you & yours Dear Editor...
~The Rev' Stu' (aka The Stupid Monkey)

Snowbound, Duty Bound, House Bound. . .Blog Moribund!

Okay, maybe not moribund. That means "dying," and in truth, the problem this week is just going to be time. During the past week, I got a semblance of my blogging mojo back. Maybe not full strength, but I got some stuff up there, much of it involving actual writing and thought on my part. So, yay me!

But this week is bound to throw in a whole toolbox of wrenches. Not only am I presently hopelessly snowed-in (which you'd think would lend me more time to blog, I know), but I need to get out. The Other Half is coming back after three weeks away working, and my parents--who own the manse I happen to be ensconced in--are coming back after a winter away. Beyond tidying up and preparing for that on the inside of the house, I've got to figure out the logistics of what to do about tons and tons of very deep snow in a very long lane.

This in addition to the regular telecommuting I do with my design work, closing on our new house, setting up utilities, and actually moving in. All amidst new snow, and all the other weather surprises Ohio can throw at me. So, the odds that this blogging space is going to look really deserted this week are quite high. I'll still try to get in here, I just wanted to drop this line of explanation.

Have a great week everybody. Here's hoping spring comes soon, and all over the place.

Behind the Blogger: Back to Ohio, Winter Update

Okay, so I've been back to Ohio now for roughly three weeks. After driving for the last four days of January from Las Vegas to Central Ohio (with a couple of stop-overs in Iowa to visit family), we managed to stay ahead of a big winter storm that had basically followed us all the way. We safely ensconced ourselves at The Other Half's sister's house on the west side of Columbus that first night, and then stayed for one more night before moving north to my parents' manse in the woods.

Since that time--all of February--I've been up here, in various stages of "snowed in," mostly. I picked a weird time to move from the Mojave Desert, didn't I? I know, because I kept my Las Vegas weather app on my phone, and can see the seventy-degree temperature gap for myself! At first, I was like a typical Las Vegan, one who had rarely or never driven on snow: a bit freaked out by the prospect. Odd, when you consider my very first experiences driving solo were in a very snowy winter, circa 1982-83. My sister--an experienced hand at both driving on snow and in a big honking diesel pickup truck--has been awesome about driving out here, (where the only access to the road is a half-mile long driveway in the woods, along a cliff) to tamp down the snow a bit for me.

Our poor cars, which have prior to now only known the desert.
Mine was cleared off 8 hours prior to this shot.

So, with the occasional melts, and my sis' efforts, getting out hasn't been 100% impossible. I've ventured out a few times, and in fact for one whole afternoon was unknowingly driving around in a level 1 snow emergency. I've--somewhat--got my "snow feet" back underneath me. Now, however, we've been buried under snow again. And I say "we" euphemistically, because in reality, I've spent most of my time up here in Frozen: Ohio Edition mostly alone. The Other Half went off to do some back-to-back-to-back trips for his work over a week ago. And he's not due back for another week!

The view from my temporary bedroom this morning.

Ah, so I have all this time on my hands. I'm not working, other than some few-hours-per-week tele-commuting design work. So, why am I not blogging? What in the world am I doing with my time? Aren't I bored? Yes and no. I'm finding that it's entirely possible to "do nothing," and still have a day zoom by. I'm managing to diet and exercise, including time on the treadmill, and the one-mile round trip in the snow for the mail. I've been cooking and cleaning up after myself (fortunately, I suppose).

Initially, there was the house hunt, and all that entails, including getting the financing, inspection and all of that. There was also the flurry of socializing with local family, though that's been largely curtailed because of the weather. So, right now, I'm in a holding pattern on the house, and pretty much a hermit under the snow. I had to go out to a funeral yesterday, but have no social engagements lined up. I have some work that's likely to come in, but probably won't go beyond a couple of hours' time in the next few days.

