BagelHot: RollerCon 2009 Day 4

Woke up this morning to two things that were a bit shocking...

There was a unknown body lying in the bed next to the bed I was sleeping in.
My computer had a message saying I'd run out of hard drive space.

The second item freaking me out a bit more.

Walking east along Flamingo from the Strip...

The body kind of resembled the girl from Goldfinger minus the gold. She was draped over the bed much like a dead body. Was she dead? There was a small voice in my head asking "What the heck happened last night?". My wobbly brain was still waking up trying to take in it's surroundings. The body moved a bit. "Ok breathing, that's a good sign." Now I wouldn't have to find a stick to poke her to see if she was still alive, yay. Why is it when something is dead we instinctively don't want to touch it except with a stick?

Live body. check. My groggy brain switched over to the next thing in true triage efficiency, the computer. "What the heck?". I think it was around 4am that I crashed into bed leaving the computer copying files off one of the larger memory cards. "Out of memory?". Well, I did photograph quite a bit yesterday. 100 gigs of space just doesn't seem to go as far as it used to. Having a lack of storage space was like a shot of adrenaline. My brain switched on as it thought of a way to deal with the "emergency".

This looks like it could have been something interesting at one time or another...

The computer solution was easy, just go out and get another storage device. Wow, that was simple, good thing the brain was working. I looked up Best Buy on Google. Hooray for hotel internet! Best Buy was the first computer store to come to mind and as it turned out there was one located only a few blocks away (3820 S Maryland Pkwy) from the Imperial Palace.

Just as I started packing a compass for the short trek the body woke up asking if she had come into the room with any more clothing. I didn't know, I wasn't even sure when she arrived. She looked tired and asked if she could take a towel then headed out to the hallway. I would have lent her a T-shirt but at this point I was wearing the only clean one I had. I'd pick up three others later on at the sports center from Wicked Skatewear but that didn't help the girl at this juncture. And so, wrapped in a towel she did the long walk of shame to wherever she had to go. Pretty brave if you ask me.

A drive thru coffee shop...

It should be noted that blocks in Las Vegas are larger than they might appear on the map. For example if you look at the Toronto city map and see two blocks, you could say "I can walk those blocks in ten minutes." and chances are you'd be right. The few simple blocks from the hotel to the computer store ended up taking an hour.

An hour in the desert heat. ugh. I stopped by a gas station for water and while doing the touristy thing and took a few photos here and there. The bottle of water was getting in the way of my holding the camera. What I needed was a sling for the bottle or a canteen. I thought about it, do they even make canteens anymore? Were they still made of aluminum? Did we still need them in our throw away plastic bottle society? Why is it the only images I have of someone using a canteen is from those westerns or Kung Fu (the TV series) where they're stuck in a desert and when they go to drink they find they only have one or two drops left, which they let dribble onto the ground? The heat was starting to get to me I think.

Looking north on Maryland... where's that Best Buy?

It's nice to walk around. You can actually see things. You can stop and take in your surroundings. It's so easy to drive by an intersection and not give it a second glance. It's even worse if you're driving around with a GPS. While walking to the Best Buy a sandwich place still lingers in my mind. It had a sign that read "Hand sculpted sandwiches". I didn't take a photo of it because of having to juggle the stupid bottle of water and my camera.

woo hoo!

The Best Buy was like an oasis in a technological deprived world. Not only did they have a bunch of different hard drive options, it was air conditioned. I looked around for a while. Stopped in the DVD section and almost bought the new Joss Whedon show, Dollhouse. I put it back when I remembered the restricted space in my luggage. I'll pick it up back in Toronto.

The drive that I picked up was a seagate 500 gig drive with USB 2 cable costing about $120 US. It seemed pretty reasonable. It's small and you, should you want to, could buy a docking station for the drive as a separate option.

Seafood in the desert... it seems odd to me.

What a great acronym... where's that bottle of water?

"free gas"

The way back from the Best Buy was a lot faster. Twelve minutes. I took the bus. Passed by this sign for free gas. "I'd like a tank of argon please". Yep, the sun was frying my brain.

The vegas strip, a bit subdued. Get it? "Sub Dude"

At the Sports Center

After drinking a few more bottles of water and backing up the photos that needed to be moved off the memory cards I took the next shuttle bus to the Sports Center. There seemed to be a bunch of skate classes going on so I spent some time just taking random photos here and there.

Join the Flat Track Revolution

click me to go to Wicked Skatewear

click me to go to sourpussclothing.com

click me to go to RollerGirl.ca

Found out from this girl on the bus that there's a Pop Art exhibition featuring Warhol and Lichtenstein at one of the hotels. Can I squeeze it in over the next two days? Note that her arm sports some great Roy Lichtenstein pieces of art.

A hotel snack. I love the list of ingredients ("Pork cracklins and salt")

While dumping stuff off at the hotel room I receive a message from the Montreal skaters asking if I want to join them for food. "uh... yeah" would be my reply.