Viva Las Vegas

I was originally planning on posting our activities live each day however I ran into a problem shortly after arriving in Vegas. The first problem wasn't connectivity, the hotel offers wireless service, however they want $12 / day. Ouch, I think after paying $200 / night for a room a little wireless service should be on their end. I just couldn't justify paying $60 for the week in wireless. I mean that is what I pay for my cable and cable modem for the month at home.

Well no worries I had a backup plan. The conference I attend offers free wireless along with about two dozen machines to use. That was actually what I used last year for my online fix. However what I had not anticipated was the fact that the conference more than doubled in size. The wireless was up and running full time but apparently 8000 people trying to use it at once made it almost impossible to get an IP Address, and the lines for the wired computers where just too long for me. So all in all I really didn't sign on much that week other than with my cell phone :(

So with that said, let me tell you about what we did in Vegas... Oh wait am I allowed to tell you guys about this :)

Monday started way too early. Our flight out was at 6am which meant waking up at 3 in the morning to get to the airport by 4:30. The nice part with leaving this early was that we arrived in Vegas by 9 in the morning leaving us plenty of time to check into Mandalay Bay and see a bit of the strip. Shannon and I walked for what seemed like quite of few miles up and down the strip before heading back to the hotel to get off our feet. As we where relaxing our neighbors called, who also happened to be in Vegas as well. We decided to meet up for dinner that evening at Treasure Island. It was fun to meet up with them, though kind of funny to realize I spent more time with them in Vegas than I have with them living next door to us. Around 10pm we got a call from our cousin's Tess and Cori who finally arrived in Vegas, taking a later flight then us. We decided since we where on the other side of the strip that we would just meet up tomorrow instead.

Tuesday was the first day of the SQL Server conference. It never ceases to amaze me the shear size of these casinos. The conference area must be almost a mile from my room, and that is not an exaggeration! The size of the conference area was is insane. I believe they could probably host close to 60,000 people in that area alone. Heading to the opening keynote speech I happen to notice a camera and lights setup in the main area and in front of the camera is Greg Proops from "Who's Line Is It Anyways?". My first thought was of you Shaun ;) I decided to wait until he finished his current interview and then walked up to Greg and introduced myself and told him I enjoying seeing him on Who's Line. We chatted for a minute or two and he asked me if I wanted to do an interview. I said what the hell, and he went into asking me a number of Microsoft related questions like "What do I think about Bill touring around with Bono? What can M$ do better, etc etc". After the interview I signed my life away and went to my sessions for the day. That evening we got together with our cousins Tess and Cori and checked out the strip and caught a bite to eat for dinner.

Wednesday my day was filled with more of the SQL Server conference. While the conference itself was very informative, I could have done without one of the speakers having the weather widget reporting 85 degrees and sunny. The nice part is even though it is dark by the time I got left the conference the weather was still nice enough for wearing shorts. One cool thing about the conference was that during one of my sessions I was able to correct the instructor on a typo in his script he was using for his demo. This actually earned me a free signed copy of his book "Inside SQL Server 2005 Tools" which was just released. The highlight of Wednesday was definitely going to "O" at the Bellagio. I have yet to attend a Cirque du Soleil that was not absolutely amazing. Taking Shannon's lead, I wont say much about the show other than it was worth every penny and their stage setup is amazing, you must see it to believe it!

Thursday Shannon and I had decided while in Vegas to purchase tickets for KÀ at the MGM Grand. I had actually attended this show last year but found it so incredible that I didn't hesitate to spend the money to see it again. I know a number of people where talking about what Cirque in town is the best. Last year I would have said in a heart beat that it was KÀ, now after seeing O as well I don't know that one can say that any Cirque show is better than another. There are 5 cirque shows running in Vegas full time (KÀ, O, Zumanity, Love, and Mystère), and after attending two of the five I can easily say both are absolutely unique in their own ways. KÀ like O has an indescribable stage which is so unique in it's simplicity yet at the same time it is so versatile, allowing it to be transformed into so many unimaginable landscapes depending on the current scene's needs. On the note of comparison between the two shows one thing I can say is that the story was much clearer to follow in KÀ than it was with O.

Friday was a killer, our flight was at 7am and since we had used a shuttle service they pick the time to leave which meant 4:45 am. Yikes well at least in our own time zone 4am means 6am :) The flight back was pretty good until we closed in on Chicago, the weather was overcast and just a drizzly day. Unfortunately the low visibility must have backed up the airport because we circled for close to a half hour the whole time in steady turbulence. Between the two of us, I really do enjoy flying however the constant turbulence was starting to really turn my stomach. I think what made it worse was that we where flying in the fog which made visibility impossible, looking out the window all you where able to see was white, even our wings where not viewable. Eventually we did land without any problems other than a severely upset stomach. I was actually quite surprised to find that that with Madison being hit by a snowstorm / freezing rain that our flight from Chicago to Madison wasn't delayed or cancelled. We arrived in Madison without much trouble, of course the first thing I notice coming from 80 degree weather was the fact that my breath was steaming up the air and the wind had quite a bite to it. By the time we picked up the dog and kids it was already after 8 in the evening and we where both ready to crash for the evening.

All in all I think we both had a great time in Vegas, it was nice to get away from the kids for a few days and just be able to relax and enjoy each other company.