Well by Tuesday night much progress has been made on the home front. If I ever learn how to post images here I can load some of the pictures. It's still a bit sparse. I got the kitchen under control and the living room as finished as it can be for now. I really appreciate how Glenn got the techno clutter under control.
Purchased Erin's senior portraits...man this stuff is expensive! But the pictures are beautiful so it's worth it. Matt went to his first college class yesterday. He left the house around 11:30 am and I didn't see him for the rest of the day, so he came home after I went to bed around 10 pm. I hope it went well!
I worked from home yesterday, seated at the dining room table which is not the most comfy workstation. I stayed home because the property mgmt. was coming around to clean the dryer vents. The dryer vent cleaning was also what precipitated my desire to get the house tidied up. Not that the property manager or dryer vent team would care but as I've said, I do.
They got through it in about 15 minutes as promised. The powerful blower or vacuum (not sure which) that they used blew out one of our circuits but that was re-set with no issues. Apparently my dryer vent was pretty clean. Maybe the previous people didn't use a dryer? The one strange thing was that towards the end the head dryer vent cleaner had his assistant dryer vent cleaner go to my bathroom and get him toilet paper. Apparently he needed it to test something that entailed blowing a square of toilet paper out the vent. He and the property manager went outside to witness the event. It's a small thing but why take my TP? He specifically told his assistant to 'get a handful so I can use it on the next places' Seems to me he should just buy a roll and keep it with his equipment instead of taking mine. Oh well.
I like working at home. It's nice to be able to go for a smoke on the back porch(thanks to wireless I can take my laptop outside or to the living room couch if I need to put my feet up for a bit), eat from my own fridge, pet the cats.
Oh, the cats...while the dryer vent cleaners were here I put the cats up in our bedroom. When I came back to let them out the two older cats, Pumpkin and Oatmeal, were snuggled up under Glenn's upstairs computer table and the younger one, Yogurt, had burrowed into a tunnel between some pillows. I opened the door and they didn't even move, so much for worrying about them being upset for being locked in a bedroom.
I'm trying to get our new home looking less like Decor by Atlas Movers and more like a home, we've been here 4 months so I think it's about time...Glenn has obligingly built new living room bookcases and a tv stand thingie (as in assembly required, not from scratch) and I've been putting stuff on the bookcases, etc. My beautiful art photo of an Irish Abbey ruin is over the mantle and the little occasional table beside the fireplace has Glenn’s pretty glass chess set on it. These touches make me happy. There's still a long way to go but progress is being made. The big complication is we have so much techno-clutter! It's difficult to camouflage into 'decor'. And don't ask me how I feel about the Rubik’s cubes, juggling balls and the Lego Robot on the mantle.
I had made personal plans to work on the place this weekend. The property manager is coming on Tuesday with the dryer vent cleaning company and I didn't want them to think we are low lifes. It's the way I was raised so I can't help myself.
This afternoon I went upstairs to read for a bit ( I took Matt to Tower and bought the new Dune: Battle of Corrin) and after just reading for a little bit got sleepy and took a long nap. What that means is it's now 11 pm and I'm not the least bit sleepy. Glenn went to bed awhile back and shortly after that I got bored and decided to work on things. I was unwrapping the shot glass collection (it came about because shot glasses are small and easy to bring home from my business travels so that’s what I would get for Glenn whenever I went somewhere new) but it disturbed Glenn’s sleep…it’s amazing how the stairwell magnifies sound right up into our bedroom. I’ve picked up a lot of the junk that’s accumulated on the dining room table but I needed to wash the tablecloth so that stopped the progress there. I picked up some books and separated the one's I've read from the ones in progress and have put them on the little 3 shelf thingie that matches the new bookshelves and moved it from beside the door to a spot closer to the couch and reading light.
Right now the dining room table is also my home office and computer desk. We had to store it when we were in the other place because it was too big. I bought a little table with a tile top and that’s what Glenn is using for his computer desk, it sits right behind a wall divider between the living room and the dining room. The wall goes up about…heck exactly 3 feet (because I can see the yardstick propped against it) and then there’s a cutout so you can see through from the living to dining areas.
Thing about it is that the little ‘sill’ in the cutout is that it's getting covered with stuff. So is the top of my curio cabinet which is full of Lenox. I put some of the stuff away (my digital camera, moved the Sony Clie, but Dustpuppy, Glenn’s digital camera, a Demotivator’s mug ‘the glass is now half empty’ and a couple of widgets are still on it – eventually it will go in a different spot and that will probably help. The tall chairs we had at the counter in the old place are lined up against the wall and are pretty useless so they’ve become clutter collectors as well. They’ll end up outside in the garage when we bring in the dining room chairs. Those are in shabby condition now so I’m thinking of buying slipcovers until I can afford to have the table and chairs refinished.
Glenn saw a computer desk at Fry’s this morning that is in the same color wood as the new shelves in the living room so we’ll probably buy it next weekend and get it set up. I think there will be a screen or something put up that can hide the area when it’s not in use.
I bought a draping slipcover for the loveseat, it doesn’t quite work. I don’t know why the loveseat is a weird size but I bought it at Pier One. Could be it's metric or something. I’m thinking seriously about a new couch…we’ve got room enough for something bigger and nicer. I'm not happy about the current 'coffee table', which is two parsons tables that were used for a tv stand in the old place and have totally trashed finishes. I'd like to get them refinished as they're solid wood and were very nice once, came from a model home sale. Another thing I'm not too happy about is the floor fan, but we do need it to keep the air circulating. It's not been a very hot summer and the place is well insulated but the fan makes it much more comfortable. Not sure what to do about it.
