Mortaine’s Blog

We landed at about 10:30, got off the plane some 20 minutes later (we were in back, you know– behind the luggage?), finished peeing about 10 minutes after that, and then proceeded to claim luggage and look for ground transportation. John and I never plan out that part of our travels to Vegas very well– something we need to work on.

Anyway, Palace Station has its own shuttle service which, when we called, we were told to pick it up “in space 22, 23, or 24 on the 0 level” (sound like a video game to you?) and that it comes “every hour on the half hour.” It was almost 11:30, but we walked out to the street, following the signs that said “Shuttle” and “Bus” and the like. Across the street, we see numbers– they’re above the doors for departing passengers (at which point I tell John it’s probably elsewhere), but the numbers say 22, 23, and 24.

We go and check it out for about 15 minutes. No shuttle. We go back inside. We check on other shuttles, only to find that the pay shuttles will be about a half hour wait, and that the Palace’s shuttle picks you up “downstairs.” Oh, right– on level 0.

I pick up my badge holder for CES and we go down to wait for the shuttle. We’d thought about getting drinks, but decided there wasn’t time, with getting the badge holder and stuff, and we didn’t want to miss the 12:30 shuttle, after all.

We arrive at the shuttle stop at noon. And we wait patiently for a half hour.

At 12:45, we call again. “What do you mean there’s not 12:30 shuttle? When I called an hour ago, you said service was every hour on the half hour!”

Fuckers.

SO, we wait for another hour. Keep in mind that CES is happening right now, so switching hotels ain’t an option. Also, waiting for a taxi is going to be an hour anyway.

1:20, the shuttle arrives. At 1:30, we leave for the hotel.

At about 2, we arrive and check in. “Room’s not ready– check in is at 3:00.” ARGH!!! So we leave our bags at the bell desk and go grab a bite, since we hadn’t eaten since 5:30 this morning. At 2:30, lunch is done and we mosey around, looking for the place to get our Boarding Pass Cards (player’s club type things). Finally found it, got our cards– no problem. Burned 20 minutes farting around doing that, and we found the hotel’s Starbucks, so we know where I’ll be having breakfast tomorrow morning.

Check in at 3. Go up to the room. Room’s nice– fairly standard hotel room. No complaints. John heads off to the porn convention to make appointments for tomorrow and get a party invitation for tonight (yay! Party!)

As soon as John left, I logged onto the Internet (geekgeekgeek) and checked email. First email I get is from an old friend from college, who it turns out is ! WOW! I’m so excited and happy! So I email her back and tell her we’re in Vegas right now, and how is she doing and I’m so glad she emailed me. Really, this is pretty cool; LaMaia is one of those people you miss long after you stop being around her, and she and I both had such itinerant college careers, we ended up losing phone numbers and addresses pretty rapidly.

Well, anyway, I’m here now, multitasking perhaps a bit too much, and generally having a loverly ol’ time. Hope everyone else is having a great Thursday afternoon!