The Only Vegas Photos That Turned Out - Sorta

I don't know what was up with my picture taking skills this trip, but everything was blurry. Ah well.

This gives you an idea of my size 4 dress. Too bad I didn't get my shoes or purse in the shot!

The Bellagio Garden was done up for Autumn and Halloween. We didn't stop to see much... I just snapped a few photos as we scooted past it at some point.

I forgot to mention that after lunch on Thursday, I met up DBF's parents for coffee and a treat. They happened to be vacationing in Vegas while I was there. Cool timing, eh? The pastries at the Bellagio patisserie are so pretty you don't want to eat them. See my lemon meringue tart! So cute and so yum!

And on my last night, I was killing time and finally got to watch the Sirens show outside Treasure Island. Totally cheesy (and kinda slutty!) but pretty cool for a free show.

Vegas - Friday

Thursday night's shower was the most gloriously needed shower ever. However, I went to bed with wet hair so I had to get up a bit early Friday morning to take care of the mess I had created. Thankfully, the exhibit hall opened half an hour later than Thursday so I had a bit of extra time. I went with curling my hair since it was already on it's way in that direction...my boss referred to it as my "take a second look, look". All good.

Nice short day at the booth. Yummy continental breaky buffet again...good croissants and lots of fresh fruit. Too bad the coffee was pretty weak. The Friday is always quieter because a lot of the attendees had late nights and really just come in for the specific seminars they want to see. We did have a few people drop by the booth though, so there was a bit of good business. We are a lot better known now after a few years of these things so it's nice to have the attorneys come looking for us.

We were able to start taking our booth down around 1:30 or so, and were basically all packed up by about 2:00. We opted for lunch out in the poolside cafe, which was fab because the biggest thing about Vegas is that you really can miss out on being outside. Mostly we'd gone from hotel to hotel in cabs, and that was it up til then. We were there for a few hours eating, and just enjoying the outside while we discussed a lot of what happened and what was learned. We have to take advantage of us all being in one spot while we can!

Then back to the Circus for a bit of a relax, another shower, and getting ready for dinner. The bosses had promised us a good dinner out, and chose a steakhouse on the Strip called Smith & Wollensky. It's one of those a la carte places, and it's really all about the beef! It was a great meal, and we even managed not to talk about work the whole time! Hard to do with three very driven businessmen at the table. :)

After dinner, we definitely needed to do some walking so we started heading up the Strip of course. I convinced the guys to wander through Paris because it's one of my favorites to walk through. I just love how the legs of the Tower are built right into the casino inside. So very Vegas, but I love it! We even stopped at the Piano Bar for a while, and all I could think the whole time is how much DBF would love it...the pianists are hilarious and know pretty much whatever song you give them. You haven't lived until you've heard a cabaret pianist do Billy Idol. (and those guys make serious dough...every time someone had a request, or a request to stop singing a shitty song, they got $20...we saw about $300 exchange hands in the hour we were there...nutty.)

Then on up the Strip some more. I kept getting my heels stuck in the cracks in the sidewalk. My one boss thought it was pretty funny. I really had to watch where I was going!

We then landed up at Treasure Island. We considered going into the club, but it was more Kristoff's scene than mine or the bosses, so we opted to sit at one of the bars for a drink, then that was it. Walked a little further over to the Wynn so we'd be on the right side of the road for a cab back to the Circus. My poor tired body and my poor feet were happy to get into that cab.

In bed by about 1am and out like a light immediately.

Vegas - Thursday

Amazingly enough, when my alarm went off at 5:45 I didn't throw it against the wall. That's probably because it was attached to the bedside table though. I did hit snooze and stayed cozy until about 6:15 though.

Nice thing about this new hairdo is that it doesn't require washing every day if I don't use a lot of product....so I saved a bunch of time not having to deal with that! I know you girls understand. I was able to shower, dress, and do my make-up all in time to get down to the lobby for 7am. Kristoff and I had to meet the bosses to head back to the Bellagio again. Had to carry all of our crap with us though, which was another peeve about staying at the Circus...no room to go back to in the afternoon for freshening up or changing or dropping stuff off. Boooooo.

