Vegas Baby…

I finally made it to the city of sin, and returned to tell the tale. Sarah has been working extremely hard over the past few months helping organize her company’s user conference in Las Vegas at the Venetian. Given the prospect of a free room at the Venetian for a couple of days and unfettered access to around the clock gambling…how could I say no??


All of my knowledge of Vegas so far has stemmed from seeing Casino one too many times on cable (the dubbing guy worked for his money on that movie) and occasionally reading the Sports Guy’s Vegas adventures on ESPN Page 2. Previously, anytime I got caught in conversations regarding Vegas, I had zero context for understanding the story…my mind would inevitably wander to something akin to the black and white cartoons that go through Homer Simpson’s brain. Now that I’ve finally taken the trip I want all my friends to repeat any Vegas stories previously told with me around, so that I can finally jump in with my own understanding and opinions.

Other Impressions:

- The environments are so tightly controlled and so precisely engineered at the Venetian that you start to lose touch with what the outside feels like. If we ever build a colony on the moon, we should build it like the Venetian
-The theme of Vegas appears to be boobies, money is a close second, but I have to go with boobies based on my time there
-If you’re cheap like Sarah and me and don’t want to lose lots of money, but actually want to play a game with some thinking /skill involved…Video Poker is the way to go. You can play for a long time on Video Poker with $10 at a quarter a hand. Plus you still get the free drinks! I think we lost more in 45 seconds failing to get the Super Spin on the Wheel of Fortune slot game then we did in probably 5 hours of Video Poker playing over the course of the weekend
-I believe that the time to get from Caesars to the taxi line to the Flamingo (this involves at less one hidden elevator and 2 scary hall ways) is still less time than waiting in a 100+ person taxi line in front of Caesars
-The fountains in front of the Bellagio are cool


-Does it seem odd to anyone else that that there these replicas of great artifacts from Italy, Greece, and Egypt just plunked down in the middle of the desert?

I think overall we liked it, although we ended up pretty exhausted by Sunday morning; we stayed up too late and our alcohol to water ratio was too high. We’ll probably end up going back someday (at least as a starting point for the Grand Canyon), but I wouldn’t say it’s one of our top destinations.

In Memory...

Sarah and I lost a good friend that many of my readers knew or at least met at one time or another. Matt Hodges died late Wednesday night after collapsing during a flag football game. He had a hereditary heart condition known as a thickened heart (or HCM). We were able to visit with his wife and family last night for a few hours before Sarah flew out to Vegas this morning for work; they are doing as well as can be expected given the circumstances. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers in this time of shock and sadness.

Although its impact is now bittersweet, when I think of Matt, I think first of this picture when we showed up at a New Year's party wearing the same outfit and had a good laugh...