So, I'm going to try to get back into the blogging habit! For real! I hope. Here's the surprising thing: after blogging nearly daily for almost 8 years (even given the gradual reduction over the years), I've completely fallen out of the habit. It was a compulsion, a personal obligation for so long, I'd actually feel guilty if I skipped a few non-weekend days. I'd feel compelled to put up something, anything to let people know, "hey, I'm still here!" But I found out, once you willingly put yourself on hiatus, and then return with a "I'm going to slowly come back to this" disclaimer? The daily tug? Evaporates. I've utterly lost the feeling--when I'm once again sitting at the keyboard doing nothing in particular--to blog about this.

The new abode, assuming all goes as planned. Obviously before
the snow-mageddon.

Well, I'm going to try to get it back. I know I don't want the blog to go permanently dark, and I know also that there's not much point to a once-a-week blog either. I never want it to be a burden though, and I don't want to have a random assemblage of posts that only exists to fill some space. It's still got to interest me, and it's still got to be (hopefully) interesting to others. Now is as good a time as any--in fact, it's not going to get more opportune--for me to find that blogging desire and voice again. Barring an emergency or an unforeseen amount of work obligation, I'm going to re-train myself to blog again, and it begins this weekend.

 

Behind the Blogger: 2015 New Year's Resolutions

New Year's resolutions are a silly tradition. For the most part, we never get started on them. Occasionally, we commit to them. For a week. Maybe two. If you keep it up for three weeks, you've got maybe a 50% chance of going past a month, and if you make it to a month, I'm betting you're in rare company.

That said, in 2011, I gave up smoking as a New Year's resolution. Other than the fact that I picked January 3 as my start date (since that was a Monday that year), it took. I have had zero ciggies since January 2, 2011. Truth be told, I could have given them up on Dec. 31, since I think I rationed out my last pack over two days, and ended up giving the rest to The Other Half (who is still occasionally puffing, by the way). Other resolutions have not been nearly so successful, though I often do make it through long past when others drop out.

Usually, it's lose weight, get in shape. I've done that many times. I rarely ever stop exercising completely, so that one is usually stepping up my exercise. But I often fall off the diet. I'm a yo-yo dieter with a really long yo. I can go 18 months at a good weight, then life gets in the way, and boom, chubbo again. Doggone it. Some people think it's as easy as simple math, calories in, calories out. This doesn't take into account differing metabolisms, differing types of food that either stick or pass on thru, and other factors. And it doesn't take into account that Atkins really works, and you don't have to count calories to do it. It's just bloody boring after a while. But...

My resolutions for 2015:

- Lose weight, 20 pounds or above, keep net 20 off for the year. If I lose 25, and end up with just the 20, I'll take it.
- Keep up and ramp up the exercise.
- No smoking (this one is easy)!
- Keep blogging, even though it's mostly for me. Everyone needs a hobby.
- Grow my business/get a job. One or the other or both will be necessary after quitting my job, and moving cross-country with The Other Half.
- Save political arguments for the blog and online shouting matches. No need to start unnecessary arguments with politically incompatible family members!
- Enjoy the changes the move will bring, don't panic, don't overthink, enjoy.
 

What Happens in Vegas: Will It Snow, Will It Snow, Will It Snow?

Well, it's almost time to retire my What Happens in Vegas feature, along with the year of 2014. In a month or so, I'll officially be a Buckeye again, after a lapse of 20 years. Time will tell if I develop a Useless Nut feature when Greenlee Gazette takes up root back in Ohio.

For now, my soon-to-be abandoned adoptive state and city look to be giving me a going away present: snow on New Year's Eve. It's never happened, at least with anything resembling accumulation, since people have been keeping track of such things. I've been here for a handful of  Las Vegas' very few recorded snow storms, and I'm very much looking forward to this one! If it happens. I know I'll quickly have my fill of snow when I get back to Ohio, but there's something different about it when it happens here. Probably the palm trees.



