Click Above for Pictures from Las Vegas

For her birthday this year Mom decided she wanted to celebrate big, and that meant that this October 2006 the two of us found ourselves on a plane to Vegas!

Vegas is like a Disneyworld for adults; it’s situated in a city in the desert but it’s a world unto itself that seems completely disconnected from reality.  Although I’m not a big gambler, between touring the exorbitant hotels, seeing the shows and enjoying a little time off the Vegas Strip, there was plenty to keep me having fun for the four days we were there.  The highlights for me were Caesar’s Palace (an over the top hotel/casino that just screams Vegas excess) and Jubilee! (an over the top Vegas production with hundreds of showgirls in feathers and rinestones dancing on wild stage sets).

Summing it up, Vegas is a place like no other; completely indulgent and with no purpose but to keep you having fun, and I loved it! 

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This summer I’ve been supplementing my normal regiment of treadmill running at the gym with occasional runs in Van Cortlandt Park on the weekends.  Since I’ve started running in the park I’ve often wondered how far my runs in the park take me and how that distance compares with what I do on the treadmill.  After running today I made up mind to find an answer.

I found my answer thanks to Google Earth.  The latest version of this super-cool software allows you to measure distances.  I plotted out the running path in the park, which measured in at a distance of approximately 1.4 miles (shown above).

Then for kicks I made some other measurements; I discovered that the length of Roosevelt Island is almost exactly the 2 miles I was always told it was.  I also measured the walk I often used to make from Columbia University to the 57th St. stop on the F-train.  No wonder my feet were tired; I was walking nearly 3.6 miles!