Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Quirky. That’s the best word I can think of to sum up my view of this city after living and working here for six months.

Sure, I’d visited Las Vegas in the past, but I quickly learned that as a tourist I had only scratched the surface. I thought Vegas was all glitz and glam, polish and party.

But after six months of looking at this city through the lens of my video camera and the eyes of a journalist, I’m thrilled to find it’s got so many eccentric layers in addition to all that glam.

I’ve found quirky events, businesses and people around every corner, just waiting for my video camera to capture their offbeat stories. One of my first assignments was filming locals facing off at a bar while dressed in rooster costumes. Then there was the local businessman who turned the world’s largest helium balloon into a moneymaking Strip tourist attraction, and the world-champion eaters who came here to stuff their faces with gourmet meatballs.

Where else would a truck roll down the city’s busiest street with strippers pole-dancing inside the Plexglas-enclosed stage? And only a city with so much energy can produce a local teenager who uses his wheelchair to break records by doing back flips and clearing 40-foot jumps.

Anything goes in this city I now call home, and there’s nothing more gratifying than capturing it with my video camera to show tourists and locals alike the quirks that make this town what it is.

Katie Euphrat can be reached at 948-7803 or [email protected].