Luxor

The last couple of days have been pretty incredible both personally and professionally. I arrived in Vegas on Thursday afternoon and because we were not required to report to Nellis AFB until Friday, Bob and I hit the town. We went to the Stratoshpere and rode the rides. Can't say I have ever experienced anything quite like being dangled off of a 1000 ft tall building three different ways. We then took a cab to the Luxor were we ate a very expensive steakhouse, it was good but probably not worth the $160 (tip included) we paid, yes that will be expensed. We then proceeded walking up the strip, we saw all the famous places (New York, New York, Bellagio, Venetian, Mirage, Mandalay Bay, Treasure Island, etc.) and went into a few to check them out, most notably Bellagio and the Venetian. Needless to say, Vegas is a place quite unlike any I have ever been, the glitz and glamour are very real. I've seen multiple Bentley's, and Ferrari's, too many H2's to count, and I've even seen a pink H2 limo. The video boards at every casino down the strip are amazing and the sheer amount of money it must take to support all the shops and casinos is simply mind-boggling. Back to my story. So we saw the fountains at the Bellagio, that is definitely a must see, and then we ended up at a Piano Bar at Harrah's watching dueling pianos as performed by twin sisters. The show was very funny and we ended up walking back to the Stratosphere and heading home for the night.

Friday we awakened and headed to Nellis AFB to meet up with the rest of our group. The original plan was to meet up and then head out to Tonopah, NV to put our equipment in place for flight testing on Saturday (today). Due to circumstances I won't discuss here, we have ended up needing to stay in Vegas until Monday morning. I will say that after much frustration we were able to listen to real radio traffic from real airplanes (F-15's, F-16's, F-18's, B-2's, AWAC's, A-10's, maybe more), and lots of people were happy about that.

The AFB experience has been exciting to the say the least. The building that we are working out of is on the flight line, meaning that were we are at is where they park some of the planes (about 50 yards away: a line of 8 F-16's, 3 A-10's, 1 F-15, and 2 F-18's) and we have a clear view of the runways. It has been amazing to watch the fighter and bombers and other assorted aircraft conduct their day-to-day operations. This afternoon flying started around 2 and I got to watch about 20 different aircraft take off in a span of just a few minutes, and that was awesome my friend. So, yeah, hanging out at the AFB, I can handle it.

One final note, since I know you guys are all feeling bad for me, being stuck out here in Vegas and all, I thought I would say that due our scheduling changes tonight and tomorrow I am staying at the Luxor, on the strip in Vegas, in fact I am writing this from my very own room in the Luxor. Oh, and tomorrow is an off day so we were thinking about going to the Grand Canyon, but it may be a little too far so we will probably just go to the Hoover Dam. Sigh.

That's all from the Luxor. Tell my family I love them.