June 21, 2009: RJT & JMM Go to Fabulous Las Vegas, NV (Part 2)

Waking up as early as I had to that first morning in Vegas was rather difficult.  A 21 and a half hour day filled with walking, bag dragging, and jet lag had left me slightly worse for wear.  But this was a business trip, after all, and the initial session of the 2009 annual SUGA conference would be kicking off bright and early at 9 AM, meaning I had to be up with enough time to shave, shower, and get dressed.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a slow-poke when it comes to getting ready in the mornings, which is why on a typical work day I’m awake at least an hour and a half before I have to leave the house to head to the office.  It would’ve been nice if I could’ve lingered in bed for another couple of hours, if only to allow my body to recuperate from the temporal shift we’d experienced while crossing time zones.  More than anything I was just plain tired, and that’s an incredibly odd feeling to have after waking up from close to 7 hours of rest.  The expression “catching up on my sleep” is a popular one even though I’m fairly certain, especially after this trip, that it’s impossible to do.

I dragged myself out of bed and reluctantly got made up so that I’d be suitably armored to face the day.  There’s a point made to conference attendees by way of registration materials that business casual attire is expected throughout the conference.  I don’t want to say that whoever made this decision is an idiot, but the fact of the matter is that they’re precisely that.  95° temperatures and dress clothing go together about as well as Klingons and Romulans (if you don’t get that reference, shame on you).  A fair number of conference attendees ignored this suggestion.  Apparently their department heads weren’t traveling with them – mine was.

Allow me a brief aside while we’re on the subject of clothing as it relates to the workplace.  People have told me in the past that I “clean up well”.  To that I’ll say this: I’m always clean, I just happen to prefer the comfort of a pair of jean shorts and a t-shirt to khakis and a button-down polo.  Dress clothing, even of the casual variety (if you ask me, there is no such thing as “casual” when it comes to business attire – it’s all impractical tripe as far as I’m concerned), is extremely uncomfortable to me.  My body type would best be described as “slightly irregular”, and not many clothiers specialize in fitting my needs all that well.  On top of that, I don’t get its purpose in relation to my line of work.  I and my co-workers deal with PCs, servers, and printers every day and we have no contact with the public.  Thusly, the notion of the lot of us having to sit around our cubicles in our Sunday best with no one to impress but each other is quite perplexing.  On the other hand, I can see how a businessman or a salesperson working constantly in front of their customer base would need to look snazzy.  People expect that kind of thing because no one wants to buy a car, a house, or anything else from some schlub wearing wrinkly clothes with unkempt hair looking like he hasn’t shaven in a week.  However, that’s the guy you more than likely want working on your IT related issues because I’d be willing to bet you dollars to donuts that he can debug a Java applet, deploy that new billing server your company ordered 3 months ago, then turn around and tell you that the reason your spiffy new copier/scanner/fax machine won’t print is because it was never associated with the correct workgroup.

Quick, someone kick the soapbox out from under me before I get too comfortable here!

The conference sessions are a lot like classroom instruction in that you have a presenter – usually a Sungard employee, either a developer or someone who works in support – who leads the course (and by “leads the course”, I mean they flip through a PowerPoint presentation while class attendees try to stay awake until the final slide).  For the most part, we learn about existing support issues, product updates, and the future direction of Sungard’s development path.  I’ve found that what you get out of these sessions depends greatly on how knowledgeable you are with the applications they’re focused upon beforehand because most of them don’t seem to be geared towards basic users.  Case in point, when I attended my first conference I knew close to squat about the Public Safety product (even though supporting the CAD – Computer Aided Dispatch – system was to be my primary function within our operation) and I knew just slightly more than that when I came back to work the following week.  Be that as it may, as a novice you do pick up on a lot of terminology from being involved in these sessions.  What I found most helpful then and still do now are the labs wherein you can get actual hands-on experience with the product.  The downside is that the labs are the most popular sessions offered and most of them fill up quickly, making pre-registration a must.

When you register for these conferences you can opt into a program that allows you to earn continuing education credits, and yes, Sungard’s training and development division will send you a certificate of completion via email once you’ve successfully finished a class (that makes it sound more impressive than it actually is seeing as how you get a certificate just for showing up; they track attendance via your conference name badge, which is labeled with a barcode that can be scanned into the registry of each course). I haven’t yet figured out what these credits are good for but I’ve gotten quite a few of them over the past two years.  Maybe after two more years of regional and national conferences, they’ll present me with a full-blown diploma I can hang on my cubicle wall.

Walking through these hotels to their conference centers, you can always tell the people who are SUGA attendees because you get a bag (as in a messenger bag or some other style of knapsack) with your registration materials, and almost everyone uses them to tote around their notebooks, pens, or what have you.  The bags are more identifiable than the conference name badges, and they were especially so for this conference because of their color scheme being red and black, but mostly red.  I’m sure that to the unaware it was difficult to tell if we were carrying around important notes or if we were all equipped with first aid kits.

