As frequent readers should be aware, I love turtles and tortoises. They are my favorite family of animals. I've had pet tortoises for almost my entire life. On top of that, my next door neighbors have a pet tortoise, my daughter's former schools have tortoises, and the local utility office (which I visit occasionally for work) has a tortoise enclosure. So I'm acquainted with a lot of tortoises.

I went for a morning hike at Red Rock.

But despite having lived in Las Vegas my entire life (40 years now), I have never seen a wild tortoise.

Or at least, not until a couple weekends ago.

A couple Sundays ago, my partner and I went with one of her colleagues on a morning nature hike at Red Rock canyon. Several times during the hike, I had joked that I wanted all the tortoises to come to me so that I can give them butt scratches. Pet desert tortoises often enjoy having the seam between the back of their shell and the skirt scratched. They'll often lean into and shake their butt back and forth as you run your finger nails along the seam. Obviously, I wasn't serious about giving scratches to the wild tortoises, as I know they are a Threatened Species, and touching them or interfering with them in their natural habitat is against the law.

Anyway, as we were finishing up the looping trail, approaching the parking lot, I mentioned that I was disappointed that I didn't get to give any butt scratches to any tortoises. Ironically, just as I had finished saying that, a juvenile tortoise climbed out from a ditch next to the hiking trail and approached us. So we stopped to take a look and admire the adorable little fella (without touching him, of course). They looked to be a healthy tortoise, maybe 8 or 10 years old, with a nice round shell. They were also surprisingly clean. I'm used to tortoises in captivity always being more of a muted gray color due to being covered in dust from their enclosures. But this little fella was a dark brown color.

The tortoise also seemed to like me, and sort of followed me around as I moved around them. Maybe the tortoise somehow sensed my fondness for tortoises?

I saw my first wild desert tortoise during this Red Rock hike, and it seemed to like me!

For years, my favorite ice cream shop in Las Vegas has been a little 50's themed shop called Nielsens Frozen Custard. Unfortunately, Nielsens shop was located in Henderson, on the southeastern side of the Las Vegas valley. I, on the hand, live in Summerlin, on the northwestern side of the valley. My favorite ice cream shop, thus, has always been located across town. Heck, it's technically in another town altogether. I would usually treat myself to a stop at Nielsens whenever I happened to be in or around Henderson, which has not been very often. I've long wanted Nielsen to open another location in Summerlin.

Well, today, that wish was granted. Nielsens had the grand opening of its second Las Vegas location today, in the food court of the Red Rock Resort on Charleston and 2-15. My favorite ice cream shop finally has a location on my side of town!

Apparently, I'm not the only one who loves Nielsens and has been eagerly awaiting the opening of a west-side location. The line stretched all the way across the Red Rock food court almost to the movie theater. It took 45 minutes to get through the line, and order my custard. I expected there to be a line, but I didn't expect it to be like a Disneyland ride line. Looks like lots of people were looking forward to eating some frozen custard, so hopefully this location will be very successful.

The line for Nielsens' Red Rock grand opening stretched across the entire food court.

While Nielsens does serve regular ice cream, its specialty (and my personal recommendation) is the frozen custard "concrete". It's a thick ice cream dessert served in a cup, but eaten with a spoon. Kind of like a Dairy Queen Blizzard or Wendy's Frosty, but better.

Frozen custard is a bit different than traditional ice cream. Custard contains egg yolks. This gives the frozen custard a thicker and creamier consistency than true soft serve ice cream, as well as being able to be produced in a manner that minimizes the amount of air and ice crystals that end up in the dessert. The egg yolks also increase the melting point of the frozen custard by a few degrees. This allows it to be stored and served at slightly warmer temperatures, and also means that it doesn't melt quite as quickly, especially if consumed indoors. Lastly, the slightly warmer serving temperature means that frozen custard may be a little bit less likely to trigger brain freeze when consumed. Though, actual results may vary.

Hi readers,

It has been brought to my attention that the "Contact page is not working properly, and I am not receiving emails sent through that page. I migrated the blog over to a new hosting server a couple years ago, so the problem may have begun then -- even though I tested it, and it worked at the time. I'm not sure. If you've tried using the "Contact" page to send me an email in the past year or two, I did not receive the message. I was not ignoring you, and I hope you do not take it personally.

I'm going to investigate this issue when I have the time and hopefully fix it soon. I apologize for the inconvenience.

In the meantime, if you need to get a hold of me, I recommend that you do one of the following:

• If the message is OK to be seen publicly, post it in the comments of this page.
• Otherwise, send me a PM at twitter.com/MegaBearsFan, or at youtube.com/user/MegaBearsFan/, or through my Patreon page. I will most likely see any messages sent to those accounts.

UPDATE I've tried testing the Contact page, and it seems to work sometimes. Some emails go through; others do not. I have yet to be able to determine why that is the case. Emails from actual readers have not been received, but I have a spam box loaded with advertisements and solicitations from French companies. I'll continue investigating as time permits, and will update my readers once I have the Contact page working reliably. In the meantime, I encourage you to continue posting comments, or use the contact methods listed above.

