Monday, 6 December 2004
6:00pm
| L |
The sections where the evelation went up past 3000 feet or so were particularly cold, my fingers were getting rather chilly even with the gloves on and the heater blowing directly on my hands. Brrrrrr. I know some people out there are thinking "bah, you're such a wuss, it's 30 below here where I live" -- well I'm just further solidifying the idea that I am definitely not a winter person.
At least the drive was nice and easy with no traffic along the way (this is why I rarely go to Vegas on the weekends!). I did get some strange looks from people along the way when it started raining somewhere south of Ontario, CA and I, of course, pressed on with the top down. Actually, unless it's a real downpour, I won't get wet as long as I keep it above 60mph or so... which is why I don't bother to stop and put the top up -- I would get more wet by stopping to put the top up than I would by just continuing on in the rain... of course once you hit traffic... yeah you might think about putting that top back up haha.
I'm staying Downtown again. I plan on playing lots and lots of poker, and hanging out with friends that live here in town. I'm here during NFR again, and just like the last time I did that, Downtown Las Vegas is like a sea of cowboy hats. Hopefully these cowboys have watched just enough Texas Hold'em on TV to lose all their money to me at the poker tables!
And now... I must get ready to head out to dinner with friends!
Friday, 10 December 2004
5:00pm
| I |
monday
I
didn't want to talk specifics about where I was staying and here's why.
While my drive up to Vegas was easy and uneventful, pretty much everything
that happened after seemed to go wrong. First of all, I went to the wrong
hotel. You see, I booked the room late the night before, and I had wanted
to stay at the Plaza but couldn't get a room, so I booked a room at the
Four Queens instead. But you see it wasn't just late at night when I booked
the room, I was also pretty drunk. So I forgot that I was supposed to
go to the Four Queens but went to the Plaza first. I was very confused
when the guy at the front desk told me he had no record of me having a
reservation there.
When I finally remembered what was going on, I went to the right hotel. As soon as I parked in the parking garage, I knew something was screwy. The elevator in the parking garage is on the other side of the parking structure from the door that takes you inside... wtf? I went to the front desk to check in and they informed me that it would cost $3 a day to park in their garage. What!?!? I've never heard of any Vegas casino charging its own hotel guests to park in their garage! To cap it off, the girl at the front desk informed me that it included "in and out priviledges" as if that was some great deal she was giving me.
So I got my keys at the front desk and went up to my room. The bed looked a little ruffled up, and I thought "oh my God, they didn't even turn the room down..." but actually it was worse -- I realized that was somebody's feet under the covers. Then I noticed a big cowboy hat on the desk. Hrm. They actually gave me a room with someone still in it! How is that even possible? Eventually, they ended up putting me in a different room, room number 1415. More about this later. When I finally got into my real room, well, it was pretty small, the shower didn't drain well... it will suffice to say that I doubt I will ever stay there again. Although it was pretty cheap at $26 a night, there are other places in downtown Las Vegas that I can stay at for the same price or less that won't charge me to park in their own garage if I stay there... and have their garage elevators near the casino entrance... or in the casino.
A
few months ago, my friends Scott and Summer moved from San Diego to Las
Vegas. That evening I went over to their house and we went out to a little
restaurant/bar near their house called the "Inn Zone". We showed up during
Monday Night Football and I noticed that they not only had a high definition
widescreen tv setup... but they were actually piping in a real high definition
signal into it! Very very rare is it for a public venue to actually do
this! I've seen so many bars and restaurants and casinos and whatnot that
spend all this money on HDTV's and don't even bother to give it the right
signal! Major props. Plus their beer was crazy cheap, like $2.50 a pitcher.
Back at their house I tried to get their dog to pose with me in a picture
but "Piper" definitely did not want to cooperate.