Good thing about this particular conference is that we've attended it 4 times now, so we know how it goes. The first half hour is usually just the exhibitors getting coffee and enjoying the continental breakfast spread, and chit-chatting while doing any final setup. The attorneys don't start to file in until around 8am and even then they aren't really interested in too much talking with us. They need their first coffees and seminars first...then they come out a little more lively.

It was a long day, but we had lots to keep us busy. Mainly getting to know the bosses and show them things we do and talk about all the big ideas we all have. I think we make a good team.

The fun part was that this year the exhibitors could attend the big luncheon. They always have a cool special speaker, but in years past exhibitors had to buy tickets if they wanted to go...so I'd never gone. This time it was Bill Maher and he was hysterical. Of course, if you had been a McCain supporter in that room, you wouldn't have thought so. He had some fantastic political jokes, a few good lawyer jokes, and a whole lot of other material that tied it all together. I wish I could remember everything, but of course I can't. I know I laughed the whole time though.

One thing I do remember was his joke about the stock market.... "when you look up at the ticker on Wall Street and it says 'what the fuck are you looking at?' then you know you're in trouble!"

Oh, and he had a whole set of material about why men cheat. I'm pretty sure it started with some stuff about Clinton (of course!) but basically he was saying it's because guys like new stuff. Women have lots of shoes, but they want new ones....and men may already have a woman, but they want new ones. Same thing, right?

Then back to the booth for a few more hours. Then the evening cocktail party. More open bar, more yummy food (handcarved chicken and beef to build fresh soft tacos!). Oh, and a Marilyn Monroe impersonator was hired to sit on the president of the association's lap and sing him Happy Birthday. Entertainment at it's finest. I just wish I'd been able to change my clothes and put on different shoes!

After that, the after hours business kicked in. Another exhibitor invited us to a room-party, but we initially declined because we weren't sure what kind of scene it would be and we still don't know our new bosses very well. But then a client called Kristoff and told him we should really be there, so we agreed and it was so good that we did. Turned out to be the room of a more high-rolling attorney who wanted to do some business. Of course, that means Kristoff goes and does the talk and the rest of us just hang out. This is where we met the Russian babe and a few of her friends. An interesting night for sure.

Once business was completed and I could get out in the hall and take my shoes off (seriously, like 14 hours in those things is not OK!) we headed back to the Circus. I was happily in bed just shortly after 11pm. Heaven.

Vegas - Wednesday

er, well, I guess I should start with the fact that it was after midnight when I went to bed. You know how it is...all the stuff you want to get done before you go away. Emptying the garbage, washing up the last few dishes, cleaning the litter box, clearing up any last minute laundry, packing as much as you can. With the super early morning, I also showered and flattened my hair because there was no way that would be happening at 4am. Ya well, I thought I'd planned it out to be done by about 10pm, but it didn't work out. Such is life.

Then my alarm went off at 3:45am. Oh yippee.

I was a good girl though. Only the one snooze I'd planned and then I was up. Put on the clothes I'd laid out, and minimal make-up. Packed up the final things into my suitcase, did one final check through the house, pet the cat, and I was out the door by about 4:20. Blech.

Thankfully the drive to the airport at that time of the morning is a breeze, so I was there in just about 20 minutes and the Park N Fly wasn't busy at all. I got a parking spot right away and the van was actually right there waiting for people. I was in the terminal handing off my luggage by about 4:55, which was 5 minutes earlier than I was aiming for.

Of course, security was also ridiculously quick due to the lack of people at that time of day, so I was through and to my gate much earlier than needed. (So annoying that you have to be there so far in advance of your flight even at that time of day!) I read my book for a while and ate my Kashi bar, but I inevitably gave in to Starbucks because hell, if I have to be awake and waiting I might as well be caffeinated! (I had planned to wait until I got to my layover in Montreal, but such is life.)