I’d learned during this year’s Mid-Atlantic SUGA that the national SUGA board would be holding a competition culminating at the Annual conference to decide upon a new logo for SUGA which would be used in publications, on the web, and become something of a brand identity for the association.  I would never claim to be a classically trained artist as my abilities in the realm of design are completely self-acquired (I started off making wrestling posters with MS Paint and eventually worked my way up to Photoshop), but I do have to toot my own horn in saying that I feel like I can create quality digital renderings for someone who’s never taken so much as a single class involving modern graphics tools like Photoshop and Quark. (This ability of mine has been recognized by some folks in our operation, and I’ve jokingly referred to myself as being the “art department” when someone comes calling for anything graphics-related.) My interest was piqued at the possibility of my work being used on such a grand scale, but I lost sight of the project when I got back to the office as there was actual work to be done.  I thought of the contest a week prior to the national conference and hurriedly tried to flesh out some ideas while simultaneously trying to find out if I should even bother – obviously it wouldn’t be worth my while to go through the development process if it was too late to submit entries (to my credit, there was no cut-off date mentioned with the announcement at the Mid-Atlantic conference).  I never heard back from our Mid-Atlantic SUGA president (who, at the time, was an employee here in our operation) about the due date, leading me to take my query straight to the National SUGA president.  He replied but by then it wound up that the due date had already passed.  Nevertheless, he allowed me to submit my entries.  This was the lesson wherein I learned why you don’t contact someone on the bottom of the proverbial totem pole with a matter that should be directed at the top of it.

I submitted 11 designs; that’ll sound like a lot until I tell you that some of them were variants of a single concept (case in point, I had one logo that I spun off into a total of 6 different permutations).  There were two that I didn’t feel came out as well as I’d hoped, however I included them anyway because you never know – what I might think is mediocre they might think is first rate.  The three that I felt most strongly about are these.

This association being linked with Sungard, I tried to keep with their established color scheme.  It seemed only natural, and this is why they each feature the same shades of blue as well as black.  That was a risky decision on my part seeing as how the board may have wanted to distinguish the group from its corporate affiliate – personally, I’m a fan of consistency which is why I stuck to what came before.  The one in the middle I call The Crescent because of the shape wrapping around the main text.  This one was my personal favorite, although there was strong support in my office for the third image, that being Sunrise. (If you’re wondering, the stick figures in this image are an idea culled from graphics in some of Sungard’s applications.) Sungard uses the slogan “Connect the Community” in their marketing materials and this was my inspiration for Tubes, the first entry (this was the design that allowed for 5 other takes; fairly versatile, that one).

The entries that would be finalists in the running were supposed to have been displayed at the conference registration desk at the beginning of the week, but they weren’t shown until later on during one of the business luncheons. (As a conference attendee, you don’t necessarily have to attend these luncheons; however it’s expected that you will because if you don’t eat the meals that are provided you won’t be compensated via a stipend for the cost of whatever food you do purchase since the meals are included in the registration fees.) I’d started to lose interest in the matters of the SUGA board, but my ears perked up when I heard it was time to show the designs that would potentially represent SUGA.  The presenter (one of the SUGA national board members, I forget who) flipped to a slide containing the finalists, and not surprisingly none of my entries were there.

It’s impossible for me to say this without sounding pompous, but the chosen logos were rather lackluster.  One of them looked like a knock off of the Sprint-NEXTEL logo (curved yellow shapes surrounding black lettering), another was an image of the Earth with two arrows coming out of it (no idea where the inspiration for that came from), and the third was simply “S.U.G.A.” on a colorized field with the associations’ full name underneath.  As of this writing, I do not know which logo was chosen, nor do I particularly care to find out.  If there had been one that I felt was superior to my offerings or at least worthy of getting behind, I’d have supported it whole-heartedly.  These weren’t, much to my disappointment, and as such I didn’t cast a vote.

My schedule for the next two days (the conference ran from Tuesday to Friday but I only attended sessions through Thursday since our flight out of town was scheduled for early Friday morning) was fairly similar to that of Tuesday – up early to go to class and then in classes from roughly 9 AM until 3 PM.  I enjoyed the conference but what I was really looking forward to were the afternoon and evening hours when my girlfriend and I would get to go out on the town and hopefully find out just what’s so fabulous about “fabulous Las Vegas, NV”.

