Vegas

It took me 31 years to visit Las Vegas for the first time, but in the past year I've gone twice. I was highly skeptical that I'd have a good time both times, but it turns out that Vegas was one of the highlights of this trip.

We spent our 10th wedding anniversary in Vegas and decided to do a couple special things. First, we ate dinner in the fanciest (and most expensive) restaurant we've ever been to, the Eiffle Tower Restaurant overlooking the Bellagio fountain across the street.

5-29-15 - "Paris"

The views were nice, but the food was AMAZING. I had a lobster salad, a delicious apple cocktail, and duck with potatoes au gratin. Nathan had the filet mignon with spinach and mushrooms. Everything was perfect.

Our View

For dessert, I ordered the chocolate plate, which was delicious, but Nathan ordered the Meringue dish, which was so good, it literally melted in your mouth.

This is the only photo we took together on our actual anniversary.

After dinner, we went to see the Cirque du Soleil show, "O", which is the one with the pool in the middle of the stage. That was also amazing. We capped off the night with about three hours of gambling during which Nathan won $2.93, then happily stopped. I lost $65 that night, then won it all back in a lucky Craps game the next morning. What can I say, the dice love me.

We stayed the night at the Mirage and spent the morning eating delicious pancakes, by the pool and playing craps. It was a fun, but expensive night. One night in Las Vegas is about all I can handle. I think I'd either get bored or become poor if I stayed longer.

We flew back to Milwaukee to pick up the kids and on the way back to DC, our plane was diverted to Pittsburgh, where Southwest marooned us for the night. Instead of hanging around, we jumped in a car at 10pm and rode the 4.5 hours back home, arriving at 2:30am. The kids did pretty well in the back seat of our Chevy Malibu.

All-in-all, Utah and Vegas was an incredible trip. I'm glad we left the kids home for this one, but there's no reason they can't come next time. I'm sure we'll be back again really soon.

Vegas

I work at the world's craziest and best company.  Opower tricks you into saving energy.  We use behavioral science to get people to do what their brains tell them they should, but habits don't often allow.  We also have a really interesting culture.  Everyone is smart and works hard, but we also play hard too.  Next week, I have three company-sponsored happy hours on my calendar.

Last week, Opower held its second annual Engineering offsite in Las Vegas.  We stayed at the Aria hotel, which is right on the strip and is quite nice.  It's one of those places where the curtains automatically open and the room welcomes you to a gorgeous view of the mountains when you first arrive.

Room w/a View (sort of!)

Fountain outside Aria

We spent a day learning stuff.

Then we were supposed to participate in a hack-a-thon, but because I no longer code, my manager and I spent the afternoon at the pool bar (surprisingly, we did talk about work for a while).

Evenings were on our own, so we explored.  We explored deliciously large burgers.

I recommend the Farm Burger.  Where else can you taste duck bacon?!

We explored Paris

and Caesar's Palace

and New York, New York

Live Irish Music @ Nine Fine Irishmen

and our Ocean's Eleven fantasies.

I even learned how to pay craps and won $50.  (Granted, that's not much but I feel pretty good that I've beat every casino I've ever walked into.)

I finally realized this was not about getting work done.  Rather, it was about team-building, and maybe having a little leverage during the recruiting process (does YOUR company fly you to Vegas?).  Regardless, I had a really great time and made some friendships that slipped past security at BWI and will probably stick with me for a long time.

What a great team!