Las Vegas

If anyone is wondering why my blog is so quiet, well, I've been traveling again.  I came to Las Vegas to attend TSCPA's annual board meeting, and we've had a wonderful time.  Some of my friends headed home this afternoon, but a few of us don't leave until tomorrow.  The TSCPA has most of its meetings in Texas, but every year or two, they'll go out of state for a meeting. 

It's 121 degrees here, apparently a record-breaking heat wave!  I'm excited about getting to meet Tom P. who has been such a huge friend to machine knitting, and to me.  Tom lives here in Las Vegas, works at the airport and is working today, coping with the chaos that sizzling high temperatures cause for the airlines.  I hope none of the guys working on the tarmac get heatstroke. 

Tomorrow, we'll have lunch together, and once again, I'll get to meet someone terrific I've gotten to know in the knitting machine cyber community.

Tom has helped me with my work, giving me lots of great suggestions and feedback on "Wear Your Diamonds," and now he's reading through "100 Ways to Improve Your Machine Knitting."  I haven't made any progress with the book this last week or two, with the seminar last weekend, then work, then this trip.

I haven't been to Las Vegas in quite a few years, and never stayed at Caesar's Palace before.  My general impression riding here in a shuttle from the airport is that the strip has built up tremendously.  This hotel alone is the size of a small town.  Our meetings were held here.  This hotel has 4,000 rooms, and everything is so large that my friends and I were all complaining about sore feet.  Last night, we explored only part of a mall inside the hotel complex (in the "Forum"), walking and browsing for hours.  The shops contain absolute luxury goods, so expensive it's hard to imagine they can sell enough to keep the doors open.  Rolex watches for $30K, purses for $4K, leather jackets for $6K!   I did treat myself to an inexpensive, whimsical silver and glass frog necklace. 

One of my friends remarked this morning that this whole incredible complex (I wonder how many tons of marble was installed in this place) was built with money that people lost gambling.  She's right.  Of course, there's a whole other side to Vegas, ordinary neighborhoods, families, churches.  Maybe I can find a nice yarn shop.

Many of my CPA friends don't understand my knitting hobby at all, but some of the women find it interesting.  A very sweet friend said she is intrigued by it, would like to come along to a seminar sometime and help me, and she'd like for me to show her daughter a machine and how it works.  What I really ought to do is whip up some shawls for the lady accountants to wear in the chilly meeting rooms.  It doesn't matter where you have a conference, it's always cold in hotel meetings.  I was thinking about the electricity today - can you imagine what it takes to chill these unbelievably giant hotels in spite of the incredible heat?

Well, better run.  I promise some knitting-related posts soon.