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10 Famous Founders Who Didn’t Graduate From CollegeWho says a college degree is the only path to success? These famous industry leaders all have one thing in common: They dropped out.BY MACDONALD RICHARD.5 MINUTE READIt’s cap and gown season, and colleges across the country are sending new graduates out into the workforce. The Class of 2014 was born into a world that has always been a digital, and among the newly degreed students might be the next Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg–ironic because Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg never walked down the aisle to accept a diploma.While a college degree is an important resume builder, here are 10 more successful entrepreneurs and CEOs who prove that it doesn’t guarantee success:1. EVAN WILLIAMSCo-founder and former CEO of TwitterEvan Williams attended the University of Nebraska for a year and a half before leaving school to pursue a freelance career in information systems. He did work for Hewlett-Packard and Intel before he and partner Meg Hourihan launched the blogging platform Blogger, which was acquired by Google in 2003. He and Noah Glass founded the podcast company Odeo where he hired Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey. The four men–none of whom hold college degrees–eventually brainstormed the micro-blogging platform Twitter in 2006. The company went public in November 2013.2. JAN KOUMCo-founder and CEO of the mobile messaging service WhatsAppJan Koum grew up in a rural area outside Kiev, Ukraine, and immigrated to California with his mother when he was 16. Koum dropped out of San Jose State University, where he was studying math and computer science, and took a job at Yahoo where he worked for nine years in systems security and infrastructure engineering. He got the idea for WhatsApp in 2009 as a way to display status messages next to friends in your address book. It eventually became a mobile messaging system with 450 million monthly users. In February 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for a reported $19 billion.3. SIR RICHARD BRANSONFounder of the Virgin GroupRichard Branson not only didn’t attend college; he was a high school dropout. A born entrepreneur, he launched his first business, Student magazine, at the age of 16. At 19, he started a mail-order record shop called Virgin. Its success led Branson to launch the recording studio, Virgin Records. In 1980, Branson added travel businesses to his holdings, including Voyager Group and Virgin Atlantic airlines. In 1999, Branson was knighted by Prince Charles of Wales to honor his contribution to entrepreneurship. Today, Virgin Group has more than 200 companies in 30 countries.4. RUSSELL SIMMONSCo-founder of the record label Def JamRussell Simmons attended City College of New York studying sociology and dropped out to promote hip hop parties in Harlem and Queens. In 1979, Simmons became manager to his rapper friend Kurtis Blow. He eventually met producer Rick Rubin, and the pair launched Def Jam in 1984, signing LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy. In 1999, Simmons sold his share of Def Jam to Universal Music Group for a reported $100 million.5. MICHAEL DELLFounder of Dell ComputersA former pre-med student, Michael Dell dropped out of the University of Texas during his sophomore year to found Dell Computers. He formed an interest in computers in the early 1980s when the personal computer industry was still in its infancy. Building and selling PCs directly to customers, he dropped out of school to focus on his business. During its first year, Dell Computers had $6 million in sales. In 1992, Dell was named the youngest CEO on the Fortune 500 list of the top corporations. Today, Dell Computers is one of the world’s largest PC makers.6. STACEY FERREIRACo-founder of Reputation.com | Reputation Management, ReputationWhile in high school, Stacey Ferreira launched Reputation.com | Reputation Management, Reputation , an online bookmark and password vault, with her brother, Scott Ferreira, and friend Shiv Prakash. In 2012, Ferreira saw a tweet sent out by Richard Branson inviting his followers to cocktail party with the admission being a $2,000-per-person donation to charity. She and her brother borrowed the money from their parents and attended the event, scoring time with Branson. Two months later they secured a $1 million investment from Branson and his business partner Jerry Murdock. Ferreira attended NYU, but dropped out and moved to Los Angeles to focus on MySocialCloud.7. RALPH LAURENCEO and Chairman of Ralph Lauren Corp.Ralph Lauren attended Baruch College in New York but dropped out after two years