The Venetian hotel

Here I am in Vegas, after killing time all day yesterday before my 7:30 PM flight left Calgary. I managed to get a picture of Chief Mountain as we flew over. I didn't get my camera phone out fast enough to get the front face, but here's an aerial profile view. Not much to it from the American side...

Anyhow, landed in Vegas, stepped off the plane at about 9:30PM and it was still about 36c outside. Found an airport shuttle that was going to the Venetian, the front desk finally found my reservation info, and I was in my room before midnight.

Here are some photos of the room. Apparently, all the rooms are this size (I asked for a smaller one and they said this is the smaller one).

A view from the door. The bathroom is to the immediate right...

Here's view one of the bathroom...

...and view two...

...and the shower, which really weirds me out, even though I'm not sharing the room with anyone.

...standing in the bedroom...

Here's the 'lounge' area, along with the printer/fax/ scanner. The couch made me laugh... everything else in the room is very posh, but they have a hide-a-bed from the 70's. Nice touch.

...and the beds, looking from the lounge.

This room is bigger than some of my missionary apartments (could fit two of the "Love Shack" in here). I'm very much not in my comfort zone here. Even if I were filthy stinkin' rich, I'd still be over at the Comfort Inn (at least they have a microwave in the room).

Vegas is completely wasted on me... I don't gamble, I'm too cheap to see any of the shows that are here (I won't mention that Phantom is playing here... and when I say 'here', I don't just mean in Vegas, I mean here in the hotel), and all the shopping is waayyyy over-priced. Dawn says I'm supposed to enjoy it for her, which is really hard to do without her...

My First Mile!!

I ran my first continuous mile since Grade 10 gym class! I did my usual 2 miles/30 minute workout, but this time I was able to actually run for 1 straight mile. And I did it all while watching the last half hour of Nacho Libre (a motivational movie if ever there was one).

I feel like I could have run longer, but my calves weren't cooperating. I need to suppliment the treadmill with the Bowflex so my legs can keep up with me. My legs are burning, but the rest of me feels really good right now! I take a dramatically different approach to exercise than does my sister... I think it feels good to get a nice healthy sweat going.

Now I'm working towards 2 miles... then three. Then I can start on Day 1 of the actual training program.

New Toy!

Long story short... a friend at work sold me his super-cool treadmill for a really good deal because he got a better one. This thing was still unassembled and in the protective plastic wrap when we picked it up. The 'walkway' (not sure what the technical term is) is long enough that I can do a full stride and still have room. Do let's take a closer look, shall we?

As you can see, it has a little TV monitor built in. We have it hooked up so whatever is showing on the big screen will also show on the little one here (hence, Voyager). We can also hook up a DVD player if we wanted. The workout display can be shown along the bottom of the screen, the right side, or hidden. It shows your distance, time, pulse, calories, and speed.

Here's the "command console" with the quick set buttons for incline and speed, and the program buttons for Cardio, Weight Loss, etc. There's also an input jack for hooking up an MP3 player (sold separately). The thin black strip above the screen? That's the two-speed fan.

So this is our new workout buddy. No excuses on not being able to fit in some exercise. If we have time to watch TV, we can exercise at the same time now. Way cool, I'm super excited to try it out tomorrow!