Since starting this blog all the way back in 2011, I've avoided asking for donations or monetizing the site with ads. I hate obtrusive internet ads, and I want my readers to have a pleasant experience that isn't bogged down by ads. I also want for them to hopefully come away with the understanding that I share my genuine opinions and thoughts out of a true love and passion for the topics that I write about, rather than writing fluff pieces and click-bait for the benefit of multi-billion dollar international corporations.

The only ads that you've ever seen on this site (aside from ads that are in videos embedded from outside sources like Youtube) are the occasional Amazon Associates widgets. I have full control over what products are being advertised, and where and how frequently they are used. I always place links to products that are relevant to the post, whether it be a link to purchase the game that I'm reviewing, a movie that I'm recommending, a book that I'm citing, or so forth. I do this more to advertise products for the benefit of the reader, rather than as a revenue stream, since the revenue generated through these links is minuscule.

But this blog isn't free for me to operate. I'm not posting to a free public platform like Youtube, Wordpress, Squarespace, or Wix. I have been paying, all along, out of pocket, for the domain registration and hosting. Myself (and a small group of friends such as Chichian) are responsible for all the customization to the underlying blog engine, bug fixes, and content creation. It's a lot of work, and it's all done on my own free time outside of my full-time 8-5 job.

The monthly cost of operating this blog is roughly $100. At the very least, I'd like to earn enough to cover that expense. That way, the website would be guaranteed to continue operating, even if I were to lose my job or have my income reduced. If I could earn more, then I would like to branch out to more time-and-work-intensive projects. For example, if I were to earn somewhere between $500-$1000 per month, I could realistically reduce my work hours in order to spend a full day per week on content creation and research. This could allow me to move into creating video content, having a more regular timeline for strategy guides, producing more analysis posts, and maybe even creating more mods or my own small indie games. I doubt that I'll ever reach the prominence of some of my biggest inspirations, such as SuperBunnyHop, Errant Signal, Yhatzee, Jim Sterling, VaatiVidya, and so on, but I wouldn't mind giving it a try.

Most importantly, I'd like to thank -- in advance -- anyone who enjoys my content enough to contribute. The availability of crowd-funding has made it possible for more people than ever to be able to have the financial security and independence to pursue their dreams and passions. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to do the same, and very grateful to those of you who make it possible.

If you don't wish to donate, or can't afford to, that's fine too. I also thank you for supporting this blog by visiting, reading, liking, sharing, and commenting. And don't worry, MegaBearsFan.net isn't going anywhere any time soon. I will continue to release content that I hope will be at the same quality that you've come to expect, and I have no plans to lock content behind a paywall.

And to all my raeders, I have a suggestion: find your own passion and pursue it. I encourage all my followers to pursue their own dreams and ambitions. Make your own blog or Youtube channel. Create crafts or art on Etsy. Write stories. Express yourself! Maybe, someday, I'll be supporting you on Patreon too!

Also, feel free to follow me on Twitter to keep up to date on what gets posted on the blog, and also to read other thoughts that don't necessarily get a whole blog post!

After reading through my complaints regarding the shrinking scale of the Star Wars film universe, a colleague of mine asked me to preview a novel that he was writing. He also grew up as a Trekker, and he sorely misses the optimistic science fiction that Star Trek represents, as well as the attention to technical and scientific accuracy that is sadly lacking in much of today's science fiction. Popular "science fiction" of today frequently focuses on special effect spectacle to the exclusion of cerebral or thoughtful stories and concepts, but there are still plenty of indie writers and film makers who try to offer more substance over pomp.

In his debut novel, Without Gravity, author David Pax explores an optimistic distant future in which humanity has spread across the stars, living in harmony with our technology and the worlds that we inhabit. It's not a vision of the future without conflict, however. Planet-bound humans are drawn into periodic conflict with a divergent culture of human "Spacers" who spend their entire lives within the confines of their zero-gravity space ships, making them virtually aliens to the rest of humanity.

When the Spacers launch a surprise attack on the mineral-rich frontier world of Tirimba, the citizens must take shelter within the cavernous mines and prevent the Spacers from acquiring the valuable resources that would allow them to build new ships and threaten the heart of human civilization. The Spacers aren't the only threat, as the citizens of Tirimba must also deal with one colleague who's selfish greed puts the entire war effort at risk.

Pax's vision of the future may be exotic, but it's also very grounded. The conflict is one of resources and logistics, as Pax pays diligent respect to the vast scale and distances of intergalactic conflict, and puts strict limits on the capabilities of the warships and technologies. Tirimba is remote, and is only a small piece of a larger conflict that happens mostly beyond the awareness and comprehension of the civilian refugees who remain stranded on the planet. This remoteness creates drama and maintains mystery and intrigue regarding the conflict. The story, after all, focuses on the civilians, and the personal cost that they pay, rather than on the military.

The novel itself is fairly short and a relatively light and easy read. Despite his engineering background and attempts to describe and develop the technologies and society that he has imagined, Pax doesn't drag the novel's pace down with unnecessary techno-babble. You don't need an engineering degree to follow along or understand.

Pax also writes short stories and maintains a blog. He's a friend and colleague of mine, and we share many common interests and perspectives. If you enjoy reading my ramblings, then I invite you to visit his site as well, and to support him and other indie authors who are trying to keep the spirit of science fiction alive.

If you do decide to purchase Without Gravity, use the promo code MEGABEARSFAN at checkout to receive a discount.