If it doesn’t fit somewhere else, it goes in here…
2005 was a year of change in the Vargas household. Most of it was good, and we’re better off at the end of the year than when it started. We hope the same is true for you.
May 2006 be a year of health, happiness and prosperity for you and yours! Happy New Year from the Vargases.
Lars, Mrs. Vargas, and Luella
Christmas brings up so many fond memories of turkeys at Grandma’s, her special stuffing, presents, and happy family times. Memories of snow, cold, and even some bad weather. So many wonderful memories, and too many to mention here.
To me, Christmas simply means joy. I cannot think about Christmas without smiling.
Mrs. Vargas and I are spending our Christmas at our new home in Las Vegas with Luella the cat. We will roast a turkey breast and have a few other goodies, but nothing complicated or crazy. While we won’t be with our families and friends, you will be in our hearts as we celebrate, and remembered with love.
Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family.
Dear Fellow Driver:
Hi there! I’m another driver on the road. Just like you, I’m using the paved conduit to get form point A to point B. I know this may surprise you, since when you paid twice the going price of a Toyota for a Toyota with a badge that looks like a rip-off of the Mercedes-Benz logo, you thought you bought the road as well.
I also hate to tell you, but the ES300 didn’t remove the stink from your shit. Neither did the LX470, so no smiling over there, OK? (more…)
The say that Google page rank is everything on the Internet these days, and that getting it is somewhat of a black science. I don’t write these pages with any particular page ranking in mind. Since “Lars Vargas” is a fairly uncommon name, I tend to rank pretty high (usually at the top) when searched in Google. That’s nice, but expected. Getting into “Las Vegas Blogs” is a lot harder. I checked once, and I’m at around 700 or 800. Probably lower.
One of the things I do check every so often is my site stats. It’s nice to see how much traffic this site gets (not much right now), where it’s coming from (mostly other pages on this site) and various other tidbits. One of those tidbits is what search terms landed visitors on your pages. All the things you would think would be there are: Lars Vargas, Mrs. Vargas, Luella the cat, etc. Many of those are my searches to see if I’m in certain search engines and such. (more…)
That’s right, it’s a “Christmas” theme. Not a “Holiday” theme. I’m totally not into that politically correct crap, where we cannot possible offend anyone for any reason, or exclude them. Then again, I never did anything to exclude anyone. They pretty much excluded themselves. But this isn’t about PC blanding everything into a homogenous gray slurry. It’s about decorating for the holidays.
I am not into decorating the house. That’s Mrs. Vargas’s venue. I am into decorating the site, since that’s my venue. The site was looking good after the recent makeover, but hey, you’ve got to put up lights and have a little fun for Christmas.
And I promise to take it all down after the New Year. You won’t see this theme lingering on the site in mid-April.
It’s amazing how a little spare time evaporates quickly and a quick project turns into one that takes much longer than anticipated. But such is life.
The re-styles theme for the site is up. As usual, there are a few rough edges that will smooth out over the next few days.
I am going to devote more time to writing this week. The design took away my writing time last week and I cannot get that back. I can’t go a week between posts. It’s not good for me, and it’s not good for the site.
Anyway, the new design will evolve, and there will be more to read this week. I guess in my own myopic view of the world, that’s a win-win. Your feedback, criticism, cash donations, rants and raves are welcome at larsvargas@gmail.com.
I have a little bit of spare time to play with the site’s design. The original Lars Vargas design was something I threw together in a few hours in order to get a site up and going. It’s rough around the edges at best, ugly at worst.
I have made a few incremental changes today, so things probably look different. Expect more changes in the next few days as the new design really shapes up.
As always, your opinion is most welcome. Shoot me an email at larsvargas@gmail.com.
Las Vegas is a great place to live. We moved here for a variety of reasons. One was the weather. No hurricanes, not a lot of rain. In fact, other than the intense summer (dry) heat, Las Vegas has a very hospitable climate.
While some would say that the lack of rain is one of the good things about Las Vegas (it is in the middle of a desert after all) there are some disadvantages as well. The largest one would be dust. Vegas is a dusty town, and a little wind will move more than enough dust to cover pretty much everything, cars included.
My car is black. I like black cars. That Darth Vader thing is cool to me. But dust and black cars don’t mix. Actually, they mix quite well, but the look of a black car covered in fine beige silt isn’t nearly as sinister as when that black paint is gleaming like the Dark Side of the Force. (more…)