While the flight into Vegas was uneventful, my wife and I were pretty uncomfortable. I suspect that the seating on the plane had been reconfigured to get as many people on the plane as possible. Instead of having one row with two seats and an adjacent row with three seats, there were two rows with three seats each. The seats themselves seemed small, and there was hardly any legroom. My wife and I also got to experience the "new and improved" NWA, where they charge you for everything except one drink. They were selling snack boxes for $3 and a bag of trail mix for $1. I half expected someone to start passing around a hat to help save the airline, or for the flight attendants to walk around with those wicker baskets on a stick like they do at church.
We waited at least a half an hour for our luggage to come down the chute. Since the same thing happened to me last time I was here, I think the delay is done on purpose, so that you'll end up watching all of the commercials for the shows. Once we got our luggage, my wife and I went off to the National car rental, where we had to wait another twenty minutes for the people ahead of us to give up trying to rent a car without a credit card. I felt sorry for the service rep, who handled those incredibly annoying people well.
While driving in, my wife and I got to experience the traffic that builds on 95 on a moments notice. They did finish a new overpass that was underway when I was here last July, but I think they have much more road work to do to ease the congestion.
After finally arriving at the hotel @ 4:00 PM, I stopped down by the conference area and picked up my Advisor speaker material. I now have two nifty red polo shirts to add to my collection. They also gave the speakers a nice collection of snacks, which my wife and I ate almost all of them as it was now 7:00 PM our time, back in Michigan. Of particular interest where the spicy gummi peppers. Can't say that I'd ever had a spicy gummi snack before!
When I checked the speaker schedule, I notice that my speaking schedule had been changed. Instead of speaking on three times, I'm now only speaking on Monday (tomorrow). My original schedule called for me to speak on:
- Monday, 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM Introduction to XML & Domino
- Tuesday, 4:45 PM - 6:00 PM Add Agents to Domino Applications
- Wednesday, 11:15 AM - 12:30 PM Add Agents to Domino Applications
I'm now doing both presentations only once on Monday:
- Monday, 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM Introduction to XML & Domino
- Monday, 4:45 PM - 6:00 PM Add Agents to Domino Applications
The great thing about this is that after Monday, I'm free to do what I like without having to worry about speaking later in the day. So, I can see more presentations that I probably would have before. However, it is a strange feeling having been
bumped in the schedule.
My wife and I finally drove into town for dinner at 5:00 PM (8:00 PM EST). We went to the
Wynn, which I think is the best looking of the big-box casinos. We ate at the
Red 8. The pot-stickers were excellent, definitely as good as mentioned on
Rachel Ray's Tasty Travels show. My wife got a Mai Tai that was incredibly strong. I think it was 95% rum and 5% water. The Pacific Breeze I ordered was good. For entrees, my wife ordered the Pad Thai with chicken, which she really liked. The order was big enough for three people at least, and she probably would have taken the rest home if not for us being three time zones away from home. I got the Cantonese the BBQ spare ribs, which were good, but not great.
My wife and I took a walk over to
The Mirage to catch the flaming volcano bit. I actually liked it more than last time. We then walked over to
The Venetian to stroll the indoor mall. I had completely forgotten about the overwhelming odor of the place, which I now know to be a special perfume pumped through the ventilation system. When we made it to the food court I noticed that the
Krispy Kreme was actually here, not in
Ceaser's Palace, as I'd originally thought. Unfortunately, the donut line was completely dismantled, so no hot donuts for us.
At around 9:00 PM, my wife and I were getting pretty tired, so we walked back to the Wynn to pick up our car from the valet. We stopped by the Wall of Dreams exhibit, and I'd have to say that my wife and I were pretty underwhelmed. Here they go and spend all of this money, only to have an animatronic frog sing "What a wonderful world". Hmm. Must be Steve Wynn's favorite song or something. All in all, my wife had a great time during our first night together in Vegas!
Advisor Summit: Day Zero04/09/2006
