Goodbye to the Frontier

We're in Vegas for a vacation. Regular readers will know that we love the place and try to get here once a year for a vacation. For many of our stays, we've chosen the Atrium Suites at the New Frontier for our base, and even though it was tatty and worn we'd grown to love it.

Unfortunately the Frontier was recently sold and then closed for good in mid July. By all reports this classic casino had a really lacklustre last few days with slots being shipped out early and a poor final night party.

When Rich and I booked our trip to Vegas this time we opted to stay at the Excalibur. The prices were good and the Frontier wasn't offering any advanced bookings (now we know why).

We really wanted to go down and check out what had happened to the place we called our Vegas home for our last half dozen vacations and the site that greeted us was truly sad indeed.

The big marquee out front that used to sport the 'Cold Beer Dirty Girls' tagline is now stripped of all its lettering, and the hotel itself is being cleared. Whilst we were there, we saw a load of workmen dumping the contents of the rooms out of the windows on to a big heap below.

It made me feel very sad.

Goodbye old friend. We'll miss you!

Anthony Wilson R.I.P.

For anyone who is a fan of the fantastic Manchester music scene that revolved around Factory Records and the Hacienda, today is a very sad day. We lost the genius that is Anthony Wilson - the great man behind awesome bands such Happy Mondays and New Order. He was a brilliant vibrant character and more recently an expert social commentator. He had been battling cancer since the beginning of the year and lost his fight earlier today. We'll miss him lots.

Wouldn't want to be in Alonso's shoes...

...after holding up Lewis Hamilton at the end of qualifying and causing Lewis to miss out on his final lap. Everything about Ron Dennis's behaviour; the throwing of the headphones, marching Alonso's trainer down the pitlane in a Vulcan Death Grip, the grim-faced refusal to comment to anyone before he'd spoken to the drivers behind closed doors, indicates to me that Fernando Alonso is in for one mother of a bollocking from RD.

Lewis Hamilton deserves an Oscar for his performance as a team player in that press conference. Every bit of his body language - the fidgeting, the fixed smile - indicated that what he wanted to do was smack the bloke next to him very hard, and Alonso's guilty face spoke volumes.

Fernando Alonso, you're really in for it this time!

Facebook thoughts

I've been hanging out on Facebook for a while now. hooking up with friends and family, playing silly games, joining groups both silly and productive, and it's all good. I've been able to catch up with old friends, find common interests with contacts I've met through work and generally get a whole lot more out of it than I ever did with Linked In.

Just lately Facebook has been under threat of a court case that could lead to its closure and that would be a pretty dismal thing. Another rumour that's doing the rounds is that Microsoft are thinking of buying it, and that would be much more positive. I know there are a lot of Microsoft people using Facebook, and friends in the Windows Mobile team are all using the mobile version on their handhelds (I'm posting this from my WM smartphone). If Facebook is going to change hands, I really hope it's a positive move forward. It would be a shame to lose it!

Typepad offline

The more observant of you will have noticed that this blog disappeared for a while last night. No, I wasn't fiddling with the settings, Typepad, in fact all of the Six Apart sites, were affected by a major power outage in the San Francisco area. It all seems to be back up now, so fingers crossed that's all sorted.

British Grand Prix

I'm both ecstatically happy and a little sad. Sad because Jenson Button has qualified so far down the field (thanks Anthony Davidson), but happy because Lewis Hamilton is on pole. Watching qually yesterday I really regretted not going. To stand in that huge crowd cheering as Lewis took pole in the dying seconds of the session would have been an amazing experience.

Oulton Park racing

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a bit obsessive about motorsport. I'm also very keen on photography. I don't think I'm particularly accomplished but over the last few years I've upgraded my equipment and I've been trying to capture better photos. I have a Canon 350D digital camera and for motorsport I use a Sigma 135-400mm zoom lens. It allows me to get closer shots of the cars even at circuits where it's not so easy to get up to the edge of the track.

This is a shot of Mat Jackson - one of my favourite independent drivers in this year's British Touring Car Championship. I've been following Mat for a couple of seasons in Seat Cupras and after winning the Cupra Championship last year, he stepped up to British Touring Cars this year. Last weekend at Oulton Park he won his first Touring Car race. The crowds were really behind him. Everyone likes to see the independent drivers do well. They're usually on a tiny budget and in Mat's case even have to work on their own cars - no big teams of engineers here!

This shot is of Mat in his BMW coming down from the Island Hairpin into Knickerbrook.

My cat has a new bed

Doesn't she look cosy all curled up in there?

Bananas! Who knew?

My sister sent me an email a couple of days ago with loads of facts about how great bananas are, so I thought I'd share...

Bananas contain three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy. Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes, but energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit - it can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.

A1 GP - awesome racing

We were down at Brands Hatch a few weeks back for the British Touring Cars and saw a demonstration for the upcoming A1GP event. The cars looked and sounded awesome so we decided to check it out.

It was the final A1GP event of the season (it's run through the Winter as an alternative to F1) and Team GB were on form having won at the penultimate event of the season.

The sound of the cars was ear-splittingly good - an awesome howling wail as they sped past us over and over. Brands Hatch was an excellent venue as we were good and close to the cars and I had the opportunity to grab the picture above as Robbie Kerr came round celebrating his win on the slow-down lap.

We'll definitely go again next year.