Intro

Let me start by saying quickly, I wrote this TR for the T2V board, but I will likely also post it on my blog and AllVegasPoker’s forum as well, once it’s cleared. If you’re an AVP member or a reader of my blog, you’ll notice references to T2Vers, so I just didn’t want you to wonder, “Who the heck is this guy talking about?”

Cast of Characters – B, N, K, and myself (sometimes referred to as ‘I’ or ‘me’, for obvious reasons). B is one of my best friends. We played golf and surfed together a lot growing up. We hung a lot through out high school and got in trouble together, etc. He’s a great friend. N is one of B’s buddies and coworkers, and a guy I knew in high school from classes and such. I didn’t hang with N during those years, but I knew him. K is also one of B’s buddies and coworkers. K is probably the mellowest of the group and knew when he was nearing derailment and when to quit pounding the booze. He was a lot of fun to hang out with. I believe K was a Vegas Virgin. All 3 of those guys are cops.

Trip Background – Originally, my August trip was going to be a guys trip, but it turned out that my buddy wanted to bring his wife and mine wanted to come too, so that trip was no longer a guys only trip. Back in October, I got the bright idea to have the guys trip overlap with MMV. Brilliant! Me being the kind of guy I am, I am a little scared and reserved when it comes to new people and new situations. I was a little hesitant with all of this MMV schtuff, but I like a lot of the board members and have gotten to know many of them through chatting and posting. I figured that the worst case would be that they’d all dislike me greatly, but my boys would be there to hang with. Thankfully, no one in the T2V crew acted as if they hated me and I was able to spend quality time with my boys too, more on that as the report unfolds. OK, so leading up to the trip, I was getting more and more excited as the anticipation built. Lots of smack talking about poker, party talk about the suite party, and other talk of the typical buffoonery that’d take place helped ease my worries about meeting a bunch of new people. It helped a lot. So as the time rolled closer, I got more and more excited, visited T2V more or more, and spent many nights in chat talking to other T2Vers about the excitement and anticipation of the trip. I will break the trip report up in to sections so you can read it all, or only the stuff you’re interested in. This is how it all went down:

Wednesday

Flight
Flight out of DFW at 12:50 Central Time and Landing in Vegas at 1:50 Pacific time was on time and smooth. Earlier in the day the news said that American Airlines had cancelled roughly 200 flights because of some wiring issues with their MD-80 planes. Of course I was flying on an MD-80, so naturally, I was a bit worried. Flight went off without a hitch, and on time. Well, I say without a hitch, and yes, the flight made it off without a hitch, but is it ever really that simple? Nope. I got some nachos from Taco Hell, and when I went to sit down, I realized there was sour cream on the OUTSIDE of the bag. Yes, the outside of it. Of course, I had sour cream on my shirt and shorts. I did the little spit on napkin, wipe it off thing and it seemed to work ok. Oh well. I’d be in Vegas soon. OK, so I am on the plane and listening to the iPod. I took out my phones part way through the flight and started talking to the person next to me. Turned out she was Miss Iowa and heading to Vegas for all of the pre-pageant schtuff for the next few weeks, and then the pageant in mid-April. Good luck to Miss Iowa. She signed a picture and gave it to me, so I figure it will go somewhere on the wall in my home studio, just for shit and grins. I will probably just tuck it behind another frame in there so it’s visible, nothing fancy.

