I was selected by my employer to attend the Higher Education User Group conference which, this year, was held in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. So for five days, I got to spend a blissful time in Debauchery Central. I truly think that you can buy ANYTHING there for money… and I do mean ANYTHING. (Especially with grandmas handing out the slap-cards of Korean Kitty, who for $49 will give you “full service”, whatever THAT is.)
My flight out was uneventful, except for the three-hour layover in St. Louis' Lambert International Airport. Oh… just kidding. Nothing happened there either. It was marginally more exciting than my layover at DFW on the way home (about which I'll write later). On the leg from St. Louis to Las Vegas, I got to fly first class, which is always nice. Nothing like hot nuts at 35,000 feet (or is it 34,000? going east it's one altitude, going west, it's another). When given the choice of mushroom pizza or salmon, I chose the chicken - just kidding (another line from a movie), I actually, to my surprise, chose the salmon. It was quite good, eaten with my plastic knife and fork which is no match for the reinforced cockpit door, or the heads behind it.
We arrived 20 minutes early, to sit on the ramp for 30 minutes waiting for the late American flight out to clear the jetway before we could pull in. So, we were actually 10 minutes late, even though we were on the ground on time. Flying in, we flew over Lake Mead, which is a reservoir held back by the Hoover Dam. It was odd seeing so much water in such an arid place. We also got to see snow on several of the desert mountains on descent. It was fun… All of these were sights I had never gotten to see before. (Click on the My Pictures link to see some pics).
I got to stay at the MGM Grand Resort, and, as resorts go, this one is positively huge. I checked in at the airport (the hotel has a desk there), so I didn't get to experience check-in in the expansive lobby of this behemoth hotel. They must have about 15 to 20 reps at the front desk at this hotel. And as far as I can tell, most positions appear to be staffed for a good part of the day. When checking in, the agent asked me if I wanted a high room. So she put me two floors under the roof, in room 27-233. (Hey, with 5,000+ guest rooms, they HAD to come up with a unique numbering scheme). The view was quite nice, looking north up the strip toward the Stratosphere Hotel. I also got great views of Mt. Charleston and another mountain range to the east. Looking down, I saw this building that was offset by lush tropical gardens. Little did I know that this building was where my conference was going to be the next four days.
After relaxing a bit, I went downstairs to check in at the conference. Following the signs, I assumed they took me the shortest route to the conference center. And they did do that. Right through the smoky casino, and down the Studio Walk, which was the name for the MGM's mall. Big-time jewelry shops, and big name restaurants: Wolfgang Puck, Emeril, 'wichcraft (where for $19, you can get a pastrami on rye), and my favorite: McDonalds, (where for $3.99 you can get a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, fries, and a diet coke, and not pay the resort tax). Anyhow… I kept following the signs, as I was not there yet. Nope, not yet, either… 10 minutes after leaving my room, with no intervening stops, I finally arrived at the check-in desk in the conference center, where I grabbed my bag-o-stuff, and headed back up to my room.
That night, I rode the Las Vegas Monorail up to the Sahara Station, and back again. Then I rode it back up to the Flamingo, walked through the Flamingo out to the strip, and walked back down the strip, where on every street corner it looked like “Bargain Town” guests (for those of you from my neck of the woods, you know that this is a third-world market in an old glass factory, for those who don't, think bazaar that you see in international films, and you get the drift) handing out cards for Korean Kitty. Ms. Kitty is not the Sanrio Miss Kitty, but is rather the local version of the “fie dollah make you hollah” girl. Since everything in Vegas screams “cash is king,” $49 is now the going rate. So I guess Tone Loc is right - “[She] get paid fitty dollah to make you hollah, [she] get paid to do the wild thang.” The interesting thing, of course, being that in Clark County, the county in which Las Vegas is situated, prostitution is illegal. In fact, it is the only county in Nevada where prostitution is illegal. That night, it snowed. No accumulation, but it did snow. I've been in enough rain and enough snow to know that what I was feeling was snow. After walking around until the late hour of 7:30, I grabbed some snacks and then headed back to the hotel. It felt like it was… well… it felt like it was 10:30 (I live three timezones away, in Miami). After a six hour flight, with no nap because of the talker next to me in First Class, I had to get some shuteye.
So I go to my room, eat my snacks, browse the net, talk to and then crash at about 9:00 local time. And wake up at 11, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 because I'm thirsty as someone who's crawled through the damn desert. I have never EVER been in such a dry environment. Yes, we had air conditioning, which would have added moisture to the air if I had been running it instead of the heat. You see, it was only, oh, 40 degrees outside (but it was a dry 40 
). I may be exaggerating the temperature, but it was damn dry. So, at 5:00, I decided I'd had enough of trying to get back to sleep, so I got back up, logged back in on the computer, and promptly started to talk to my coworkers who were arriving at the office, as it was 8 back home. By 5:45 AM, it looked as though it were 7:00 outside, so I decided to go get breakfast. This time, for variety, I went outside to the McDonalds on the strip, and, for my efforts, was rewarded with paying $1.00 less than if I had tried to breakfast in the hotel's McDonalds.