Each day as we left the hotel, we would indulge the gambler in both of us by throwing a dollar into a penny slot machine.  Before we arrived in Vegas, I had entertained the thought of playing a few hands of blackjack, just to have had the experience.  But once we got there and I saw people laying down $25, $50, $100, or more for a single hand I quickly withdrew those delusions of grandeur.  The penny slots were fun and while not big on returns they proved to be fruitful for my girlfriend but not so much for me.  I spent about $5 total during the week and she did the same, but she won back all of hers plus a little more.  The only thing I won was a $25 VISA gift card that was given away during our Mid-Atlantic regional SUGA luncheon meeting – so much for my becoming a high roller, I guess.

Tuesday afternoon, we were headed north on the Las Vegas strip with our first stop being Madame Tussaud’s Interactive Wax Museum located inside the Venetian hotel.  This location is one of several of Tussaud’s wax museums scattered across the US, Europe, and other parts of the world.  It features a wide range of iconic figures be they from popular culture, history, or infamy (I’ve read that one of Tussaud’s locations features a “Chamber of Horrors”) reproduced in wax.  The level of detail captured by many of these statues is remarkable, although I will say that some of them only slightly resembled their fleshy counterparts.  We both enjoyed seeing a reproduction of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, my girlfriend especially got a kick out of one set that involved Brad Pitt standing before an altar dressed to get married, and I was quite fond of a scene featuring golfing legends Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods.  I noticed in a video playing near the entrance of the museum that there appeared to be what looked like a Master Chief statue somewhere in the facility, and of course my being the HALO nut that I am I was quite antsy about seeing this figure up close.  Much to my disappointment, I would find out that the Master Chief had been moved to their Amsterdam location.  Even so, this was quite an enjoyable experience as being close to these figures was probably about as near as I’ll ever get to meeting the real things.

Next on the docket was dinner at the NASCAR Café, which strangely enough is positioned inside the Sahara.  The idea of a NASCAR themed attraction inside a hotel mimicking Arabia seemed odd to me – that was until I thought about how many petroleum products are consumed during an average NASCAR event and suddenly it all made sense.

To get to the Sahara we first walked back to Harrah’s.  There’s a monorail system that connects several of the hotels on the eastern side of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harrah’s contains one of the monorail stations (as well as Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill restaurant).  A three-day pass for the monorail cost us $28 each; not a bad price considering how much cab fare would’ve been for similar trips up and down the strip.

We were whisked off to the Sahara in a matter of minutes, made our way inside and found the NASCAR Café.  As you might expect, the NASCAR Café is centered on all-things NASCAR.  We had a NASCAR Café here in South Carolina in Myrtle Beach, but it closed a year or so ago (I wasn’t surprised to see it go; it was overpriced and the food was not worth what you’d pay for it).  At the entrance to the restaurant you’re greeted by a pair of aging stock car replicas, one of Tony Stewart’s old Pontiac Grand Prix and another of Dale Earnhardt’s black #3 Goodwrench Chevrolet Lumina.  There’s also a “Wall of Shame” nearby where pictures of people who have tried – and failed – to eat their 6 pound burrito (yes, you read that right) have been posted.  On a good day I could probably eat the thing, but I really did not feel up to taking on 6 pounds of meat, cheese, guacamole, and Lord only knows what else that particular afternoon.  Instead, we dined first upon an appetizer of onion rings (they serve them on a spit with cups of dipping sauces underneath), and my lady followed it up with a Philly cheese steak sandwich while I had the fish & chips.  Tasty sports bar selections all around and some of my favorites at that.

Once we were finished, we tried out our driving skills in a NASCAR simulator.  I don’t think it simulated things all that accurately because I was driving along at one point when my car took a sudden and direct right-hand turn into the track’s retaining wall.  After that, we wandered outside and took in the sights around that part of the strip – including the Stratosphere, a picturesque sunset, and a rollercoaster that winds through the Sahara – before we set off to walking the length of Las Vegas Boulevard that lay between there and Harrah’s.  Measuring a little more than 2 miles, it would be one of the longer sustained walks that we’d make throughout the week.

Fortunately by then the sun had gone down, making for much more comfortable conditions.  The temperature drops somewhat dramatically at night in Las Vegas.  You’re likely to see a 30 degree swing from the mid-nineties when the sun is at its highest point in the sky all the way down to the sixties once it has set.  I don’t think the season matters that much out there; you can almost always count on similar climate patterns along with little to no rain and near constant gusts of wind.

Along the way we stopped at the Circus Circus hotel as I wanted to check out the Adventuredome, its indoor amusement park.  You don’t often see “CLOSED” signs displayed in Las Vegas and I believe the only one we saw while we were there was for Adventuredome.  It’s a huge gathering of rides and attractions, and I’m assuming they have to have some downtime each day to maintain the park.  Further down the strip, we took a break in front of FASHION SHOW (I’m still not sure if that joint is a hotel, casino, mall, or what exactly; when we first saw the building we thought it was designed to look like a UFO) and had some incredibly overpriced gelato but the cool treats felt good going down against the warm evening winds.