to join the Army. Upon his return, he worked for Brooks Brothers selling clothing. He started designing ties in 1967, using the brand name Polo. His products were sold in stores such as Bloomingdales. Lauren later expanded into a full menswear line, and released a line of women’s suits two years later. Today the publicly traded company also sells home goods, and fragrances.8. SEAN PARKERCo-founder of Napster, CEO of Brigade MediaSean Parker is best known for being the co-founder of Napster and founding president of Facebook. While in high school, Parker started writing code for companies and interned at Mark Pincus’s startup FreeLoader. He won the Virginia state computer science fair for developing a web crawler and earned an internship with the CIA. Bringing in more than $80,000 a year through his computer work, Parker convinced his parents to let him postpone college. He and friend Shawn Fanning founded Napster, which Parker calls “Napster University,” because it taught him the entrepreneurial skills he used to later invest in tech companies including Facebook, Spotify, Airtime, and WillCall. Parker’s net worth has been estimated at more than $2 billion.9. JOHN MACKEYCo-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods MarketJohn Mackey was a student of philosophy and religion at University of Texas in Austin when he dropped out of school to open a health-food store with then-girlfriend Renee Lawson Hardy in 1978. Called SaferWay, two years later the partners merged with Clarksville Natural Grocery, owned by Mark Skiles and Craig Weller, and renamed the business Whole Foods Market. Starting with a single Austin location, Whole Foods has grown into an $11 billion company, with more than 340 stores. Mackey is co-CEO with Walter Robb IV.10. DOV CHARNEYFounder and CEO of American ApparelDov Charney started selling clothing while a high school student in Montreal, importing Hanes and Fruit of the Loom T-shirts from the United States and selling them to Canadians. He enrolled in Tufts University, but dropped out in 1990 to launch American Apparel, borrowing $10,000 from his father and moving to South Carolina to manufacture clothing. Originally selling his garments wholesale, Charney opened his first retail locations in 2003 in New York, Los Angeles, and Montreal. In 2006, he sold American Apparel for $360 million, but remained on as CEO.QUOT FROM MACDONALD RICHARD:“MANY GIVE UP NOT BECAUSE THEY HAVE FAILED SEVERALLY, BUT BECAUSE OF THE THE FEAR OF THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SUCCESS”.IF YOU ARE BOLD ENOUGH TO START IT, YOU ARE BOLD ENOUGH TO FINISH IT.CHEERS!MACDONALD RICHARD.

A very interesting question. Background checks of football players (soccer players) are done in professional leagues to check weather a particular player has any criminal records registered against he/she.Below is an article which I happened to go through on pretext of answering this question.Could background screening high school football recruits ever become the rule rather than the exception as it has in the American workplace?An eye-opening report by CBS and Sports Illustrated released today showed that, among the over 2800 college football players at Top 25 programs, 7% of them had criminal records. (Full story can be seen here – College Football and Crime)The study also notes that only two of the schools involved in the study run criminal background checks for high school recruits as part of their regular evaluation of a prospective student-athlete. This is compared to 83% of American employers who do such screening for employment purposes.Further analysis from ESPN: Serving sports fans. Anytime. Anywhere.NEW YORK — An investigation of 25 top college football programs by Sports Illustrated and CBS News has revealed that Oklahoma and TCU were the only ones to do criminal background checks on recruits.SI and CBS News did various criminal background checks on all the players on the rosters of the teams in Sports Illustrated’s 2010 preseason top 25 as of Sept. 1.According to the story posted Wednesday on Sports Illustrated, the study found about 7 percent of the 2,837 players — 204 total — “had been in trouble with the law either before or after entering college.”“Seven percent, that’s way too high,” NCAA president Mark Emmert told SI. “I think two percent is too high. You certainly don’t want a large number of people with criminal backgrounds involved in activities that represent the NCAA.”TCU was the only program in the Top 25 with zero athletes with police records, the study found. Oklahoma, despite performing checks, had nine athletes with records.Pittsburgh led the group with 22 athletes with records, according to the study.There are no available correlating figures for the general student populations of those universities.The report also stated in the cases where an outcome was known, “players were guilty or paid some penalty in nearly 60 percent of the 277 total incidents.”The other universities that were studied were: Pittsburgh, Arkansas, Iowa, Boise State, Penn State, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin, Florida State, Miami, Ohio State, Florida, Oregon, Southern California, Alabama, North Carolina, Cincinnati, Utah, Nebraska, Georgia Tech, Oregon State, LSU, Texas and Stanford.