Gambling
Wednesday was an up and down day when it came to gambling. I tried to jot down notes each night or the next morning, but some may be a little inaccurate due to intoxication and lack of sleep, but for the most part, I did the best I could.
Pai Gow (1) - We headed down to Planet Hollywood and I took a seat at a fun Pai Gow table. I treaded water for the most part and my 250 buy-in ended with me being +20 for the session. WOW!
BJ (1) - I headed over to cash out and then saw my buddies at a $10 single deck BJ game. I took a seat and got the crap beat out of me. It was made slightly better by the scantily clad woman dancing in the next pit over, the ‘Pleasure Pit’, I think they call it. So that session sucked, and I lost $280 bucks rather quickly. Damn. The dealer laid a beat down on me. Her 20s would crush my 19s; my 20s would trigger the dealer to get a 4 or 5 card 20 for a push or 21 for a nut crushing loss. So that sucked. I walked away with $20 bucks in chips because I couldn’t take it any more.
Craps - I took my lonely 4 red chips to the craps table of all places. 1st roll, the point was a 10, then next, bam, 7-out. Crap, throw my last $10 on the pass line and boom, 7, winner! Ok, we got $20 now, and we get an 8 on the 1st roll. So I throw my last 10 down for odds. Boom!!! 8! Ok, so now we’re good to go. That 20 bucks turned QUICKLY in to 255 bucks. Awesome!
Poker - After that at some point, I got a call message from a T2Ver saying there were folks up in the suite and to come on up. With the help of a glowing arrow in the hallway, I made my way to the suite and met a group of the T2Vers. It was a pleasure. We hung there for a few and headed down for some 3-6 limit poker at the IP. Drink service was great and if I remember right, T2Vers occupied 6 or 7 slots at the table. It was a killer time. I enjoyed the session greatly, but because I was ½ drunk and ½ stupid, I played far too many pots and bled off chips like a fishy in a shark tank. It was a hell of a lot of fun. Terry said the F-word a few too many times and got the floor called on him at one point, but they let him stay; he also took a hell of a lot of my chips. I think they cut him off from the booze too, doh! I gave a few chips to Mikey and Snert as well. Hope yall didn’t spend all my money in one place. I truly enjoyed the session. Also thanks to Sticky (I think it was you who brought it) for the shot of Patron. SH0CK was down on my end of the table and I enjoyed chatting with him as I donated my money to the table. In all, I bled off $140 in chips to the table. It was great fun though.
BJ (2) – After the poker game, I hit the $10 single deck game at IP for more beer and gambling. This session would be profitable for me. I did a lot of the things I wasn’t supposed to do because I was alone at the table. I vaguely remember splitting 10s a few times when the dealer was showing a 6 and it worked every time thankfully. I wouldn’t have done such anti-basic strategy stuff with others at the table, but I am glad I did this session because it worked out for the best, this time. I ended up cashing out at $260 after a $100 buy-in, SCORE! That made back all of my poker loses, plus a bit.
Pai Gow (2) – From the BJ table, I headed over to the $10 Pai Gow table at IP. I bought in for the $260 in chips that I had and was getting good cards. I actually hit a Royal Flush (of clubs – I think) with the $1 bonus up. That was good for the bankroll. I ended up having a pretty good session there and cashed out for a $245 profit. Woohooo, great turn around after the poker and BJ (1) ass-kicking.
Day 1 Gambling: +260

Food
Taco Bell – at the airport, with a side of sour cream, on the bag!
Burger Palace at IP – It was ok for the price. Not great, but good enough. I ate with all 3 of my buddies.
Mr. Lucky’s at Hard Rock – We went there for the $7.77 steak and shrimp and ended up getting the all you can eat prime rib. It wasn’t great, but for the price of $10, what can you expect? It was ok, and a good value for the price. The service was downright terrible, slow, bad, horrific, whatever other fitting word you could use. The people watching there (we got a booth on the rail) was top-notch though. There were lots of pretty people as well lots of buff people because there was a fight there that night (UFC type of fight).

Other
I got my wife a t-shirt at some point during the evening. I asked a guy that worked there to pick it for me so if she didn’t like it; it was his fault, not mine. I hate buying women clothes. If it’s too big, then you get the “what, do you think I am fat?”, and if it is too small, you get the “what, do you want me to lose weight?”. I got the size I thought she’d need and moved on. Let’s see if it fits her and which of those lines I get. If I remember the cab ride to/from Hard Rock, I think it was about $10 bucks or so, from IP. Not too bad in my opinion.