This was the evening when I began to notice pain in my left knee.  My family has a history of knee problems; my Mom has had knee replacement surgery on both of her legs and my Aunt has had one of hers done, and I’ve made fun of the situation in the past by saying that I can’t wait until I can get something plastic in my knees.  Truth be told, after this pain flared up I started to rethink the jovial connotations.  I took a handful of Tylenol when we got back to the Rio and hoped that it would be gone in the morning.

Wednesday’s trek would prove to be the true test of our mettle as tourists.

We set out from Harrah’s and passed through the Forum Shoppes at Caesar’s Palace.  I don’t think I can give justice to the true expanse of Caesar’s Palace with words – it is a sprawling yet luscious congregation of buildings and tributes to the excesses of Rome when that once great city was at the height of its decadence.  It consumes an entire block of the strip, with the Forum Shoppes being but a single piece of the whole but still huge in their own right.

In the Shoppes we found Antiquities of Nevada, which is what I now consider to be possibly the most awesome store in the history of the world.  It’s filled with collectibles from popular culture, most of them being incredibly rare pieces in pristine condition. (There was also an Elvis impersonator singing karaoke at the entrance.) Their assemblage of autographed movie posters was stunning (to say that I was star struck over their “Star Wars” selection would be an incredible understatement), and not surprisingly there aren’t many items in their main inventory of collectibles that go for less than several thousand dollars (this was a running theme throughout the Shoppes as most of the stores there were of the ultra high-end variety).  Be that as it may, I found something that fit into my budget – a Master Chief bobble-head doll that was simply too good to turn down.

There are many statues inside the Shoppes that pay tribute to Greek culture during the time of Caesar including a fountain surrounded by effigies of their Gods such as Poseidon, Athena, and Zeus.  At the very end of the Shoppes, there is an animatronics show depicting the fall of the mythical city of Atlantis.  It’s a fairly impressive production although it doesn’t hold a candle to the sort of things you’ll see at Disney World. (I kept comparing things to Disney throughout the week, I guess because it’s the closest relatable experience I’ve had to anything as ostentatious as Las Vegas.) Plus, the giant, neon Cheesecake Factory sign that’s positioned directly behind the robotic figures doesn’t exactly add any realism to the spectacle.

We continued down the mall and stopped in a Brighton outlet where we were given two complementary bottles of water by one of the employees working there.  Either we looked like we were already thirsty or she knew what trials lay in our immediate future.

I would say that the most essential goal on our list of places we wanted to visit in Vegas is the famous Las Vegas sign that greets visitors as they enter the area from the southern end of the strip.  In the grand scheme of all things Vegas, it’s a relatively diminutive and aged piece of the landscape, but it remains where it has always been (and probably always will be) as a traditional part of the history of the town.  We’d seen the location of the sign described as being “just south” of Las Vegas Boulevard in several publications.  Relatively speaking, it is just south of the strip – if you’re travelling by plane, that is.  The distance between where we started and where we were going seemed like 10 miles because when you get that far down the strip, all the congestion and hubbub of the city’s center is gone then you suddenly realize that you’re heading away from the veritable oasis that is Las Vegas Boulevard and into the wasteland of the Nevada desert.  At least that’s how it felt for me and my ailing knee seeing as how we walked from the MGM Grand (we’d taken the monorail from Harrah’s to there) all the way to the sign, just shy of a mile and a half.

Combining the pain in my knee with the sweltering conditions and the somewhat perilous task of facing traffic at several intersections, it’s no wonder that we felt an incredible sense of elation when we finally reached the sign.  We’d climbed the mountain, as it were, and it was our turn to plant a flag at the summit.  We took our time in enjoying the moment, and got some assistance from a group of fellow tourists in taking a picture before trading off with each other to snap a few individual mementos.  Another set of memories we’ll have to share and cherish.

When we were about to leave the sign, we noticed that we were directly beside the airport.  And when I say “directly beside” I’m telling you we were close enough that I could’ve thrown a rock and hit a plane from where we were standing.  I’m estimating this figure based on what I can infer from online mapping imagery, but I believe it’s roughly a mile and a half from the Las Vegas sign to the main terminals of LAS – assuming that you could take a direct path and somehow manage to walk across the runways, mind you.  This was when it began to dawn on me just how small of a resort area Las Vegas actually is.  The strip itself is about 6 miles in length, and by the time we got to the sign we’d walked the entirety of it (the part of it that’s most widely recognizable, anyway, as it does go on further than that).  Seeing the barrenness of the terrain beyond the strip made me wonder, again, why it is that of all the places in this country that a destination like Las Vegas could’ve been developed a spot in the middle of some of the most Godforsaken land in the whole of the west was chosen. (Keep in mind when nuclear weaponry was in its infancy, it wasn’t too far from Vegas that much of the military’s initial testing was conducted.) There are no trees, no water, no beaches, just rock, sand, and craggy mountains.  I guess the remoteness of it plays into its very nature as you have to truly want to indulge in its offerings to make the trip worthwhile.

