The reason for the recent radio silence is that I am in Las Vegas. Surprise! Why am I here? That is for me to know and you to find out. OK, it’s time for you to find out: I am here for a trade show. It has lasted all this week, and then Rob is coming out this weekend for a couple of days. I would like to say this has been a rejuvenating experience, but the combination of the crowds, the constant jangling noise, walking around all day for work, the mercenary pricing on food and water, and the airplane does not do wonders for my battered nerves. The airplane was the worst. “Just so you know, you have an orange percent chance of dying today,” said the loudspeakers at the airport.

Before the trade show began, a friend and I spent the afternoon at Quark’s Bar in the Las Vegas Hilton. We drank a big fishbowl full of rum with puffs of smoke coming out of it, then staggered back to our hotel burning sun, like drunken Lawrences of Arabia except on a parking lot instead of sand dunes. The next night, I was naked in a hot tub with a guy who looked and sounded like Dr. Phil and described this experience. Then, perhaps thinking he had found a live one, he tried to sell me some statues of Santa Claus for my store.

If you have ever had a naked Dr. Phil try to sell you statues of Santa Claus the day after drinking a fishbowl full of rum with puffs of smoke coming out of it, you know precisely what I’m talking about.