At 7:30, I reported to the main entrance of the hotel, the “Porte Cochere” in our resort's parlance, to catch a bus to go to Hoover Dam. The bus ride left the city at about 9:00, after we had checked in at the Coach USA facility by the airport, and took about an hour to get out to the Hoover Dam. The scenery on the drive was beautiful, driving up into the mountain ranges. The dam was impressive. I mean seriously. It was only 750 feet from the bridge level down to the power station. Everything at this site was impressively huge. Doubly so, when you understand that all concrete at this place is SOLID, with no rebar or structural steel. If you get the chance to go, I highly recommend it… especially when you get to go down into the power station on the nevada side, and see 1/2 of a huge power station. The art deco decor was beautiful.
Some tours, on the way back (mine was one) make a lunch stop at the Hacienda resort and casino. This is near a town called Boulder City (a city that was built expressly for supporting the building of Boulder Dam, now Hoover). The food is okay, and the tour stop is worth springing for the all-day tour. The last stop on the way back was the Ethel M. chocolate factory and desert botanical garden. We were able to get some yummy chocolate samples, and watch them actually make chocolate by hand. It was cool. Then it was a quick jump past Wayne Newton's Casa Shenandoah, and McCarran Airport (past the JANET terminal - this terminal is were workers at the Government's Groom Lake facility board aircraft to commute to work). Finally, we got back to the hotel, just in time to change and go to the conference's opening festivities.
At the festivities, I hung out with four other members from the University, and heard the opening address by John Wookey from Oracle. He described the proposed product cycle for PeopleSoft as it evolves into an oracle product called Fusion. He ran way over time, and was generally a Mathematician and Engineer (gee, these were his degrees… so it shouldn't surprise us that he talked like one). We then went to the opening gala dinner put on by the vendors, and visited their booths so we could appropriately “thank them” for the big dinner, by listening to their sales pitches. Then I got separated from my team, and, well, with 4,500 people there, I lost them. So I went and got some real dinner, then went and crashed back at my room.
For breakfast the next day, I met up with the team from my school again, and had breakfast with them. This was the last I saw of them. For the remainder of the trip, I hung out with my cohorts in the “Training Track” of this conference. I quickly learned that it is not only my university that short-shrifts the training team when it comes to implementing this piece of cra… uh… software to run the entire university. I'm kidding - really, the software is really well written, but it does require more support than the salesfolk care to state. And that's what we're here to learn about, is how other universities support this product.
That night I got to meet a new friend, Jen, from Bowling Green State University. She taught me the ins and outs of Blackjack, but I still didn't get up the courage to play. It was fun to watch her interact with the dealers and others at the tables, and, yes, I'm sure she felt a bit awkward with me there with her. We also got to go up 108 floors above the strip, to the Stratosphere, and got some excellent pictures. The next night, another guy (who actually ran the track I was in for the conference), Jen, and I got to go up to Fremont street. We had dinner at Binions Horseshoe (an old Vegas casino, with real wood furnishings), which was actually quite good. For $8.95, I got a huge piece of prime rib. While it's not my favorite cut, it was quite good… and for the price was damn huge. Afterward, Jen and I made our way back to the Flamingo where she got her clock cleaned at Blackjack, after bidding me adieu: “Sean, I'm a big girl, I can make it back to the hotel on my own.”
Thursday's trip home started with dinner at Jodi Maroni's Sausage Kingdom at the airport. It was okay for Bratwurst at an airport. I boarded my flight on time at 7:00 p.m., arrived in DFW at 11:00 p.m., and promptly realized that I had fucked up big time. No hotel booked, I looked for a restaurant to get something to eat in. Failing that, I asked a guard if there was anything open. He laughed. Not a good sign. My flight out was at 6:00 a.m. If you're ever stuck in DFW overnight: 1) I have pity for you; and, 2) Try the business lounges near the starbucks in terminals A or C… they have chairs that you can put together to make into a nice bed.
I got on my flight at 6:00, and arrived at miami at 9:30. Ahhh… back home… it was nice. Then the airline had to go lose my luggage. They found it after 2 hours, but after having spent the night in DFW, it was not pleasant to return to this. But oh well.
All in all, it was a great trip.
If you get to go to Vegas, don't pass up the opportunity. Even if you don't gamble, there is plenty to do there.
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