I finally made my way to West Baden, Ind., a small Indiana city located roughly between Bloomington and Evansville and home to a famed domed hotel once dubbed the eighth wonder of the world.

I had heard about the hotel before and seen numerous photos, but nothing really does it justice beyond stepping into its humongous atrium. Balconies from rooms from multiple levels open onto the huge open space, which is decorated with fancy furniture and - currently - a large, beautifully decorated Christmas tree. Originally built in the early 1900s and restored only recently to its full glory (as part of a resort that also includes a huge casino), the hotel seems like a tourist attraction torn from New York City or Paris. And when you consider it stands in the middle of Indiana as a palatial estate at the end of lengthy roads of nothing special from every direction, it's all the more impressive.

We wandered around for about an hour, perusing the atrium and the many rooms and hallways surrounding it. There's a number of stores and shops in the large, circular lobby, including a coffee bar that had some real good ice cream and a restaurant that looked well out of our price range.

After touring the hotel - and its gardens, which are also impressively decorated for the holidays - we made our way to the nearby casino. It wasn't nearly as nice and pretty much echoed my casino experience in Evansville: Instead of the exciting, fanciful atmosphere you expect, you find a smoky room filled with mostly older people pulling levers, wasting money and generally looking unhappy about the whole ordeal.

We only stayed a few minutes, though it was long enough for me to try my hand at a slot machine with the only dollar I'd brought with me. As luck would have it, a few similar-looking "Bar" signs lined up and I had won $5.

After taking the photo at right - which actually drew a small crowd of people who I guess thought I had won big since I was taking a photo with my winning slip - I promptly cashed out.

I did enjoy winning, although the highlight of the night was undoubtedly seeing the grand hotel. I'm sure I'll be back again if only to show more friends just how extravagant it really is - everyone in our party was, I think, more than a little stunned by its sheer size and extravagance.

Maybe I'll even stay there one day. But a quick scan of the room rates - particularly on a weekend in one of the balcony rooms - suggests I may have to win a few more games at the casino before I do.

I've been doing a bunch more video lately - expanding from short pieces that accompany feature stories to videos from sit-down interviews and from the scene of breaking news. I'll hope to do a lot more of all kinds of those videos - as well as a new "man on the street" question and answer series we hope to start next week - in the near future.

Increasingly, it seems like video is becoming a bigger and bigger medium in newspapers. I'm hoping to stay up with the trend and have, in all the instances I can, replaced my digital recorder with my digital video camera. Even in the interviews where the footage doesn't turn out well enough to justify putting together a full fledged video, I'm still able to pull quotes out for the story and archive the files for future viewing. It's exciting to have the chance to do it and I'm eager to explore it further.

Posted above is one of my favorite videos of late: I went out at 4 a.m. on Black Friday to Best Buy and then a few other popular local shopping destinations. It meant rising mighty early, but I really enjoyed the assignment. It's sometimes refreshing to cover an event where people are friendly and truly excited/eager to get in the newspaper (or on its Web site). And the content - while in some respects a story we do year-in and year-out - was new and different in this form. The Herald Times in Bloomington and the Indy Star in Indianapolis each did similar Black Friday shopping videos, as did many other papers, I'm sure.

All of my videos are archived on courierpress.com, but I've also posted them on YouTube. There are updated links and embedded versions for all of them on my multimedia page.

Other than video, I was busy last week covering a local tragedy: Three high school kids were killed when their car hydroplaned on the Lloyd Expressway last Sunday. The wreck happened in the late afternoon of a day of solid rain - there were numerous other accidents, too, although none nearly as serious.

I've also been following the Liberty Dollar story, which has made headlines all across the world, including the Washington Post and the New York Times. Essentially, an Evansville-based company produces an "alternative, voluntary currency" called the Liberty Dollar, which is backed up absolutely by gold, silver and other precious metals. The company contends its money is inflation-proof, as opposed to the U.S. dollar, which it says is constantly depreciating because it is not backed up in gold or silver.

The debate between the company and the federal government reached a boiling point in early November when federal agents raided the Evansville offices and seized about a million dollars worth of metals. I wrote about that initial raid and later sat down with the company's founder, Bernard von NotHaus.

Things have been real busy at work lately. I prefer that tremendously to slow days, although it's made for some long hours here and there. I have vacation coming up at the end of the month, though, and will be going home to celebrate Christmas a few days late back in Maryland. It should be good to kick back and relax for awhile.

I'll be back in time, though, to see, of all things, a musical about Johnny Cash. I remember posting this brief about it coming to Evansville while wondering who would actually want to see such a thing (it seems in the same vein as the Twyla Tharp dance musical about Bob Dylan, of which I had no interest whatsoever.)

But, last week while driving home, the radio station I had on in the car had a contest to call in for tickets. I'm not sure what compelled me to do so, but I did, and, lo and behold, I was caller number 10. It was a strange experience - I'm not a regular listener of any radio station, just a flipper of channels and avoider-of-commercials type. So when they excitedly asked me which station was sending me to see "Ring of Fire," I had to think back to the phone number I'd just struggled to dial (425-WOLF or something like that) and awkwardly offered "The Wolf?" I'm not sure what they would have done if I hadn't known, but luckily that was enough. I guess I'll see if it was worth it - although I'm not even entirely sure I can make the show.