Not far from where we live is the Lake Mead National Reserve, a place of incredible beauty where the Colorado River meets the Hoover Dam, and then turns into Lake Mead. Lake Mead itself has 550 miles of shoreline, and the landscape is a mix of rugged mountains, smooth desert and calm waters. I’ve not been too well over the last few days, I’m still getting rid of a cold, but it always helps me to get out of the house and get some fresh air, and a drive through the Reserve is always uplifting. The weather was perfect on Sunday, it was a warm 82F with a warm breeze.
Desert Cactus in bloom, Lake Mead National Reserve
Located within the Reserve is Echo Bay, a little bay and marina at the bottom of a mountain pass, approximately 40 miles away from the Henderson side of the Lake Mead National Reserve gateway. We often drive out this way as the drive is peaceful with scenery straight out of a wild west movie, and the little nautical themed restaurant at Echo Bay has great food and a friendly atmosphere (the old blog had a few photos of the inside of the restaurant).
Echo Bay from the top of the mountain
You may remember from the old blog and gallery that we liked to visit the Las Vegas Marina at Lake Mead to feed the Koi Carp, but since the water level of Lake Mead has diminished over the past two years, the Koi have spread out further along the lake. We were pleased to see that Echo Bay has it’s own Koi population and Skye got to feed them popcorn and bread.
Skye walking along the jetty at the Echo Bay Marina holding my finger.
Having used up all the popcorn, I tried to show Skye how to throw pieces of bread into the water for the Carp…
… but she decided that whilst the popcorn was for the fish, the bread was definitely for her… ;-)
We stopped by the restaurant and had a late lunch, then drove around the lake for a while before hitting the store for groceries. In the store, Skye spotted a bright yellow Easter chick toy and was so taken with it we had to buy it for her :-) The video below shows some of the day’s events.
A couple of nights ago, I was in the kitchen with Shawna enjoying a glass of wine and chatting. We had the lighting low for ‘mood’ and our dog Indio was fast asleep on the floor between the refrigerator (his temple of worship) and the table where we were sat. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something scuttling along the kitchen floor, about 8 inches away from Indio, and to my horror (and now exasperation) it was another f@#*!=g scorpion! >:-/ I jumped up, nearly knocking the table and wine everywhere and tried to move Indio away. Because he was asleep, he woke up startled and walked backwards to where the scorpion was and almost stood on it… Seriously, he missed it by millimeters… I grabbed Shawna’s flipflop off her foot and battered it (sounds like a Monty Python-esque sketch), I then realized it was another bark scorpion and very poisonous. Had it stung Indio it could have killed him as the bark scorpion’s sting can be fatal in animals, children and the elderly/infirm.
View of the scorpion from above. (I’ve cleaned up most of the gore from the battering with Photoshop).
This is the view of the damn thing I had from where I was sitting…
Those of you who read the old blog will remember that we’ve had several scorpion encounters in this house, a bark scorpion was in one of the kitchen drawers last year and missed my hand by a hair’s width as I reached in for something. This latest scorpion is now the sixth we’ve encountered in the house and adjacent patio footpath in just twelve months. We have a bug guy (as do most people in Vegas) who comes out to the house and sprays inside and out, but pesticides only remove the food source of scorpions as they’re pretty much indestructible (except when they come up against ball-pane hammers and old flipflops ;-). They’re like the armoured tanks of the insect world!
As if scorpions weren’t bad enough, I photographed a brown recluse spider on our patio wall last month. The brown recluse is also known as the ‘Violin Spider’ as it has a violin shape on it’s head where it’s legs are attached. The brown recluse is one of the most poisonous spiders in America and it’s necrotic bite can result in a huge gaping hole of rotting flesh. Nasty stuff… Some poor people have had to have limbs amputated because of it. The spiders are quite small, about the size of a penny or nickel.
The small but dangerous brown recluse spider
I photographed another spider on the patio wall a few weeks ago (shown below) but I’m not sure what it is. It looks like a hobo spider, but I think we’re a lttle too South Westerly for the hobo. If anyone can identify it then please let me know here.
