Bowling With Giants.......

This "Since You Asked" article is about the outrageous growth rates of digital content and other fun stuff.  At the end of it, I was speaking of libraries which reminded me of a recent shindig in Vegas that I attended with my lovely wife and a few other ESG'ers for a library fund raiser.  For some unknown reason (place sarcasm here), my noble and supremely patient editor, Lucas, elected not to include that part.

Therefore, I add it here.

Speaking of libraries, I had an interesting weekend recently.  I was invited (actually, my checkbook was invited, I was just baggage) to attend a charity fund raiser in the great city of Las Vegas, by ESG's own Taya Wyss - who is one of those people who hangs around with professional football players for some reason.  Taya's pal, a big giant person (literally - a lineman for the NY Giants) Grey Ruegemer has adopted a bunch of public libraries in Vegas (yes, they apparently do have actual libraries in Vegas - who knew?) and held a Bowling fund raiser at a way off the beaten path hotel  - The Suncoast.  Being one who loves Vegas in small doses and a huge football fan, I happily agreed to be a sponsor.  I paid for Tony Dorsett to bowl with the west coast ESG squad, but he didn’t show (don’t worry, I stole his gift bag).  Fellow gigantic human Marco Rivera – a 3 time pro-bowl guard -became our teammate.  I have significantly more in common with his lovely wife, who is roughly 210 pounds lighter than Marco, and just an awful bowler.  Bowling is hard.  Even without drinking, I had to really focus on not hurting myself or someone else.  My wife, of course, was brilliant at it.  She even looked like she knew what she was doing. I just tried not to fall down.

There were all sorts of giants hanging out bowling that weekend, lowering the average age of this particular hotels’ occupants to around 80.  I looked like a six year old standing next to these guys.  I had trouble holding a 12 lb. bowling ball which looked like a ping pong ball in their hands.  I did wear Joe Andruzzi’s super bowl rings, and almost couldn’t lift my arm up.  Joe, Grey, and Matt Chatham were all former Pats, all with rings, and all OK in my book. Nice people, those giants, though Joe A. did push me in the pool, and Marco did comment on the abundance of “fur” on my CFO’s torso.  I told them to watch it since my lawyer was bigger than theirs.  I don’t think I intimidated them.

FYI, they have actual penny slots at the Suncoast, which is apparently why their average slot player is approaching 115 years of age.  How you make money on a penny slot machine is beyond me, but what do I know?  I bet they have an exabyte of pennies - and cigarette butts. 

If you would like to bowl with giants next year, or be a good egg and send some dough to this cause, you can do so at www.ruegysreaders.com/