My knee was bothering me to the point of my needing to take breaks from walking every so often, and with our Brighton water bottles now depleted we were both in need of hydration.  As such, we stopped in the Mandalay Bay resort and quickly found a smoothie stand where I had what may have been the best Pepsi I’ve ever tasted. (I’d paid $10 for a 12-pack of Pepsi’s in our hotel earlier in the week; to give you some comparison of how insane that is, I can go to one of our local grocers right now and get three 12-packs for $10.) It was cold, wet, sweet, and exactly what I needed.

To me, one of the more impressive structures on the strip is the Luxor hotel (the components of which are patterned after the pyramids, obelisks, and sphinxes found in ancient Egypt), and it was our next stop along the long walk back into town.  The interior of the Luxor is just as impressive as its exterior, with the guest rooms lining the sides of the pyramid eventually culminating at its apex.  There are several performers currently taking up residence at the Luxor, the two most well known being Cris Angel and Carrot Top, but my reasoning for wanting to visit it are the TITANIC and BODIES exhibits (no photography was allowed in either show, much to my chagrin).

The BODIES exhibit is a collection of real human bodies that have been preserved using a technique that strips the moisture from tissues without destroying the formations of muscles, vessels, organs, etc., leaving what amounts to statues.  It sounds somewhat grotesque, and I’ll be forthright in stating that certain portions of the display aren’t for those with weak constitutions, but I found it fascinating.

TITANIC, which features recovered artifacts from the wreckage of the Titanic, was captivating from beginning to end.  When you enter, you’re given a card relating the life of an actual passenger onboard the doomed ship and you are to be their proxy throughout your visit (you have the opportunity to find out whether or not your traveler survived at the end of TITANIC).  What awed me the most about TITANIC was how the procession of the exhibit seemed to tell a story with the artifacts being laid out in such a way that you are able to follow the vessel from its construction, through full-scale examples of its cabins, decks, and even the grand staircase, to its ultimate resting place on the bottom of the ocean.  Near the end of the exhibit, there’s a room that holds a gigantic block of ice meant to represent an iceberg and give visitors some sense of how cold the water was the night Titanic sank (fun fact – seawater freezes at a much lower temperature than regular water because of its salinity).  You turn a corner when leaving this room and when you enter the next you’re presented with an image that gave me chills; there before you hangs what has to be a 30 foot section of the Titanic’s hull, dubbed “The Big Piece”.  I can’t convey how dumbfounded I was at the sight of it.  Seeing that piece of the Titanic truly hammered home how historically tragic this disastrous endeavor was.  The TITANIC exhibit will be at the Luxor for 10 years and I would highly recommend anyone visiting Las Vegas take the time to tour it.

We’d planned our dining the previous two nights but we wanted to have a completely haphazard dining experience, as in we’d find a restaurant and try it on a whim.  It turned out that the Luxor offered just what we were looking for in the form of Tacos & Tequila, an eatery with a Mexican flare accented by modern culinary styles.  The menu wasn’t that much different from what you’d expect to find in your average Mexican restaurant, and unlike most of its kin they didn’t bring out the chips and salsa until after we’d ordered – I guess they don’t reward you with fried tortilla goodness until they’re fairly certain you’re going to stick around for the main course.  Also unlike most Mexican offerings (the ones around my neck of the woods, anyway), their chips came with salsa Verde and what I think was salsa Baja, a salsa made from roasted vegetables.  My girl selected a pulled pork dish while I stuck to what appeared to be a more mundane beef burrito.  I use the phrase “appeared to be” because what we were served was a pair of the most tasty entrées we had during our trip, and possibly some of the best Mexican food either of us have ever had.  Not only was the food great, their prices were incredibly affordable and the service was top notch (the fact that our waitress was wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts that were so small they looked like underwear had no bearing on my opinion of the service, I swear).  I give it a strong endorsement and only wish we had something like it here in South Carolina.

Once we left Tacos & Tequila, our final objective for the evening before heading back to the Rio was to see the fountains in front of the Bellagio.  We’d seen part of a show at the fountains during the day but seeing it at night was much grander as the lights shining through the water being fired upwards from the canons in the hotel’s lagoon make for a more stunning spectacle.  There were a few ducks wandering around the water prior to the show – needless to say, they vacated the premises fairly quickly once it began.

