Las Vegas

Read more about our trip:

Las Vegas – Day 1

Las Vegas – Day 2

Las Vegas – Day 3

Las Vegas – Day 4

Las Vegas – Day 5

Las Vegas – Day 6

Distracted by running

Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas 5k

Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon

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Things I’m looking forward to when we get home:

• The cats
• Our library
• Unrestricted access to coffee

Things I’ll miss:

• Our bed
• Care/cat hair-free living
• Impeccable service

I told Kevin last night that I feel like I may have lost my ability to live in regular society. We’ve been in Vegas so long that I don’t know if I’ll be able to fit back into a life where bells aren’t always ringing, where the ambiance isn’t a perpetual balance between total darkness and obscenely bright lights or where there isn’t a constant stream of people moving in, around and past you in complete anonymity or where stores and services actually close.

Yesterday, I posted about the Rock ‘n’ Roll 5k race that we did on Saturday night. As I noted, it was good, fun energy and we had a night out with friends afterwards. Unfortunately, we never really connected with anyone from that group for any length of time again. They’d all just flown in and we were hit the week marker on our stay. They were wanting to explore and we were wanting to lay low. They were fresh faced rookies, we were seasoned veterans. And that about sums up the tail end of our trip.

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On Saturday night, we’d started planning a pool party in our hotel before the half marathon on Sunday. We were going to rent a cabana and have everyone over to chill and hang out, freshen up our legs in the pool and relax. Mother Nature had other plans and brought a windstorm into town instead. It was sunny, but by all accounts it was also very windy. Having been at the pool on just a slightly windy day on Thursday, we knew the searing pain of trying to get out of the pool and into the wind and how impossible it had been to get warm and we weren’t going to risk it. So those plans went bust.

Instead, we went for breakfast with Lesley and then tried to wait out housekeeping to get access to our room again. Eventually, we went back in there and started to prep for the race. By this time, Kevin had made the (in my opinion) wise decision to drop out and tend to his injury instead of pushing through it. We still have another half marathon on the books before the end of the year and it’s better for him to focus on that instead of risking further injury now.

At the eleventh hour, there was a great development in my race story: I connected with my friend Courtney who was also in town for the race. Since we were both doing the race solo, we decided to meet up before we went to our corral. From there we were mostly inseparable for the remainder of the night and that was such a good thing. I’ll write more about the half marathon some other time, maybe tomorrow.

Once the race was over, we hung out with Courtney and her boyfriend Jeremy for a while then retired to our room. We picked up some takeout from the Burger Lounge in our hotel and I don’t know if it was the post-race vibes or what, but it was REALLY GOOD.

By the time Monday (aka yesterday – I am SO out of it) rolled around, I was ready for some isolation. Kevin had wanted to take part in a poker tournament all week and he finally did it that day so I stayed mostly close to home, luxuriating with a Lush bath bomb, Pressed Juicery and some reading. It was our last night in town so we reviewed the things we’d wanted to do for any that we’d missed. Fortunately, there was only one: the Bellagio buffet.

After Kevin got knocked out of his tournament, I was back in the room so we got ready and headed up Strip. On our way, we tried playing the one game I’d been eyeballing all week: horse racing! Fun fact: I spent a LOT of time at the racetrack when I was a kid and I know a thing or two about racing. My brother and my dad are definitely the experts, but I’m no slouch. I don’t want to give any illusion that betting plastic racing horses requires any sort of skill, but I am going to tell you that it turns out I am good at it.

We did that for a while, had our dinner and played it some more.

Eventually, we got back to our room and packed, cleaned up, prepped our stuff for travel and watched Monday Night Raw. When that was over, we went back downstairs to the casino to have one last night of that kind of fun. We played slots together, cashed in on some My Vegas rewards and checked out our favourite parts of the property.

This morning, we pretty much just woke up, showered and headed to the airport. As we were leaving, the extravagant Christmas displays were starting to appear and I’m thankful that we caught a glimpse of a few before we left.

As I publish this, we’re sitting at the gate of our connecting flight from Seattle home. As always, I’m sad our vacation is coming to an end, but at least we have cats to look forward to. ????

Last time we were in Vegas, Kevin had a great love affair with the Kooza slot machine in the casino at the Aria. It seemed to love him as much as he enjoyed it and it essentially funded a good portion of our trip in the end. And a new xbox. I feel I need to disclose that the machine was the first thing he looked for when we arrived back at our hotel and, sadly, it’s gone now.

Since we got here, he has been looking far and wide for another Kooza machine or a sufficient and equally generous replacement. We’ve been in and through several casinos in the last six days and none have surfaced, but our search is not over yet!

