doodledee

[~8:30 CDT on Friday]

I'm sitting on an airplane bound for Minneapolis, finally on my way home after spending 5 days ensconced in the neon sin factory that is Las Vegas. And by 'ensconced in neon sin', I mean 'going to a conference for work'. It's late in the day and the skies are super clear and from my 25th row window seat I can see all the way to the horizon and man, does the western US look awesome from way up here. The canyons, the mountains, the lakes and rivers, it's all so ridiculously pretty. Almost pretty enough to take my mind off the fact that I didn't have the exact change necessary to purchase a tube of trail mix from the stewardess when she walked down the isle wagging them in all our hungry faces. Why a major airline can't make change for a 10 when a rube passenger wants to pay a criminal $2 for some cashews and raisins so he can nibble a snack while he looks out the window daydreaming about hiking and rafting and skiing is totally beyond me. Doofs.

So 5 days in Vegas. Yeah. That's about 3 days too many by most people's standards, and I'm right there with them. Add in the fact that over the last week I've sat through - I shit you not - something like 1500 power point slides, and that can make for what we in the business like to call "a super duper long week".

Some Vegas stories.

• One afternoon after the events were over for the day I thought I'd try and get a work out in. I was traveling with another guy from the office, so we went and checked out the Health Club and Spa at the Palms (our home base for the week). It wasn't worth the price of admission, but it wasn't shockingly unreasonable, so we turned over our credit cards and proceeded to get our sweat on. I ran on the treadmill for a while. It overlooked the pool and it had its own little TV bolted to the front and everything. I watched Jeopardy, which it turns out is a perfect treadmill show. You run, Trebek asks a question, you answer silently in your head, you find out you were right, you fist pump and punch the air like an angry prize fighter climbing the steps at your courthouse building. Rinse and repeat like 60 more times and the time literally [!] races by. (Seriously, why aren't there Jeopardy work-out DVS's? Because I'm not in charge of workout DVD's, that's why.) Fast forward to sometime around mile 3 and it's time for final Jeopardy. They cut to the big commercial break so I start flipping around. I land on The News Hour on PBS and catch the end of day headlines and then they move into the "remembering our fallen soldiers in Iraq" segment. It's a segment they do periodically that shows the names and faces of service people killed in duty. They show a picture of each person, in silence, for maybe 15 seconds each. It's usually like 3 or 4 people and when it's over then they cut back to Jim and play some somber music and roll the credits and then the Nightly Business Report comes on and it's all very civilized and tasteful. Well for some reason this installment had like 34 names and faces to display. So here's me, huffing away on a treadmill in stupid Vegas, watching these dead soldiers roll by. There's a kid from Kenosha. Here's one from Montana. Tick tock tick tock. Running in silence is brutal. And I just know final Jeopardy is back on by now. But you can't you flip away from this stuff, can you? Talk about profoundly lame. Tick tock huff puff. I mean, I know we've all got war fatigue by now, but once you start watching the fallen troops ticker, you've kinda gotta stick with it, right? Huff puff, tick tock, minutes flying by. Finally I cave. After all, I reason, this is Vegas, the self-centered capital of the universe... And with that I mash my guilty, sweaty finger against the channel button and roll it back over to Jeopardy. And OF COURSE it's still on commercial. DAMMIT. Trying to rescue my karma, I immediately back it over to PBS to watch the end of the dead troop segment, which seemed even more pathetic than flipping away in the first place, but hey, at least I was trying. Lesson learned: never flip away from the final Jeopardy commercial break again.
• Can we talk about all the little kids in Vegas? We ate dinner on a patio on the strip one night and the number of people pushing strollers and walking their toddlers up and down the sidewalk at 10pm just blew my mind. We watched one fall down drunk woman and her husband stop to buy a Jagerbomb at the curbside bar with - no lie - an infant in a bjorn on her front and a toddler on the ground next to her! Seriously, who are these people? You don't see them inside the casinos as much - though that probably has to do with the fact that kids aren't allowed inside, doy - but once you get out on the sidewalk they just come out of the woodwork. Gross. I almost started boo'ing at one point. Isn't Vegas officially *not* family friendly now? I think it's even in their slogan: "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Except your kids. Because you don't bring your kids to Vegas, so they won't be staying. Because only idiots would bring their kids to Vegas. Because even south Asian soccer ball factories are more kid friendly than Vegas. Good luck with that Ace, sir." (By the way, if this take makes me somehow old and out of touch, I'm totally ok with that.)
• Speaking of who are these people, the money being thrown around in Vegas is almost stupefying. People piling up $1000's of dollars in chips at the roulette table, turning $50 hands of blackjack, and placing $50 come out bets at the dice tables, it's all de rigeur now... and that's the "low stakes" stuff. Anything cheaper than that and you're basically slumming. (Which I totally was at the $1 margarita and $3 craps casino we stumbled into, but that's a different story.) I mean, I get that the beautiful crowd rolls in on the weekend and rips the place up, but when did $12 beers and $50 card games fall within reach of a crowd that for the most part looks like it would be more at home shuffling around the State Fair on a sunny August afternoon eating something on a stick and gawking at the seed art? Apparently I missed the memo.
• Speaking of missing the memo, did you catch the part where I said 1500 powerpoint slides? If you didn't, just raise your hand and I'll go back a few slides and show you where I typed it. Ok, let's move on.
• I've pretty sure I've never eaten so much over any 5 day period in my entire life. The conference followed a rhythm of "buffet-class-snack-class-buffet-class-snack-class-class" and I marched to the beat with total abandon*. You think hitting the 8 you've been pressing for the last 4 rolls feels good, wait 'til you follow it up the next morning with yet another all you can eat bacon and eggs and fruit and scones buffet. More anything? More everything! One afternoon the little old ladies who monitored the rooms at the convention hall came around with baskets full of ice cream treats. That just about put me over the edge. By Friday I was down to the last hole on my belt, but man, it was worth it. In related food news, we hit a few joints on and off the strip for food, some of which wasn't exactly cheap, and found that a) none of it was very good and b) none of it was better than the convention center buffet food we had (which actually was quite good). My take is that you've gotta be ready to spend $100/head to get a reasonably good dinner in Vegas. See also: who are these people? (* - For the record, I spent 2 minutes trying to work in an elevensies and/or second breakfast hobbit joke in here but couldn't make it work. Sorry, Huna.)
• I'm still on the plane, otherwise this wouldn't be so long. I'm taking a break now.
• Ok, it's Monday night now. One more story. We landed late at night and people were grumpy and the plane was sold out. We were also late getting in. Some people's connecting flights already deep into their boarding calls. Our attendant comes on the speaker: "We have some people who have very little time to make their connecting flights... If that's not you, please stay in your seat so that they can exit first. Thank you." So then we pull up to the jetway and the plane stops and the bell goes BING and OF COURSE 90% of the plane immediately stands up just like it always does. I just laughed and laughed. You could do a PHD on the human behavior exhibited on that one.

There were more, but that's probably good enough for now.