I came back from Las Vegas last week absolutely exhausted. In the three nights there I slept about eleven hours altogether. Each night there was a party somewhere, there were days full of shooting and early mornings of downloading memory cards and post-processing and planning. As my buddy and I left the hotel each day (usually later than we intended), we jammed as many laptops and hard drives and unneeded lenses into the hotel safe as we could manage, dragged our bags out of the room into 110 degree heat, and headed over to Planet Hollywood.

I just finished sorting all the photos a couple days ago, but my buddy had over 20,000 pictures from the event (plus several shoots before and after), so I won’t see his take for a few weeks. Of course, all the pictures of me were on his camera, so there’s nothing to post on Flickr for now.

As though I didn’t have enough going on, I bought a new router, and it doesn’t have anything to do with networking. I have thought for a while of taking up woodworking as a way to relax. As an “easy” first project I’m making some storage drawers, but I still have the bezel to finish for the kitchen computer, so I will probably do those projects in parallel. Now if I could only find some time to do the work when the kids aren’t sleeping…

I’ve been in Las Vegas for the last two days shooting the 11th Annual Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant, where 129 Hooter Girls from around the globe have gathered to compete for $150,000 in cash and prizes. It has been really hectic, but exciting to be part of such a big production. I’ve been shooting several rehearsals and parties each day, and as I write this, the pre-party for the big show is getting started. As soon as this last memory card gets downloaded we can head down to the party and sit tight for the taping of The Best Damn Sports Show Period, then the pageant, then photo op with the winners, then the after-party, then probably an after-after-party, then downloading cards, and probably then packing up and going home because it will be morning by then.

We arrived back home on Tuesday afternoon. Since Wednesday was Independence Day, we had a nice break between our trip and returning to work, allowing us to mess the house up properly with our suitcases and bills and whatnot.

Thursday, I arrived at work finding out that a big chunk of my responsibilities at work had been cut from the program. Most people would take this as bad news, but not me! It turns out that I had so much on my plate at the start of the summer that I had barely begun on the part that got cut. I was working on higher priority things (now finished), and with the remainder of the high priority things gone, I actually have a reasonable workload for the rest of the summer that will enable me to actually leave the office on occasion.

Friday was a different story. I had a constant stream of people dropping by my cube asking for stuff, sometimes four or five deep. My cube looks like a loading dock piled high with components needed evaluation, and my optimism about my workload for the summer faded just a little bit. The big problem with being a jack-of-all-trades is that you can’t claim ignorance about anything at all.

I’ve been answering questions for the last couple days on how my vacation went. In brief, it was very relaxing. We saw everyone from our immediate families and some extended family. We had a lot of time to kick back and relax. The weather was fairly good for the midwest. The only thing that went badly was the kids’ sleep. Some of the trouble was the three-hour time change. Much of the trouble was the fact that the sun set very late and rose very early, so the kids weren’t inclined to stay on schedule. And of course, the simple change out of regular routine always causes trouble.

As a result, Jennifer and I were underslept for most of the trip. Thankfully, our schedule was fairly loose and lazy.

The girls were mostly well behaved during the trip, even despite the lack of sleep. Everyone who hadn’t seen Tara in a while couldn’t get over how cute she is. Her mannerisms and comic monotone continue to be a crackup.

I’m still sifting through all the photos, so the set is still in progress at post time.