So Wednesday morning my boss, my friend Dick, and I packed up the truck with all of our gear. We had three cameras two laptops, lots of tape and batteries, and our personal stuff. We left Salt Lake around 10:45 am and headed south on I-15. It was a typical guy trip, full of belches, farts, and crude jokes. We had to get it out of our systems because we knew it would be the same on the return drive. Our talent--I'll call her H.--was flying down on our client's six-passenger plane, but she would return with us on Saturday. I wasn't looking forward to the restraint of freedom that would mean.
When we got into Vegas, we parked behind the Luxor, which would hopefully be our home for the night, and went in search of the check-in desk. We waded through the computerized sounds of one-armed-bandits and poker machines and finally found our target. We had no idea whether we'd have rooms or not. Our client was supposed to have booked them but since it was so last minute, we weren't sure if he'd succeeded. As it turned out, he was there, at the desk, when we arrived. His assistant was just then booking our rooms. After we got that taken care of and deposited our stuff in our rooms, our client, C., bought us a quick snack, promising us a real dinner later, as we had to hurry to get to the show. We were going to the Blue Man Group after all! Dick and I were giggling like little girls. We couldn't wait. We wolfed down our whatever-it-was and rushed to get our tickets and be seated. The show was great! I may be a guitarist now, but for fiteen years I've been a drummer and I couldn't keep my eyes off the percussionists in the back up band. The blue men were amazing percussionists as well. The comedy had Dick and I rolling out of our seats. I could never justify paying the 94 bucks myself, but it was one of the best shows I've been to and certainly the highlight of the trip.
After the show, we ate dinner and then went to watch C. play baccarat. Apparently he has a system with which he makes about $400 an hour playing the game. He sat down and the people at the other tables all turned and looked as he laid down $10,000 in hundred-dollar bills. We watched him play for a few minutes, and then Dick and I went to bed. My boss told me later that C. cleared $2000 that night. I'll never be rich enough to make money gambling. Dick and I were both staggering like drunkards (neither of us drink) after riding the "inclinator" to our rooms. It was an odd sideways sensation that through off our equilibrium. Dick didn't like walking next to the railing. I loved looking over it, straight down to the floor of the hotel. But it was a little intimidating. I kept imagining myself plunging down.
We left fairly early the next morning heading to Los Angeles. H. was still in the plane with the others. We got to the school that was going to receive Arnold and set up our equipment.
Well, this is getting boring so I'll wrap it up. Suffice to say: We saw the Governor, shot video of all the festivities, got lost in L.A. for two hours, stayed in a crummy motel that night, got up early and shot show segments on the beach, got tied up in traffic for hours on the way back to Vegas, had dinner at 1 am at the Cheesecake factory, went to bed on the 27th floor of the pyramid, then went home. The end.
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