Yeah, yeah. You've promised this before.
Image from source, LVRJ.com

Still, the tourists from out of town have got to be cursing my enthusiasm. Some years you don't even need much beyond long sleeves on the strip for NYE. This year, you'll freeze your (by now, pointless) 2015 novelty glasses off.

[Excerpt]

It’s gonna snow! Probably.

People celebrating the eve of the New Year in Las Vegas may be seeing more than confetti falling from the sky. The best chance for snow — it’s a 60 percent chance — will come late Wednesday afternoon and early in the evening, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Stachelski. Even though the storm system is carrying less moisture than was forecast Saturday, Las Vegas will likely see between a half-inch to an inch of snow and record low temperatures, Stachelski said. . .

Read more at: Las Vegas Review-Journal

Behind the Blogger: Leaving Las Vegas, Back to Ohio

[Every so often, I use this site as a personal confessional. That's kind of what "blogs" originally were: personal web logs. Since I haven't written in a while, I thought I'd do one of these, to explain what I've been up to, and where I've been]

It's the end of a personal era. It all began in 1994. Rather, it didn't begin there, but things that were already in motion took off there. I'd been in the amusement industry for about six years, and in 1994 Las Vegas was experiencing an amusement ride boom. Along with several other principal members of the company I'd worked with in Ohio, I made the decision to journey across America, a 2,000 mile trek to the desert. I landed here almost exactly 20 years ago, plus a couple of weeks.

This year's Christmas card (with apologies to Berkeley Breathed)

The first two years were exciting and new. I'd never lived so far away from my family. Prior to this, I was still a 30-minute drive away, and sometimes went weeks without seeing any of them, but it was possible to get together on a moments' notice, or for holidays, birthdays, gatherings or lunch. Now, I was alone, except for my four other fellow travelers.

Initially, we spent a whole lot of our time together, and didn't much wander out of our own little group, especially me. I was the fifth wheel, the perpetual single to the two couples. More than that, I was the gay one, to their straight-married normalcy. And I was also shy and didn't date. So, we spent way too much time at The Rio, The Hard Rock Hotel, and other "new-to-us" gambling meccas. Eventually, I tired of being alone, and dipped a toe into the dating waters. After a few tries, I started dating a guy of considerable charm, but with a dark side.

We dated for six weeks. After escalating just-short-of-violent behavior (and other sketchy behavior), I dumped him. He spent a week winning me back. We dated for six more weeks, his sketchy behavior picked back up, moved to the actually violent, and I dumped him again. All the while, I funded his favorite activity, namely: video poker and pool. I did this--stupidly--to my own financial detriment. But, in a very wise move, I dumped him again. Unfortunately, because we traveled in the same circles, I knew I could not avoid him. So, though we no longer dated, I maintained a distant but not hostile "friendship" with him. Every so often, I'd watch him play pool, though I no longer gave him a dime.

My favorite vehicle, a '98 Jeep Wrangler, owned for 9 years, entirely
here in Las Vegas, now gone for five years.

I had no dimes! They were spent, along with future dimes! And the timing couldn't have been worse. Unbeknownst to me, my (at the time) high paying job was quickly coming to a close, due to malfeasance by a principal member. I had a crucially bad combination of factors: 1) exhausted savings, 2) growing personal debt, 3) an already scheduled Christmas vacation, 4) naiveté about just how bad the work situation was, and how quickly a financial crisis can snowball. I continued to work for no pay, continued to incur expenses, and didn't know enough to drop the job as quickly as I'd dropped the boyfriend.

I married The Other Half in '08, during
the brief window it was legal in California
that year. Now it's legal in Nevada, and in
most of the country. . .but not Ohio!

The new job paid half what the old one did. I inherited a sibling (also down on his luck). And my finances were a shambles. During this time, I pretty much withdrew into my own life and troubles, and my group of friends and I had a lengthy period of separation. Fortunately, we all came back together. But one set had started a family, and remained in a slightly removed orbit for most of the rest of this story (still love 'em, still see 'em, just not as often). I spun off the sibling into his own story, dated a little more, and my job grew into a career.

