I was recently in Las Vegas to attend a conference. Las Vegas is a little less than a four hour drive from my home and less than an hour flight. My fiancé’s family has a home in Las Vegas that we can stay at anytime we’re in town, which is a great money saver when we want a quick get-away. I have been to Las Vegas multiple times in my 27 years – family vacations, romantic getaways, vacations with friends and a few days ago… for a conference for my profession.

At first, Las Vegas was exciting and fun. When I was a teenager visiting Las Vegas, I thought it was exciting and loved being in a place that was for adults! I couldn’t wait to be an adult when I was young. When I turned 21, Las Vegas was FUN! I was able to gamble, drink and visit the Strip without my parents like I had in the past. But now… I think I’m over Las Vegas.

Why am I over Las Vegas? I’ve finally come to the realization that I don’t have the desire to visit that city any time soon. Here are my reasons that I don’t like Las Vegas:

1. It’s too crowded! Traffic on the Strip, both cars and pedestrians, is crazy and at all hours of the day!
2. The Strip is a big huge bar! There are drunk people all over the place on the Strip, and again at all hours of the day! It doesn’t matter if you’re in a casino, eating in a restaurant or walking on the strip – so many people are walking around with their alcohol.
3. So many of the young people visiting the city just annoy me! So many of the 21 year olds are loud, obnoxious, and with all of that alcohol in their systems, don’t care about anything that they say and do… I’ve seen many use numerous 4-letter words in front of everyone (including children) and many more say degrading and mean things to women!
4. Why are there so many more than half naked women in that town?
5. Why is the cheapest bottle of water I can find in that town cost $3? Everything is ridiculously overpriced! Isn’t it enough that the city is already getting so many of people’s money in their gambling losses?
6. Smoke! I have begun to take California’s no-smoking laws for granted. I grew up with a mom that smoked in the house, so I can handle some smoke. But, walking into the smoked-filled casinos give me a headache! And my clothing stunk by the end of the day when I was in Las Vegas.
7. The city of Las Vegas, as well as all of the businesses (casinos and hotels), advertise Las Vegas as a family friendly vacation. Sure, there are great things to see in Las Vegas that are family friendly such as M&M World, the Fremont Experience, as well as so many more things… but, there is a reason why Las Vegas is called Sin City. I don’t like seeing children in that city standing around in the casinos while their parents are gambling and half-naked women are walking around giving out free drink, or seeing children still out (and not sleeping) past midnight, which is SO common in Las Vegas.
8. It is hard not to gamble! I wouldn’t gamble if I didn’t have a little extra money, but I’m pretty much throwing my money away when I gamble!
9. Las Vegas is a Pepsi town! Okay, growing up I was a Pepsi girl. But, as I started drinking diet sodas, I’ve become a Coke girl… I could not find one Diet Coke in Las Vegas!
10. And lastly… it is so HOT in that city during the summer! It was about a 100 degrees while I was there this past week. And last year when I visited – the highest temperature while I was there was 112 degrees! I felt like I was melting!

The conference that I recently went to was great. I learned a lot, but the trip made me realize that I don’t have to visit that town again. I just don’t have the desire to visit there any more. There are a few things that I like about Las Vegas, but all and all – Las Vegas has become a town that I just don’t like. I’m not sure what Las Vegas was like in it’s heyday when the Rat Pack was around, but I have a feeling the town has moved away from what it was then.

Will I visit again? I’m sure that we’ll go someday. Just like I mentioned above – it’s close and easy, plus we’ll always have a free place to stay when we visit. I just don’t think it will be soon!

On Wednesday of this week I left the Los Angeles area for Las Vegas. My colleagues and I were on our way to Las Vegas for the Western Association for College Admission Counseling (WACAC) Conference. The Conference was happening at the Flamingo Las Vegas.

When I first found out that it was happening at the Flamingo, I was a little disappointed. The hotel first opened in 1946, making it the oldest hotel that is on the Las Vegas Strip today. I have walked by the Flamingo Las Vegas on other visits to Las Vegas and always thought that it was so cheesy and must have had cheesy rooms.

We arrived in Las Vegas around 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday and went straight to the conference because that is when it started. As we walked in, we saw a sign that said:

We would not be able to check into the hotel until 4:00 p.m. That was fine because the conference actually started by the time that we arrived in the city. We would just attend some of the workshops before checking in. When we got to the line at 4:00 p.m., it was longer than we could have ever imagined. The line was over 2 hours long! No big deal – we decided to attend a few more sessions. Again, too long. We went to dinner and arrived back at the hotel at 8:45 p.m. We couldn’t avoid the line any longer! We entered the line at 8:45 p.m. and got the key to our rooms at 10:30 p.m. Mark, the attendant at the counter was very apologetic and gave us all a $30 voucher to be used anywhere in the hotel. I could buy souvenirs “free of charge” – what a great surprise!