The kitchen is the last thing downstairs to work on, and mostly that will be just getting the clutter of the counters, thank goodness.
This will be a short one...I'm chatting online tonite with a bunch of Soapbox Munkehs and I get to talking about old photos. I recently posted a picture of me on the Soapbox from when I was about 15 or 16 and it reminded me of all the great photos Mom took the time to collect and put in an album for me.
The thing is that years ago she compiled an album of pictures featuring me from infancy to my wedding. And she was able to do this because for my entire lifetime she had been sending a copy each of every picture developed to my grandmother and great grandmother. All this on an Air Force enlisted man's pay (we're not talking big paycheck) and even though the way these pictures became available was that her mother and grandmother had passed away she was thinking of us, her children and how much these pictures would mean to us. They were a Christmas gift and my siblings and I were speechless. Of course we spent hours looking at our books, each others books, I got pictures of my sister with old boyfriends, she got pictures of me with mine. Mom was sensitive that my husband or the sib's future spouses (my brother and sister weren't married at the time I believe) might not like us gazing back on old flames.
I am really blessed that I have these pictures and have had them long enough that I could share them with my own children while they were growing up. "See, that's mom when she was your age...well it's black and white because color film wasn't all that common for personal cameras then" "Here's mom when she was in Taiwan...look at her silly hair. No she wasn't a hippie."
Ah well...just had to get that down. Thanks Mom. I love you. And Happy Birthday tomorrow!
I don't know when I'll finish Sunday...but here's what I've done so far!
Sunday
Our last full day. We have tickets for the 9pm George Carlin show at the MGM Grand. I get up and throw on some clothes and go grab a large serving of eggs, 4 strips of bacon, some yogurt, English muffins, a Danish and the butter & jelly. A couple of glasses of OJ and head upstairs. As I enter the elevator there are 3 kids inside. The largest of them says “Are you supposed to take your food to your room?” with a bit of disapproval on his face and in his voice. So I say to him “Well, I am” and stare at him till he blinks. I’m not going to give him permission to follow my lead, maybe his parents told him he had to eat in the dining area and said it was a hotel rule so he wouldn’t argue about it. I’m just wondering who appointed him breakfast sheriff anyway?
Back in the room I eat and read Just a Geek. Glenn gets up and gets half the eggs and bacon. The extra English muffin and Danish end up in the fridge as emergency backup food. We hang around, taking our time getting ready. Then it’s back to the monorail station for the short trip to the Hilton. If it wasn’t about 100 degrees and if we hadn’t walked our legs off the previous day it wouldn’t have been a bad stroll, probably half a mile at most, but for all of the above we were glad for the ride!
The reason we’re going back to the Hilton is to do the Star Trek experience ride and a bit of shopping on the Promenade. Also, at 3 William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy are speaking together at the con. We go register for the day and wander around the dealers’ room. We check to see if Wil is there signing books, I was hoping that I could pick up one more copy for a fellow Soapboxer that I had chatted with Saturday morning. Unfortunately for her he wasn’t there on Sunday.
I’ve been dabbling on this part of the trip for a few days, now it’s Saturday almost a week later. I’m not sure I’m gonna get this right. Glenn and I walk around the tables, there’s Max Grodenchick (Rom), Chase Masterson (Leeta), and Glenn says, isn’t that Susie Plakson. I don’t think it is and we’re heading around behind the tables she’s at and looking at the stuff on the back wall. We pass Gary Lockwood who was in a few of the fist episodes of the original series as the first officer of the Enterprise. His character is zapped by the barrier at the Galaxy’s edge and he becomes a megalomaniacal super being. Kirk has to kill him. He’s talking to some fans. Back around on the other side of the tables I get a better look at the gal Glenn thinks is Susie Plakson. It’s her. She had two notable roles on Star Trek, one as a half Klingon half Human who falls for Worf and has his son then dies, the other as a Vulcan doctor. She is sitting behind a table of small sculptures. Many of them are a hand in the Vulcan salute in different colors and then covered in glitter. I buy a black one, she says it’s one of her favorites since it looks like stars in space. I tell her we’ve admired her work with out being too specific. She probably thinks I just mean Star Trek but she was in another show Glenn and I liked called Love & War. She looked a bit tired and wasn’t too much for chatting so I thanked her and left.
We wandered over to the Star Trek Experience area but the line was long and we decided against the ride. We did some shopping and I ended up with 4 shirts and two bottles of Klingon Blood Wine (it’s a California Merlot) and a tee shirt for Erin. I thought the tee shirt was adorable but too young for me, it was meant to be worn with hip hugger jeans, had tiny cap sleeves and a round cartoon Vulcan with the phrase ‘Live Long and Prosper’ written underneath. I’m not sure she found it as cute as I did.
We haul the stuff back to our room and have dinner at the Embassy Suites, I have a Caesar salad with salmon and Glenn has a burger. The food is good and the service is too, there’s only one other person eating there. The happy hour for guests is being held at the second floor lounge and bar, that’s where everyone is I guess.
But not today. Glenn has bought a new car, well new for him, it's a classic Mustang and if you continue thru the site with the car pix you can see that he has broken his toe. I'm not sure how much the pain effected his decision making processes but I'm really happy he decided to get the Mustang.
