5 posts tagged “las vegas”
I had a lot of people tell me I should get a tattoo while on vacation to remember this time in my life and this trip. I love body modifications and ink, but can't bring myself to do anything permanent to myself. So I thought some sort of piece of jewelry that means something to me would be a good alternative. Tonight I found it by chance at www.bicolasvegas.com.
The pendant's meaning: power, protection, authority, strength, & courage. Which doesn't match what is on the website for some reason. But I swear that is what it said on the display and marketing materials.
Happy birthday to me.
I need a better camera than the iPhone. Because then I could show you photos of the people I saw today at the Luxor pool. Sure, that's a creepy invasion of their privacy and it would upset me if someone sneakily took my picture by the pool and put it on the internet. Let's ignore that for the moment since I DON'T have a camera and DIDN'T sneakily take pictures of people and therefore HAVEN'T put them on my blog.
At Sasquatch Festival last year Stepto did a great blog post on the specialized types of people at an outdoor music festival. It was hysterical. I am quite sure my day today has that sort of potential, if only I were as witty and inspired as he. Plus he had pictures! So you'll have to bear with me. I'm going to work my way through in the order I saw them.
The Silverback. In gorillas, an old male will go silver-gray on his back (thus the name, duh). The human variation takes into account the typical evolutionary hair placement patterns on humanoid males which favor the chest over the back. The creature I saw poolside appeared healthy, in his 50th decade, exhibitng dark hair on the head, chest and legs, with the exception of a triangular patch on his chest spanning the collarbones and tapering to the solar plexus which was silver-gray. He appeared to be a fairly young silverback traveling with just one mate.
The Perpetual Sweater. I don't mean someone who sweats a lot. I mean someone who really needs to make friends with an esthetician who specializes in waxing or laser hair removal. This man was so unpleasantly hairy he is in my top 5 all time worst body hair list. If he were non-humanoid his hair would still be awful - too much for a human, not enough for any other mammal. The quantity of his body hair would be a huge turn off for many women, yet he had one with him. He must compensate somehow. I ceased my field research immediately. Some things I just don't want to know about. Like backstage Disney. It is better just to leave a little mystery.
Sun Worshippers. Unlike their distant relative the Sun God or Sun Goddess, these individuals have taken their tanning too far. Their skin is the color of crispy bacon, but with none of the firmness. You can see the resiliancy of their skin breaking down under the onslaught of solar radiation. They don't look healthy, they look tight and saggy all at once, a dark brownish orange with sun spots and wrinkles... so sad. In their quest for MORE SUN they often wear swimsuits that are WAY TOO SMALL for their bodies which are rarely in peak physical condition. Which is sad for everyone else.
Sun Gods and Sun Goddesses. These individuals have mastered the right amount of tan. They look healthy both in physical fitness and skin color. They are the beautiful people everyone wants to watch at the pool, and I got to watch a fair number of them today. Sadly, I will never be one of these people because I am one of...
The Cave Dwellers. To be fair, not all people with milk white skin that reflects the sun like a hanes tshirt live in caves. Some of them simply live in sun-deprived locations like Alaska, Minnesota, or Washington. Some even live in Arizona, but have European genetics working against them. These people go out in the sun with their SPF 50 and turn bright red in 2 hours. Sometimes their burn will develop in entertaining patterns depending on the direction they laid in relation to the sun in the sky. As they try to get a 'base tan' they just get redder. Later they will peel and freckle. They will be left with annoying tan lines that will only show they got sun when they are naked; without the contrast of their natural alabaster state to show they were in the sun you would never know.
Pool Toys. Not all eye candy at the pool is a Sun God/Goddess. There are good looking people who haven't acquired the perfect tan yet. Like the girl I met in the pool today. Her swimsuit was so cute I went to ask where she got it. She seemed embarrassed to admit it was from a Hustler store. When I didn't seem shocked by that and continued talking to her, she shared that she is a go-go dancer. She is actually the nicest and most interesting person I've met so far on this trip.
The... I don't know what this is. The woman in her late 30's/early 40's two chairs away with her two kids took off her shirt to wear a beige strapless bra and shorts. Uh, that's just kind of weird.
