Two weeks ago Blackhat USA 2010 started, followed by Defcon (didn't have time to attend B-Sides). I found it difficult to live-blog during the presentations at the conferences, so I thought I would summarize them now when I has some time to digest what was said. This was my first trip to Las Vegas, or the states for that matter, so lets start at the travel to the country of oppertunities.

The flight went without problems from Sweden (Arlanda) to New York (Newark), where we (my colleges and me) has to collect our suitcases just hand them in again (some customs deal, although they just took the bags and out them on another conveyer belt - no questions asked nor was there any separate line if you has something to declare). Dunno what it was all about but it went fairly easy. Them came the TSA security checkpoint, where you had to take off your shoes, belt and anything else metallic. That also went fairly well, but I have been loosing weight lately so my pants did almost fall off. The flight to Las Vegas was a little late taking off, but we arrived earlier then predicted so that was cool.

Once in Las Vegas we went to our hotel (Caesars Palace) and checked in, dumped our bags and went to town to grab something to eat (9pm local time). We ended up at an japanese resturant in Forum mall (which is physically connected to Caesars Palace) and ate some ramen (which I really enjoyed).

The next day (Tuesday) we went started the day with a nice breakfast, followed by a margarita drink. We took a cab to Town Square and went shopping a bit, with regular pauses at a pub to keep our fluid levels as it is very hot in Las Vegas during the summer. I bought myself a new wallet as my old one was starting to break and it was not wide enough to hold US dollars. It was a quite nice wallet with a money clip on the outside that also funtions as a bottle opener (haven't had the oppertutinty to try out that fuction yet though). When we arrived back at the hotel we picked up our Blackhat badges and went to watching the Penn & Teller show, which was great. After the show we went to bed to be fresh for the conference.