My blow-by-blow account ...

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This posting is from: annie
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Here's my personal blow-by-blow account of the DLV week ...

I started writing this maybe Wednesday after DLV, but I didn't get it
done until tonite. Hope I'm not leaving anything major out. :)

Sunday evening, Hard Rock Cafe: I met Densie and Tony at the Sahara and
we took off to meet some of the others at the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner
and drinks. Densie and Tony handed me a whole bag full of Peeps, several
boxes! Bunny drove all the way in from DC via Texas! I would like to see
us work Hard Rock Cafe into the DLV 2004 plans. Noisy, but very friendly.
. . . . .

Monday morning, Area 51 side trip: Instant bad hair day! Windy! Trip up
there was long but uneventful, with the only highlight being a rest stop
at a convenience store in Alamo, the only real town between Las Vegas
and Rachel. Some of our people did not wanna go in the store. :)

Lunch (actually I had breakfast) at A-Le-Inn was good, for me at least,
but Densie's did not agree with her.

We posed for pics at the black (now white) mailbox, the A-Le-Inn, and
the boundary to the restricted area. We kinda pushed the limits of how
close to get to the boundary of the "deadly force authorized" area I
think. On the way out this employee bus ZOOoooommmed past us on the dirt
road.

Monday evening, Milano's: The waiter recognized me and asked me if I
would be having the chicken. Nope, I had one of the specials. Good food
as usual.

Spotlight: Tina phoned and said she would not be able to make this, and
to be sure I would be there so there would be at least one pretty face
for the DLV people to recognize. We got there and there were quite a few
DLV people there already. Tony passed out Peeps. :) Nice place.
Surprised we had not stumbled on it before. I would like to be able to
work this into the DLV 2004 plans.

Karaoke at Flex: Fun time as usual, and good turnout even for those who
were in early. More peeps! Heather (one of the local Karaoke fans) sang
a very touching song to her grandfather, who was sitting there at the
bar. ("Grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days.") Densie did Uneasy
Rider and Strokin.
. . . . .

Tuesday evening, Pre-DLV happy hour and dinner: Hamburger Mary's. Slow
start, but a good crowd and good food as usual. Three people gave me
Peeps! I had to pick up Ginger at the airport right after, and Michelle
and Bunny wanted to go along, so Ginger had quite an entourage meeting
her. We got there just as she was pulling out her cell phone to page me.
:)

Welcome Celebration: Flex. Good crowd, good atmosphere. Took the Galiano
Challenge but Tony squealed and said they had used placebo Galiano [sic].
I think we passed out Peeps. They had passed the word that there was now
a steep cover charge for the ADAM thing over at SRO, so not many went
over there.
. . . . .

Wednesday: Hidden Woman open house: Nice setup they had in the suite.
Good crowd. I really didn't stay that long. Too bad HW is leaving LV. :(

Sasha's: Great turnout! I heard a few comments about the food not being
as good as last year, but mine was good at least. Highlight of the
evening was Michael Cagle's show. He really got into the crowd! Most
everybody stayed for the DD&D show, which was also very good.

Karaoke, Goodtimes: Again a great turnout. Only one small fish in the
tank. Hmmmmm.....
. . . . .

Thursday: Glamour Boutique Open House: Very good turnout! I listened to
some of John's passing lecture, but I ended up getting sidetracked
talking to people quite frequently.

Thursday evening: A group of us took a taxi over to Bally's so we would
not have to worry about drinking and driving. We played a bit before
the show. I thought the show was great and I didn't see any people in
our group getting any strange stares.

After the show was the limo tour. Again, this was one of my favorite
activities. Seemed to be some confusion on this, but IMAO, this was due
to the high no-pay rate by those who had signed up for it. :(

Refreshments were already in the limos, but one limo didn't have enough
so we stopped by a liquor store on Wino Alley, somewhere near Main and
Bridger I would guess. Densie recognized Lester and said she would take
off her glasses if Lester would join us for the remainder of the tour.
She took hers off, I kept mine on, glasses that is, and Lester climbed
in. Lester had fun playing with the radios and sniffing the fumes from
the empty bottles.

It was cold and windy at some of the stops! Another instant bad hair
day/night! At one of the places, Mirage I think, they made the limos
park so far away from the action that most of our limo just stayed
in place.

No DelMar, huh?

We bribed our driver (Johnny, excellent) to take us back to the Sahara
instead of Bally's, and I think we had breakfast, but I sure don't
remember it. :)
. . . . .

Friday: I don't remember getting up on Friday, but I assume I did. :)

It's been quite a while since I've eaten at Carluccio's and I had
forgotten just how good the food is there. I've never seen the back room
with the mirrors and stuff. Bar and wait staff were great too. Excellent
crowd. We overflowed out into the middle room by the bar.

Annual Mixer: Although this one is not really "exciting", I always enjoy
it, having a few drinks, shooting the sh^H^Hbull, just socializing and
people-watching and sampling the various tap beers at the bar. Far more
fish in the tank than there were on Wednesday. I guess they must hide on
Karaoke nights, huh?

Our photo session worked more smoothly than I had expected, except we
did chase a number of people who were not posing out of the area.

I didn't do the dance thing.

Got stuck in an elevator at the hotel for about an hour with 5 total
strangers. That was fun ... NOT!
. . . . .

Saturday: Densie was not feeling well so Tony and I took off to the SBS
Garden Party. We stopped at Walgreens (note to Pinkfest people, there
are plenty of Walgreens in Las Vegas) to get a get-well card for Mike,
the waiter at the Sahara who was out on medical leave.

