Bad Blogger. Good Vegas.

I am the worst blogger ever.

I know I've been neglecting the place. It's been, what, five months since I last posted? Life, as it has a tendency to do so, throws shit in your face quite frequently.

Well, I'm back, refreshed, resurgent and ready for what's next.

Now that my next travel guide is in the bag (Open Road's Best of Las Vegas), I will actually have time to devote to my blog again.

Kind of a lot's happened with me in the recent months. Read on below the jump, if you care about my life update.

The big news is that I've moved to Las Vegas. This was spurred in part by me being laid off from my former employer, Meridian KSI, in February. I'd been busting my ass for them for 4 years, and then two weeks after writing a press release touting our "record sales" and "double digit profits" they shitcanned me and three other people.

I spent a very depressing 3 1/2 months looking for work, mostly in Northern Virginia, but for some positions out here in Las Vegas. Finally, as my money's about to run out, I get an offer for a copywriter job at GTSI, a beltway bandit IT solutions provider. Depressing work, but great pay and hey, it's a job. Of course, right as we're deep into the interview process I get a phone call from one of the world's largest casino companies, wanting to interview me for a copywriter position. So I flew out to Vegas, met with a couple of people, and had a job offer waiting for me the next day.

So in mid-May I started scrambling in order to get my affairs in order prior to my departure. They wanted me to start less than 2 weeks from receipt of my offer, so it was a breakneck effort. On May 27, I boarded a JetBlue flight at IAD and left Virginia for the last time. Five hours later I had landed at McCarran International Airport at my new home.

I spent my first six weeks here living with a couple I had met on Craigslist. For the random nature of such endeavors they turned out to be really nice people and very easy to get along with. Their cats? Not so much.

So soon after we moved into our new apartment, right off Flamingo Road, 1 mi. from UNLV and 2 mi. off the Strip. We've been slowly but surely getting settled in.

My job is sweet - I write direct mail, letters mostly, to customers in our database. So it's fairly good exposure. I'm working with a lot of really knowledgeable people and getting exposed to lots of different aspects of this fascinating business.

The work is intense, but not unmanageable.

After work, we've been able to experience a lot of cool stuff: saw Toni Braxton, Berlin, the Romantics and Tool in concert (not all the same show); saw Elton John and Celine Dion's shows at Caesars, saw a Beatles tribute band, the classic topless revue Donn Arden's Jubilee! (aka Boobilee), and lots more.

Watch this space for an exciting announcement about a new SWINA project, to tie in with my upcoming book.