Trip Report: 07/19/05 to 07/26/05
“The Rollercoaster ride”

The family is on vacation in Europe. I’ve got a stack of free room offers to use up. We’re in between the Spring and Summer baseball seasons. I’ve got to use or lose a bunch of vacation days before the end of the year.
It’s time for Vegas, baby!

Plans for this week-long trip included 2 nights at THE RIO, 3 nights at LAS VEGAS CLUB, and 2 nights at GREEN VALLEY RANCH. With ZERO gambling obligations, I “planned” on just having a nice relaxing time, taking in the sights, and spreading some action around (trolling for offers). As it turned out, I didn’t spread it around as much as I wanted to and pretty much conformed to my standard M.O.. I didn’t do anything spectacular, and I gambled more than enough to take care of some minor jones.

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jones (jŌnz) n, vt. A habit of an activity, a craving or urge to perform an act often to the point of excess. An addiction, esp. to drugs, sports, gambling, and other enjoyable actions. Borrowed from the cartoon “Fat-Albert” and the drug-ladened 60’s and early 70’s.
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TUESDAY July 19 (Day 1)

Up at 3am. Grabbed my overnight bag, bag-o-weak-ass-coupons, and beef jerky, and out the door around 4am to beat the So Cal traffic. Arrived at GREEN VALLEY RANCH at 8am for a pit stop and a brief bout on bonus deuces and FPDW (0).

Plans for the day were pretty loose. Work, JOKER’S WILD craps, HACIENDA craps, RAILROAD PASS craps, TUSCANY, check in at THE RIO, and finish up at THE PALMS. Stopped over at Panera Bread near GVR in the morning to do some work… ended up at Krispy Kreme next door. They both have free wireless internet service. This is where my lap-top died for good. Thank goodness. Now I get a new one.

Headed out to JOKER’S WILD. They now have a slot club, but there’s nothing playable for me. Played craps on their $1 10x odds 14’ table for about an hour (-60). It’s a decent table, but the dealers are really green. They still have 25c chips, so it’s still packed with a bunch of old craps derelicts dwindling away their SS checks.

Next in line was HACIENDA. Their craps table was closed, and it didn’t look like they had quarter chips anymore (need verification). The slot club was running a buffet special for a free buffet for 500 points. Sure, why not. I was getting hungry and I’ve never done this one. After playing 100.1% Loose Deuces for a while, it was time to hit the $60 buffet (-60). (more…)

Welcome back for the latest installment in my series of infamous Las Vegas trip reports. This report requires a little history lesson. I am friends with a group of track coaches that have attended the United States Track & Field Olympic Trials every four years since 1992. The Trials were held in Sacramento in 2000, and we snuck over to Reno during the two day break. We had such a good time that we decided to go to Las Vegas in 2002 to break up the four year wait. Well, that 2002 trip has resulted in annual trips to Las Vegas every summer since, including 2004, when we went a mere two weeks before returning to Sacramento for the Trials. The cast is made up of high school track coaching legends and educators Rudy, Emery, Rudy’s son Matthew, Rudy’s son-in-law Chris, and yours truly. The notorious Whitey, who has joined us on other trips, got the clamps put on him from Mrs. Whitey, and is missing from this year’s roster. This trip report is a lot tamer than when I go on my solo trips, since alcohol doesn’t play as big of a role when I go with others.

BigCheese Fabulous Las Vegas Trip Report XVII

The tradition lives on! The track coaches invade Las Vegas. Rudy (Rude-dog), Matthew (The Puppy), Chris (Puppy-In-Law) and Emery (Captain J) joined your humble reporter, me, for a fourth consecutive annual trip to Sin City.

Since it was only his second trip with the Boys, and having done a lousy job of babysitting the Puppy last year, Chris was placed on double-super-secret probation for the first part of the trip. At the request of his mother, we thought of putting Matthew on probation too. But he does such a good job of getting drunked up and providing entertainment that we decided against it, and only told her that we would. The rest of us required no such probation, as nobody really thought that a bunch of old farts needed it. However, a separated shoulder almost prevented Rudy from attending this year’s excursion. Rudy assured us that he was capable of performing all of his required functions without assistance, which is good since this is a pretty unsympathetic bunch.

Sunday

Our group convened at the Capital City Airport in Lansing. Congratulations to Rudy abounded, as he took over his new position as Superintendent of Hemlock High School on Friday. I questioned Rudy on the difficulty of a job that would require him to take a vacation after only one day of work. Fortunately the promotion has not gone to his head, as we only had to call him “Super-Rudy”, and not “His Highness” on the trip.
I knew that I was destined for a successful trip as I was a winner before we even flew out. I was informed by the TSA people that my name was randomly selected by the computer, so I asked them what I won. The grand prize was a full body search. I have won better awards, but I didn’t complain. After pulling me aside to do the search, I was a little worried about my belongings traveling by their lonesome through the screener. I called out to the Boys to grab my crap, which they did.

The screening process obviously not what it should be, the dumb-asses finally got around to getting my stuff, which was neatly stacked on the side by Rudy and Emery. After the security saw this, one of them asked for whoever touched my stuff. Rudy reluctantly came forward, but Emery bolted. Reminiscent of the old Hertz commercials, Emery looked like O J Simpson running up the stairs before disappearing around a corner. It’s the fastest he’s moved in years. I momentarily thought about squealing on him, but I decided to shut up and let Rudy take the rap by himself. Rudy was also rewarded with a search, although he did not leave the screener a tip.

I required only one Bloody Mary on the quiet flight, amazingly void of any whiny brats. Rudy needed no pain medication for his shoulder, and we even discussed selling some of his pills at the Western for some extra cash. The highlight of the flight came when Matthew won a garbage bag full of $1 bills when flight attendant Geonn selected his bill in the money game. Visions of entering Glitter Gulch with a bag full of singles immediately filled Matthew’s head. (more…)