Corner of Whatever

So the only conference of the year I partook in happened this past week. Astonishingly, I haven’t had a single free moment in the past few days just to blog about it so I guess this synopsis will have to do.Started my expedition on Monday night when I caught an evening flight out of BWI. While waiting at the gate, there were these three kids who were apparently bored out of their minds and wound up hijacking the Southwest wheelchairs and rolled around. Of course they were pretty stupid and wound up blocking the way when the plane arrived at the gate and passengers deplaned. Finally got on the plane and luckily sat in the second row but shockingly could not sleep on the plane. It was a 2-3 hour flight to Kansas City and I couldn’t sleep! What’s going on here?!? I think it was because I was on the plane with two of my co-workers which wasn’t a bad thing…although what really did irk me was this weird guy sitting in front of me who was talking about cults and religion and exploring faith and all that bull. It was quite annoying especially since he was talking really loud that everyone around him could hear the conversation. Thankfully once the plane landed, I quickly debarked and headed to pick up my luggage and away from that idiot.

Welcome to Kansas City, right? Well I suppose so…it so happened that it was also game night for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament finals and Kansas was playing against Memphis so I only missed the first half, but the cab driver that took us to the hotel had the game on the radio so we didn’t miss much. What was perhaps the most amusing and bewildering about the cab ride was that the driver stopped at an intersection where we had a red light and apparently thought it was a stop sign instead of a stop light and then decided to try and go into the intersection, only to suddenly stop and reverse course. It was around 10pm at that time so luckily there weren’t any other cars around.

We finally get to the hotel and check in. I drop of my stuff and head over to the sports bar where I meet some other friends and catch the last half of the NCAA game. During the end of regulation, I picked up some food and headed back to my room to watch the rest and get some work done. Amazingly it’s been a while since I checked my email and did some work but lo’ and behold there was a lot of work for me to do. This became a constant pattern throughout the week with me having to skip a couple of conference sessions just to take care of the work people kept sending my way. Ack!

But the conference wasn’t just all work. I must say that Kansas City has some pretty interesting nightlife and food. We had some great steak and Italian food the last two nights we were there and their nightlife entertainment district, KC Live! was pretty good. Spent a couple of nights hitting up an Irish pub, going bowling at Lucky Strike, and enjoying the company of the waitresses and lady bartenders at Tengo sed Cantina and Angel’s Rock Bar. The music at Angel’s Rock Bar was awesome and unbelieveable! They have these guys who jump on the bar, light a bottle of alcohol on fire, take a swig of alcohol, and blow fire into the air. That’s the video that you see at the top of this post. But yeah, if you happen to be in Kansas City, I highly recommend you check out Angel’s Rock Bar. They open at 9:30pm and there’s no cover charge. The music might not be your cup of tea but I actually liked it…and the “scenery” is something to see…hehe…

Oh! I almost forgot to mention one thing…there’s this awesome feature in Kansas City. They have a cab where you can sing karaoke in for free while paying regular fare. It’s pretty awesome. They call it cabaroke and you can film yourself singing and have it emailed to you later on. It’s really cool especially after a few drinks with your friends. Go try it if you can find it. We caught it on the way back from dinner to the nightlife district and surprisingly found the same cab when we were on our way back to the hotel. Go figure.

Well the trip was pretty good. Had a great time talking to people, but the work was rather excessive. Kansas City was pretty sparse - I didn’t see anything inviting except for the nightlife and the hotel was pretty far from the touristy areas. I don’t think that would be a place where I’d travel just for the sake of it, but for business, I guess it’ll do…

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Travel, Work