Hello from Las Vegas. I am writing from the 19th floor of the Stratosphere, which has aged about 28 years since I was last here in 2002. At a much too early hour this morning, I loaded up my little Toyota with six giant bags of mostly laundry and two bags of laptops and headed west. The plan is to get to LA tomorrow and bust my ass to find us a nice apartment. Sarah will be arriving on Friday, and we will hopefully sign whatever has to be signed, then leave behind my car (and the junk inside) at a friend of Sarah’s, then fly back to Colorado to finish off everything going on there.

Today’s drive took just about thirteen hours. The Yaris wasn’t bad. It was exceptional on gas mileage; the thousand-odd miles took less than three tanks. I started full, filled up twice, and I am at 3/4. The tiny engine and jumpy automatic transmission were not that great crossing the rockies. No problems, but with the right lane being semis with their blinkers on going about 12 mph, and fucknuts in suburbans and jacked-up hummers in the left lane trying to go like 117, the winding, twisting two-lane roads filled with heavy up-grades and down-grades got a little nerve-wracking. It was beautiful, with the snow and mountains and all that, but it would have been better if I was the only one out on the road.

Then I got to Utah. I knew I was in Utah when I stopped for gas and some chick came up to me and was all too friendly and started asking me where I was headed and where I was from and how I was doing. And that’s when I realized I was in mormon country. And that’s when I remembered that Mitt Romney was a mormon, and his ideal country if he ended up becoming president (and if Bush could win in 2004 with like a -37% approval rating, who knows about this guy) would be everyone getting in everyone’s shit like this constantly. And then I remembered if you spend a half a million dollars on real estate in the Bahamas, you are automatically a citizen. But I was overthinking all of this.

And speaking of having way too much to think about, when did the entire state of Utah close for business? From the time I left CO to the time I reached I-15, I saw about as much commerce as you’d expect to see in Hiroshima in mid-August of 1945. This place made Goshen Indiana look like one of those CGI cities in those Star Wars prequels where there are 17894 levels deep of rocket pods on platforms on cities on floating cities. The only thing there was white snow on either side of me, like twin tanning mirrors, burning out my retinas. I have some prescription sunglasses, and thank the baby jesus for those, or I would be configuring this computer to read me my web pages from now on.

The only thing that kept me relatively sane was the iPod. I loaded up every comedy and spoken word album I could possibly find, and kept going on that. I wish I had more podcasts, because I have no idea how I will continue to drive another five hours tomorrow.

So I am in Vegas, although I do not plan on going out tonight, and I will check out and leave early tomorrow morning, so I can get to LA to make an appointment. It is weird to be here so soon after having just been here, although I was here for such a short time last time, that a week here would not seem so horrible. But Monday nights are always a very beat time to be here, and Monday nights at the Stratosphere are particularly horrible. Yes, I could drive somewhere else, but I’m sitting here in bed and it still feels like I’m in a microcompact car with 12-inch tires going 80 on a badly paved Utah highway, so I don’t think that losing $300 at a blackjack table at Caesar’s is going to do much for me.

It is weird to have my car - the car I actually own, as opposed to a rental - here in Vegas. I think that’s a first for me. It’s also odd to think that this car will not be going back to Colorado. I mean, it was odd enough thinking last night that I would be getting on a plane for Vegas; I kept rethinking my packing strategy, like “can I get this in my carry-on?” before remembering that I would just throw it all in the hatchback and hit the gas. But it’s unusual to think that this car, which since its arrival from the Japanese motherland, had never been more than 25 miles from its home dealership in Aurora. Maybe it will be back, but I’m guessing that if we were ever forced to drive cross-country again, it would be in the Subaru. (And if I was ever forced to drive cross-country, I would hope one of you would take the tiny toy tire iron on top of the spare of my car and beat me in the head until I remembered that flying is almost always a better deal, unless you’re moving a car, or maybe trafficking drugs.)

