You arrive and are immediately greeted by the plings and whirls of slot machines right there in the airport.

You see Principal Belding from Saved by the Bell lurking among them. (Note: This is the highlight of your trip but only because Richard Marx will not be at your hotel until the day after you leave.)

You sit at a table stacked with books and talk to people and collect business cards.

You try your hand at gambling and opt for craps because how hard can it be to throw dice? Only to find out you can’t seem to hit the back wall without the dice bouncing off the table and hitting a cocktail waitress.

You lose $20.

You wake up the next day, and you’re sick.

You want to stay in bed and watch movies on Netflix, but instead you sit at a table and collect more business cards.

You go back to your room and watch movies on Netflix.

You order room service and eat in bed.

You Skype with your cat.

You sleep, and when you wake up, you check out and go home.

Photo by Marco Verch

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• Las Vegas

I like letterpress…A LOT. So I was super-duper excited to sign up for a Valentine’s mini-workshop at Baltimore Print Studios to make my own letterpress Valentine’s.

The good folks at BPS assembled a slew of lovey-dovey words, phrases and graphics which we could mix and match to create our own hand-printed custom cards. There were two presses, one navy and one pink, and we could print 30 two-color designs or 15 cards apiece of two one-color designs. I went with the two-color design, mostly because I’m a sucker for overprinting.

I’d really like to take one of their letterpress classes. Once you’ve taken it, you can rent a press for $15 an hour and make all the pretty paper things you can dream up.

Here are some shots of the studio and my card creation. While they’re not quite as eloquent as some love letters I’ve read, I’m still pretty happy with how they turned out.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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I’m loving this video postcard by Pictionary Productions. What a brilliant way to say, “Wishing You Were Here!” It’s giving me funny ideas for my Vegas trip, which has completely snuck up on me by the way. I can’t believe I leave on Wednesday. Yikes!

Anyway, have a happy weekend!

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Take a trip to Punxsutawney, Pa. inspired by movie classic Groundhog Day:

01. Visit the seer of seers, prognosticator of prognosticators, Punxsutawney Phil who spends 364 days of the year in the town library (photo by ewaldmario) | 02. Order a sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist at the bar in the Pantall Hotel, and toast to world peace (photo by Madtini) | 03. Bowl a few frames or just ponder the deeper issues of life with the locals at Groundhog Lanes (photo by Donnas Schaeffer) | 04. Keep the talent happy by booking yourself in a nice bed-and-breakfast like The Plantation | 05. Drive through McDonald’s on Findley Street and order three cheeseburgers, two large fries, two chocolate shakes and one large Coke (photo by Håkan Dahlström) | 06. A trip to this tiny Pennsylvania hamlet wouldn’t be complete without a stop at Gobbler’s Knob, where once a year the eyes of the nation turn to watch a large squirrel predicting the weather (photo by Eddie~S).

And always, if you’re planning a roadtrip to Punxsy, don’t drive angry.

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As the movie Cocktail once told us, beer is for breakfast and apparently T-Bonz Grille Pub took this to heart. On Sunday we checked out their Pints & Pancakes breakfast party. It’s a semi-annual event with all you can eat pancakes, live music and beer. I went with the Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout to accompany my chocolate chip pancakes, while Aaron opted for a Brewer’s Art Resurrection and an Oskar Blues G’Knight with his plain cakes topped with Mad Elf Syrup. They also had a breakfast menu with some other options, like a chorizo and jalapeno bacon egg wrap or crabby egg sandwich. I tried did taste their tots and would say they were pretty darn good. The live music was a bit much though and made it nearly impossibly to carry on a conversation, which was a drag.

There are even more pancake events to come this week, well one, a friend’s annual Groundhog Day pancake dinner. “Winter, slumbering in the open air, wears on its smiling face a dream… of spring. Ciao.”

photo by Betty Crocker Recipes

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