Internext Quickie
January 16th, 2007I flew into Las Vegas to pack in as much business as possible in a little more than twenty-four hours. I was disappointed that I did not have enough time in the last several weeks to prepare properly for Internext, so I decided to just do a night of partying and a day of meetings rather than attending the entire show.
I checked into my hotel around 4PM, where I somehow ended up with one of the presidential suites for an amazing rate. I don’t know if it was some kind of Orbitz mixup, but I wasn’t about to ask anyone how I was able to land a suite with three rooms, two bathrooms, a jacuzzi, and a huge plasma TV for less than what I would have paid for a regular room at Mandalay Bay (where Internext is being held this year).
After exploring the two bathrooms and three bedrooms in my suite, I made my way to the Bellagio buffet for an impromptu meeting with some people who work on the technology side of the industry. At my table were account representatives from major hosts, programmers, SEOs, and project managers. The buffet was amazing, and the conversation was just as good. We talked about everything from RSS feeds to database replication and load balancing.
After dinner, I went to The Mix Lounge at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay for a birthday party. I had never been to The Mix, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After my last trip to Vegas, I was pretty disappointed with the quality of clubs, but the people at The Mix were super nice with no attitudes and the view of the Strip from the club is amazing. The Mix is up on the 64th floor of THEhotel, which is located all the way at the end of the Strip, so you can imagine what the view is like. The staff was even nice enough to show us to the elevators and help find our floor when we were all to wasted to do it ourselves.
After leaving The Mix, I did a pretty lengthy suite party circuit. I hit up about four different suite parties and got to hang out in some of the largest hotel rooms in Vegas. What am I talking about? Full bars, jacuzzis, multiple bathrooms, plush couches, personal butlers, bidets, and plenty of hotties.
I had a great time hanging out with major program owners in their suites, and I ended up doing a lot of business. I left the Mandalay Bay around six in the morning, and at this time I was on a mission to get laid by a cougar. Cougars run rampant in Vegas, and I noticed two super hot cougars at a blackjack table when I returned to my hotel at 6:30AM. I figured it would be a great time to pick up some cougars which were obviously neglected during the night, so I attempted to play blackjack with them. Unfortunately, since I don’t ever play blackjack, I lost about two hundred dollars after half an hour and three Heinekens. In true cougar style, the ladies tossed me two hundred dollar chips, which I used to win another fifty dollars, but I was unable to get them back into my room despite spitting my a-game, so I gave their money back plus the fifty dollar profit, and returned to my room a little before 8AM.
I ordered some hotel porn and continued drinking until around 10:30AM because I couldn’t sleep. I slept for about forty-five minutes, checked out, and made my way to the opening of Internext a little after noon.
I had four meetings scheduled before my return flight, so the day was busy. The show looked good despite all of the criticism that it has gotten over the last couple weeks. Hopefully, the Internext people will be able to turn the show around with this one.
Was I successful in doing a shitload of business and getting wasted in slightly more than twenty-four hours? Fuck yes. I got to talk a lot about celebrity traffic for my newest site with very experienced people, which was one of my goals for this show, and I ended up closing not one, not two, but three major deals, one of which was a major investment deal in a new technology. My Internext quickie was definitely successful.