Some weeks are better than others…and then there was last week. Including me paying 100 times the asking price for a certain item, and being thrilled to do so!
It started off Wednesday afternoon when Nevada News & Views editor Lori Piotrowski and I had lunch with Katey Roberts and Vinny Galatro of the Charles Koch Institute, which is doing some REALLY great work on behalf of the limited-government movement no matter how badly the liberal media tries to besmirch the Koch name.
That was followed by the privilege of introducing Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots at a private cocktail reception later that evening at McCormick & Schmick’s which was organized and hosted by John Laub. As the saying goes, a good time was had by all.
On Thursday night, Gia and I had the pleasure of dinner at Le Provencal in the Paris Hotel with former Judge Jim Gray and his wife, Grace. Judge Gray is one of the more outspoken critics of America’s failed war on drugs and is the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate. The steaks were terrible, but the company and conversation were fantastic.
Friday evening started off at Channel 3’s studio, where Grover Norquist was doing Jon Ralston’s program. Grover and I then headed to a small fundraising dinner at Bally’s for U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). And not only were we seated at the same table with Sen. Paul, but also seated with us was John Mackey of Whole Foods.
For regular readers, you’ll recall the famous Mackey quote about unions from the early ‘80s that I’ve reprinted here a number of times: “The union is like having herpes. It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.”
That quote, understandably, has caused Mackey an enormous amount of trouble and pain from organized labor ever since. And when I mentioned to him that it was one of my favorite quotes of all time, he half-jokingly said he’d sell it to me for a penny.
Alas, the smallest denomination of money I had on me was a dollar, so I paid 100 times the asking price for the rights to that now-infamous quote – and worth every penny. John also informed me that I’d just doubled his annual income, since he only pays himself $1 a year at Whole Foods.
Always happy to help the less fortunate in society! :-)
As if that wasn’t enough, Sen. Paul’s chief-of-staff came up to me after dinner and asked if I wanted to play golf with Rand on Sunday morning.
Aside from being scared to death of embarrassing myself (I haven’t golfed in about 15 years) in front of my favorite United States Senator (no offense, Sen. Heller), how could I say “no” to such a great opportunity?
And then for the cherry on top, Grover invited me to walk across the street to Caesar’s Palace where he and I joined John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow – producers of the upcoming Atlas Shrugged Part 2 movie coming out in October – for desert and an after-dinner drink. Great guys, great discussion, great company.
On Saturday…I rested, other than to take CJ to iHop for pancakes and buy a new pair of golf shoes.
On Sunday, I did indeed get to play 18 holes of golf with Sen. Paul out at Bear’s Best…and after getting off to a fairly lousy start on the first hole (there was water; need I say more?) it wasn’t too bad – at least for someone coming off a 15 year hiatus. I even parred one hole – which almost made up for the half-dozen or so quadruple bogey’s.
But even on my best day, I’d never be able to strike a ball as well as Rand. The man can play.
Now, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to write about what the Senator and I talked about for four-and-a-half hours (there was a lot of searching for my golf balls out-of-bounds!), but suffice it to say I suspect this won’t be the last time we see Sen. Paul in Nevada.
As for tonight: I’m going to the 999th episode of WWE’s Monday Night RAW at Mandalay Bay with Gia and the kids!
So all in all, as weeks go…it doesn’t get much better than that.