I've been decorating...got some bookshelves and matching TV stand and have put the fambly pix on the bookshelves (along with some special books*). I also put a little rattan end table on the landing of our staircase and put some stuff on the wall above it. Eventually things will all come together.
Today I also got my annual review. It's 6 months late due to a change in the review cycle. I think my new boss likes me:
"Dawn demonstrates excellent skill...is a good listener...written communication is clear and understandable...effective facilitator..." and there's lots more! Now I just have to keep living up to these standards, eek!
I'm also excited that Matt is moving forward on going to Foothill College, it's the local community college. He's going to a series of pre-registration classes next week and will be all set to start with the Fall Quarter.
Erin will be a Senior this year, we went and had her portrait taken, I'm looking forward to viewing the proofs as I think she looked incredible!
Well, that's it for now. I hope to finish the Sunday in Vegas soon :)
*Special books: On one shelf, Hitchhiker Trilogy in a fancy leather-like binding, The Hobbit boxed leather bound and Lord of the Rings Trilogy in 1 volume with a really nice paper jacket. On another shelf is Just A Geek and I'll prolly put other biographical type books there. On the shelf with the pictures of Mom and Dad is "Princes of Ireland" which has a gorgeous paper jacket. As the rest of that series comes out I'll be adding them to the shelf.
OK, so I know I haven't posted Sunday...but I did Monday mostly at the airport waiting for our plane so it's done...and if you're a total masochist, read on!
Monday
I get up a bit before 9. Glenn’s been up for awhile. When I stumble out I mention that the breakfast buffet closes earlier since it’s a weekend. I’m thinking that since it is open till 10:30 on Saturday and Sunday it closes at 10 on Monday. Oops, I check the guest services page…it closes at 9. Glenn has about 2 minutes to get downstairs and grab some food for the two of us, I don’t have time to get even halfway presentable. He heads out and I grab a smoke while reading the Appendices of JAG. He’s back pretty quickly with two plates of scrambled eggs and bacon. Joy! We eat, I post a little blurb on the Soapbox (www.soapbox.wilwheaton.net) about the trip and we start talking about checking out and getting to the airport. Glenn and I have yet to call the airport in advance on any trip we’ve made. We had heard that American had a major computer glitch the other day that grounded them for a while. I should have realized that it would be a good idea to call or check the website for our flight info. I didn’t do that however. We take our time, I take a shower, do the hair thing, pack everything into my check through luggage but my laptop and my purse. Around 11:30 Glenn says, lets go. Check out is at noon (again, Embassy Suites is the all around winner with a check out time that makes sense) but it won’t hurt to go ahead and call now for a cab, buy the time we’re ready to go and the cab is here it will be noon. Check out is a breeze, the cab doesn’t take too long and we’re off to the airport. Cabby is a nice guy, gets us there fast and we head over to the sidewalk check in with our bags. There’s a party of 5 or 6 ahead of us and the guy on the computer seems to be having some trouble with them. I’m resigned to a bit of a wait. Then American employee comes up takes our bags and checks us through. “You realize that your flight is delayed. It’s scheduled to leave at 3.” Hmmm. It’s barely noon. Oh well, plenty of time to get through security which, last year, was a nightmare and we nearly missed our flight.
OK, off subject for a moment. There is a bank of slots behind us. They’re the “Wheel of Fortune” slots. Every now and then the tape of a crowd shouting “Wheel of Fortune!” plays. It’s driving me nuts. Back to the story.
We wander off in the direction of security for our designated gate, D, and on the way we do some shopping. I bought a tee shirt for Erin at the Hilton…it has a cute little cartoon Vulcan with “Live Long and Prosper” printed under him giving the Vulcan hand salute. She is probably going to think I’m the biggest dork and may not wear it, but I loved it, so that’s what she gets. I hadn’t found anything to get Matt so I was looking thru the stores for his gift. We finally get to a Mr. Boxers store and I get him a pair of long jammie pants with a Las Vegas waistband and lots of loud colorful decks of cards printed on it. It’s totally Vegas . I jam the jammies in my purse and we’re off to the security gate. My shoes set off the alarm and I remove them. Meanwhile Glenn gets the full wand treatment over at his gate. I run over to pick up his stuff, get on the wrong side of the table and the security people start demanding that I go to the other side. It takes a few repeats for me to 1) hear it and 2) realize they’re talking to me. What would be wrong with getting someone’s attention? No, they just keep repeating themselves from several feet away. What if I was completely deaf? Would they decide to tazer me or something? Morons.
Glenn gets through his ordeal and we catch the tram across to the D terminal. At the terminal we see a restaurant and bar and decide to stop for a drink and snack. I get a frozen strawberry daiquiri and Glenn gets a Pina Colada. My first sip of the daiquiri is completely rum. Stir! The next sip is from the top and better, but it gives me a wicked brain freeze. (btw, I’m sitting in the smoking lounge as I type this one handed. It’s slow! Ok, done with the cig, back to gate D8 lounge, more on that in sequence) This one hurts all the way down my spine and then under my lungs to my chest. Damn! This passes and I slow down on the sips for a bit. We munch on chips with either salsa or guacamole and Glenn gets a second Pina Colada.
