Choose Your Own Cheryl's Las Vegas Adventure

While the Sacred Code of Sin City does indeed prevent me from describing my exploits there in any great detail, I understand that I am allowed to list the elements of my five days there for all of you to piece together as you choose. Therefore:

• Bubble bath
• Melissa, John, and Sue, aka the three lovely people who comprise the senior staff of PotterCast
• Emerson, Kevin, Ben, Andrew, and Jamie -- a smartass but charming group of young men who comprise the senior staff of MuggleCast
• Lots of neon
• Paul and Joe DeGeorge, aka Harry and the Potters
• Brian and Brad, aka Draco and the Malfoys
• Alex Carpenter, aka the Remus Lupins
• A swanky suite at the J. W. Marriott Resort Hotel and Spa
• Terrible vodka
• "O" by Cirque du Soleil
• A large outdoor hot tub
• Slot machines
• Hot pizza
• Cold pizza
• Conversations with drunk people
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
• Seeing 4 a.m. every morning of the week
• An insightful presentation from Steve Vander Ark of the Harry Potter Lexicon
• The desert wind
• A Rum Jungle cocktail at 11 in the morning
• People dressed as Draco and Lucius Malfoy, Luna Lovegood, Hermione, Ginny, and Harry
• A rockin' Harry and the Potters/Draco and the Malfoys concert
• Sudoku
• Harry Potter trivia
• The question "Any news on Book 7?", followed by me shaking my head, followed by the statement, "You know something, don't you?", followed by me shaking my head, nine million times
• An approximately equal number of Harry Potter Book 7 theories
• An excellent LeakyMug
• A crowd of 400 singing my adaptation of "Baby It's Cold Outside" ("It's Voldemort Outside"), and John singing my filk of "New York, New York" to welcome J. K. Rowling to NYC this week
  
• Some mild MuggleBoy debauchery (not involving me, thank you)
• The "Wee Kirk o' the Heather" wedding chapel, which was neither a church nor anywhere remotely close to heather
• The song "I'm Proud to Be An American" by Lee Greenwood
• The Fremont Street Experience
• Many cool Harry Potter fans
• Palm trees

I can also report that I earned two more T's in the course of the week, thus becoming "Hottttt Cheryl"; and other than some unfortunate aftereffects of the terrible vodka, it was a wonderful vacation. Pictures to come.

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Melissa, Emerson, and I flew into Los Angeles this morning and came straight to the Grove for our last Scholastic tour podcast -- and it may have just been the best of the bunch, with 350 to 400 people tossing out questions and theories, and our responses enriched by everything we learned or talked about at Lumos. Thanks to Lisa, Greg, Marilyn, and Eve for coming out to see it, and to the former three for the lovely late lunch in the Farmer's Market afterward.

The podcasts of our July 20 discussion at Anderson's and July 25 discussion in Las Vegas are now online here, and the recording of the L.A. event will be available there Tuesday. Happy listening!