The story greatly improved the following year, when I met The Other Half. We had a fast courtship, a brief separation, and then a solid relationship and cohabitation, all in just over a year. We've been together ever since, with a relatively consistently improving or steady time of it all along the way. Debt problems are in the distant rear view (where I hope they stay). Two cats have come and gone. A couple of cars, though far fewer than most people. I gathered some friends with the relationship, and for the most part, the two circles have remained steady, and tend to overlap on special occasions.

But there is the pull of family, and of something less tangible. After having been here twenty years (and The Other Half nearly as long), we could both see that both of our very long careers would likely end before too many more years. Our nieces and nephews are growing up fast (some have grown entirely from infancy in this time). Our remaining parents are getting older, siblings too. Family health problems are beginning to crop up with alarming regularity. So, the 2,000-mile buffer has become more abrasive lately then comforting. It's time for a change.

Jinx the Cat came and went, but managed 14 years
here in Las Vegas, 12 of them with us.

It was somewhere about year 13 when I took up hobbyist blogging. It's difficult to believe, but when I moved here, Bill Clinton was still in the first half of his first term in office. In the early days of my relationship, we had The Lewinsky Affair and the impeachment. Next was the 2000 election nightmare, followed by the Bush/Cheney night terror that wouldn't end. It wasn't until Dubya was three-quarters of the way wrecking things when I just was so damned sick of it, that I started this blog as an outlet for my frustrations.

I'd been a keyboard commando since the days of bulletin board services. I can't claim to have gotten too into it until the age of Prodigy, and early AOL though. I'm an early adopter, but not that early. Still, my political arguing skills have been honed online for all of my 20 years here in Vegas. And it occurs to me that pretty much the entire internet age for most people has happened within those same years. When I left Ohio, I had a modem, but it had seen only sporadic use!

The blog started slowly, grew quickly, consumed tons of my time in the first and second years, and then waned on an almost imperceptibly slow decline ever since. I've never gone more than a week without a post, and rarely longer than a weekend. But a quick look at my posting history will reveal that my output here has nearly crashed this year. Life, finally, has gotten in the way lately.

One of several things that didn't exist 20 years ago:
Flat-panel TVs and monitors.

I imagine I'll keep the blog going as long as Blogger is a "thing." I see no reason to kill it off, or make some big declaration ending it. It is rare that a week goes by when I don't have something I want to write. I still enjoy sharing things, and regularly cross post on Facebook and Twitter. But I can't deny that a daily routine is becoming a drag. There's a reason I've almost eliminated blogging late Friday-to-Sunday evenings, and reduced or non-existent posting over holidays. I no longer panic and seed time-released posts when I know I won't be around. If I don't get a post up for the night, sometimes I explain why, sometimes I just don't worry about it. [Story continues below]

BETWEEN 1994 AND 2014

- Flat panel TVs and monitors didn't exist, outside of portables or laptops, and they were extremely small and expensive. They are now ubiquitous. Our household has at least seven. We have no glass tube screens, and used to have at least 5.
- Cell phones were rare, expensive, huge and heavy. They are now ubiquitous, and smarter than any PC from 1994.
- FOX "News" and MSNBC didn't exist until 1996, and the 24-hour news cycle wasn't really a thing yet. CNN was unique.
- We had no idea who Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Ted Cruz, Rachel Maddow, Adam Levine, Ryan Seacrest or Simon Cowell were. Or what a Kardashian is.
- We went from VHS to DVD (mostly skipping LaserDisc), and on to Blu-Ray along with instant, streaming high definition, sometimes 3D video. Often over wireless wifi, which would have been indistinguishable from magic twenty years ago.
- Speaking of wifi, our connected world would all seem like magic to a computer user with a 14.4 dialup modem with CompuServe, in 1994. The internet and the many ways we connect to it should amaze us more than it does.
- Google and other search engines have rendered trivial knowledge a useless talent.
- In 1994, Justin Bieber was an infant. So was Ariana Grande. Miley Cyrus was 2. One Direction's entire lineup was 0-3 years old, with an average of less than 1.

