Ghost Bar in Dallas on top of the W was cool. If you get there by helicopter and land on their pad, they waive the cover charge. If you don't it's quite expensive, but still less expensive than renting a Robinson R22 for an hour.

I went straight from the plane to beauty bar. The last time I was there was in 1999. They have new bartenders. I liked THE old crew better - especiall the one with the Route 66 tattoo. Since I was with Tor we of course also did a mandatory stop at the underground caviar bar Prvada for a horseradish infused shot of vodka. Tor lives by the "Bright Lights, Big City" philosophy of only 1 drink per bar so suffice to say this wasn't our last stop.

The next day I found heavenly sneaker sweetness. There is no place like New York for shopping. Fortunately, shopping is not really my thing - otherwise I probably would have spent a fortune.

SF's finest visited WSOP to accomplish three things:

A) Mourn that expat Gayniel is moving back to Sweden. What is he thinking? Sweden has no burritos, no 40s, no fixies, and you can't even shoot fully automatic assault rifles for fun there. What kind of country is that? All they're good for is expensive watches, banking and swiss knifes... No wait, that's Switzerland. So come back when you're done with Ace of Base, Bjorn Borg, and the penguins, ok?

B) Prime Peter in his quest for sweetness and million of dollars in poker price money.

C) Melt. The highest temperature ever measured in Vegas is 118F. It was 115F when we were there. Close to the record. It was so hot that jumping into the pool was out of the question. We had to stay in side. It was so hot that the density altitude didn't allow for a safe take off. The plane had to taxi for 3 hours in search of a headwind strong enough.

They should do WSOP outdoors next year. That would make the winner's $10M payday seem more appropriate.

Here are some photos from a little road trip J and I made through 4 states in a Decepticon 4-Runner Panzerkampfwagen.

First we flew from SF to Salt Lake City where we picked up the tank. Then we drove all the way to Yellowstone. It took about 8h. Yellowstone is amazing. Not as grand as for example Grand Canyon or Yosemite, but it has way less people, and most importantly more animals than they know what do with. To keep the numbers down, they even have full time savages employed that do nothing but eat surplus animals all day long.

The animals were everywhere: brown bears, grizzlies, bald eagles, foxes, wolves, pelicans, buffaloes, deers, elks, etc. We had a buffalo on the doorstep one morning at 5am, and the next day 2 elks. My favorite part of Yellowstone was bear tooth highway. The views from the mountain tops that the serpentine highway circles are nice, and the air at 10k feet is nice and thin, just like me. If I had the ubersweetness known as Ducati Monster I would have taken it there.

We also spent one day in the Tetons and Jackson Hole. "Grand Tetons" means "Big Nipples" in French. I found the name misleading, as the Tetons weren't very exiting. I guess the French fur trappers that named them had lower standards, or were especially dirty people. Anyway, it's probably a lot nicer there in the winter, when there's more snow. Especially Jackson Hole. I bought a Stetson Hat there at a bargain price. Unfortunately I couldn't find any sleeveless shirts to go with it, so I'll have to add those to the wardrobe later.

On the way back we visited Mormon HQ = Salt Lake City. Since the town is run by Mormons, I was surprised that so many tall buildings have been constructed around the church. They overshadow it. The church must have looked much more like a city centerpiece a hundred years ago. Maybe I should apply for the Chief Mormon City Planner job.

Some faster lenses would have been nice. The ocean is a dark place.

I am not too fond of flying unless I'm piloting the plane myself. Flying from SFO is fun though, because you often meet interesting people. Last flight I met a guy designing flying cars. This flight I met Stephen Pacala from Princeton. He helped Al Gore with the slides for "An Inconvenient Truth".

The reason for going to Stockholm was work, and I only stayed 5 nights. In Stockholm, that's enough to discover hundreds of new little nifty creations. Among other things, I came across a hybrid shopping cart/basket (see photo.) I doubt anybody ever asked for or needed this thing, but have to admit it's pretty cute.

In no other country are people so obsessed with and so good at improving things that are, due to many years of (Swedish) niftyness and countless iterations, near perfection. Sweden is a special place.