Brainsprain.net

I woke up Tuesday morning (my birthday) to the sound of my iPhone dinging. Seems a couple of people due to arrive that day had missed their flight, and were texting me to let me know that they would attempt to catch the next flight to Vegas and to sit tight. I got up, and Colleen was still asleep and it was pretty early, so I decided that a great birthday gift to myself would be to go work out. I went to the fitness room and spent some time on a stationary bike and then ran about a mile and a half on a treadmill and returned to the room. I got back and showered and woke the wife and we dressed and met up with everyone to eat breakfast. We ate at the inappropriately named “The Coffee Shop” inside of TI. I say inappropriately named because the coffee was just drip and terrible. No lattes, cappucinos, nothing. The food was pretty good, though. By the time we were finished eating, the stragglers arrived from the airport, having managed to make the next flight. They dropped their stuff in our room, and we hiked across the street to the monorail station and headed over to the Las Vegas Hilton, home of Star Trek: The Experience and where I wanted to spend my birthday.

We got there about fifteen minutes before they opened, and got in the line to buy tickets to the attractions. We got a package deal which included The Klingon Encounter, Borg 4D, pictures on the bridge and in the Borg chamber, and a backstage tour. I waited impatiently for everyone to buy their tickets, and was very excited. When we were finally ready to go through, we presented our tickets to a lady who looked at me and shook her head a little.

She said, “I’ve worked here for ten years. I’ve admitted Klingons who refused to speak English. I’ve seen families of Andorians including infants — PAINTED BLUE. I’ve seen it all. I have never seen anyone as excited to be here as you are.” Best. Compliment. Ever.

We went through and did the two rides, and then stopped for a quick appetizer and drink in Quark’s Bar before the backstage tour.  We went on the tour where we learned all kinds of interesting secrets about the attraction, and then had our pictures taken.  Exhausted, as by this time we’d spent a good five hours Experiencing Star Trek, we sat down in Quark’s Bar for actual food and even more actual booze.

My geekdom sated, we made our way back to the hotel and drank even more in Kahunaville that night.

We got to the airport at dark-thirty Monday morning, and, because we had PAPER TICKETS (which we bartered for with chickens and marked their sale on a clay tablet) we had to wait in Southwest’s long line to exchange them for paper boarding passes per the TSA.  The security line was really long, which is to be expected for a Monday morning and then we all sat down together to eat breakfast.  Some of us opted for boring old breakfast tacos, while others of us opted for the ingenious Mangia breakfast pizza.  Instead of pizza sauce, they use frickin GRAVY.  It was devine.  We got on the plane and split up into our respective middle seats.  Yay.  The flight was uneventful, which is my favorite kind of flight.

We arrived, grabbed our bags, and hopped a shuttle over to Treasure Island, which was now known as TI, and had been almost complete de-pirate-ized.  That makes me sad.  You’d think with Johnny Depp’s latest string of blockbusters, they’d be more into the whole theme.  We lined up at the buffet for second breakfast (the most important breakfast of the day), and April scampered off to her room, looking a little green.  We ate, and then retired to our rooms for a nap.

Colleen and I went down to the pool for a bit after our nap, then we met up with everyone (including a recovered April) for dinner at Kahunaville, a restaurant/bar which was very tasty.  Everyone but Colleen and I had gotten tickets to see Mystéré, so off they went, and we waited in the bar to meet up with Dawn, a friend of mine from high school who now lives in Vegas.  She and her husband took us to dinner down the way at Palm Steak House in Caesar’s Palace (YUM!) and we met some of their friends.  After the show, Shane and April joined us and William (Dawn’s Hubby) drove us to a club where they comped our entry cause it was almost my birthday.  We drank too much and had lots of fun, and then took a cab back to the hotel and passed out.

So I work for a Software as a Service company, and the product I support is designed to contact users by phone, email, SMS, fax, etc., in the event of an emergency or disaster. It is very, very powerful. So a guy gets a genius idea, as an April Fool’s Joke, to have the system repeatedly call a colleague with several silly messages. The problem was that he didn’t know when enough was enough, and didn’t understand the system. He accidentally set it up to recur, which meant the message went out over and over. He also didn’t understand how to stop the recurrence, so he couldn’t cancel it.

Moral of the story: If you’re going to play an April Fool’s Joke, make sure you understand what you’re doing, otherwise an entire company may be laughing at you while your boss is screaming at you for misuse of a very expensive notification system.

