Desert Inn Implosion
2:30 AM, November 16, 2004

Here we all are in preparation for the implosion.  From left to right: Ed, me, Jerome, Linda, and Rich.  I was wearing my Hello Kitty scarf.  Did you notice I made sure Joshua had a mask too?  Actually, we didn't need the masks, and a good thing too since I couldn't breathe in it.  How does Michael Jackson do it?

This is Ron.  Look at that mask!  He's a dentist, so he was doing shots of laughing gas.

Here's the Desert Inn before the implosion.  They had already gutted it and broken out some windows.

You can see how close it is to the new Wynn tower.  We got there around 8 PM (some of our friends had been there since 5 PM) to get a good parking spot.  We got there even before some of the news crews.  We walked to the Fashion Show mall and had dinner, and when we came back, the parking lot was jammed with cars and people.

OK, so here's the building right before the implosion.

We heard a bunch of explosions, like firecrackers.  You can see the smoke in the middle of the building.  Nothing happened for a few seconds.

Then suddenly the building just started to collapse into itself.

It was weird, to see it fall like that, like it was warped.

The whole thing only took a few seconds.

We had been shooting from out of our sunroof, and we all scrambled to get in our cars to avoid the smoke, but it never got that bad.

Here's what was left.  This car, one of a few left in the parking lot, had a note on the window that said the Desert Inn would not be responsible for any damages.  I'm surprised they didn't tow it.

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