I think that’s about it. It’s a dump here, but I think it was $39. There is a Coke machine on this floor that has a thing where I can tap my Amex card and it sells me a Coke. And this technology is there because a Coke costs $2.50. But I’d rather pay $2.50 on an Amex for a Coke than spend 47 precious minutes of my life trying to get the fucking thing to read a completely pristine dollar bill. Anyway, I need to go to bed. This probably won’t get posted until tomorrow, since I have no wireless here, but I’ll pretend it’s going out there now, and say something like “next time I see you, I will be in LA.”

So I went to Vegas for my birthday this year. (I have pictures, but most of them are stupid, and I have been apathetic about posting pictures. I’m vaguely thinking about writing a Rails app to handle my photos, but I’m sure the migration path will be a nightmare.) I went to Sarah’s family reunion last year, on Superbowl weekend, but didn’t hit the usual 1/20 weekend. This year, we switched off, and I went solo for the birthdays, and she’s in Vegas with her family now.

Bill Perry (the other birthday boy) initially got us a room at Bally’s, which was a new spot for me. The rest of the cast of characters was new to this celebration, and also people I hadn’t seen in a long time. First, there was the team of Marc VH and Tom, both old pals from the days of the sparcstation cluster in the basement of Lindley Hall. Bill recruited Marc to Seattle right before he got me there in ‘95, so I saw a lot of him at Spry (his office was next to mine for a while), and because he and Bill went on to the same company, we all ran in the same circles. Tom was an AI in the CS department, and finished a PhD there. He also just finished a law degree and passed the bar in Illinois. He used to work for Lucent in every odd place in the world, and last time I saw him was before he went on a long stint in Saudi Arabia. Now he lives in Chicago and does patent stuff for a huge law firm there.

Marc is always interesting to talk to, because he is one of the most dark, sarcastic, and cynical people ever, and couple that with his intelligence, and you have a lot of strange conversation. And Tom’s great to talk to, because he’s the sort of investigative person who will ask many questions to hear about your experience or opinion. And he’s got the uncanny ability of being able to go back to a forgotten but unfinished conversation from earlier on. It’s like he’s one of those stack-based computers, where things get cleared and the next-oldest thing comes back up for action.

And the kicker is that my old pal and housemate Simms showed up, too! Simms met a lady out in LV and has gone head over heels, so he made his second trip of that month to see her. But he also hung with us, and it’s always interesting to add a new thing to the mix. Like, it’s weird that Bill and Simms just met, but they probably live less than a mile from each other in Bloomington.

So yeah, the trip. Sarah was in LA for a couple of days, and she got back on Friday morning, but I had all of my gear packed in the car and had to fly out Friday afternoon, so we just crossed paths, sort of. I parked in the underground garage, even though it costs like $30 a day, because I have this unnatural fear of parking in the $6 lot that’s about 80 miles away, and having a freak snowstorm bury my car, so I would have to dig it out with my shoe, or maybe a copy of The Onion from the airport concourse. My foot was also bothering me again (rapid climate change) and I didn’t want to walk two hours to get to the gate.

My plane was late. I talked to a music schoolteacher who was flying to play golf. I, up to this point, was on a crazy “stop fucking around” diet since 1/1, and had gone off of caffeine, sugar, fried things, and much more. But I was tired as hell, so that all went out the window. I had a crazy russian cab driver (aren’t they all?) at LAS who started talking to me about subprime mortgages and how he was flipping properties, but now it’s all fucked. (We had a lot of weird cab drivers that weekend. One was this Large Marge type who kept bitching about how everything from new condos to global warming was specifically designed to fuck over cabbies. I.e. “these fuckers at CES don’t even want to go to the strip clubs anymore!” We also had this guy going to the airport who was a dried-out punk rock oldster who told this insanely long story about how he lived in the mountains, and the city fucked up the zoning drawings and he had to hire one of those diviner guys to find his septic tank.)

