Downtown Sights and Ruminations

I had to head downtown today to do an interview at the spankin' new and hyper-green Molasky Corporate Center, the state's first building to be certified LEED Gold. There were lots of interesting things about it, from the insulation made from old jeans to the hardwood flooring that comes from old phone poles to the fact that the parking garage floors were named "Conserve" and "Solar" and stuff like that.

My favorite thing, though, had nothing to do with the carbon footprint. It was this unusual bit of public art, a mammoth chess board that people can actually play on.


From the top floor, we could look down and see the mile-long train on the Union Pacific tracks of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Evidently, they're in town. I hate the circus. It made me sad to think that all those poor animals were idled in those train cars in 100+ heat and I couldn't do anything about it. Sad. Say what you will about Las Vegas, this is the city that proved that you make billions staging cruelty-free circuses starring - wait for it - humans!


And finally, a question: What the heck is up with this discoloration at the Golden Nugget?


Anyone know?

UPDATE, 4:05 pm PT: Justin McVay, the Golden Nugget's publicist, writes in that they're testing out different facade looks in trying to decide what look to go with for their new 500-room, $150m tower due to be finished in late 2009. The blue crane in the foreground of the photo is part of that. It's fascinating -- and surprising -- that they'd use the actual building to test out looks. That's a pretty big experiment, and even so I can't get my head around what it would look like writ large across the tower.