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04/11/2011 Entry: "Travel week day 4: SEA-LAS and free time in Vegas"

As all good things must, my time with Angie in Seattle had to come to an end. I must say, Alexis Hotel is awesome in all respects: location, decor, service, nice bar, awesome room service, and a shower head that made me go "hmm... I might like that more than ours". But seriously, the best "morning potatoes" I've ever had. After a nice ride to the airport on the light rail and checking in our new bag it was time to go the gate and separate from the wife. Very weird dropping off your spouse and catching a plane somewhere else. So as she went home to deal with kids (thanks!!!) I was off to Sin City. On Alaska Air of all things. And... in the middle of a bunch of Vancouver's finest. Why they were on a flight from Seattle and all sitting together I wasn't about to find out. Some great views of snow covered mountain caps. Coming in to Las Vegas I saw the mountains turn to desert and houses slowly emerge.

Vegas is Vegas, baby. I was not expecting a long taxi line, naive me. It was funny that in line I started seeing people I know, WebSphere App Server chief architect and the Message Broker chief architect. I wasn't in the mood to talk though. Checked in at the Palazzo and got my Impact/Inner Circle stuff. Dumped everything off in my room. I had about 2 to 2.5 hours to walk the strip and I had things in mind. So I bolted "outside" the whole way down to CityCenter to see all of the buildings there, commenting to my own Facebook post along the way. Note: do not get a iced latte when walking in the sun. Not very settling. CityCenter was great and much more stuff was open than last year. But not nearly enough time there. Never found the Mandarin Oriental, but I did find Vdara which is behind everything else. Very cool stuff all around. I slowly started making my way back and stopped at Fix at Bellagio for Tuna Poke. Except that they don't have it any more. And their prices were astronomical. And I felt trapped. Oh well. I have to say that the world most expensive martini and some tiny bits of spice tuna on fried rice crackers were absolutely worth it. Stopped into Caesar's and left them some money. Went back to the Venetian for dinner. Third time at the same place. I was not too excited. But that's when "work" started. Much socializing, especially with my IBM hosts. Talked to the BAM chief architect, now CTO. He never remembers me. Perhaps it's because I left lunch with him in France once because I got grossed out eating rabbit. Bleh. After dinner I saw a suite at the Venetian (with a media center!) with one of my IBM sales dudes. Some slots after that (lost, dammit) and it was nice time to call it a night.

Today: IBM Impact and Inner Circle starts "for reals" and a big dinner at Tao. I love Tao.