I’m back from 3 days in Vegas and have a lot to talk about, but I don’t have the time to get it all into electrons today, so you will have to wait for all the details. The .Net Rocks party was cool, albeit a little smaller turnout than I had hoped. Lots of prior .Net Rocks guests, but not so many listeners (which I can understand since it only made sense for most folks to attend if they were going to DevConnections). Although it is fun to talk to the other .Net Rocks guests (and hang out with some of my friends), I typically have the most fun talking to the developers who do this stuff for a living (like I do). They are the ones that give me the best ideas and inspirations (for blog entries and code). Carl was a great host. He tried to get the .Net Rocks movie onto some of the big screen televisions (it was a sports bar), but since we didn’t have the place to ourselves (I think there was about 50 of us), it was very hard for people to watch and listen (and that was a shame, since I saw an early version at Code Camp, and it was extremely funny). I did take my digital camera to Vegas, but decided not to take any pictures (what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas), but I know that others have pictures from the party.
As for the rest of the long weekend, Vegas is a great (but expensive) place to visit. The new Vegas monorail was under repair (some say the cabbies sabotaged it), so we used a lot of cabs to get around. The lower strip is extremely high class, very clean, and family friendly. The upper strip (around the Stratosphere) is more like what Atlantic City is trying to become (but in Vegas it is a bit dated, but more affordable then the lower strip). Downtown Vegas is like Atlantic City of 80’s and early 90’s, a place you don’t want you kids visiting. It actually rained all day Sunday, so walking between casinos was pretty much out of the question (things are really spread out, not bad when the weather is good, but not so great if it is hot or raining). I saw a lot of the hotels and casinos (scoping things out for a future trip) and my favorite for a family, Mandalay Bay, for couples, The Venetian, and a for a place where you wouldn’t really need to ever leave, Caesar’s Palace, although I also love New York, New York, and MGM Grand. We stayed in the Luxor, which was a very nice place, but it misses on a bunch of the small stuff (but we got a decent rate, so for the money (considering the SEMA convention was in town) it was very good).