Thursday (Water)

735am vegas. Flight was delightful. Oxygen masked stayed stowed.

Seat cusion bouancy not tested.

As the $24 budget vehicles from Alamo do not have power windows/locks...umm...decided on a silver 2.5 Jetta. As much as I never liked the looks (ask TJ) Its a great driving car. Interior design is nice and German however the materials are less than ideal. Great bottomend. Surprisingly so. Very simular feel and sound to BMW 330i. Of course being used to the FIT, anything other than a Kia Rio will seem powerful by comparison. You can get this car for 18k? Interesting.

Observed frail homeless man accepting a few dollars from passerby. Looked up with a nod to the giver. 5 min later I bought two 32oz dasanis a few blocks down the street. Walked back and offered the man the second water bottle. He stood, looked me in the eye and bowed 3 times saying "bless you friend" Unlike most in bloomington these folks "look" truely homeless.

Shot the manadatory Vegas sign. Said hello to Bigbird. Has an afroamerican dialect? Whole knew?
8-1130am Walked the southern end of the strip from Excaliber past NY NY, Tropicana, MGM, Montey Carlo. 12 headed to Sahara Camera to pickup my 24-105L and the five pound dumble 100-400, (for sunsets)  Had a good Korean veggie noodle lunch. Headed back to Mandalay for Photo Con.1-5pm  Mandalay is beautiful. Very classy. Expo was fantastic. Met Scott Kelby. Very humble guy for a "photo rockstar author" I have 5 of his 74 books on the subject. Pretty much ignored all the gadget booths, went strait back to the 4 "studio shooting booths" Each booth had a pro photog or 2 talking about how they set up the light for the shoot and basic camera setting suggestions. I learned alot from George Simian. http://www.georgesimian.com/ on Fridays visit.

630 pm checked into the Circus. Not as Circussy as I imagined.  Car equivalent: 1985 Cutlass Sierra.

Room was better than expected for the rate. 33rd floor view was neat. The little things were there too. Organized the 3 kids (camera and associated support gear). Having 3 bags that "russian doll" into one roller carry on giving a total of 28 pockets not counting my 10 pockets in my cargo shorts, to loose, I mean put camera stuff in creates "neat" moments of "where the hell did I put that lense cap" Pretty much have an efficient system figured out now. Sleep 930pm.