Bally’s isn’t bad. It’s a place to sleep. Tom and Marc stayed there; Simms was out at the Tropicana. Tom and Marc have a collective IQ of about 780 and therefore spent an insane amount of time playing poker. Marc, at any given time, could tell you exactly what casinos were having poker tournaments at what time. (He has this human wikipedia quality, and could probably tell you the volume of concrete being used for each construction project on the strip, off the top of his head.) While they played poker, me and Bill did other stuff, or and of course Simms was off doing his own sort of stuff.

We went to Kraftsteak for dinner on Saturday. For $200 a person, they bring out a metric fuckload of food, including a million apps, and about a dozen cuts of kobe beef. I wasn’t 100% with the food for whatever reason, but the desserts were pretty incredible. They just brought out a bunch of plates of different cakes and ice cream and whatnot. Good stuff, but like I said, not $200 good. The In-N-Out I had with Simms was much better.

The trip in general was nice, but way too short. I got there on Friday night and flew back on Monday. I did get to see everyone, got the variety pack thing at the Coke store, saw Penn and Teller again, and saw comedian Bobby Slayton, and didn’t lose too much gambling. But I felt like I had a low-grade cold or flu the whole time, and wanted nothing but sleep. To counteract that, I fell off the caffeine wagon something fierce. Also, because my ankle was fucked up, I took a dose of Prednisone to try to knock it back in line. Normally, that would make me have an unstoppable appetite and extreme insomnia, both of which are good for a land of unlimited buffets and 24-hour gambling, but it never really took.

My biggest impression was that Vegas is really changing fast. The Stardust is gone; the Frontier and Boardwalk are levelled. The entire area from the Monte Carlo to the Bellagio are one giant construction site. The Aladdin has been redone to be a giant Planet Hollywood. Every little t-shirt shop or fast food joint with frontage on the strip has been sold and levelled. I guess a lot of my favorites are still there, but at some point in the near future, the Bellagio, recently the most posh place on the strip, will be bulldozed for something newer. And I’m not talking about in 50 years; it wouldn’t surprise me if they closed in 2010.

And the strange thing is that I will be in, or maybe through Vegas at least two more times this year, as I move west. Both times will probably be a single-night break in driving, and not a gambling orgy. But maybe I will get more pictures.

Well, the Denver gig is up. We are moving again, by the end of this month, to the original Plan A city, which is Los Angeles. And I’m reluctant to talk about it at all, since the stock reaction of most people is similar to that if I told them I was building a machine in my back yard that would turn silly putty into platinum bars. But yeah, we are moving.

Sarah’s job has been less than stellar, working ten hours a day, seven days a week, and dealing with a lot of general lunacy. Then the firm lost their biggest client and laid off half the company. And those of you dot-com survivors can affirm that when half of your company gets laid off, it doesn’t mean your workplace will be just dandy from now on. It’s a lot more like being the band on the deck of the Titanic, except they didn’t have to deal with endless conference calls. Anyway, she talked to her old boss, who immediately found her a gig at their Los Angeles office. She had no real complaints about her old job, just that we were both sick of New York. And working for the biggest ad agency in the company means they don’t start selling off their office furniture when they lose an account.

As for me, I was done with work as of the 31st, last Thursday. I actually will be staying on as a part-time contractor, working remotely, but I won’t be going to meetings, dealing with politics, or driving an hour each way a day. My plan is to cut over to contracting part-time, and working as a developer. Since before christmas, I’ve done nothing but read Ruby on Rails books and work on a few simple projects that I hope to flesh out. I’ve been memorizing Ruby books, reading the Knuth books, reading the Gang of Four, and trying to learn every shortcut and trick tip in Eclipse.