I’m estimating our total distance travelled on foot during Wednesday’s escapades to be approximately five and a half miles, and I had a bum knee throughout most of it.  On the way to our room, we stopped off at a shop inside the Rio that is essentially a convenience store and I picked up a couple beers, hopping they would help take the edge off the grinding pain I felt in my knee every time I took a step, the logic behind my decision being that more Tylenol was outside the realm of practical remedies. (I hoped all I had was a sprain or strain but I also feared that I might have expedited that piece of plastic I mentioned earlier finding its way into my knee.) I probably could’ve used a stiffer drink but I wasn’t about to pay what they were asking for their liquor.

Thursday would be our final full day in Las Vegas, and quite honestly I was ready to go home.  I wasn’t home sick and it wasn’t that my knee was bothering me; I had simply seen enough of the town to know that Vegas and I weren’t meant for one another.  Don’t get me wrong here, I did enjoy the opportunity to go to Las Vegas (especially on someone else’s dime), but I was born and raised in the South – I like the South, I like our way of life, and the culture of Las Vegas is about as far removed from what I’ve grown to appreciate as could be.  It was definitely a worthwhile trip to see and experience all that is Las Vegas but I can think of a whole lot of other locales I’d sooner visit in the future than go back there again.  It would take a special event, something along the lines of a conference or another unique happening, to make the trip meaningful enough that I’d consider going back.

Our flight out of town was early the next morning, which is why once I got back from my sessions at the conference Thursday we spent a good bit of the afternoon packing.  We had a few items left on our checklist that we knew we would be able to get to but there were others we wound up abandoning either because of time restrictions (i.e., the Fremont street experience and Hoover Dam) or a retrospective lack of interest (meaning we determined some of our objectives looked better to us when we were in the planning stage and weren’t actually worth the effort; apologies to the Atomic Testing Museum).  The big-ticket item for Thursday would be a fancy dinner at Café Martorano, an Italian restaurant inside the Rio named after chef and owner Steve Martorano – who, from the look of him, embodies every Guido stereotype imaginable, even though I believe the biographical information on him in the restaurant’s menus stated he’s from Philadelphia and not New Jersey.  We’d planned on having a wing-ding night out and we’d seen advertisements for Café Martorano all over the hotel so we decided it would be a laudable choice.

Boy, were we wrong.

We got dressed in our snazzy outfits and made our way to the restaurant.  We hadn’t yet explored the area of the Rio where Café Martorano is located, and it wound up being a rather interesting district as it held a combination of restaurants (the Rio has not one but two buffets), shops (most of which offered not much more than baubles aimed at separating tourists from their disposable incomes), even more slot machines, as well as the Chippendales Theater.  I’d heard so much about Las Vegas being this wild town of nothing but whores and blackjack tables yet I somehow wound up in the hotel with naked dudes in it – go figure.  Also in this district of the hotel is the stage for the Rio’s “Show in the Sky”, a production featuring dancers in various levels of risqué attire depending on whether you decide to visit the family-friendly version or the not-so-family-friendly version.  It’s called the “Show in the Sky” because it makes use of floats that travel along tracks imbedded in the ceiling.  I’m assuming that whoever developed this spectacle determined that “Show in the Sky” sounds a whole lot more impressive than “Show on the Ceiling”, hence the misnomer.  We didn’t get to see it as there were signs around the stage alerting people that the show was on a temporary hiatus.

We’d made 7 PM reservations at Martorano’s but it wound up that they were unnecessary; apparently everyone else in town already knew what we were about to find out because there were three or four other tables with patrons, tops.  Martorano’s is promoted as being, “Part Restaurant…Part Nightclub…All Italian”, and it definitely looks the part as the aesthetic of the bar and dining rooms has been culled from what you’d expect to find in a high-end club, while in the background a totally open kitchen can be seen.  We were seated quickly and presented with menus, the pricing structure ranging from the mid-teens to upwards of $50.  I mention the prices because it’s important in moving forward with my comments to establish a cost/reward scenario, which in this case applies to the expensiveness of their food versus the taste and quality of said dishes.  Our waiter greeted us and asked what type of water we wanted; he rattled off a lengthy list of variations on good old H20 so quickly that I believe we both were subsequently stunned by that we chose what seemed to be the easiest out, that being tap water.  After trying to coerce our appetites into agreeing with their selection, we placed our orders.  She started off with a Caesar salad and we both picked the Parpadella, mine made with beef Bolognese, hers with chicken and a creamy parmesan sauce.  As a bit of an opening course, you’re served a collection of breads and various dipping sauces.  We were given a gift from the kitchen in the form of a sampling of their grilled lamb chops – it would wind up being the best item we tasted from Martorano’s as neither of our entrées were up to par, and definitely not worth what we (well, I) paid for them.  They were not flavorful, the pasta was undercooked (al dente or not, it was just this side of being crunchy), mine was almost cold, and I didn’t feel full afterwards.

