many a slip

Are any of you familiar with erythritol? Stonyfield Farms labels their yogurt with misleading prominence, "no artificial sweeteners," but I am deeply suspicious of this stuff. I bought it yesterday, without noticing the "light" on the package, and I'll give it away if it's likely to be a migraine trigger.

more about Las Vegas

I am almost ready to give up and just stay home. If this were not a business trip, where my boss was saying with some enthusiasm, "Oh yes, of course you should go!" I would have given up hours ago. Because I do NOT want to do business with these people, much less go to a lot of trouble to go see them and do business with them.

I am going to a convention. The people organizing the convention have arranged a convention hotel, with discounted rates for rooms and travel arrangements. This does not surprise me, because there are huge numbers of people expected. It would not particularly surprise me to see any given discount arrangement tangled up in any given administrative error, particularly where huge numbers of people are involved. I am surprised and distressed by what looks like deliberate chicanery. For a convention 8/24-26, I expected the room discount to apply 8/23-25. Maybe just 8/24-25, if they were being cheap or the hotel was crowded. Nope. The discount is only for 8/21-23, then the rate doubles. The code they offer for discount airfare is invalid the whole second half of August. I don't know if my company could afford to pay the higher prices. What we can't afford is paying unpredictably high prices.

I spent an appalling fraction of my morning with Travelocity, finding another airline and hotel within our budget. I won't be staying in the convention hotel. I'll be staying in *another* casino hotel, down the street. (Maybe a mile?) I'm sure the walk is trivial in daylight.