Vegas Baby


Well, that's Vegas and the US (almost) done this time. I'm at Newark on my way back to Glasgow. I realised while watching TV on the way up from Vegas that I've now visited all three CSI cities. Yay for me.
Vegas was fun, didn't lose all that much. Actually found it quite hard to get rid of, some of the penny slot machines are quite generous. Just try a blackjack table though and watch it vanish.

One thing I'll remember is those annoying buggers in the street that try to hand you cards for strippers etc. Even more annoying the Big Issue sellers.

![](babes_vendor.jpg)

Some impressive night-time scenes too, especially the Bellagio fountains.

Better go now, not long until boarding - I've managed to fill my wait writing this. OK, one last photo.

![](bellagio_fountains1.jpg)


or two

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Going home


I've stopped off in Las Vegas on the way back from Santa Clara.
This is my first visit, and you can't help be in awe of the sheer scale and excess here.

![](5675022072_030243baac_z.jpg)

How in your face the 'dark side' appears is quite an eye opener, from the people in the street trying to shove cards in your hand, people offering you a free limo ride to a 'gentleman's club', to the advertising vans constantly on the street.


![](5674458647_91f7fc3d92_z.jpg)

Not that it bothers me, but I'm not sure I'd bring my family here.

I'm here for 2 days, so I'll see what today brings. Luck would be nice.


![](5675023706_f4d52850c8_z.jpg)



Well, my week in California is over. The first thing I noticed when I got there was that it wasn't all that warm - not much warmer than Glasgow. It got warmer as the week went on, but apparently it's a common misconception that Northern California is warm.
I was in Santa Clara for the 3rd [Openstack Conference and Design Summit](http://www.openstack.org/blog/2011/04/what-to-expect-from-the-conference-and-design-summit/).
This is where the [Openstack](http://openstack.org/) community gets together to present on recent features and to discuss upcoming ones. Some interesting Keynotes including eBay [showing some great charts](http://www.slideshare.net/openstackcommgr/openstack-and-ebay) on how to drive up overall in-house server utilisation and using cloud-bursting for extra capacity, as well as a great demo of Dell's [Crowbar](http://robhirschfeld.com/2011/03/14/how-openstack-installer-works/), taking 5 completely blank servers and having a Nova install running on them all controlled by Crowbar and Chef.

  

![](5662797545_3b3c577eed.jpg)

The real meat of the conference was the Design Summit part though, getting in to the technical aspect of it. As usual, 80%+ of discussion is about the [Nova](http://nova.openstack.org/) project, which I haven't at this stage had a chance to try, but I hope to change that soon. [Swift](http://swift.openstack.org/) had a few good sessions too, discussing a new in-development [feature](http://www.slideshare.net/openstackcommgr/swift-container-sync) to replicate content from one cluster to another - allowing the often requested ability to mirror content between geographically separate areas. Can't wait to give that a go when I get back to work. Introductions to some new Rackspace work - Database-as-a-service running on Nova ("Project Red Dwarf") and Load Balancing ("Project Atlas") were good too.

  
![](5663358932_704d87b393.jpg)

I also got out once or twice - a tour of the local Best Buys looking for a charger for my camera which I'd forgotten to bring, as well as a drive up and down Amphitheatre Parkway (or perhaps the street next to it) and generally [spotting big names on buildings](https://flic.kr/s/aHsjupGjUz). Oh, and the arcade machines at Dave and Busters were quite something. Doesn't seem to be like that where I am now, all the machines have handles.


![](IMG_66071.jpg)

Now, I'm off to blow all my remaining cash down in the casino.
