{"id":3928,"date":"2009-05-13T12:26:49","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T16:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2009-05-13T12:26:49","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T16:26:49","slug":"notes-from-vegas-at-the-copa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/notes-from-vegas-at-the-copa","title":{"rendered":"Notes from Vegas: At the Copa"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Or just go to the slide show<\/a>.)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

I was not in a good frame of mind for my trip to Las Vegas last month. I’m not the sort to hang out in a bar alone, I don’t like gambling (except maybe for betting on football\u00c2\u00a0 or midseason basketball), most of my work-related pals weren’t attending the conference I was in town for, and Tom Jones was out of town. So I was pretty much on my own, but I didn’t have anything to do and wasn’t up for “going out.”<\/p>\n

This made me weird and depressed. It wasn’t any sort of midlife frustration; it was just this sense of being totally in the wrong place. I missed my wife & my dog terribly (her more than him).<\/p>\n

Fortunately, no matter how uprooted I felt, I was still able to appreciate some quintessentially Vegas aspects of Vegas. When I checked into my hotel, for example, I discovered that its headline act at the wonderful Las Vegas Hilton was none other than Barry Manilow! And he had his own gift shop!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

During the conference, I talked with one of my less-close work-pals (a guy who works at a company that advertises in my mag, but with whom I haven’t had too many conversations with) about my sense of “eh, so I’m in Vegas, eh.”<\/p>\n

He was staying up at the venue where the conference was, about 20 minutes from the Strip, and didn’t have exciting plans for his stay, either. He said to me, “Don’t worry about it. What do you like<\/em> doing?”<\/p>\n

“Hmm. I like reading, watching hoops, and not dealing with people.”<\/p>\n

“Sounds good! Is there a game on tonight?”<\/p>\n

There was. I spent that night with the awesome game 2 of Bulls-Celtics, followed by some Plutarch and some In-N-Out burger & fries (not animal-style<\/a>, alas).<\/p>\n

At the conference the next day, I told him that I’d had a pretty good night, all things considered, and that I had even better plans for tonight! During the drive up to the resort where the conference was being held, I’d seen a billboard for the Las Vegas AAA minor league baseball team. Turned out the Area 51s<\/a> had a home game that very night!<\/p>\n

Rather than subject myself to more woe-is-me-itude in my hotel room, I drove a few miles over to Cashman field (through the wedding district (!?)), bought a $14 seat about 15-20 feet behind home plate, picked up a beer, hot dog and pretzel (and some souvenirs), and watched a ball game with some locals and out-of-towners. I had a great time, relatively inexpensively, and got a whole new perspective on the pitcher-batter duel.<\/p>\n

I didn’t have the stereotypical exciting\/bleary\/regretful\/drunk Vegas trip, but I did have fun in my own peculiar way. And I brought back pictures<\/a> with commentary!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Or just go to the slide show.) I was not in a good frame of mind for my trip to Las Vegas last month. I’m not the sort to hang out in a bar alone, I don’t like gambling (except maybe for betting on football\u00c2\u00a0 or midseason basketball), most of my work-related pals weren’t attending … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Notes from Vegas: At the Copa”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[57,5],"tags":[678],"class_list":["post-3928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-las-vegas","category-travel","tag-barry-manilow"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-11m","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3823,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/notes-from-vegas-white-stripes","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":0},"title":"Notes from Vegas: White Stripes","author":"Gil","date":"April 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night, I took my car out to the In-N-Out Burger on Tropicana Blvd. Rather than return via I-15, I decided to drive down the strip, starting around Circus Circus and the MGM Grand. My hotel is at the far end of the strip, near the Space Needle building, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3044,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/vegas-baby","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":1},"title":"Vegas, Baby!","author":"Gil","date":"December 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What do you get when you combine a sportswriter awaiting his buyout, baseball's winter meetings, two big-budget teams and Las Vegas? This epic post from Dan Graziano, soon to be formerly with the Newark Star-Ledger.","rel":"","context":"In "Las Vegas"","block_context":{"text":"Las Vegas","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/las-vegas"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1764,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/leaving-for-las-vegas","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":2},"title":"Leaving (for) Las Vegas","author":"Gil","date":"November 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't been to Vegas since January 2004, when I helicoptered into the Grand Canyon and was stage-side for a Tom Jones concert at the MGM, but I'm 70 minutes from boarding my flight to this year's ISPE conference in the Unreal City! This trip should be less eventful than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Las Vegas"","block_context":{"text":"Las Vegas","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/las-vegas"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3821,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-42009","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":3},"title":"What It Is: 4\/20\/09","author":"Gil","date":"April 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Finished Antony and Cleopatra, recaptured my comic-geek youth with the Ambush Bug reprint collection, and finished Plutarch's life of Lycurgus. What I'm listening to: A mix I made called Dropsical Meatwave. Because I'm like that. What I'm watching: Chocolate, which needed less buildup and more fight scenes.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a= 1904271014","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":232,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/viva-2","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":4},"title":"Viva","author":"Gil","date":"May 15, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"A few months ago, I wrote, \"[Las Vegas] is actually an alien theme park of planet Earth. Which helps explain both the laser beam [from the top of the Luxor] AND the proximity to Area 51.\"In The Nation, Marc Cooper writes about Vegas as the new capital of America (figuratively\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":593,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nerd-vegas","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":5},"title":"Nerd Vegas","author":"Gil","date":"July 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"You can't have a Comic-Con without an awards show! Occasional VM contributor Tom Spurgeon just posted his diary of the Eisner Awards night at last week's Con.A lot of the jokes are really industry-specific, so you might not laugh as much as I did.9:32 -- Sean McKeever wins Talent Deserving\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3928"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3930,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions\/3930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}