What Happens in Vegas....

Well, I said there were a few things that happened. I wasn't lying was I? Starting last Sunday and ending Monday (I thought it ended Tuesday - doh!) we had Dragonrider 2008 - a place for members of my guild to meet in real life and get to know one another. Five of us showed up for billiards on Sunday afternoon - four of us continued to play tourist Sunday and Monday.

I showed up at Excaliber on Sunday afternoon with my computer and luggage. Baggage isn't usually set up to handle full gaming rigs but the manager was kind enough to put my computer and one of the monitors (the other was stowed in my suitcase) behind the desk while I checked in. For those with similar plans I suggest checking in then getting your rig - it saves aggravation for everyone involved. I was able to check in around noon and get everything up to the room.

Once the computer was set up ($12.99/day for internet access - they didn't mention THAT on the website!) I went looking for everybody else. We met at a pool hall around 1pm and played two games in about an hour to an hour and a half - yes we all sucked that badly. The only reason it was two games was Zemus sunk the 8-ball early on (the first ball to go in the hole that day lol). It was fun to meet some of the people I've been gaming with for almost a decade now.

After that, we headed up to Prediant's room and played Texas Holdem with our new poker chips until close to dinner time - Tournament of Kings. To keep it short - excellent show! I would strongly suggest not getting the first row however since you risk dirt on your food if the riders get too close. We cheered for the Dragon section of course. It was a blast to just unleash everything and have fun in the moment. Afterwards, we went back to the room to digest and play some more poker before turning in. I had two Mike's Hard Lemonade Pomegranites.

The next day my throat kind of hurt and I figured it had something to do with the Tournament the night before. We hit the Valley of Fire with Prediant's rented Hummer. Kendryck and I tried some basic bouldering and we had fun as a guild. Mostly we talked about life and about WAR. We had lunch at the buffet and did some walking around before convincing Zemus to go see Fantasy with us that night. We hit up the Star Trek Experience since it's going to be closing in September. We did both the Borg Experience and the Klingon ride. Most of us thought the Klingon ride was better than the Borg 4D thing.

Just before the show, we had dinner at Dick's Last Resort - a bar in Excaliber that features extremely rude servers. I got carded (yes, I'm 32) and we enjoyed the service overall. Great atmosphere and the way you're treated kind of encourages you to let everything go.

The short (kid-friendly) review of Fantasy is it's a great show, nice theater, great format. The girls look great (yes, I was thinking of T the whole time) and the music choreography was well thought out. The comedy interludes were nicely timed and we all had a lot of fun.

Anyway, long version short on Tuesday I was planning on just kicking back and relaxing. That didn't happen for a number of reasons. By Thursday night it became obvious that I did not just have a sore throat and I ended up going to the ER. There I found that I did NOT have strep throat but instead had a "severe case of tonsilitus", for which they gave me a shot of... something I have to assume was an antibiotic and a prescription for Amoxicilin (875mg twice a day). So I have to keep taking the antibiotics and ended up missing work on Friday because of the throat and threat of contagion. That and the medicine made me drousy on the drive home...