Las Vegas - December 2003

My college friends and I had been talking about taking a vacation together for a long time.  We finally made it happen and we landed in Las Vegas!  This wasn't my #1 choice, but I was just happy to do something different with them.  We were there for 4 or 5 days... we did a variety of things... and here are the pictures to prove it.  (I made this page about 1/2 a year after the trip, so some details are a little fuzzy, especially the order in which things occurred.)

Vegas definitely isn't for me.  I might consider going back if I had a lot of events pre-booked, like the Cirque du Soleil shows, magic shows, etc.  Those were the most fun.  But the gambling and the strip was pretty much as boring as can be.

Alright... I know we went to see Star Trek pretty early on.  It was pretty neat, but WAY overpriced.	Quark's Bar, however, was kinda fun.  They had people dressed up as characters and I flirted with a hot Klingon babe.  (I read poetry while she hurled heavy objects at me.)  Here you can see me and Scott drinking a Warp Core Breach.	Here we have Eric and Jeff, trying to look the other way whenever I call over the Ferengi or... *gasp*... the BORG!
We stayed at the Treasure Island hotel.	The boat behind us is part of a show at night.	Here you can see the massive sign lighted at night.
At the bow of the other ship, there's  a really hot chick... er, um... well, she's not real... but she's hot.	Here are the real hot chicks.  Real as in, actual... living... in existence.  But they kept a large body of water between me and them, so... no action there.  ;-)	This is the best shot I could get of the hot Asian chick.
During the daytime, the volcano at the Mirage hotel is pretty serene.	But at night...	BOOM!!!
I don't remember exactly where this is, but the ceiling is made to look like you're outdoors.  Works pretty well.	This is Venice.  I'm thinking the Venetian now.	That's a bad ass picture.
This whole stage thing turned into a pretty cool show.	This isn't the show... but Eric *is* pretty cool.	Eric and Scott in front of the big ass wooden (and hollow, shhh!) horse.
Here's a better picture of that horse.	This is purely for your amusement.  Some kind of 3D goggles (that simply don't work on me).  Can't remember why I was wearing them.	Jeff... and some dude.  Dunno his name.  Oh wait, yeah... his name is Painting, Mr. Wall Painting.
We went walking for a while outside at one point.	We took some random pics.	France.  Sorta.
Siegfried and Roy cats.	Thirsty cats.	Hungry cats.  (Heh... I had to check the dates to see if I did this pre-Horn-bite or post-Horn-bite.  It was post.  My humor is just that lame.)
Caesar's Palace.  With a Christmas tree.  We'll see something like that again...	More Frenchy stuff.	Out on the strip... struttin' our stuff.
Hard to make out, but that's Eric and me, up on stage, checking out the boxes prior to the Penn & Teller show.	And that's Jeff accosting... I mean... meeting Teller.	This is some kind of see-saw action they have on top of the Stratosphere.  It's pretty scary.  I was the only one of my crew to go on it, though Scott had a local friend who rode right up front with me.
We stopped at an ESPN Sports Bar or something like that.	We did what comes natural.	And chatted for a bit.
We also saw the Hoover Dam.	Just take the dam picture.	Dam, that's a lot of wires.
I wonder how dam far down that is?	Too dam bad they didn't have Sasquatch building the... dam.	Dam you!
No dam people past here.	Dam, we look good.	Hey, I said you weren't allowed back here!!!  (dam it)
And finally... there's Jeff, coming out of that dam port-a-potty, right past those dam bikers, so we can finally get on our dam way.	Here's what I had been waiting for.  This was my 4th bungee jump ever, but my first done with the "other" kind of cords attached to the ankles.	This was the shot they took of me.  Look at that beautiful dive.  171 feet to the ground.  And if you click here, you can see that I fall all 171 feet.  (DivX codec required, as always.)
You can still see my weight written on my hand from the jump.  We were just burning some time before we got to look at boobies.	But we did it with some class, I guess.  We watched Le Femme.  More Frenchy stuff.  I got in the spirit and tried to french Jeff.	We made our way over to the Luxor at some point to see its coolness.
And apparently the Egyptians were all hip with Christmas as well.	That hotel was massive inside.  Very cool looking.	I included this to tell a story.  Between some rock climbing we did and some batting cages we played at, my right arm was KILLING me.  (Occupational injury.)  I ran out of meds... (I had some of the *good* stuff left over from Amy's wisdom teeth extraction)... so I started drinking like crazy.  To put it in perspective, this is the kind of pain that makes me cry.  Yes, it's that bad.
Alright, a random few last pictures.  This is the Bellagio.  They have a big pool and some sprinklers.	Eric got his wiener pic.	And this is Excalibur, I believe.  We saw that Tournament of Kings show featured in the Cable Guy.  That was pretty damn cool.