The Day After The Big Day

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Maria and Nelson Tello at Cape Royal on the north rim of the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona

The wake-up call from the Luxor front desk came in at 7:30; by 8:30, we were on the road. After driving 90 miles in Nevada, we dipped into Arizona for a short 29-mile drive across the northwestern corner of the state called the Arizona Strip. This is the only part of Arizona that you cannot get to from Arizona; you must enter from Nevada or Utah. The first stop in Utah was Zion National Park near Springdale. After a brief visit and drive through Zion, we headed east through the Coral Pink Sand Dune area and then dropped south on our way back into Arizona, going to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park. It was already late afternoon as we started the drive in the park that took us to Angel’s Window and Cape Royal overlooks, where the above photo was taken. Driving home, we saw the Vermillion Cliffs, crossed the Colorado River on the Navajo Reservation, and finally passed Flagstaff on our way home to Phoenix, Arizona.

The Big Day

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Maria Estrada and Nelson Tello at the Clark County Marriage Bureau in Las Vegas, Nevada applying for a marriage license

This is Maria Estrada and Nelson Tello, who are only two hours away from getting married. A taxi brought us from the Luxor Hotel to the Clark County Marriage Bureau where the lucky couple applied for their marriage license that would be needed before they went to the Little White Chapel to get married. And then during the eighth hour of the evening on the eighth day of the eighth month in the year 2007, Maria and Nelson became husband and wife.

I would have liked to have posted a photo of the marriage ceremony, but the rules are such that no photography is allowed except by a trained professional from the Little White Chapel, so those photos will be mailed to Nelson and Maria within the next few days.

After the wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Tello visited the Stratosphere Tower for a view of Las Vegas from 1000 feet above the desert. The next stop was Noodle Asia in the Venetian Hotel for dinner and their first attempt at eating dinner with chopsticks. Following a two-mile walk down Las Vegas Boulevard with a stop at Caesars Palace, passing the fountains of the Bellagio, going to the Excalibur Hotel and Casino, and the New York, New York, it was after 2:00 in the morning and time to call it a night back at the black pyramid of the Luxor Hotel. Congratulations, Nelson and Maria, and best wishes for a long and happy marriage.

Ken The Cutter

JWise Photo of the Day

Ken, local Hindu resident of Phoenix, Arizona

Beware of this man, he is Ken “The Cutter” Jones – not his real last name. Ken is from the Indian state of Gujarat where he was the leader of a local chapter of the Hindu Mafia, he gained notoriety and considerable fortune working quietly in the background producing Bollywood movies while befriending noted mega-stars Big B and Om Puri, who he met while on the set of Dev. Following a turf war, The Cutter was exiled to America where he now runs a protection racket extorting Manikchand (slang for cash)  from local Guju shop owners. Ken is a really bad man, evil, nasty, horrible, a man so terrible no one has ever seen him smile.

Early Birthday

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Boyd, Woody, and a friend in Goleta, California

This is what happens when you have a bad head for names; on the left is Boyd. My uncle Woody is obviously in the middle, but I have no recollection of the guy’s name on the right. This is embarrassing.

John Wise with Boyd on the left and Woody Burns on the right in Santa Barbara, California

It’s not very often I’m surprised, especially when it’s still 11 days before my birthday.

Birthday Cake

For the occasion of my upcoming 44th year, my aunt Ann and uncle Woody with their friend Boyd, brought out a cake on our visit to Santa Barbara this weekend.

Improvements

JWise Photo of the Day

Sonal Patel, owner of Indo-Euro Foods in Phoenix, Arizona

The barcodes, hardware, software, scanner, and training have finally come together and the new cash register and inventory system are working. Sonal Patel, above, is the owner of Indo-Euro Foods at 16th Street and Bell Road in Phoenix, Arizona. She and I have been working the past months to modernize her store with the addition of some automation to help her with inventory, customer support, and allow her to add an employee so she might enjoy some days off. This has been a tough process as none of her suppliers would supply electronic barcode information and so we have been forced to do all of the data entry ourselves. Little did we know when we started that there would be more than 1,700 items in her store. One more training session to learn how reports work and the process should be finished – phew.

Devil in a Blue Dress, uh hum, Kilt

JWise Photo of the Day

Dawn and Ian Gordon on their wedding day

Not long ago I mentioned a guy who gifted Caroline and me a sign from a military installation in Germany. Shortly after posting that I was finally able to find a phone number for him after thinking we had lost all contact. And now, Ian Gordon has sent me a relatively current photo of himself, seen here, with his bride – Gayle. I have a more recent photo where Ian has shorn his locks for a more “conventional” look but with only so much space to post photos, I felt posting this one highlighting his knees was more dramatic. Don’t worry Ian, I won’t share any of our old photos from our midnight trip to Amsterdam where you wore little more than that famous leopard-print silk thong, some skin-tight mini bike shorts, and that hot spandex muscle-T emblazoned with “Rock Hard Love” across the front – yowza man, that was some trip.