Month: July 2005

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.

After a long ride on a tiny America West airplane, we greeted Las Vegas. Elise got all giddy when she saw the strip from the airplane as we were taxiing as this is her first time to Sin City.

We took a Lincoln to Bally’s, checked in and had our bags brought to our room. Kevin and Amy turned in early as Kevin had to be at a continuing education seminar at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. It was only 11 p.m. in Vegas but it was 1 a.m. our time. And it was hot. 103 degrees.

Our room is on the 17th floor overlooking Las Vegas Blvd and Flamingo. We can see the Flamingo and Barbary Coast directly across the street. We can plainly see Caesars Palace, The Mirage, Rio, Paris and the gorgeous Nevada mountain backdrop.

We neglected to eat dinner and the 6 oz. of peanuts provided by the airline wasn’t going to tide us over until morning.

Elise and I set out to find an early morning dinner. We walked past the Flamingo and across the strip to Caesars Palace. The casino and nightclubs were hopping, but no grub. We were hungry, exhausted and cranky. We decided to walk back to Bally’s to try dinner at the little sandwich shop we passed on the way out.

One thing that has change since I was last in Vegas over a decade ago. The thugs. There are teams of black male pick pockets that work individually and have their check points where they stop for a moment to eye prey. It’s obvious, annoying and scary. One got up so close behind me that he stepped on my flip flop. I turned around, eyed him and he said, with a shoulder shrug and a cigarette dangling from his lips, “‘sup?”

I ignored him and moved my wallet to my front pocket.

So we finally made our way back to the casino floor of Bally’s and had dinner at Nosh. I had The Highroller, a six inch roast beef sandwich with grilled onions and horseradish sauce. Elise had the pastrami. Both sandwiches were pre-portioned and would have otherwise been sent back had it not been 3 a.m. our time and hungry enough to eat cigarette butts. The grilled onions on The Highroller tasted like soap and the bread on both of our sandwiches left us with sore gums when we woke up this morning.

I woke up with the sun this morning. I showered, shaved, strapped the iBook to my back and headed out. I took the elevator down to the casino, turned around, went back up to our room and put on my clothes.

I went back down to the casino and found the Business Center in the tunnel between Paris and Bally’s. The placard on the wall read, “Internet access: Up to 5 minutes for $5”. I walked up to the desk and asked, “Are there any wireless access points in the hotel?”

“No, there are no wireless access points on the Strip?”

“Why?”

“Because they want you in the casinos, not on the Internet.”

“Ahhh… Is there a freestanding Starbucks anywhere near?”

“There’ s one a mile east of here, but I don’t think they have wireless.”

I said thank you and made my way back to our room.

I spent a minute or so seeing if I could setup some sort of dial-up account on my iBook. Couldn’t. I thumbed through the Yellow Pages for an ISP. I decided that my getting online would either 1) take all day if I wanted to try to setup a dial-up account or 2) cost an arm and a leg at $1/minute. I then opted to go unconnected for the majority of our trip.

I called the office and let the girls know that they’ll need to handle most of my e-mail & web-based affairs.

It was recently noted that Austin is the most wired city. I guess I’ve gotten used to that.

[Update: Elise and I walked over to Paris to check in at the convention. We talked with a couple reps from AmerisourceBergen and were informed that there should be a CAT5 cable hidden in our room. We came back to the room and I found said cable]