Fanilows

This past week and weekend were a whirlwind of activity. It seems that everyone likes to come to Vegas in the fall once the scorching summer temperatures have died down to a manageable 75 degrees. Before the fun of this weekend, I started off the week with a work trip to Idaho. Now in general, this is certainly no cause for excitement. However, it was a state I had never visited, so there was some mild excitement about being able to cross another state off my list.

It quickly ended once I got there. I was working all week in the small town of Pocatello. It is incredibly quaint and full of nice people. In other words, a little on the dull side. Plus, since this was a trip for work, I was also cooped up in a conference room each day. I won’t dwell on the details since I have more exciting things to talk about, but basically the week involved carpooling (not my favorite thing to do for business trips), the Holiday Inn (ugh. My inner road warrior snob did NOT approve), and 3 squares a day with the group. It reminded me of older times on the road when I worked with larger project teams. If you liked who you were traveling with, it could be a great trip and the start of a long and healthy friendship. If you didn’t, well…let’s just say you found reasons to eat in your room. Luckily, I liked everyone on this trip.

I came home Friday and had to shake off the week so I could concentrate on the weekend. This weekend I had some friends come to town. We had tickets to see Barry Manilow on Saturday. In addition to myself, I had my friends April (Baby), Jeff (Jefe), and Deanna (we’re going to need to get a name for you). The three of them grew up together and I know April and Jeff from college. I was meeting Deanna for the first time, and she is fabulous. I especially like her husband Tim, who took care of us by getting us into the Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay and arranged our limo ride to the show.

So Friday night, I managed to get myself together and met the group at THE hotel at Mandalay Bay. From there we had dinner reservations at a restaurant at Paris. I had never been there before and it was quite an experience. For some reason I had some sort of jinx on me that night and it seemed that no matter what I tried to order, the restaurant was mysteriously out of it. At first it was funny and then it was just annoying. We quickly decided that I was not allowed to order first and from then on everything seemed fine.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and went up to the Foundation Room. I have mentioned this place before since I was there back in August for a birthday party. This is a member’s only type of restaurant and lounge located at the top of Mandalay Bay. It’s nice and dark, and if you get there early enough, relatively quiet. Apparently Deanna’s husband had worked his magic and got our names on the list to get in and to have special service from one of the bartenders. It was really great and I was glad to get a chance to get back up there since the view of the Strip is one of the best.

Saturday was a spa day for the others and I spent the day just puttering around the apartment. I met up with the group again later in the evening for another trip back up to the Foundation Room for drinks before heading to the show. As I mentioned, Deanna’s husband had also arranged for us to take a limo to the show. Even though it was a short ride, it was a lot of fun. Before heading in to the show, we stopped at the Barry Manilow gift store and oohed and ahhed over all the great fan merchandise. Some of the really funny stuff was the Christmas ornaments that said “Barry Christmas” (he’s Jewish) and all the things that said “Fanilow.” Awesome!

The show itself was amazing. We were probably some of the youngest people there by about 30-40 years based on the crowd sitting around us. We also received glow sticks as we made our way to our seats. The theater at the Hilton is fairly small, so there were no really bad seats. It was great. At various points in the show I think I actually felt like I was going to start crying. It was weird. He sang most all the songs we really wanted to hear. In addition, Barry has apparently been putting out compilation albums on songs from the 50’s, 60’s and most recently, the 70’s. He sang a few songs from each album and it started to feel a bit like a TimeLife commercial with the way he introduced each album. The funniest bit was when he was talking about growing up in the 60’s and he was sitting on a small set decorated like an apartment complete with lava lamp, beaded curtains, and a joint. He started to smoke it and then conveniently forgot what he was talking about. It was hilarious.

He ended the show with Copa Cabana of course, and the crowd went crazy. I think we all decided that we wanted to see the show again. Since we couldn’t do that, we decided food would be a good idea. I wanted to take everyone to Firefly, but our cab driver told us he had just come from there and there was a long line to get in so we ended up at the Peppermill. Deanna and Jeff hadn’t been there before, so it was a real treat for me to see their reactions. The food was amazing as usual and way too much to eat. I though I would be okay just ordering a fruit plate and ended up with an entire platter of fruit.

After our feast, we headed back to the hotel in the worst smelling cab ride of my life and said our goodbyes. After I left I headed straight for yet another birthday party. One of my friends was having a party and I was pretty confident things would still be going strong. It was only midnight after all! I think I finally crawled into bed around 3am. Yesterday I spent the day on the couch and marveled at how old and tired I felt. I only have a few short days this week to get myself together before next weekend and the next group of people comes to town.