The B.S.:

Musings

Touching the bases, in no particular order

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Bruce Spotleson

Emptying out the Reporter’s Notebook and all the disjointed notes jotted in it:

Count me among those folks who believe in Bobby Hauck. If UNLV is going to have a winning football program, it will come under his tenure. Patience, folks.

Her term as Las Vegas mayor has been comparatively quiet so far, especially when measured against her husband’s, but Carolyn Goodman has been every bit as visible as he was. She’s showing up everywhere.

At least two local home-sellers figured out how to move homes in a crazy environment. The real estate consulting group Real Trends says Jared Jones of Horizon Realty Group and Sue Nelson of ERA Sunbelt Realty had enough transactions in 2010 to get them ranked among the top 10 Realtors nationally. Now that’s saying something.

Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge Opens

The recently opened Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge is framed by the Hoover Dam Wednesday, October 20, 2010. Launch slideshow »

Yeah, a lot of people are going vegan these days, but the quiet boom in local restaurants has been the Brazilian places, with as much meat as you can eat. Meat will always be popular among men, who still carry most of the expense accounts that come to town.

With nearby Phoenix the latest city to start scrapping its photo-radar traffic cameras, the chances now are slim to none that Nevada will ever legalize them. But they are still considered the best deterrent against red-light runners — which we have way too many of.

One unpublicized benefit of the new O’Callaghan-Tillman Memorial Bridge is that it makes Arizona’s Willow Beach a much shorter drive from Las Vegas.

With so many suburban restaurants having opened in recent years, you don’t run into people so much at lunch much anymore. Unless perhaps you’re at McCormick & Schmick’s or the Las Vegas Country Club. And no, I’m not a member of the latter.

Attendance was down at the Las Vegas 51s again this year. Hard to explain, given that it’s good baseball, affordable and they offer such a busy schedule of promotions.

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Lance Galbraith lifts off his skates to collide with Mike Madill in the corner behind the Wranglers net during the first period of the home playoff opener on Tuesday night at the Orleans Arena.

Next up will be hockey and the Las Vegas Wranglers, who know how to put on a good show indoors. Some promotions planned this year are monkeys riding dogs to herd sheep on the ice, and a real all-out midnight circus. Oh, and there will be plenty of bruising hockey, of course.

Maybe our office needs to have a yard sale for pencils, Wite-Out and phone message pads. We just don’t use them anymore.

The Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas chambers of commerce are under an energized new leadership. Energy is good, because membership challenges were awaiting each of the new chief executives when they began their new jobs.

Any true local has to hope Majestic Realty Co. succeeds in building a stadium adjacent to the UNLV campus. Silverton President Craig Cavileer, the project’s spokesman, is the perfect guy to have in front of this effort.

VEGAS INC Coverage

Now that I think about it, it wasn’t so long ago that there were video stores on every corner in town. Now there’s space available.

Scary how many people seem to be focused on their mobile devices as they fly by on the freeway. We’ll see whether the new law changes things in January.

So many locals have never seen Lake Tahoe in the northern part of the state. Geographically, half of it is in Nevada, but philosophically, all of it is in the Bay Area. San Franciscans have had a big influence up there.

As if things weren’t difficult enough recently in car sales, local auto dealerships carrying Japanese brands saw their vehicle supply interrupted after the tsunami.

According to Readex Research, this publication’s female readership has gone up from 36 percent to 42 percent in the past three years. Diversity is a good thing.

With so many sources of film information on the Web, people are no longer relying on the daily newspaper for movie schedules. Those listings once were the primary reason people bought newspapers at convenience stores.

I am thankful for our occasional heavy rains, because they enable me to shift into four-wheel drive. Given my normally sedate suburban lifestyle, it otherwise goes pretty much unused.

Even in slower times, there are still about 2,000 people a month moving here. Which is probably enough to keep our metro area population just below 2 million.

Through July, our local average daily room rate was about $105. That’s almost $30 more than it was 10 years ago. Of course, it’s not an apples-to-apples measurement, as we all know.

A final thought: There is no good time for road work on Interstate 15.

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