First off, I'm not a gambler, so in that respect, I don't get too excited about going to Las Vegas. Usually, I set a limit for myself if I got to Atlantic City for the weekend. For Las Vegas, I set my limit at $100. Very cheap, I know. But $100 is an amount that I can lose and not stew about it. If I lose $200 or more, I begin to think of what I could have bought with that money. I spent my $100 in the first 45 minutes of being at our hotel. I'm one of the few people that has the self control to then stop. Over the course of the next week, I spent no more than about $20 which I would randomly feed in to a slot machine or video-poker if I happened to be sitting at one.
The first hotel that we stayed at was the Venetian. 
The Venetian is Vegas'
newest hotel at 2 months old, and one of the grandest. The
rooms are all
700 square foot or more, and each luxurious. This was the life.
From the $13 / night hostels of Europe to this. Giddyup. We attended the
conference the next day which was rather informative. It was on Internet
Network Security. How to protect your computer systems from the outside world.
Thats what the whole week was about in a nutshell.
Later that night, I went to go meet the guys that I travelled to Vegas with (Chris and Phil) downstairs in the cocktail bar so that we could go to dinner. As I sat down, Chris was finishing his beer and we were late for leaving. The waitress came up and asked me what I wanted and I told her we were headed out. She said that was too bad that I was leaving as she thought I was cute. Hmm, straightforwardness is good. I asked her how late she was working and she said her name was (let's call her J) and she'd be there until 3am. I told her I'd be back.
We dined at the stratosphere, which if you ever go to Las Vegas, is a must
stop for dinner. Its on top of a
'space-needle" designed building. It rotates once an hour. We got there
right at sunset, and watched the horizon change from every view. I highly
recommend it. Afterwards, Chris and I hit a couple of bars, including the
Circus in the sky,
which is an amazing Mardi-Gras type show that happens in a hotel bar on rails
above your head.
At about 2:30, I figured the cocktail bar would be thinned out and I'd be able to chat with J. I went down and it was still packed. I asked J if she wanted to go for drinks after work. She said sure. So at 3am, I met her in front of the casino/hotel, and got in to her car. So here I am, with someone I really don't know, in a town I've never been to and don't know anyone, headed for destination unknown. I was in my element. Something about so many unknowns. She wasn't planning on going out, so she wore white sweats and a white T-shirt. We went to a bar where her friend worked and hooked us up with drinks all night. She ordered a red wine, which I promptly spilled down her entire white outfit while trying to be swave and light her cigarette. She was very cool about the whole mishap. She was pretty cool in general. We made plans to hang out on both of her nights off which were Thursday and Friday. The rest of the nights I'd be able to hang with my friends that I came with, and one of my fraternity brothers that lived there.
