Left Wednesday morning March 2 for my nephew's 21st birthday and my #3 son's competetion in the Pizza Expo trade show. Quick one hour flight, for which I always arrive too early at the airport but I guess that's better than too late. Long line for a taxi with some drama over a lady that won't get out of line after being yelled at by the 'security' line police apparently and then three frat boys carrying backpacks that try and jump the line. Note to self: in the future jump on the bus to the car rental complex, get off and walk right into a taxi thus avoiding the long line.

Dumped our two carryons at the bell desk then checked into Harrahs ~11 am no problem. Toked the registration lady $5 from the start (didn't ask for an upgrade) and wound up with a very nice room on the 27th floor with a mountain view. We don't put a lot of emphasis on our room in Vegas as long as it is clean and the bathroom isn't spewing stuff. I shower and sleep there, I am in Vegas and have better things to do than sit in a motel room!

Took the monorail to the convention center and caught up with our son at the pizza expo. We walk over to the Hilton and grab some lunch. Go on a search and find mission for an Elvis tape for his dough spinning routine. After walking a mall and then a Best Buy, we find one with "Jailhouse Rock" on it and are good to go. See his World Championship performance here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBOyw0QtUtM

He won $1000 for his troubles.

Work our way over to the Sahara, which is a good thing because they are shutting down the casino next month! Go to the NASCAR store and buy a Dale Earnhart Jr. #88 hat and a lighter with National Guard on it for my ex-Air National Guard brother-in-law that smokes, more on that later. Wife hits the slots while I play around at some 2/4 limit (only table going) just to remind myself how much this game is more for entertainment than making money. Two German guys that don't have a clue, an African American gentleman named Doc in the one seat that berates the dealer the whole time, going ballistic once because the guy next to me shows his cards, but not the rest of the table, before mucking. Seriously, how much info are you going to gain from one hand at 2/4 limit. Bunch of noobs and nits with some nice guys mixed in. Typical 2/4 game to avoid.

Next day get down to Harrahs poker room and buy in for $200 at 1/2NL. Stay even with a lot of folding. The lower limits for me tend to be all about the cards and ABC poker. Play good cards, raise rather than call, flop it or drop it, bluff every 4th or 5th orbit and don't try and make fancy moves on donks.

That night try to move around and get something going at the craps table. What a giant firehose type leak this game is. Remember hearing an old timer tell me he had to quit the game after chasing that 'magic roll' for over 40 years and donking off tons of money. Thinking my new #88 hat will be lucky, I buy into a craps table at the Orleans, where my in-laws were staying, for $500. First roll the guy makes a point and then rolls like six 8's in a row, with my $5 come bet on the 8 and $20 odds making me money!! It was a short table (just the two of us and some railbirds)and things were moving quick so I neglected to do my standard 'up one unit' bet on my odds, otherwise I would have made a lot more. With the standard 3x4x5x limits though maybe that wouldn't have been possible without raising my come bet. Table dies and I walk away minus $500.

More poker at Harrahs after placing a bet on the Arizona/Oregon State game. Line was AZ by 14.5 so I took Oregon and the points because AZ hasn't been winning by big margins most of their games. AZ wins by 11 and I pocket $80 which is soon to be set on fire at another craps session. Go up and down at the poker table and then the young poker pro wannabe in seat one calls my $10 raise on the button with me holding J-10 suited. Flop is Jxx so I c-bet $20 seat one check/calls. Turn is a 10, YPP checks and I bet $30, he calls. Hmmmm, I put him on a straight draw or Jack rag. River is a 10 which fills me up, seat one checks and I have to decide how much to bet to get him to call, I settle on $30 and act weak. He buys it after tanking for a while and calls, I flip my boat over and he insta mucks without showing.

Move over to Oshea's and can't bring myself to play poker here but I do manage to stimulate their economy with $200 more flushed away at the crap table. Trying to parlay hard ways and horn bets are a terrible waste of money.

My wife and I wander over to check out the Aria and Cosmopolitan. Very nice but not a lot of folks at 9 am on a Friday morning. Do come across some police/fire barricade tape and an ambulance out front and don't think too much about it since they are always picking up winos. Later, when I picked up a paper Saturday at the airport and find out a guy did a header into the sidewalk from the 14th floor of the Cosmo at about 6am. From the pictures and witnes reports looks like he may have been drunk and wandered away from the pool area onto a ledge and then after being stuck for a few hours couldn't stand up anymore. Darwins theory at work. At least he will now be unable to pass his defective DNA onto future generations. Did put $40 into a Megabucks slot just to say I gambled at the new place and hit a 2x pay, 4x pay and bar for $250, sweet.

Played more 1/2 NL at Harrahs and thought I saw Amnightus wearing a NFL jersey. A couple with their luggage on the way to the airport were doing well. Sat next to a guy who was a big hunter, says 60 days a year, just got back from a snow goose hunt from Missouri, nice guy. Was in for the NASCAR race and his wife was a big Jeff Gordon fan and had just won $600 on the slots. One hand had a $17 pre-flop raise with the hunter and another pro wannabe in the hand. Don't remember the details but hunter wound up winning a good pot with something like 67os. Wannabe starts berating the big guy for calling a pre-flop raise with junk. Big guy (hunter) just looks at the mouthy punk and doesn't say a word. Kid goes on for a minute or two and I wonder what he was trying to accomplish. Put the guy on tilt? Let the rest of the world know what a great player he was and lost only because a lower caliber player doesn't know what he's doing? Guess we have to put up with the foibles of human nature but I thought we WANT folks to call with bad cards, knowing in the long run we will overcome. Still annoying.

At the airport we take our carryons to the screeners and after being yelled at to take off my belt, first time for me seeing the TSA jerkwads show their true colors, I get chosen for a secondary screening. Seems the NASCAR lighter with no fuel in it is a security risk for the Dept. of Homeland security and apparently I could jeapordize the safety of the USA with it. TSA agent says I can exit the checkpoint and go mail my $5 lighter somewhere or surrender it. After dumping $2000 in Vegas I am really not in the mood to be f#cked with over an empty lighter to I tell them to toss it. I really wanted to tell the jerk that yelled at me over wearing a belt, that hadn't set off the metal detector the last 40 flights, to stick it up his a$$ but thought better of it. When I get past security and to the news stand to buy a paper guess what they were selling right by the cash registers, cigarette lighters.

Didn't get downtown, didn't get to play quality poker but there is always a next time. Maybe late May early June for some solo WSOP satellite play!! Good luck.