Wrap-up
Wednesday was a drunken blur, but a lot of fun. Being up $260 on the day surely helped a lot with getting the trip off on the right foot, that is for sure. I got in bed around 6:30am or so.

Thursday
Gambling
Pai Gow (1) - Thursday started out with an early rise at about 9:30am or so and after a shower and breakfast, it was Pai Gow time. I played several hours, but couldn’t get anything going. The session was very uneventful, and I ended up winning a whopping $10 bucks on the session. Better than nothing, right?
BJ – I didn’t gamble much during the day this day. We did a lot of walking and eventually monorailed it to the LV Hilton and cabbed it downtown. My buddy B and I sat down at a $10 double deck pitch game at 4 Queens and we got some hot cards. I turned my $100 buy-in in to $200 after about an hour and a half or so. Sweet!!
Pai Gow (2) – Mike and I had been texting back and forth and planned to meet at the fabulous El Cortez for some $5 Pai Gow. Seriously, can you beat $5 Pai Gow?? Cocktail service was good, so that added to the experience, and the table was pretty fun. Mike was great company as well as the others at the table who were mostly locals. We had a good time for an hour or 2 grinding it out and treading water. I ended the session with a whopping $10 profit. Hey, I’ll take that. Mike was heading to dinner with some T2Vers and my buddies were ready to head back to the Hilton.
Sports – I had a 2-teamer that I can’t recall the details of. If memory serves me right, over in the UNC game was part of it, and the game went under by 20-30 points, so it wasn’t even close. Oh well, I still had some upcoming games to make it up on, right?
Day 2 Gambling: +100
Total Gambling: + 360

Food
Teahouse at IP – I got eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast. It was pretty good and soaked up the excess booze out of my stomach and woke me up after the 3 or so hours of sleep I got. Service was a little slow, but so was I that morning, so it was all good. It was about 9-10 bucks or so, a tad high I felt, but not bad, and the breakfast was good so whatever.
Zeffirino in Venetian – We were walking through the Venetian and saw this place and decided to give it a run. It was really good. I got a Caesar salad with chicken and it was 14 bucks. N got fettuccini alfredo and he said if was good as well. K got a 3 course meal that was $25 and he got to pick from each category. He got a seafood salad which he said was great (looked gross to me), some kind of chicken entrée, and some little pastry things for dessert that were really small. Service here was great. They all had fake Italian accents that were humorous, but they were attentive, but not overly so. They even turned K’s coffee cup to where the handle was lined up with where his hand would be when he picked it up.
Flaming-O buffet – No one could decide what we all wanted for dinner and since Mesa Grill was booked that night, we did the Flaming-O buffet. It was ok, but not worth the 22 bucks they charged for dinner. The prime rib was so-so, the fried shrimp were dry, but the other stuff I had was decent. The cookies for dessert were really good.

Other
One of the funnier things this night was muttered by N. The 4 of us were drinking some brews at Bellagio and wandered over towards the bathroom. I came out and Kareem Abdul Jabbar is standing out there. Of course there were loads of people around him. I told N, “Look, there is Kareem Abdul Jabbar”, to which N replied, “Which one?” That is freakin’ classic. I guess it wasn’t enough that most people around were normal sized, and then there was a guy in the middle of them all who was over 7 feet tall. More beer for N! The monorail was awesome. We took it to the LV Hilton to meet one of my buddies’ co-workers there and then to head downtown. The cab from the LVH to downtown was about $10 roughly I think. Not too bad. On the way back from downtown, since we had 6 people, we couldn’t get in a single cab. A limo was driving down the street by 4 Queens and he offered us a ride back to the LVH for 40 bucks. We took him up on it and off we went around 12:30 or 1am. Since I was on 3 hours of sleep from the night before, I decided I’d get some sleep and K and I went back to the IP, via monorail.