It depends…live in a box, don’t spend any money, and it’s cheap. Instead of trying to guess how you’ll spend yourself, here are some pros and cons, good and bad points, and general info about living in Las Vegas from someone who has lived here a little while and lived throughout the world (Germany, Italy, Korea, Belgium), the US (Florida, Georgia, Texas, California, Nebraska, Mississippi) and the desert southwest (Arizona).EmploymentI’m on my third employer since moving to the Las Vegas valley. With the idea that the lower cost of living as compared to California comes lower corporate cost of living indexes as compared to the rest of the US, so national employers don’t always have the best compensation packages here. I’m fortunate, my current employer is based on the east coast (NoVA) and doesn’t adjust wages for out-of-market locations as there are so few of us there, so I’m pretty happy with that, but the other two companies did not have market adjustments based on “ground truth” but only large-scale economic factors such as housing costs (see below) and some basic generic living expenses. It’s easy to find work if you’ve got either the education or the experience in what companies out here look for. Check the job boards for what’s hot here before moving out thinking you’ll work a gaming table and make $500K a year off of tips because you’re a great comedian or your bust should be in the Louvre.HousingHome prices are reasonable, but the market is volatile. Depending on the part of town, cost per square foot can fluctuate wildly, and even within similar parts of the town, being in a planned community can significantly increase the costs - but also leads to (hopefully) more stable resale values. There are substantial portions of town that are gated, master planned communities. This restricts your ability to drive around and see the neighborhoods without a realtor or coordinating with an individual seller. There are many areas with custom multi-million dollar homes, especially on the west side/north west inside the CC-215 beltway, where this is not a problem, but variable zoned land, lack of HOA rules, and utility and drainage issues lead to some interesting home clusters. There are quite a few horse ranches as well, and while Las Vegas doesn’t have a huge problem with flies and mosquitoes, the more livestock, waste, and standing water, the more of a problem you’ll have.Figuring out what houses really cost can be a problem. There are still more foreclosures in Las Vegas than the national average and there is still a lot of foreclosed inventory that banks are releasing slowly in order to keep the market from getting thrown out of whack. (Finally, the banks do something smart.) So when you see housing cost averages, make sure they don’t include foreclosed or short-sale properties as those could radically lower the average home price and lead to sticker shock when you first show up.The foreclosures and housing bubble were real here in Las Vegas. Pull up the history of a home on Zillow and for new construction between 2003 and 2008, you’ll see the vast majority had at least one “sale to bank” between 2010 and 2012. Homes in my area sold new in 2005 for around $500K. They’re just now hitting the low-to-mid $300K’s in recovery; most were under $200K as foreclosures in 2011. The good news is the dry weather keeps the homes in excellent condition. Bonus: there’s not really a termite problem to speak of unlike many desert locations - even termites have trouble surviving here. Anecdotally, homes are going for $10K-$15K minimum over the “Zestimate” on the Zillow site - it just can’t keep up with the market here.Schools (K-12)They suck. Look it up. Bloated administration, apathy running deep with administrators, teachers, and students. Sports > academics. Heck, everything > academics. If you can, put your kids in a private school. If not, work hard to show them that there’s a payoff to independent study, reading, and developing a strong work ethic.Schools (vocational/community college)There are some good nursing schools, The College of Southern Nevada (CSN) has several conveniently located