My flight was at 6:20 and thank God it left right on time.

Upon arrival in Montreal, I had to clear customs. It was a breeze time-wise (connecting flights get to budge the line!), although for the first time ever the guy really grilled me about what business I was in. And of course I didn't have business cards or anything to prove it because we had new ones made and they were with my bosses in California. In the end I guess he decided that if I was going to make something up, it wouldn't be that I work for an internet advertising company as a sales assistant, and that I would be going to Vegas for an attorney conference. LOL.

After that I just had a bit of time to kill, so I found food and then just wandered and then vegged at the gate. I had planned to try to do some work, but they wanted my first born for internet access and it was wicked slow so I scrapped the idea.

I tried to sleep on the flight, but let me tell you....the plane seats were the worst thing to happen to my screwed up neck/arm yet. OMG. Not comfortable. Pain-freaking-full. Argh. Mostly watched TV, wiggled in my seat, and chewed my Mentos. I tried Robaxacet but it didn't do anything for me.

Arrival in Vegas was easy-peasy. It's a cool place to fly into. It was only about 11am there so it was interesting to see everything in daylight from above. It's sooo cool how level and spread out the city is, and how it just abruptly stops at the foot of those desert mountains. The Strip obviously isn't as glamorous to see during the day, but it's still a wild view because of the hugeness of those buildings compared to the rest of the city. Luckily, luggage was fast, and I got a cab right away (usually I've flown into the other terminal and the cab line takes forever).

The hotel wasn't quite so simple. Our bosses got us to use Travelocity to stay at Circus Freaking Circus. Obviously not my choice, but I'm not arguing with the people that are paying. (FYI: this is the fourth time I've gone to this conference and prior to this we stayed in the hotel that was hosting the event....The Wynn or The Bellagio...so this was a total let-down.) It's not even the fact that it's not a fancy hotel....it's the fact that it's way hell and gone at the far end of the Strip (past the Stratosphere) and it's a family hotel so it was crazy kids and tour bus central. Annoying. Oh well.

My issue was that they didn't have my reservation. Ya, the hotel said they never got it from Travelocity and asked me to call them. Nice right? So I spent 20 minutes on the phone...where of course they blamed the hotel...and then had to wait for the hotel to confirm everything and finally get me settled. At least they were super friendly and got me an early check-in.

I had planned on showering before meeting the new bosses, but because of the wasted time checking in I'd only been in my room about 10 minutes when they arrived and called to go for lunch. So a little freshening up was all I got. Thankfully the new guys are really nice and we are informal so casual was all good. We met up and just went to one of the hotel restaurants.

After that they went about some business so I went to have a nap and a shower. My nap was mildly successful but I got interrupted twice....once when Kristoff (coworker and friend) showed up and called my room to let me know and again when DBF's folks called to set up a time to meet for coffee (ya, they were on vacation in Vegas the same time I was there...how odd!). So I gave up on the nap and decided I might as well just start getting ready, which worked out because we decided to go to our work event a bit early and the timing wound up being perfect.

Kristoff and I headed over to the Bellagio where our bosses had already gone and set up our booth and started looking around. Nice. We've set that booth up more than our fair share of times, so it was great to see the guys take the initiative and just get it done. Besides, I was in a party dress and strappy heels! :)

As usual, the cocktail party was quite nice and super fun. Open bar! And a whole table of fresh crab, shrimp and salads. Yummmmm! We met up with a couple of our clients who are always good fun and good business, as well as some other exhibitors from previous years who are also fun and helpful with networking. We were there for a few hours, then when they closed that up, we headed into the hotel for some shared sushi and a couple of cocktails. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one that was tired after that....so we headed back to the Circus and I was tucked into my bed by midnight.

Hmmmm....so with the time difference I was basically awake for 24 hours. Sweet.

What I learned at Starbucks today...

...all this time, if I'd just registered my card, I could have been getting my extra espresso shots and vanilla syrup for free!