All done. We wander down to our gate, D11. There is a flight to Dallas that was supposed to leave at noon. They’re delayed to 2:30 and we can’t find a seat in the gate area. We wander down to D8, find a seat near a power source and up go the laptops. So I’m writing this real time. I was working on the Friday entry when rain started pouring down outside and I wanted to skip to now. It is pouring hard and there’s enough water on the runway for the falling drops to make a considerable splash. It doesn’t last too long and as I’m writing this the sun has come out and the runway is starting to dry off.
Announcements about the Dallas flight that was delayed contain the information that the flight maintenance folks need to check and possibly fix the air-conditioning. Great, wonder how much longer that’s gonna delay things. Glenn has found a wireless signal and he’s surfing the net. I figure I’ll just write ‘til my battery power runs out. Oh, yeah, I packed my power cord in Glenn's check-through bag. Doh! Guess we didn’t need to worry about finding a power source. I’ve got enough battery for about 2 hours so that should be long enough.
Turns out the a/c problem is in a different Dallas flight then the one at our gate. I don’t breathe a sigh of relief, however, that would be tempting the fates. So I’m practically up to real time on this. I mentioned the smoke break above and we’ve moseyed down to the now open seats at the correct gate. The passengers for the previous flight are all onboard their plane. I still see luggage going on board so a 3:00 departure for us seems unlikely. Erin has finally arrived home, left me a message with a request for a composition book, something chocolate and a cherry Coke. Sounds like she wants to journal her trip too .
Glenn sees a plane start moving in. It’s going to gate D8 but he thinks maybe it’s our plane. He’s right, we have to move gates. I pick up our stuff and we move to the new gate. People are starting to come off the plane, we’ll be boarding soon. Time to shut down. Dang, I was just getting on a roll back up at Friday
The flight home is uneventful, as is the ride to the long term lot, the drive home. It’s good to be home with the kids and the cats. Erin has great stories to tell about her visit to Chicago, Matt has taken very good care of the home and the kitties. He also called in every day to let us know all was well. Now I just need to finish writing about Sunday!
Saturday
Saturday morning we get up early enough to get a nice breakfast. The weekend hours are 6:30 to 10:30, I think we went down around 8 hoping to beat the rush. It was not crowded at all. There were families and quite a few military people in uniform. Looked like Air Force or Air National Guard. I didn’t ask. After we ate we went back to the room. The only thing we had today were tickets to the 7pm Cirque du Soleil show called Zumanity at the New York, New York hotel.
We set up the laptops and got busy reading email, posting on the Soapbox and I wrote my Thursday story. Around noon we were ready to go out. We walked to the Monorail stop at the Convention Center. The desk clerk had said that the station was less than 5 minutes away on foot, a long block. She was right and it didn’t take long to get there.
We rode to the MGM Grand stop and got out, walked through the casino and out to the Strip. Glenn had been looking at the various Las Vegas information guide magazines and we agreed that seeing the Shark exhibit at Mandalay Bay would be cool. The walk from the MGM to Mandalay Bay isn’t too bad because you take the walkway over the strip to reach Excalibur and then there’s a tram that takes you there. We wander through the casino and find the Shark exhibit area “Shark Reef” is the actual name.
There is a pretty long line on one side of the huge area to which the signs had directed us and another long line on the other side of the room. We get in the first line as it is the one that leads to the ticketing window. I hear a guy in front of us say to his female companion that she needs to go stand in the other line as that’s the one for entrance to the venue once you have your ticket. If she stands there they’ll be closer to the entrance by the time he gets the ticket. She goes. This sounds like a good plan to me. I share the plan with Glenn. He’s all for it as well. I go stand in the other line.
Meanwhile a young woman in a bikini top and sarong walks over to the line I’m heading for. Moments later a huge blue parrot lands on her arm. Across the hall is a large cage with other tropical birds and another young lady in a similar costume waits for a while then the parrot flies back to her. The gals give some seeds to youngsters and the parrot eats them out of the children’s hands. Behind me someone is talking about buying birds at swap meets, hand taming them, etc. The line moves very slowly. By the time Glenn shows up with the tickets I’ve moved about half the length of the line forward. We have another 10 or 15 minute wait until we get inside.
Inside it is cool and damp. We see various tanks with different fish, eels, rays. Further on there are two pythons. Around the bend is a tank with piranhas. This one is interesting. It is open at the top. A true moron could stick his (or her) hand right inside. A uniformed guard is standing a bit behind us watching. The tank is crowded with piranhas, looks like the crowd around a 70% off shoe sale, jostling for positions. These ugly things really do have evil looking teeth! I joke to Glenn that I wonder when it’s feeding time; that would be a show. We pass a tank that goes well above our heads. There are small sharks and other fish. Then we enter a cave-like tunnel that leads to a petting pool which has small ray fish flattening themselves against the sandy bottom. I walk around and notice that there are a few of them who are buried in the sand and only their eyes and bits of fins are showing. One ray starts flapping up against the side, splashing water out of the pool to much yelping from girls and boys nearby.
There is a huge cylindrical tank of jellyfish that just fascinates me, Glenn takes a picture. The next area is the big shark tank. There is a hammerhead and a sawtoothed shark as well as many ‘normal’ looking sharks, the list on the website is rather extensive and I don’t know which of them is in this tank versus the other tanks we have passed with smaller sharks. (The list is: blacktip reef sharks, whitetip reef sharks, bonnet-head sharks, nurse sharks, sand tiger sharks, sandbar sharks, zebra sharks, white spotted bamboo sharks, port jackson sharks, lemon sharks).
