Archive for the ‘Las Vegas’ Category

WordCamp Las Vegas Announces $2000 in Door Prizes

Jan 8, 2009 Las Vegas, Wordpress

wc_badge WCLV has announced over $2000 worth of door prizes that will be given away to attendees at random points throughout the event. These aren’t hokey dollar store gifts either. You have an awesome opportunity to win tickets to a Cirque show, premium themes, software, and t-shirts. Check out the list:

Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Add this to all the hoopla I told you about yesterday and it cost you less than a single round of roulette!

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WordCamp Las Vegas: Passion and Inspiration for the New Year

Jan 6, 2009 Las Vegas, Wordpress

WordCamp Las Vegas is happening this weekend. Sadly, I moved from Las Vegas earlier last year to pursue an endeavor in South Florida, so I will not be attending (much to the organizers disappointment). But I will be participating remotely as much as I can via Ustream and Twitter.

I have to give major credit to both John Hawkins and his wife Chris for putting on this show. I may not be attending, but I’m on meebo with John on a daily basis and know how much effort he and Chris have put into organizing this event and coordinating all the details. I am in awe and much inspired by how well they have done at securing speakers and sponsors for the 2-day event, and at how well they have held it together while picking up all the last minute detail pieces. I really am bummed that I won’t be able to attend to see this event in person (that’s a major understatement), an event which I feel is probably the pinnacle event of John’s online marketing career. My only hope is that it is such a huge success that there will be many more WordCamp Las Vegas events to come!

To those fence sitter friends of mine in Vegas and Utah wondering whether or not to attend, to all those from my affiliate marketing past who will be there for Affiliate Summit, and to all those gadget junkies I’ve met over the years from my portagame days who will be at CES:

THIS IS A MUST ATTEND EVENT!

Here’s the deal, for less than the cost of a single hand of BlackJack* you can attend a 2 day event that will:

  1. Get you 1-on-1 access to 15 high profile speakers that are A-List bloggers and designers!
  2. Give you access to a list of of over 100 attendees who are passionate wordpress nuts
  3. An awesome agenda full of wordpress goodies, as well as basic marketing, seo, and design sessions.
  4. Opportunity to win some fantastic door prizes! (Ahem, John, you might want to make a small post mentioning what prizes are up for grabs and who sponsored them…if you haven’t already).
  5. A weekend in Vegas where you’ll most likely learn how to make money instead of lose it.

The speaker list is crazy packed. How John pulled off getting all these people together in the same room, I’ll never know. The Wordpress and/or Vegas gods must be smiling on him (I haven’t heard of a poker tourney win lately, so I assume its the Wordpress karma spreading wildly). The speakers include:

With speakers like above, you are already getting a much better return for your $20 than any table game would give you.

BUT, and this is a huge but, since this is happening pre-Affiliate Summit, and smack in the middle of of CES and AVN’s AEE, don’t be surprised if you see some major cameo’s happening during the event. I know many big players who will be in Vegas were invited to the event. Of the definite maybe’s, I’m really curious to know who shows up.

Even if you use Blogger, TypePad, MoveableType, LiveJournal, or MySpace as your major blogging platform, the WordCamp show will still be a huge value to you and get networking with some great people.

And all this for $20.

Register now. There won’t be any onsite registration, and the ticket booths close friday at noon.

I repeat: register now!

To the speakers, staff, and especially the Hawkins: Good Luck and may this be the best WordCamp Ever!

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Working in Florida while living in Vegas.

May 14, 2008 Florida, Las Vegas, Unordered Miscellany

I have recently (in the last 2 months) accepted a new position with a company in South Florida. How I got here is pretty unique. Since early January I had been consulting working a couple large projects, but I was still looking for something more stable. I had considered offered opportunities in Denver, L.A. and Phoenix. I even had a couple of individuals inquire if I was interested in Wisconsin, Philly or Boston. (The Wife said “NO!” to Wisconsin, but the other two we were unsure of). Never had I really considered relocating to Florida. It never was on my radar.  Obviously, that has since changed.

Growing up in the west, and living in six states west of the Mississippi before I turned 30, I had intended to settle down and raise my family somewhere in the west. I have extended family laced through every state in the Pacific and Mountain time zones, and we just love the climate and culture that comes with this rich western heritage. The eastern seaboard was so foreign to my wife and I that it might as well be a different country. This actually turned out to be one of the reasons we selected Florida as a place to move to. If we’re going to move, why not try something completely new? Between the two of us, we’ve “been there, done that” to almost every popular destination from Kansas City to the Pacific Ocean. Sure we’ll give up the mountains and dry climate, but we also gain oceans, beaches, moderate climates year round, and what is arguably a better education system for our kids (Nevada’s public schools need a ton of help). I’m a wannabe stormchaser (my years in Tornado Alley were, in a word, awesome), so I actually am excited about living in a hurricane zone. We will evacuate when told, but I’ll still enjoy watching the local weather coverage during hurricane season.

The work is the same. I’ll still be producing websites and driving traffic to them. But the lifestyle is dramatically different. Currently, I work in Florida during the week, and fly home to Vegas on the weekends. My routine travels have taught me a few life lessons:

  1. Traveling can be a banal task. I used to love flying because it always brought the prospect of going someplace new. I’ve since become very jaded to jetset mindset. Spending 5 hours on a plane can be extremely stressful, and a waste of time. Especially when you are 6′4″ and 270 lbs. Who can read or write at leisure if you can’t even be comfortable? My tray table can’t even lower because my knees are holding it in place.
  2. Giant airplanes are made for tiny people.
  3. Red-eye flights are a life suck. Think about it: I leave at 11 pm on Sunday, arrive at 6 am on Monday. Minus the 3 hour time difference, that means I need to squeeze my nightly slumber into less than 4 hours. On a plane. In a seat made for little people. I sleep light and am half-dead the remainder of monday.
  4. Subway, Target, Costco, and 7-11 are homes away from home. After living in all 4 time zones in the continental United States, I’ve learned this one over time. If I ever start feeling homesick, all I need to do is find a familiar place. With Costco and Target, in particular, my mind gets so wrapped up on how much I hate being in those stores and how fast I can get out of there, that I forget my global location is even relevant.
  5. As much as I loathe Bank of America, having locations EVERYWHERE has proved helpful during the relocation.
  6. Seatguru.com is a large man’s best friend. I’m so glad my employer, who’s also fairly tall, gave me that tip.
  7. Finding new places to eat and trying out some of the local flavor can really be a great way to unwind and build a personal knowledge base of the local setting.

Luckily, my long distance commute will soon be over. I could have chosen to fly home every other week, but leaving a wife at home with a 6 year old commander of chaos and an adventurous 1 year old for a week at a time is cruel enough as it is. When I see her at the airport on Friday’s she collapses in my arms with a sigh of relief. I get daddy time with the kids for two days and she gets the reprieve. The frequent flying is challenging, but well worth the hassle.