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Done recently (20110113 Th)
0113 Th * up 7:40; W=199.2; drugs, nose; coffee, C; laundry, dishes @ In praise of the sci-fi corridor - Den of Geek via billroper * last-minute packing: * CPAP, * meds, * SAD light * new tag on Plink; "Savitzky" in marker on Hartmann bag * brought my car back from way the hell-and-gone up the block * 15min: Actually, it ought to be /users/steve/Config, oughtn't it? moved, symlinked ~/Config to /users/steve * running a last load of laundry, with one bed pad. Two are packed. * attach cotter pin to walker rack (1/4" nylon rope, bolines on both ends) * finally tracked down a collapsable laundry hamper * copied scooter info forms; filled out the two we need for this trip @ Little Screen, Big Document - IEEE Spectrum @RicohInnovation * Ali will take us to the airport ~11; arriving about 10:30 * Las Vegas ADULT STEPHEN SAVITZKY XQMKDE 00000449453373 ADULT KAREN SAVITZKY DEPART JAN 13 Thursday, January 13, 2011 Travel Time 1 h 25 m #2588 Depart San Jose, CA (SJC) 12:50 PM Arrive in Las Vegas, NV (LAS) 2:15 PM Hotel: Excalibur: conf# 15819996635 via Hotels.com Incidental Charges: Hotel requires a credit card for incidental charges. There is an extra person charge of $20. A resort fee of $12.50 per room per night includes fitness center access, two bottle waters each day, free daily newspaper, free incoming faxes, free wired internet access in guest room, free guest welcome reception in the casino floor lounge, unlimited local telephone calls, toll free and domestic long distance domestic calls. The resort fee listed above does not include tax. Some resorts also apply room tax to their resort fee. : Sat next to a woman with a service dog being checked out on her first flight; the woman is a professional service dog transporter. Pretty dog; part beagle. = room 4134 * buffet in the Excalibur; out for an explore to the Luxor % aha: Now that I've realized that my problem is empathy overload and not fear of being embarrassed, I've gotten much better at interacting with people I don't know. I often still don't know what to say, though. @ elf: Geek Activism!!!! 0114 * up 8:15; drugs, nose * Sang Happy Bday to N's voicemail @ osewalrus: Dating and Game Theory . N's birthday * Buffet breakfast in Mandalay Bay. Decided to skip Bally's on Sunday; this was good enough at 1/5 the price. Also decided not to go to the shark reef. Good thing; N's scooter barely made it back to the hotel. * explore to Tropicana, MGM Grand, and New York, New York. * 5:00pm dinner (we buy) Joe's Steak and Stone Crab. conf# 348605102 Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab Restaurant in Las Vegas Yummy; but C&N got a late start and then couldn't find it. Turns out the Forum Shops at Caesar's aren't owned by the same people as Caesar's. Fail. But the food was great -- it goes on the going back list. $50/person. * 7:30 Zumanity (N. buys) disappointing. No costume is no costume, nudity != burlesque, sexuality != sensuality, sex != seduction. And the humor involved embarrassment. I was ok with it but unimpressed; Colleen hated it. * bed ~11:30. snuggle 0115 Sa * up 8:15ish; drugs, nose, teeth, shower * long st/roll up to Treasure Island; back by monorail. Some confusion about which exit to use from MGM Grand. * music with TGl. I really should have brought my filkbook. * Dinner at Rainforest Cafe (MGM) with Callie. Pricy with drinks. : Colleen's scooter died near the top of the ramp coming into the hotel. -> bad connection in battery box; inverting it fixed it. Went to Walgreen's for tools, as well as panties. Forgot AAA batteries again. * splat ~11:30; snuggle 0116 Su * up 10:10; drugs, nose; honey-ginger I appear to have forgotten EmergenC. * no eyedrops needed today : The screwdriver I got at Walgreen's is totally inadequate; needs a very long shaft, like 10-12". :( * copy Great Divide, Before the Deluge to desktop from xfer * Brunch with Callie at Luxor. Yum. x 12:30 Bally's Sterling Brunch -> we'll go someplace else * Dolphin habitat and secret garden at the Mirage C took the bus; the rest of us st/rolled. Bus back. N tired after. * Dinner at Tender with Colleen - seafood, 3-soup tasting. Yum. * bought perls at the Luxor. They're real good at selling. Tahitian chocolate freshwater pendant and earings. * lost $5 at the penny slots. * bring -drive- tracks to C&N's so they can hear Great Divide and @ Before The Deluge - Jackson Browne * 11:30 over to C+n's for music; discussion of post-A tracks; breaking a really nasty feedback loop. 0117 Mo * up 6:30; @ Late for the Sky - album by Jackson Browne @ Turkey: Archeological Dig Reshaping Human History via wcg : AHA: the main reason why things went wrong is that we didn't clearly lay out goals for the trip -- the things each of us absolutely wanted to get done -- and make realistic plans for getting them all done. @ ebonypearl: Pixel Spam and keeping one's LJ open @ Post-Tea-Party Nation - NYTimes.com via The Wordsmith's Forge * 11:57 flight checkin. * noon sharp: to C+N's rm for TGl rehearsal. Colleen slept. * 3pm check out, leave for airport a little more frazzled than usual; left coins and nail clipper in pocket RETURN JAN 17 Monday, January 17, 2011 Travel Time 1 h 25 m #1076 Depart Las Vegas, NV (LAS) 4:55 PM Arrive in San Jose, CA (SJC) 6:20 PM Flight left 20min late, but uneventful flight * home. sleepy at 9:30. Should probably splat. 