There’s an episode of Storage Wars where Barry, one of the show’s regulars, buys a sign and takes it to the Neon Boneyard in Vegas to get it appraised. The sign turned out to be worthless, but the Boneyard itself looked amazing. It showed up on our radar, so we decided to stop by and check out this awesome collection of vintage and historic Las Vegas signs. Upon entering the Neon Boneyard, we learned two things — one, the tour is $18 per person, and two, the tour sells out weeks in advance. (Every link on the entire Internet says… (read more)

If you’ve seen the reality show Pawn Stars more than once or twice, you’ve seen the handiwork of Rick Dale. Rick, the owner of Rick’s Restorations, is the guy that turns the Pawn Stars’ junk into beautiful pieces of work. In fact, Rick and his crew are so good at what they do that his restoration business was spun off into its own television show, American Restoration. Rick’s Restorations is open to the public. Inside the building is a lobby full of restored items on display (and for sale) and a gift shop. There’s also a free behind the scenes… (read more)

Last year when the fam and I were Vegas, Mason and I visited the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop, aka the home of the his television show “Pawn Stars,” while Susan and Morgan stayed out in the car. This was my second time to visit the pawn shop, and the first time for Susan, Tim, and Dawn. The Gold and Silver Pawn Shop is much smaller than it appears on television. After entering the store you will be funneled into the store’s current, which feeds down the right hand side to the back of the store and then back up… (read more)

The Friday after Thanksgiving, Susan and I hopped on a plane and flew to Las Vegas and met our friends Tim and Dawn there. The purpose of our trip was to celebrate Tim’s 40th birthday by seeing Guns and Roses perform live at the Hard Rock Cafe. We arrived in Vegas Friday afternoon and flew home early Sunday morning. Despite the fact that we were in Vegas for less than 48 hours, we did a ton of things. Over the next few days I’ll be posting stories, pictures and reviews of the following places: The Hash House, the Hard Rock… (read more)

Mason was only a year-and-a-half old in 2003 when Susan and I made the decision to sell our ’96 Dodge Neon and upgrade to a more family friendly vehicle. After doing some market research, we settled on the Honda Odyssey minivan. I don’t know that deciding it’s time to own a minivan is a particularly proud moment in any man’s life, but Honda lessened the blow by offering leather seats with seat warmers, automatic sliding doors, a six-disc changer, a DVD player with a flip down screen, and eleven cup holders. For some reason, our salesman really pushed the fact… (read more)

Due to high (read: none) demand, I have created a new area of the website in which I track every states I’ve ever visited! There’s a link to it over on the left hand side now — or, you can simply click here). To date, I’ve been to 41 of the 50 states (not including DC or the few times I’ve been out of the country). I spent a few hours Sunday creating a short entry for each state I’ve visited. For each one I noted the first and last time I had visited the state, and included pictures where… (read more)

Today, I got to sit down and work from my desk for the first time in two-and-a-half weeks. It all started with an invitation to a work meeting in Atlanta, which took place the last week of September (9/24-9/28). As I mentioned a week or so ago, my buddy Jeff recently moved to Atlanta, so I used the opportunity to travel a few days earlier than normal to hang out at Jeff’s house. (We are allowed to do this as long as there is no additional cost to tax payers.) I used a day of vacation on Friday, September 22nd… (read more)

Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have seen a few posts and check-ins over the weekend from Atlanta. That’s true, I am in sunny Georgia for the week. Early this year, my life-long buddy Jeff moved to Atlanta. This week I have a meeting in Atlanta, so I took advantage of the situation by taking vacation last Friday and driving out to Atlanta and hanging out with Jeff and his family for the weekend. Fifteen years ago (WOW), Jeff did the same for me. After Susan and I moved to Spokane, Washington for work, Jeff and his… (read more)