I had originally planned to play some poker that night after leaving Scott and Summer (after all, they did have to work the next morning) but I was so tired already that I decided to just head back to the hotel and go to sleep... though not before stopping by the Golden Gate for their 99 cent shrimp cocktail first!
tuesday
Tuesday I woke up hearing the housekeepers knocking on doors waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the hall. I went back to sleep. And then I woke up... much later than I had originally wanted to. I was hoping to get a lot of poker time in before meeting up with Scott and Summer again for dinner. Oh well. It was around noon that I walked down to Main Street Station to have their buffet for lunch. Sadly I found that instead of my favorite oyster tofu dish, they had a tofu dish with "spicy sauce". But it was a good value as usual.
After gorging myself I walked over to the Horseshoe and sat down at a $4-$8 hold'em game. Things didn't go too well. I just wasn't getting any cards to play. I signed up for the no limit tournament they had at 2pm. I don't know why I did that, I know I am not a good no limit player, but I did it anyway. I guess at least I can say at least I wasn't the first person eliminated from the tournament haha.
I made a quick stop into the Gambler's General Store to pick up a new set of KEM cards... the ones I've been using for my home games are a few years old now and were due for replacing. Adding to my "nothing is going right this trip" collection was the fact that though they had the design I wanted, they didn't have it in the colors I wanted. Yeah, ok, minor gripe, but after the ordeal with the hotel room, and losing money and all, I dunno, it just got me just that little bit more down. But I took what I could get, and got me that set of cards, plus some extra cut cards.
From there I headed down to The Palms' poker room, where I've had previous success finding dumb players, and sat down at their $4-$8 game... which actually turned out to be more like a $2-$4-$8 game, with it costing only $2 to see the flop. Well... let's just say that's a great betting structure for encouraging people to get outdrawn by crappy cards. Sigh. Oh well, it was off to Ellis Island for the super barbeque menu. Scott and Summer met us there. There are a lot of good food specials at Ellis Island, this was my first time trying the BBQ section though. Well worth it!
Not long after, another friend of mine, Ben, flew into town from San Diego, on a business trip. He met us over at Ellis Island where we headed over to the bar/lounge to check out the nightly karaoke (and of course to imbibe the cheap drinks.. $1.50 house brews!). I even ended up getting up on stage a couple of times... of course when I went up to do my first song ("Fly Me to the Moon"), the guy had cued up the wrong song. Argh. But it went off ok and everything turned out all right in the end. It was an early night for my working friends, however. And so I decided to head to the Gold Coast casino (where I knew a ton of cowboys would be in town for NFR) to check out their new poker room that just opened up.
By the time I got there, they only had two tables of $2-$4 going. Kinda small stakes but eh, they made me walk all the way across the entire casino from the parking lot. There were some crazy drunk people at that table (only one cowboy though... I thought poker was a cowboy's game?)... playing crazy loose... and catching miracle draw after miracle draw. Yup, that was just a bit frustrating. But at least I had a good time chatting with the people there, many of whom had never played poker in a casino setting before. And two of them happened to be from Downey, CA, where I used to live. And so after taking yet another loss, I headed back to the hotel and turned in for the night.
wednesday
I woke up, took a shower, packed and got the heck out of that hotel room. I was contemplating whether I should go back to San Diego now, or take up Ben's offer to crash in his hotel room wednesday night. I made my first stop at the Strip this whole trip to get some breakfast at the Casino Royale Denny's to get some free breakfast on previously earned comp credit. While I was eating I decided I'd go across the street to the Mirage's poker room and see if I can win back some of the money I lost.
When I got to my table at the Mirage and sat down... and a guy said "Hey, Bryan!" It was a guy I didn't recognize, so I just said "I'm sorry... you look familiar but I don't remember you..." and the guy informed me he was this guy I used to go to church with a long time ago... then I recognized him. Crazy the people you run into. He was there with another guy from my old church. I ended up taking some of both of their chips... and before I knew it, a few hours had passed and I knew it would be getting dark soon... and I hate driving back through the desert in the dark (it's dangerous enough as it is in the day!), so I called up Ben to see if he would be back from work yet or not. He didn't answer his cell phone so I left a message, thinking he was still working or something.
I went back to playing poker for a couple more hours until it was getting to a point that it was gonna be dinner time soon and I wanted to see if Ben wanted to get dinner somewhere. He answered the phone sounding like he had just woken up and I was like "Dude, did you just wake up?"... it turns out the first time I called him he was already back in his hotel room from work and was sleeping! Haha.
