Vegas etc

Travelled to Vegas on Sunday for a 3 day stay for a work conference. Going that far for such a short stay proved to be very tiring. I arrived around lunchtime on Sunday and by the time I finalized checking into my hotel and also registering for the conference, it was about 3:00pm. I decided to hit the poker tables for a while before the first conference function that evening.

I was playing $1/$2 NL and not getting anything playable at all. In fact, it was quite an uninspiring couple of hours. The only decent hand I got actually cost me a chunk of money as my AA got cracked by a flush. I was also quite tired and probably not really that focussed on what I was doing as well.

The rest of the stay involved work dinners and educational sessions. I really did not get much of a chance to gamble any more than this as I was never able to adjust to the west coast time (waking up at 4:30am both mornings). I had to attend the educational sessions as they were scanning badges to monitor attendance and the evening dinners tended to drag on with managers talking endlessly about many of the same topics. I left at lunchtime on Tuesday and was quite tired when I reached home...

...although not too tired to stay up until 2:00am watching the 3rd cricket test! Thanks to the two late wickets, we are in a good position I think but we need a couple of early wickets tonight to finish them off for a manageable total.

On the trip, I did manage to finish a book I had been reading "God Is Not Great : How Religion Poisions Everything" by Christopher Hitchens. It was very interesting and would certainly think that anybody, no matter what your religious beliefs were, could enjoy hearing what he had to say. He certainly does not leave anything to the imagination regarding his opinions, but I guess the title kind of makes that clear!

While flying home I started another of my Christmas presents by John Krakauer - "Into Thin Air". I simply could not put this thing down and managed to get through 2/3 of it during the flight. It is his personal account of a tragedy during a climb on Mt Everest about 10 years ago. Just hearing of the hardships and risks during all points of the climb is amazing. The fact that even with all the modern technology and lessons learned from past climbs so many people die trying to make the climb shows just how truly harsh and unforgiving that part of the world is. One fact that I had not really even considered...the height of Everest is almost the same height that jet airliners cruise at (give or take a little) 28029 feet. This was quite revealing while looking out of my plane window, imagining walking/climbing to such a height. I plan to finish the book soon, although cricket watching might get in the way this week.

Mindy's mother is also in town this week for a visit so she will be busy for that. The kids are especially excited and love the extra attention they get during such times.