March 2016 Recap

Some of my favorite Travel Bloggers do a monthly re-cap of what occurred in the last month. True to form (I fell in love with this blog due to their detailed expense reports) Living the Dream details out their income reports and business plans. Twenty-Something Travel always has some great blogs that they’ve read or written in other places. And Adventurous Kate gives a summary of everything she did and was up to over the course of the month. I had generally shied away from doing a monthly re-cap because I wasn’t like those other bloggers where I was traveling all over the place, so I felt like I didn’t have much to share. But knowing I’d be traveling in March, I decided to keep notes on what I was up to. So here goes!

Travel

Las Vegas

This month I had a work trip to fabulous Las Vegas, which I decided to extend a few days for fun on my own. It also marked my 6th time to visit Las Vegas, so I decided to branch out and try some new things.

Highlights

Meeting Penn & Teller. I’ve always wanted to see a real magic show as a kid, and my schedule freed up allowing me to make this show at the last minute! (And I got to hear Teller speak!)

I absolutely loved horseback riding in Red Rock Canyon. It was spectacular to get out of Las Vegas, the views gorgeous, and much easier to ride than a camel.

On my last day I went to the Neon Museum, where a lot of the old hotel signs can be found. I thought I’d be wandering around taking abstract photography, but I found that I also was treated to a unique way to learn the history of old Las Vegas.

Challenges

I wasn’t well organized for this trip. I packed last minute the night before and left my place a mess. Then on the way back I ran out of time to re-pack my bag and so literally just threw everything in and sat on the suitcase to zip it shut. I’ve not felt so scattered for a trip in a very long time.
It was Spring Break in Las Vegas. I remarked I had never seen so many drunks or people only clothed in swimsuits (and no shoes!) I was woken up in the middle of the night by drunks coming back from the clubs, and again in the morning by the same drunks hung over and vomiting into their toilets.
I had a food credit with the hotel, and so felt obligated (or stubborn) to use it. The food at Treasure Island’s multiple restaurants sucks. No wonder they give you a food credit, its the only way to keep you interested in eating there!

Expect more posts on Las Vegas soon!

Food

I attempted to start a healthy eating plan in February and it partially continued on through March (until Las Vegas wrecked that diet!) Some of the favorite things I made this month were:

Asparagus Pasta Primavera
Lemongrass Chicken
Fiesta Chicken
Honeyed Rainbow Carrots and Parsnips

Recommended Reading

Lili on the Loose

This was the 2nd month where I tried to write 6 days a week. I made very good progress until my trip to Las Vegas, where I just didn’t have time to keep up, so I missed my goal. But I did have some great posts this month:

The Best Bar I Never Went To – I love this story because I had tried so hard to find that bar, and had a good laugh later when I realized in Spanish I was asking “Do you know where is the Cafe I Don’t Know?”
Writer’s Block Prompts: Travel Dates/Holidays – I had fun putting this list together…although I’ve been bad drawing inspiration from it yet.
Egypt Travelogue – And of course I continued with my Egypt Travelouge, although I feel like this experiment is taking a lot of time. At the pace I’m going it will be summer before I finish this series. Not sure I’ll do this detailed of a write up for other trips.

Other Blogs

I have hundreds of blogs on my RSS reader, here are a handful of the best posts I read this month:

This could be the World’s Largest Passport – Smithsonian – This Smithsonian article looks at what is likely the record-holder of a passport with the most pages. Now that the US Passport Agency will no longer add blank pages (and instead you’ll need to buy a new passport if you run out of pages) you won’t ever see anything like it in the future.
Travel Photos are Instantly Better with Dinosaurs – Bored Panda – I love this Instagram artist photos!
A trip to Turkmenistan – I have no interest to visit Communist or former communist countries, but it was a great to read about a place that is hard to visit.
Kiss the Blarney Stone for the Gift of Gab – The Planet D – One thing I didn’t do was visit Blarney Castle, instead we had a picnic outside of the grounds. Man this post made me wish I had paid to explore the area!
How Blogging has changed the way I Travel – Dangerous Business – This really hit home. Upon returning home I found that my budget for Las Vegas had ballooned up higher than I had liked. Why? Because I kept seeing fun things to do and instead of going “Does this fit my budget?” My mind said “This would make for a great blog post!”
I was sad to learn in my planning that my favorite Las Vegas insiders blog, Vegas Chatter, recently closed. This really hurt my travel planning as I had used that site for all previous Las Vegas trips.

Books

My tastes in books are varied, and with over 70 books on my kindle (and more physical books in my bookshelf) on my reading list, I tend to bounce around them frequently. One book I read consistently throughout the month was, Mortal Error. This is a non-fiction novel that looks at the ballistics of the assassination of JFK in 1963. I had heard of this book on one of the many History/Discovery specials on the assassination. The authors have a unique idea (backed up by ballistics) that there was a second shooter in Dealey Plaza that day. And that second shooter, a Secret Service agent in the President’s detail, shot the president on accident, while responding to the sounds of Oswald’s initial two shots. The book isn’t as dry as you’d expect. Its told through the story of the person’s life who came up with the theory. It takes place over many years of him being involved with the Warren Commission and being a ballistics expert in police cases. I’m only about halfway through at this point, but I would recommend it to history buffs.

WatchList

Its not really a secret that my TV is always on playing something. Here is what occupied me during the month:

TV:

West Wing – I had been re-watching this show as I hadn’t seen the last few seasons. This made me sad as their take on an upcoming Presidential Election was more Presidential then the current one we are experiencing.
House of Cards – This was a jarring change from inspirational Presidents of West Wing…to the devious mind of the Underwoods.
Lucifer – This is a new show, and while the police procedural is pretty blah, the character of Lucifer Morningside just captures your attention.
The Black List and The Americans – I like spy thrillers and these two shows certainly deliver on intrigue and action.
Jessica Jones – I had been avoiding watching this as I didn’t want to see David Tennant as a bad guy. But one night this just hit the spot and I binged watched the season quickly.
Scamalot – This Youtube series is of a guy who responds to spam emails and takes them to an absurd extreme. Its great!

Movies:

The Big Short – With the Oscars over, I finally remember which movies I wanted to see. I enjoyed the dark humor displayed in the film.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – I had heard this was a classic Jonny Depp film and featured Las Vegas. I decided to add it to my required viewing of Ocean’s 11 and The Hangover. I kept hoping the film would get better…it didn’t.
Leon The Professional – I liked this hitman film and Gary Oldman was as always great.

Gaming

Earlier in the year I got an XBox One, on the premise I’d use the Kinect games to exercise. (Ha!) Instead this month I tried Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and fell in love with the play style. I might have to try other Assassin’s Creed games here soon.