Wrap-up
Day 2 was a bit more calm than day 1 due to my lack of sleep. I had a great day nonetheless. Off to be I went about 2-2:30am or so. I got a message from B saying he was on his way back about 2:30 or so (more on that later).

Friday

Gambling
BJ (1) – I woke up at some point of another and walked down to Bill’s. I bought in to a $10 single deck game for $100 bucks. Pretty quickly, I was up to $150 and I considered walking then and taking my $50 profit and using it for lunch at the Mesa Grill. There were a couple guys at the table also and we had been chatting it up and they convinced me to stay until I lost 2 hands in a row. I stayed for about another hour, go figure. Eventually, after up and down and up and down, I had gotten my $100 buy-in up to $200. I decided I’d walk then. I believe the other 2 guys were up over $100 bucks as well, so all was good at the table. I took off down to IP and ended up throwing $84 of my $100 profit in to basketball games (more on that next).
Sports – As said a second ago, I threw 84 bucks in to basketball bets today. I put a $20 2-teamer on Texas and over. It hurt to do that being the Aggie I am, but money is money, right? That game was good for me, winner winner chicken dinner. I made $72 on my $20 bet, $52 being profit. My next bet was Memphis and over in another game. I can’t remember. That game didn’t hit. Doh. Lastly, I threw $44 on UNC -5.5. That was a Saturday game, so I’ll report on that one tomorrow. So out of my $84 in bets, I’ve gotten $72 back. Not bad, not bad.
Craps – After the Suite Party (details below) I went down with E (Jack21) to throw some dice. Many other from the Suite Party joined us as well. We had a hell of a time throwing dice and the beer was still flowing freely with some great cocktail service. It was a roller coaster session for the most part. I got the dice and had a heck of a roll, maybe 20+ minutes or so. I have some weird superstition to where when I roll, I only play pass line and odds. I don’t place bets or play hard ways. I think I look at it as if I have a job to do, establish a point, and then get the point, that’s it. If I was playing across the top with the place bets, I’d have made a killing off my roll. Maybe this will change my superstition. I made E some good bank as well as the rest of the table. It was a good roll. Eventually, once my stack neared even and my roll had passed, I cashed out for a $7 loss. I consider that a win. Playing craps with E and having a bunch of the folks from the Suite Party hanging around the table as well made that an extremely well spent 7 bucks. Well, that and I easily had $7 in beer.
BJ (2) – I wandered my drunk ass over the Bellagio thinking it would be a good idea to play 6/12 limit hold em. They had just broken the game according to the guy at the desk. They had 4/8 and 15/30 along with higher limit games and some no limit games. I reasoned that I was far too drunk to play any of those, go figure. I ended up settling in to a fun $10 BJ table with the dreaded continuous shuffle machine. Last I know, I swore those off, but whatever. I bought in for $500 bucks and got up to $700 and walked. I didn’t want my luck to turn any.
Pai Gow - I wandered over to a $50 Pai Gow table and bought in with my $700 bucks. I went on a mad run and got up over $1000 bucks (+$500 in all at the Bellagio.) I ended up taking a walk and sending a picture of my $1000 chip out via picture message for no good reason, but I thought it’d be fun. So, drunk, feeling lucky, and wanting to gamble more, I went back and started playing $100 a hand most of the time and $50 from time to time. You know what happened next? They smoked me!! It was a lot of fun drinking fancy Fiji water along with my beer though. Getting hit on by a hooker was fun too. I also got a free breakfast buffet for the next morning, so that was nice. Worth 5 bills?? No, but it was a lot of fun still. So that sucked.
Poker – After wandering back to the IP, I decided now was the time for some 1/2 NL hold em. Sounds fun right? I could barely see straight but whatever. I bought in for $100 bucks and had a great session. I can’t remember many hands but I remember dragging at least 3 pots that were $100+ and losing 1 big one when my QQ ran in to KK on a crappy board. It happens. I remember pulling 2 big bluffs as well. One with 4/5 suited and one with 8/6 off. A guy folded AA face up when I was holding my 8/6 off. The board was showing 3 to a flush and 3 to a straight. It was something like Kh 9h 7h 8c 2c, or something to that affect. He raised me $40 in to an $80 or so pot and I went over the top and raised him to $140 total ($100 more). He didn’t call my $100 though, thankfully, and folded his AA face up. Yes, before you ask, I did show. I felt shitty about it though. He was a nice guy and was playing good poker. Oh well, a bad lay down is better than a bad call, right? Another had I remember playing was when I picked up AA in the BB. Someone raised to $12, 2 callers, and the rest folds around to me. There was $37 in the pot so I raised it to $50 ($38 more). Everyone folded. I probably over played my AA there, but I think the bad karma would have kicked me in the ass and my AA would have been cracked. I cashed out a few hands later for $377, $277 profit. Woohoo!! Good session.
Day 3 Gambling: -$232
Gambling Total: +$128