I thought it was funny that towards the end of the meal our waiter offered to arrange for us to get VIP admission to the Voodoo Lounge, a nightclub on top of the Rio’s main tower, as if it was something special and exclusive only to hear him turn around and do the same thing for another set of patrons. (He asked where we were from earlier in the evening and after we told him South Carolina he commented on the “beautiful architecture” of Myrtle Beach.  I guess for someone from Las Vegas things like high-rise hotels jammed on top of one another and Medieval Times’ castle counts as beautiful architecture?) I don’t like being worked, to borrow a term from the lexicon of professional wrestling, and I definitely don’t like having my intelligence insulted.  Besides, I’d sooner get kicked in the shins by every member of the United States women’s soccer team than willingly go to a typical nightclub.  They aren’t nor have they ever been something that I’ve enjoyed.

I can say unequivocally that Café Martorano was a complete disappointment, and when we left we agreed that it would be a long time coming before we’d put ourselves through anything remotely resembling that experience again.  The total damages amounted to about $75.  I don’t want to make us out to be a couple cheapskates but for $75 I could’ve taken us out to dinner at least twice at restaurants offering far superior service and selection.  The person on the phone when we made our reservation asked for a credit card so that if we didn’t appear they could charge us what amounted to a no-show fee (I believe it was $50-$70).  We should’ve taken that route and gone back to Tacos & Tequila, it would’ve been cheaper and the food would’ve been significantly better.

Disappointed but not dismayed, we were bound and determined to end our time in Las Vegas on a high note.  After doing a little shopping at the stores near Martorano’s, we boarded the shuttle bus to Harrah’s one last time with the intention of seeing the erupting volcano at the Mirage and then “Sirens of T.I.”, a live show held at regular intervals nightly in the lagoon at Treasure Island.

Recall, if you will, my having made mention of the handbills advertising hookers and escort services being given out to anyone willing to accept them in part 1 of this blog series.  At the recommendation of my girlfriend, who had the brilliant idea to get a collection of them as a gag gift we will later use on her Uncle (who is a consummate practical joker), I stuck out my hand while walking past the line of advertisers (I use the term as gently as I can so as to hopefully not tarnish the reputation of legitimate sales-folk) in front of Harrah’s.  It was as if there was blood in the water – the moment they all recognized a willing recipient, I was mobbed and by the time I got to the end of their row I’d been handed a stack of probably 50 cards as well as several magazines, all touting the services of young ladies.  “Go get ‘em, Horny!”, a woman who passed by while I was making my run said to me.  I felt very, very dirty yet somehow fulfilled afterwards.

Like all the animated monuments (for lack of a better term) of the Las Vegas strip, the volcano at the Mirage was marvelous.  The volcano and the fountain at the Bellagio are both timed so that their events coincide with a musical soundtrack; the fountain showing we viewed was set to “The Pink Panther Theme” (I’m under the impression there are several different backing tracks) and the volcano had an accompaniment with a decidedly more island-inspired feel to it, rhythmic drums dominating the arrangement.  The volcano doesn’t spew actual lava but rather water that, against the night sky, appears to be molten Earth thanks to expertly done lighting effects.  Combine this with a battery of propane-powered flame throwers and the volcano is truly something to be seen.

Since shows like the volcano at Mirage, the fountain at the Bellagio, and the “Sirens of T.I.” are all free and take place not far from the sidewalks along Las Vegas Boulevard, you can understand why it’s more than somewhat vital to arrive well in advance of their starting times in order to get an ideal spot from which to view them.  “Sirens of T.I.” is a more involved production with actors, pyrotechnics, and moving set pieces, and it’s one of the only shows on the strip that has a dedicated viewing area for spectators (it also has a VIP section that is closer to the lagoon; why anyone would pay to watch the show from 30 feet nearer than the rest of the crowd is beyond me).  We got there about 45 minutes ahead of time – I was feeling a bit parched so my lady went off in search of beverages while I camped at our site.  She came back with a Coca-Cola for me and for her a rather large mug shaped like a human skull the color and clarity of a bright, red ruby that was filled with a strawberry daiquiri. (Suffice it to say that by the time the show was over, a certain someone in our pairing was feeling pretty good thanks to that libation, which is proof of my theory that sweet and fruity cocktails like those are dangerous – read, fun – primarily because they’re loaded with spirits but they don’t taste like liquor.) The plot of “Sirens” follows a wayward pirate who happens upon a cove inhabited by the sirens (which, if you weren’t aware, in mythology are female figures that would lure seamen to their deaths by way of a hypnotically mesmerizing song; in this case they’re a set of voluptuous, scantily clad ladies) and this pirate’s mates come to rescue him, even though he doesn’t necessarily want to be rescued, only to succumb themselves to the allure of the sirens.  The fact that the actors and actresses are lip syncing to an audio track takes this show down a notch or two, but even so it’s a very well done production with some very intricate sets (including one pirate ship that sinks) and worth the time we’d invested in it.

