Zowie Bowie update and other stuff

I stopped by The Lounge at The Palms for a quick look at the renovations. Zowie Bowie starts tonight (though they did an employee-only shakedown "soft-opening" last night, I understand). They've added some lights, and a new controller (that's BJ Stanton of the Palms lighting staff above). There will be a new permanent FOH install, and they've built a large rectangular elevated stage over the top of the old curved one. Dunno about that idea. It's gonna change the view for Santa Fe, and may act like a hugely resonant subwoofer. We shall see.

Other than that, some new curtains, and I'm not sure yet what the Monday night seating will look like. Yesterday they had high stand-up cocktail tables all over the room, but that may just have been for the soft open.

I told Chris and Marley I'd be by tonight to cover the official public opening. I really wish them well.

Bopped over to Sunset Station to the Madrid Lounge for the Lon Bronson show last night. Doc Kupka, Tom Politzer, Rocco Prestia, and Larry Braggs sat in while I was there (I didn't stay long).

Great looking room. Nice light grid. Now, if they'd only turn 'em up, and use the dad-gumbed pin spots.

Room was full. Peeps was diggin' it. Outside of it, the casino floor was way slow.

Don't forget, also. Robert Conti gives a jazz guitar clinic tomorrow at 3 pm at Sam Ash on Maryland Pkwy. It'll be awesome.

______

UPDATE

I alluded above to the "slow casino floor." Yeah, if you been following the news of late, you know that Station Casinos are teetering on BK (bankruptcy; can't help but wonder whether that factored into the Zowie Bowie relo), with Boyd making a recently-spurned offer to cherry-pick purchase the majority of Station properties at a distress sale price. Now, this week, wafts of an MGM Grand BK are also in the air, largely over the troubled City Center project. And, the Echelon project is in the toilet 'til further notice.

Jeez, man...

The latest BLS unemployment stats just came out. I track NV, CA, and MI, in addition to the national trend. Just updated my Excel sheet and graph.

My little 3rd degree polynomial trend curve (the thin blue line inside the NV data line) forecasts NV hitting 10% in a month or so (we're at 9.4% for Jan, and CA just broke the 10% mark). February national rate is now at 8.1% (the state-level stats always lag behind by a month). Poor Michigan, yikes (that's where my sister lives)! The latest now is that GM is likely to BK. (Of course, a lot of the BK stuff is a Kabuki dance / game of chicken via which to try to buy time, or extract more bailout money, or better revised terms from bondholders and concessions from unions.)

Been writing a lot about this mess lately, here and here.