How did one of MIT’s shining stars (as a student alumni and retired professor) miss fresh air vents when he stayed at the Wynn? It wasn’t until an advertising agent for Turner Broadcasting suggested we close the vent, in response to my wife’s dinner comment on wee morning Strip noise, that I realized fresh air was available. After dinner we boarded a bus to a planned comedy show, followed by unplanned – Strip walking, Crashers band at Carnaval Court, Harrah’s dueling piano bar and turning Wynn red card credits into free cash using black jack machine. We didn’t enjoy dueling female twins but were astounded by a male pianist’s rendition of Billy Joel’s Big Shot (particularly watching talented blur of his fingers performing staccato).

When we finally returned to the room at 4 AM, I closed vent notably notching noise down setting mood for best of our late night quest. It was several hours before I came up for fresh air and took a photo of the vent . Sliding the vent causes it to pop up revealing a tiny screen blasting plenty of fresh dry desert air (perhaps due to an intentional pressure difference). A bottle of Grande Cuvee and chocolate covered strawberries had awaited our return with a note from hotel assistant manager apologizing for late room cleaning (we had been gone all day), which my wife had complained about due to difficulty in shooing non-English speaking housekeeping out of the room as she dressed for a 5:30 dinner party. Sadly, at 4:00 AM neither of us felt like another drink and we left it unopened for housekeeping to enjoy as we checked out 8 hours later.

Before an elegant dinner at SW Steakhouse (SW=Steve Wynn -> clearly a narcissist) on day discussed above, we started out going to Lake Mead Lakeshore Scenic drive, followed by a cozy meal at Mel’s diner in Boulder City and a short drive to Hoover Dam (used free roadside parking after driving past $7 lots).
Lake Mead side of Hoover Dam
Review of 11-mile scenic drive
My video of one section of our drive
My video of Hoover Dam using a $20 hacked CVS camcorder

Only a few were playing an outdoor game that started with a minimum automatic losing bet of $500.

Views from and within our room 5521: looking out and walking through . Couples that sleep together (King beds are on concave side) have a better view than those that sleep apart (Queens are on convex side).

We missed acclaimed singing frog show but saw a couple other of Wynn’s astonishing waterfall light shows — Lake of Dreams . Slightly less spectacular was our Fremont Street tunnel of pixelated light experience. We lucked out by purchasing cheapest seats for Le Reve in splash free splash zone with clear views of facial expressions and a male acrobat with female breasts.

Free Internet use has been available for about 4 months at Wynn’s Terrace Point Cafe. We split a $13 Blueberry pancake breakfast (3 very large pancakes) on two separate occasions while sharing my laptop. At other times, I sat with the laptop on my lap on a bench just outside the Cafe (I can envision a crowd of laptop users sitting on the floor if other Strip sites including Starbucks continue charging ridiculous prices for Internet use).

Note to Philip – I hope you don’t mind a promotional/signature ending:

Did using Autobrite technology developed in labs at MIT produce single shots containing higher dynamic range than is possible even with today’s most expensive cameras? Using guts of a debayered hacked Pure Digital camera inside a telescope may better demonstrate Autobrite, but that will have to wait for my next visit to the Wynn. M51 and NGC5195, Interacting galaxies in Canes Venatici (by George Greaney) “A brief glance at a satellite photograph of the United States at night quickly reveals that the darkest skies in the country are located in the Southwestern deserts. Of these areas, central Nevada is undoubtedly the very darkest. … The site is located at Oak Springs Summit and is accessible via a dirt road off of the Great Basin Highway about 100 miles northeast of Las Vegas.”

And a final link to an off topic attack (breaking moderation policy) on Google’s inability to properly locate my wingsuit flyer posts. It will not be off topic when wingsuit flyers start jumping off top of Wynn. If they had windows that opened or balconies as you desire, there may have already been some jumping without wingsuits.

As for the “information technology” crack, the Wynn was the first place on the strip to embed RFID tags in every chip and RFID readers in the tables to catch counters more easily. It works, too!

One more hint on enjoying Vegas on a budget. If you want to get on the balcony to view the southeast waterfall at the Wynn, buy some ice cream at the ice cream shop and enjoy the view. You can enjoy it with your sweetie for less than $10. As for the big waterfall with the statues, it’s out of my price range.

I’ve chosen to have open rooms anyway, since the experience of the desert is important to my clients, but they are aware that they will pay a price (more housecleaning help necessary).

The sealed building also allows the casinos to control their heating and cooling more, and they can, oddly, claim to be more ‘green’ because of it, even though it removes all of their occupants from contact with the environment.

“surfaces and finishes are sort of luxurious” is damning with such faint praise.

The Hotel-Casino has no particular liability if a guest decides to take a dive out a window. Nor have suicides had any notable impact on their ‘image’ and consequently number of guests. So.

The real reason is far more simple: Windows (and balcony doors) that open increase cooling costs. Especially when a guest leaves the window open to get fresh air *and* cranks the AC up to the max to compensate.

Given that it is 6pm here in Las Vegas and the temperatrure is 102 degrees, I think you can see how this would put a serious dent in their bottom-line.

And, BTW, this also means that ’strolling’ across the street can be far from refreshing. Unless, of course, you’re visiting from Dubai.