With that, our adventures along the strip came to an end.  We boarded the return shuttle bus to the Rio and stopped by the bar at the sports book on our way to our room for a nightcap.  She had another daiquiri, I had a Sam Adams, and when we finally did get to the room I went about trying to empty our refrigerator.  I finished off the beer that was left and attempted to drink a few of the Pepsi’s but I would wind up leaving several of them behind (hopefully the housekeeping staff enjoyed them).  As exhausted as I was by that point I’d have thought sleep would’ve come easily, even with the sugar and caffeine from the Pepsi, but I didn’t get much rest that last night.  Meanwhile she slept as peacefully as ever – I guess I should’ve had what she was having.

Our flight home was scheduled to depart around 11 AM the next morning, and I think we were both more than ready to get back to South Carolina.  Still, it’s always somewhat sad to me when on vacations to be faced with the realization of that final morning, knowing that your temporary home is about to be turned over to someone else.  I imagine it’s how refugees must feel, albeit to a significantly lesser extent.  But room 1265 of the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Conference Center had served us well, and our time there was over.

We made quick work of getting ready as most of our stuff was already assembled and stowed (why it is that luggage always seems to swell over the course of a vacation is beyond me), with us needing to make not much more than a final sweep of the room just to be sure nothing had been left behind (and yes, I took the bottles of shampoo).  We were checked out of the hotel with plenty of time to meet the shuttle that would ferry us back to the airport, and my lady had done a superb job of keeping us from having to go through the check-in line at LAS by using a PC at the hotel to print our boarding passes.  After paying another set of baggage fees and being swept by one more set of security sensors, we made our way to the terminal.  We had ample time to kill, which is why we ate twice – once at Chili’s and then again at a Cinnabon.  We hadn’t eaten since the Martorano’s debacle and we had a long flight ahead of us (although not as long as the one we took getting out there, what with our plane not having to push its way through the jet streams this time around), and I figure we’d earned the treats.

Sitting in the terminal at our departure gate, I noticed some of the same people I’d seen on the flight to LAS nearby, only this time most of them appeared to be a little worse for wear, not surprisingly, and I’d imagine we did too.  Before long we were on the plane, seated in almost the same row we’d been on during our flight to Las Vegas, and not too long after that we were back at CLT.  We fetched our bags and hit the road with haste thanks to my parents having been waiting for us in a nearby parking lot well before our arrival.  After a brief stop in Rock Hill, SC for dinner at the Cracker Barrel, we made it back home and went to bed – we didn’t wake up until around noon the following day.

A few people have asked me since our return as to whether or not I’d recommend they take a vacation to Las Vegas.  My honest opinion is that it’s worth the trip just to see it for yourself.  The marketing machine behind Las Vegas would have you believe it’s a slice of ecstasy served up with a side order of decadence where all your cares and concerns fall by the wayside in favor of your every fantasy.  In reality, it’s a town in the middle of a desert that is rather dirty and more than a bit ugly when you get away from the glamour of the strip.  I would offer that you definitely have to be a fan of what that town is about in order to appreciate it.  In other words, try it on for size just once – if you like the booze, broads, and games, more power to you.  Personally, I prefer Florida.  What can I say, I’m a fan of the Mouse.

Our week in Las Vegas had gone by so quickly yet we had managed to do so much.  Out of the 17 items that were on our itinerary we accomplished 13 of them, and I don’t think that our ratio should take a hit for 1 of the 4 we missed seeing as how it wasn’t our fault we weren’t able to view the “Show in the Sky”. (The remaining three were sacrificed in favor of other activities, and I’m certain we would’ve gotten to those as well if not for a lack of time.) I don’t know anyone who can say that they’ve walked the entire length of Las Vegas Boulevard, save for my girlfriend and me.  My knee may hate me for it, but that is an experience I never would’ve thought I’d get to have and it’s a set of memories that I never hope to lose.  Even if the rigors of old age do take their toll upon my mental state I’ll at least have the pictures to fall back on, all 700 or so of them (plus a few videos) thanks to the wonders of digital photography.  I planned on filling up at least one of my memory cards during the trip and I did just that.

Throughout our travels, I was reminded of how many things in my life for which I have to be thankful.  Less than 2 years ago I was living at home with my folks, waking up every day discontent about my entire existence, and working a dead end job with no chance of advancing beyond the remedial tasks I performed.  Now I have my own place, a career working with an organization that allows me to do things I am passionate about, and most of all I have someone to share it with.  I may not be a rich man but I am living a wealthy life and I can’t wait to see where it leads me next.