Orion’s Belt and one of the best places for looking up

by Jamie Rhein on

Orion’s Belt is a winter pleasure if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. These stars that tell the tale of the hunter Orion, the love object of Artemis, Apollo’s twin sister, are fairly easy to pick out once someone has shown you where to look.

Over at Jaunted, Kitts Peak National Observatory at Tohono O’odham Reservation in Arizona is given a heads up as being one fantastic place to see the night sky. The reservation is surrounded by desert, thus has one of the ingredients necessary for stellar star-gazing. No city lights.

Instead, there is a vast sky and a well-organized observatory where the experience is not just a matter of peering in a telescope to see what’s up there up close, but a lesson in how to read star charts and use binoculars to star-gaze as well. Since it’s an hour out of Tuscon, the included boxed dinner is a nice touch. The telescopes are powerful enough to see planets. If you go, one thing to check out is the Advanced Optical Program where you can take CCD images of what you see up there with the observatory’s equipment. [Click here for images.]

Forget the mobility scooter in Vegas; The bus is high tech

by Jamie Rhein on

A while ago, I wrote about the increasing popularity of mobility scooters for getting around in Las Vegas. Here’s a transportation option that might entice people to hop on a bus instead.

There’s a new bus company run by Vegas.com called Arrow that has equipped its vehicles, either trolley or bus, with all things to make a tourist’s life easier. One can buy tickets to shows and make restaurant reservations while moving through traffic and taking in the lights and variety. It goes door to door along the Strip and downtown which makes casino hopping easier. For people serious about not staying at one place, but trying their luck at several casinos, there’s a $10 day pass available. Otherwise it’s $2.50 a ride.

If you want to stay out past midnight, you’ll have to think of another way to get back to your hotel. The service is only until then. At the witching hour, if you hang out for that early morning steak and eggs special, you might be hoofing it, or bribing someone who has a mobility scooter to let you sit on his or her lap while you get taken home. What ever you do, don’t drive your own car from place to place. Look at this video of Justin’s. If you want to drive from place to place, that’s all you’ll be doing.

By the way, if I were buying tickets on the bus, I’d buy them for Blue Men Group, Spamelot or Bette Midler. I’ve seen all three. As a matter of fact I, just saw the Broadway touring company of Spamelot on Saturday. All shows will put you in the very best of moods.

The City of Brotherly Love shines.

by Grant Martin on

I think Philadelphia has been getting a bad rep. Sure, it leads big cities in murder rate and robbery is at a five year high, but is that really a big deal? I lived in Baltimore for a little while on the Johns Hopkins Campus and it was the best summer of my life. In Philly the streets are narrow and intimate and the Georgian and Federal architecture looms over you like parents watching a child wander the city blocks. Bars line the streets in Center City and after a hard night drinking you can still get a solid Whiz Cheese Steak at Jim’s to burn off your hangover.

With the crime rate so high in the city, the police department has their hands full keeping order; straight off a conversation on the virtues of JDate, my friend Brandon and I were leaving an apartment last Saturday with a couple of pockets-full of Yuengling. He cracked one open as we were leaving and I asked:

“Can’t you get an open intox here for that?”

He looked at me and shrugged, shaking his head politely.

“The police here have other things to do”.

Sweet. It’s just like being in Vegas. So next time your college roomate or your high school prom date asks you to stop by Philly for a visit, give it a good thought. The people, history, food and culture that abound in Philadelphia won’t let you down.

Big in Spain: Viagra becomes recreational drug of choice

by Neil Woodburn on

Spain used to be the home of leisurely afternoon siestas and conservative, Catholic mentalities.

Apparently, that has all changed.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the recreational drug scene where, according to the New York Times, Viagra has become one of the most popular recreational drugs of choice. It’s mixed with cocktails, consumed at bars, and experimented with in the bedroom. Most of all, it’s used to fuel the concept of machismo held so dearly in this part of the world–which helps explain why users of all ages are snatching up the little blue pill. In fact, the New York Times revealed that Pfizer “sold nearly one million boxes of Viagra in Spain last year, the equivalent of one box for every 17 men 18 and older.” Wow. That’s a lot of blood flow being directed to the nether regions.

Critics blame not just a post-Franco sexual revolution for this boom, but also the globalization of Spain where the famously laidback citizens are now caught up in the mad-dash world of dog-eat-dog consumerism peppered with an increasingly fast food mentality. This leaves little time, and far too much stress, for the legendary Latin lover to work his magic.

And thus, viva el sexo azul!

When flight crews drink on the job

by Catherine Bodry on

You can view a video on YouTube of a Delta flight attendant being removed and booked for on-the-job intoxication. Neil provided a video of drunken flight attendants making out on a flight in Russia. So how common is it for flight crews to imbibe on the clock?

Despite the recent media coverage, it’s not common at all (you can breathe that sigh of relief now). Travel columnist James Wysong, who also works as a flight attendant, examined the tendency of airline employees to hit the bottle while on duty. While the traveling life might be conducive to partying, Wysong discovered that for the most part employees are keeping their partying on terra firma.

Wysong discusses the looser rules of the past, when a flight attendant he knew began her nine-hour flight with two fingers of scotch, and pilots arrived to work with alcohol on their breath. But now flight crews are randomly tested (he’s been tested three times in the past two years) and the ramifications are severe if caught.

So you can relax on your next flight. And if you find that you can’t relax, well, passengers are certainly allowed to imbibe!

[via Msnbc]