And that's probably how the future will go. As we move back to the Buckeye state later this winter, the blog will mostly remain static unless something really interesting/exciting happens. When I arrive at my destination, I'll undoubtedly pick it back up. In fact, at first, I'll probably have the time, and want to post things. But hobbies are a time-available thing, and our time will be in demand, both with the practicalities of moving, and with visiting our newly-close-by families. We'll be looking for jobs (though maybe not right away), and a house. There are going to be other things to do.

So, if you've made it this far, thank you for reading, thanks for stopping by. If you enjoy this blog, know that it isn't going away. Just maybe check in less often, or just expect that I might not have anything new that day. If I ever do decide to end the blog all together, there will be a final post saying so. But I can almost guarantee that there will still be new posts after that! I just can't imagine that I won't want an outlet sometimes.

 

Back to Ohio: Changes Afoot at Greenlee Gazette

See, here's the thing, kids. Mommy and Daddy aren't breaking up, and it's not your fault. But we are moving. We're Leaving Las Vegas, and moving on. After 20 years in the desert, and about 17 since the original experiment almost uprooted me, I've decided that the Mojave has given me all it's going to. I'll miss friends made here, and those who made the initial journey with me. There is no doubt of that. But there comes a time when "home" shifts. And "home" is now moving eastward.

I will always have a soft spot for Lost Wages. And as long as my adopted family members here in the valley remain, I'll always want to come visit. But when they've gone as well? I doubt that Vegas will hold much interest for me. I quit gambling accidentally when I quit smoking at the end of 2010. Most of the tourist traps never got me. I avoid those areas like the plague already. But I do cross Las Vegas Boulevard almost every single day. I can see Mandalay Bay and Luxor from my office window. I came here when Luxor was birthed, and helped with the delivery, along with that of Stratosphere, New York-New York and more. Las Vegas will be in my blood for a long time.

But 2,000 miles eastward lies the Buckeye State, the land of my origins. My bio- and step- parental units reside there (when they're not sunning in very separate sites in Florida), as do my siblings and one of The Other Half's sisters. How weird is that? Couple that with the facts that a) all of the rest of the family is within a day's drive of central Ohio, and b) that the remaining nieces and nephews are growing up so fast, we almost can't keep up? No brainer. Since we found ourselves in a position where we can afford to go? We're going.

I'm going to have to start at least pretending that
this means something to me.

However, dear reader, the fact of the matter is, all of these changes makes daily blogging a challenge! Not only are we preparing for a total upheaval in our lives (beyond the unfortunate termination of a beloved family pet), we're also running out the remaining days of both long-term careers, jostling the holidays (our last set), and trying mightily to squeeze in every last gathering we can with beloved friends. The period between now--early December, 2014--and the end of the first month of 2015, are going to be packed solid.

I will continue blogging throughout. I'll likely track our journey, our eventual arrival, and everything along the way and after. Greenlee Gazette will survive, and continue, becoming an Ohio-based blog. I'd be foolish to think this concerns more than a handful of people, if that. Though I have a small following, it's unlikely very many people care where I am. And I suppose that really says it all. My career is likely to become almost completely location irrelevant. Why shouldn't the blog?

One thing that will go by the wayside is the What Happens in Vegas feature. But I suppose it wasn't appointment viewing in the first place. I might come up with a Useless Nut feature for my new Buckeye status. But largely, things will remain the same. I'm leaving this post up, may update it, and may future-date it, just so that people realize that there is a transition going on. But I'll be both back. . .and never really leave. I'm just moving! Come with me? We've got eight or ten weeks to get there. Thanks!