Las Vegas is one of those places I can only take in small doses. Just got back from 6 days of working a tradeshow and enjoying the attractions.

The highlights for me was soft-launching OutThere, the corporate blog I’ve been working on and writing the first few posts. Working for a manufacturer that doesn’t have a retail presence makes it difficult to have a dialog with your customers. It was easy to find subjects to blog about since we had a new sponsorship announcement to make and a number of our brand evangelists stopped by. Some of them are going to start being contributors which is great!

I’d like to give a shout out to the folks at the Marriott Suites Hotel. What a great place to stay if you aren’t into all the shiny, smoke filled places. The staff is awesome and super friendly. It is 100% non-smoking, there are no slot machines and best of all, you aren’t subjected to Barry Manilow day and night like I was last year at the Hilton. The funny thing was I could see the mega banner of Barry from my window. He was always watching. I guess you can tell I’m not a fanilow.

This year we also managed to get out of the hotel for some amazing dinners. My favourite place had to be Mon Ami Gabi in Paris. We ended up going there twice actually. The food was great – the first time I had halibut and the second time the Beef Wellington. If you do go there save room for dessert. The warm flourless chocolate cake is TO DIE FOR!

But, after several days of mid-40 weather it’s nice to be back in cool Vancouver with the breeze blowing off English Bay cooling off the apartment.