Keep the lantern bright, Keep food upon the table. Shape it well tonight, as well as you are able

Back from the road, blog -

I actually made an effort to get down the big Vegas trip that just ended as it was happening but somehow that went off the rails. What?! I know. After weeks of the routine-destroying antics with the teenager followed by the holidays and topped off by a week-long trip to Vegas I can't be sure that any of this actually happened but I do seem to have some pictures on my phone and crappy plastic souvenirs for the kids to back me up.

What I remember is this...

The trip was actually huge fun, maybe the best work trip I've had yet at this, a very travel-heavy job. The wife got to fly out for a quick vacation that she more than deserves after weeks, months and years of giving all her energy to other people. That was nice even if I was working long days in a small, plain room while she was off pulling money out of slot machines like she owned the place.

We did find time for a couple very nice meals before she headed home and I went back to trying to focus on the job, which is why I was there after all.

The job itself was easy, no....it was boring. It was fucking boring.
There were 6 of us on the crew, which makes all the difference in the world on a trip that's going to keep me away from the kids for a solid week and spending 95% of every day sitting still and just waiting to do something. I wish that was just hyperbole but it's not. We set up, then camped in the green room for hours on end for our sessions to start. When our sessions started that meant only another hour of waiting to push the button. And push the button we did. We pushed the hell out of that button. Then back to the green room, often for 3-5 hours at a time until the button demanded more pushing....repeat.

Alone it would have been suicidally boring and Las Vegas solo is about as fun as a handful of barbiturates washed down with some fresh warm piss. Add a good crew to pass the work time with and actually enjoy the Strip with and suddenly it feels a little more fun. A lot more fun.

We has some drinks, hit the Double Down Saloon for "Ass Juice" with scrambled porn and a bacon martini, the Brit got singled out by an unusually violent and crazy drunk that repeatedly called him "the Chosen One", Robin Leech was in there somewhere, saw a hoedown on Fremont Street (complete, as all hoedowns should be, with a huge tribute to Freddy Mercury), a 12oz glass of straight whiskey with a couple of ice cubes in it (which I'm pretty sure were made of even nastier whiskey), In-And-Out Burgers, Irish Music, Tequila, the most freakishly terrifying polar bear ever seen by human eyes in the desert - all followed with maybe the worst return flight schedule ever devised short of United 93.
Whew, I think that about covers it.

Got back into town a complete wreck, slept for a solid 12 hours and I'm not exactly sure I'm back up to speed but at least I'm back.