Sabrina Dent: Freelance web designer, developer and internet marketer living in Cork, Ireland with one dog and a husband in no particular order.
A One-Handed Blog Entry
Last week, as previously mentioned, I made my way to Las Vegas for Mix10. I’d never been to Vegas before, and was very excited – though less keen on the Cork > Dublin > Gatwick > Vegas journey this trip entailed, what with that totalling 22 hours and all.
For the record, I love Las Vegas, and think we should all move there. It’s like Disney for grown-ups, and as long as you embrace the Matrix and its transparent artificiality, it’s sort of magical. I also really enjoyed MIX, and learned a lot; it was a great experience and I’m glad I went. Highlights for me:
- Getting to hang out all week with Martha Rotter and Claire Dillon from Microsoft Ireland, who looked after me in spectacular style and have my undying gratitude for making my trip possible;
- Getting to meet Joey deVilla, aka Accordion Guy. I’m ashamed to say I’d never heard of him and didn’t know Accordion Guy was famous, nor did I realise I had parked myself at the Cool Kids Table in the lounge, but he was just plain nice to me. He has a Vegas Travel Diary that perfectly encapsulates this trip, and a toilet that tweets.
- Standing within 6 feet of Douglas Crockford and Dr. Dr. Dr. Bill, who also answered a question for me in a session he ran as an open conversation with just one slide (it was a good slide, to be fair.)
Interestingly, when I went to Nishant Kothary’s excellent session on The Elephant in the Room, his last slide was about a conversation he’d had with Bill Buxton that was virtually identical to my last blog post. I was flabbergasted and delighted in a way that is probably only meaningful to me, but I consider it a highlight of my geek life to have my crankypants validated that way. In fact, it ranks right after getting an email from an old-guard hero of the internet saying he liked a design I did for a project he was involved in.
In Vegas, I stayed at the Luxor, which I am well aware is virtually always a mistake. However, if what you need is a room on the strip for $79 a night, it’s a pretty sweet deal. I actually liked #1091, my ground floor, casino-front room; sure, the rooms really need a refurb and I was sleeping 20 feet from a slot machine, but on the plus side, I was also 15 feet from Starbucks, and Starbucks buys you a lot of points in my world.
Less impressive: the Luxor provides wired ethernet internet access only and the hotel has no open WiFi. It has WiFi, mind you; I saw plenty of Luxor nodes, just none open for guests. This is very frustrating, and after getting no reply from “all access” @LuxorLV, I typed $sudo apt-get install firestarter into my Ubuntu-running eeePC and opened up a public access WiFi node.
This access point was called, obviously, TheLuxorSucks, and ran for four days. And that, kids, is why you do not place signs in your hotel inviting people to tweet you and then ignore the unhappy geeks.
Sadly, while I am typing this entry one-handed, it is not because my other hand is busy rolling dice on a Vegas craps table. After a rather epic return journey flying Vegas > Gatwick > Dublin and a three hour train journey from Dublin to Cork, I fell (literally) at the last hurdle before reaching home and slipped spectacularly on the wet platform at Cork station, dislocating my left shoulder. So instead of going to my badly-needed bed, I went via ambulance to A&E at Cork University Hospital, where I waited for 6 hours to be seen, x-rayed and discharged with a suitable sling and referrals to the fracture clinic and physiotherapy.
For the record, while I realise the health service is in a terrible state, I’ve no real complaints about that experience. While it was a long night, I consider 6 hours at an urban A&E with a paediatric unit to be an appropriate L4 triage wait time. Paediatric and life-threatening emergencies should always take precedence over stable patients with managed pain. (Infants are notoriously unreliable patients.) Similarly, a few years ago when I went into the Mercy as a L1 triage, I received excellent and immediate care that was entirely responsive and appropriate.
People die of heart attack, blood loss and infection; nobody dies of a dislocated shoulder.
Anyway, here I sit typing slowly with one hand. I can’t dress myself, cut my own food, or bend over to pet my dog, and I’m pretty sore. I’m also exhausted, although not too tired to put a personal injury law suit at the top of my To Do list today. There is something ironic about the fact that after doing that website last year, I found myself referring to it today, but also nice that I know what this long process will entail, and doubly nice my fabulous solicitor takes my call on a Saturday.
So there you have it: I love Vegas, MIX and Simon McGarr; not so much the Luxor and Irish Rail, who can kiss my crankypants arse.
20 Mar 2010
| In: Crankypants + Domesticities | Tags:Irish Rail, Luxor, vegas
Las Vegas is Disney for adults, so true, have been there three times, the Paris is my fave hotel there. Hope your shoulder is feeling better. Congrats on being an IBA finalist ! I’ll be there with my fellow Culch.ie’s, flying over from Boston.
20.03.2010, 10:18 pmVery sorry to hear about your injuries. Stay well and start investing in velcro
22.03.2010, 9:15 amfasteners. Thanks for your kind words. Nobody has ever mentioned their solicitor while typing one handed before.
Oh I’m so sorry to hear your trip ended in that way. Sounds like you had a ball – can we start calling you Sabrina “Vegas” now?
If I were in Cork, I’d pop round with some home-made lasagne (comfort food) and a bottle of vino (works great with antibiotics) and a huge helping of sympathy. Get Emer to keep the house tidy. Rest up. And don’t forget to tell us how long you’ll be incapacitated this way?
22.03.2010, 10:20 amI stayed at the Luxor in 2008 for a few nights. The lack of wifi was a pain in the arse alright. Sorry to hear about the shoulder, that’s a bit of a nightmare. Get well soon.
22.03.2010, 10:29 amHave stayed at Luxor too – favourite bit was the Sphynx and the monorail whisking me away from it. Eating breakfast in it is like dining in the bowels of some vast aircraft carrier.
Sorry to hear about the slip – you might be interested in http://www.injuriesboard.ie/eng/Estimator/
BTW I just discoved your blog today – it’s great, congratulations!
22.03.2010, 2:36 pmOoh sorry to hear about your injury. That’s really bad luck after your epic journey.
I was in Las Vegas about 12 years ago, while travelling around California and Nevada with friends. By the time we got there we had very little money and stayed in a hostel away from the strip where we literally had to run from the hostel to a speeding taxi to take us to the strip in order to avoid getting shot. Staff at reception were really helpful reminding us not to go out alone at any time.
It turned out that mid-week it would have been cheaper to stay in a fancy-pants hotel than the kip we were in. Loved arriving there after a drive through the desert, very cool. It just pops out of nowhere. Definitely Disney for grown ups.
Anyway I digress. Looking forward to seeing you at the bloggies.
26.03.2010, 10:03 pmSorry to hear about that but great to hear about your win at the Irish Blog Awards last night. Well done.
28.03.2010, 10:30 amSabrina,
06.04.2010, 11:18 amtypical – the moment I leave you out of my sight you go and fall over. And now I have so many ‘one hand’ jokes that I can’t bring myself to use ;(
Seriously, get yourself better – congrats on your win at the IBA,
John K.