The last two days I have been visiting Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I must say I have had a couple of amazing experiences during these days. First Vegas of course. Until Thursday I only discovered the night-life in Vegas (which is pretty good by the way :-)), but Thursday Lars (the guy behind Ontolica) and I visited the town by day and did a number of the attractions. One of the thrills of my life certainly was the Big Shot experience on the Stratosphere. See this video to have an idea about the fears Lars and I went through that moment. Amazing stuff. We also did the Insanity. Quite an experience also. Next we went to the Star Trek experience and had a couple of beers together with the Klingons and some borgs. For me it was like Mickey and Donald for the kids. I am a big trekkie fan and enjoyed it every minute. We also did of course the casinos trying out our luck with the slots. I was actually lucky and got $25 out of a $2 start. Good for buying our ticket for another thrill ride, the Manhattan Express rollercoaster in the New York New York casino. We concluded with a walk on the strip all the way from one end to the other. By then it was already evening and we enjoyed the colourful displays and the shows in front of the casinos.

Yesterday we drove to the Grand Canyon. Always dreamt about seeing it and am very happy I went through the 10 hour drive (back and forth) to visit it. We also took a part of the historic route 66.  I cannot explain the feeling in words you have when you are there at the rim looking down at this big hole with all of its beauty. You really start respecting nature at that moment and recognize that we as humans only play a very small role in all of it.

Well, fun is over. Back to work now and hard work it will be until TechEd. I will be flying out here in a couple of hours to spend 5 days in Redmond.