Viva Las Vegas!!

I've been in my job for the past almost five years and in that time I've been in the room with many world leaders, seen the Queen, gone to the King of Saudi Arabia's palace. I'd like to think that I've experienced many things and places because of my job but up until last week, one important goal eluded me. I finally made it to Las Vegas with POTUS!

The previous POTUS made at least two trips to Vegas and I wasn't on either one. This POTUS went last May and I wasn't on that trip either. So finally it was my time! I had never been to Vegas ever before so I knew I was in for a treat. I realize off the bat that traveling with POTUS anywhere is not how I would experience it on my own so I try to soak in as much as possible because it won't be anything like that when I go paying for it myself!

First of all, if it were up to my bank account, I would be staying in the Holiday Inn by the airport. But we got to stay at the Bellagio! It's the casino/hotel that has been in several movies and it's probably most famous for the fountains outside that are synchronized to music. I was working with the PR people from the hotel and they even let me pick the song for one of the fountain's shows and cue the music! It was awesome! It might have been one of the coolest things I've ever done with this job. Of course I picked "Viva Las Vegas"! What could be more appropriate? Pathetic I know, but cool nonetheless!

The hotel itself was great but everything in Vegas is huge! It was a 20 minute walk through the casinos to get to anywhere I needed to go. I am not kidding when I say I walked about 15 miles before noon! In heels!

As I mentioned, I didn't have a normal time in Vegas. It was waaaay cooler and a bit surreal if I had been there on my own. The first night I went to Raos at Caesar's Palace and met the owner of the restaurant and some investors types. Let's just say that I brought the average annual income statistic waaaay down. They were exactly what I would picture "Vegas types" to be. Just like the movies! When we finished there, it was about midnight local time (3a on my body's time) and I wanted to sleep more than anything else. I had to be up really early to meet some other people and start working. Exhausted was an understatement and pulling my suitcase behind me through two enormous casinos didn't make it easier. Although I guess my suitcase could have been mistaken for being full of money so maybe I looked slightly cooler than I thought. Ummm. No. Not even close!

*Side note: I thought it was especially thoughtful that the towels at the Bellagio had my initials on them. I really liked that touch!

Anyway, the next day, I went straight to work figuring out where to put the satellite truck and where we were going to do liveshots and about fifteen other things on my list before 9a! I did take a break for a $15 crepe (I had to mention food, right?!) I had blown a huge portion of my per diem and it was only 8a! We had several interviews we had lined up for the morning including the director of Viva Elvis (which had its opening night on Friday) and then the CEO of MGM Mirage. Again, I ended up walking a ton because even though these two interviews were in the same building, I think each building has its own zip code. After running through the casinos and hotels like chickens with our heads cut off, we went to go do liveshots. Except by the time we were all set up, they killed our liveshot because of the man who flew his plane into a building in Texas. Such is life. We ended up putting together a piece and eventually it aired but we had a little unexpected time to make it into a work of art! :) Throughout the afternoon, I had time to do plenty of people watching as they passed by our roped off section of the sidewalk. I knew this going into my trip but there are a lot of weird people there. I saw one Elvis, a newly married Star Trek couple, and Zorro. And a couple of other newlyweds too. How romantic!

Thursday night included another fancy-smancy dinner... this one included some WH officials at another nice restaurant at Caesar's. I think it was one of Bobby Flay's restaurants but he wasn't there. I wasn't all that hungry and so I just ate some mashed potatoes. Clearly some of the best mashed potatoes I've ever had because when we all split the bill, my part came to $175!! I think I was eating semi-liquid gold!!

I ended the night by gambling. I had to. You can't go to Vegas and not play the slots or anything else in the casinos. And I was planning on tithing on anything I won. I went with two co-workers and between us we had about $13 in our pockets. We tried the slot machines and honestly I didn't understand. I just kept hitting buttons. At one point, I pushed the button, bells started to ring and I was sure that I had just won a million dollars and was already making plans to quit my job and live a life of luxury. It turns out I won $2.32. Too bad. I don't think that's enough to quit my job over. Especially since I lost all of that within about three minutes. And I was playing the penny slots. It's such a mystery to me and I guess if I understood more, I could be completely addicted but having no idea when the machine was going to ring and make me believe I was instantly going to become a millionaire actually helped me to be able to walk away. I know I'm a bad gambler and haven't learned the art of a poker face or knowing when to hold them, fold them or walk away as the song goes. Plus I don't have extra money to burn so it's not even a temptation for me!

For the record, I thought I would see more Elvi than I did. I saw a real life one in the casino at the Bellagio. And another one at POTUS's town hall on Friday. And then of course my favorite... the bust outside the Elvis theater. I was hoping to meet several Elvi there but they looked at me like I was crazy when I asked.

All in all, I had a good time in Vegas. I kept hearing from people about all the cool things I should do while in Vegas. I had a little more freedom from the POTUS bubble this trip and I still worked so much that I didn't have time to do any of the cool stuff. So I'll have to plan my trip back there and use some of those connections to the people I met to see what Vegas is REALLY about!

Snowmageddon!! Or is it Snowpocalypse??

Since my last post, I have a new perception on snowfall totals. I drove home from the White House a couple of Saturdays ago in about 8 inches. Boy, ten days later, that's NOTHING!

So in the last seven days, I have seen more snow than I've ever seen in my lifetime and have had a whole new set of adventures. I realize that nothing will ever compete to the randomness of the HoJo's (I think I'm repeating myself now!) but now I feel like I've experienced being snowed in in pretty much every scenario. I spent two days in a seedy (Sorry, Habeeb the innkeeper) and then for a few hours at the White House. And pretty much everything in between.

