Meet and Greet

You know, if I ever fly to somewhere like Egypt, I am going to be so messed up time-wise. There's only a 3 hour difference between here and Vegas, but I am really out of whack! I hope I can get back to normal soon...or at least what passes for it.

I forgot to mention that while we had no problems getting back home ourselves, our suitcase apparently decided it liked Chicago and wanted to spend the night there. They're supposed to deliver it today, but no sign of Mr. Samsonite yet. We got a few inches of snow last night, so there may have been some delays. There is nothing especially urgent in there, but I hope they get on the ball and get it to us soon. It's an irritant more than a problem, you know?

Speaking of irritants, I'll have a thing or two to say about Sarah Palin's most recent interview, believe me. But that's for after the Vegas travelogue, so you all can breathe a sigh of relief. [grin]

I'm really going out of order in our days, but I don't think it matters too much. Today I want to write about our meeting with our Blogger friend Marty, who writes the always enjoyable Heard at Starbuck's. I'm happy to report that I can now say we're friends in real life, too!

When he read that we would be in Vegas, he wrote that he was going to be there for an electronics show, and it turned out that our visits overlapped by a day. Although neither of us had met a blogger in real life before, we all decided we were game to give it a try and arranged a time and place. Marty was staying at the Bellagio, and we were at Bally's right across the street, so we walked over to the Bellagio and met him at one of the bars there, the Petrossian. A good spot to meet, quiet enough so that we didn't have to shout to be heard, but we could look out on the lobby area, too, and still hear all the casino sounds. By the way, Marty had meetings later in the afternoon, so he was a fine, upstanding citizen and drank mineral water. Ken and I were under no such restrictions.

Anyhoo, although I was a little nervous about this (I'm actually a fairly shy person, and I have no problem admitting that I can often be a social retard), it turned out that Marty was just the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet, and the hour and a half or so went by before we knew it! He has the exact same sense of humor in person that he does in his writing, and I'd say that we all had some good laughs and a good time chatting. I am so glad we did that, and I'm sure there will be another meeting in our future. We'll be traveling Route 66 in 2010, and the end of The Road just happens to be where Marty lives, so that's something to look forward to!

I can now say that when it comes to meeting bloggers, we're batting a thousand. Who's next?!

I would like nothing more than to stay home tonight and not have to venture out into the cold and snow...well, I suppose there's one thing I'd like more, and that would be to attend a performance of "Spamalot." What a lucky break, because we happen to have tickets for tonight's show! Where was that luck when we were in Vegas? Too bad we couldn't have spread these things out a little bit, but "Spamalot" is here just for this weekend. Should be fun!