Work has been grueling lately, so I decided that it was time for a break. After much deliberation as to where I should go and when, I decided that Las Vegas would be a good spot and that the end of March would work out well.

I left for Vegas on March 28th. I was booked into the Luxor, my favorite hotel in that city. All of the preparations were made and I was excited to be going. The day started off well, with my copy of Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2008 being delivered just before I left. This was the last piece of software that I needed to finish some work that I am doing on the site. I threw the disk in my bag and got into the car to leave.

The ride to Vegas was really great. The weather was perfect, allowing me to avoid using the air conditioning. I threw the moon roof open and begun my journey. I took the normal route through Kingman and up into Las Vegas. All said and done, it was approximately 4 hours due to Hoover Dam traffic.

I pulled into the Luxor and got things situated in the room. I was able to get a room on the 26th floor, right outside of the Inclinators. My room overlooks Mandalay Bay, where I knew I would be spending a good amount of time. I fired up the laptop and got my Visual Studio install done while I was getting situated.

The reason that I chose the end of March was because I knew some friends would be in town that I have not seen in 5 months. They were playing at the House of Blues on both Friday and Saturday night. I packed everything that I needed and crossed over to Mandalay Bay. I got into the House of Blues and said hello to everyone. I spent the next few hours just relaxing and enjoying the break.

The show was phenomenal. There was a great opening band, the Latch Key Kids. Strung Out played next and then Bad Religion took the stage. They played quite a few of the older songs. This was probably my only chance to see Big Bang, Turn On The Light, and Get Off in the same set. As usual, Ronnie did a fantastic job with the sound and the crowd enjoyed every minute of it.

After the show, I hung out for a while and continued to share stories and catch up. Around midnight I went down to the casino and did some gambling. I hit the Craps table, played some Roulette, and handed a good amount of money over to a slot machine. I then met up everyone up at a bar and had a few drinks before calling it a night.

More to come...