Last Friday, the snow started falling and the thought of me getting stuck at work was sooo unappealing so I took the day off and watched it snow (and not stick) for hour after hour. I was kind of excited about having a relaxing afternoon watching the classics like Dr. Phil and Oprah. However, all of our local news was in live programming all afternoon just repeating the same thing over and over again. "It's going to snow. It's going to be massive. It's going to be a lot of snow. Please don't drive." Really? It was obvious with a two second glance at the radar map. All I wanted to see was Oprah! My network does the same thing but it's supposed to do that. The local affiliates and networks don't have to. I might be oversimplifying things but I'm in the news business so I can make fun.

Anyway, I had thought about what it would be like to be snowed in at home and I definitely went into planning mode. I decided I didn't want to sit in front of the TV or play hours and hours of spider solitaire for three days, only budging to put oatmeal chocolate cookies in the oven and take them out. (I don't judge though if this was you. Normally it would be me but I wanted to switch things up!) So I braved the grocery store on Friday morning which was quite the scene. Due to my new-found love of cooking, I had a couple of recipes of things I wanted to make and went armed to the grocery store. Luckily I didn't need anything like bread, milk, and toilet paper. Actually I was previously pretty well stocked (thanks to the productive trip to the grocery store the week before when my cooking skills were launched.) But I had a few ingredients that I didn't think I had. (It turns out that I bought the very last box of Bisquick in the entire store and wouldn't you know, when I got home, I already had an unopened box that wasn't even expired! Who knew?!?) Anyway, I didn't have a traumatic trip to the grocery store other than having to practically run over stupid people in the parking lot! :) But it certainly looked like people were never planning on leaving their houses again. On the local news (that I watched waaay too much of) they reported that bananas and mushrooms were out in most stores. Huh? I didn't have a need for either!

Anyway, I got back home and hunkered down for the snow. You've seen it all on the news but basically by Saturday morning, we had about 15 inches and it snowed all day long until we had about 27 or so inches. I had come up with various indoor activities so that I wouldn't get bored. I played the piano. I finished a couple of books. I talked on the phone. I had bought a 1000 piece puzzle. I figured that would keep me pretty well entertained. Oh,and I had a few recipes I wanted to make. How's that for being productive I didn't even watch too much TV! Seriously, I almost felt too busy to be snowed in!

I started early in the day with making an apple crisp. I had had this when I was in Baku and I thought if my friends' teenage sons could make it with a very limited grocery store, then I had no excuses! But let me tell you. It was a commitment! Keep in mind that I just started cooking 10 days prior to the storm. I didn't know for sure if I owned a peeler. It turns out that some former roommate along the way left it in my possession and I can assure you it hadn't been used! After spending quality time peeling the apples (which I finally got into the groove for the LAST apple!), I decided I was already exhausted but then I was also committed to finishing what I started! Long story short, I made it and even took it over to my friends' Barbara and David's house for dinner!! It was a hit!!

Barbara and I have been friends for years, having met when we went to the same church years ago. She's one of the coolest Wahoo's I know! :) She and David live in my neighborhood, yet we rarely ever see each other. I was so excited when she invited me (and one of their other neighbors) over to their house for dinner. I'm an extrovert living as an introvert so the opportunity to interact with others was just sooo exciting!! Once I got off my patio in the snow that was at least mid-thigh, I walked over to their house. We had so much fun having dinner and dessert (I admit I was slightly intimidated!) and playing Wii! And I was only a few steps away from my house! We decided that we were going to hang out even when there's no snow!

Sunday, church was cancelled and I continued to have a relaxing day. Well sort of. Again, I almost felt like I had so many "activities" that I wasn't really relaxing very much! But I had to add "digging my car" to that list and so relaxing was going to have to wait. Oh, I failed to mention a huge thing. I do not own a snow shovel. I was going to borrow one from my friends Joe and Katie but I didn't take them up on the offer for the last snow and now it was too late. All I had was my kitchen broom and dustpan. I managed to shovel a pathway from my door to the sidewalk but let me just say. It was waaaay too intimidating to tackle digging out my car with a dustpan. With the amount of snow, I would have been there until April. I found an unused shovel on a patio a few doors down and offered to rent it from them. They took pity on me, said good luck and let me use it for free. I know the guy looked at me and laughed because he knew it would take me a long, long time. And he was right. After an hour or so, I had only gotten halfway through the four foot wall of snow in front of my car. I'm pretty sure I was lifting snow that was two or three times my weight. I immediately knew that I wouldn't be able to move the next day!! Finally a guy who lived nearby offered to help me and suddenly I sensed that I might actually get to move my car one day soon! He was amazing!! All the snow from the car next to mine had fallen on my driver's side door. It was literally over my head! But before we knew it, I was able to see my car!! I celebrated my feat with going to a Super Bowl party at another new friend's house in my neighborhood! A whole lot of fun and I didn't have to drive anywhere!

Monday, I worked from home which I had never done before. I was even somewhat productive! Due to the fact that I felt like a 90 year old woman and had trouble moving my arms above my head, I finally did the relaxing thing! And I worked every so often. :) I also ate chili (the first time I had made it!) and had as much of a snow day as possible. Tuesday came with calls for another foot of snow. This time my office decided I was a "critical" role of the newsmaking operation and put me up in a hotel near work. So I gave up that beautiful parking place that I spent hours digging out of (with the help of Ryan) and hunkered down in a relatively plush hotel room. It was almost like coming full circle since the first storm of the season I was stuck in HoJo's. This was just a little bit nicer, with more expensive food choices, but no new BFF who took me to Walmart and the Country Cookin! A bunch of my colleagues were there and it was actually fun, in that summer-camp kind of way.

I do look forward to sleeping in my own bed, not spending $26 on breakfast, and relaxing this weekend. Even more, I look forward to when there isn't snow in the forecast and we might hit forty degrees!!