0118 Tu * up 6:55; W=197.2; drugs, nose, teeth; coffee, dishes, laundry, C @ The Library With No Books. Town Borrows All 16,000 : TreeHugger @ Heather Dale : Hunter : Lyrics YouTube @ As Borders Moves to the Brink, Barnes & Noble Has Best Holiday Season in Years - DailyFinance @ Little Screen, Big Document - IEEE Spectrum @ Special Report: Top 11 Technologies of the Decade - IEEE Spectrum @ 23 devices my iPhone has replaced @ Class D Audio PRODUCTS ~ 3:15 YD dentist rescheduled. She has an opth. app't, and a ride. * 6pm Avoiding =* homework: thought records. * empathy/avoiding embarassment (mine and others) feeling helpless == "I can't fix it!!" feeling uncertain/out of place/not knowing what to do => sales tax, lead sheets : T stopped by after group. ! delighted to see her She enjoyed my CD. Maybe she'll stay in touch? Gave me a little tiger-eye critter charm from her trip to Taiwan. & pick up YD and BF at Red Lobster. @ The State of The Music Industry & the Delegitimization of Artists (TuneCorner) via osewalrus: Music Sales Up for 4 straight years & dishes (putting away) * 15min: empty one suitcase (mine); bring luggage into bedroom : water too cold due to laundry; no bath. * bed ~11:30
This last weekend we went to Las Vegas and met Callie and Naomi there, celebrating our 35th anniversary and Naomi's birthday. (The joint vacation was N's idea, of course; she's good at coming up with evil schemes.) It was mostly good. Parts were very good. As it turned out, I didn't need to worry about getting enough walking in.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, of course. And when an ambitious list of "things we want to do" meets the reality of low energy levels, injuries and other physical limitations, sleeping in, missed connections, and the fact that slot machines no longer have coin slots, there are bound to be some disappointments. But it was good. The buffets were tasty and cheap, some of the restaurants we ate in were very tasty and not at all cheap, the scenery (architectural, natural, and human) was fascinating, and Cirque de Soleil's Zumanity was... interesting.
Zumanity was my first contact with Cirque; it probably wasn't a very good introduction. The acts that were supposed to be funny I found painful, and none of it was what I would consider sensual. Some of it was beautiful, though. I could have done with more of that.
The official birthday dinner was at Joe's Steak, Seafood, and Stone Crab in the Forum Shops at Caesars. It didn't help that we got a late start, went in separate cabs, and C&N ended up getting dropped off at Caesar's, a good block or so away. And owned by a different organization altogether. We had to send out a search party (i.e. me). But it was yummy.
A lot of st/rolling with Colleen. At one point Saturday night her scooter simply and suddenly died, with symptoms (including inability to charge) that indicated a bad connection in the battery box. Fortunately we were already back in our hotel (the Excalibur), and I pushed her back to the room. After calling up the house engineer with a cart-full of tools only to find that his four-in-one screwdriver was hopelessly short, I set out to Walgreen's (about 2.5 blocks away) and bought their only screwdriver set. Too short. But somehow the act of flipping the box upside down and shaking it a few times knocked the connection back together, and it held up through the rest of the weekend.
And we made some good music, especially Monday afternoon -- we extended our checkout times to 3pm so that we could have more time. I'd been afraid that Colleen would have trouble keeping herself amused, but as it turned out she needed the time to catch up on her sleep. I have half a dozen new songs to learn, and it put a great cap on a busy, exhausting, but basically good weekend.
Quite a few good links. A good 6-article series on the music industry. Among other things.
So, yeah, a good weekend for the most part, and awesome in spots. And a big success at work yesterday for the team that I'm part of. Can't say much about that, unfortunately, but it took a heck of a lot of pressure off. So I'm a well-fed and contented bear right now.