Oct 2 - Vegas

Well, Vegas was the big thing on the news and around here.  Jeffrey arrived at the Mandalay Bay the night before and was thankfully asleep when all the shooting took place.  He couldn't sleep through the police breaking into his room around 3am, however; they were going room to room.  The shooter was 5 floors above. 

He even made the news - I've copied that below for posterity. 

I did a bunch of trip / closeup related things, including getting some things into the trailer and figuring out how I'm going to bring two humongous suitcases (my bike box and my large suitcase).  Normally they'd stay here but I'll need those for the trip to Australia.

As usual we're bringing some food items for us -- cereal, my no-name date bricks, avocado oil, etc. etc.  and for Cassie we have three bags of dog food.  There's really not a lot else.  My main clothing items are cycling and of course we have the bicycles.  Without the cycling clothing and bikes, we wouldn't need the trailer.  I know, I know ...

I did some basement cleanup, with the bikes out of the way I folded up the bike stand, put the vacuum to good use and cleared space for the chainsaw, weed eater, DR mower and power washer.  They're now keeping the mosquito catcher company. 

I also moved the emergency electric baseboard heaters into place.  I set those for about 7C; they'd kick in if the furnace died.  Of course if we had no power, that's a waste of time ... nothing would work.  I do crank up those heaters when we get here in December to quickly warm the place up. 

The garage is organized for Sandy's car; I only have to move the 4-wheeler to one side to accommodate the SUV when we get here in December.

Copied below is Jeffrey's 15 minutes of fame (Reading PA is in Berks County).  Let's keep it at that !

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LAS VEGAS - A Berks County man has an up close view of the tragic scene unfolding in Nevada.

Jeffrey Thompson of Exeter Township is in Las Vegas to attend a conference at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

His room is just five floors below the 32nd floor room from which, police said, Stephen Paddock opened fire on thousands of people attending an outdoor music festival on the Vegas Strip below.

Thompson said he returned to the hotel shortly before the shooting started. He didn't hear the gunfire, but he did hear an announcement about an active shooter.

"I didn't really put much thought to it," said Thompson, who then went to bed.

"Sometime probably around 3:30 in the morning, I heard a bunch of commotion out in the hallways and just kind of thought it was a bunch of drunk people making a lot of noise, until the cops kind of made their way into my room rather quickly," Thompson said.

After finding Paddock dead of an apparent suicide inside the shooter's room on the 32nd floor, police went room to room throughout the rest of the hotel in search of any additional threats.

"I raised my hands from under the covers, and then they checked out the room, you know, 'Stay here,' closed it and moved on," Thompson recalled.

Jeffrey Thompson

Once awake, Thompson made his way downstairs to the lobby, where he found things to be far from what would be normal on a Monday morning in the 3,300-room resort.

"The most eerie part here is just the lack of anything going on in the hotel," said Thompson, who emailed 69 News photos of what he found in the lobby. "I just stepped over some broken glass on the floor. There's stale food out on plates in the restaurant. I don't see workers coming and going."

With his conference events canceled for the day, Thompson returned to his room, trying to figure out what he's going to do next and reflecting on the massacre that unfolded 27 floors below.

"I'm happy that nobody that I know is impacted by this, but obviously there's a lot of people dead and a lot of people hurt, so my heart goes out to the affected people."

As of Monday afternoon, the death toll stood at 58. Some 515 people were injured.

Authorities have not determined a motive for the massacre, but they said it appears Paddock had no connection to any international terrorist group.