We opted for “Go Rooms.” These are the rooms that have been renovated at the hotel. The rooms were very nice and luxurious. Very nice linens on the bed, drape and sheer curtain were opened by a switch, 42-inch HD flat screen television and very nice bathroom! It was wonderful. Below are some pictures from the room:

Sure, the pink entrance that comes from the bathroom frosted glass “wall” is a little cheesy and “strip club-like,” it was a wonderful room at a very affordable rate compared to many of the other hotels on the main Las Vegas Strip!

I would definitely recommend staying at the Flamingo Las Vegas. It’s an affordable alternative to the many pricey hotels in the enter of the Las Vegas Strip!

I have always loved photography. From the time that I was young, I loved taking pictures of everything and everyone. Back then my parents and grandparents wouldn’t let me take too many pictures because it was expensive to develop all of the film. That’s also why I never took a photography class – it was just too expensive.

However, in the last five years, the hobby of photography has had a breakthrough that has allows all of us to enjoy photography at a cheaper rate! Digital cameras are wonderful and have become affordable for all of us. We can take hundreds and hundreds of pictures, see them instantly, put them on our computers and only print the ones that we absolutely love! What a wonderful invention for those of us that love photography!

Flickr has become my source for everything photography recently. I use it for so many reasons:

• I want to go on vacation, but not sure where – If I have an idea of where I want to go, I just type that location in Flickr and hundreds (or thousands) of pictures come back. The pictures give me a great idea if it is a place I want to visit or not.
• Engagement Photos – I’m engaged and want to have beautiful engagement photos at a cheaper rate – A friend of ours that owns a “professional” camera has agreed to take the photos for us, but he’s not a professional photographer. We just searched engagement on Flickr and we found great engagement photos that have given us great ideas.
• Flickr as a photography class? I don’t have time to take a photography class, but I still want to better my photography skills. There are so many professional photographers on Flickr. You can search the photos and see the prospective of so many of these great photographers. You can study different techniques on Flickr. You can also post your pictures in groups on Flickr and people will critic your work!
• Artwork for your home? That’s right, we can search all of the photographs for free on Flickr. But what if we really love a photo and would like to have a copy. There are quite a few photographers out there that are willing to sell you a copy of their photo at an inexpensive rate.

Flickr is a great website and it’s free to use. There is an option to buy a premium account that allows you to store more photos, but amateur photographers won’t need a “pro” account because it gives you 100MB a month! If you haven’t visited Flickr before, I recommend you check it out! The photography on Flickr is great!

In the past my favorite television shows included things like Law and Order, Friends, and Dawson’s Creek. I still like those shows and shows like those, but they have to move over for my new favorites. Recently reality shows have become my favorite, but not the reality shows that many people think of when talking about reality shows. I love watching shows on The Learning Channel (TLC). Along with all of the home improvement shows that I love on TLC, I have fallen in love with a show called Jon and Kate Plus Eight.

The show tells the story of Jon and Kate and their eight children: a set of twins and a set of sextuplets. Maverick does not like when I watch Jon and Kate Plus Eight because he finds it annoying. Sure, there is a lot of screaming and crying of the children and bickering between the parents, but I love it. Plus, Maverick doesn’t want to hear about poop or potty training, like the episode that is on television right now.

Why do I like this show? I love children. From the time that I was young, I loved children. I just think they are wonderful and as far back as I could remember, I have wanted children. Maverick and I have not started our family yet, mainly because we actually have to get married first. We are engaged and I can’t wait until we’re married so we can start our family. So, I love watching this show because I get to see the children and their life, everything from them laughing to them learning to “poop on the potty.”

But, I don’t think that is the only reason I watch this show. I didn’t mention above that the family is biracial. The mom, Kate, is a white woman and the father, Jon, is an Asian man – just like Maverick and I. I love seeing these hapa (half Asian and half White) kids because that is what our children will look like in the future. I think the main reason I love watching this show is because I want children of my own and I know that my own kids will look somewhat like the children on Jon and Kate Plus Eight. I guess when I watch this show I am dreaming of what our life will be like when we have children.
So, until I have children of my own, I have to warn Maverick that I will continue to watch Jon and Kate Plus Eight with all of the cute laughing, talking, crying, screaming and bickering parents!

When I was in high school, I was diagnosed as having migraines. I missed a lot of schools when I was in high school because of my migraine headaches. All throughout high school, college and a few years after college were filled with migraines. The doctors just couldn’t figure out why I was having migraines, and all they could do was give me very strong medicine to help the pain.

