Vegas, baby

My manager thinks I'm fickle and quirky - two things which I am not.

I just got back from a business trip to Las Vegas. Our company had a booth at G2E and the response was generally positive.

I was kind of dreading the trip since I had heard that there wasn't much time to have fun since we would be in business meetings at night and at the conference during the day. My manager caught pneumonia right before we left though, so we had to cancel most of our evening plans.

That turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Me and the other software engineer played poker for the first 3 nights (we would have played more, but he lost his $200 gambling budget - I won $160 overall).

We went out for a business dinner on the last night to a fancy French restaurant in the Wynn and then to a cocktail party at the House of Blues Foundation Room in Mandalay Bay. They had this awesome light show at dinner set to music. The view from the MB is incredible! Since it's at the southernmost end of the strip, you can see the entire strip from the balcony. They've also set it up so that you can't see straight down, eliminating any feelings of dizziness.

The conference itself was huge - they expected 30,000 people and had 750 exhibitors. Our booth wasn't incredibly busy so I had a chance to walk around every day. Let's see - the highlights included booth babes, Hulk Hogan, some famous poker player nicknamed "Jesus" and tons of slot machines, blackjack tables, and automated table games. Some companies opted to not advertise at all and just offered a "lounge" environment where you could get free drinks (including alcohol) and chill.

All in all, it was a pretty fun business trip. It's nice not having to pay for anything and Las Vegas is one of my favorite cities. It's also great to see the more posh side of the city that I'd never be able to experience on my own budget ;)