The spider I can’t identify
I think we’re getting an unusual amount of spiders and scorpions here in the Southern Las Vegas area as new houses are being built further into the desert right by us and the insects are obviously moving this way. We can’t take any more risks with scorpions in the house with the baby and pets so we’re going to move to another area of Vegas as soon as we can…
Ethel M’s Cactus Garden
One of our favourite places to go for an afternoon stroll with the baby is Ethel M’s Chocolate Factory & Cactus Garden in Henderson. The garden is home to just about every kind of cactus there is, and kids love it as it’s next to Ethel M’s Chocolate Factory. Over the Christmas period, they light the garden up with literally thousands of lights, it looks like a bizarre desert version of Santa’s Grotto. We were there last week as the sun was going down, and I took a couple of photos for the blog with my cell phone.
Part of the Cactus Garden with barrel cacti and agave plants (where tequila comes from ;-)
Backlit cacti near the Chocolate Factory
After the Cactus Garden we went to the local mall, where Skye likes walking for miles whilst waving to everyone :-D
The Nigerian Barrister
We’ve all received the spam/con emails from so-called ‘barristers’, ‘doctors’, members of ‘Royalty’, ‘diplomats’ and even ‘Presidents’, all stemming from Nigeria and the like, but yesterday Shawna recieved the funniest email yet from a Nigerian ’barrister’ claiming to be in London with the hilarious made-up name of Dr. Fred Mike…!!!!!!!! Can you believe this shit? We laughed all day at this one! These people must read internet pages with lists of English men’s names and then randomly choose two… How else could you come up with Fred Mike!!?? DRFred Mike from Nigeria!!!! LOL :-D He was of course emailing us to let us know (very thoughtfully) that he had $20 million dollars in a special trust fund in London and just needed $900 of our money urgently to free it up and would of course compensate us “dearly for our kindness”… Hilarious stuff… We’ve decided that we’re going to call our next pet ‘Dr. Fred Mike’ :-D
Welcome to the new blog, I hope you like it’s new look (I prefer it to the old one).
The blog has been updated (along with the main website www.MarioParga.com) due to a change of web hosts. Most of the data transferred over ok, but some things, such as the old ‘News & Events’ page from the main site and the old Blog didn’t do too well… Sadly, all the old Blog and News entries in their original format from 2004 to present were lost in the process :-/ My web guy was able to save them in raw data, but I’d have to re-enter all the entries manually which would of course take forever… As it’s still early 2009, I’ve manually added the blog entries from the start of this year as the NAMM show entry was popular amongst you, as were the Vegas Guitars entries and Bug updates. If I ever get enough time I’ll try and add more of the older stuff.
The main website is slightly different, there’s a new ‘Mario Parga’ logo and the page layout has changed slightly. The Entranced subdomain has gone as it will eventually be integrated into another part of the website. The Guestbook has been removed as sadly it was under constant attack by spammers and we all got sick of having to moderate it. If anyone wants to write me or send a guestbook-type message then please use the contact form. Thank you :-)
We set off early on Friday 16th January, driving from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. The truck was loaded to almost full capacity, it’s amazing how much stuff you need to travel with when you have a baby onboard!
Our first port of call was Uncle G’s house (Graham Bonnet), we drove to North L.A. County and picked him up and added his guitar and suitcase to the now full truck. Graham sat in the back seat of the truck and entertained Skye, singing to her and keeping her occupied. Graham looked well and was in his usual high spirits, although he had a cough/cold that was slowly developing.
The 50 mile drive from Graham’s to Anaheim was a nightmare… The shitty traffic on the shitty 5 freeway through Los Angeles was at a complete standstill, crawling along at a snail’s pace then stopping every few feet. What should have been a 50 minute drive turned into a 5 1/2 hour epic… Skye soon got bored and fed up of being in her baby car seat and decided to turn the rest of the journey into a screaming tantrum fest… Just what we didn’t need! The weather was nice though, a balmy 89F.
We arrived in Anaheim, but due to roadworks on the freeway, the turn off we needed was unavailable (and not sign posted!! >:-/) so we of course got lost… Two sets of bad directions later from drive-thru’s, we finally arrived at Graham’s hotel and got him checked in. We then went on a quest to locate our hotel and once we had, it was time to unload the truck and relax for all of one hour before the guys came over to run through the NAMM set list.