I started buying myself a Starbucks card on payday to help me limit how much I spend there in a month. Today when I used my card, the girl looked at my order and told me I should register online so I could save on my drink. Since I almost always order an extra shot and vanilla, I could be saving a dollar every time.

I'm all over it. That's like a whole extra latte by the end of the month.

As an added bonus, I discovered that I can get two free hours of wi-fi there now too...which is awesome since they are like the last place on the planet to still charge an arm & a leg for internet access.

Aaaand, I buy a pound of coffee every month for at home....with which I usually get a latte because I'm weak and can't seem to go in there without getting one...and now that latte will be freeeeeeeeeeeeee.


Enjoy the Benefits:

• Two Hours of AT&T Wi-Fi
• Refills on Brewed Coffee
• Beverage Customization
• Free Beverage with purchase of whole bean coffee

HotForWords

Hey Mike, are you jealous? Kristoff and I met Marina from HotForWords.com while in Las Vegas. She was the eye-candy at a private party we attended. Total tart as far as the outfit went, but highly interesting to talk to actually. Not that you'd care what Marina had to say!

Did you know if you Google the word "feet" she ranks number 3? haha, yup (on Google.com). For the word "pedigree". You know...pedi=feet. She has herself a highly motivated SEO company, that's for sure!

Of course, you know we spent some time on YouTube the next day checking out her videos. Hilarious.

"Intelligence is Sexy."

Fourth of Fourth

Because Phoenix said she'd be checking....

Here is the fourth photo from the fourth folder of photos on my computer!

This is the view from our room at the hotel we stayed in when we first arrived in Halifax in January. Yup, lucky us...we arrived just in time for a huge snowstorm. Welcome to our new home. haha. Having said that, it was quite mild and I was able to walk the dog by the lake every day while we stayed there. It was actually a nice start to the year. Well, considering all the crap we went through to get here!

My Computer is Freaking Me Out

I think my poor computer is trying to tell me something. I've been talking about buying a new desktop computer lately because of the physical grief working on a laptop is causing me. It's about six months earlier than I'd planned (this one will be three years old in February) but for the sake of my body, I think it's time to suck it up and get it done.

I'm sure my computer agrees because yesterday it gave me the scare of a lifetime when it crashed and seemingly lost all of my documents and such. OMG...I thought my heart actually stopped. Especially because I've been a slacker in the maintenance department and it's been at least a month since I backed up (probably longer). Not only bad for my photos and personal stuff, but particularly bad for the work situation. Bad me.

Anyway, I let it run it's blue screen of self-correction while I was out last night and when I got home it seemed to have at least recovered all of the documents and settings...phew! I think the reason it showed nothing when it crashed and rebooted earlier was because I cancelled the blue screen file checker. But even when it seemed OK it wasn't. It wouldn't detect any wireless networks (in addition to ours, I can usually see about 10 others in the neighborhood) and it was moving really slow.

So I shut down and restarted again, and it launched the blue screen checker again so I let it run again. It moved sooooooooooooooooooo slow but I was determined to let it run. I watched a movie and it was barely at 50% after almost two hours, so I decided to just let it run overnight and see what happened.

Woke up this morning and all seems well again, so maybe the blue screen found another file to correct while I was sleeping. Who knows? But now that I'm safe for the moment, I'll be running this baby up to my office for a full-on backup!

And I guess I'll be stopping at Future Shop while I'm out today to start pricing and planning for that new computer....just in case.

Autumn Decor

Last weekend being Thanksgiving I decided to do the final clean up on our yard for the season. I mowed and weeded on Friday evening, then did more weeding and weed whacking on Sunday. I cleaned out my planters and stored them away, and put away the hoses for the Winter. I had already cleaned out our front garden and the hanging baskets a week or so before. Fresh, tidy and clean for the season. Love it.

Since I got us a fab new lawn mower this year, I put our old hokey one out at the curb for $25 and someone bought it before the sun went down. Nice.