campuses, and there are vocational and service industry academies. The situation with this level of learning isn’t too bad.UNLVThe local high school students have nicknamed it “U Never Leave Vegas”. They’re opening up a medical school and are one of two accredited 4-year institutions that offer degrees in hotel and restaurant management (Northern Arizona University is the other) and this may be dated information, but last I heard it was only these 2.CrimeWell, if the students aren’t motivated, the criminals are. I think all but one ZIP code (Summerlin?) had crime rates above the national average for 2015. We were on track early this year for 11 homicides per 100,000, but that’s leveled off to a more respectable 6/100,000 or so, helped by our record-setting 16 days this July/August without a homicide. Drugs are right there if you need them, opiod abuse is rampant, and there are enough random acts of violence that you just never know what’s going to happen in specific parts of town. Here’s a tip: if you see a street sign that says “Maryland”, you’re where you shouldn’t be. (It’s almost a joke to side bet on the over/under when there’s a homicide to see how many blocks it is from Maryland Parkway between I-515 and the Airport.)The good news is the Las Vegas Metro PD keeps The Strip and Fremont Street areas very, very safe. They also have a very high solve rate on homicides and violent crime. So yeah, you might get killed, but odds are they’ll figure out who did it. So you’ll have that going for you.PotThe good news is that all of this crime will magically disappear because you can now buy recreational marijuana if you’re 21. (There have been 29 attempted burglaries, burglaries, robberies, or assaults on marijuana “dispensaries” in the last 12 months.) If you live here, cool, you can mellow out in your domicile. But you won’t, most likely, because the prices are higher than on the street (or so I’m told) and they’re in the crap areas of town. But you could, you know, if you wanted to. And if your employer let you. And if your wife didn’t give you that look when you mention it.SportsThe NHL decided one failing franchise in the desert (Phoenix Coyotes) wasn’t enough and thus the Las Vegas Golden Knights were born. They have the dumb name because the owner is a former US Army alumnus who wanted to name them after the Army’s parachute team, the Black Knights, but thank God the US Army said, “No, thank you, we own the copyright on that.” I love ice hockey, so I’ll go, but only for single games so I can deconflict with other major events on the strip as they will play in the T Mobile area smashed between I-15 and The Strip (Las Vegas Blvd).The NFL, not wanting to be left out, voted to let the Oakland Raiders move to Las Vegas. We’re crazy enough to be Raiders fans, but I don’t know that there’s going to be enough of the 2 million or so people who will be crazy enough to pay for season tickets. My gut feeling is 1/2 the stands will be full of the visiting team’s drunk/hungover fans who are combining a Vegas trip with a road game experience. More Backpage ads between September and January, I suppose. Traffic will be just short of apocalyptic on NFL game days.There’s NASCAR and NHRA tracks, the NBA Summer League, boxing, MMA, and there’s talk of bringing Formula 1 to the valley as a road circuit. That I would pay to see…like book a room in a resort hotel on the Strip, do the parties, spend the week just soaking it in. Fingers crossed.UtilitiesResidential natural gas for cooking and home heating is cheap; gas for your car is not. And while natural gas and (oddly enough) residential water prices are low, electricity rates are high unless your only other comparison is California or an overseas country, which is bizarre given that solar and hydroelectric power comprise the majority of of residential power sources. There are some that attribute this to the opening up of power utilities and the large casino corporations have been paying “exit fees” to the state-run utility in order to purchase power on the open market, thus reducing the subsidies for residential power costs. (When I first lived here it wasn’t unusual for your kWH price to drop every quarter or so. Nothing like that over the past few years.)TaxesThere isn’t an income tax, but there are two annual taxes that come as a surprise to some folks: the GST and the Supplemental GST. The GST, or General Services Tax, and it’s supplemental cousin, are assessed annually when you register or renew a vehicle registration. The assessment is based off of the (depreciated) MSRP of your vehicle and the depreciated value itself. For a 2015 BMW 3 series, with an MSRP of around $44K when new, this was $711 the first