Baker’s Hours

That’s right, Vegas bound baby! I’m going to Blog World. A group of friends and I have been talking about going to one of the biggest blogging conferences in the world for months, but it was always sort of a pie in the sky aspiration. We all worked, so the chance that we wouldn’t be able to get the time off was always a factor. Then there was the money factor. At the time of this post, a Full Access Pass costs a wallet busting $1,195.00. Also throw in the fact that since April, my primary source of income has been a worker’s compensation check which is a meager government mandated 66% of my usual salary. Put simply, Blog World was not happening for me, at least not this year. Then a series of serendipitous events happened.

The first event happened at a tweetup held by local restaurant, Good to Grill. (You can see pictures from the event here) It was there that I won a drawing for a free four night stay at the Las Vegas Hilton donated by Executive Director of Casino Marketing, Peter Arceo. Suddenly, Blog World seemed like it was possible. After receiving the envelope with my prize, I held it up and tritely said, “I’m going to Blog World!” Yeah, I know… Lame.

Getting there was not going to be a problem because I had miles accumulated which would pay for the flight, but there was still the issue of getting a pass to that would get me into the event. This is when my friend Neenz came through.  She was already going to Blog World as part of the Alltop contingent. Upon hearing that I now had the means to go, she called up Guy Kawasaki. GUY FRICKIN KAWASAKI! She just calls him up as if she were calling up her mother. Unfortunately, it turns out that Alltop was all out of passes, however, Neenz was able to secure me a discount code. I wasn’t able to get a full access pass, but the main thing is that I am going!

Big-Big-Huge thanks go out to the folks at Good to Grill, the Las Vegas Hilton, especially Peter Arceo for donating the four night stay as a door prize, but most of all, thanks to Neenz, and Guy Kawasaki for helping me get a pass into the event.

Song stuck in my head at the time of this post: Copacabana by Barry Manilow