We may not have found a replacement slot machine, but we did discover Deal or No Deal Poker at Caesar’s Palace yesterday afternoon. Each player selects a briefcase and is dealt two cards. All players then watch as cards are shown one at a time until they have full hands or the timer runs out. The first player to take the card after it is shown gets it and build their hand. If someone completes their hand, the timer burns down to the final seven seconds. Some of the briefcases are removed and then the winner gets to take the deal being offered by the banker or keep what’s in their selected briefcase. It’s loosely based on the game show of the same name (which I only learned about thanks to casino games.) The air of mystery surrounding the extra risk of gaining or losing more than anticipated adds to the fun fun and the fast pace of the card selection makes it more exciting than regular poker. It wasn’t monetarily lucrative, but we had a really good time playing just the two of us.

We headed up The Strip to spend some time checking out the casinos we usually like to visit, but hadn’t really hit yet. There isn’t really too much more to tell since we just looked at stuff, gambled, shopped, wandered. Nothing monumental. In fact, I don’t even remember if we bought anything.

Today, we got the running portion of the vacation underway and welcomed some friends to town. To be completely honest, yesterday feels like a lifetime ago.

More on all that tomorrow. ????

I was pretty immersed in learning and networking on the second day of the conference. Kevin was out exploring.

I attended one session in the morning that really lit me up. It was entirely techy work stuff so I’ll spare you the details, but it was super exciting (to me.)

I met my colleague for lunch (vegan eggplant parmigiana!) and we shared our discoveries.

In the afternoon, I connected with John again and attended a session that was interesting, but a little flawed. Let’s leave it at that.

I love Las Vegas carpets.I met up with Kevin again in our room and we rested up for the main event. After the second day of the conference every year, attendees get treated to a big show. This year, it was at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel.

I have harboured fantasies about visiting The Joint for years and finally made it for the first time last year for the same event. Back then, it was Train performing. This year, it was Kelly Clarkson.

When we arrived by bus from our home hotel, we were welcomed by a red carpet leading right into the venue. Small food stations were set up around the whole place. Highlights were the cheese tray, fried ravioli and excellent olive rolls.

We headed up to the balcony to get food and seats for the show. We were a little late to get our choice, but any seats are better than no seats. #old

Kelly Clarkson came out and played for 75 minutes. I’d expected her to be a little higher energy, but she was very cute and funny.

I love hanging around the Hard Rock so that’s what we did after the show. We looked at the memorabilia and through the shops and got the last shuttle back to the hotel.

With only one full day left in the conference, I needed to get a little rest. Conferences seem like they’re easy and non-stop fun, they’re actually a lot of work and it’s all exhausting.

Coning up for day four: more conference and a little adventuring (finally!)

Kevin and I had very different experiences of our first full day in Vegas.

This was his.

Mine was good, too. It was just primarily indoors.

Yesterday was day one of the conference I’m here for: KronosWorks.

In my day to day work (and I’ll try to limit how boring this is), the tool I use the most is a scheduling and timekeeping software made by Kronos and it’s called Workforce. I’m logged in from the minute I get into the office until the minute I leave. In addition to using it to manage all of the 200 employees I am responsible for, I also do all of the maintenance and optimization for our local application.

Coming to KronosWorks is good exposure to what other companies from all over the world are doing. It lets me meet new people in similar positions and learn about new technological and human relations advances.

The thing I love most about KronosWorks, though, is the focus on labour strategy and employee engagement. It speaks to my heart.

We started the day with a number of stories about customer cases and product related announcements. For the second year in a row, the general sessions were hosted by Katie Linendoll. I’ll admit that I didn’t know how she was before last year, but I was reminded that I quite like her.

The keynote address was delivered by Platon, a worldly, passionate and talented photographer, storyteller and humanitarian. He told incredible stories about photographing world leaders (more have sat for him than any other photographer) and other people from all different walks of life. He coupled many of his photos with background details that were heartfelt, heartwarming and spoke to human connection and vulnerability. It was all truly inspiring and it served the audience well, people working with people everyday, embracing the knowledge that people are any companys greatest asset and in many cases swimming upstream in a corporate world that doesn’t always accept that.

There’s only one other person from my company here and even though we’ve never met, we’ve worked together extensively. We were able to meet up before the general sessions and stuck together through the buffet lunch. (Som Tam, ftw!)

Once we were done, I ran up to the expo to connect with my friend John. I first met him when he led a workshop at our site and he and I are now connected all over social media. We see each other at conferences every year and every time I feel great affection for him. He’s so much fun and his high energy is really fun to me. Also, pro-tip for the Kronites out there: he always has candy at his booths.