We finish the tour and I need to use the bathroom. We have to walk back to the petting pool area to use the bathroom. I walk into the ladies room. There is a sound track playing. It is a splashing, burbling sound like gentle waves. If I hadn’t needed to go I would definitely need to now, and since I already had to go with a small amount of urgency this made it even more critical to get into a stall as soon as possible. Looking back it’s actually pretty funny. While I was there I had no sense of humor at all about it.
We leave through the merchandising area, do a little poking around through the souvenirs and then head off back to the main hotel/casino area. Glenn mentions that there is a new facility at Mandalay called “THEhotel” so we strike off in that direction to see what it’s like. There are upscale shops, lots of marble and dark wood. A lounge with big leather club chairs catches our eye and we sit down for a drink. Pina Colada for Glenn (surprised?) and a Tequila Sunrise for me. We notice that there is a room just beside our table and it’s got 2 pool tables. Glenn has recently taken up pool pretty seriously, he has his own very nice cue and has taken a clinic and become a member of a local pool establishment. He and I decide to wander into the room to see what it’s like. The tables are very nice with a camel colored felt and beige chalk instead of blue. We get our drinks and mine is very strong and I haven’t had much to eat. Actually, nothing since breakfast.
After the drinks we move back out through the Mandalay Bay casino (rather tipsily in my case) we were thinking about going back to our hotel to change for the evening show but I decide against it. We walk through Luxor and Excalibur to the Strip and then across to New York, New York. We wander through the New York, New York casino and don’t see any slots under a car. I should digress and explain. Glenn indulges my desire to lose money on Quarter slots if and only if I play them at the machines that have a car as the big jackpot. In many casinos there are sport Beemers and Mercedes, convertible Mustangs, etc. as the jackpot prize. Since there are no cars in NY, NY we go across to Monte Carlo. We find a car and play for a short while but between my hunger and not having a fun time at these particular slots we decide to get dinner.
We wander around and find a Pub and Microbrewery and get a table. I get out the paperwork for the ticket will call to check on when we need to get back. Oops. If we don’t pick up our tickets an hour before the show we can lose them and they’ll be given to the stand-by crowd. The show starts at 7, we have to pick up the tickets by 6 and it’s about 5:20. Waitress, we need that food to-go!
We grab our styrofoam containers and walk briskly out of the Monte Carlo. We exit a different door than we entered and we have to walk down the street to get back to the strip to cross to the New York, New York. We enter the door that advertises the theatre and the Zumanity show’s venue as well. Glenn takes a table just across from the ticket counter, it’s about 5:35 and I go grab our tickets. Glenn goes to get some ketchup, salt and drinks so I start in on my dinner. We ordered the same thing, a thinly sliced steak wrap. I start in on mine and discover something amazing. Modern science has created beef with NO TASTE WHATSOEVER!!!! Even the mushrooms, peppers and onions in the wrap are tasteless. I eat the garlic fries just so I have something to taste. I eat the apple and orange slices for the same reason. I’m tempted to eat the styrofoam.
We were told that the doors opened at 6:15 and they wanted us seated at 6:30. I don’t really understand why but we wandered over around 6:10. A usher type person told us to just move to the area infront of the doors and they’d open shortly. We moseyed up and stood around for a bit, wandered into the gift shop then wandered out. A semi-line had formed outside the two sets of doors. We just stood off to the side of the gift shop near one of the lines. Glenn noted that there was a couple ‘in line’ that was not happy that we were crashing the line. This puzzled me. We’re being let in 45 minutes early. We ALL HAVE ASSIGNED SEATS. What was their issue? We finally are let inside and we go to the usher who escorts us to our seat. The angry couple is taken up to a balcony row seat. Glenn and I have a ‘duo couch’ (like a loveseat) that’s very close to the stage off to the side which didn’t make for the best view but it certainly wasn’t bad since so much of the Cirque du Soleil is in 3 dimensions. Did it make any difference to that couple that we didn’t queue up at the back? Sheesh.
Zumanity is an adult audience only erotically themed show. It was, um, interesting. If you have seen Cirque perform you know that their family shows feature amazing acrobatics and flying artists, humorous acts (not really clowns but their version of clowning) it’s hard to describe and wonderful to watch. Zumanity takes all of the same talents and half the costumes. Glenn went to the bar and got me a Merlot and himself a Zumanitini (shaken not stirred). I’ve had much better Merlot and somehow the plastic cup doesn’t help, but it was ok. The MC is a raunchy gravel voiced person dressed as a female but who knows. There is a dwarf or midget, little person?, who is incredibly buffed out and a talented flying artist. Since they don’t use a traditional trapeze I don’t know what else to call the performers who do the aerial work. I don’t want to spoil anyone’s surprise at the show if they’re going so I won’t go into anymore detail, suffice it to say the warm up to the show is a lot of fun, there are several interesting acts and the ending really took Glenn and I by surprise. We were very glad we went and now we want to see O at the Bellagio really badly!
