Las Vegas Strip

In October, J. R. was sent by Nokia to the NetApp Insight professional conference in Las Vegas. At the last minute, Janie decided to tag along, leaving Rebecca in the capable hands of her brother Alex. The pair flew into Vegas (baby) early on the Sunday before the conference and caught a taxi to Mandalay Bay. We were surprising able to check-in early and after a debacle with J. R.'s corporate credit card, we had a room with a lovely view of the roof of the parking deck.

After dropping off their bags in the room, we went for a walk along the Las Vegas Strip. The walked from the Mandalay through Luxor and then through New York, New York. We had settled on Gordon Ramsay's BurGR at Planet Hollywood for lunch. This restaurant wasn't as good as Ramsay's pub, but was still enjoyable, especially the french fries. Janie thought the waitress' outfits were strange, consisting of a bright red short dress with gray panels down the side. J. R. thought we sort of resembled a Formula 1 pit girl uniforms, which may have been in keeping with the sports bar vibe. The hostess was not very welcoming and walked around with a sneer on her face but the waitress herself was very knowledgeable and service was quick.

After lunch, it was time to tour Paris, Caesar's Palace and the Bellagio. Having tired of walking, we took the tram from the Aria back to the Monte Carlo. Walking back through, we decided to stop for a drink at a sports bar and watch a little football before going to the hotel to relax. J. R. checked in for the conference at the Mandalay Bay convention center and picked up his badge and materials, including a new backpack and water bottle. We hung out in the hotel and watched some TV before going down to the casino area to find some dinner. We settled on the sushi bar since J. R. had a coupon from the conference and we watched the Bears get trounced by Dallas on Sunday Night football. J. R. considered ordering an Arnold Palmer in honor of the golfer who died that day but settled for just iced tea.

Insight Conference and Border Grille

J. R. rose early for the first day of the conference and went to pick up some breakfast. He brought a banana and some yogurt back for Janie since the first session wasn't for a few hours. Janie planned to work all day so she accompanied him back to the conference center area so she could get out of the room for awhile and set herself up in the food court with wi-fi and power while J. R. headed to his morning sessions. J. R. skipped out on the general session in the afternoon, which was all rah-rah marketing for NetApp so we could spend some time together. We'd originally planned to eat at RM Seafood, but the prices were very expensive so we instead decided to try the Border Grille. We went there first for some drinks and chips and salsa and the margaritas were very good. We were seated early for dinner and the food was good, but J. R. found his chicken enchiladas to be overcooked and dry.

Insight Day 2

Janie had plans to go out with her mom, who lives near Las Vegas, so J. R. headed to his sessions while the ladies went shopping. The evening event was a networking reception, which meant a couple of beers and a couple of scotch at a scotch tasting for J. R.

Customer Appreciation

Today was a long day for J. R. as it was the Customer Appreciation Event with Andy Grammer. Janie was hanging out with her mother again so J. R. attended his sessions and then attended a short reception at Border Grille for one of the vendors. This meant free chips and margaritas and J. R. had a few (and took one back to the room for Janie to have later.) Then he headed to the beach for the evening event. It was a buffet dinner of dim sum type items for the tropical theme, along with free mai tais. He sipped a couple of those while listening to the D.J. perform, who was really good. Then Andy Grammer came on. J. R. listened to two songs and then headed to the room. The previous year's entertainment had been Train, which J. R. enjoyed much more. He picked up a mai tai for the road and headed to the room, where Janie was watching TV.

Mandalay Bay and Flight Home

Janie had some more work to do today so she picked up her laptop and headed out to the Mandalay Beach for the morning while J. R. finished his morning sessions. He skipped lunch from the conference and met Janie at the pool. We took our luggage to the bell captain so we could check out of our room and then went for another walk on the strip. We went to New York, New York for lunch at Tom's Urban Las Vegas. The beer was good, as was the food and we watched music videos as we ate. We then went to the Coca-Cola store and the M&Ms store for some browsing. We really didn't want to walk anymore so we went back to the Mandalay Bay. There we saw our flight to Phoenix was delayed two hours, which wasn't a big deal because we had a four hour layover in Phoenix. But with nothing to do, we decided to get our luggage and a cab to the airport and hang out at the United Club. We noshed on snacks and had some beer and wine while waiting for our flight to Phoenix. We had about 45 minutes there before our redeye to Chicago, where we landed and headed home to the kids.