This is for those of you wondering how close (or far) I am from The Strip. The pictures were taken at the western edge of the Lake Las Vegas development; I live another mile or so east. Without traffic, it’s about a 25-minute drive to Downtown or The Strip.

The hat I bought at Cowboy Christmas last week was not the first I have ever worn; thought some of you might get a kick out of seeing earlier versions (all dates are my best guesses):

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Went to the Bellagio Hotel on the Vegas Strip yesterday. Had an excellent meal, but was mostly there to see their holiday decorations. The whole place was beautifully done up, but the Conservatory was truly magnificent:

Every year in Palm Desert I would go see the holiday lights at the Living Desert; it has over a million lights spread out over many acres. I thought I would be missing that tradition this year until I heard about the holiday lights at Ethel M Chocolate’s cactus garden: over 1 million lights spread over just 3 acres.

Took mom to see them this week. It was a lot easier for her to get around since she didn’t have to do near as much walking. Quite spectacular!

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The National Finals Rodeo is in town for ten days, ending on the 14th of this month. This is a huge event here: last year 171,000 people attended. In addition to all the actual rodeo events going on throughout the city, there are lots of other cowboy themed activities going on, one of which is Cowboy Christmas.

This event hosts some 300 to 400 exhibitors and pulls in 30,00 to 50,000 people, one of which was me! I went with a couple of friends yesterday and spent the entire morning walking the aisles. Didn’t quite manage to cover everything before getting tired and heading for lunch.

Found three nice Wrangler shirts and was managing to resist most everything else. And then I saw it. And the blue was such an unusual color. And I had to try it on. And everyone said it looked great. So guess who now has a cowboy hat!

For those of you wondering about why this blog is called what it is, here’s a definition from Techopedia: “In the context of relational databases, a tuple is one record (one row). The information in a database can be thought of as a spreadsheet, with columns (known as fields or attributes) representing different categories of information, and tuples (rows) representing all the information from each field associated with a single record.”

I was teaching database theory many years ago and had just rescued a dog from the shelter. I was trying out various names for her: Chip, Byte, etc. and thought that “Tuple” would roll off the tongue nicely and was almost guaranteed to be unique. Tuple was with me from 6 months old to 17 years old.

When it came to choosing a name for this blog, I thought back to Tuple and figured “tupleandattributes” was likely to be free for a domain name. And so it was!

Here’s Tuple:

Amazing how pets take over your heart. Tuple’s been gone for seven years now and yet I’ve started crying as I type this.

Her ashes are in a box with my dad’s and he would have approved; he, too, loved her with all his heart. As my dad was weakening, I would take Tuple with me over to the nursing home and she would put her paws up on his bed so he could pet her.

On the day before he died, I left her home as I knew he was very weak and fading in and out. The very last words my dad spoke to me when I walked in were “Where’s Tuple?” And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Lake Las Vegas is right on the border of Lake Mead National Recreation Area. As such, we have a lot of critters around here. The south shore of the lake has a herd of big horn sheep (although I have yet to see one) and there are quail and rabbits and coyotes everywhere.

Sunday while my friend and I were taking our early morning walk with Brindy in tow, I turned to find a large coyote about 15 feet in back of us. We have talked to someone who was stalked by several coyotes and ended up having to call security after she took refuge on the porch of an empty building.

We crossed the street, but he crossed with us. I turned around and yelled out him and he walked off a ways, but as soon as we turned to walk on, he was back. Brindy didn’t seem to notice, thankfully, and we continued down the street alternating sides and yelling.

Finally, one of the security patrols came by and we flagged them down. Nothing they can do, but I figured, correctly, that the coyote would not want to come closer with the car there. Security stayed while we walked on and got back to the more populated part of the area.

Would love to have taken a picture, but thought keeping the dog in hand was just a bit more important.

After we got home, Brindy decided to try out a new position on the chair.

Yesterday we had our first rain in months. Loved it! Also at least six inches of snow in the nearby mountains. I like that our seasons here are a bit more defined than they were down in the low desert.

Friday night a few of us went on a “foodie” tour in downtown Las Vegas. The Downtown area has changed a lot since I last spent any time there more than ten years ago. The tour was great fun and we learned some interesting history, but the focus, of course, was the food.

First up was Carson Kitchen. Here’s their blurb: “Opening in 2014, Carson Kitchen was the creation of Las Vegas’ hometown favorite chef Kerry Simon and chef/restaurateur Cory Harwell. The plan, to develop the first urban casual eatery inside the repurposed mid-century John E. Carson Hotel—a skeleton of Downtown Las Vegas’ yesteryears and now home to an eclectic mix of tenants including a sushi bar, tattoo parlor, pilates studio, creative agencies, donut & coffee bar and Carson Kitchen’s playful interpretations of American comfort food.”

Here’s our menu and the dishes:

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I loved the deviled eggs, but most surprising to me was that I took a 2nd helping of the beets; I didn’t even think I liked beets!

After a little walking around, it was on to Therapy: I would have happily made a meal of just the Devils on Horseback and, especially, the In the Gnudi.

Next up, Inspire, “a multi-venue complex situated in the center of downtown Las Vegas at Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street. With the emphasis on nightlife, dynamic programming, entertainment, and unique guest experiences, Inspire has much to offer including; convention/conference space, multiple cocktail bars, outdoor patio areas, a 150-seat theater, and roof-top bar.”

At 6 in the evening, not much was happening, which was a good thing as we got to poke around in nooks and crannies and had the rooftop bar all to ourselves. I can’t speak to their drink offerings, as I was the designated driver for the night, but they looked interesting.

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From there, it was on to the Container Park; I’m definitely going back there to do some more exploring.

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Last stop for the evening was 7th & Carson. The bread was fabulous, but the chocolate brownie was about the best I’ve ever tasted.

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We had a great night. The same company offers tours on the Strip; think I’ll do one for my birthday.