We quickly ran through the songs, trying to be as quiet as possible to not disturb the neighbors. Laughter and impromptu bursts into Elvis’ ‘Viva Las Vegas’ and Buddy Holly’s ‘It’s So Easy’ quickly made us forget about the gruelling day we’d all had. It was nice to spend time with the guys, it was a shame Kevin Valentine couldn’t make it that night, although we saw him the following day.
Left to right: Me, Graham, Eric Ragno and Tim Luce.
Myself, Shawna and Skye arrived at the NAMM show on Saturday 17th and were met by Fishman’s Marketing Director and Artist Relations manager Chris DeMaria at the main entrance. Despite being run off his feet, Chris was super helpful and easliy one of the best people I’ve ever met representing a musical equipment company at a trade show. Graham, Tim, Eric and Kevin were already at the Fishman booth. Kevin explained that the drum pads he’d borrowed from Roland weren’t going to work for the performance due to their size and the amount of time required to get them set up. This was sad news, as we were all looking forward to playing together, and as a result of the lack of drums I decided to drop ‘Ritual’ (Entranced (2007)) from the set list as I didn’t think it would sound right the way we’d arranged it for the show. Kevin stayed throughout the performance though, and my daughter Skye fell in love with him :-)
The guys: (left to right) Graham Bonnet, Kevin Valentine, Eric Ragno, me and Tim Luce.
We had a short soundcheck, but there was so much noise (as usual!) at the NAMM show it was hard to hear our mix and sound. Graham wasn’t very well as the cough and cold had developed overnight and the NAMM ‘noise police’ were constantly checking the booths (during our performance we were told to turn the volume down)… But despite this, we all enjoyed the performance and everyone thought that the Fishman Aura pedals and amps were amazing! (My nylon strung guitar shown in the photos and videos is going to Fishman’s HQ in Massachusetts in a couple of weeks’ time to have Aura Imaging technology fitted directly into it, they’re going to create custom auras of the actual guitar for me so I’ll get the best possible amplified sound - very cool!)
Seconds before the show started…
Side view of the stage.
The songs we played were (in order): 1. ‘It’s All Over Now Baby Blue’ by Bob Dylan, and covered by Graham on his first solo album, 2. ‘Desert Song’ - MSG, 3. ‘Will You Be Home Tonight’ - Alcatrazz and 4. ‘Love’s No Friend’ - Rainbow.
‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’
‘Will You Be Home Tonight’
Eric & Graham
L.A. based music video director Karpis Maksudian was at the show with TV hostess Alicia Gentile who interviewed us afterwards. Seymour Duncan was there too, he was such a nice guy. Larry Fishman was very cool also; all the Fishman people were exceptionally nice.
Post show - Left to right: Graham, Chris DeMaria, Seymour Duncan, me and Eric.
Me & Karpis Maksudian.
Me, Graham, Shawna and Skye stayed together at the show, and went downstairs into Hall E to visit Nick Campling, inventor and owner of the wonderful G7th Performance Capo that both Graham and I use.
Graham, me & Skye with Nick Campling (center).
At around 4pm we left the convention center with Graham and went back to our hotel room. Skye was very tired and needed a nap. Shawna had been on her feet all day, acting as photographer, baby handler and spokeswoman for the band, she looked tired and needed to rest. Graham and I jumped back into the truck and went out for dinner at an Italian Restaurant not far from the convention center, we later took a takeaway from the same restaurant back to Shawna then I drove Graham back to his hotel.
On Sunday, Tim dropped Graham off at our hotel and the two of us loaded the truck. The traffic back to Graham’s house in North L.A. was great as it was Sunday afternoon, it only took us 50 minutes to get there. We stopped for burgers and tacos with Graham then dropped him off at home. The journey back to Vegas was pretty good, the Pearblossom Highway was as picturesque as always and traffic was good all the way through. It took us four hours (with two stops) to get from Graham’s to our place, we got back home at 7pm.
