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What Las Vegas Means To Me

July 6th, 2005

What Las Vegas Means to Me

Ya know, I’ve never stayed in a hotel downtown, even though some people claim that’s the “real Las Vegas”. Since I was always more into fun than gambling, no one ever managed to sway me to stay
downtown.

The strip is what I think of when I think of fun in Las Vegas. I always liked visiting Las Vegas.

My high school friend’s parents retired to live in Las Vegas. We were in our early 20’s and even though we both moved away from Chicago to opposite coasts (West for Me and New York for him) we managed to meet in Las Vegas of all places.

The first time I ate raw squid was in Las Vegas. I spit it out. Even went on dates with girls (my first Asian girl date was in Vegas). We had a car so we explored a lot of Las Vegas on the streets.

We found an authentic “Chicago Style Hot Dog and Italian Style Beef Restaurant” which made Las Vegas special for that as well. Not much I miss about Chiccago but… damn, I’d do anything for an authentic Italian Beef!

When I was in consumer electronics sales, and later radio advertising sales, I used to come out to Vegas every year in January for the CES Show (Conumer Electronics Show) convention, so I have many fond and crazy memories from around 10 CES “Business Trips”, compliments of the IRS and Uncle Sam of course.

When I was in Radio Advertising Sales, our parent broadcasting company used to gather all the salespeople and send them all to either Palm Springs or Vegas every Summer and give us training and present awards (and see how we handled our liqour).

One year we stayed at the Hilton. I was awarded a bonus check and a plaque for “Superior Achiever”. Ah, those were the days.

Las Vegas is for lovers… especially since my ex girlfriends’ parents lived in Vegas. We drove out once to visit and spent time with them.

I proposed to her on that trip. Good thing I got my wits back 3 weeks prior to the wedding date and I backed out.

1 week before the original wedding date she convinced me to elope on that date and then the night of the bachelor party (3 days before) I backed out and made it a “Thank God he’s Not Getting Married Party”.

A year after we broke up my ex found me at CES in Vegas and we hooked up. But only to remember old times.

Even when I retired from sales and became a work at home internet marketer I still continued to go to CES for a couple of years. It was still business of course since I went to CES.

My last trip to Vegas was for CES in January 97. This is the longest period in my life that I not visited Las Vegas.

Well, that’s what Las Vegas Means to Me.

I will be visiting it next week for a 3 day trip to photograph a wedding.

Now, until I started writing this I didn’t realize quite how often I have had memorable moments in Las Vegas.
Now you know too!

Entry Filed under: Opinionated American