Day One – Vegas

I got to Vegas without much ado, and now I sit here in front of my laptop for which I paid TWELVE DOLLARS!!! to access the internet for 24 hours!  I agree, that’s highway robbery!  Anyway, my mom picked me up at the airport and took me to the Luxor to check in.  There was a HUGE line at the registration desk, so that took quite a while, but it was my very first chance to flash my government visa!  We went to have brunch afterwards at Paris, and then my mom dragged me all over the hotels trying to cash in all her player points for a show or two.  We finally got two tickets to the Improv at Harrah’s.  The show didn’t start till 8:30, so during the 3 or so hours we had to kill we had some drinks at the Carnaval Court, which is an outdoor bar next to Harrah’s with cute bartenders with “Flair”.  Think Cocktail but without the attitude, cuz they drop the bottles sometimes and don’t seem to care.  There’s a live band doing a bunch of covers, mostly U2 and 70’s rock.  I think the lead singer thought he sounded like Bono because he dressed like him and had his hair like him and they did do alot of U2 covers…but I thought he was just ok.  /shrug

Anyway after that got boring (although how boring can cute funny bottle-flipping bartenders get?) we went back inside to the karaoke bar.  That was satisfyingly disturbing, as karaoke always is.  You could tell that the drunk people where starting to come out!  We went to the Improv then, which was fun.  The comedians where pretty funny…not as funny as some others I’ve seen in portland, but then they where doing portland-specific stuff sometimes, and its always funnier when you have personal experience.  The headliner guy was Dat Phan, that vietnamese comedian who won the Last Comic Standing thing.  All in all a good night.  I got to back to my hotel and collapsed.

Today I ordered room service!  OMG it was 24 dollars for breakfast!?!?!?!  Yeah.  Not gonna do that again.  It was good tho.  I hauled myself down to the Mandalay Bay convention area, which is totally like a two mile walk.  Next door my ass!  The first workshop was really good (I won’t bore you with the details, my non-techie friends!) and the lunch was nice.  Catered.  In a HUGE ballroom.  The second one was a little less interesting, so I ducked out an hour early to go back to my hotel.  I tried to take a shortcut which ended up being a non-shortcut  and had to walk all the way back to where I started, so by the time I got back to my hotel I was TIRED.  And my feet hurt cuz I was trying to wear cute shoes with heels (Yes I have some).  Tonight I’m having dinner with some guildies from world of warcraft who live here (translation: they are friends of mine, who I game with, and we are all in a ‘guild’ in the game together and do lots of stuff in the game together, but I’ve never actually met them in person.  Kinda like myspace friends!).  Until then, I’m gonna relax and read my book.  Hopefully I’ll find some time to hit the pool…wednesday looks like it might be a light day for me, not alot of presentations I’m interested in, but all the other days are gonna be tight.

Miss you all, miss my home, and miss my babies.

PS – speaking of babies, there’s a pet store I pass between mandalay bay and the luxor.  It’s the kind of pet store you’d see paris hilton in…certainly caters to accessory dogs.  But I think I might have to buy some stuff for jessie there.  They have a shirt that has a doggie buddha that says rub my belly!  And pink doggie goggles!  Help me, please!!!)