Road Trip, Part III

OK, so I'm a little behind here, but that, above, was me on the steps of the Kansas Capitol on Topeka on Tuesday. This is where, in the summer of 1993, my fascination with statehouses began. As an intern at the Topeka Capital-Journal, I used to sit on those steps at sunset and write letters. The steps were as lovely and broad as I recalled, and I did sit to write some letters there, too. But holy Christ it was hot out, so the recreation of a younger self's romantic habit was sort of rushed so as to not kill my dogs. They lived, by the way, as seen here with my travel companion, Amy:

All this said, it seems appropriate that I'd discover upon my return visit to Topeka that I'd been doing the state capitols thing all wrong all this time. I chatted up the visitors reception desk lady, told her of my hobby and how it all started here, and she says to me, "Well, do you have The Book?"

Uh, what book?!?

Turns out, there's a book. And hobbyists are supposed to get them stamped when they visit different capitol buildings. Yes, there's a frigging stamp, too. See?

I kinda wish someone had told me about this, say, 18 years and 35 capitols ago. Grrr.

There are plenty of interior photos of the Topeka capitol in the Flickr slideshow for days 5 and 6 of the big road trip to Michigan, the player for which you'll find at the end of this post.

But the big revelation of this leg of the trip was the sensational Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, which was simply so impressive. I was blown away from the entry to the gorgeous dome and meaningful artwork throughout, but then I also got sort of lucky.

You see, I always ask if there's any way to climb to the top of the dome. This worked in Providence, you may recall. And here, the word from the visitors reception folks was that you could do it only if you were escorted by "someone with a key." Who have keys? Every state representative. One fellow on an elevator -- I asked if he was a state rep! -- told me to just go into any rep's office and ask. So I stepped in here...

...and the wonderful lady who works with Rep. Mary Nichols, D-Maryland Heights, Mo., was happy to do it. That meant walking me behind the upper edge of the House chambers, which resulted in this Death Star-esque photo:

Then she unlocked a padlock, came with me part of the way to shoot this...

...and told me where to go before letting me climb up there by myself. There's a little walkway that encircles the very top, and I got some wonderful shots of Jefferson City and the Missouri River it straddles.

Many more images of this adventure are in the Flickr show. But it was interesting to spot this sign:

It was surprising to see such explicit art on the grounds of the building once overseen by ex-Gov. John Ashcroft, who had the Department of Justice cover up naughty bits of statues in DC when he was the Attorney General. Go ahead, enlarge this to see that the sculptor clearly gave this stone statue some, uh, wood:

People ask what the attraction of capitols is. I'm not terribly interested in museums, but I think I enjoy learning about history and seeing great art in buildings that continue to function and where history continues to be made. In other words, it's a living, breathing edifice. And I find out all sorts of tidbits I didn't know, such as that both Lewis AND Clark were once governors of Missouri:

And yes, I got The Stamp.

After Jefferson City, Amy and I headed east once more, this time en route to Springfield, Ill., to spent the night. We stayed almost entirely off the Interstates, which gave us some wonderful opportunities for diversions and discoveries. For instance, we headed through tiny Louisiana, Mo., a town right on Mississippi River. Before we got into town, we happened to drive past...

...a 140-year-old Jewish cemetery?!? It was an awfully unlikely find, so we stopped and browsed the 40-odd graves. As you can see in the Flickr slideshow, most of the stones are very well kept up, even though only one is even remotely new. Here's a website on this cemetery, proving we're not the only ones fascinated.

After that, Amy and I got some take-out -- it's very difficult to eat in with dogs when traveling in hot weather -- and sat in this gazebo having lunch as we gazed at the mighty Mississippi.

Idyllic.

Meanwhile, I'm getting closer to finishing my capitols tour -- down to about 14 or so left, mostly in the northeast and the mid-Atlantic states -- and I'm going to need something else. As we made our way through Kansas and I saw this...

...and realized the next thing should be Presidential Libraries. Miles' reaction was, and I quote, "Zzzzz." But who cares? I just wonder if there's a Book.