The weather has been crisp and clear and even sunny, so I've been taking walks around the neighborhood and noticed that a lot of folks already have pumpkins and Autumn decor on their porches so I decided to join in too. I picked out a festive wreath from Michaels and spruced it up with some extra leafy garland, repotted a chrysanthemum into the flower pot on our porch (with some cute scarecrows), and picked out three good sized pumpkins that I can carve closer to Halloween.

I still wish I'd been able to paint the porch this Summer, but funny how the weather disagreed when the timing was right and now that the timing is wrong the weather is dryer. Oh well. Next Spring I'm on it.

While I was on a roll with the Autumn decor outside I decided to make myself a quick centerpiece inside too. A few glazed gourds, a yummy pie smelling candle, and some leftover leafy garland...et voila, cozy festivity for the coffee table.

When I get back from my work trip to Vegas next weekend, I'll start adding some spookier Halloween decorations. I see some ghosts, spiders and black cats...maybe some lights...and definitely some creative jack-o-lanterns. I'm so excited to finally live in a house in a neighborhood with lots of kids to trick-or-treat. Boo!

Massage-er-iffic

So today I tried Massage Therapy for the first time. My chiropractor and I agree that everything he has done has definitely loosened me up and things are going really well, but it's still not correcting the main arm pain issue. I'm glad he was down with that, because I can't keep paying him and being in pain at the same time.

I still had a chiro treatment this morning, but then did the consult with the RMT. I have to say I'm learning a lot about my internal anatomy these days. Which is funny because you would think that since I've been seeing a chiropractor fairly regularly since I was 16 that I might already know a lot...but neither of my previous doctors really spent a lot of time explaining things. (Well, in fairness, my first one probably did but I was 16 and likely wasn't listening!)

Anyway, I don't remember it all because it was a lot of medical terminology, but it turns out that my biggest problem is actually these muscles called scalenes that are located right under my collar bone. Funny because all of my pain seems to be just below my shoulder blade and radiating down my arm. Turns out its all connected! The scalenes are stiffening and because they are attached to that muscle in my upper back, it's being pulled too....and if I understood correctly it's the combination of the two of those and a few others that are affecting that nerve in my arm. He actually had a diagram on the wall of different hot spots, and this is one of them. Quite text book apparently.

The bad news is that this is basically postural and environmental. Mainly from sitting at a computer all day and from other things like driving. Wrong angles and hunched back and bent neck and blah blah blah. So we'll try a few treatments and I'll do stretches and we'll hope for the best. Oh, and I'll try to move the purchase of a new computer up in my financial schedule (of course I've spent all the money for that on all these damn appointments!!!).

So I did go back this afternoon for my first session, and this is when he really figured everything out. He had been right in his guesses based on my symptoms but was totally sure when he actually started working on me and saw how my body reacted. Funny enough I wasn't in any pain while I was there because laying down is the least aggravating as long as my arms are in the right position. And unfortunately, even after the session I still basically feel the same. I knew it wouldn't magically fix me right away, but I had hope that I would feel something that would lead me to believe that it would help.

I'm getting so frustrated.

And next Wednesday I have to sit on an airplane to Vegas...which I imagine will feel a lot like sitting in my car...which is the most painful position I can be in. I hope the other passengers don't mind my heavy breathing and whines of pain.

Finally!

I've updated. Scroll on down (and continue back through older posts so you can see Blue Man Group!) and see all the posts I finally published!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

...Christmas?

I saw EggNog in the grocery store this weekend.

Oh lord. Can't we get through Halloween first? Yikes.

Missing Mojo

In honor of his best friend, DBF got a tatoo to remember our furry boy.

Time to Catch Up

Oh lord, how is it already the middle of October? And how is it that I haven't written in this blog for like two weeks?

Where to start?

DBF is away again. Yup, what's new right? He left on the 6th and is gone until sometime around Christmas, or possibly whenever hell freezes over...whichever comes first. Actually, he'll be back for one weekend in November and then back for December 10th apparently. Of course, shortly after that he'll be making his holiday trip to Winnipeg to visit his son (and I'll be heading back to BC) so really between now and Christmas we'll have maybe 4 days together. Oh the joy.

