Hollywood, FL: The Guitar Hotel

The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, is about 25 minutes from our apartment. The Guitar Hotel tower is shaped like a guitar, which sounds absurd and is absurd and is also visible from the highway and lit up at night in a way that makes every first-time visitor say "what is that." I was there for the Blockchain Futurist Conference. Two days, no overnight, no suitcase. Drive there, attend, drive home. The luxury of a local conference.

The Guitar Hotel interior is peak Vegas energy transplanted to South Florida. The lobby is massive with LED screens and music and that casino floor smell that's equal parts air freshener and anticipation. The conference was on the hotel's event level, which is a different world from the casino floor: quieter, carpeted, conference rooms with names like "Oasis Ballroom" that don't quite match the blockchain crowd inside them.

The conference was focused on Web3 and blockchain, which is a space I'm adjacent to through content and speaking but not deeply technical in. The conversations were interesting. The crowd was younger than most conferences I attend and the energy was different: more speculative, more forward-looking, less "here's what worked last quarter" and more "here's what might exist in three years." I spoke on a panel about creator monetization through decentralized platforms, which is a topic that has more potential than current execution. The audience was engaged. The questions were smart. A few people found me afterward to continue the conversation, which I always take as a good sign.

The food at the Hard Rock is casino food, which means it ranges from surprisingly good to predictably average. We tried Kuro on the first night, the Japanese restaurant inside the Guitar Hotel. The wagyu nigiri and the crispy rice with spicy tuna were both excellent. G ordered the omakase and got a course involving a5 wagyu that made her do the eyes-closed thing, which at this point I'm tracking like a food rating system. Eyes closed means the dish is an A+. Kuro earned it. The real food value of being 25 minutes from home is that I ate dinner at my own kitchen both nights, which after months of hotel restaurants and conference catering felt like the best meal of the year.

Two days. Drove there, spoke, drove home. Slept in my own bed. Ate G's cooking. Local conferences are underrated.