Wow. Just wow. I had so much fun. But I want to outline the whole time (work and all), so let me start at the beginning.

     [Wednesday] Airport flight @ 10am. Was doing alright, but once we started landing, there was plenty of turbulence and parts where your stomach gets pushed up by your throat (I hate those) and I started feeling sick. I made it there ok, though. Ate Burger King ($7 for a medium whopper value meal, too). Took a $20 cab to the Mirage (the hotel I stayed at, also where our mini-convention was). Cab driver was nice, friendly, and even from Vegas. Arrived at hotel, dumped luggage in room, and went straight down to the Bermuda room (conference room where our convention would be held). Started putting the price tags I made on the corresponding products. Salesmen freaked out because there were no tags for certain products. Started making them again for about 10 minutes until they found them. Helped do random things to put the room together. Floyd, our Vegas decorator, came with our decorations. By this time it’s around 5 or 6pm (Vegas time, which is 7 or 8pm our time). The cocktail party starts at 6:30 and ends at 9 in the St. Croix room. I help Marc & Floyd with decoration ideas, etc. At around 8pm, Marc tells me I should go upstairs and take a nap (I looked like crap after such a busy day, I’m sure). I go upstairs and change into nice clothes and go down to the Cocktail Party. Twice as many people came as we expected (raging success). I was there for about 15 minutes, had a drink, and then I left. When I was on my way back to my room, I noticed rather large scaffolding out in front of the Bermuda room. I walked in to inquire to Marc about it, and stayed there to supervise/help until around 10:30 or 11. Kathy (my roommate) and a few others kept telling Marc to let me leave so I could go to the bar (in the Mirage) with them. I showed up at the bar and hung out for a while. Jeff bought me a couple of beers, and I got pretty exhausted. However, everyone convinced me that I had to stay until I could dance with Bob Viti, a pretty old Italian guy who has two replaced hips and can’t walk too well. But man, that guy could dance. It was a lot of fun. Went back up to the room and went to sleep at around 12.

     [Thursday] Was in the Bermuda room at 6:30am. Doors opened at 7:30 (but only for special people, officially 9). Floyd was still in the room decorating (he pulled an all nighter), and Marc had gone to bed at around 1 or 2. The room looked pretty nice. I’ll get some pictures up here soon. It was a racing theme, and we all had racing style jackets with most of our suppliers on them. I spent most of my time between 7:30am and 5pm standing in front of a painted foam race car asking people to get their picture taken with it. Salespeople would stop by and say hello when they didn’t have a customer there to sell stuff to. It wasn’t all that boring. At precisely 5pm, we started breaking down displays and packing things into boxes. At around 5:30 or 6pm, Bobby (the CEO) got everyone a tequila shot (complete with lime and salt) and made a toast to a successful convention and all of the people there who made it happen. It was very nice. Jeff invited me to go out with him and a client for dinner, rather than going in the big group of people (which would take about four hours, probably). I didn’t know where we were eating, so I wore the nicest stuff that was clean, and I’m glad we did. We went to Piero’s, which was featured in the movie Casino, or so I hear. The entrees were about $25-50. Jeff splurged on some stone crab claws for everyone (not that I’ve ever had crab before), which were very good (although on the difficult side to eat), and a bottle of red wine (which had to be $60). I had a chicken entree, which was very very good (and $26, I felt uncomfortable about how expensive things were). We shared a tiramisu dessert and a bowl of raspberries, but I didn’t have much of that since I was so full. The bill had to be close to $400, and Jeff paid (with his company credit card).

     [Thursday Night Life] We met up with some of the other salesmen at an outdoor bar at the Harris casino. It was pretty cold out (50s-60s), so Jeff let me wear his suit jacket. One of the salesmen, Jim, was talking to me some, and he seemed to be having a really good time – until he accidentally spilled beer on me. I told him it’s okay, that it happens all the time at college, etc, but he seemed really embarrased and left shortly after that. (There’s a terrible rumor going around that I said mean things to him, but I did nothing of the sort). I danced with Allen (the new sales guy) and Jeff. I was amused when I saw Jeff dancing with the client’s wife and she started getting a bit fresh. He left the dance floor after that. He is married, afterall. I was getting pretty drunk. I had a couple of beers and a Jaeger Bomb (Jaegermeister 70 proof & Red Bull). I don’t know why, but that Jaeger Bomb really fucked me up. I think it was a double, and I drank it pretty damn fast. Oh, and since I drank the beer first, that didn’t help. Anyway, we stayed at that bar until it closed. Then we walked over to the Piano Bar and stood around talking for a while. Then, Jeff, Allen & I went over to the bar in the Mirage and talked some more. Jeff bought us a round of Tequila shots, but I didn’t have one – I was really pushing it already. Then that bar closed. We played a little slots (I tried to pay for mine, but my money wouldn’t go in, so Jeff paid). None of us won anything. I was very tired at this point. Allen went back up to bed, and Jeff played some Black Jack (I watched). It was really interesting to watch, but I really wasn’t in any state to be making decisions regarding anything resembling math, so I didn’t play. By the time I was done watching Jeff play, it was around 3:30 so I went to bed. I was dead tired, but incredibly happy. It was a great time; it felt like a dream.

     [Friday] I woke up at 8am, still drunk. I didn’t feel better until I threw up. Even after that, though, it was a careful task to not let it happen again. I went to breakfast with some of the salesmen (I think they were surprised to see me, but Kathy told me about it, so I figured everyone was going). Jeff & Allen were both there and were both surprised to see me up and about so early (9am). I had a bagel and some water. And by “had a bagel,” I mean ate three bites and then couldn’t eat any more. When that was done, I went up to my room and laid in bed until 11:30, at which point I got up and checked out. The shuttle to the airport left at 4, so I wandered around a bit. I went shopping (bought nothing) at Caesar’s Palace’s Forum Shops (so fucking huge, duplicate stores everywhere). At the FAO Schwartz, there were two guys on a huge electronic piano built into the floor jumping around on it and playing songs (choreographed). It was so amusing. I could probably have watched them all day. Then, I went back to the hotel and killed about 20 minutes by playing the 2 cent and 5 cent slots. I was playing on $5, and I left with $11. After I hit 11, I decided I shouldn’t play anymore, so I sat around until 3:30 when I ran into my boss (who was taking the same shuttle & flight). Our plane was delayed abou 30-45 minutes. I slept practically the entire way home (which was exceedingly nice). My parents picked me up at the airport. And that’s really all I’m going to talk about. This post has taken me about 70 minutes to write, so I really need to stop. There’s more, I just can’t go on typing like this anymore.

Feeling: Good, exhausted, sick (from Thurs. night still), etc.

Listening to: Play that Funky Music White Boy