After the show we weren’t ready to head home, it was barely 9:30. Glenn wanted to go to the Stratosphere. That’s the Las Vegas version of the Seattle Space Needle. There’s a revolving restaurant and bar as well as a roller coaster at the top. We need to get back to the monorail and take it to the northernmost station at the Sahara then walk to the Stratosphere from there. Just outside the MGM station there’s a little frozen drink stand that sells daiquiris and margaritas and, yes, Pina Coladas. Glenn gets the tall one, it’s about 18 inches high. At the monorail station the security person tells us we can’t take the drink aboard. Glenn tries to drink fast. Gets a terrible brain freeze. Guard takes pity and gives Glenn a black trashcan bag to hide his drink in. We get onboard. Then a couple enters with some MGM souvenir glasses and they’re drinking from them. Maybe its just Coke? Right. Glenn is good though and doesn’t drink on the monorail. We hop off at the Sahara and wander through. It’s not too bad – certainly better than the SR *shudder*.
We exit through the Nascar room (yes, Nascar) and are on the street again heading towards the Stratosphere. This is not the Strip. There are tattoo shops and liquor stores, some homeless folk. It’s busy though and I don’t feel afraid. Glenn offers to marry me in the first wedding chapel we see. It’s The Chapel of the Bells and it’s just outside of the Fun City Motel. OK, I don’t know about you but this is not the wedding I’m dreaming of so I tell Glenn if he’s gonna marry me in Vegas it has to be on the bridge of the Enterprise at the Hilton. Since that costs about 3k it’s not gonna happen. Oh well. Maybe next year?
We get to the Stratosphere and find the entrance to the tower. There’s a ticket counter and it costs $9 each. On top of that there’s about an hour wait. Damn. We decide not to go for it this time.
For the last several hours I’ve had a bit of a headache (the Merlot? the dinner?) and my shoulder was aching from carrying my purse all day but my main problem was that I was wearing a new pair of shorts that I hadn’t washed first, just threw in the suitcase. This turned out to be a bad thing as the seams in the leg had chafed my thighs and this was starting to be very painful. We had stopped in the gift shop and picked up a few snacks and I bought Motrin and baby powder. I’d applied the powder in a restroom and taken the Motrin but it really wasn’t helping. There were stores at the Stratosphere so I tell Glenn we’re gonna shop for some shorts or some boxers. We went through a few clothing stores with no luck then finally found a place that had boxers. Bright poker themed boxers. I picked a medium pair thinking medium men’s would fit fine. We find a restroom and I put them on. They were skin tight and barely long enough to cover the chafed spots. Now I’m not a size 4 but I’m not huge either. Medium men’s shorts really would fit just fine. These turn out to be boy’s mediums. Oh well. We walk back to the Sahara and joke about getting tattooed, but it stays a joke and we’ve nothing to show, honest. The monorail stopped running at Midnight so we catch a cab back to Embassy Suites and turn in for the night.
To recap from last post, we've just left the Earnest Borg9 show, which was wonderful and very well attended. Even though there was an event that the show was running overtime and causing folks to have to decide to leave or be late, it seemed like very few people left. When they were done and had taken their final bows, It’s around 8pm and we decide to see if the Star Trek Experience ride has much of a line. This is what got us to Vegas in the first place 5 years ago. I explain it in my retro-story so I won’t repeat it. This year they’ve added a new attraction called the Borg Invasion in 4D. The line is too long so we decide that now is as good a time as any to go back to the *shudder* San Remo and make good our escape.
Back at the
Now I didn’t mention a few details about this morning. We hadn’t quite totally given up on the idea of staying. The room had been paid for in advance and it was cheap. (Gave me a totally new perspective on the literal meaning of cheap, actually) I called the desk and requested more towels, a hair dryer, an iron and ironing board and more pillows. Oh, and a refrigerator for my Arizona tea. Someday I may post about my obsession with Arizona Diet Green Tea. Lets just say it’s obsessive. I’ve been known to add 20lbs to my luggage just to carry enough tea to get me through the trip.
About 45 minutes later a guy comes up. There’s the iron, the blow dryer and two towels. No pillow, no ironing board, no fridge. I guess it was the final straw because that’s when we called Embassy Suites. While I was getting ready I had Glenn cancel the refrigerator ($25 a day unless you lie and say it’s for your insulin – just a friendly hint for someone who might decide to go ahead and stay at the San Remo – what are you, insane?).
Back to checking out. We finish taking our pictures to prove that we were in hell and not just making all this up. I call down to ask for a cab as the last times we went out of the hotel they surely weren’t queued up in front waiting for passengers like at the other hotels. The desk said just to come down there were taxis out front. We get downstairs and I go to the desk. A lovely gentleman in a beer tee shirt and shorts is at the desk in front of me. How much for a room? he says, $149 a night, the clerk says, I can stay at the Luxor for that price, he says, Go ahead and do that, the clerk says. He leaves. Good move, I think. I’m tempted to say out loud “The Motel 6 down the block would be cheaper and cleaner than here anyway.” But I don’t. I tell the clerk we’re leaving. She does some stuff on her computer and says “But you’re reserved and paid for 3 more nights” I explain about why we’re leaving, the room, the cricket, the lack of amenities and services. “But all you had to do was tell me and I would have gotten you a better room.” “I already was moved to a ‘better’ room,” I say. Besides, I’m thinking, you weren’t around when we had problems; it was someone else who apparently didn’t care as much. This I keep to myself as it won’t do any good and won’t provide any entertainment value either. She waives the $.75 phone call charge. Generous. I’m outta there and we do see a cab roll up. We’re off to Embassy Suites.
