Boaz Chronicles: January - Vegas and Karate

Wow - eventful month already. Feel like I just woke up and it is almost gone.

I got to attend CES in Vegas this year. My first time attending the conference and Vegas. I was 4 days of the longest days I can remember since finals week in college. Meetings starting at 10a - 6p, then business dinners and after-hours parties every night. It will take me months to recover, but it was so much fun and worth it.

Here's some pics:

I stayed at Treasure Island. Here's the pirate ship outside

Casinos are literally EVERYWHERE. I behaved and didn't lose our life savings. This one is in our hotel lobby.

A view of "The Strip". You can't cross the road, so they have built overhead bridges across them.

Vegas at night - I swear this should be the city that NEVER sleeps.

The view from my hotel room. At night you could see the Eiffel Tower lit up.

My hotel..

Donna and I all dressed up

The entrances of the hotels are beautifully decorated. Here's one I thought to stop and take a picture of..

Outside the Venetian where Lenovo had it's showcase and where most of my meetings were. It was so beautiful and serene, it was like being in a different world.

Inside the Venetian is a set of shops and restaurants. The ceiling is painted as a sky and makes you feel like you are outside. This is a guy on a Gondola singing and rowing through the middle. We ate lunch at a "sidewalk" cafe and watched the Street Performers. I was noticing the birds painted in the sky and how they seemed to be moving (I was very tired) when a real bird flew by and scared the beejesus out of me. LOL! Around 2p I noticed it felt like it was slowly getting darker, then the street lights came on. I guess it was dusk in Italy...

The highlight of the week had to be getting to meet LL Cool J. My CBS interactive rep arranged for me and 4 co-workers to meet and greet with LL Cool J at a private party at the Hard Rock Hotel. We were ushered into a room with some other people and got a few minutes to talk to him. I got his autograph, which says "To Amy, Love LL Cool J, Be Sweet" (below). Sean (my boss) didn't believe that I would ask him to see his abs. However, never underestimate Amy right? So, as I was getting ready to take a picture with him, I leaned up and said "Too bad you have that sweater on, I was going to ask you to see your abs" He just laughed and squeezed me close to him. He was a super nice guy and was really interested in hearing about Lenovo and our computers. He is starting a website called http://www.boomdizzle.com/. Maybe he needs a Marketing Manager. :-)

After the meet and greet, he sat at the dinner table next to us and ate dinner w/ the President of CBS interactive. So we had a nice view for awhile of him. After he ate he was talking to someone right behind my chair, I was messing w/ his security guards that I was going to grab his behind and blame them. They were super nice and was just laughing about it. So, that's my hour of hanging with the rich and famous. We went to the party there afterwards, but I didn't see any sign of him hanging.