I’m writing this post from the Las Vegas airport. I should have been home last night, but Air Canada decided to cancel “delay” my flight by about 13 hours.
While Vegas is my favorite city in the states, it becomes very… old, after about five days. I’m on day seven. I’m ready for this trip to end.
That said, this was easily the best trip to Las Vegas I’ve ever done, and I can’t count how many times I’ve been there on two hands.
The conference itself was pretty cool. I did a video interview with Vanessa Zamora from Search Engine World (she’s an awesome chick) and did my traditional site clinic panel. I was also threatened by a bird in a back alley (I’m so dead serious – it fluffed it’s wings, squawked and ran at me, on purpose).
I unfortunately missed fight club due to a hotel snafu, so no one got a chance to kick my ass in the literal sense. My ass was however kicked in the proverbial sense afterwards when the guys returned to tell me how they’d met one of my favorite fighters, Mac Danzig (yeah, I have no shame).
DK arranged several gatherings throughout the week open to all conference goers so that those who didn’t make it into private parties had somewhere to go. Good man. Many, including myself at times, could learn a lot from his humility.
Newer Sugarrae hire, Deanna deBara decided she would pony up to going drink for drink with me. The results were as expected, though I gotta say, I didn’t expect her to be in bed before ten. ;-)
The Thursday night party at Rain was amazing. No other way to describe it. It was easily the best Search Bash I’ve ever attended (and I’ve attended most). I had a lot of fun there before ducking out to head to the Hard Rock to see some non conference friends before heading to the Venetian to catch the end of the poker tournament before heading to bed.
Friday morning, after dragging my industry children from their nice cozy beds, I had a good breakfast and headed on over to “PubCon proper” (what I call the Pub portion of the event that gets back to its roots). So off the Hofbrauhaus we went. I’m curious as to WHY this was the venue chosen by PubCon.
We had the entire back room, which was plenty big, but it was setup to almost look like a picnic in a park. There were only two kids of beer (light or dark) and no ability to buy hard liquor. Since there were tables everywhere, no one was really moving around and, you know, networking.
I felt like I was out to lunch with several hundred people, not at a bar drinking and socializing. I love PubCon, we all know that, but I was highly disappointed by this years “PubCon proper”.
Most who read this blog know that I stayed a few days extra to attend UFC 91. I had an absolute blast. On top of having great seats (though the Vegas crowd was no where near as “electric” as past crowds at past live UFC shows I’ve attended), we were able to hit the after party (I may have pounced on met CB Dollaway in the hall on the way there) at Studio 54 where we had a kick ass table directly in front of the DJ (who was amazing) and the dance floor where I proceeded to spend most of my night.
I was lucky enough to meet, have dinner and hit Studio 54 with Sam Stout, Mark Hominick, Chris Horodecki (who is fighting in Japan next week – I wish him luck) and Nick Johnson who has helped George St. Pierre hone his Greco Roman Wrestling.
Absolute fucking blast this week. Thanks to all who contributed to it.
About the Author
Rae Hoffman-Dolan aka "Sugarrae" is an affiliate marketing veteran and an (extremely) occasional Houston SEO consultant specializing in SEO audits and link building strategies. She is also the author of the often controversial Sugarrae blog and the SVP of Marketing for Speedy Incorporation Services. You can connect with Rae via Twitter and Facebook.
Subscribe to the Sugarrae feed | Follow Sugarrae on Twitter
Related Posts
Sugarrae runs on the Thesis WordPress Theme
If you’re someone who doesn’t understand a lot of PHP, Thesis will give a ton of functionality that you wouldn’t be able to obtain otherwise with a simple control panel instead of having to alter code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via Thesis hooks.
For those "in between", like myself, I’ve created "dummy" guides for Thesis hooks that allow us to make more professional customizations than we ever deemed possible. The theme is not only highly customizable, but it has allowed me to run Sugarrae more professionally, with a much more targeted focus on monetization than it ever has been able to achieve before. You can find out more about Thesis below:
- Thesis Website and Demo
- Thesis Theme Review
- Thesis Tutorial: Hooks for Dummies
- More Thesis Tutorials on Sugarrae
Comments on this entry are closed.