More tomorrow on the last couple days of The Trip, including Springfield and Indiana capitols. But for now, here's the slideshow. It opens in Colby, Kan., on Monday, takes us to Topeka, then on Tuesday to Jefferson City and Louisiana, Mo., before we crashed in Springfield for the night. Enjoy.

The Road Trip, Part II

After the big party Hunter and I attended in Sun Valley on Saturday, Hunter flew back to Vegas on Sunday from Salt Lake City to check out -- and be summarily unimpressed -- with the reopened Plaza. Check out brutal Tweet 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The Plaza is in big trouble if they don't get their act together asap.

Anyhow, I left Hunter and stopped by the Utah Capitol. I know I've been there already, but I couldn't find the picture, so I took another one. Then, on the way out of SLC, I saw this:

Yes, I was tempted to stay on I-15!

The next leg of the road trip awaited, though. I headed to Dinosaur National Monument, which straddles the northwestern Colorado-northeast Utah border and evidently is where loads of dinosaur fossils have been found. It's sorta schticky, as seen by this by the visitors center...

...but also a rather scenic 10ish-mile drive. You see vistas like this:

There is a dinosaur artifact area but it was closed when I was there. Either way, there's great camping and hiking land up there, and the rocks have gen-u-ine petroglyphs, see:

There's more from here in the Flickr slideshow at the bottom of this post. But this awesome bit of neon from Steamboat Springs, Colo., was just wonderful:

I didn't stay there because the Fairfield Inn was cheaper and I got Marriott points, but I was surprised on Monday morning to find that the resort-fee concept has spread:

It was only about $3. I guess it included Internet service, but I wasn't warned and it didn't actually work. I didn't complain, though, because for reasons I do not know, the front-desk dude gave us a massive room upgrade to a gigantic, gorgeous room.

Meanwhile, a subplot of this trip is that it's Black and Jack's first major road trip and their bodies aren't taking it all that well. They've had a rough time, but I've been coddling them a bit extra and feeding them carefully and finally, today, they're not as miserable, see:

Today, I drove through the sensational Rocky Mountains through the Rocky Mountain National Park route, aka U.S. 34, with John Denver's Greatest Hits playing on the iPod, of course. Here's the best shot:

There are loads of other awesome pictures in this Flickr slideshow, which starts in SLC, goes to Dinosaur and Steamboat Springs and then into the park.

And, yes, this shot...

...was a little dangerous to take. But then I got to Denver and picked up Amy, who flew in from Vegas to accompany me for the rest of the trip. Next stops: Topeka, St. Joseph, Mo., Jefferson City and Springfield.

The Road Trip, Part I

I made my tearful farewells on Friday morning, then picked up RateVegas.Com's Hunter Hillegas at McCarran for the first leg of my road trip to Ann Arbor. We drove north from Vegas on U.S. 93 through Pioche, Ely and Jackpot, Nev., where we spent the first night.

Here's something funny that happened:

I had been to Ely a couple weeks ago on my Eureka sojourn and have had a separate slideshow ready to go from that whenever The Daily runs my Eureka-gold piece. Thus, I'll hold off on those shots, and the shots in the slideshow below are only from this trip. Hunter's got a bunch, too, but he hasn't posted them yet. I'll link when he does.

I had routed us to Panaca for lunch because... I'm not sure why, actually. I'd heard of it and included it in my Vegas Bucket List column. Turns out, there's truly nothing there. Pioche, on the other hand, was utterly lovely and quaint and we stopped for gas and lunch there. There are shots of that in my slideshow.

After lunch and Ely, we drove to Jackpot, a border town on the northern edge of Nevada intended to lure gambling dollars from Twin Falls, Idaho folk. But this place surprised both Hunter and me as being far more built-up and legit than we expected. Cactus Pete's, owned by the same folks as the Stratosphere, was a real place with a decent all-night cafe (on weekends) and a busy casino floor. Our hotel, the West Star Hotel "Casino", by contrast, was just sad. I'll update my slideshow with Hunter's shots later in the day.