Sharks. These packs of hunters come in male and female pods, typically of Pool Toys, and cruise the pool looking for other Pool Toys or Sun Gods/Goddesses to assimilate. Unfortunately while their numbers give them confidence, it also makes them intimidating when approaching smaller groups. The ideal situation is when Shark Pods of similar numbers intermingle.
ok, enough blogging for now, maybe I'll write more later about some of the other people I saw or things I did today, but I reallly have to get some aloe on my sunburn before the itching drives me insane. :(
This is kind of a big deal. I haven't been on a vacation by myself ever. But earlier this year I decided that the fact that I'm not in a relationship and have no one to go on vacation with would not mean that I miss out on vacations. F#ck that. There is a great big world out there to experience, and I'm not going to wait until *someday* to do it with another person. I am seriously sunshine deprived in Seattle, and this week is my birthday. I'm 29 again in case you were wondering. And my life has been really stressful for the last few months. So I decided to get away and spend my birthday somewhere warm that I could sit in a chaise by the pool or ocean and read a book. I thought (and still think) that getting away is going to be good for me, help me refocus and get my head straight, and get back in touch with who I am at my core and what is important to me. I'd love to go to Italy, but even if that were in budget, I thought it was a bad idea to go international on my first solo vacation (this is the same rationale that excluded Mexico from consideration). So this week I am in Las Vegas, for the first time outside of attending the Black Hat conference every summer. I considered going to Hawaii, but could stay here longer for the same budget. :)
Vacationing alone is kind of weird. There are lots of things that would be way more fun to do with someone, and I find myself turning to Facebook status updates to feel like I'm sharing my vacation with people (I haven't decided how I feel about this Facebook reliance yet). Getting a table for 1 at restaurants appears to be impossible, I keep getting seated at the bar. Asking a stranger to put sunscreen on my back is WAY outside my comfort zone. And getting pictures to remember the vacation requires the help of strangers (I'm trying to get at least one photo of myself each day). But on the up side, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. I spent 2.5 hours this morning at the spa getting a massage and facial, bought a new swimsuit (my suits from last year are all too big), lunched on snack bar food in my room, then went to the pool for a couple hours. After the pool I did some shopping with no one to get impatient at how long it took me to try on dresses or pick shoes. Speaking of which, aren't they fabulous?
They are my second most expensive shoes ever, after my Asics.
Then I came back to my hotel, showered, and based on the premise that feeling good and looking good go hand in hand, I got dressed up and went to dinner. The Cathouse, I will have you know, has nothing to do with felines. And yes, I was surprised by this for about 30 seconds before I figured it out. These are the bartenders who kept the diet coke flowing and served up a great beet/goat cheese/almond salad and calamari. I have never eaten so much calamari and still looked like I had a full untouched plate of calamari still.
I know, iPhone photos in low light aren't great, and the candelabras behind them aren't helping. But it's what I've got to work with here.
The hostess, who took the picture above, has the same birthday as me. Everyone asks if you are in town for business/what you are in town for. I have gotten better at the 'it's my birthday this week and I missed the sun' line without feeling like I have to explain why I'm on vacation alone. To be clear, no one expected an explanation, this is all my own issues making a trivial polite question more difficult than it needs to be. So I'm glad I got past that nonsense. Reality is that polite questions don't actually require honest answers, just polite ones.
Tomorrow I plan on spending more time at the pool, working on my sunburn and reading. Then I am going to karaoke here in my hotel bar at 9pm. That is my entire master plan for the day. I feel kind of like a retiree, scheduling my social activities for the week. Wednesday is another pool day, probably some more shopping (Caesar's Palace Forum Shops are SO much nicer than the shops here at the Luxor, I went to CP today for the pool and shopping, and plan on going back Wednesday), and I'm going to try to go to a show, I'm thinking O at the Bellagio. Thursday is my final pool day (assuming my skin hasn't full on revolted against the solar abuse I have given it) and then I think I am going to take myself out for a nice dinner. No, I'm not going clubbing while I'm here, no matter how much I love to dance, doing that alone sounds terrifying. No, I don't gamble. And I'm not drinking at all. But I think I might just have a good time on vacation anyway.
doesn't really stay in Vegas. Though that would be pretty amusing, if there were a law enacted that required that any non-criminal act that happened within the city limits could never be spoken of outside of the city limits and couldn't follow you home in any way. The city would be even more popular! Imagine the entertainment you could have just people watching!
