Friday begins - well, it really doesn't begin for me. I've been awake since Thursday, trying to pack and get everything ready. Nevertheless, with or without me, Friday does begin, and it begins by waking up the Mrs. to take me to the airport. This is the first time I've flown since certain historical events rewrote the rules of when you need to check your baggage in at the airport. Sadly, and typically, Fort Smith hasn't caught up with the rest of the universe yet, and we wind up watching CNN in the airport lounge for over an hour. I've never bothered to watch CNN's American Morning before, and now I have a good excuse to continue missing it - it's quite possibly the most insipid news program that has ever assaulted my senses. Segment after segment of Arnold Schwarzenegger's "hasta la vista to Gray Davis!" soundbyte annuncing his candidacy, and then...the weather. Tornadoes have ravaged Palm Beach County in Florida, and in summing up the conditions that led to the killer storm, a vapid CNN weatherperson says "It's like solmeone's feeding all the dog food to one dog, and it's a really big dog!" (I shit you not.) Suddenly I feel a lot better about where I work - see, this vacation has done wonders for my mood already.

Airport security has a lot of fun with my bags - 20 or so trade bait game cartridges, an arcade game marquee, two handheld computers (one of which I've sold to a fellow CGE attendee and am delivering in person), a PSone with LCD screen, several DVDs of my work reel to hand out to any interested parties, a CD wallet full of PSone games, a minidisc player and about a dozen MDs, digital camera, camcorder, tapes, disks, batteries and charger for the above... you begin to get the idea. Watching the guy at the X-ray squint in confusion at the cartridges showing up in the suitcase was priceless.

The two plane trips - Fort Smith to St. Louis, and from there to Las Vegas - are uneventful. The only real excitement is the mad dash from one end of the terminal at St. Louis International to the other, just in time to board my connecting flight. Once in Vegas, it's the usual mass confusion about who's going where, and precisely where the correct shuttle bus is, and finally I arrive at the Plaza shortly before one in the afternoon, where one Chris Cavanaugh quickly homes in on my Classic Gamer Magazine T-shirt. (The magazine is gone, but the clothing lives on!) I'm just a little bit jet-lagged from the flight, so I probably came across as completely incoherent to the poor guy. Amusing stories of airport X-ray operators squinting at stuff in suitcases are swapped, and Chris is back on the move, leaving me to check in. And guess what? My room's not ready for an hour, but if I want to play a slot machine or two while I wait...yeah. I've a feeling that's a tried and true setup. Leave my bags - after quickly retreiving my handheld - with the hotel bellhops, and wander into the Subway on the Plaza's first floor, grab my first food of the day, and write...well, everything you've read here so far.

So many bizarre firsts for the small-town boy today: furthest I've ever traveled westward (believe it or not, my previous westward record has been Oklahoma City), first time I've seen Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, or Hoover Dam.

I really need to get out more.

But first I really need to get into my room - and therein, about an hour later when I have my key card in hand, lies a problem. Apparently the previous - actually, present - occupant is still...well, present. He decided to extend his stay by a day, but was told that the room had already been booked out from under him. It's a wee bit of an awkward situation - especially as my wife has called the Plaza, has been told that I've checked in, and has been calling...well, this guy. Who has no idea who she is. Finally the bellhop arrives to take the poor guy's bags to his new room, and worse yet, I've gotta leave my stuff and vamoose - housekeeping needs to tidy up this room and evacuate the wastebaskets piled high with beer cans before I can really occupy it! It's a bit of a comical situation - the only real uncomfortable part of it being that, when the previous occupant of the room asks "Are you Earl? From Arkansas?" and, when I make sure that I don't owe him money and admit that I am, he says my wife is on the phone. And when I try to set my suitcase and my gadget-stuffed carry-on bag down inside the room so I can pick up the phone and talk to her, he says "No no no, you can't come in yet!" (But dude, you just said my wife is on the phone and your bags are packed - what the hell?) Still, this is one of those stories that will only be mine to tell - one of those stories that could only happen to me. Interestingly, the only real apology I get is from the housekeeping staff - they're mortified that I walked into a situation like this, despite my reassuring them that it's no big deal. And they let me stay in the room, safely out of the way at the table by the window, while they work.

I finally get to take my shoes off and relax a bit, and, more importantly, go to the bathroom. Now that the wastebasket in there isn't holding a meticulously-constructed ziggurat of beer cans that stands a foot higher than the top of the wastebasket itself. Hey, I'm glad someone's having a good time. But I kid the Plaza - it's all good, and they've got a cockpit version of Sega's Star Wars Trilogy Arcade on the first floor right around the corner from Subway.

I try really hard to crash out in my room, but it just doesn't work. I get myself cleaned up and try to relax a bit so I won't be too much of a gibbering wreck at the alumni dinner that night. It consists of the Expo organizers and their helpers, the exhibitors, two invited guests (Lawrence Lamb and myself) and...my God, everybody. All these people who are responsible for so many misspent-and-yet-not-wasted hours of my youth. I expect I'll just be sitting in a corner somewhere, not saying a word, my jaw on the floor and my eyes big as saucers.

Boy, am I ever wrong.