Vegas Baby, Vegas

Well I'm back from my first ever trip to Las Vegas. Weird eh, been all over the place, to 4 other countries, but never to Vegas. Guess its because I'm not really a gambler. I do enjoy the occasional poker game, but more because it gives me a chance to hang out with friends and enjoy a little competition, and feel like I'm a good poker player, even though its mostly luck (for me anyway). I also live 2 miles from a casino and have never been there. I've actually only been into a casino one time before this trip, stopped in Reno and played $20 in slots a few years ago on a cross country camping trip.

So I guess I've never been too excited to go to Las Vegas. Even though I've had plenty of people tell me how exciting it is, I haven't taken the time to plan a trip to Vegas. I was a little excited when I found out I was going with my wife to help her company set up their booth at the world of concrete. She found a few tickets were still available for the flight out their with them, and get a return flight for Monday (flight out was Saturday) for a decent price (since I'm not working, we had to be cheap). Even if it was only for a couple days, at least I could get the whole bright lights and big hotel experience.

Most of time out there we had to work on setting up the booth for the World of Concrete. It really wasn't that easy, as nothing seemed to go our way. First off we didn't start until 3 O'clock on Saturday because one of the people on the trip had an allergic reaction on the flight, we had to meet him at the hospital. Once we finally got started on the booth, we had to unpack the two large crates and start putting it together. It was like a giant tent, only without the canvas cover. There was no specific way it went together, so we had to rely on the memory of those that were there last year. Soon we were missing pieces and had to take a few things apart and put them back together a certain way. By late Saturday we finally had the base down and were ready to lock up for the night. We all were very exhausted, and went back to the hotel to clean up before dinner. We didn't know where we were going to go, just take a walk and find someplace. Joe's Seafood was across the street at Caesars so we found ourselves there a short walk later. The food was excellent, I had the red snapper, probably one of the best pieces of fish I have ever eaten. Although the service wasn't what I would expect from a restaurant like that. After dinner, around 11:30 PM, we decided to walk around and check out Vegas. We checked out the Flamingo, walked into the interior where they had the live pink flamingo and African penguins. Pretty need to see a life pink flamingo, although it was late and they were all sleeping. They had coi fish in the water, they had to be 25-30 pounds, they were gigantic. After checking out the Flamingo, we decided to get one last drink before bed. We went to Tequila Joe's, the bar right in front of the Imperial Palace, a nice little walk through the casino and up the elevator to our room. It turned out to be a karaoke bar, which I am not a fan of, but since we were going to have one drink we decided to hang out. Like most karaoke nights, there were one or two good singers, and the rest were so annoying most people walked out. Also too much country music. We also waited 20 minutes to get $1 Coors Light drafts, the only thing that kept us from walking to the casino bar. So ends the first night in Vegas. Very tired from all the traveling, work and food!

We woke up early the next morning to get a good start on finishing up the booth Sunday. Still tired, we got the large coffees from the donut shop on the way to the car. Things started off pretty well getting the booth set up when all of a sudden an electrician drives by on her little cart and is eyeballing the lights we were setting up. Turns out that Halogen light fixtures were banned the previous year, due to the local fire marshal's regulations. If we didn't fix it now, the booth wouldn't be allowed to be open. So two of us went to the store while the rest of us worked on getting the rest done. Things would have been done really quickly had all of us been there. We still worked hard to get as much done. I hadn't eaten anything that morning, just the coffee but it didn't catch up to me until about 1:00. Had some lunch and went back to work. Finally we had everything close to where it would be and it was time to go. We had put in nearly 9 hours of work and all of us were ready to call it a night. The few things that were left could wait until the plasma had to be delivered the next morning. This also ends my duties working on the booth, and again I was rewarded with another excellent meal. We decided to get steaks, and asked the information about cheaper steak houses. She said we would have to go off the strip, and mentioned Mortons. We drove by it a few times going to and from the hospital the previous day and I had heard that it was a nice place, although I thought it would be pricier than she had made it sound. She didn't really give us any other options though, so we were on our way. Turns out she was dead wrong about the price and our meal turned out more expensive that the previous night. I had the New York Strip and it was the best steak I have ever had (also the most expensive). Our server was a little more friendly than the previous night, but still not what I would expect from a restaurant such as that. I guess I'm used to the Midwest where most places have decent service most of the time, plus I couldn't imagine what it must be like to work in Vegas, I'm sure the customers are a lot more inebriated and tough to serve. After dinner, still early, we all were still tired from all the work that had been done, we went back to the hotel. I was thinking we could just take a little nap and go out around 11 or 12 O'clock, since it was my last night in town. We fell asleep fast and there was no waking up.

