I must be breaking a cardinal rule for even uttering a word about our Vegas adventures. Ah well, some rules were meant to be broken, and I’m sure that saying was implemented before the era of blogs, cameraphones and twitter.

My roommates and I went to Vegas this past weekend, as a spur of the moment thing. We picked up Rory’s friend Neil on the way there, and the five of us set out to enjoy an impromptu vacation. Some of the highlights:

• getting lost, twice, on the way up there.
• using an EVDO card, a laptop, 2 iPhones and a Sidekick to make reservations.
• blasting Daft Punk and Aphex Twin, then somehow getting Enya on random.
• the Bellagio, which is even nicer than I expected.
• Neil and Marianne becoming an unexpected couple over the weekend.
• nightly sushi with the group, even though we split off in our own directions the rest of the time.
• getting hit on by lesbians.
• Rory getting hit on by same lesbians.
• Using Yelp + GPS on the iPhones to find everything. I’m officially a convert.
• Waking up in bed with Neil wearing only my underwear. I had that lovely moment of panic where all sorts of terrible scenarios of me being one hell of a shitty friend flashed through my head, before Neil and Rory assured me that I was mostly naked after spilling alcohol on myself, and they stuck around in my room to make sure I was ok.
• Doing handsprings and round off back handsprings in a hallway before checking out.

There is more, much more, but I think I’ll get in real trouble if I mention any of them. Suffice to say, it was an interesting trip, and exactly what we all needed.

Tomorrow is my last day of work, then two weeks of vacation before I start training for my new job. I have big plans for all my free time, mostly re-wiring our network, setting up a new firewall and installing XP on Paige’s computer (after removing all traces of Vista). We might even fit in a trip to the beach.

I admitted to my roommates last night that I had thoroughly googled them, before and after our first meeting. Last month, my parents decided not to sell their Scottsdale home (also where we lived when we moved to Arizona), and instead it’s on “loan” to Paige and myself. We decided early on, with their approval, that we needed roommates. The house is way too big for two people, and the money for utilities/internet/etc. is more than both of us were paying for rent at our former apartments. We put out ads, wrote many emails and interviewed five people with the intent of moving in one roommate.

Prior to meeting the five, I googled them extensively based on their first and last names, their email addresses, and any other nuances they provided, such as email signatures, nicknames and screen names. After using google, I searched for the same terms on myspace, facebook, twitter and a number of other sites. This all made me feel more than a little stalkery, although I reasoned to myself that learning more about their backgrounds would help us all in the long run. Paige and I certainly didn’t want to live with someone who would be unemployed or use excessive drugs, have kleptomaniac tendencies, or would bring over large groups of friends for impromptu parties.

From my search results, I found that one of the potential five was indeed unemployed, ranted on their myspace how their parents were always threatening to kick them out, and used heroin on a weekly basis. When I met them, I never would have guessed. They wore long sleeves, talked about how they had steady income, and were currently living with a friend. I don’t know if we would have accepted this person as our roommate had we not known about their past history, but the differences between their last blog entry (dated the day before we met) and what they claimed were enough not to take them into consideration. After all, if they were willing to lie about their situation, what else would they lie about?

Paige and I discussed this thoroughly afterward. Were we too quick to judge? We didn’t know that person’s full history. We felt guilty turning them away, but in the end, we are mostly alone in this endeavor. If something goes wrong with our roommates or they decide not to pay their bills, we bear the full extent of it. We have a lawyer, contracts, clauses, etc., but a bad situation would have to be handled in conjunction with the rest of our lives and neither of us have the time, patience or judicial knowledge for that.

Plus, we discovered lots of neat little things about our current roommates. Googling told us that Rory plays four instruments and is handy with computers and cars. It told us that Marianne used to run an animal shelter, has had several art exhibitions and worked in schools in Malaysia and South Africa. The thing that made me feel infinitely less guilty though, was the admission from both that they had googled Paige and me prior to meeting us too.