Pics from Bellagio, Las Vegas, NV

Bellagio @ Las Vegas - June 2008


http://www.flickr.com/photos/kale_a/sets/72157605555311529

June Trip Update #1 - Las Vegas, NV

Hey everyone,

Tonight I'm writing to you while Josh Groban is singing an aria and the Bellagio water show is playing right outside my window. Actually I get really great fountain show every 15 minutes as I'm sitting here. Yup, I'm here at the Bellagio in very very warm Las Vegas. And I totally lucked out and got a "lake view" room that is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the lake—with the Eiffel Tower literally directly square middle in front of me. And of all times to forget my camera! But I did take some pictures with my phone…I'll upload them later.

Oh and speaking of upload…I started a new blogs: http://kaleaskorner.blogspot.com. You can access these posts (starting with my last Texas one) and I'm also uploading pictures to a Flickr site and linking the pictures to the blogs so that you can have some visuals to accompany my stories (if I can remember to bring my camera).

I flew over on Hawaiian Air, which was the first time I've flown Hawaiian in a really, really long time. And I really have to say that I really did enjoy my flight. The seats are comfortable and well maintained, the service was great (no old grumpy and jaded flight attendants—my previous carriers shall remain unnamed!) and they actually served a meal. *gasp* The ticket had indicated a dinner service, but it was actually more of a lunch service since they offered turkey sandwiches or penne pasta with a pesto cream sauce.

Well this is actually only my second time in Vegas, and I have to say I'm still pretty much concluding that this is not a city for me. The crowds, smoking, and heat are what really part of the reason I decided to just stay in for the night. Plus all the food is sooo expensive. Granted part of that is because I'm staying at Bellagio, but still...good thing pretty much all my food from tomorrow on is taken care of by the conference.

Oh and that's the real reason I'm here, for the AICPA TECH+ Conference. I'm pretty excited about this one because (1) I was actually on the steering committee for this, where we helped to develop the program and worked with the speakers to guide the development of their presentations; (2) I'll be speaking for one of the sessions on Tuesday. Me…speaking at a national conference…who'd ever thought?!?

Actually this afternoon, I helped to moderate a roundtable discussion on Business Intelligence. It was pretty interesting. The discussion evolved and actually hit on three of the main points of the presentation that I'll be giving on Tuesday. So it was awesome to get validation that my materials will be exactly what session goers are looking for from the roundtable. Let's hope that I can pull it off well on Tuesday.

Anyway, it's getting late here and I didn't sleep well last night (too anxious for the conference to start today) so I need to get some rest. I'll write more later!

ciao,

donny