vegas, day 2

Hi y'all. Mostly this post is about my hair, just in case you were looking for pithy observations about Las Vegas. sorry.

Day 2 of the conference has gone pretty well, although some of the meetings were BORING and painfully long.

The beginning of the kick-off meeting, however, was pretty eventful. It was held in a huge arena - rock concert size. And, we had the full-on music and light show and then big banners dropping down from the ceiling with our competitors names spray-painted on them, then Cirque de Soleil acrobatty type people swooping in on wires and flying around tearing the banners down. Quite dramatic. Except it felt a bit.... what's the word?... overmuch.

I had a minor crisis this morning when I discovered that the blow dryer in the bathroom does not work. Crappy timing, considering that I have recently decided (after watching several episodes of What Not To Wear recently) to put a little bit of effort into how I look, including my hair.

My hair is crazy-thick and long, and does not like to be straight. But it can be beaten into submission with a blow dryer about about 30 minutes of extreme effort. I'm just usually too lazy to do it, and I put it in a ponytail, or in a knot and stick a chopstick in it and call it a day.

So, I was bummed that my plan to actually appear well-coifed at this event was in jeopardy. I called down and was told a blowdryer would be sent up to me. Which, of course, did not happen. So, I used the straightening iron thingy I had and basically cooked it dry. I'm sure that's good for the condition of my hair, which will probably all fall off tomorrow... but MAN! it is STRAIGHT today!

I would be more excited about it if it didn't already smell like cigarette smoke. Which it does. I'm whiny Californian, I know, but I really truly *hate* that I have to smell like an ashtray and my eyes have to feel like someone just gave them a sandpaper massage, just because other folks smoke around me in our SHARED air space. Blech. Take that shit outside.

Elle gave me some fab suggestions for widening my Las Vegas horizons, at least one of which I will endeavor to do... problem is that we are scheduled pretty tightly on this little trip... not much time to escape the mothership and explore. (If I had thought more about it, I could have flown in on the weekend and spent some time doing interesting culturally enriching things. But, I was pretty much in I-hate-Vegas mode, which is not so good, given that I had never even been here. Note to self: try to cut down on the whole Contempt Prior to Investigation thing.)