Food
Mesa Grill – B had made us a Mesa Grill reservation for 12:30pm on Friday. We tried to eat there Thursday, but they were booked. Funny thing is, B still hadn’t been seen since the night before. B is glued to his cell phone and wouldn’t answer, call, or anything (more on this in the ‘Other’ section). So K, N, and I went to eat and I had a $16 burger that was pretty good and some $12 goat cheese queso that was great. I paid $35 for my share and felt OK about it. A little pricey, but not bad. I wouldn’t have gone there if it wasn’t for B making us the reservation.
Ellis Island – Mike (mikenhe), Miles (tractor boy) and I had planned to beet Chuck (Flagger) and Ms. Flagger (I am sorry, I can’t remember your name) at Ellis Island. We walked over and met Chuck and Ms. Flagger at the BJ tables and I went to check to see how long the wait would be. They said none and seated us immediately. We all went for the Steak special. Steak, potato of your choice, green beans, salad, and a beer for $7.50. It was good for the price, but not great. Definitely a great value though, and that’s exactly what we went for, the good value. The green beans were a little salty and the my steak was a bit overdone, but all in all, everything was fine. I had amber ale, Mike and Miles had a dark beer, and Mr. and Ms. Flagger went for the root beer. The conversation was great as all of our anticipation for the party was showing. We made the walk back and Mike, Miles and I decided to regroup at 6:45 by the Geisha Bar before the party.

The Suite Party
As I said earlier, I am the kind of guy that is a little shy and reserved in new situations. I will admit I was a little scared going to this party at 1st. I had met several T2Vers on Wednesday night so that helped ease my pain a bit. The party was an absolute blast. Very special thanks to the hostesses with the mostesses for putting on the shindig. I hung out on the balcony a lot of the time drinking beer and having cigars. Corey (SnertAlert) offered me some killer Macanudos (thanks man) and a lot of folks were outside drinking and smoking on the balcony. Does it really get any better than that? The conversation was great and everyone was so extremely pleasant. These people know how to have a party, and to add to that a party that is truly fun for all. No one was left out and no one had to try to fit in, it just happened. We all had a shot of Patron for Sonya from glowy shot glasses that resembled shotgun shells in my opinion, and the liquor and beer were flowing freely all night. There were also finger foods that looked great as well. I had a few pieces of cheese off the table. It was a beautiful scene, so many different people, hanging out, talking, and having a killer time. I can’t say it enough; I truly enjoyed meeting everyone and had a great time. Thanks again to everyone. I can’t remember too many details from the party due to alcohol consumption, but I do remember Terry (LVTerry) taking a spill and feeling the floor shake. I didn’t actually see it, but I surely heard and felt it. I bet that fall was a ‘pain in the ass’ T, sorry for laughing dude. Other than that, most of my memories were meeting, talking, and hanging with everyone at the Suite Party. I got many hugs and hand shakes from folks and felt like I fit in with the group. Hopefully yall felt the same.