Then, sometime around the year 2005, the migraines started to not be so frequent. Was it because I had hit a quarter of a century old, turning 25 that year? I’m not sure, but I went from having a few migraines a week to maybe one a month. It was wonderful!

The years since I turned 25 have been great. I started to not have many migraines at all. When I did have a migraine, it came as a shock to me because I wasn’t used to having them any more. Then, the last few weeks I’ve had a migraine that has lasted a days – once a week. The past two weekends I have had a migraine that lasted the entire weekend. What is going on with me?

Migraines are something that I just don’t understand! I am probably at my best health ever, I’m working out on a regular basis, eating (for the most part) healthy food – it just doesn’t make sense to me. But, that’s what I have learned about migraines – no one can truly figure out what causes them.

This past weekend, my migraine started late Friday afternoon and finally disappeared this evening (Sunday evening around 5pm). That’s about 48 hours that I had a migraine! Luckily I had some of my strong medication that allowed me to go out – I had plans to go out with the girls to a Dodgers game! I do my best to make sure that migraines do not ruin my life – I let my migraines ruin my life when I was younger and I will not let that happen any more! Thank God for medication! Anyway, I was able to go out, but I still had an annoying pain that came back full force around 10pm last night.

Here to hopefully not having any more migraines because I can’t afford to be immobile any more!

Maverick and I always talk about those that move up in the world (especially the work world) that don’t deserve their raises, promotions, etc.  There have been times when I wondered how someone became a supervisor or leader in the workplace when they don’t have a clue of what is going on.  It has seemed so many times that so many other people could do better jobs than those that are higher in the workplace.

I received an email forward from my mom this morning, and I think it really explains why some move up in the world that don’t really deserve it!

It’s called Simple Math

• What Makes 100%?
• What does it mean to give more than 100%?
• Ever wonder about those people that say that they give more than 100%?
• We have all been to those meetings where they want us to give more than 100%.
• What makes up 100% in life?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer this question.

• If:
• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as:
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

It is obvious that:

• H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
• 8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

And:

• K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
• 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But:

• A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
• 1+20+20+9+20+21+5+4 = 100%

While

• B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
• 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20=103%

Finally, and most effectively

• A-S-S K-I-S-S-I-N-G
• 1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7=127%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it’s the Bullshit and Ass Kissing that will put you over the top!

This email that I received from my mom was funny, but I truly believe that there is some truth behind it.  When I think of many leaders in the workplace (not all, but many), many of them are great at the “bullshit” and “ass kissing.”  I have never really possessed this skill – it just doesn’t come naturally to me to kiss someones butt.  I just don’t have it in me to kiss someones butt.  It is not me to be that person, and I refuse to be someone that I am not.  So, it might take me a little longer to move up the work ladder, but I’m doing it my own way.  I will always respect myself because I give nothing but hard work, knowledge and a good attitude… these things might not add up to 100%, but they’re perfect to me!

For a while now I thought about starting a real blog. MySpace used to be my forum, but I’m starting to get over that website. And Facebook, which has become the forum for so many, just isn’t the right place for me. WordPress, from what I’ve seen, is easy to use, attractive and doesn’t have all the crazy applications that the social networking sites have.

Why am I writing today in the middle of the day? Well, I took my “personal” day. We were hoping that Maverick would be able to stay home today, but he had to go into work for a meeting. So, I’m here at home just relaxing. And it’s great that it’s raining – the cold and rainy weather is helping me to just stay on the couch and relax. Usually, when I take a day off from work, I end up working around the house – I just don’t know how to relax. This cold weather is great for so many reasons – we needed the rain, we’re saving money and water because we don’t have to water the lawn and plants, and it’s keeping me from working!

The next few weeks have a few fun and exciting things in store for me:

• Tomorrow I will be attending a Dodger game! I’ve heard that we’ll have great tickets, but it wouldn’t matter where they’re at – it’s free so I’ll love where ever we sit! I’ll be going to the game with Regina, Jennifer and Melanie – it should be good times.
• This Wednesday I will be leaving for Las Vegas with my colleagues fro the Western Association for College Admission Counseling (WACAC) Conference. These conferences are always great because they have great information, but they area also great ways to network and see old friends that I haven’t seen since the Fall travel season.
• In the middle of June a few of my colleagues and I will be traveling to Portland, Maine for the Recruitment PLUS conference. Recruitment PLUS is a computer program that we use at work to work with our students (prospects, applicants, admits, etc). I’m not sure how this conference will be since I haven’t attended one, but it will be great to travel to a few states I have never visited before. We will be traveling to Boston, checking out that great city, and then making our way to Maine. We’ll be in Maine for 5 days.

My goal is to continue writing down my thoughts and sharing them. Hopefully this time I’ll be able to stick to my goal!