In The Hot Nevada Sun

1-May-06

This was the first day of the conference. Knowing that no short people would wake me up to tell what they just did in the bathroom, I could sleep as late as I wanted. I got up at 5:10 AM. At least, that’s what time I thought it was, but more on that later. Registration and breakfast were not until 7:00, so I had some time to kill. I practiced my talk (actually, figured out what I was going to say), and read the magazines in my room to plan my off-time. When I was about ready to head down to breakfast, I discovered that my hotel room was 17 minutes into the future. I reset the clock to make it right, but realizing I was up before 5:00 AM made me sleepy. Stupid clock.

I won’t say too much about the conference, because I do realize how boring it would be to describe (it was no thrill ride to live through). I will tell you about a bad idea I had. During one of the morning talks, I watched the presenter pace back and forth to his laptop every time he needed to change slides. I realized I’d be very cool if I could do this wirelessly. I figured the 45 minute break before lunch would give me time to shop, and it was my only chance before today’s talk since I spoke right after lunch. I headed out on the strip, with a goal of buying a wireless mouse. I had a goal, but no map, and no plan. Turns out Las Vegas can get pretty hot. I hustled down through the hot Nevada sun in my Dockers, nerd-shirt, and IBM laptop back-pack. I soon decided I didn’t really need a wireless mouse. I think I saw Greg Wiggle. Nah, couldn’t be.

My talk went fine, and by sneaking a peak at the evaluation forms, it seems everyone really enjoyed it, except for one idiot who thought it was just OK. I got a standing ovation, as you can clearly see below:

Note: I will not tell you how I got the standing ovation, unless you ask.

After finishing with the conference for the day, I went back to my room only to find it was being cleaned. So instead, I pushed the R button in the elevator which took me to the roof. Talk about hot Nevada sun. There was a good view though.


My plan for dinner was Hofbrauhaus Las Vegas, but it is about a mile from the strip, and halfway there I decided I did not want to walk back in the dark. While looking for somewhere else, I checked out this place that sells half-place tickets and discovered that the Wiggles are playing here starting tomorrow, so I now I think that really was Greg. Damn.

I had dinner at Nine Fine Irishmen in NY, NY. It was fine and Irish, and I enjoyed a shepherd’s pie, a black and tan, and a “Smiddicks”. When I was walking across the pedestrian bridge over the strip on the way back, thousands of marchers walked below me. Someone said they were marching for immigration rights. This trip gets more unreal all the time, though I did not spot any Wiggles in the group. Maybe Australians don’t care about immigration.