November 17, 2008

Las Vegas Recap


Dear OTRgirl,

Have you ever seen such desolate wilderness as Vegas Valley?

Buggsy should have planted his resort on the backside of the moon. It would have been lovelier and had more water.

Love,
Dad

So true. I posted more photos on Facebook, but many of you aren’t part of that world, so I’m posting a couple over here as well.

I spent the hour and a half flight to Vegas looking out the window. I loved being able to see the traces of water-flow etched into the desert.


Flying into Las Vegas felt strange after passing over such barren land. Seeing lawns and swimming pools, bought with the waterflow meant for deltas in Mexico really irked me. I know I’m turning into a bleeding-heart over so many issues, but water-use in the West is definitely becoming one of my hot-buttons.


I was shocked that the Las Vegas Strip is literally right next to the airport. This picture was taken from the runway while the plane taxied into the terminal.


Overall, I was bemused by Vegas, but not overwhelmed. My focus, time and energy were on the convention we were producing. My coworkers are great and we had fun, so I didn’t have to think too much about the city itself.


That said, I did have to walk through two casinos as I went from one venue to the other. Each time, I felt sick. Not just the cigarette smoke, though that did give me a sore throat and headache, but the glazed looks in people’s eyes. I hated watching SO much money getting washed away. I kept thinking that if they would just invest that same amount they’d have a guaranteed jackpot. Yes, slower and much less thrilling, but worth far more in the end. Ah, whatever. I sound like a killjoy whenever I talk about it, let’s just say, it wasn’t my scene.

The funny thing about my work for this client is that 95 percent of our attendees are male tech-geeks. They don’t care what the signs look like. Yet all my approvers are marketing women, who care passionately. Sigh.

I got to help cheerlead the RockBand competition the first night. We wanted to get people playing it and psyched about joining teams and fighting toward being in a competition at the final party. Take a bunch of shy programmers and let them loose--turned out to be a great way to get them to interact and network.


I was able to meet with my main client counterpart. She’s based on the East Coast and most of our contact is via IM (Instant Messaging, Dad), so it was good to hammer out a couple things. She showed me the upcoming Big Show look/feel. It’s being developed by the ad agency that took over last spring. Her hope this year is that they create the initial look/feel and then pass it over to me to implement. That sounds MUCH better than what I feared: months of being a production artist and not a designer. We shall see how it all pans out, but it helped to see at least an initial presentation and to get a sense of what she’s thinking.

More power to those of you who have enjoyed Las Vegas as a vacation destination. It wasn’t on my life-list before and I was glad to shake the dust off my feet when I left. Sadly, the Account Executive on my team loved having me there and recognizes that I should be there for the site visit as well as the pre-show set-up. So, looks like more Vegas in my future. I guess we can’t all be lucky.




6 comments:

Rachel said...

Vegas is not on my life list either, but I enjoyed reading your description of it. A change of scene is always good, I suppose.

Sandra B. said...

In the first picture, a few of those are actually dirt roads to mines. In the second picture, yeah those are stupid, but you should have seen when Wet n'Wild was still open. Third picture, Mandalay Bay is the end of the strip, and is its own kind of folly.

But to make Las Vegas sound not compeletly backwards most crosswalks, school zone signs are run off of solar power, the Water District (utilites) has 6 solar facilities, and the Venetian has also just installed solar panels. So, not perfect yet, but definately getting better.

P.S. OpenID isn't working :\
http://alessandrastarr.livejournal.com

Inkling said...

I've never understood people's fascination for Vegas. Yeah, I know you get to see the world in one place in terms of major monuments and cultural settings, but that just seems so fake. And the whole water thing would get to me too, although if there was a way for us to share some of our copious amount of water each fall and winter in the rainforest of BC's lower mainland, I might be more willing to allow for Vegas' existence. It just seems like such a broken and vacuous place.

Aimee said...

I'm with you; Vegas has never been on my life list. As Inkling said, it's too fake. Why would I want to see a fake Eiffel Tower?

Thanks for the comment! I like the new look too, Thanks. :-) A friend of mine told me about cutestblogontheblock.com and since I'm not a designer, I thought I'd try that. I can hardly wait to re-do it for Christmas, but I'm going to try to wait until Thanksgiving, or as close to it.

I must admit that I still have job envy. It sounds like sooooooo much fun.

Anonymous said...

I agree, not a destination on my to do list either. Glad the professional stuff went well though, fingers crossed it works out as you hope:)

All the Best,
Lil'sis

Mama Nabi said...

This always surprises people who know me: I actually like Vegas. I know, I know! I thought I'd hate it but our plane landed at night so, from the window, we could see this big glowing city, vibrant... and then it never sleeps! And the slot machine noises can be so hypnotic. It sounds like I'm being facetious, doesn't it? I don't know what it is about Vegas... but I like absorbing all the noise and lights.

Of course, LN and I don't plan on a Vegas trip any time soon...

Hmmm, Big Show? Intriguing, intriguing...