Vegas' OZ and NASCAR Odds

The Bellagio courtyard was strange, reminding me of the scene where Dorothy battles the evil orchard in the Wizard of Oz. Most of it was a dark sinister forest with red, white and blue kites and American flags flying from the gnarled trees. The other part was electric trains running through the constructed wilderness. It would have been totally creepy had there not been hoards of giggling Japanese school girls taking each other's picture against a backdrop of twisted tree trunks.


Usually I get in a number of Bellagio fountain views; this visit yielded none. High winds and technical problems thwarted each attempt. I did manage three different MGM lion encounters. Last weeks lions included Dusty, Bijou, Samantha, Peaches and Tara. Sasha was the last lioness we encountered. I initially thought it strange that she was by herself. Then I saw her completely, and repeatedly, decimate a large plastic ball with her large jaws and thought her isolation was all for the best.

cc asked in an earlier comment whether my brother was feeling up the statue. In this picture he was indeed doing just that. I'm sorry to report that this was about as close to "lucky" as he got in Vegas. I am happy to report, however, that the pressure of the blog and Jen Leo was too much for Matt to endure. His facial hair was gone by mid-visit.

I had hoped to display Matt's impressive escort card collection in this post, but Blogger hasn't fixed their photo upload issues yet. I've been using a workaround, by uploading to Flickr and manipulating the code. But Flickr's guidelines frown on frontal nudity, so the collection will have to wait. And with the few pictures that I've loaded, I have already made a huge dent in the free monthly allowance. As cheap as I am, I'm desperately hoping that Blogger gets back on track by Monday.

I am not a regular sports bettor. Every once in awhile I get a wild hair to develop my own statistical analysis for a sport, running regressions on any number of factors. But I know it's all been done before and anything I developed would be unlikely to change the sports betting universe. Still someday I'd like to play around with it.

When I'm in Vegas, I sometimes throw down a cheap sports bet. Sunday I bet on the Coca Cola 600 at Lowe's Speedway. I had been watching the line all week on Jimmie Johnson,the field favorite. He started the week at 5-to-1, which probably wasn't bad odds for Johnson. He practically owns the track, winning something like seven times there. By Sunday, the odds closed in at 5-to-2 on Johnson, which I just didn't feel comfortable with. There are too many factors that a driver can't control. When I was here a year ago, I watched the AAron's 499 at Talledaga from the Mirage sports book. On lap 132, a 25 car pile up took out most of the field. Instead I decided to go with Matt Kenseth at 8-1. Kenseth had won this race as a rookie and finished 3rd here in 2004. The picture is from his website. Kenseth qualified in 6th. He was running well but had a problem in the pits around the 70 lap mark, dropping him from about sixth place to 35th. He fought his way back to third place, but ultimately finished in 5th place. Jimmie Johnson came in second behind the winner, Kasey Kahne.

Well hopefully Blogger will fix their picture uplaod issues soom, enabling escort photos and possibly a post Vegas bathing suit shot.