Oh, before I leave the San Remo forever I should mention the live music that was playing during our check in. There’s a little stage in the front of the casino/lobby. There was a 3 or 4 piece rock band and a gal singing. I have never heard such caterwauling. She had serious issues with pitch and key, they were undergoing a trial separation, perhaps? I’m guessing that she’s a relative of someone or working really cheap. Lord knows who’d pay for her otherwise.
The Embassy Suites. Cool, quiet. Low key music and a fountain in the lobby. No slot machines or other gambling accoutrements. We check in, it’s very fortunate that we called early in the morning; the hotel has been sold out since the afternoon. We get our keys and go to our room. If you’ve never been to an Embassy Suites hotel there are several great reasons to do so. Each room is truly a suite. There’s a bedroom with a door that separates it from the living area. The couch in the living area is a sofabed. There is a small table, a wet bar, microwave and refrigerator. High Speed Internet Access in the room, wireless in public areas of the lobby and 1st floor, $9.99 for 24 hrs. There is a full breakfast each morning included in the price of the room. A chef cooks omelettes to order and there are other hot buffet style servings of pancakes, bacon, sausage, hash browns and scrambled eggs. These are not sitting out cold and infrequently attended, they are behind a service counter where a chef dishes them out. My eggs were fluffy and tasty, the bacon hot and cooked pretty well (I like them very, very crispy, but these weren’t bad). Out on the self service were muffins, pastries, English muffins and waffles, cereals, coffee, tea and juices. We ate well, but that should have been a story for Saturday…we’re still talking about Friday evening.
Glenn loved the room. I loved the room. We put out a few things we needed to get ready for bed and decided to have a quick nightcap in the bar. Glenn had a Pina Colada and I had a Strawberry Margarita. Not bad. We sat in the bar lounge for a little while but took the drinks to our room, watched a bit of the local news as we finished them and then had a great nights sleep.
Friday
Friday was actually when we landed (after midnight) and arrived at the *shudder* Hotel San Remo. After the move from 104 to 1001 we finally fell asleep and didn’t get up till around 9 am. Our plan for today was to go to the Hilton, see Wil Wheaton read from his book and then later that evening see the Earnest Borg9 comedy team do improv. Now there was a bit of a glitch in that we were not going to spend another night in the San Remo. I call Embassy Suites. Yes, they have a room. We reserve it. We decide to just leave the stuff, come back between the reading and the improv show. There is a new monorail in Las Vegas and we are across the street from the MGM Grand which has the southernmost terminal. We walk across and get on the Monorail. The Monorail goes from the MGM Grand to the Sahara and then back. There are 6 or 7 stations on the line. The system worked pretty well, isn’t too expensive and was comfortable. The only time we were in a crowded car was when the system was delayed for awhile and people had gotten backed up waiting.
The trip to the Hilton was pleasant and when we got there we registered for the convention (unlike last year I didn't leave the tickets at a bus stop), got our forearms stamped and went over to the little deli cart set up outside the dealer's room for a bite to eat. As I mentioned we got into town after midnight and hadn’t eaten since 5 the previous day. Not wanting to risk salmonella we didn’t eat at San Quenti…uh, the San Remo so I was very hungry. After a nice ham sandwich and chips we noticed that people were starting to file into the meeting room where Wil Wheaton (Stand by Me and Star Trek, The Next Generation “Wesley Crusher”) would be reading from his book Just A Geek. We followed the gathering crowd into the room. There was someone already there finishing up a talk on collectables as well as doing a little “Antiques Roadshow” for the Trek collector by giving folks some idea of the value of their collectables. Meanwhile the room is beginning to fill up.
Finally the roadshow ends and Wil comes to the stage. He’s wearing his converse sneakers, jeans and an Earnest Borg9 tee shirt. He looks fairly fresh for someone who drove up from LA (www.wilwheaton.net for his blog of the trip) and kicks things off by immediately sitting down to read. No canned talk, no Q&A, which is fine with me, just a little promo for the Borg9 group.
He begins with a passage early in his book, it’s about how he had an encounter with a waitress at Hooters who said “didn’t you used to be…” I won’t give a blow by blow of the reading but he really connected with the audience. He, as an actor, performs the reading with his voice and his face. I’ve heard author read audiobooks and many are a bit flat. Authors don’t train to speak, they write. I’ve also heard actors read works they didn’t write and although they are beautifully spoken I haven’t had the experience that they connected with the work at a very deep place in themselves. Wil, in my opinion, did a wonderful synthesis of author/actor. At one point Wil got a bit choked up, he’s still very close to the work and not ashamed to share that with his audience. It’s a truly great experience because it seems like he isn’t holding back anything. I’m very happy to be in the audience; I think I’ll be able to say, “I was there back when!” when Mr. Wheaton is a “Big Deal Author” someday.
Right near the end of his reading, he’s up doing something from Dancing Barefoot “Saga of Sponge Bob Vegaspants” when there’s a commotion in the back of the room. A voice calls out “would you finish up in here and let these folks come here me speak?” It’s Brent Spiner (played Data the android crew member on Star Trek with Wil, sat beside him in a number of episodes as Wil was flying the ship). Anyway they exchange some good natured words that I’m missing because I’m struggling with my new digital camera. I get it out of the purse and up but I can’t figure out how to get it to work fast enough to get a shot. Damn. I press the button and press it again, but it’s not flashing. I try holding it down, also wrong. Ah, f* it.
