Thoughts about Vegas and Otakon Vegas

I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but somewhere along the line, I caught something and I’ve been home sick for the last two days.  I do not get sick very often, so needless to say this doesn’t please me in the least bit, but there’s nothing I can really do about it.  However, it’s given me a little bit of extra time to catch up on processing some of the photos I took while out in Vegas, as well as some time to do some writing.

It’s been like two years since I was in Vegas last, and it’s safe to say that there have been quite some numerous changes since then.  One of the conversations had during the trip was about how Vegas was obviously one of the larger casualties of the last economic massacre, and it’s in little things that I think I notice that such an assessment is true.  A few years ago, casinos were extremely generous with coupon books boasting all sorts of match-play tickets, buy-one-get-one tickets, and other offers to stimulate parting money from your hand to the hands of the casinos.  Typically, these were given upon check in to hotels, or upon registering with a different player’s reward program.

Two years of inactivity and returning to Vegas used to warrant some sort of offers to help make up for money of mine they haven’t been getting but neither redeeming new cards, or checking into the hotel prompted any sort of offers of sort.  To me, it’s not a big deal, since I hardly used anything other than BOGO drinks, but the lack of offers wasn’t lost on me either.

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And of course, Happy New Years

It’s now 2014.  For the next 183 days, we are winding up the year, with hopes and aspirations of the best outcomes for ourselves and those we care about.  I don’t feel that 2013 was terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but we as human beings all love to feel optimistic that the following year should always strive to be better.  I have no problem with that.

For me, the year started off pleasantly, in the company of fine people, and admittedly pretty tanked.  There are text messages sent that I don’t remember, and this photo that I was too hammered to bother tagging people on that someone less inebriated than I took the liberty to do instead.  I used to feel that New Years Eves were supposed to be awesome and grandiose, but when the day is over, a chill evening with decent people is all I really want to bring in the next year.

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Photos: Disney Vacation

Y’know, I thought that there would be more to elaborate on when I got to posting the pictures, but it’s really nothing I haven’t already said in the previous post, summing things up.

The trip to Florida was as pleasant as I had hoped it would have been, and I don’t really have any complaints.  I spent a good bit of coin on a whole lot of food and more food, and lots of alcohol, and I rode a lot of roller coasters, got sunburned, and had a fun trip.  And despite taking a vacation from my vacation with a day spent mostly by the pool, I still found myself somewhat exhausted and slept for almost 12 hours in a single night this weekend.

Looking through these pictures makes me realize that there’s a long, long, long, long path ahead of me if I ever want to feel like I’ve got somewhat adequate control over my own camera, since a good 20% of the pictures taken were blurry beyond belief and therefore unusable.  But I kept in a few here and there, because hey, there was some drunken shenanigans, and the blur only adds to the accuracy of how such things might’ve felt.

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Vacation, in brief

My Disney vacation was a great time.  I’m sure I’ll elaborate on several aspects of it in future posts as I comb through the litany of pictures taken during the trip, but I just wanted to artificially inflate my own brog post count by posting something fluffy and inconsequential, not to mention that I’ve got a little bit of downtime at work, and it seems like a good idea at the time.

I can’t really say that there was anything bad about the trip, so by default it means that it was a very good vacation as a whole.  Staying on Disney property was interesting and a somewhat educational experience, at the Wilderness Lodge, and I loved the idea of being privy to Magic Hours as resort guests, even if the one time we were at Epcot during a Magic Hour, we hardly got much privilege out of it, but it means something to look forward to in future years.

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Impending brog hiatus

For about the next week, I’m going to be at Disney World.

Suffice to say, there will not be any substantial posts going up for about that time.

It’s safe to assume that any posts that miraculously emerge while I’m on vacation will likely be to a state of extreme relaxation, or inebriation.  Either way, I will have no regrets about them.

Have a good week everyone.

I want a real vacation

Several times throughout the years, I’ll take vacation time and go somewhere and do things.  Despite the fact that I’m generally accomplishing things that I want to do on my vacation time, I don’t really feel like they’re really vacations in the sense that I’m completely relaxed and at a general state of ease and comfort.

When I go to a convention, there’s the agitation of constantly being in lines and being crammed with thousands of people at any given time; waits, more waits, lines and waiting in lines, the tedious procedure of trying to find a place to sit and eat lunch or dinner.  When I go on ballpark trips, they’re usually not spent very long in any one place, and in order to maximize how much time gotten at each park, and there’s a lot of time spent driving around in cars trying to get from point A to B to C to D and then back to A sometimes.  And then there are the unfortunate instances of having to use vacation time to go deal with family bullshit, where I feel like I need a vacation after each and every single day dealing with my parents’ separation.

And no matter where in the United States you go, there’s always a long line at Starbucks when all I really want is my morning cup of coffee.

Don’t get me wrong, aside from the family bullshit, I enjoy going on trips to go to conventions, baseball road trips, out-of-town weddings and other time-off-work excursions.  I wouldn’t trade any of those things in for the world, but the fact of the matter is that more often than not, none of those things are truly restful, not-a-care-in-the-world, zero-worry, genuine vacations.

So I kind of want to go on an actual vacation, sometime.

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