What Stays In Vegas Has Got To Get There First

Seventeen years is an unfathomable amount of time to be fathoming, especially when there’s undies to be packed. It’s enough time to be born and go college picking. It’s enough time to age a really fancy cheese. It’s enough time to get to Mars and back and run around the talk show circuit.

And yet, it’s been that long since I’ve been to that rhinestone oasis that is Las Vegas. ‘Twas the summer of ’93, and was the launching point of an unforgettable months long road trip with my dad. A road trip that spawned my love of jackalopes and disdain for the Wisconsin Dells. They know what they did.

Being 13 at the time, I obviously didn’t have an appreciation for the neon around me. I also didn’t have a blog and smart phone to send in constant updates and posts, committing my experiences to the electronic ether. Neither did anyone else at the time, come to think of it. Something else to not fathom in this day and age.

Oddly enough, the Vegas of the present, from what I can see of the cable travel logs, would appeal more to my 13 year old self. Luckily, I never much matured past fifteen.

Accompanying me on this trip is my long time attorney-comma-spiritual-adviser-slash-good-luck-charm – Dr. Toad. Many summers ago I liberated him from a Jersey shore skill crane, and since then he’s become a mascot on such gaming junkets – helping to win skee ball points and release captive brethren from vending machines.

How much aid he brings to this venture is up in the air. Lately the good doctor’s been saying he’s not been feeling like himself. He says he feels like a little stuffed mushroom man. I tell him of course he does, he IS a little stuffed mushroom man.

For some reason he never believes me when I remind him of his metaphysical state.

C’est la vie…

But the gaming will be only a small part of this trip. The main focus will be upon Photoshop World – the three to four day pixel manipulating madness. I chickened out last year, and the fall edition was in Orlando… which meant a lot of commuting : /

I have no idea what to expect. I mean, I’ve been using Photoshop for years. That’s no big deal It has only been in recent months that I’ve actually entered the fringes of the Photoshop community… forums, blogs and the like. But now I hurl myself into the heart of it. Should be interesting.

It’s really the first vacation I’ve gone solo on, so my stomach is full of butterflies who’re celebrating new years eve a bit early. But it’s more than a vacation. It’s more than learning a crap ton of Photoshop and connecting with people (theoretically) on my wavelength.

This is practice.

Journaling from a distance. Moblogging some call it. For the whole week I’ll be attempting to get my Tweet legs blog daily about this event. Get a feel for it, ’cause in a few years I hope to cover the the 2012 London Olympics for the New World Otter here. And, if I can’t do it here in my homeland… how can I expect to do it in a place that doesn’t speak American?

More to follow, now to try to get some zzz..ZZZ…zzz And when I get back, I really need to fix this place up… its in no shape for regular postings : p