Other
Let’s tell the story of B. So as I said earlier, B is glues to his damn blackberry. Constantly on it, checking it, touching it, looking at it, and everything else. I had gotten a call from him he previous night saying he was almost back. Well, he never came in. We were hoping he’d meet us at the Mesa Grill for lunch, since he made the reservation and has a man crush on Bobby Flay, but no, he didn’t. We were all worried about him, but 1/2 of me thought he was a grown man, so he could take care of himself. During lunch, we discussed all the best/worst case scenarios. Did he get arrested? Beat up? Lost? Hook up with a chick? Die? Who knows? We figured best case was that he got arrested because we figured if he hooked up with a girl, he’d have called bragging. Well, time passed, and more time. We contacted LVPD and they gave us numbers to the area hospitals and jails. We were meeting back in my room after K got his phone and we were going to call the jails 1st, then the hospitals searching for him. About 3pm rolls around, and I get a text message from B, “hooked up with a chick, be back later”. So we text back and forth and I sent him one saying, ‘bring booze and stories, this better be good’. So, in all his glory, B texts me back with the most epic texts I have ever received, ‘Will see. She was much better looking last night.’ ZING!!!! Hahahaha. Awesome. So he gets back, still drunk, and wants to go to sleep, but of course K, N, and I won’t let him go to sleep, we need details, right. It was a blast grilling him, and some of the stuff we discussed can’t be posted here, but it was hilarity. Funny stuff. You’re my boy B.

Wrap-up
With the party, B missing, and some mad gambling, this made for a great day in Vegas. Probably my favorite day of the trip, but an extremely tiring day at that.

Saturday

Gambling
Poker – Really, my only gambling today was the T2V poker tournament. Before I get going on talking about that, I want to give a mad shout out to Dougie for setting this whole thing up. It was an absolute blast from step one until the final card was dealt. I was Table 1, Seat 6 to start, which is one of my favorite positions at the table because it’s so easy to see everything from there. Scott was talking shit about KOing Sandra the whole time, which brings me to my 1st notable hand: Sandra was on the button if I remember right in seat 8. Scott was in the BB in Seat 10. Scott out Sandra all-in and it folded to me and I called for 550 (I think, but it was close to that). Flop comes A, x, x. I had AK. Scott asks how much I have so I separate it in to stacks so he can easily count it. Meanwhile, Scott puts me all in, and I sit and think for a second and before I know it, the dealer drags my chips in!! Hold up dude, hold up. I didn’t call. Scott agreed that I didn’t call and I was only showing my chip count and the dealer gave me my chips back. I folded my AK face up. Scott rolled AA and Sandra rolled QQ. Whew, glad I folded there. So Scott took Sandra out (2nd one out, Miles – tractor boy - was 1st out). Sandra earned a nice fishy necklace. The 2nd notable hand was at the final table. I looked down and saw AA. Good to see sitting at the final table. I was sitting on about 6200 or so in chips and had an all in for 2600 in front of me. I went all-in over the top of the 1st all in (Don, I believe) hoping to isolate. Lars Vegas (Chris – right?) ended up calling my all in and when we rolled our cards, Don had Ace/face and Chris has 44. Window card was a 4. DOH! Turn was a blank, so I was drawing to 1 out. The river brought a 4 giving Chris quads and sending Don and I to the rail. The tourney was a lot of fun and well worth the $65 entry fee. Once again, props to Dougie for setting this bad boy up. The results are posted in a separate thread, so I won’t put this in here. I had a last longer bet with Mile and Mike and ended up winning that, so it was like a $20 discount for the tourney, nice.
Sports – I had a bet on UNC -5.5 that I placed the day before. It was for 44 bucks. They ended up beating Louisville by 10 if I remember right. Woohoo, +40 bucks there.
Day 4 Gambling: -$5 (-65 tourney, +20 last-longer, +40 1-teamer)
Gambling Total: +$123

