A suite in the Augustus Tower with a view of the South Strip, a bucket of ice and a bottle of Old Bushmills — and a gorgeous blonde I was lucky enough to marry… But if you take away everything except Cathleen, we’ll still have a wonderful anniversary

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

It’s our wedding anniversary today, and normally we would be in Sin City, swimming and playing. But Q4 2007 and Q1 2008 were lean enough that Cathy insists on wasting our money paying bills, rather than wasting it in Las Vegas, where money is meant to be wasted.

It’s funny to me that I get such a charge out of Vegas. I’m not quite abstemious, but inebriation appeals to me not at all. I have nothing but contempt for negative expectation games — gambling, that is. And the Cirque de Soleil has yet to put on an extravaganza that can’t put me to sleep.

But give me a high perch with a view and I could stand there in jaw-dropped awe all day long. Out of everything that Sin City can be, what it is to me, more than anything, is a commercial real estate ant farm, a diorama where there is so much activity to be seen that the scene is never boring.

Caesars’ Palace, seen above, was built by Jay Sarno, who also built the original Circus Circus. Sarno lived and died as Las Vegas intended, losing both properties to his excesses. But he saw first and best what Vegas could become, and Caesars’ is still the best expression of the idea of the themed resort.

As it works out, Q2 didn’t suck, and Q3, three days old, is off to an auspicious start. It could be we’ll have a turkey buffet at Thanksgiving to make up for missing this trip. We need to work when there’s work — and I’m showing in the morning — but my Best Beloved and I need to make time — to take time — to concentrate on each other, without the unceasing distractions that come from selling real estate from our home.

We’ll have a great anniversary, anyway. We’re good at getting things right. But Vegas is the place where you just can’t have too many long-legged blondes, so we’ll have to make good this debt when we can.

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