What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas because it can't figure out how to get out.
I have just spent the past five days in Las Vegas varying degrees of completely lost. On my best day I can barely make it from one end of a straight block to the other. If I'm distracted at any point, chances are 50/50 I'll wander back the same direction I came from. I've learned to accept my Achilles head as an easy way to accidentally investigate places where lots of prostitutes hang out.
Maybe if I were a gambler I would feel otherwise, but Las Vegas befuddles me. It's a lite-brite babylon with the desperate, frenetic energy of a recent divorcee on New Years Eve. I am simply not turned on by looped video footage of various fat middle-aged men passed out in twinkling pools of vomit while a country music version of "We are the Champions" blares in the background. I wander around looking about as terrified and uncomfortable as Mitt Romney at the Leatherati Black Party Expo.
If the watered-down swill I non-enjoyed was any benchmark, Las Vegas is not a place for people who like fancy designer cocktails with cucumber juice and fresh ginger. It is also not a place for people with no sense of direction attempting to leave one establishment and go to another establishment. I noticed they went to far greater lengths then entirely necessary to trap me inside death-star style floor plans and fire-spewing slot machine mazes.
To get to my convention, I had to make it from the monorail stop at Harrahs over to the Sands. The first day, a kind-hearted valet helped me plot out "a shortcut." I only made it once without a detour into the casino employee shower area, but here is a pictorial travelogue of my journey:
Leaving Harrahs by the backdoor shuttle bus pickup area:
Heading to "where the sun hits that wall over there":
Little rat hole along the way:
Walking along the road by the dumpsters:
Entering the parking deck with some signage-born trepidation:
Going upstairs:
Traipsing down this back hallway:
Popping out in the basement behind the Paradise Gift Shoppe:
Maybe if I were a gambler I would feel otherwise, but Las Vegas befuddles me. It's a lite-brite babylon with the desperate, frenetic energy of a recent divorcee on New Years Eve. I am simply not turned on by looped video footage of various fat middle-aged men passed out in twinkling pools of vomit while a country music version of "We are the Champions" blares in the background. I wander around looking about as terrified and uncomfortable as Mitt Romney at the Leatherati Black Party Expo.
If the watered-down swill I non-enjoyed was any benchmark, Las Vegas is not a place for people who like fancy designer cocktails with cucumber juice and fresh ginger. It is also not a place for people with no sense of direction attempting to leave one establishment and go to another establishment. I noticed they went to far greater lengths then entirely necessary to trap me inside death-star style floor plans and fire-spewing slot machine mazes.
To get to my convention, I had to make it from the monorail stop at Harrahs over to the Sands. The first day, a kind-hearted valet helped me plot out "a shortcut." I only made it once without a detour into the casino employee shower area, but here is a pictorial travelogue of my journey:
Leaving Harrahs by the backdoor shuttle bus pickup area:
Heading to "where the sun hits that wall over there":
Little rat hole along the way:
Walking along the road by the dumpsters:
Entering the parking deck with some signage-born trepidation:
Going upstairs:
Traipsing down this back hallway:
Popping out in the basement behind the Paradise Gift Shoppe:
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