Am I supposed to be thrilled about going to Vegas? Everyone I have spoken to so far keeps telling me how wonderful an experience it is. I don’t doubt it, but is it really that wonderful and experience? I had to see first hand.

My brother had mentioned to me that he was going to Vegas for CES. For those who don’t know, CES stands for Computer Electronics Show. I decided to tag along in order to better understand how the industry is progressing and to see what I had missed over the last couple of years. See, I’ve been focusing on computers and telephony and have lost touch with the electronics side of the business. Not that it’s a bad thing, I do enjoy what I am doing; I have indeed learned more over the past three years then I ever did in my four years of college. However, don’t underestimate the power of going to college. Many people are skipping the college stage and going directly into the real world. Even though that may seem like a great idea: they are being paid a pretty penny and not living at home with their parents, they miss out on learning the values and social skills that college inevitably instills in you. I know for a fact that even though I was ready to go into the real world directly after high school, I was not ready mentally. I just described my feelings about the concept behind The Apprentice reality show this season.

I go off-track a lot don’t I? I land in Vegas and the air smelled different. It was a familiar smell. It was the smell of the inside of a… what is it? I can’ t figure it out right now but it’s on the tip
of my tongue. Restaurant? No. Hotel? No. Strip club? Bingo! I knew exactly what I was getting myself into right there.

I took a shuttle to the hotel where we were staying and met up with my brother and cousins. It was nice to be around familiar faces again. I had spent the last couple of months around… myself. I’ve been trying to get myself back on track, back to a position where I could finally look myself in the eye and move on with my life.

We all made plans to head down to the casino after freshening up in the rooms. Guess who ended up going, my brother and I. I have to say, one of the greatest people to go out with in this world is my brother. He is definitely one of a kind. If you’re not having a good time, he will make sure you do. If there’s some pretty girl in the room, you can damn well make sure he will go talk to her. Remind you of someone? Yea … I’m that person but have suppressed those feeling for a long time and am now letting go. Welcome back Kishore!

Gambled our night away on Thursday night.

Friday morning we headed down to the buffet. My God, I have got to say, it was the worst food in the world. I have never tasted poorer food at a casino. Even the casino boats that leave from Port Everglades have better food and we know how bad the food is over there.

CES was our mission for the day. What a sight. Every new piece of electronics and technology was in the palm of my hand. I was in the right place at the right time. I walked through the wireless section with my cousin Vikash and pointed out all of the new phones that were going to
be released in the upcoming weeks and the ones that would work in Barbados and the ones that he would be interested in. I had been jonsing one of the IMATE phones for the longest while and I had finally gotten a chance to hold it. Not a big deal. I am glad I did not get it. This is what the show is for.

Walking through the isles, I thought up another business idea I would like to implement in Barbados. I know a ton about home theaters. Customizing home theater systems. Why not build a business on that knowledge? Great idea, hunh? I wish I were back in Barbados. I wish I did not have any obligations to this country.

We spent the rest of the day at CES, went back to the hotel and B-lined it for the Casino. I had organized tickets for the seven of us to see The Blue Man group at the Luxor. We’ve all seen the Intel advertisements with the guys with painted heads. After the show, we had to get the soundtrack, the music was amazing, especially since it’s played on a sound system that is probably more expensive than most of our houses. The use of colors and physical accuracy, stunning! Comical, yet serious, enough to make you think about some real world issues. Casino. The night was young and I said I was going to call it a night. I had been exhausted from my work back in Miami and I had not slept the night before either. I turned in early, 5:00AM.

I squinted as I heard the hotel room door creek open. I watched my brother stumble in and fall onto the bed. Daylight. 8 AM? I went back to bed. Woke up two hours later to my brother snoring. I was off to see the Eiffel Tower, Paris. What a country! We saw something we liked, copied it, making money off it, yet Freedom Fries exist?

I stood there in awe as I stared above. It was raining outside but in here all I saw was the perfect blue sky and just the right amount of puffy white Cottonelle clouds. The Salmon at Le Café Île St. Louis was delicious. After a liter of Evian and after phone calls to family, I was ready to start my day. I found out that AVN was in Vegas that weekend as well. Look it up. I had 2 hours to go through the AVN convention. I didn’t care, I went and accomplished, closed the place down. My roommate is the one to blame for this influence in my life. See, he’s addicted. He should really seek therapy for this; otherwise he’ll need Coke bottle goggles soon. :-)

I screwed up by not taking my charger for my camera. I ran out of batteries! With no digital camera I was ready to walk out of the convention, maybe to buy one. On my way out, they were giving away cameras! Luck was on my side, for sure.

On my way back my brother calls, he just woke up. I’ve been trying to get through to him all day and I knew he was back late that morning so he was going to be exhausted. We got room service for dinner and headed to The Bellagio to see “O”. I had been waiting for this moment for a very long time. I was introduced to Cirque Du Soleil a couple of years backby someone whose family is in the theater business. Needless to say that this was one of the many things that rubbed off onto me and I love.

Perfect red stage curtains. The “La Nouba” show in Orlando has this part of the show where this performer, we called him Superman, was suspended by a deep red fabric. He used it to “fly”. Zooming across the stage in mid air the fabric fluttered like as if it was his cape. When I saw the curtain at the Bellagio it definitely brought back memories of that part of my life. The definition of happiness wasn’t exactly clear to me then. “O”, or rather eau, the French word for water, was in abundance since the stage was a pool where acrobats performed Olympic standard dives from the ceiling and synchronized swimming acts which allow ones senses to bring music a visual element.

I guess this was the night where everyone else went to bed early and I stayed up because I didn’t get back to the room until 8:30 Sunday morning. I ended up going to club Rain and partying my heart away. That’s all I’m going to say about that. :-) This was now my sleep day and my brothers work day. As he hobbled back exhausted from CES we knew we were going to have a rough night. We had to pack, check out, catch a bus to the airport, catch the red eye, rent a car, go home, get ready, and go to work.

I actually worked that day; except for the twenty minutes I spent ogling over the AVN pictures in disbelief. Was I really there? I can now say that Vegas is definitely a unique and wonderful experience. My brother and I are already planning next years trip.

Zai jian