Then it was on to Sun Valley, Idaho, where we attended a massive party hosted by Elaine Wynn for four Sun Valley friends who turn 90 this year. They included Vegas financier legend E. Parry Thomas, California real estate mogul Harry Rinker, California accounting giant Ken Leventhal and Chicago industrial park developer Marshall Bennett. I'm working on at least one significant feature on Elaine Wynn, so I really wanted to attend this for the color I needed to place Elaine at the center of Sun Valley high society.

The pictures reflect the party. Vegas bigwigs in attendance included Irwin Molasky, the Thomas and Mack clans and Janie Greenspun Gale. Also, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter gave a toast.

Here's a whole slideshow from Flickr:

Today I take Hunter to Salt Lake City, from whence he flies back to Vegas to check out the new Plaza before heading home to California. I'll have a day on my own through the Rocky Mountains, then I'll pick up Amy in Denver for the rest of the drive. We'll hit three or four state capitols I've not seen, including Jefferson City, Springfield and Indianapolis. If we have the energy, we may carry on to Columbus, too, before heading north to Ann Arbor.

Miles decided he wanted to drive on his own for some post-Vegas catharsis, so he has Aces as his co-pilot and I have Black & Jack.

Gotta go! More later. Also, check out Hunter's stuff on Twitter.

My last regular LVW Col: Leave Barney Alone!

Here we go, folks. I've got a whole package planned next week, but this is the last regular edition of The Strip Sense, unless the LVW repurposes the column's name for someone else. I kinda hope they don't since Miles came up with it, but it's their call. Either way, this is my final entry. Enjoy. -sf

Leave Barney Alone!
The county's attempt to control those in costumes is a waste of time

By STEVE FRIESS

It is something like 156 degrees outside, and I stand at Flamingo and the Strip begging. “Please,” I plead with Luigi, Barney and Mr. Stormtrooper. “I really need your names for my column. It’s a journalism thing.” And yet, as if they’re Iranian dissidents, Mafia informants or underlings of Sheldon Adelson, they refuse to tell me who they are. The fear is palpable.

“You gonna to get us in trouble,” the big purple dinosaur says with more broken English and less gay giggle than I recall from babysitting my sisters’ kids. “Leave us alone.”

I’d love to, but local politicians have in their sights the poor souls who dress up as fictional characters and take photos with tourists for tips. “We can’t just sit back and allow something like this to happen without addressing it,” said Clark County Commissioner Lawrence Weekly at the August 2 meeting.

Actually, sir, you can.

Read the rest at LasVegasWeekly.Com

The Blooper Show is FINALLY Up!

Our blooper episode, recorded on 8/14, turned out to be a blooper in and of itself. I forgot to set GarageBand to record the feed from the mixer, so instead we recorded what the Mac's mike heard. It was a terrible mess and a huge loss because the original version was so much fun. But frequent guest co-host Amy came back on Saturday, 8/20 with another pizza and we re-did it with updated Vegas news and no chat room. This means the chat room folks haven't heard this version, either, which is unusual. Anyhow, enjoy! I'll post whenever I know when we're doing another show, but the grand finale episode will definitely by Sunday, Sept. 4, from Ann Arbor. Also, there will be MANY specials and extras coming in the podcast feed over the next week, so subscribe via iTunes. I won't be announcing them here. -sf

Aug. 20: BLOOPERPALOOZA!
Extra: More bloopers that didn't make it in the main show

Episode Guide:
Open & Banter: Start to 36ish
Intro/End-Show Bloopers : 36:45-44ish
Wordplay Bloopers: 44:30ish-50ish
Banter/Midshow Bloopers: 50:50-1:07ish
Trivia/Poll/Feedback: 1:07ish-1:20ish
Interview-related Bloopers: 1:20:35-1:31ish
Cursing Bloopers: 1:31:20-1:35ish
Miles' Voices Bloopers: 1:35:30-1:40ish
TSTToTW: 1:40ish-end
Something More: 1:53-end

