Vegas Wrap-up

So I have to confess that I am back home in Florida. I got home a couple of hours ago. And please accept my sincere apologies that I didn't post more while I was in Las Vegas, but I was swamped with workshops and seminars and company mixers, etc.

Anyway, just a few random observations to close the book on this one:

Thanks for all the recommendations for places to eat. My convention was at Bally's. And most of its attendees stayed at Bally's. So, honestly, most of my meals were either on the grounds of Bally's or at the adjacent Paris hotel/casino. A couple of Miami Herald colleagues, a couple of Herald bosses and I had dinner at a really fun, dive sort of French restaurant, Josette's Bistro, featuring the dinner cabaret show of Kiki Kalor. Certain people had better not piss me off. I have photos and video of them dancing with Kiki...as well as a few pics of us all shaking tambourines and wearing stupid hats.

I can see how easily-influenced people could get overwhelmed in Vegas. It has an air about that mimics the old New York City stereotype of a city where people come to chase their dreams or flee their nightmares. Over just a few days I met a handful of younger people who had moved to Vegas from small and/or quiet towns in order to get discovered as singers or dancers or actors, etc. They were all bartenders. Several of them had been slinging suds for two or more years. I wish them luck, but...

The lights on the strip are sick, as the kids say. At night I always felt like I was on the verge of a seizure or sensory overload or something.

I was blown away by how many older folks I saw sitting at the slots when I'd cross the casino floor on the way back to my hotel room after a day's work. And after I'd changed clothes and come back downstairs for an entertaining evening they were still there - same people. And when I headed back to my room in the wee hours of the morning to call it a night, they were still there - same people. Is that really a fun way to enjoy the twilight years?

There is an airline that rhymes with Irit Airlines that is the real life incarnation of Soul Plane. I don't mean that as a racial commentary. I mean it in the sense that this airline whose name rhymes with Irit Airlines is triflin'. Seriously, I don't think anyone who has ever flown Rhymes-with-Irit will fault me for saying that airline can go and violate itself with a rusty pipe and a tree branch. I got more grief this morning trying to get checked in and get to my plane than anyone who isn't on the TSA's no-fly list ever should. And Rhymes-with-Irit charges you to check luggage and only allows you to use credit/debit cards to buy drinks or snacks on their flights. Tsk, tsk.

OK, I could ramble on for hours, but I'm tired. Jet lag is no joke after five-plus hours on Rhymes-with-Irit and a three-hour time difference.

I'll write more tomorrow. In the mean time, enjoy a few pics from the trip:

Me and my "adopted" kid sister, Sarah Hoye, a great reporter for the Tampa Tribune newspaper, outside of the Eiffel Tower and the Paris hotel/casino.


Elvis - the real one, seriously; he promised he was the real deal, me, and a Marilyn who came to Vegas a few years ago to chase her dreams but then gave up. I swear I'm not joking. Funny as this was, it was also kind of sad. Good dreams suck when they don't come to fruition.


The light/water show in the fountains outside the Bellagio.

Vegas Baby!

If I never hear those two words in the same sentence again, I'll be happy. During my four hour and change flight here early Tuesday, the elderly woman in the seat in front of me repeated that line over, and over, and over...and over. The first time she blurted it out, she drew laughs from the people in surrounding rows. They (we) thought it was cute and funny. But then she kept going.

Interesting week so far. I'm here for a journalism convention. I've had a chance to catch up with old friends, make some new acquaintances, and develop, break, and redevelop tension with an old friend.

My closest buddies and I are like brothers, meaning we argue as often as we get along. But one of my buddies and me are at polar opposites on just how carefree friends can be with one another. I say close friends can be casual and blunt with one another. If there are off-limit subjects, they can't be too close of friends. On the other hand, one buddy takes the no-topic's-off-limits thing too far sometimes, I think. He sometimes has a bad habit of speaking before he thinks on serious matters, and thus creating unnecessary gloomy palls over otherwise festive and/or lighthearted moments - something he did the evening we arrived by announcing during a meal for another buddy's birthday celebration something to the effect of our friendship was smoke and mirrors and not serious, because the birthday boy and me are apparently all talk and no action. Deep thoughts for a birthday dinner at which we were all laughing just moments before. I think this could possibly be the guy who would speak ill of the dead at a funeral and then look puzzled at the rest of the mourners when they started tsk-tsking. But to be fair to him, he later acknowledged his very bad timing and explained he didn't say what he meant. Nevertheless, the damage was done. Still, he seems to think I may be too stodgy to truly be his friend, because I scolded him to think before he speaks - not just about the accuracy and legitimacy of what he plans to say, but of the timing, of how it will affect whatever else is happening at the moment. I'll stop now. I think we're starting to sound like elementary school kids.

Moving right along, we heard a pretty good Barry White cover band in Bally's last night. And I've decided to stay away from the tables...ALL of them. They're trouble.

And Karma must have followed me here. After my rant two weeks ago about the prostitute problem affecting some of my neighbors on the northern end of my neighborhood, I leave my hotel Tuesday afternoon to stroll to a nearby drug store, and at least twice on every block I'm stopped by hawkers waving cards in my face. I brush several of them aside, and finally, absentmindedly accept a card. I turn it face up. It's an advertisement for a prostitution service that will have "Janie" in your hotel room within 20 minutes of your calling the service. And there was a discount being offered: $99. I fly to the other side of the country and still can't escape the ho stroll. No, I did not keep the card.

Hillary Clinton will be speaking to the convention I'm at today. Barack Obama will be here tomorrow. I'm disappointed that none of the Republican presidential candidates accepted invitations to speak. But it's their prerogative.

OK, I'm gonna bounce, as they say, I have a few workshops to attend - gotta get some learnin' while I'm here - and some old friends to compare notes with. We took some pretty funny pictures in front of the Bellagio's fountains and with Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. May post later, if I decide they don't make me look too stupid.

Till tonight (hopefully) then.