Primm's Cup

No long blog post this week: I’m in sunny (way too sunny, actually) Las Vegas for another Perl conference—my first since the pandemic.  I brought two of my children for moral support.  And I guess I’ll take them to do a few things around town, but mainly the moral support.  From where I live, Las Vegas is a bit over a 4 hour drive, which isn’t terrible.  Of course, it ain’t that fun, either, particularly when your little Prius is desperately trying to get the inside temp down to the 68° you requested while whinging that the outside temp is anywhere from 101° to 106°.  And the drive is mostly a whole lot of nothing: flat land, scrub brush, and stunted Joshua trees.^*  I think I even saw an actual tumbleweed or two.  And the roads are very, very straight—I swear, at one point I glanced up at Waze and the map was entirely blank, with a single, perfectly straight line bisecting it, upon which our little arrow floated, seeming to make no progress.  My children will verify this, as it was so surreal I had to point it out to them.  Anyway, a drive like that can put you right to sleep, regardless of whether you’re actually sleepy or not.  I thought the kids would have to pee more often and that would help break up the drive, but not so much, it turns out.  We stopped once in Palmdale and then not again until Primm, which is nearly 200 of the 284 miles.  If you’re not familiar with Primm, just imagine the sort of “town” that might spring up if you slapped the cheesiest casino possible directly on the Nevada state line and you’ve pretty much nailed it.  And, if you’re not familiar with Palmdale ... well, don’t worry: you ain’t missing much.

Anyway, that’s been my day, so there was no chance to write a proper blog post.  And, next Sunday, I’ll be traveling back along the same route, so don’t expect too much then either.  Maybe in two weeks there’ll be something more exciting.

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* That’s not my picture, but it’s pretty much exactly what the whole trip looks like.