Raible Designs

Back from Vegas

This weekend was one of my smoothest returns from Vegas in my life. It probably helped that Julie joined me there on Friday and we flew back together on Saturday. My BOF on Friday night was very well received and I heard a lot of positive comments about it afterwards. What do you expect when you give people free beer.

After the BOF, the Virtuas Crew had a kick-ass dinner at BOA Steakhouse in Caesar's. Before we were done, a college buddy of mine arrived in Vegas, so Julie and I met him at Harrah's for some blackjack and craps. We had an fun night of gambling with my buddy, who started with $5K at the first blackjack table. Apparently, Julie brought him luck and he ended up winning a few grand by the time the night was over. We had breakfast and walked back to Caesar's as the sun was coming up. We saw Gier and Hani catching cabs as we were walking in. 5 hours later, we'd had a good night's sleep and headed to the airport. We got sidetracked at Emeril's for lunch and enjoyed some good laughs with a couple friends before leaving.

When we got home last night, both kids had just fallen asleep. Of course, we wanted to wake them up, but also realized that sleeping children is quite a blessing. They were tickled to death when they woke up this morning and we were home. Today was a great day, and a big reason why it was so easy to transition from Vegas to Denver. The kids and I let Julie sleep in a little and took a stroller ride to the local bagel shop (a mere 3 blocks away) for a couple hours. It was a windy walk and we arrived home motivated to do some kite-flying at the park. We had fun at the park and it was super cute watching Abbie fly her first kite. After that, we headed to Dave & Buster's for lunch. Abbie never let me sit down because she wanted to play games the whole time. 2 hours later, we were on our way back home.

The day ended with Jack and I running errands. I needed to buy a new laptop backpack since mine got shredded in the wash a couple of weeks ago. We headed to Gart Sports, where I shopped and Jack stabbed stuff with a tent stake he found. He was like a hunter on the loose, crouching, jumping and yelling at stuff throughout the corner of the store we were in. It's a good thing no one else was around.

I ended up with the only backpack that could fit my laptop, which seems quite strange. I've been to the Apple Store, REI and Gart Sports and I've found the laptop backpack situation is abysmal. A couple of years ago, the selection was quite good. Oh well, I only paid $35 and I'll probably look for one online this week. The ideal backpack would have a built-in camelback and laptop holder (since I use it primarily when commuting on my bike).

After Garts, we headed to the Apple Store in Cherry Creek. I had to buy a new power cord for my MacBook Pro. I left mine in Vegas, possibly at the BOF. The Apple Store is pretty close to the "breakfast playground" - so I had to let Jack play in it. 15 minutes of jumping on eggs, waffles, climbing on bananas and sliding down bacon made Jack a very happy camper.

It's great to be home. AFAIK, I'm not travelling for a couple weeks, possibly more than a month. My next big trip is to The Ajax Experience and JavaOne in May. This week is supposed to be in the 60s, so I'm looking forward to a nice week of Colorado spring weather. With any luck, I'll get a signification amount done on both AppFuse and Spring Live this week. It might take a couple of late nights to make it happen, but I feel pretty motivated right now.