year, still in the mid $600’s last year. Some people see this as a vehicle registration fee, but vehicle registration is only $32…but you can’t register without the GST/S-GST, unless…Veteran’s Benefits/CareThe Southern Nevada VA Health Care system is pretty good. There are 6 or 7 primary care clinics in the Las Vegas/Henderson area, a brand-new VA hospital was built in northern North Las Vegas, very accessible from the highway, and the SNVA works with Veteran’s Choice in the event they can’t provide the care in a timely manner.For veterans with individual ratings that mathematically add up to 100% - not using the VA’s combined rating chart - Nevada offers a tax credit towards either property or the GST/S-GST that is collected when vehicles are registered or renewed. For the current fiscal year (the fiscal year starts on 1 July in NV) this was $1,365. You have the option of applying towards one or the other tax, but not both. I applied the entire amount to the GST/S-GST and so paid less than $100 to register 3 late model vehicles.For veterans with a combined rating of 100%, you are entitled to two (2) Disabled Veteran license plates that permit parking in disabled/handicapped parking spaces, the tax credit, and free parking at all paid public parking locations - including McCarran Airport.Dining & FoodThe vast majority of the non-strip restaurants are national chains and even the mom & pop places can be total crap. (I have yet to find good Italian food off the strip, if you know where to find it, please message me. Same for excellent legit Asian massage - if you know, message.) There’s chain restaurant after chain restaurant with 1 or 2 diamonds in the rough. One high point is that all of the Nevada-Style Taverns (read: local gambling spots with video poker and slots, a restaurant, and bar) are open 24/7, so you can always get food, and it’s not bad food, it’s just more “American” style or comfort food. Now, for Asian food? Jackpot. Las Vegas’ Chinatown and concentrations/clusters of Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai restaurants, supermarkets (fresh giant prawns even!), and shops are a Godsend. It’s no Koreatown or Chinatown in LA or SFO, but it’s pretty damn good, and very reasonably priced. There are also some smaller markets and butcher shops, but given the volume of what’s brought into Las Vegas and the way the city is arranged most of the food will be at higher-volume retailers. (Yes, there’s good Mexican food, it’s Nevada.) Strip restaurants can be hit or miss depending on whether they’re serious (Wolfgang Puck) or kitsch (Guy Fieri). It’s hard to trust the reviews because so much of it comes “baked in” with the overall experience most tourists are having. Myself, I now just pick one, order what I like, and hope for the best…and it’s usually excellent. (I’ve lived in Seoul, Korea; Germany, Italy, & Belgium; Monterey, CA, and other places with pretty good dining, Las Vegas holds up - on the strip and for Asian food.) Russian and Balkan food can be more difficult to pin down. There’s an excellent no-kidding German-run German bakery with 2 1/2 locations (one is pickup only).ShoppingWhat you can’t get locally you can order and odds are it’ll be shipped from a local fulfillment center. The lack of decent indoor malls is odd given the weather, but the open-layout centers are quite nice. If you do need the “mall” experience, the one on the strip has just about everything and many stores have local discounts. Even the “premium” outlet malls now have Local’s Night with gifts, free valet parking, and coupon books. There are really nice high end and ultra high end shops in the major hotel resort casinos. The Shops at the Forum (Caesar’s Palace) and The Shops at the Venetian (The Venetian) are superb.Yeah, there are brothels outside of Clark Count on the other side of the Spring Mountains. Google it, I’m not going into it here as that kind of shopping’s not my thing.TrafficThere’s an almost-beltway for Las Vegas. The Air Force base and some mountains in the north east prevent extending a loop from I-515 to the new CC-215 highway, but it’s close enough with US 95 and the Summerlin Parkway that you can avoid the downtown and strip traffic if you don’t mind a few extra miles at regular speed as opposed to a shorter trip with some stop-and-go and slowdown. (It takes the same amount of time in most cases, so you’re balancing frustration vs. distance.)Right now, I think just about every single major highway or intersection is under construction. Maybe it just feels like it, but it’s a bit of a mess as things are re-routed to help the flow of traffic. It’s supposed to be much better when they finish…just in time for the NFL’s Raiders to get