80 days

Current mood: Leaving Las Vegas


The NEW Frontier, Westward Ho, Stardust, and (cry) Imperial Palace. When a person says they are visiting Las Vegas there is a clamor for wishing that individual “good luck” or “don’t get rolled by hookers” depending on their level of potential degeneracy. In my case the word “wheelchair” comes up more than fifty times for good reason as my button for stopping most of the time short circuits after two consecutive dealer Pai Gows or just watching a winning craps table chest bump as another pass line bet makes it there.

This time was different, oh I still put a good dent into the city’s Captain Morgan supply, like .0002%, but the flavor or theme of the trip was unlike the WPBT trips usually found within these pages. No 5am steak and eggs after spending ten hours to lost five dollars at a table. Playing long enough to outlast everyone except the morning crew’s vacuum cleaners and the poor blonde in the sparkly silver dress with the slit cut nearly to her armpit waiting on douchebaggis maximus to stop berating the dealer from the Liaoning Province for flipping up a six card 21 after Mr. 35 degree hat turn pressed his bet up to ten dollars.

Photo Cred (my Father-in-Law who does not have a blog)

Nope this time was for good fun with the right people and avoiding the shit show that I usually dive in like Ndamukong Suh when he’s not busy stomping fellow professional athletes into the Ford Field turf.

My kids acted better in Vegas than at DisneyWorld to my surprise as the reins were iron tight, yet they both enjoyed the trip enough to ask when they could return. Small things like a 10 minute conversation along the revived Fremont Street with a sizable woman twisting balloons for their enjoyment as she seemed happier that someone made her feel human for 10 minutes than the nice tip for twisting up a flower and a motorcycle in latex for the boy and girl who managed to get both home to the frozen north four days later.

After my wife zipped from the new “D” casino down near the Golden Nugget on the new http://flightlinezfremont.com/ Flightlinez I took leave from the family for the only time while they were awake to meet up with two ladies with similar taste for drink and leaving politeness at the door. Writer Jen www.twitter.com/WriterJen and the lovely PokerVixen www.twitter.com/pokervixen managed to direct me a whole block away to foreign territory for this Vegas vet. Aside from golfing and watching my wife plummet to the earth in a parachute, I have not gone off Strip or Fremont. Ever.

But, a rocks glass of Templeton Rye and two intelligent ladies making their marks in Sin City was too much to pass up. As I abhor chain restaurants/bars, they turned me to the excellent Mob Bar http://mobbarlv.com/ to imbibe on brown liquids as I probably scarred them with a timeline of how I met my wife. The hospitality did not stop there as we hit up Cheetah’s for $1,000 foursome fantasy dances in the VIP with an eight-ball, Goose and Juice, and Peter Dinklage slipping into character for our amusement.

While a coked out story may be fun to type up, we actually more fun taking down the Four Queens instead. My gambling vice/leak has been and always will be slots. Those damn things with their Mr. Monopoly bonus game hopping around the square board hoping to land on Boardwalk for a plethora of pennies.

But, the player’s card offered a challenge to acquire X amount of points in exchange for a t-shirt. I love free t-shirts almost more than my kids and would even sit through a lap dance at the Glitter Gulch if it meant receiving a $1.99 ink pressed shirt with “Grinded dry at the Gulch” happily displayed across the chest. So, play we did moving from Wheel. Of. Fortune! To little fishes that refused to give up their bonus game like a pouty socialite refusing to drink anything but Cristal, we tried them all, and I managed to not only acquire the points but notched a decent win thanks to the Playboy machine that did not give out enhanced ta-tas but rather a few hundred for mild progressive win.

After bidding good night as PokerVixen carted me back to the Mirage by way of seeing Vegas’ attractions that do not offer a free buffet and 2-for-1 Bud Lights, I believe renting a car will be in play for the next trip. I found out that sitting in a $1/$3 NLHE game is quite boring if the tablemates include Ms. SERIOUS PRO GRINDER who was working her iPad to pass level 236 of Candy Crush , McLovin clone on my immediate right asking me no less than a dozen times in two hours if I would show my cards after placing a chip on top for the dealer, or even the smartly dressed Bro who defined his fellow Bros by actually being pleasant at the table and telling them to fuck off from the rail.

Will I be back? Of course. I may be “maturing” but my degeneracy is evolving rather than dying. And meeting up with the fine folks I’ve met through poker writing and now my family makes each return trip worth it.