By the way, I have issues with the damn thing until Glenn finally tells me for the 3 millionth time how to do it, that’s on Saturday night as we’re heading to the Stratosphere. I caught quite a few shots of him looking at me disgustedly as I take the pictures wrong but get a shot…I’m sure by this time next year I’ll have it figured out but for the remainder of the trip I’m able to get the thing to take a picture if there’s time to do it slowly.
Wil finishes the book, gets a rousing round of applause and we all file out. Most of us wander across to the ‘big stage’ to hear Spiner. He does a very short warm up but goes almost immediately to questions. I think he’s a bit tired of some of the questions because he doesn’t answer a few. We leave before he’s done. I’m thinking that if we do that we’ll get to Wil’s booth for a signed copy of his book before the crowd that went to see Spiner gets out and makes waiting the line a marathon event.
I was on the money. When we get there the line has 5 or 6 people ahead of us and the wait isn’t too bad. There’s a young woman in front of me that looks a bit like one of the British Soapbox members, I ask her, no, she’s not. Glenn is not happy but I’m to extroverted to be ashamed or embarrassed. So “nyah nyah.” Anyway he wanders around a bit and the line moves up one more, then one more. He comes back and we’re in front of Wil now. I hand him a book and explain that it’s from a fellow Monkey from the Soapbox and I’ve bought an autograph ticket, etc. etc. Then I let him know I need to purchase 2 books and tell him the name of the other Soapbox Monkey. Finally I say the last one is for Glenn and I. He’s signing and being very gracious, he even apologises for not posting as much as usual. For goodness sake, he’s got a lot going on. I try to say in my most facetious tone possible “Oh yes, we’re very upset about that” and then ask if he’d sign my convention program as well as sell us a couple of WWDN tee shirts. He jokes with us that the money we’ve spent will feed his family and not just any old thing, but a really nice night out. I wish I had a better memory or that I had gotten around to writing this sooner (it’s really hard to take time out for this in Las Vegas…we got in well after midnight every night) He was a bit puzzled that he couldn’t find an XL tee shirt…lots of mediums. He finally goes through an entire box and comes up with a large. Glenn picks up the tab on the tee’s. The one thing I did want though and Glenn didn’t get was a picture of Wil signing the books or talking with me. oh well, there’s always next year!
Now we have several hours to kill. First we eat at Quark’s bar. I won’t go into details about what that is or who Quark is. I will eventually finish my story about last year’s con and it does mention those facts. Our waiter is a real character, he’s got his patter down and has little factoids to share. He’s great fun. The story about the Flaming Targ Ribs is great…’tastes like baby back ribs’ and they set them aflame at your table. Glenn has the hamborg-er and I have the Kahless salad (it’s a Caesar) and the Steak Picard. He tells me the Kahless is a full sized dinner salad and offers to make me a half serving, for which I am very grateful. Then we get to watch him do his act at a couple other tables before he serves our meal. He also chats a bit with us, tells us we should have the OoMac dessert (another Ferengi in-joke) but we pass, get our checks and head back to the *shudder* San Remo detention hotel for serial offenders since Glenn’s not feeling so well. I pack, he naps. I take pictures of the squalor. I get Glenn up with barely enough time to make it back to the Hilton for the Borg9 show (we’re thinking). When we arrive back at the Hilton and go to the auditorium there’s a film clip being run and we realize we didn’t have to hurry. We get fair seats and settle in. One of the Star Trek people, Judy something, is talking about props. She has some interesting stuff to share, takes some questions and then it’s time for Borg9.
Wil and the troupe come onstage. There is a keyboard player, Wil two other guys and two gals. They do game improvs and some sketches then at the end there’s a bit where Wil leaves the room and we set up his next improv. He’s supposed to guess where he is, what crime he’s committed and who his ‘accessory’ in crime is. Someone chooses the Ice Planet Hoth (Star Wars) as the locale, another person shouts out Ashley Judd as his accessory and finally the crime is ripping the tag off a mattress. I should digress a bit to explain the Ashley Judd choice. Back on TNG Wil has an episode where Ashley plays Robin Lefler and they kiss. It’s a trekkie thing. Anyway they do the skit and I get a few shots of Wil. The other thing about the evening is that Wil is wearing ‘the shirt’ which is a red shirt with some embroidery in white down the front. This is one of his favorite shirts I guess as it gets mentioned quite a bit by people on the Soapbox as in “and he wore The Shirt” anyway the entire group was quite clever and funny. We’re glad we came.
Another quick digression…my mind just wanders aimlessly, deal with it. One of the games they did was “Worst thing…” and the set up was what is the worst thing you can say at a ST Con? Very early on one gal says “Where’s Princess Leia?” gets a laugh and she throws it out a few more times in the show. Later Glenn and I are walking through the area in the Hilton that is all done in the Star Trek theme and we pass a group of young ladies. One of them is staring intently at her convention program. “Why isn’t there anyone from LOTR?” she says. And yes, she says the letters L O T R instead of Lord of the Rings. I don’t see this but I hear it clearly, as another girl says in a voice completely dripping in scorn “Because this is a Star Trek Convention” she leaves unsaid the final epithet which I KNOW she’s thinking, “Moron!” It becomes doubly funny after having been at the Borg9 show. Well, to me anyway.
There's more to come for Friday but it's about Vegas not the Con. I tried to get this up as quickly as possible, there's editing I need to do (spell check too!) but for the one or two Soapboxers who might stumble across this I wanted to get as much of the Wil story up as I could before I stumble off to bed...which is where I'm heading now!