So, I have been in Las Vegas for a week. It has been so much fun. We went with 3 other couples who are close friends and stayed away from all the sports books during March Madness. It was great. On Tuesday, we went to the Star Trek Experience and did the whole backstage tour. We have some hilarious pictures of us on the bridge of the Enterprise where it looks like everything has gone terribly wrong. On Wednesday, we saw Spamalot. It is another hilarious example of how brilliant Eric Idle is. The big turning point for me, however, was seeing Penn and Teller. My friend John had bought us tickets in the fifth row, center for Chad’s birthday. If you do not know, that is Chad’s favorite place to sit in any theatre. He believes that it is the best seat in the house and we usually get to movies at least 45 minutes a head of schedule to make sure we have those exact seats. We have adored Penn and Teller for years. I personally fell in love with them when they made David Letterman squeal like a little girl and run from all the cockroaches but Chad knew their act from way before.

I won’t give anything away in their show, but I noticed something special in the beginning which most people in the audience do not notice. It is probably because I am a musician. Anyway, both magicians do some extra stuff for people who are a little more observant. It is like easter eggs for the clever. I felt very special. During the show, they did some neat new tricks and some great old ones including the clear cups and balls. I love how they tell you exactly what they are going to do and they teach you magic as they do it. Teller is so good at slight of hand that when he is showing you how to do something, it is hard to believe he is doing it even though he is standing there showing you that he is. They ended the show with a flag burning which was so well-worded that people who would have been offended by it could not be offended because they did NOT actually burn the flag and they proved it to you by wrapping the flag in the Bill of Rights (FIRST AMENDMENT PARCHMENT) and then setting it on fire. Then they showed you that they did not set it on fire by wrapping it in China’s Bill of Rights (CLEAR ACETATE) so you can see the trick. Those guys always have a message.

When we met them after the show, they were both very gracious and kind. I know they wanted to go home, but they believe in their fans and they greet them every single night. Penn tells every fan who asks for a picture that “he would be honored” to have his picture made with them.

So, I was lying in bed that night after watching this incredible magic show and hearing the song “Find Your Grail” in my head. I kept thinking that life is about doing what you choose to do and when you really look at it, the simplest explanations are usually the correct ones and something that had been hanging on just let go. I stopped being so scared and just relaxed. Finally.

Just got home from a week in Vegas with some of our very best friends. We missed everyone who wasn’t there, but we had a blast. There is a ton to blog about, and I’ll get it done this week, as pictures are circulated, I’ll be sure to post them here. In short, we drank too much, ate too much, gambled too much, saw too many shows, sat in the hot tub way too long, and definitely overstayed our welcome at Star Trek: The Experience. We have set the bar very very high for great awesome vacations.

So why can’t this guy be mayor?  Bush really lowered the bar for public office, huh?

Saying this here so I don’t have to admit I’m wrong to anyone, but can merely claim “I blogged all about that!”  In short, I mistakenly listened to a colleague who claimed that Ryan Reynolds was actually Burt Reynolds’s son.  I claimed this myth as truth, and it’s not.  Teach me to not look stuff up on IMDB…

Congress is finally holding the Bush administration accountable for its warrant-less and unethical (if not outright illegal) wire taps.  Congress also shunned Bush’s suggestion that telcom companies should be immune from lawsuits for their complicity in these wiretaps.

Bush said, “The American people understand the stakes in this struggle. They want their children to be safe from terror.”

It’s nice to see that Congress wants our children to be safe from Bush.

In an odd sequence of events, local great-grandmother Edna Altman continued to look the cover of a back dated Time Magazine instead of her great grandson Jason during his bris. No matter what her two sons said to get her attention on the baby, she continued to look at the magazine and announce “I don’t see a difference” as she stared at a picture of Presidential hopeful John McCain (R).

CM Reporting for BS Daily Record

I’m getting an average of a call an hour reminding me to vote.  In the primaries.  It’s pretty much going to determine whether Hillary or Barrack becomes the Democratic candidate for President.  So they’re asking me to choose between two people who have almost no discernible differences in platform when compared with the evil imperial incumbent party.  Besides, after the utter sham of the last two presidential elections, I’m wondering if I have any say anyway.  I one of very few people outraged when Bush stole the first election, and we see how well that turned out.  I’m bitter about our broken electoral process, and doubt our elections would withstand the scrutiny of the auditors we send to other countries to oversee so-called free elections.  Nope, I’m sitting this one out.  Good luck with that.