But first, I have a huge marathon ahead of me. Three weeks from today, we turn in our keys and leave this apartment forever. And when you look at the place now, it’s pretty much in the 100% functional state. Sarah’s in Vegas for her family reunion this weekend, and I have been shredding papers like I worked for the Stasi in 1989. But no matter how many hours I put in, the place looks about the same. We do have the whole rockstar relocation setup, even more than last time, so the little elves will show up in our last week with their packing tape and semi trailer and haul everything west. But we still have to find a place. A week from today, I drive my car to LA solo, with the back and trunk filled with a redundant supply of clothes and toiletries and whatnot. Sarah flies there on that Friday, and we have a weekend to seal the deal on an apartment, then fly home. We then have to drive out in the Subaru, with two cats in tow (which will be an awesome time for all) and then reverse the procedure on the other end. Between now and then, I have an endless stream of appointments and errands: service cars, go to doctors, fill prescriptions, cancel things, sign up for things, and continue the onslaught of throwing out, giving away, and shredding up.

So, Denver. It has been an interesting year, and there are some things I will miss. I always like when I’m driving and I see the snow-capped mountains on the horizon. I will really miss baseball here, last summer at Coors Field and the incredible run to October the Rockies had. I will also miss walking a block to the park to see a game. I really do like sitting here in my office, looking out at the open area of LoDo, working on the computer and enjoying this apartment. This is one of the nicest apartments I’ve lived in, and everything actually works, which is new to me. Having grocery stores bigger than jesus and Super Ultra Giant Fucking Monster Target has been nice. And hey, best emergency room ever.

Denver has its issues that make it a “probably not forever” place. I didn’t have any altitude problems, but the dry air is a killer. I get so dehydrated, I wake up two or three times a night to get a drink, even if I take enough ambien to kill a horse. Allergies are worse, and most of the lifers here look like they were rode hard and put away wet. The botox people are taking a beating out here, because I see more than a fair share of ladies that resemble the crypt keeper. Yeah, they climb mountains and ski and all of that shit, but come on people, four words: SPF-50.

I always envisioned Denver as some kind of hip, high-tech mountain metropolis, and I guess it tries. There are some nice looking buildings and they try to be urban to an extent. But a lot of people think Colorado is the wild west. And when people think that in Elkhart, it’s idiotic, but here, you could drive into the mountains and shoot a bear with a .50 caliber sniper rifle. So there’s lots of camo, lots of country music, lots of fans of Larry the Cable Guy, and lots of people with pickup trucks that could fit my car and a cord of firewood in the bed.

So it’s really George Bush country up here. And while I don’t really give a shit about politics (especially with the group of geniuses jockeying for the big job later this year), it sets the mentality of the place. Just down the road in Colorado Springs, you’ll find Focus on the Family; down there and in the suburbs out here, you’ll see mega churches that are bigger than casinos in Vegas. The Promisekeepers also hail from Denver. There are lots of jesus fishes on cars, and you can ignore it all to an extent (which you can’t in Elkhart), but it’s like eating in a restaurant where something’s burning on the grill in back: it’s not your food, but it still bugs you.

I think the biggest case in point is the gay situation. I have friends who are gay, Sarah has friends who are gay, and we’re both used to being in New York, where a person being gay is about as unusual as a person wearing a jacket in October. So sometimes if I’m talking to someone, something might come up in conversation where I know someone who did this or went there or owned that, and when I start to talk about it, I find myself pronouning things, which is really bullshit. But if I told a person that I had thanksgiving dinner with two guys who happened to be life partners, I might get dragged off to a reeducation camp. On the other hand, in LA, if I told someone a friend was gay, they’d probably just say, “well, does he know anyone who can read my script.”

Everyone thinks that LA is the great devil, especially people in the Midwest, especially people with the “fuck that, New York is the greatest place ever” headtrip. But I like it. There’s always been some allure to California to me, something that always made me happy or make me think I was in some huge, mythical thing. I can’t say I’ve always dreamed and hoped of living there, but more than once in the last fifteen years, I’ve interviewed for jobs there and had my fingers crossed. Like I said, LA was our first choice last year, before the Denver thing came up. It will be nice to have the ocean, and water. We are aiming for West Hollywood, which isn’t on the water, but it’s close. (And no, West Hollywood is not the one with the hookers and smack dealers, that’s East Hollywood.) There are other niceties, like multiple airports that aren’t a million miles out of town (DEN), we get to see movies before anyone else (except maybe NYC), ethnic food other than just Mexican, and while there are always jesus people everywhere, they’re pretty drowned out by the people who really don’t give a shit.

