I’m up at 4:30am, still on EST but existing in PST. This is fine by me as it gives me some time to workout before the day starts. Before I do that, I walk through the casino in search of coffee. At 5:00am you cannot get coffee in the casino, but you can see the sad sacks of humanity either still up from the night before drinking, or waking up super early to drink & gamble.
America’s best & brightest, to be sure.
I have to leave the casino to find a Starbucks which suits me just fine.
The gym workout is good, and I get a solid hour in. I assume there’s no laundry here but even if there were, I don’t have a wash/dry cycle of time this morning, so I do the ghetto shower-wash, then room dry. I’ve done this enough that it’s normal for me now.
I find a place that’s open and get a sandwich plus coffee, which turns out to be a greasy sandwich and a moderately ok coffee. I eat breakfast and 2 of the guys join me who also came in the night before.
In theory we’re here a day early to work together in an effort to teach these new guys some of the things that come up on a daily basis. Unfortunately, 1 of the guys from SKO invites himself to the session and totally derails my plans. So the morning is more or less a total waste. I mean it’s good to get together as a team, but honestly he’s not on our direct team which makes it even more disruptive.
That said, at least we have this luxurious conference room to hang out in.
Lunch is at Guy Fieri’s Kitchen & Bar which is as unmemorable as you might imagine. I get a salad which is about 2/3 dressing and then some mix of other stuff. I’m sure this is the least healthy salad I’ve ever eaten, but I should have known what I was getting into here. The conversation is good, though. I mostly enjoy the guys on the team and this is the first time we’ve mostly gotten together in the same place. We’re not all here as 2 of the team are on vacation in Vietnam.
The afternoon is more open and I have some specific things in mind to run through in this session. We actually get them all done and in the end it was a successful second half of the day. We wrap up when we’re kicked out of the room so the hotel staff can bring more tables and stuff in. I go back to my room for a little bit to relax. But the room is ordinary at best.
I walk to the Venetian to help out the Marketing team because they screwed something up and need Manilla envelopes. The place is “just next door” but in Vegas that means a 20 minute walk at least. After an overly long journey I get there, find the FedEx which is buried in the back-back-back alleys of the casino, and get back to our dump truck of a hotel.
We get together as an even larger crew and go to Giada for dinner, which is a perfectly fine place to eat. It’s not what I would have chosen because it’s super expensive but the food was pretty good and we just keep getting things to share until we’re all full.
I bow out from dinner a hair early and walk to the Cirque de Soleil show, ONE. This is the Michael Jackson production which I kicked myself last time for skipping. That was 3 years ago and I’m not going to make that same mistake twice. I decide to walk, and it’s almost 2 miles. The GPS takes me all over the place which is when I come to the conclusion that this is not a walking town.
That said, it’s an easy town to look at.
When I get there and get my seat, the move me to the front-center, 13th row. Pretty awesome to move from an average seat to smack in the middle of it all. The show is just 90 minutes, but given that it starts at 9:30 pm which is 12:30 EST, I’m ok with it not being too long of a night.
The show is decent, not great. The tickets were pretty reasonable and for $60, it’s hard to beat. The performance was fine, but overall the whole thing was moderately inspired and not especially amazing. I found some of the effects great, and some pretty poor.
I found the guitar player in this whole effort downright bizarre.
Having said that, I’m glad I went and would recommend this over drinking & gambling the night away. On the way back to the hotel I run into 3 of the guys still out, and we walk back to the hotel together at which point I go back to my room and they go out for more.
Traveling Normandy 