My annual pilgrimage to the morally bankrupt, God Awful, ethically lacking shithole in the desert

Two conferences I must attend for work are backed into each other every April about this time.  The first is the PBS technology conference, it is four days long and I thoroughly enjoy it.  Then there is the NAB, National Association of Broadcasters show, which is another 4 days long and I thoroughly enjoy that one as well.  My issue is not with the conferences, it is with the length of the stay in Vegas.  4 days for one, two weekend days and then 4 day for the other one.  That coupled with the time changes (3 hours) each way and if you know me at all you know it do not like when the time changes, not even for daylight savings time.  That many days between time changes allows one’s body to almost get acclimated to the new time, almost.  So I get all screwed up on the trip out and then again on the trip back.  ARGH!!

So the conferences, the PBS TechCon as it is known is very good.  We had over 450 attendees this year from well over 125 PBS stations.  It is a chance to interact with our peers from around the country and listen to what they are doing that is working and what is not.  It also gives us access to the folks at PBS to either complain or praise, which I have done both before in the same year.  There are technology vendors who show up to hock their wares, and pay for the meals, if you have to attend conferences you know what I mean.  I have been coming out here for quite a while now, and I have been on panels and presented to the group as well.  I like hanging out with a bunch of engineers, we all understand – everything.  They are my kind, from the geek with a plastic pocket protector (yes there was a guy there this year with one) to the true leaders of our industry.  I seem to gather more information each year, not sure if I have learned how to gather it or what but each year gets better for me. 

Except that we are in Vegas baby!!  This place is SO loud and SO in your face the only way to get a reprieve is to rent a car and drive out into the desert, which I have done in the past.  I am not a gambler, I am not looking for a hooker and I do not drink, this town has little to offer me.  Once you have dropped a hundred bucks or more to watch a good show a few times, even those hold little interest for me.  This year Bride almost came with me, that would have been nice.  The only issue with that is that these things get started by 7am and usually end around 6-7pm and then there is always a vendor who wants to take you out to dinner.  I have eaten the most expensive meals of my life here, and not paid for a one of them.  One year a vendor took me to a place that is the MGM Grand and for the two of us the dinner bill was over 600 bucks.  Not sure if I were rich I would ever get used to spending that much money on dinner, don’t get me wrong it was NOT the Outback Steakhouse – it was VERY good eats.  I have also eaten a 4 dollar Nathan’s hotdog as well, that was when I had to pay myself.

So the second part of the conference is the NAB, some say it is the largest one held here, others disagree but it is one of the largest.  For those who have never been the Las Vegas Convention Center sits on 2820 acres, has parking to accommodate over 5000 cars in the parking lot AND has 1.3 million square feet of space under roof, these are NOT small buildings.  That is NOT the only convention center in Vegas either, that is just one of probably hundreds.  Just for the sense of scale, since I can’t understand 1.3 million square feet, that is enough to house 55 professional football fields or almost 100 Olympic sized swimming pools.  That place is completely full during the NAB, it is so bad you get a map, I plot my course for the days I will be staying to minimize covering the same ground, it will wear your ass out!! And if you aren’t friends with Dr. Scholl’s gellin inserts, you dogs are going to be BARKING!!  

It is a very valuable experience though, it is a chance to see all the new offerings the hardware and software makers are selling.  I like to sometimes wander around at some of the smaller booths and see what some of the true innovators are up to.  The big companies are innovators as well but are sometimes limited by the burden of the large company bureaucracy that makes true innovation challenging to get to market.  This year has been challenging for me as we are getting ready to start a large project and most the manufacturers and vendors know that so they are “on me” in a way that does not make me feel comfortable.  I have purposely not accepted any dinner invites from any of them who may become involved in our project, I can’t have any hint of impropriety in this process.  I actually was at the closing ceremonies for TechCon and one vendor who REALLY wants in on this project was telling me that losing a deal like ours could get a sales guy fired, no matter the reason it was lost.  I called him on that immediately, I told him that was a bullshit thing to say to me - he backed off fast with a story about not him but he has seen that happen.  That interaction was noted!

I was able to go out last night a good friend of mine, he brought his son, who is getting into the business and we went to Lowry’s Steak house with another PBS engineer we both know.  We talked and laughed about life, marriage, kids, work and folks we have lost over the years.  We did not talk about work at all and that was very refreshing, the pressure of this project rarely affords me to time to relax and laugh with some of the folks in the system I work with.  I was thankful for the opportunity to hang out with my buddies.

Back to this place, Vegas baby.  There is little here for me, although I did get to spend some time people watching, and there is NO better place than here for that, it is even better than the Walmart parking lot.  There is such a sense of falsehood here, everyone seems to be playing an angle, the kids from wherever looking to get laid and have some fun, the middle aged couple trying to enjoy a vacation, the elderly couple who keep coming looking for what Vegas used to be.  Even the folks who work here, you can tell most of them hate it, it is a service job from hell in a casino for sure.  I will say this, there are shitload of what Bride and I call “the beautiful people”.  The men in 5000 dollar suites with girls wearing dresses with less material than my socks with their big fake boobs hanging out, the per capita on those types of very high here - it is crazy!! 

I am staying in probably the nicest room I have ever stayed in this year.  The PBS conference was at Caesars Palace and that is where I got a room, very nice.  The MGM is a very nice place as well but this place is a notch above that in my opinion.  When our conference was at the MGM Grand I used to stay at a place called the San Remo, a little inexpensive place across from MGM.  I could cross the street at the light, cut through the parking garage and bam, there was the MGM convention center, easy.  Well one year I was booking the hotel and they had changed the name, evidently Hooters purchased the property and it was now the Hooters Hotel.  Well I thought, NO WAY!  First, I was not going to tell Bride I was going to Vegas and I was staying at the Hooters Hotel, that was not happening.  Next I thought of our Bean Counter, receipts from the Hooters Hotel would receive quite a bit of scrutiny by our female CFO, again NO WAY!

Well, I still have a few more days to go before I get to go home, I have all my meetings scheduled, all my meals planned and am just looking forward to the time passing so I can go home.  I miss Bride and sure do wish she could have come with me, next year for sure.