Filed under "wtf were they thinking?"
Vdara visitor: 'Death ray' scorched hair
Chicago lawyer says bag also melted
Story below the fold, for amusement or a break from politics (though perhaps the Nevada race for US Senate can find an Angle on the shape of the hotel ... groan).
h/t to Wired News for the heads up and a completely geeked explanation about how the engineering of the hotel acts as a magnifying glass by parabola.
And you thought this was a joke diary.
By JOAN WHITELY
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
The tall, sleek, curving Vdara Hotel at CityCenter on the Strip is a thing of beauty.
But the south-facing tower is also a collector and bouncer of sun rays, which -- if you're at the hotel's swimming pool at the wrong time of day and season -- can singe your hair and melt your plastic drink cups and shopping bags.
Hotel pool employees call the phenomenon the "Vdara death ray."
A spokesman for MGM Resorts International, which owns Vdara, said he prefers the term "hot spot" or "solar convergence" to describe it. He went on to say that designers are already working with resort staff to come up with solutions.
Just to interject, has anyone wondered where Boehner gets his unique tan? Just asking.
[snip]
Taking brief refuge at the pool's bar area, [Chicago visitor Bill] Pintas chatted with employees. He said they chuckled when he described what had happened. "Yes, we call it the death ray," he says they told him. Sometimes it causes disposable drink glasses to melt, a cocktail waitress added.
OK this parts just ticks me off. I can understand the engineers of the hotel design accidentally creating a death ray focused on people chillin' poolside. But for the hotel workers to get a laugh out of it? "Ha, ha. Another sucker unwittingly trusted us to warn of the death ray. Oh wait, Joe, here comes another tourist. Fifty bucks says he gets second degree burns."
"It's basically a glare," said one [employee].
"It's like 20 degrees hotter" wherever the reflection is hitting, another one said.
Pintas disagrees strongly with the "glare" terminology. Does glare "painfully heat your hair (and scalp)?" he asked in an e-mail after he returned to Chicago. "Glare sounds like what a politician or insurance attorney would call it. ...
Perhaps there's a future Angle to this story after all. She could have an ad defending the hotel. Standing next to her would be Boehner.