Category Archives: World Traveler

Home sweet home

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I flew to Boston today to spend Thanksgiving with my family – my brother and his wife, and my mom.  It was a rough flight; a disturbing red eye from pdx to ny, layover in ny for about 2 hours and then a short hop to boston.  I was not too keen on the idea that I had to have a layover just so I could take a 45 minute flight from ny to boston, but a funny thing happened.

I landed in ny about 40 minutes late, stepped out of the plane and into JFK international, one of two airports in new york.  NYC, my hometown.  A place I haven’t been to since 1998, well before September 11th and all its insanity.  I stepped foot in my hometown, and felt my heart break.  At the same time, it felt good to be home, even tho it was in an airport I don’t remember ever stepping foot in (I think we always went to LaGuardia) and I was only there for about half an hour.

So to start off my next blog post…I’m thankful I had a layover in NY today.

Las Vegas, Days Two Three and Four

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Ok I know I’ve been slacking on this Vegas trip as far as blogging goes, but MAN am I exhausted!  Here’s a quick summary of events since Monday night:

Monday night:  Had dinner with Gunny, his girlfriend and Dai.  Nice buncha people!  And Gunny (David) you’re a bastard for paying for everyone.  If anyone else goes to Vegas, you gotta take HIM out for once, to make up for me and Darkmajic too apparently…

Tuesday: Lotsa sessions.  Info overload.  One of the sessions was an inside look into MSNBC.com, which was …depressing actually.  A lot of the problems that they had, we’re having, and the things they did to fix those problems, are the opposite of what we’re doing.  It’s just sad.  I did get a much-coveted VIP pass (they only had several to hand out to people who where not already specifically invited based on a resume submission) to go to a behind-the-scenes look at a major news website covering one of the biggest stories a news site covers in a year – Election Night.  Little did I know that not only would I be rubbing elbows with the upper management of MSNBC, but they would be providing most excellent hors d’ourves AND an open bar.  Niiiice. 

Tuesday Evening: Anyway 7:30 rolled around, which is when they where supposed to wrap things up, but the msnbc guys decided they wanted to keep the party going, so they invited some of the attendees to join them at Mix, a swanky bar on Floor 64 of “THE Hotel”, a new high-rise suite-only hotel connected to the Mandalay Bay.  It had an open patio area.  ON the 64th floor.  Wow.  Not to mention the fact that they paid the bill for everyone who showed up.  I swear the bar tab must’ve been around 1000 bucks, with ten people drinking $6+ drinks for 3 hours, plus appetizers.  I ended up stumbling back to my hotel around 1am.  A fun night.

Wednesday: I played hooky for a bit in the morning, which I had pretty much planned on since there weren’t really any sessions going on in the morning that I wanted to attend.  So I hit the pool for a few hours, to soak up some sun while I had a chance.  I knew I wouldn’t be seeing any sun for a loooong time once I got back home.  The rest of the day was uneventful, just attending sessions. 

Wednesday night: Had dinner with mom instead at the mandalay bay buffet.  It had a chocolate fountain!  yuuuummm….with marshmellows.  And Lychees in the fruit section!  Oi was I full.

Thursday: LOTS of good sessions to choose from today.  I had trouble picking ones, and wished I had some others with me so we could split up and compare notes afterwards.  I ended up checking out a session on accessible website for people with disabilities (one of my personal torches at work) and another on the provider framework, which was really great.  But there where another 3-4 I would’ve liked to have gone to as well.  At least I can download all the demos and stuff after the conference!

Thursday night: Dinner with mom again, this time at one of those station casinos.  Got paid today, so I could actually gamble some, and of course mostly lost on the slots.  I did make a little over 10 dollars back on the last one I played, adn walked away feeling somewhat redeemed.  Then I played some roulette, and made 30 bucks!  Still overall at a loss, but that made it a little better…

Now I’m all packed up (mostly) and ready to check out tomorrow.  My plane doesn’t leave until 11pm tho.  I have my last workshop from 8-4, so I have to check out before then, and then leave my stuff with the bag guys.  Frankly I can’t wait to be home.  I miss my puppy.  I managed to not spend hundreds of dollars on cute little doggy tshirts and pink doggie goggles, but I did take a card!  I might have to splurge a bit if I get a decent return on tax day 😀

Can’t wait to be home, like I said.  I don’t really like Vegas this trip.  Probably a combination of lack of money, lack of companionship, and info overload. 

You all have to call me after Friday and make plans to hang out so I can get the bitter taste of loneliness outta my mouth…

Day Two. Viva Las Vegas!

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I am SO exhausted (see current mood).  So I’m gonna blog about today, tomorrow.  Or yesterday, later today to be exact.

/yawn.

gnite!

PS  Apparently computer geeks are a really good catch, cuz 98% of them are married.  And the rest have girlfriends or boyfriends..  THbththbhbhthhttttbbbtbtbtb.

Day One – Vegas

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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!!!)

The start of the blahs.

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In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been feeling a bit unmotivated about posting as of late. However, it seems to have permeated every facet of my life the past few weeks. I don’t seem to be motivated to do much of anything. It’s been bothering me quite a bit – I don’t see myself as the kind of person who sits around all day long watching TV or playing on the computer. But that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, and I hate it. I don’t mind being a couch potato for part of the day. But all day? That’s just not ok in my book, and yet that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Meanwhile my garage project is still unfinished, there’s shopping to be done, trees to buy, presents to wrap, lights to hang…the list goes on and on, especially with the holidays coming up fast.

So I think I finally figured out what’s going on: I have started experiencing the winter blahs. Yes, I know it’s still fall. There’s no snow. It still hits the mid-50s during the day. The sun still shines occasionally. However, it still feels like winter is standing right over my shoulder, towering over me in a most threatening manner. The leaves are all gone, and it’s dang chilly at night. Times like these, I wonder if my mental well-being would be more suited to a locale which experiences more sunshine than rain, more heat than cold. Like…Mexico. Then I can run around with a jacket on when it’s 70 degrees in the wintertime and say “My it’s so cold today!!” and smile, just like the locals. I’ll get nice and tan. I won’t own a car. I’ll eat lots and lots of huevos rancheros, and go horseback riding. I’ll have picked up enough Spanish to get by in about a month, and I’ll be fluent in six. I’ll open up a little computer school, and teach basic computer skills and web development and stuff like that. I’ll buy myself a little villa, with a cook and a maid, and I’ll pay them decent wages, and I’ll have heated tile in the bathroom.

Well…someday.

Thanks for coming along on my little dreamboat trip. I feel a smidgen better.

WOW!!!

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I just checked my site stats for this blog, and I found an interesting and somewhat ironic little tidbit of info. One of the pie charts is a language pie chart. Now you would assume that the entire pie chart would be English, and for a long time it has been. Until now. For some reason, I have no idea why, 1.12% of my visitors to date speak Portuguese. Now you’d say big deal, so what right? But of all the languages in the world, that is the one that I would REALLY like to learn, with Gaelic of any flavor being second.

So, to all my Portuguese visitors…

EDIT: I mean Portuguese SPEAKING visitors, silly me! And to think my future sister in law is from Brazil…

Boa vinda a meu blog! Obrigado visitando!