here and they’ll start all over.When there is traffic, it sucks. Las Vegas has some of the most aggressive drivers I’ve ever encountered, police presence on the highways is minimal, and almost every accident is litigated, which, as my insurance company explained to me, is why my rates doubled when I moved here.Oh, and with the high winds that are a part of the NV weather, there’s usually a fair bit of debris all over the roads. What doesn’t crack your windshield will puncture your tire.WeatherIt’s really not that bad. Okay, there are 4 months, June - September, that can just be incredibly miserable if you need to be outside, aren’t used to the heat, don’t have shade, and don’t have water. If that happens, you’ll not have to worry about it too long, because you’ll die.The reason it’s only 4 months of near-blast furnace temps and wind is because of both the elevation (most of Las Vegas is at or above 2,000 ft altitude) and the mountain range to the west. (I could be full of crap on the reasons, ask a meteorologist friend. What you don’t have one? Well, neither did I.) As the days grow shorter, the more time the city spends in the shadow of Mt. Charleston (11,916 ft) and the Spring Mountains. Oh, and the mountains, for the most part, appear to have been stripped of all soil, so there’s very little to hold the heat in once summer’s over, however, Las Vegas doesn’t experience the high diurnal temperature fluctuations that the northern part of the state does.One surprise for new residents is how cold the cold feels in the winter. While the lows may only be in the high 30’s or low 40’s, the cold, combined with the winds, lack of heat retention, and darkness will have you breaking out your old winter gear your 2nd or 3rd winter here. It’s not Scottsdale, Arizona. You’re not going to swim in November without a heated pool and it’s not a shorts-and-a-t shirt at 7 AM kind of place. There’s usually snow on Mt. Charleston from late October through late June, and this year, given the snow totals, into July.(Okay, the weather is really that bad, but only for those 4 months. 114 degrees F with a UV index of 9, 30+ MPH winds, and a sun that will cut through any amount of window tinting really sucks. But it’s only 1/3 of the year, and you do get used to it. Really, you do.)Non-Strip/Fremont Street Nightlife100’s of local places to hang out at, probably 1000’s. That’s not too bad…if you like your clothes smelling like 1,000 packs of cigarettes. Most places that are open late and cater to the nightlife crowd also have some slots, which means they can have indoor smoking. (All of the casinos have some indoor smoking, some have better ventilation systems than others.) I had forgotten how nice it was (even as a [now reformed, relax ma, I quit] smoker) to not have your clothes stink when you get home. Alas, if you go out here, you’re probably going to have to put up with it again.The good news is, there’s hiking, day trips, a park with stocked lakes, Mt Charleston recreation areas, and more than a few festivals, dining events, beer festivals, and same type of events other cities of 2+ million people have. Las Vegas is someplace I’ve spent more time outside as the sun’s going down (summer or not) grilling, swimming, and just plain relaxing than any other place I’ve lived.But, if you do want to dance to EDM until 5 AM, stay up bleary-eyed at a blackjack table all night, or take in pulsating neon and street performers, well, we have that, too, but you can read enough about that online. One thing The Strip and Fremont Street do is make it very easy to entertain guests, although 1/2 the time it’s the first time in a long time (or ever) that I’ve been to the same place I’m “showing” them.The town is seriously lacking in real museums, particularly art and history. Fly to NYC or drive to LA. But really, would it be so difficult to have at least one decent art museum that wasn’t in some casino shop backroom (really) or showing off old neon?TravelThe good news is that flights are cheap, plentiful, are rarely delayed, and the airport is conveniently located, both in relationship to where you want your guests to be (on The Strip) and where you live (it’s at the I-15/I-215 interchange).The bad news is, if you’re not flying there, you’re driving all damn day or several damn days, to get there. LA, Anaheim, and the beach cities are 5–7 hours away depending on traffic. You won’t go there as often as you think, mostly because the 2-lane sections of I-15 between Barstow, CA, and Primm, NV, will drive you absolutely insane with the number of slow, open-mouth breathers parked in the left lane at 10 MPH under the speed limit and the other 95% of non-truck traffic which is rental cars weaving