After a couple of early afternoon workshop sessions, I headed to the presentation that John was giving. He joked that I’ve seen it a bunch of times, but honestly, it never gets old. The topic? The 5 Currencies You Must Pay and Retain Great Employees. I LOVE this stuff.

John talks a lot about leadership, talent retention and employee engagement. While talking about how feedback is effective, he argued that negative feedback has a bigger impact than positive feedback does. He said:

‪People say love trumps hate, but that isn’t true. Hate is more motivating than love. The difference is that there are more lovers than haters in the world so love always wins out in the end.

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We got a little downtime after my 4pm session and I headed to our room to relax, refresh and change my clothes before our industry dinner.

KronosWorks is always full of great content during the day and even greater entertainment in the evening. (Like that time we got the private visit to Harry Potter World!) After the first day of the conference, there are about six different industry dinners taking place. The idea is that by networking with people in similar industries, you’ll get to share solutions and processes.

This year, the manufacturing industry dinner was at Chateau Nightclub in Paris Hotel. We were shuttled over there from our hotel and made our way through the casino and nightclub entrance, up in the elevator and onto the rooftop.

When we walked out, we immediately noticed pool tables and decks of playing cards laid out on other tables. There was a huge version of Jenga set up in the middle. (The sounds of its collapse was terrifying!)

I’m sure my eyes lit up when I saw that there were also a couple of fortune tellers set up at separate tables – one read tarot cards and the other read oracle cards. I chose tarot. AND I LOVED IT.

I sat and talked with her for a long time and only left because a line started to form and it would be weird if I stayed there all night.

There were a couple of permanent bars and food stations situated throughout the space. There was caesar salad, macaroni and cheese, a legit cheese table, turkey and roast beef dinners. Desserts came out later and we grabbed some coffee to go.

We’ve been sticking pretty close to “home” since we left Vancouver so we decided to forgo the shuttle back to the hotel and took a walk across the street and over to Bellagio to see their fancy seasonal display.

First, The Strip.

We got to the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Garden and saw something just as joyful for me as seeing the card readers. This year’s harvest display is called Falling Asleep and it features a resting goddess of the harvest being watched over by some fairies.

It’s beautiful! ????

After leaving there, we were going to take the tram back to our hotel so we walked towards the back of Bellagio before discovering that a new (to us) walkway had been built through Vdara and linking to our Aria Hotel. We explored the space between and got our legs moving.

Day 3’s agenda: more of the same. Kevin is hitting up a different pool and I am conferencing all day.

I’ll put it this way: the end of the day was way more fun than the beginning. (But it was all still good.)

Well. Day one was certainly a challenge. As I mentioned, we were stopping for a connection. The only problem? We left Vancouver much later than scheduled but not late enough that we’d miss our flight from Seattle. So, the only thing left to do was grab our stuff and hustle from one terminal down some escalators onto a train up some more escalators and only our flight. That was the point when a woman yelled, “WE’RE CLOSING THE GATE!” when we were clearly aware of that and trying to help the process along. Then she barked at two of the people standing around there, “that’s two of you that can’t go!” Uh, sorry guys.

Our flight to Vegas was pretty smooth and it wasn’t until we got off on the other side that we started to talk about the likelihood that our bags had made the flight with us. And they hadn’t.

To be completely honest, it was kind of nice that they hadn’t because if you can set aside the anxiety of will I ever see my stuff again?!?!? then there is some luxury in having your bags delivered. You just have to come to peace with not knowing when.

Spoiler alert: for us, that was at about 10:30 while we were in the middle of watching the latest (and superb!) episode of You on Lifetime.

I’d love to say we didn’t let this wrench in our plans slow us down, but Kevin was a little rattled and I was totally overdressed so we were, let’s call it aware of the inconvenience. Still, we made the most of the time in between our arrival and that of our bags.

We went for arguably (really, we argued it later) the best pizza in Vegas (the Five50 takeout counter), grabbed some juice from Pressed Juicery and I checked in for my conference.

We made another trip upstairs to our room and then decided to get something to eat for real. My brother and his girlfriend were also in town, their trip overlapped ours by just this one day, and they texted to let us know that they were coming over our way. We headed downstairs to sit in the sports bar lounge which is also, technically, Five50. This time, we opted for hummus, arancini, mac and cheese and shrimp and avocado crostini. All were very good, but the hummus platter looked the best.

We took a little more time to hang out together in the casino before we headed up to bed and the task of figuring out how we’d MacGyver our way through a night without our bags.

And, yes, if you don’t deliver my bags in time, I will sure as shit say yes, I need one of your toiletries bags ESPECIALLY now that I know they’re sponsored by Kiehl’s.