Food
Bellagio Buffet - 1st up was the Bellagio buffet I got from the night before. It was an awesome buffet. I don’t know that’d I’d want to pay full price for it which was something like 22 or 24 bucks, but it was great. I had a bacon/cheese omelet, some bacon, and a salad. I was stuffed. K went with me and had some great words to say about it as well.
Snickers bar – I saw someone walking around the Flamingo eating a snickers during the tourney. It looked so freakin’ good for some reason so I had to have one. It was kind of my lunch.
Emiril’s New Orleans Style Fish House – Since B missed the Mesa Grill meal and he wanted to go somewhere nice for one meal, he made this reservation. It was just B, K and I. N has a cousin who lives in Henderson, so he was going to dinner with him. We got a good table over near a glass wall that looking in to the wine cellar. We all started with either a cocktail or beer, and placed our order. They brought out corn bread and a roll for each of us. I can easily say the corn bread was the BEST corn bread I have ever had. The food came and B and I ordered a cedar plank rib eye with some kind of tomato sauce with vegetables poured over it and mashed potatoes and K ordered salmon if I remember right and it looked great. The steak was awesome and cooked perfectly medium-rare. The sauce on top was decent but it was water chestnuts in it and I hate those because of the consistency of them. The mashed potatoes were great as well. I asked for another piece of cornbread to have with the meal and they brought some over and it made the meal over the top good. Great meal and I really recommend this place for a special occasion. It was very pricey, but worth it in my opinion for a special occasion or for a big meal for the trip. My steak ($45) and beer ($6 or 7), tax, and tip came to $65 total.

Other
This was my last full day in Vegas so I wanted to get some more gambling in but due to being dead tired, slightly hung over most of the day, and just not ‘feeling it’, I didn’t do any gaming other than the poker tourney and my $44 1-teamer Saturday. It was a great day though, and it absolutely flew by.

Wrap-up
The realization of this being my last day sucked, but like I said, it was a good day, though extremely mellow. One thing this day that kind of irked me is that I was really craving a diet coke. I love the taste of diet coke and probably am slightly addicted to caffeine. I couldn’t freakin’ find a diet coke! All I could fine were Pepsi products. Doh! Oh well.

Sunday

Gambling
Well, sad to report, I didn’t gamble before leaving on Sunday. Not even a 20 through the airport slots. I was just kind of ready to get home at this point. Well, I don’t know that I was ready to be home, but I was tired both mentally and physically and was ready for my own bed and to hang with the wife again. So, no gambling on Sunday, I guess my trip kind of officially ended Saturday evening.

Food
Teahouse at the IP - Woke up early and headed up to the Teahouse at the IP. I got the same breakfast as I did on the Thursday morning. It wasn’t as good because I wasn’t as hung over. Breakfast always tastes better when it’s used to dilute or soak up the alcohol from your system. I paid partially with the $5 in comp dollars I earned. Woohoo.
Tin Torrino at Venetian – I met up with K as I was taking my stuff up to their room (K, N, and B were staying an extra day, and with an 11am check out, I stowed away my bags in their room for a few hours). We walked over to the Venetian because K had remembered seeing this little bistro when we were at the fancy schmancy Italian place for lunch on Thursday. It was really good. I got 2 fried eggs, bacon, potatoes, and toast. They toast looked like French bread with nothing on it, but other than that, everything was fabulous. I guess when I think of toast, I think of sliced bread. It was about 12 bucks or so, I can’t remember exactly. I recommend this place.

