I love The Vegas!

It has been an exciting week or two.  Much to talk about.  But first, I have decided I am going to update the blog at least every Monday, so every Tuesday I promise you will see a new post.  Now Vegas!

First off, Las Vegas is not part of Los Angeles.  I know this.  I am not geographically challenged.  But Las Vegas has long been LA's playground, so I feel no shame in including my trip to Vegas here.

Jaime, Katie and I road tripped it out to Vegas.  We left at 2 PM on Friday thinking we would beat traffic, but in LA one never really beats traffic.  But we had fun along the way and the highlight of the journey was our stop in Baker, a roadside town whose claim to fame is the world's largest thermometer.  Isn't it a beauty?

We got to Vegas around 7:30 and checked into the Four Seasons.  This is the way to do Vegas.  The Four seasons is its own hotel, but has its rooms in the Mandalay Bay towers.  It has its own pool, Lobby, elevators, etc. but is connected to Mandalay Bay and guests get to use all its facilities.  It was fantastic.  After dinner, Katie decided to go to bed.  Jaime and I hit the slots and Fat Tusesday.  Or as we like to call it Fat Tub Day.  And this shot is camera trickery. I was not as "gone" as I appear, we just got the thing! 

Fat Tub Day is a Mardi Gras themed drink bar with very large containers of alcoholic slushy drinks.  Very deadly.

The rest of the gang, Ryan, Nathan, and Rachel arrived around midnight.

We spent the rest of the night wandering the southern strip and finally got to bed.

Our next morning we hit the outlet mall.  If you have never been to the outlet mall in Vegas, it is pretty fantastic, and I don't even like shopping.  They have everything.  I think everyone got something.  Then it was off to lunch at my favorite spot, Mon Ami Gabi, at Paris.

We sat outside in the nice sun and watched the Bellagio fountains across the street.  No Carrot Top this time (we have seen him twice here).  But we did have a strange waiter who would not let Rachael order a Caesar salad.  Seriously.  It was mildly amusing at first, but then just got annoying when he wouldn't bring extra spoons to share Jaime's chocolate moose.  Mon Ami is still awesome and the food was great. 

That evening we all went to Penn and Teller.

Nathan scored some free tickets through his work!  Penn and Teller is one of those acts that has been around for a long time but you still don't know what it is about.  But the show was great! It was like the anti-magic show. Comedy combined with cool tricks.  We had fun theorizing how the tricks were performed afterwords.  Two Fat Tub Day's later and I was feeling pretty good.

After dinner at ESPN Zone Rachael and Katie called it a night.

Ryan, Jaime, Nathan and I attempted to go to Club Prive at Planet Hollwood because we had passes, but were promptly rejected because of Jaime's flip flops and nathan's white tennis shoes.  We were too cool for them anyways.

Next it was blackjack at Bellagio (I came out ahead!), and then we wandered into the new City Center.  Man that place is huge.  The Aria hotel was very nice and the casino was cool, but it didn't seem like much was going on.  From there the evening degenerated and we will leave Vegas in Vegas, but suffice to say the night ended in a good old fashion pillow fight.

The next morning we enjoyed the wave pool and the lazy river and caught some rays.  After a 3 hour lunch at Burger bar, it was time to say goodbye to The Vegas.  It was fun as always and I will return soon!

  P.S. Thanks to Jaime for the pictures. For this last one, Jaime used a trash can as a tripod.  Pretty ingenious. Nice work J.

My first haircut in LA...

Ok. Getting a haircut may not seem like it qualifies as an adventure.  But I have had my hair cut by the same person for years and finding someone new was going to be terrifying.  I hadn't had a haircut in months, so it was time.  At first I didn't know where to even look.  But I have discovered that yelp.com comes in handy a lot down here.  Those of you unfamiliar, yelp.com is basically a site where people review things in your city.  They have reviews on everything! So I looked at several barber shops and salons and in the end, just ended up picking the Forme Salon because it had good reviews and it was within walking distance to work.

So I arrive for my appointment and I am already intimidated.  The salon is huge and very modern looking.  I am used to a few chairs in a tiny shop.  A friendly lady with a British accent checked me in on a shiny mac computer.  She offered me coffee, tea, cookies, candy...and probably a few other things while I waited on a plush sofa.

Soon, Christina came for me.  I hadn't had my haircut by a woman since I was a little kid, so this was going to be a new experience.  Christina led me to a changing room and instructed me to go in and put on a robe.

Put on a robe?  I walked into the changing room and saw a black robe on a hanger.  I looked around the room for some instructions.  There were none.  Was I supposed to take my clothes off? I knew enough not to take my pants off, but what about my shirt? I decided to take the shirt off, but when I put the robe on, I noticed a significant amount of my chest was showing.  I considered putting my shirt back on, but realized I was taking a really long time and Christina probably thought I was some kind of freak.  So I covered myself as best I could and strolled out.  I glanced around the large salon and noticed the other guys had all kept their shirts on. Great.

But I needn't have worried, because the rest of the experience was great.  I told Christina I was looking to do something a little different, maybe even try some product and she took it from there.  I got a really great shampoo/head message which really relaxed me.  Then came the haircut.  I was waiting for something disastrous to happen, but it never did.  It came out the right length and I was even shown how to apply some product.    This was worlds away from your average barbershop or super cuts, and so was the price, but I think it was worth every penny.

http://www.formesalon.com/ 

Before

 After

Bruno's Italian Restaurant

Wow. I have to apologize.  I have been slacking in the month of March.  And I promise to make it up the rest of the month.  There are many adventures to be had...including a trip to Vegas. Stay tuned.  Now for Bruno's!

Bruno's might be described as a hole in the wall, but what a hole it is.  When it comes to quality food at restaurants, that old saying about judging a book by its cover really holds true.  Bruno's is located 2 blocks from the Santa Monica Pier and you could easily walk past it and never know it was there.  Family run and operated, it is a rarity to find such a down to earth and homey place in trendy Santa Monica.

The restaurant is basically one room, with the open air kitchen in the corner.  When you walk in and see the red booths and the plastic checkered table cloths you know this is not going to be a pretentious fine dinning experience.  Bruno's is all about the food and casual atmosphere.

And yes that is the Mona Lisa in the corner there.  I went to Bruno's twice in the same week, so that should tell you something.  The first time with my uncle Steve.  I had pizza, which was not the traditional thin crust type, but more like New York style and still delicious.  Then something quite unexpected happened.  A nice old man gave me half a liter of wine that he said he couldn't finish.  Now you would think I might be a little leary of drinking a strange man's wine.  But not a Bruno's.  It just seemed to fit.  It seemed like a very Italian thing to have happen.

The second time I brought my Grandma and Jack, and Bruno himself was our waiter (I foolishly forgot to get a picture of him.  I promise to post one as soon as I go back).  Bruno's family hails from Naples and he is very funny and full of personality.  Do I just have the kind of face that Italians like to pick on?  Anyways, the food was great.  I had chicken piccata and although the texture and sauce were a little different than I was used to, it was still scrumptious.  Bottom line is that the food is simple and good.  Bruno's has all the Italian-American classics.  It isn't completely authentic Italian, but its damn close and a lot better than 90% of other imitators.

  To top it off, Bruno's is very reasonable! The most expensive thing on the menu is maybe $18, and many dishes are $12.  The pizza is an even better deal.  Grandma, Jack and I had a fantastic meal.  We were about to drive off when Bruno comes running up to us with Grandma's cell phone and my leftovers that we had left at the table.  Thanks Bruno!
Bruno's gets the Schu stamp of approval, no question.  I will be going back soon!

http://brunossantamonica.com/