We already have a network of people out there, too. Sarah lived there for almost a decade, and still has a lot of friends, both personal and in the biz (and both) and I have a couple of old pals out that way, too. Some of our NYC friends who would never visit Denver are in LA all the time, so we get to see those people too. We both have met absolutely nobody here, mostly because the only thing to do on a Saturday night in Denver is go to the mall and watch a movie, or maybe shop at Wal-Mart.

Bad stuff? It costs more, although compared to New York, it’s maybe a bit cheaper. You need a car; we have two. Traffic, but my I-25 drive for the last six months has not been a breeze, either. I don’t know what to do about baseball. Am I still a Rockies fan? I would love to go to all of their games at Dodger Stadium, but I’m afraid if I wear a Rockies shirt, I will be stabbed by a Mexican gang member. The Angels are there, but AL baseball sucks. Who knows, I thought the Rockies were a losing prospect when we moved here, and look what happened. Maybe when we move, the Dodgers will make it to the series. (And then maybe I can get Scott Boras to arrange a deal where I move to some other city with a shit team and get them to the series.)

So that’s my story. I’ll post more when I know it. And hopefully this cessation of salaried work will help me post more. I looked at my paper journal last night, and realized I hadn’t updated it since the day I started this job. Anyway, time to shred…

I’ve come to hate writing any kind of end-of-year bullshit on here. There is no possibility of me writing a favorite music of 2007 list, as I think I bought three CDs this year. I bought almost no DVDs, and pretty much every movie in the theaters in 2007 sucked total shit. (I actually liked The Darjeeling Limited a lot, but the one major downside to leaving NY is that it’s impossible to catch these limited release movies until they hit NetFlix. I just found one of those arthouse theaters though, so that gives me hope.) I spent a lot of 2007 trying to get rid of stuff, so a list of new posessions to hang around my neck is a bit redundant.

I could talk about books; I read a lot this year, but I didn’t buy many books at all, so there were a lot of rereads. Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke was by far the best thing I’ve read in a while.  Stasiland by Anna Funder took a nice look at the brighter side of communism, and what it was like to live in a country where centralization broke down every aspect of life, as did the East German’s secret police of having something like one in four citizens on the payroll as narcs. John Sheppard’s Small Town Punk came out, albeit edited like Sherman’s troops ‘edited’ the south at the end of the Civil War. I went back and re-read the iUniverse version, and went through his next book a couple of times over the summer.

A lot of shit happened in 2007, to put it mildly. I moved to Denver. I got engaged. I got married. I left my job of six years, and started a new one. We bought two cars. We adopted two cats. I saw about 20 baseball games, including a World Series. (We lost, and I’m still bitter, but at least it’s not like we lost to the White Sox or something.) I went to like 863 doctors this year. (See videos of my knee MRI here and here.) I went to my land twice. I didn’t go to any new states, but I went to the Bahamas, which is the 4th country outside of the US I’ve visited, and the first where they drove on the wrong side of the road.

My old friend Chuck Stringer died this year, which was surprising and depressing. It also really pushed the whole fear of mortality trip on me, as time keeps moving faster and I keep thinking about the limitation of the whole thing. Visiting a million doctors for various failures with my own body makes me even more fearful of this.

This journal was ten years old in 2007. The domain 34.216.9.77/ will be ten years old in 2008. The first time I got my VAX account and started using jkonrath@indiana.edu will be 20 years ago in 2009. I moved to Elkart in 1978, which was 30 years ago. In 1988, I worked at Wards, and my weekly paycheck was less than my 401K contribution these days. A nice round number like that occurring today makes me start thinking about this stuff too much.