around hungover or drunk going to or from Vegas.Phoenix is 5–6 hours away, but no one has really found a good reason to go there yet. (I’m from there with family there and the drive on US-93 alternates between sheer boredom and sheer terror.)Even Grand Canyon NP is over 4 hours away. There’s what’s left of Lake Meade (1 hour), Zion NM (2 1/2 hours), Death Valley (3 hours), Sedona (4 hours), see where I’m going with this?You wanna leave Vegas? You’re going to fly, but it’s not going to cost you much. (SFO is 10–12 hours by car, have fun.)EntertainmentShows are cool, sometimes, and there are pretty good discounts for locals for most attractions. Concerts, however, are a different story. For example, I bought two tickets for The Weeknd’s show in Las Vegas, $340/each, open seating/floor (New Year’s Eve Eve, was worth it). If I had the time it would have been cheaper to fly to Phoenix, have a rental car, stay 2 nights in a hotel, see The Weeknd there ($30 cheap seats), and still have money left over. Concerts, because they’re a Big Deal when they’re in Vegas, can be over-the-top expensive. On the positive side, the venues are typically smaller, more personal and intimate, and the performers hit the city while they’re in town, and the clubs will usually announce if they’ve got a talent scheduled to be there. But holy crap are they expensive. Most of the reason taxes are low for residents is because everything tourist-related is taxed to the edge of discouraging tourists. (I’m good with that by the way.) Again, a positive note, everyone comes here, some headline for a while, and if you combine a concert with a family or friend visit, it’s pretty cool to actually “act like a tourist” in your own city.GamblingYeah, some locals are heavy into this. I was honestly surprised at first. I would have thought that the industry wouldn’t pee in its own pool (so to speak), but they’ll take it all if they can get it. I remember my first visit to a car dealership to have routine maintenance done on a Saturday. There was a TV on in the customer area, some coffee, couches, etc. (Audi, they do things right, it’s not a McDonald’s play area atmosphere like at a Toyota dealer.) I was watching the CBS national game and a guy walked up and said, “What’s the score?” I told him I wasn’t really paying attention and he commented on the spread, how much he had on what, what prop bets he had taken, etc. Then another customer chimed in with his bets, and so on. I couldn’t believe it. Now I have local casino apps on my phone giving me the to-the-minute money line on games. I don’t bet much, less than $100 a year, but I still have the information handy.MiscellaneousA one day class, background check, and $93 will get you a concealed carry permit for your pistol. No special additional checks needed otherwise. You can open carry just about anywhere. (Screw you, Buffalo Wild Wings and Levi’s Jeans.)The Clark County shooting range is the largest municipal range in the US. They even have a .50 cal range. On quiet Sunday mornings I can just barely hear muted “pop pop pop” coming from the range while having my coffee on the patio; it’s soothing.If that’s not your scene, jack up your 4 x 4 phallus extender so your bumpers don’t protect regular car owners and your headlights blind everyone and head out into the desert for a full day of off-roading. I hear it’s nice. Dirt bikes and ATV’s and Utes are out there as well.Fishing and boating on both Lake Meade and the Colorado River are popular pastimes as are hiking, photography, camping, and hunting.Being a local has almost unfair advantages over tourists when it comes to, er, “hooking up” with tourists. If you’re single, or if it’s just your thing, male or female, you’ll love the “dating” scene. Serious, more meaningful relationships are, as I’m led to believe by my coworkers, just not worth it. When you’re ready to settle down move away, then come back after you are. Their words, not mine.After a few years, you’ll yearn to see real, natural, lush, green vegetation. You’ll kill to see rivers flowing with regular banks of grass, trees, and dirt instead of the cold, dead, lifelessness of Lake Meade and the Colorado River. You’ll start to forget about those “hot” summer days by the pond when it was almost 90 (can you believe it?!?!) and you’re just relaxing in the shade of a tree.Then you’ll go stand in line in the air conditioning at the Venetian to ride a fake gondola around a chlorinated “canal” with a bunch of fat tourists wearing Crocs and talking about how they were this close to winning big the night before. You’ll smile - smile smugly inside - sit back and enjoy the artificial breeze before heading back home.(I’d leave, but Vegas just fits.)