Ah, the joys of Las Vegas. Nearly a month ago, from June 3 to June 8, I was with David helping out at convention. I didn’t have an official role in the process but did what I could to help out. It turned out to be a good thing I was allowed to go along because otherwise David would have been hauling in all the equipment by himself. He would have also been setting up all the computers and equipment by himself and not finding any time to rest or eat.

We found out that we weren’t allowed to get any kind of cart or dolly and unload things from a convenient place, like the front door closest to the venue, by ourselves. We could haul in all 10 of the very heavy boxes from the parking garage of a nearby casino much like we’d normally be hauling in ourselves and laptop bags in every day. It was nuts. I found out how the labor union unloading stuff worked, got permission to charge DH’s company for it (I still don’t know how much it cost), and arrange for some very nice people to get David permission to drive into the loading dock, get the stuff onto one of those electric carts and delivered straight to our booth.  It was such a blessing. I was already dead tired from walking all over the place getting this arranged. David had already carried two of the boxes in by hand from the closest casino parking lot and looked like he was going to have a heart attack. If you’ve been to Las Vegas, then you know that everything is huge and you have to walk great distances to get anywhere. It’s usually through a massive smoke filled casino. For whatever conference he does next, I’m getting us laptop rolling cases.

Getting the servers ready for the booths in Vegas.

It got to over 100F most of the days we were there. Thank goodness for AC.

Sat/Sun It took us two solid days and a trip to Fry’s (swoon!) to get everything set up and working. David still had a few bugs to work out on Monday. Many, many trips back and forth between booths later and our feet have never hurt so much in our lives.

It was really interesting watching the venue take shape.

The cranes and carts had plastic wrapped around their wheels and the entire floor was covered in plastic while the construction was going on.

The area to one side of us was completely open to the storage loading area of the venue which was then closed off by these sliding panels that became the wall of the venue.

David’s phone spent much of the week being unreliable, not holding a charge, and rebooting many of the times he tried to use it. On top of working at two booths and talking to the HPE partners and customers, he still had to conduct some of the day to day business with support. I had a hard time getting him to take food breaks so I would scout out the meal and snack locations which were close by and bring back food for him.  The drinks were all coffee and soda that we don’t drink and there wasn’t a water bottle to be found anywhere. There were water fountains and small cups, but we relied on a case of bottled water that we brought with us. Unfortunately, we ran out by the end of Tuesday. I was happy to find that the open bars in the evenings had club soda.

If you make friends with the bartenders, they give you extra bottles to keep with you.

The food there was really creative and amazing. Even the snack items were fancy things. We were good for the most part and stayed as low carb as possible until these things showed up:

This is an adorable cone that was filled with chocolate, coconut, and pistachios. It didn’t stay filled for very long.

Our badges didn’t always get us into the venue where and when we needed to be, so everyday David and I had to hunt down special early entry permission wrist bands. It still meant that I missed out on some of the special panels where Mike was speaking.

Badges?  We don’t need no steenking badges.

My view from my the couch/charging station where I took refuge from being on my feet answered emails and kept our phones charged.

The booth all put together.

David, Marc, and Colin making ClearOS videos.

David on our first day of setting up in the venue.

I doctored up my iPad cover to look less Apple-ish and more ClearCenter-ish. An Apple logo wouldn’t have looked kosher at an HPE event.

There were fun things to see walking back and forth from the venue to our hotel room. I eventually started taking a cab because of the heel pain.

The company become a partner with HPE and we’re really excited about it. The partnership was announced there at the conference.

Monday, I took to the internet  to see if I could find  some ideas on how to relieve the pain in my heels. The symptoms of plantar faciitis fit the best and the Ravelers in my SKC group came through. A cold can of soda to rest my foot on, lots of Advil, and stretches kept me going.

We had a presence at two booths, at the AMD booths I met these darling people.

Yvonne and Josh from AMD.

Tuesday and Wednesday was more of the same, lots of walking, talking to as many people as possible, learning a million things, and being absolutely exhausted.  It was a lot of fun being surrounded by untold amounts of dollars worth of computer hardware. A true Nerdvana.

Wednesday night, AMD hosted a huge party with an old Las Vegas theme.

I had my picture taken with handsome gents:

And then David and I danced to some great music inside a large circle of people and some of the musicians. Great music.  Probably not so great dancing.  At least the video hasn’t show up on the Internet.  I wish I at least had a picture of the dip at the end 😉

We got home late Thursday night after packing up the equipment from both booths.  That went a lot faster than the setup as we, thankfully had a lot of help.