Memorable Day

Approaching midnight but Las Vegas still sweats through one hundred and three degree temperatures. Thirty five floors below my floor-to-ceiling windows: people are playing golf, a plane lands every three minutes, and there is no end to the traffic on the ever-under-construction streets. This city never catches its breath. It is too big. Lumbering ever forward with too much weight on its spine. Inertia and alcohol and an unfulfilled promise of instant wealth. If you play enough, you're told, eventually you win. Everyone here keeps playing. Waiting for that jackpot to hit. My theory states: you can't lose if you never play.

Four hour meeting at eight this morning. Two hundred and some odd computer geeks gathered under one roof. Won't do the math on the cost. Too many zeros there. Not including the food or coffee or transportation or facilities costs. Lots of cheering. Plans about plans. Implied promises. Requests for continued patience.

Then a financial wizard I admire says the oddest things. The economy is doing well. Concerns over Europe are overblown. The threat of a second recession is mostly empty. Leaving me wondering if I'm living in an odd distopian fantasy or he is. One of us is wrong. But I'm a computer dork and he's a high ranking financial professional. So what are the odds on me winning a debate with him? Hopefully he is right. I'm just not seeing it.

An earthquake outside Washington D.C. today. No, really. The capital shook and was evacuated after a 5.8 quake. Nobody notable injured. My buddy Peter verified he had survived via text. Unfortunately the White House remained intact. And I'm sure Obama will find a way to make this Bush's fault.

Libya has a historic turn as unrelenting rebel forces push Gadhafi out of the Libyan capital of Tripoli. The opposition claiming victory. Loyalists putting up their own resistance. New casts of nothing but gunfire and tracers. More revolution crawling Westward. How long until it comes to our shores?

And a Cat 3 or Cat 4 hurricane dragging along the Eastern seaboard.

All coming together to make it a memorable day.