Up until right about now I have been very stressed about our trip to Vegas. I had to do a lot to get prepared, schedule meetings and lunches, etc., etc. My stomach had been hurting and I wasn’t getting much sleep. I’ve managed to calm down.
Elise and I layed low on Wednesday. I went downstairs and checked out the conference and spent the majority of the day in the hotel room doing office work. Elise did the same. She had a proposal to get out so we were both pretty much glued to our laptops. On Tuesday night Kevin said to me, “Josh, we’re here on business but make sure you guys have fun.” That brought on a little relief for yours truly.
We took a break that aftenoon and had lunch at Cafe Lago at Caesars Palace. Las Vegas was once known for cheap buffets where for a few bucks you could get fried chicken and various other slop. You were urged to eat fast for next to nothing and get back to the one armed bandits or the tables. Now that celebrity chefs are everywhere on TV and consumers are more knowledgeable of food, buffets are ‘super buffets’ complete with finer foods that in the past you would only find a la carte.
That evening we met Kevin and Amy at the bar and had cigars and scotch (well, Kevin and I did – the girls split a bottle of wine).
After an hour or so I piped up and said, “Hey let’s go throw away some money!” So we all went to the casino at Bally’s and did a little gambling. I leave our gambling up to my wife. We’re on a shoestring budget while in Sin City because your narrator did the responsible and semi-stupid thing and paid off our entire credit card balance two days before leaving for our trip. I put 99% of our recent 450-square-foot deck project on our credit card. I don’t want to carry over a balance into following months so I paid the whole thing off. That was a lot of money.
Luckily this is a business trip so I can expense most everything. I gave Elise some of our money last night while they were playing blackjack. I don’t gamble. I have my own vices and addictions and I don’t want to add gambling to them. I don’t know any of the casino games. I understand blackjack and I’d much rather observe. So I’m standing over Elise’s shoulder watching her play.
Kevin comes up behind me and says, “How are you guys doing… are you up?”
“Nope. We’re down to our last ten dollars.”
Elise heard that and got upset. She thought that I was mad because we were losing. She was a little emotional because 1) we were losing 2) we’re on a strict budget and 3) she was looooaded off of the wine.
It took an hour of consoling and a room service pastrami sandwich to get her back to her sweet, loving self.
We woke up early on Thursday and attended the opening of the AmerisourceBergen trade show. We did a little networking and checked out the vendors at the show. We went to a great seminar on increasing profit margins. We then hailed a cab and went to the local Albertsons and picked up booze and snacks for a customer appreciate social that we hosted in our suite. I didn’t plan as well as I should have because I booked our cocktail hour at the same time of the opening party for the convention. It was, however, a good investment. I was able to meet, face to face, a customer that we recently signed up from Culver City. And I was able to bring onboard a new pharmacy. Mission accomplished in my mind. I’m still going to network and hand out swag for the remainder of the convention and get as many cards as I can but I’ll be happy if I leave with only my one sign-up.
After our “party” we walked downstairs to the main ballroom and caught the very end of the opening party. Seeing how Elise is a catering director and I was a banquet manager for almost three years, we found ourselves checking out buffet setups and breakdown stations. It’s really weird being on the customer side of a huge banquet. There were open bars everywhere you walked (an open bar for 7,000 customers… can you say money?!?!) I ordered a scotch on the rocks and I was handed a 20 oz. glass of scotch. We both laughed and I stumbled off…
Elise hadn’t been too impressed with the Vegas scene at this point. I took her (along with my Big Gulp scotch) on a foot tour of the strip. She immediately lit up with excitement seeing all of the happenings and lights on the strip. We had a blast just walking the strip alone together. We went into the Venetian and I showed her the valcano at the Mirage. I decided we wouldn’t walk the whole strip because 1) I wanted to leave more sight-seeing for the rest of the weekend and 2) I was pretty tanked on the entire bottle of scotch I drank.
We stumbled back to Bally’s and I gave Elise $20 for blackjack. She won $40. I kissed her, congratulated her and then fell over. Not really, but it didn’t take me long to fall asleep once we made it back to our room.
This morning I got up, shaved my tongue and we packed up, checked out of our suite and I checked into our new room (we’re been here three days and have had three rooms!) I met Kevin in the lobby and we had a business lunch with the owner and his son of a company that does some really great direct marketing and inside sales for independent pharmacies. It’s looking like this will be an awesome partnership for both companies. We had lunch at Le Café ÃŽle St. Louis at Paris. I had the beef bourguignon, which was excellent.
Well… I have to run – Kevin and I are going to hit the town and run a couple errands. Here are pictures thus far.