The next morning I woke up early, hoping to get something out of my last few hours in town before my flight left. We didn't really know what our priorities were, so we talked about where to go, I packed up all my stuff so we could just grab it and go to the airport and soon we were walking the strip. It is strange how everything is so big, so close together and yet take so long to get anywhere. We walked through the Venetian, a block north of our hotel. It took about 10 minutes to walk there, and 30 minutes to walk through! It is truly amazing how everything is built there. You walk into a shopping area inside, and its made to look like you are outside. It is basically a mall, with stamped overlay (thin layer of concrete) everywhere. The stores look like building fronts with apartments above them and the ceiling is painted sky blue with clouds. The lights shine up from the tops of the stores and it is so bright, it seems like daylight. They even had a canal and gondola rides. Truly amazing. Walking the strip in the daytime isn't much different than the daytime, although there are a few less people handing out stripper/hooker advertisements and less people drinking. The lights are on, but you don't get the same feeling as the night time. The weather was absolutely beautiful too, upper 60's and sunny. I guess it was about 10 degrees warmer than average. It was about perfect. There were people sun bathing at the Mirage, in the middle of January. Definitely different than the sub zero temperatures back in Chicago. We then walked by the Bellagio, no fountain show during the day, big bummer. Walked to Bally's looking for a restaurant, we heard an advertisement for tapas, but couldn't find the place. Ended up in the Paris at an Italian place called La Provencal. It was in our price range and again the service wasn't very good. The food was on the other hand, which I prefer over good service and bad food.

After dinner it was back to the hotel to get my bags, jump on the monorail (every time I say or read that I get the monorail song from the Simpsons in my head, I'm sure that will stick for the rest of my life) to the Convention Center to meet up with the rest of our group and catch a ride to the Airport. Timing was almost perfect, I didn't have to check any bags and they had an easy check in machine open right when I walked in and made it to my gate 30 minutes before boarding. The flight back was nice, I had a window seat and the seat next to me was unoccupied, very nice. The movie Collateral was playing, decent movie, although they edit the movie of curse words, even though it is a very violent movie. I don't get it, everyone can see the violence even if they aren't listening to the movie, but those who chose to listen have to hear edited dialogue?

Well just like most of my posts, turned out to be longer than expected, but I had to get as much in, so I can read this later and remember the first trip to Vegas.

Happy New Year!

Can it really be a New Year and a new post? I have really been slacking lately, not really because of a lack of things to blog about, but because I wasn't in the blogging mood I guess. A lot of people have been updating their blogs lately, so I thought I would take time to put in a post also.

I have been out of a job for over a month now... Really strange feeling considering the last time I was unemployed it was when my wife finished college and we moved to the suburbs, less than 4 years ago. So I spend most of my days emailing resumes, talking to HR/recruiters, and web searching for the next "perfect job". I have seen many opportunities available, yet haven't been lucky. I did have an informal interview on Thursday that seemed like a good sign, small tech firm, very casual environment, almost too good to be true, and I've heard the saying, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. I'm sure I'll find out soon.

Well that was just a quick update. I think I would like to put in backdated posts, the story of how I became unemployed, the Christmas and New Years gatherings, and date them when I should have posted them. I guess its kind of cheating, but it will make more chronological sense, instead of me telling all the stories in one complete boring post, that will take the readers (so many of them) way too long to read while they are working (or should be working)! Ha work. I can really talk.

Anyway, I finally got to use the Best Buy gift card that I received from my overly generous in-laws to get some really need tech stuff I've been wanting to get, but couldn't really afford. I also had the time to set them up too! Funny how I had planned to buy a few things and ended up with 2 bags of stuff (Damn you Best Buy and all your fancy gadgets!). DVD burner, 2 port KVM switch, flash drive, 4 port AV switchbox, CD-Rs, and DVD-Rs. the KVM switch opened up some much needed room on my PC desk, the AV switchbox is saving me precious gaming time (and energy) by not having to switch the AV inputs on the back of my TV whenever I need to change from the PS2 to the GameCube or Cable. It is so gratifying to make my "office" a little neater. So a big thanks to the P's for the gift card! Also a big thanks to my wife for understanding when I went a little over the gift card limit!

Anyway, check back for my future(past) posts when I get back into the BLOGGING mood.

Waj