This is going to be my sixth Black Hat Vegas and second Defcon. I'm excited to go and hear the (good) talks, do some professional networking, catch up with friends, sneak some time at the pool, and get to dance at the inevitable vendor receptions. Since my job changed last year my involvement and role at conferences is extremely different than it once was. Now I'm just another conference attendee, no responsibility for any of the events at the con, so folks probably won't see as much of me as they used to. The freedom is kind of cool actually, but I'm still on the clock. :)
This year for the first time I attended both Black Hat and Defcon. I'm glad I did them both, but am very tired now. And I don't know if I'll sleep on the flights because its so cold. And damn but my iPod ear buds hurt my ears, they are TOO BIG. Or maybe my ears are too small. Either way, it will be easier to get new ear buds than new ears.
Anyways, BH was bigger than the last time I was there in 2005. More speakers in 8 tracks of content, way more vendors and attendees. Its beginning to feel a little like RSA in terms of size.
<stopped blogging to try and nap on flight, but mostly just shivered in the flying meatlocker in the sky.>
wow, 80's fashion sure was bad. I'm sure it was just as bad then as it is now, so DAMN, I must have looked just as stupid as this girl in front of me at the airport does. hahahahahaha. Seriously, the only clothing item from the 80's that I'm willing to see make a comeback is the off the shoulder shirt.
But I digress. Upon arriving at LAX I bought the warmest t-shirt I could find, a 3/4 sleeve pink and black Los Angeles shirt. So now I have 200% more sleeves than I had before with just a short (1/4) sleeve shirt on. Now if only I wasn't sitting cross legged on the floor because there are WAY more people on the flight than there are chairs in the gate area...
Black Hat was a good show, I saw several talks (and no, I'm not going to regurgitate them here, you should have been there yourself) and was able to chat a bit with people I haven't seen in several months to a year. I also met a few new people that I'm excited to continue a dialog with regarding shared security interests. Unfortunately because of the crowding at the conference it was sometimes difficult to get into popular talks, and challenging to find people - txt messaging and dodgeball came in *very* handy.
Defcon was an interesting experience. Just as crowded at Black Hat I think, but a VERY different crowd. The Riviera is a pretty ghetto hotel, and there were several talks I wasn't able to get into due to rooms being over-capacity. I guess I'll just have to buy the videos. The fascinating thing about Defcon that I really liked were all the non-talk things going on. Lockpick village, a Guitar Hero 2 competition, the automated bots, beverage cooling projects, ctf, dunk tank... there was a sense of community and camradarie in all these areas where people were really talking and engaging with one another. And I was able to make time to talk with a few people I hadn't had time to do more than say hi to at Black Hat, which was a fantastic opportunity I totally took advantage of. OOH, they also had a vendor area with several cool booths set up, I'm coming home with three new t-shirts, 1 of which was free. Thanks C. for pointing out the Yarrrrn pirate knitter shirt for me. I has shirt. Shirt, I has it. Watch for it on an upcoming Fun Shirt Friday.
Of course there were a whole bunch of parties throughout the week; thanks to SPI Dynamics, IOActive, OWASP, iSEC Partners, Microsoft, Hacker Pimps, QueerCon, iDefense, ToorCon/Kenshoto, and Ninja Networks for all the free entertainment. and in case there is any question, which there shouldn't be, kM rules.
Now I'm on my way home and very tired from multiple nights of staying up too late networking, but I didn't blow any money gambling or shopping so I guess that makes up for the $140 I spent on a ticket to see Cirque du Soleil's Ka on Tuesday night with a few friends from work. Ka was nothing short of breathtaking, the choreography was stunning. I wish I'd worn my glasses instead of my contact lenses though; my eyes appear to be really rebelling against them all of a sudden and my vision isn't nearly as good with them as it was a few months ago when I had my routine eye exam. (and worse yet, after a few hours my eyes start generating all sorts of protein buildup. eww) guess I better see the eye doctor soon and get that addressed.
A few last words:
to the SPI monkeys (sorry, I mean HP monkeys) thanks for letting me roll with your crew at BH, I rarely laugh as hard as I do when I'm hanging out with you guys, and I swear it is with you and not at you. But RK, you really should look at the cards BEFORE calling. Silvexis, I haven't forgotten the post you owe me. Still. And B, you are *so* going to lose, so surrender now before someone (you) gets hurt.
For the dodgeball peeps, *KymPossible says: @LAX gate 30! reply with status!* hahahahaha. what a nifty tool to keep on top of people and shindigs... thanks to Elle for clueing me in to it. Though holy crap, my cell bill this month is going to be obscene. Before the next con I need to get unlimited txt messaging. But at least I know that Dan K. has cookie, and S. is looking for midgets. Seriously guys, your messages make me LOL. Especially Dan's about the waking dead.
