My trip to Vegas went well. I was able to lose a net total of $20 and safely make it back to the hotel each and every night, unlike a few people I saw. The gaggle of girls at 5am in the hallway laughing and carrying on merrily was a real delight, gave me that taste of Vegas I had only heard about in TV commercials. Speaking of TV commercial similarities, I can't honestly say I saw any middle aged couples doing anything that they would be ashamed of telling their dishonest, beer drinking 17 year old son, which was severely disappointing. The conference itself was pretty hit and miss with the presentations. I actually went to one talk that, unbeknownst to me, was hosted by Bob and Eric from Nexaweb.com who told me about new and/or exciting opportunities and solutions that Nexaweb could supply to my/our business/enterprise at a very reasonable price. By the end of the hour and a half long talk, I was left wondering when I get the keys to my time-share. There were no keys. I did however, learn some cool Java stuff from other, less shifty talks. For entertainment, it was mostly me just walking around the city. I didn't ever venture north of Cesars, but that was mainly because I didn't have enough time to work through everything south of there. I stayed at the MGM Grand, which was nice, but not fantastic. I really enjoyed New York New York, especially the exterior. Whoever thought up that design needs an award, it was awesome. I saw the aquarium thing at Mandalay Bay, did the Roller Coaster at New York New York, walked past the half-hour line at Coyote Ugly, saw the unimpressive new Hooters Hotel and Casino, saw the water at the Bellagio, saw the lion at MGM, plus a lot more general sight seeing (which of course means hotel-seeing). I also saw a Cirque De Soleil show, KA. It was really great. As a whole, like the story and characters and such were not so good, but there was so much cool stuff happening at any one time, the big picture didn't matter much. There was a lot of kung-foo flipping and jumping and stuff, and I would recommend it, especially if you're a sucker for kung-foo flipping. All and all a great trip, even if it was a little lonely at times. Thanks to everyone who IM'ed or commented with suggestion on what to do and where to go, it was all greatly appreciated. I hope to have the pictures up within a week. "Only one word of advice: avoid the steaming divits."
Vegas, Baby! Vegas! If only there was someone else here with me. I am on my first business trip. I am going to The Server Side Java Symposium in Las Vegas. I would say it's a pretty good location, as business trips go. The only bad thing is that I am here alone. No not "I'm only here with co-workers, no friends" but rather no co-workers, no friends, no anything. This is also my first time in Vegas. I have two suggestions for the city even though I've been here less than 24 hours. First, they should have street vendors/kiosks. If you want a beer and you don't want to gamble, just walk around, it's a little hard to get. Well not really, but I wanted a sidewalk kiosk last night so thats my suggestion. Second, they need way more signage. Especially in the hotels/casinos. Perhaps a few of those "You are Here" maps like in malls. It is taking me 10+ minutes to walk through one hotel/casino to get where I want to be. Anyhow I am here alone so please leave a comment or send a text message if you know anyone else who is here right now, or more importantly, have some advice for me on where to go or what to see. I could use the help. I'll try to write more each day I'm here and post pictures when I get back.
This is a video I took at Petsmart. I tried to upload it to Google Video but their upload program wouldn't let me log in, so YouTube it is.
Things my niece (Sarah) said this weekend when Sara and I took her to Disney's Princesses on Ice: When driving to the even past the giant blue bear statue outside the DCPA Belle is dancing around with the Beast to "Tale as Old as Time" in her blue townperson dress Taking her to the (mens) bathroom bypassing the 75+ person line for the women's bathroom The ferry godmother is "flying" above us and the rig swings over so that the ferry godmother is facing away from us Kids are, and continue to be... awesome. "Now the snarfblatt dates back to prehysterical times when humans used to sit around and stare at each other all day. Got very boring. So they invented this snarfblatt to make fine music."
 
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