Living Las Vegas

Real Life in the Shadow of the Strip

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Top Vegas Hotels: Bellagio, Luxor, Rio

Roads from the Ashes: An Odyssey in Real Life on the Virtual Frontier, by Megan Edwards

Shopping Beyond the Strip

“But where do real people shop in Las Vegas?” is a question I often hear. I’m not sure I understand how being a tourist makes you a fake, but it’s true that visitors often have different shopping needs from residents. It’s hard to buy light bulbs at the Caesars Forum Shops, and while the Chocolate Swan has some lovely comestibles, they don’t include Cheerios.

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A Quick Trip to Vegas

There seem to be quite a few people who live in Las Vegas who never go to the Strip. “I avoid it like the plague,” is a phrase I hear often, along with, “The last time I was on the Strip, I went to the .” I, however, belong to a group that may well be a minority. I like the Strip…

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The Bots Came Back: DARPA Grand Challenge 2005

Whenever I go out into the desert to look around, I always run across one of three basic humanoid groups: geeks, grunts, or gearheads. The geeks are there because scientists are often banished to the howling desiccated wilds to carry out their explosive or radioactive experiments or to simulate life on other planets. The grunts are there because large arid expanses are perfect places for soldiers to drop bombs, play war games, and even fight real wars. And gearheads have been fans of dry lake beds ever since cars were invented because they are free of radar guns and traffic lights.

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Book Review: When the Mob Ran Vegas

When the Mob Ran Vegas: Stories of Money, Mayhem, and Murder
by Steve Fischer

One unexpected but delightful feature about moving to Las Vegas is meeting the locals. Even if they’ve only been here a decade, they have stories about the good old years to tell — like back in 1998 when the Bellagio opened. Better still are the folks who’ve spent a lifetime here, and still remember watching the original Ocean’s Eleven being filmed on the Strip or seeing Liberace at Carluccio’s before he was a ghost…

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Let There Be Lake

To people who live in Las Vegas, “The Lake” usually refers to Lake Mead, that other-worldly wonder created when Hoover Dam blocked off Boulder Canyon. I say “usually,” because there are other bodies of water that also generate comment. The “water features” at the Bellagio and the Wynn resort are called lakes, and so are “The Lakes,” a set of man-made ponds in a high-end residential development on the city’s west side. But the one most likely to compete with its big brother on the Colorado is a relative newcomer in Henderson: Lake Las Vegas.

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