Good To Be Home

Ahhh.... Good old Canada. I can feel the serenity now....

Well, I got back into town early this morning (4:30am) and promptly passed out until 1pm this afternoon. I was completely unaware of anything going on around me. Nathan showering, Nathan leaving, phone calls, I missed it all.

So the Vegas business trip was good. The conference was awesome, despite some small hiccups. Tuesday I was completely overwhelmed by the 7500 other people, courses that weren't the best (but I knew that would be the case before hand), a headache, bitchy people, couldn't find the shuttle bus, etc. that I just sat down in my hotel room and had a good cry.

The Venetian Shops area.... Nice ceiling

The rest of the week was really good though. I had some really good seminars that gave me a lot of good ideas about how to organize the CAD stuff at ESA and I picked up some good tricks for all of the other drafters in the office. I think it was definitely worth the money, though I would much prefer to be a the hotel where the conference is taking place next time. The shuttle bus was convenient, but it was still one more thing to worry about.
I met a lot of neat people and will keep in touch with some of them I'm sure. Some were completely arrogant and rude, and others were really great. I suppose you get all kinds.
I feel completely naked without my name tag now. I feel like I should be checking my schedule or something...

The Strip

As for Vegas itself, I have NEVER EVER been to such a commercial place. The entire place is centred around getting you to spend money. All of the hotels that I was in, you had to go through the casino to get anywhere. Back to the lobby, the elevators, the conference centre, the shops, it didn't matter. Somehow you had to go through the middle of the casino to get there. I'm not entirely sure HOW they accomplish it, but there it is. Slot machines in the airport, sensored minibar items (if you pick it up, you bought it), shops full of junk, and so on. At the beginning of the week, it was all very impressive, but by the end I was sick of the commercialism, the noisy gambling machines, the guys trying to hand out stripper ads on the streets, the priests who were definitely not priests trying to collect money for the "poor", the guys with their sandwich boards spouting off about the end of the world and redemption... It was a bit too much for me, I'll admit. I like nice little Canada, calm little Calgary. I guess I'm a "country" girl at heart. =D

My hotel, Mandalay Bay.

Very swank... Felt I should dress up to use the bathroom