Vegas, baby? (maybe not)

Shortly after returning from our last desert adventure, I discovered that our friend JB was going to be stuck in Vegas for a week for work. Not that she can't entertain herself, but I figured it'd be cool to hang out, and I really was looking for any excuse to plan another getaway, even if we had just gotten back from one. Plus, the SOOTTAD still hadn't seen O because we never bought tickets far enough in advance, so really, this provided the perfect excuse.

We got the Cirque tickets first, then the plane tickets. The plan was to depart Saturday, May 8th and return Tuesday, May 11th. (Yeah, that would be last Saturday and today. We'll get to that.) We'd save some money too because we'd be crashing with JB.

As the date drew near, I was really looking forward to the trip. I had read a few Vegas stories online (like this one [thanks to WWdN]) and was getting pretty psyched. I'm going over craps odds in my head. I'm imagining myself not being at work. Ahhh, that's a nice thought. No work. Mmmmm.

By the beginning of last week, we realized we hadn't really figured out what we were going to do there, besides the Cirque show, of course. We hadn't even decided if we were going to get a car when we got in. Work has been a distraction; it's been draining. And the lack of exercise (what with the shoulder injury keeping me sidelined) was taking its toll as well. Blood not flowing, senses dulled -- not enough oxygen or something. We needed to get on the ball.

Wednesday morning, I finally send JB our flight itinerary and she floors me with the news: she's been laid off. (I'm sorry, what was that about the economic recovery?) She's still working, at least through the end of the month, but the trip is off for her. Totally sucks. Just having the trip cancelled would be a bummer, but really, it's no big compared to a RIF.

We try talking her into coming out anyway, but she doesn't think she can afford the time or money. So now we really need to figure out what we're doing. The car is incidental, now we've gotta find lodging too, on top of figuring out what we're gonna do during the day. The SOOTTAD finds a couple cool sounding hikes online, but meanwhile, back at the office...

...well, let's just say that things are bad.

We're supposed to tape out the following Friday (that would be this Friday), and basically, there are some loose ends that need to get taken care of. Except, they're not getting taken care of, and in the process, we're finding more ends, as it were. And I'm about to take 2 days of vacation (not counting the weekend that I could also be working). I really do just want to bail. It's not unheard of: another guy on the project took a week off just 2 weeks ago. But things really weren't going as planned with the trip anyway. And as much as I wanted to go, I didn't want to deal with the airports, and sitting on a plane for hours seemed unappealing.

So we bailed.

The SOOTTAD was ok with it; she's good that way. Man, she rocks. Have I mentioned that? She rocks. She's got my back. The company is reimbursing me the costs for changing the plane tickets and (hopefully) giving me an extra day for my trouble. Of course, the moment I made the call, I had buyer's remorse. The hikes seemed REALLY cool. I wanted OUT of the office. But we'll reschedule and it'll be good. And we got to just chill. Which was a good thing, too.

What I really needed was some downtime. Dinner with a friend. Worked on the garden. (melons are in, baby!) Pulled weeds. Reseeded the lawn.

And I got some work done, too.

Vegas, baby. We'll be back.