We drove a good part of Monday heading to LV. About half the way there we discovered that the folks at Western Slope Auto (local Ford dealer) left the hubs locked on the truck and the truck started to whine. We'll get them to look at it later. The sunset was quite spectacular.
Robert's work put us up in the Sahara (mebbe it'll be the next one to get imploded) and the Vagabond Inn (where we stayed in 1999) was in better shape. Of course we went looking for the Vagabond Inn and found a gaping hole in the ground where it used to be ... but back to the rest of the story.The test session was at 9:00 am and Robert left plenty early to find the room. As luck would have it about 20 minutes before the test was to start and while Robert was waiting (and having discussions)
with a few others in the room Jim (the GM of the radio stations) called to see how things were going. The test itself wasn't too bad except that there were 3 errors on the test (out of 50 questions). 2 of the questions were from other tests and the 3rd had a typo that eliminated the correct answer. We won't know the results for a couple of weeks. Being the engineering type Robert noticed the repair guy on the sign and he wasn't wearing a safety harness (OSHA requirement).We met up and hit the floors of the convention (BTW it completely takes over the LV Conv. Center and the Hilton - so that's something like 7+ million square feet of area to cover). We got to see the latest and greatest toys in audio, video, and film. Of course 90+% of it was beyond the scope of Robert's employer, but it is good to keep up with the stuff.
We joined up with a bunch of engineers for the engineering luncheon at the Riviera buffet. We met up with Larry Estlack (from Michigan) and Robert 'won' a copy of LinSpire, but they'll have to mail it - more waiting for stuff. It was here we started to collect stuff for our friend Michelle who was doggie sitting for us. We got a steel insulated mug (promo. material from DG Systems, a commercial delivery service).
We hit the floors again - this time in earnest (before lunch we only had 1 hour to look). Robert got the chance to 'harass' a couple of manufacturers that he deals with. One of them gave us a couple of fanny packs - another item for Michelle. After about 12 miles (Robert bought a pedometer just for the convention) we decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel for some rest before dinner. We hit the buffet at the Sahara (too tired to visit a different one) and it was fairly mediocre.
The second day we hit the floors again. We also got to visit the New Century Productions digital TV remote trailer, since it has the same ownership as Robert's work. It was a good thing we checked it out when we did because they were pulling it out to Caesar's for a fight that weekend. We were really putting on the miles! We're up to about 18 miles at this point. We did a late lunch at the Paris buffet. It was a bit pricey but well worth it!!!!After a nap we went back to the convention for the Ham reception. They were giving away some pretty neat stuff (if you're a ham that is). But we didn't win anything. The lunch at the Paris was enough that we didn't eat dinner. We did however lose a good chunk of the money that we went there to lose (about $10 at this point).
Day three we went looking for Susie's old co-worker from her KHOW days (or was that DAZE!?!?) Fred Baumgartner who is with a TV equip. maker - we found the company's display but Fred was busy so we met up with him later. It was a bit of a neat reunion, lots of talk about the way things were and how it's changed. This day we went to a sushi joint on the strip called RA (raw - get it?!) for lunch . Here we found the pièce de résistance of the gift set for Michelle - a package that looked like a slightly oversized pack of matches that said 'Safe Sushi' on the outside with a red condom inside. We headed back to the hotel for some R&R before doing some more wandering. We had bought a 10 ride shareable pass for the monorail so we could go back and forth a few times.
We finally got to a meeting that was not too far away, but the traffic was awful. Dinner was at the Black Bear Diner. It is a chain based in California but it had good food and lot's of it. The staff was a kick (great sense of humour).
Now we're over 26 miles - we've walked a marathon so far and it is only Thursday, but the convention is over and we didn't take any pix of it!