Other
B, B, B. So B was staying with me for the 1st 4 nights of the trip, and the last night, he’d be moving in with N and K down on the 15th floor. So B staggers in about 7 or 8am. I am not exaggerating when I say staggered either. He came in, took off his clothes (only down to his skiveys, thankfully) and immediately crawled in to the bathroom, closed the door, and barfed. What a way to get waken up!! So then I heard the door open and saw the light coming out of the bathroom, but no B. After 5 or so mins, I went to make sure he was alive, and there he was, in all his glory. Laying ½ in and ½ out of the bathroom, sleeping. I try to wake him, 1-to make sure he’s alive and conscious, and 2-to see if he wants me to help him in to bed. He didn’t say much other than ‘no’ when I asked if he wanted to get in bed. I asked if he wanted a pillow at least and he said, ‘yeah’, so I gave him a pillow and the trash bag from one of the trashcans. It’s about 9am by now. I ran down to the casino to go to the Teahouse and to go pee because I couldn’t pee in the bathroom in the room, unless I straddled B to do so. So after breakfast I head back up to the room and B had made it in to bed, but when I closed the door, it woke him, and he crawled back in to the bathroom to barf again, yum. Eventually, he made it back to bed and I let him sleep until about 10:30am or so. I had to wake him to get him packed up and down to the other room. I called K up to help me carry his bags, and thankfully he came to help out, all B had to carry was himself and a bottle of water. He finally woke up on about my 8th try to wake him, when I got frustrated and ripped the covers off and told him to man up. Poor dude, if I was him, I’d have kicked my ass. I packed all his crap by throwing it in to his suitcases, and off we went. We got him in to bed in the other room, and K and I headed out to lunch/breakfast (2) at the Venetian. When I told B, ‘bye’, he did the hand shake/bro hug thing, and hung on for what felt like 20 seconds. I think he fell asleep for a few seconds, on my shoulder. Doh. B was out of control but had a lot of fun.

Flight
Of course, in typical McCarran fashion, the flight was delayed. Security lines were out of control, and easily over 100 yards long before the zig zag thing near where you get checked. It went surprisingly fast though, so that was a good thing. I got to D terminal and tried to buy my other half something, but they didn’t have what I wanted, so I didn’t. I bought a Diet Coke and an Easy Crossword book to kill some time. Back to Dallas I go.

Wrap-up
Sunday was low key due to the realization I was leaving Mecca and realizing I had to be at the office at 7am the next day. That is never a fun feeling. Like I said earlier, I was ready to get back to some sense of normalcy, but I wasn’t ready for work.

Final Random Thoughts
-I won a few bucks gambling, but spent a few hundred on food, booze, cabs, souvenirs, random stuff, etc. Not counting hotel ($186 for my share) and air ($240), I came home probably with $225 or so less than I left with. A win in my book.
-One last time I want to say I really genuinely enjoyed meeting absolutely everyone from the board. I was pretty nervous being a 1st timer and all, but for anyone else hesitant to hang with this crew at a get-together, I can truly say, ‘Go for it’. Everyone was extremely nice and no one made you do anything you didn’t want to do or make you feel out of place at all. There were so many different personalities, but everyone meshed extremely well and had a great time at the expense of no one else. It wasn’t as if people split up and segregated themselves if they were different. We all had our own fun and shared in everyone else’s. I really can’t put in to words how to describe it, but if you go in the future, you’ll get what I mean, and if you’ve been, I think you know what I am trying to say. It was an absolute pleasure to meet everyone. I had a blast.
-My buddies had a great time in Vegas. They didn’t partake in the MMV festivities. They did more of the bar/club hopping that doesn’t interest me much, so it was nice we all got to hang, but also got to do our own thing as well.
-B was out of control several nights, but he’s a grown man, so to each his own. N drank a hell of a lot too, but he handled it a bit more mellow than B. K was the most mature of the bunch and usually stopped drinking before totally derailing. They were a fun mix to hang with.
-I consider this trip a win, though I came home with less money than I left with.
-It sucks to be home and back at work now.
-Sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes, I am a horrible writer.