That was a nice party, with a very good turnout. Good food too, and yes,
Peeps on a plate. :) Tony passed the card around and got tons of people
to sign it.

San Remo HH and Dinner: This had kind of a slow start, but we eventually
took over most of the bar area. Good crowd and some very classy outfits.

Seemed to be a bit of confusion, as some thought we were to invade the
buffet en masse. Several people asked me when we were going to go to
eat, and I replied "any time you want." :) We did go in small groups to
the combined coffee shop and buffet. I remember it was good but not
outstanding. (Fast, neat, average, friendly, good, good, I guess. :)

Showgirls Of Magic: Since I was the one coordinating this for DLV, I
went off to find Alica, who Matt (sales director at the production
company) said to touch base with prior to seating. I then met up with
the showroom people and one of them handed me this HUGE bag. Just what I
needed, more Peeps! :)

There was a bit of confusion about how they wanted us to line up. First
they said line up along the bar, then they said that there would not be
enough room and don't block the bar, so line up to the left of the
normals, then somebody said that some of our people might not want to be
that exposed, and then I think they finally started lining up people
around the rear of the bar. I went off to get the tickets for the group,
and Tony went to round up people from the buffet and coffee shop and get
them on line. Tony said he approached one table of who he THOUGHT were
our people ("Ok, ladies, time to line up for the show!") and found them
to be a group of civilian GG's from Phoenix or something. Oh well.

I was over at the box office getting the tickets when all of a sudden
the ticketing machine stopped and would not restart. They futzed with it
for a while, then phoned somebody from maintenance who futzed with it
more, but nothing seemed to work and there was quite a line building up
behind me at the box office. Eventually they did get it to work, but I
know our people were waiting wondering what was going on.

When we went into the showroom we found Peeps on every table, even the
ones on the civilian side of the room! :)

Show was great! I laughed my @$$ off! After the show we had the photo
session on stage with the cast. Those people were so good and patient
too! :) Thanks again Tiny! :)

I think I remember going back to the Sahara and having breakfast. :)
. . . . .

Sunday: I got up mid morning and took Densie and Tony to the Henderson
airport. Densie was alive, but she still felt yucky, so she flaked out
in the back of the plane and Tony flew. We saw Gina and Jenice getting
ready to take off too.

Mt. Charleston trip: Small crowd, but a great time. I guess the rest of
the Teeming Millions were at the High Tea, huh. We went up to the Mt.
Charleston Lodge, which might be good for a morning breakfast or lunch
thing. Then we drove Lee Canyon Road and up to the ski area, actually up
to the snow line. Then back to LV via the Rancho Strip and by the now
closed Moulin Rouge casino, which was the first integrated casino in LV.

We were gonna do the buffet at Palace Station, but the line was bad and
Jena was on a tight schedule, so we went to the San Remo instead. The
buffet was very "ok". :)

Farewell Get-together: Even though many of our people had already left,
we still had a good turnout for this. Nice and low key. No Peeps, no
Galiano. I vaguely remember having breakfast after this, but ... :)
. . . . .

Monday after: The local people had a follow-up DLV recovery thing at
the casino bar at Tropicana. I got a bit confused as to which bar, so
I lost playing Neon Nights while waiting and looking around. Good
crowd. They had kind of a Motown group there which was very good.
No Galiano [sic], no Peeps, just a good time. :)
. . . . . . . . . .

Although there were a few snags, overall it was great. Largest crowd
ever, and definitely enthusiastic.

High points were the Area 51 trip, Michael Cagle, Jubilee, Limo Tour,
Carluccio's, Annual Mixer, Showgirls Of Magic, meeting all the new
people and catching up with old friends, just socializing and having
a good time.

Low points were a few things that happened to friends of mine, getting
stuck in an elevator, and getting some bitchy comments that I did not
think I and we deserved. Oh well, a little rain must fall ... :(

But the high points shadowed the low ones, and overall it was a great
time. I'm still amazed at how much this has grown and how many lives
it has touched. I'm looking forward to DLV 2004 already.

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(This posting was entered by annie, an external user of MyDLV.)

[External Poster]

This posting is from: Densie
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> Took the Galiano
> Challenge but Tony squealed and said they had used placebo Galiano [sic].

He lied...wanna know why?

I told him about the Galiano Challenge and that you were unable to tell
the difference between vodka and Galiano [sick]. Armed with this
knowledge, and knowing that you thought you were home free, he saw the
potential for another opportunity to slip you a Galiano Sour, which he
did at the {mumble}. Wasn't that clever?

Now the truth comes out...you drank Galiano [sick] at least twice this
year! ;)

> No DelMar, huh?

Not for the rest of us...

-Densie

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(This posting was entered by Densie, an external user of MyDLV.)

[External Poster]

This posting is from: annie
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> I told him about the Galiano Challenge and that you were unable to tell
> the difference between vodka and Galiano [sick]. Armed with this

What might be a good game to play, maybe an initiation for the newbees, is
to do a real controlled Galiano Challenge. Loser has to chug a shot of
straight Galiano [sic]. :)

> ... he saw the
> potential for another opportunity to slip you a Galiano Sour, which he
> did at the {mumble}. Wasn't that clever?

Yeah, but that one at {mumble} was so watered down it might have well been
lemonaid. I actually sobered up drinking that one. :)

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(This posting was entered by annie, an external user of MyDLV.)