Before he left we did manage to have a couple of weeks together after my Mom went home so that was nice. We got in one weekend roadtrip to Wolfville in the Annapolis Valley, where we found a great pub for lunch on the Port Williams side of the bridge. Too bad it's an hour away because it was super yum. Maybe I'll take myself there as a treat while he's gone!

We also drove up to the Lookout to check out the view of the valley. Soooo beautiful. Windy, but clear and it just felt like Autumn. I picked up some produce from a farm market while we were there...yummy Honeycrisp apples! I wish I had thought to take pictures at the market...they had their huge hay bales all painted up with scary jack-o-lantern faces. Very cool.

Oh, and I dyed my hair darker for Fall. :)

Since DBF left I've mostly been tending to my screwed up shoulder. No idea what I did, but my new chiropractor (yes, new...I'm on my second one here in Halifax) seems to think the vertebrae have been out for a while and they finally wreaked havoc on the muscle, which in turn is irrating the hell out of the nerve. Not only has my shoulder/neck/upper arm been stiff and majorly sore and hard to move, but it's causing a radiating ache down my arm that makes it difficult to type or drive. Lovely, since those are the two main things I do all day!

Thankfully, keeping active actually feels good so going to the gym, or doing chores, or working in the garden are basically no problem. Odd I know, but it's an odd muscle.

It's been about six weeks in total since it first started bugging me, but it's been about 2 1/2 weeks since it got excrutiating. Hence, the new chiro...seeings as I'd been seeing the first one about the arm pain and it actually got worse, I opted to try someone different. The first woman was great for other stuff...she worked on my jaw and got rid of my headache, but her methods were not working for the rest of my body. The new guy is much more my style...crack, crack, crack!

I'm actually going to meet with a massage therapist tomorrow because my chiro work has really done well, but the muscle is still holding tight and the chiro admits that he thinks it's not going to get any better without proper muscle attention. I just wish I knew what I did, so I can be sure NEVER to do it again!!

On the gym front, since DBF is away I'm there at least 5-6 times a week. Gained me a few pounds while Mom was visiting and DBF and I were hanging out before he left (funny enough, he LOST weight!). So I'm back on track trying to drop those few extras, as well as actively working on my toning and cardio. Three times a week I do HIIT cardio (the fancy elliptical is my new fave) followed by a full body strength training routine I put together based on the two routines I got from the trainer I hired a while back. The other days I go for 60 minutes of cardio....20 minutes each on 3 different machines. I break that up with some squats, crunches, ab twists, etc in between machines. For the most part I enjoy it...definitely better than being home bored!

I think that's probably enough for now. I've discovered that my arm doesn't hurt if I actually sit with my laptop on my lap on the couch so now I can work and blog a lot more easily. (Prior to this I couldn't make it more than an hour at a time at my desk...and evening computer use was out the window.) So I will definitely try to be a better blogger.

Kitty Pics

In my attempt to blog more regularly, here are some photos of Stoopy looking cute in his bed. :)

Blue Man Group

OK, so I'm slow posting these days. About a week and a half ago, DBF and I went to see Blue Man Group with our good friends Mark & Coco. Same show I saw about a year ago in Victoria, but much better seats!

This time there was a different opening act. Artist David Garibaldi. Very cool! Hopping around with his paint bushes, splattering and smashing paint on the canvas, in under 5 minutes he made amazing portraits.

Then started the "Rock Concert Movements". :)

And of course, in true Nova Scotia fashion...for all of you Trailer Park Boys fans (which I am not), they brought out Bubbles to end the show and introduce the band.

And as a treat for our friend Mark, who was looking forward to this all Summer I managed to make a video of the "Love" girl. :)

Handbag Planet

Who out there wouldn't like to win a free designer handbag?

You know you wanna!

Handbag Planet is giving away a purse per hour to celebrate their launch on October 15th.

Go sign up!

http://www.handbagplanet.com/