As faithful listeners know, this podcast is edited. We appreciate being independent, but we don’t believe that independent means we should be careless and sloppy. So Steve goes through every week and cleans it all up so you don’t have to waste your time hearing long pauses and unnecessary or irrelevant banter. Also, there’s a whole culture that’s built up around the chat room and we interact with those out there in ways that the podcast listener wouldn’t follow. So, anyhow, each year we have created a Bloopers Episode. Hear us curse, bicker and ponder deep but Vegas-irrelevant thoughts. It's fun. You'll laugh. Mostly.

In Banter, we mulled our encounter with Mrs. Wynn in Sun Valley, talked about the de-Elvising at Aria and the likely implosion of The Harmon, we explained our strategy for packing and moving and much more. Near the end, we also discuss Steve's bingo adventure.

Links to stuff discussed:

What our ReLo Cubes look like, from Upack.Com
Aria is De-Elvising and removed the ugly wrap
Links (when available) to the Eureka Flickr Slideshow, The Daily article, the KNPR segment and the LV Weekly column
The site for Tanked
Steve's Las Vegas Weekly cover story on the Jockey Club
MGM Resorts wants to implode The Harmon, according to the WSJ
360Vegas Podcast is worth a try
Pix one, two and three of Steve’s Bingo adventure at Sunset Station

R-J Layoffs Yield Bizarre List of Employee Ages

So that, above, is a letter that arrived at the homes of those who were "selected for Involuntary Termination" (read: You WIN!) along with a truly bizarre attachment that I'll get to in a moment. You can click on the image above to enlarge it and read it. I've read this sentence many times and I can only conclude that someone who somehow still has a job needs a remedial writing course:

The Company is providing information to you regarding class, unit or group considerd in the selection decision to you, as well as information regarding other classes, units, or groups similarly evaluated by higher levels of management.

Yeah, beats me, too. But what comes after this is even stranger: It's a three-page list of every newsroom job and the age of the person who occupies it. There are no names, but it's not difficult to figure out who's who in many cases. Here's a couple of examples:

As you can see, I'm being very selective here. I could post the entire list with everybody's ages, but there's no need for that. The newsroom leaders, however, who expect every reporter to ask the ages of most figures in stories, cannot claim any sort of vanity or privacy in the matter.

Mostly, though, I'm trying to understand the purpose of distributing this. They're giving those who were fired a list of everybody's ages. Is this a pre-emptive legal defense against someone who might sue them on grounds they were terminated based on age? It seems really extraordinary to go this far, but I'm not a corporate lawyer and haven't had a full-time job since Clinton, so I don't know.

It was fascinating, though, and I'll do some age analysis in a moment.

But first, the document answers a few questions we've been wondering. Who, exactly, was fired in Thursday's newsroom purge? Here's that list:

So that's 12, every one of whom was on my list, so I did a complete job. My list was longer -- 22 names -- because it includes the fired from non-newsroom departments as well as a few who lost their jobs over the past week or two, too. Thus, I stand by my reporting and accept that, above, as the official count for the newsroom itself for that one day of carnage.

Again, I don't see the need to publish the ages of those fired or other those who kept their gigs. But I found some interesting data therein nonetheless.

This document indicates the newspaper now has 107 newsroom employees, although that includes four non-journalist support staff jobs. Of this, there remain 43 "reporters" or "senior reporters" across every section including their weekly publications such as CityLife and the View neighborhood sections. That's about one reporter for every 46,511 people in Las Vegas. I do not know what the national average is or the average in other cities, so I can't put that number in context.

Other tidbits:

* The average age of those who lost their jobs on Friday was 51.4.

* The oldest newsroom employee is a 69.1-year-old columnist.

* The youngest newsroom employee is 20.4-year-old photographer.

* There are five staff photographers and two photo editors left, meaning the department lost 36% of its employees and 44% of their shooters.

* The paper now has just one graphic art illustrator on staff. If that person's on vacation or out sick, I guess there are no charts or graphics in the paper?!?