Oh here's something weird... the Mirage poker room doesn't allow players to read books or magazines at the tables! What!? If you've ever played Texas Hold'em in a casino you know that it is a lot of just sitting around waiting for hands you're not in to finish. Many people read books or magazines to pass the time, and in fact, there are poker magazines that are given away for free in card rooms. The Mirage owner even has these magazines available for players to take... but don't try reading them at the table!! Supposedly they had problems with regulars slowing the game down too much by not paying attention to their hands... that's pretty weaksauce haha.
After Ben came down from the hotel room and I picked up my chips and cashed out. Finally, I had actually come out ahead for once on this trip! We went down the street to pick up my car (and luggage). On the way we checked out the new mega-huge expansion of the Caesars Forum Shops. It's so huge that it totally blocks the Mirage's marquee sign! I bet they are pretty pissed about that! The inside is enormous, with these crazy spiral escalators! But, like the rest of the Forum Shops, it's full of stuff that is either useless or more than I can afford, pal. I took a few pictures which you can find in the giant repository of pics.
After dropping the car and luggage off at the hotel we went across the street to Casino Royale. I cashed out the rest of my previously earned comp credit and we went up to the Outback Steakhouse to get some dinner. You see, I don't think I'll be playing any more blackjack at Casino Royale, not for a while anyway. They don't have any real blackjack games anymore... only fake gimmicky knockoffs that are all worse for the player than the original thing. Oh well. At least the food was good.
It was after dinner that I came to the realization that maybe it wasn't just coincidence that as soon as I left that hotel room at the Four Queens that my luck had turned. You see, they put me in room number 1415. 14th floor, room number 15. Except that building doesn't have a 13th floor. So I was actually on the 13th floor. And wouldn't you know it, they don't have room number 13 in that hotel either. The side of the hall with the odd numbers went 9, 11, 15, 17... in other words, if they had used a normal, non-superstitious numbering system, I would have been in room number 1313!!! Now I am not a very superstitious man, but... GAH!!!! No wonder!
After dinner, Ben and I headed to downtown where we met Summer for some drinks. We ended up all meeting up with Scott back at Scott and Summer's place... then we went back to the Inn Zone for some beer. While we were there they had the NFR rodeo thing showing on some of the TVs. I looked up and saw a guy with the number 19 on his back... I turned to Ben and said "didn't we just see that guy earier today?" Earlier that evening we saw a cowboy with an NFR competitor number 19 getting into a limo in front of the Mirage... sure enough it was the same dude on TV! He wasn't doing too well compared to the other guys though.
Ben and I headed back to the Mirage to collect some of the free drink credit his room came with. We hung out at the bar next to the sports book just talking about football and whatnot. He was getting tired, but I convinced him to come play $2 craps across the street... a nice, cheap, fun way to pass some time, and well, almost as soon as I arrived I doubled my money! I lost some back, made some more, and lost some more back again, but I still finished ahead. Damn that old room 1313!!! After that it was late, I was drunk, Ben had to work in the morning, so we went back to the hotel and got some sleep.
Thursday
Thursday morning I woke up and Ben had already gone to work. I packed my things and headed out of town pretty much immediately, down that little road that runs next to the 15. I love that road! Makes you feel like you are out in the middle of nowhere, when actually the freeway is right next to you. I took that road all the way down into Jean, NV, where I stopped in to the Gold Strike for their $3.49 breakfast special -- 2 eggs, 3 bacon, hashbrowns and toast! Not bad, and it really hit the spot considering I had left town without eating anything and it was some time after noon by this point.
I thought about maybe hitting
up their $2 craps table, you know, "one for the road", but I decided that
at this point I just wanted to get back home to San Diego as soon as possible.
It was actually quite a bit warmer going back than it was on the way there.
In fact, I didn't really need my big jacket most of the way... it was
in the 60's (compared to 40's on the way there), except again, up in the
higher elevations, where it was chilly but not nearly as cold as it was
on the way there. It was a pretty easy, uneventful drive back. The end.
Good god that was a long update!