So, haven’t posted for a few days, but you’ll understand why! Vegas was madness itself, but at the end of the day I think I quite liked it. Yes it was brash, loud, over the top, but it didn’t pretend to be anything else. The conference itself was interesting enough. And HUGE – thousands of people all over the place and so much equipment. I saw Anthony Zuiker (Mr CSI) talking – he talks even quicker than I do! [An aside: with going to Vegas, Miami and New York, I’ll be going to all 3 CSI cities!] After the conference I went back to the hotel (and won $80 on the slots by the way, which was more than I put in. Woohoo!) and then headed to the airport at about 8.30. I was on the red-eye to Miami, travelling with Sprint, a low-cost airline. Luckily it wasn’t full, so I had a free seat next to me. Even so, sleep was not a big feature of the trip and we got into Miami at 6.50am, which was 3.50 to my body clock. I then had to pick up a car and drive for an hour to my hotel! Actually, the car thing worked out well – I went to pick up my Compact Car and they didn’t have any, so I got to take a PT Cruiser. Fun car to drive! they had also booked me a GPS, so I got to the hotel without too many problems, though in the traditions of all the best software gadgets it froze, so I had to reboot it to go the last couple of miles. I can see the use of those gadgets, but they do allow you to abdicate responsibility for where you’re going and they can lead you astray. They stop you thinking about where you’re going and for someone like me, who loves maps and has a good sense of direction, they can be quite disorienting, actually.
Once I got to the hotel, I checked in (they had reserved an early room) and crashed out for an hour or so. I had meetings up and down the coast that afternoon, including a dinner, so finally managed to get to bed about 11. But I got a proper 8 hours in last night, which made me feel much better. Omar and I drove down to Miami this morning and now I’ve got another day of meetings, before I can check into the hotel later.
Saw Christi in Vegas which was great. She seemed really happy with work and life, and it was also good to see how ordinary people live there – kind of balanced out the madness of the Strip.
So, one night in this hotel and then off to Phoenix tomorrow. I really need to be somewhere for a few nights so I can get some washing done. Hopefully that will be possible at the Grand Canyon – the last few days it just hasn’t been an option, even to go with the outrageously priced hotel laundries. Don’t worry, I’m not wandering around in dirty clothes, just whittling down the clean ones until I won’t have any left soon!