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Getting on the plane Location: Austin-Bergstrom Int'l Airport George and I had tickets together all the way out to Las Vegas. Here we are taking an evening flight out. We were scheduled to arrive at 9:30 PM, but actually made it in a little earlier.
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Location: Austin-Bergstrom Int'l Airport Julie recoils after a sneak tongue attack from George.
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On the plane Location: Austin-Bergstrom International Airport
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Stopping in Houston Location: Houston International Airport We stopped in Houston, and changed planes. The next leg had us on the same plane as Doug and Ali.
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On the plane to Vegas Location: Houston International Airport
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Regrouping Location: Las Vegas Airport Here we discuss plans for getting to the hotel. I suggested that we stay and wait for Drew, who, I thought, was arriving at 10:30. It turns out that waiting for him would have been a bad idea.
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Our first celebrity Location: Las Vegas Airport George meets the first celebrity of the trip, Angelina Jolie. Funny, she always seemed looser and more natural in the movies.
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Our first slot machines Location: Las Vegas Airport Literally the first thing you see when you step off the plane are slot machines. These were a few spotted further into the terminal.
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A limo? Location: Outside Las Vegas Airport As we stepped out of the airport, Ali and I started looking for the MGM Grand hotel shuttle. Before we could find it, though, we discovered that George and Doug were already having there things loaded into a limo. I guess they decided we should get the trip off on the right foot.
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Location: En route to MGM Grand
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Location: En route to MGM Grand
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Location: En route to MGM Grand
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Location: En route to MGM Grand
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The Limo driver's card Location: En route to MGM Grand Apparently the driver offered more than just transportation services.
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The lobby Location: MGM Grand When we entered the lobby of the MGM grand, I immediately got the impression that it was a place for normal, boring people to think they were somewhere glamorous. The marble colums were painted drywall, and the velvet curtains were wood. The place was saturated by the smell of cheap cigar smoke from the cigars they sold tourists to make them feel like they were living the high life while the casino was extracting their money from them.
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The interminable hallway Location: MGM Grand The wings of the MGM Grand seemed at least a quarter of a mile long. We were near the end of the wing.
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Too Cool Location: New York New York Hotel They had a whole downtown NY set up in this hotel, complete with steaming manhole covers.
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Late night Ad hoc wireless network Location: MGM Grand Drew finally showed up at about 1:15am. It turns out his plane *left* at 10:30. Oh well. We all gathered in my hotel room with a bunch of wireless cards and did a bit of hacking on each other. It was a great chance to practice playing with my new iBook.
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Late night Ad hoc wireless network Location: MGM Grand
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On the way to the Alexis Park Location: Las Vegas Strip In the morning, we made our way toward the Alexis Park and DefCon 9.
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Nice place to live Location: Off the Las Vegas Strip I'm sure I would feel very secure about my living arrangements at a place like this.
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Bruce Schneier pimps Secrets and Lies Location: Alexis Park Hotel After a really boring talk about hacker profiling from some guy who used to work at the FBI, the real fun began. Bruce Schneier got up and delivered on long slashdot comment, in response to many questions from the audience. Of course, not before he told us about his new book.
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Ford Excrement Location: On the way back to the MGM Grand Sometimes people take the SUV thing too far.
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Getting ready for more hacking Location: MGM Grand Morning comes to our intrepid group.
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Bastille Linux Talk Location: Alexis Park Hotel Turns out the head programmer for Bastille (Jay Beale) is Drew's running partner out east. He gave one of the better talks. It's hard to find geeks who can speak.
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Taking a break Location: MGM Grand A long day at Defcon had worn us out.
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Waiting in line for Carlin Location: MGM Grand Luckily we already had tickets; we just had to wait to sit down. NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED INSIDE THE THEATER :)
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Carlin's warm up act Location: MGM Grand Hard to expose properly without flash. At least I had something steady to rest the camera on.
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Carlin himself Location: MGM Grand It was a pretty funny show.
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No seats for us Location: Las Vegas Airport When we arrived at the airport around 12:30 for our 1:45 flight, we discovered that they had overbooked it. So, we were put unwillingly on standby.