My first Vegas Implosion, pretty cool stuff!!

So this is what the Stardust looked like, with MR. Las Vegas headlining in his own showroom and a fireworks show going off (probably from it's official opening..) It was a neat older casino, with a lot of smoke hanging in the air, and a cool oldschool vibe. I only went a few times to see some bands play in the lounge or while I was walking around aimlessly (which I used to do a lot when I got off work early...) It's been closed, they've auctioned offeverything they could and stripped the building to a shell. Ready to go.

The implosion was reported as after 1:00 AM before 5:00 AM, I guess they gave themselves a big window for wind conditions or smething (don't want to screw around when you'r loading dynamite......) I got there at 1:00 AM (on a little back story, I ate dinner and hit the sack at 6:30 PM so I wouldn't be too fried.......) I found a nice spot across from the doomed structure and set up my tripod withmy SLR camera on it and hung my digital from the tripod so it would be handy. I heard a worker say 2:30, so I knew I had some time to hang out and get comfortable. people kept piling in to the area I was in , it was pretty cool, they were shining colored lights on the building, the streets were blocked off from traffic, there was definite tension in the air. I snapped a few pictures with my SLR and forgot to look at the photo count, so I only got some B&W pics before the fireworks/implosion.... I'm really glad I brought the digital.

The fireworks were pretty good, many people around me were saying they were better than New Years Eve of last year.... Fireworks mounted on the side of the building made for a cool vision, and then the fireworks made big numbers 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 (you get the picture...) a series of booms and nothing.... another set of booms, and down she came, in around ten seconds the tower cam crashing down, a cloud of dust filled the air (and sent the crowd running, those of us who were smart enough to see how slow it was moving too our time getting back to our cars...)

Traffic was backed up getting out ofthere, but I'm gad I went, it was pretty cool.... a lot of staning around and waiting, but worth every second of it!!!

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For some reason the Flickr uploader puts these in bacwards order, so start from the end and work your way back if seeing them in chronological order is important to you....

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