* The average age of the R-J's reporters is 42.5.

* The youngest reporter is 22.3, the oldest is 63.9.

* This list indicates there are four columnists. I assume they include Norm Clarke, John L. Smith, Jane Ann Morrison and, well, I don't know. It's confusing because there are clearly more columnists, see:

I guess many of these folks -- such as Howard Stutz and Mike Weatherford -- are counted as reporters or maybe "senior reporters." And I imagine folks like Vin Suprynowicz and Sherm Frederick are freelancers or contractors of some sort with their Sunday pieces.

Anyhow, make of this what you will. On Monday, I expect to obtain the documents the fired journalists must sign to get their severance, so stay tuned. And at 9 a.m. PT, I'll be on State of Nevada on KNPR to discuss the matter.

More On R-J Carnage: Severence, Silence & Sherm

[UPDATE: Oskar Garcia of the Associated Press is out with a report on these layoffs that pretends none of the reporting you've seen here exists. He did, however, speak to Bob Brown, the publisher who declined my requests as well as those of KNPR. Evidently, Mr. Brown does not believe in speaking about this within his own community. Not terribly good modeling for potential sources for the newspaper itself, is it? See what he had to say to Garcia here.]

I continue to add names and details to the prior post on the firings at the R-J, and it doesn't seem like a second round is occurring today as was rumored. But here's some news from today:

* Severance: The employees who lost their jobs yesterday were handed a white envelope, told to get their things and escorted out of the building. Here is how one now-ex-RJer described their parting gifts via email to me:

Terminated employees were given their checks paid through the week with any leftover vacation/sick time hours included. The severance offered is 12 weeks of pay if you sign on the line not to sue the Stephens Media Group if it is found that they had terminated you for other reasons, such as age or some other protected class. Sign that and you get your money. Also, we get three months of medical benefits, including family coverage. If we have a lot of stuff in our desks, we must make appointments to collect the items before 8 a.m. so our presence is not be disruptive. HR Benefits Manager Cindy Meyers or corporate attorney Mark Hinueber went over the package with us and explained how to file for unemployment and what to say. Those with 401(k)s can leave our money where it's at or cash it out to roll into an IRA (not recommended). Editor Mike Hengel was seen standing by a photographer as he cleared out his locker to ensure he didn't leave with company equipment.

Wow. That's just heartbreaking. Just because the corporate bastards act like greedy asses who don't take any pride in the quality of their product doesn't mean the former employees will, even in the darkest moments of their professional lives. Such demeaning treatment at the conclusion of long and honorable service is depressing and, sadly, quite normal today.

* Silence: Bob Brown, the new publisher who was the ad director, has told KNPR that there will be no press release about the careers he just wrecked. He hasn't responded to e-mail or phone calls from me, either. But KNPR is undeterred and recognizes the importance of this news, so I'll be on State of Nevada on Monday at 9 am PT discussing the firings and what it means for Las Vegas journalism. This will be my second appearance since my farewell interview, which is kind of funny but also a bit of an honor. Also, while I do appreciate the traffic and attention, I think it's sad that the Las Vegas Sun's only coverage of this matter was to provide a link here.

* Sherm: In the wake of such emotional news, I yesterday laid into Sherm Frederick, the disgraced former publisher of the Review-Journal. I do believe he made several terrible decisions and is owed some of the blame. But I also have heard -- and I remember from my own time there in the 1990s -- that he was always a staunch defender of his journalists having once been one and probably kept some people on longer than he should have because he had a personal connection with and empathy for them. That all can be true and honorable at the same time as he coasted along during the Vegas boom years and took credit for profits that were inevitable in that economy. What he never did was prepare for the next generation of journalism in any meaningful way and he just allowed a moldy old system to roll along unabated. But mostly, if Sherm is unwilling to take any responsibility for the economic condition of the newspaper -- and he won't because he's too vain and proud -- then someone needs to sit up and acknowledge that he deserves to be held accountable, too.