Reporting from Las Vegas

[Riverwind (imported)]

Years ago I had a contract working for Harrah's in Reno, I lived in the central valley in California, I would go the 5 miles to the airport meet the crew who unlocked the door to the plane, crank it up and first stop Reno, arrival 7:10am, the driver from Reno would get my baggage then collect me and off to work, he would drop me off then take my luggage to the hotel for where I would check in later to find it in my room. I don't gamble but had a lot of fun watching them play poker, craps, the wheel. Food was cheep all over the strip of the Biggest Little City in the west. At the end of the week I would check out, leave my luggage in the room and head for work, at the end of the day the driver had my luggage in tow, gathered me and off to the airport for the 30 minute flight home. Arrival 8pm. A lot of people flu that route over for the day back home in your own bed at night. It can be fun if you don't gamble, everything else is cheep.

River

[kristoff]

Years ago I had a contract working for Harrah's in Reno, I lived in the central valley in California, I would go the 5 miles to the airport meet the crew who unlocked the door to the plane, crank it up and first stop Reno, arrival 7:10am, the driver from Reno would get my baggage then collect me and off to work, he would drop me off then take my luggage to the hotel for where I would check in later to find it in my room. I don't gamble but had a lot of fun watching them play poker, craps, the wheel. Food was cheep all over the strip of the Biggest Little City in the west. At the end of the week I would check out, leave my luggage in the room and head for work, at the end of the day the driver had my luggage in tow, gathered me and off to the airport for the 30 minute flight home. Arrival 8pm. A lot of people flu that route over for the day back home in your own bed at night. It can be fun if you don't gamble, everything else is cheep.

River

The operative words are: is cheap versus was cheap. It sure aint cheap anymore. The casinos have sure figured out they don't have to give away food to get folks in. Booze anywhere other than on the gambling floor is very very expensive, and even then if you order at the bar on the gambling floor, you might as well be somewhere else. Cabs are terrible. We were waiting for a light yesterday near the convention center. The meter clicked over 4 times before the light changed. Oh well, I chose to come here - this is where the business is, and I'll probably be back next year - just much better prepared. And with a new computer rather than this 9 YO piece of crap. And it will NOT have windows 8 on it.

[OneBallBoi (imported)]

A few months ago, I was able to gets a new Lenovo Laptop with Windows 7 on it.. But it was very difficult to find. Hope you can find one.

[janekane (imported)]

I found what seemed like a decent reason to get a scrawny notebook computer that I could take along when my wife is being given medical care far from home. It is a step or two above a "netbook," in that it does have a DVD-Multi drive and some of the conveniences of a real computer, like a hyperthreading dual core cpu that pretends that it has 4 cores, and, alas, it also does run "Windows Ate My Homework..."

I am not pleased with being coerced into having Windows eat my homework. So, how to get at least the functionality of Windows 3.1 or better, meaning, the functionality of a computer that does not seem intent on outsmarting me with its utter stupidity?

Before I got into the realm of the "irresistable impulse" to run it through my horizontal bandsaw many times, I installed something I think is named, "Classic Shell," and ended up with a usable computer; one that looks like, and runs like, an acceptable computer, in that it is not always correcting mistakes that I did not make.

There is free stuff out there that makes Windows Ate actually work, at least for me.