Another quote

Saw this at a customer's place this week..

"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, awake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it reality."

Women dream as well! :) Anywayz..good quote to share.

Quotes on monitor screens in MRT station..

Notice this new stuff today..

Success is never final
Failure is never fatal
Courage is what counts
~~ Sir Winston Churchill

Las Vegas

Was in Las Vegas, Nevada for a week to attend Sybase Techwave. Enjoyed the seminars and meeting people, but not so much about the journey and the place though. Nonetheless, it was quite an experience.

Flight journey
...was kinda torturing...almost 24 hours from the door of my house to the door of the hotel..goodness! SQ delayed for an hour, and we were all sitting on the plane for that hour without air-con.

Custom check
Despite the direct flight from SG to LA, the transit in LA was quite an experience..long wait for baggage claim (luckily I was with my colleagues, otherwise I would have left my luggage at LA, thinking that it would be sent to Las Vegas directly)... long queues to get out of the terminal, and even longer queues for shuttle, so we had to walk from international terminal to terminal 1 to take US Airways.. and tight security checks! I was asked to remove my shoes and jacket, take out everything from my laptop bag, and my handbag was scrutinized. It seemed the custom officer was trying to check for some biochemical weapon. She took small pieces of clothes, using each of them to wipe some parts of the above items, and checked if there was any suspicious substance.. Thanks these all to the txxxxxxxxx!!

Other unexpecteds
And then, waited again on the airplane for 1+ hours due to busy air traffic to Las Vegas...by the time I reached The Mirage after a 'good' tour to hotels in the airport shuttle (that sends others to other hotels), it was 12 midnight..checked in, had a long walk to the guest elevators (coz the hotel is reeaally big, with all the casino stations) and worst of all, my luggage lock was tampered and I couldn't open it!! Waited for another 1 hour to get help from hotel, cleaned up, bought some bottle water and slept at about 4am. And I really had a looong sleep, almost 12 hours.. Tiring!!

Vegas environment
Las Vegas is what I saw in the movies, full of lightings. In the 1st 2 days, everything was new to me, snapped quite a few pictures. But on the 3rd and subsequent days, I felt jaded with the place. Everywhere is full of noises and cigarette smoke, everything seems so superficial..

Extreme temperatures
It was hot (really!!) and dry outside. You can feel the pain on the skin due to the heat. You can feel the dryness in the nose and on the lips after a short ten-minute walk. But for caucasians who don't see sun often, they like it. I saw many of them swimming in the pools and sun bathing. This place is a desert, and according to Yuliy, the Russian customer, Vegas is quite a distance above sea level, taking about one quarter of the atmosphere layer, hence the intense heat.

On another hand, it was freezing cold in the conference halls and rooms..even swedish can't stand it, don't talk about me a skinny Asian. You can't imagine the hotel served ice creams during a break time! Morale of the story..one man's meat is another man's poison.

Casinos
You see casinos the moment you step out of the airport.. no wonder someone was telling me that one can start gambling from the airport to the hotel..

Gambling
The hotel casinos have a brochure "Betting against the odds" that tells everyone that gamblers are bound to lose.. with details of winning possibilities for each type of games. Observed most of the games before I gambled..didn't understand most of them, except the easy ones. Played Blackjack and the jackpots at The Mirage, lost US$27, haha.. Decided to try my luck again at Bellagio the night before I left. Won US$150 in the Casino War game - a no-brainer game that merely depends on luck..hehe.. Well, it pretty much covered my personal cost, and I stopped.

'O' Show
..an eye-opening experience. Chose this instead of 'KA' or 'The Beatles - Love' shows, also by Cirque Du Soleil. Water element is what I need, haha.. Would say this is the best experience of my trip..the stage is a deep pool, and the performers are all acrobats + divers + dancers. There are even scuba divers that helped navigate the stage settings in the pool! Cool! The show was too good to describe. No wonder it's expensive. Btw, I bought the 2nd cheapest ticket, which is still expensive to me.. US$99.

Food
..was my biggest problem there! Americans like to eat cold stuff..sandwiches were served cold in the seminar, no hot beverages during the morning break time.. this is something I couldn't take it...1 or 2 meals would be fine, but not for every meal. Went to look for Chinese food twice, that I could have hot rice and managed to warm my stomach properly! And it's actually the 1st time I really want to come home fast from a trip.

Sweetie
Everyone (male or female) calls female "sweetie".. "i will be right back, sweetie..", "just a minute, sweetie", "i'm sorry, sweetie".. they must have eaten a lot of sweets, haha..

My conclusion: Las Vegas is a place that I'd like to go only once in my life time..and not more.

My photos