ITF/Las Vegas

We went to Vegas May 30-Jun 6. The primary purpose was to go to the International Trombone Festival but we had decided beforehand to stay a few extra days and meet some friends there and have some fun.

The ITF was a nice experience. It was nice to see some acquaintences that I hadn't see in a while and then there were a couple that I don't think that were that happy to see me. My UNT trombone teacher was there and was extremely busy but we got to talk for a few minutes. It seems that one of his students won the second trombone position with the Vienna Philharmonic. I was blown away. I didn't even know that they allowed Americans to try out. And it was his very first professional audition. Also, the 'TF' trombone quartet(also coached by the same teacher as Jeremy Wilson) from UNT won the quartet competition.

I also saw someone that I knew from BYU there, along with his son(whome I can't believe is 15 now). He's the Trombone professor at BYU-Idaho now. Good for him. He is one heck of a player.

I am a little curious why my former BYU roommate, now the BYU trombone prof, didn't show. Its only 7 hours straight down I-15 to lv from Provo. Maybe I'll shoot him an email.

ITF itself had many fine performances and lectures. I'm not remembering them all very well right now so I won't talk about it. That's what I get for not making my blog entry right when I got home.

The highlight of Friday was that night when we ate at the buffet at the Wynne Hotel. It was incredible having shrimp, crab legs that were split lengthwise(making meat extraction easier), pastas, chinese food, bbq, just EVERYTHING. Two thumbs up from up from us. Drawback? It was $36 each.

The ITF ended on Saturday. Monday afternoon we saw the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. The ads look very cool, showing a huge great whit with its gaping maw against the glass but the actual exhibit was a bit of a letdown. The biggest the sharks got was what I would say 'medium-sized.' Eh.

Our friends, 'Bob' and 'Elaine' arrived on Monday. That evening all of us went and saw the Blue Man Group. What a fantastic experience! They had a giant pvc pipe with bends and sliding sections and they made all kinds of cool sounds with it. There were a lot of flashes of color, long streams of recycled paper rolling over the audience, and other audience participation. I would HIGHLY recommend it.






The next day we walked around a lot, checking out the casinos. We tried to ride rollercoasters at both New York, New York and Stratosphere but they both closed down because of high winds. We checked back on each but no luck. By afternoon I was really wishing that I had brought my newer tennis shoes because my feet were hurting, blisters and all. We stopped at a drugstore-like enclave and I played dr on my feet but I'm not sure that it helped all that much. We ate dinner at Mandalay Bay buffet which was not quite as good as Wynn's but not nearly as expensive($20), either. Bob suggested that we check out Mama Mia, the ABBA vehicle, that night so we ended up seeing that. I didn't think too much of it. The next day Bob and Elaine went back to LA and we came back to TX(a 1200 mile drive).

A good vacation but a loooong drive.