Earth Hour

Earth Hour is an annual event to promote reduced energy consumption for the planet Earth by turning off non-essential lights for one hour from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on the last Saturday in March. It was first organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as a lights-off event in Sydney, Australia in 2007. Since then, 7,000 cities, 1,200 landmarks and 172 countries and territories have joined the action to raise the awareness of climate change.

Postcard US-1630412 to the Netherlands shows New York-New York Hotel & Casino before and during Earth Hour in Las Vegas on March 26, 2011. It features a quote from a Senegalese forestry engineer Baba Dioum: "In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." Sent before and received on Earth Day, April 22, 2012, it also highlighted the theme for Earth Day 2012: Mobilize the Earth.

For Earth Hour 2015 on Saturday, March 28, Las Vegas City Hall and the properties from MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, and Boyd Gaming all dimmed their exterior lighting, signage and marquees from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. In addition to dimming the lights, Venetian and Palazzo had put on a candlelight display at Doge's Palace Plaza in front of Venetian.

Candlelight display for Earth Hour 2015 at Venetian with Mirage dimming its lights in the background.

Earth Hour 2016 will be on Saturday, March 26, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time.

Remembering 9/11 in Las Vegas

Postcard US-1952982 to China shows the New York-New York Hotel and Casino. A memorial sprung up spontaneously after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, with a collection of first responder T-shirts, handwritten notes, and flowers decorating the wall in front of the harbor by the fire boat below the 47-story replica of the Empire State Building. However, Casino expansion pushed out the 9/11 Memorial in 2013.

Today, 13 years after 9/11, a giant U.S. flag was hoisted by two firetrucks at the annual Las Vegas Firefighters 9/11 Tribute and March in downtown Las Vegas. At 7:30 p.m., hundreds of firefighters, police officers, military personnel and community leaders marched along the 3rd Street and paused for a moment of silence with bagpipe performing at the 3rd Street Stage at the Fremont Street Experience. 

Viva Vision Light Show at the Fremont Street Experience also paid tribute to the lives lost during 9/11.

Innocence, So Fleeting, So Fragile

Outgoing postcard US-2529931 to Belarus was another postcard from Zumanity, the Sensual Side of Cirque du Soleil at New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The scene on the postcard, with a tag line "Innocence, so fleeting, so fragile", reveals elegance and passion of women. The show is scheduled to undergo an overhaul early next year. The postcard was purchased at the show's gift shop. It was sent on November 28, 2013 and had since expired.

Tonight, the giant Viva Vision LED display canopy at the Fremont Street Experience lit up again for the 16th annual Las Vegas Pride Parade in downtown Las Vegas. A blog from Las Vegas Weekly explains why Las Vegas Pride matters for a largely dis-unified LGBT community. The pride festival will be held at the Clark County Government Center Amphitheater tomorrow from noon to 10:00 p.m. on September 6, 2014. As concluded in that blog, we will be there "not because we want to see more people impersonating Britney Spears, but because we want to see us."

National Roller Coaster Day

Although its origin unidentified, National Roller Coaster Day has been celebrated for some years on August 16. People celebrate the day by visiting an amusement park and enjoying a roller coaster ride.

In Las Vegas, the Big Apple Coaster at New York-New York Hotel and Casino is offering a buy-one-get-one general admission to its 67-mph thrill ride from 10:30 a.m. to Noon on Saturday August 16, 2014. It climbs up to the highest peak at 68 meters or 203 feet before rushing down 44 meters or 144 feet with a 180-degree “heartline” twist and dive maneuver. The first 100 riders will receive a special “National Roller Coaster Day” T-shirt.

The Big Apple Coaster can be seen on Postcard US-2574059 to Argentina in the front.

Two other roller coaster rides in Las Vegas are offering discounts as well. The Adventuredome at Circus Circus has a two-for-one discount on tickets to ride both El Loco and Canyon Blaster from 10 a.m. to Noon. The Desperado at Buffalo Bill's Resort & Casino is offering two-for-one rides between 12:15 a.m. and 9:45 p.m.

Zumanity: a Decade of Sexiness

Zumanity is a mature adult themed Cirque du Soleil show at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The production opened on September 20, 2003 and it's celebrating its 10th anniversary with more than 6.5 million audiences in a decade. The show explores human sexuality with a series of erotic songs, dances, and acrobatics.

Over the Rainbow in Las Vegas

Rainbow over the Mirage

It seldom rains in Las Vegas. Measured at the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport between 1981 and 2010, the average annual precipitation is about 4.19 inch or 106.4 mm. In average, there are 26.5 raining days per year; even during the wettest month in February, it has only 4 days of precipitation. It is the driest month in June when the average monthly precipitation is 0.07 inch or 1.78 mm with 0.6 raining days. (Interestingly, in English, plural "days" is used with zero or a decimal version of less than one instead of singular "day"). I used to live in West Palm Beach, Florida. In comparison, the average annual precipitation during the same period there is 62.31 inch or 1,582.67 mm with 136 raining days per year.

As a result, we rarely see rainbows in Las Vegas. Therefore, when it does occur, it's beautiful and magnificent. The postcard US-2276095 is currently traveling to Moldova featuring a rainbow over the Mirage Hotel and Casino.

On Youtube, you can watch "Over the Rainbow" from the 1939 movie "the Wizard of Oz", sung by actress Judy Garland.

Here are a few more postcards with rainbows over Las Vegas: US-2236311 with New York-New York Hotel and Casino to Ukraine and US-2205397 with Wynn Las Vegas to California, USA.

New York - New York Hotel and Casino

Wynn Las Vegas