viva las vegas

Truthfully, there isn't all that much to talk about Vegas. We kept to sleeping, eating, gambling, and drinking almost the entire time.

I'll go ahead and try to summarize the days anyways.

Day 1

We leave our house at 6:20 AM, get to the airport before 7, and take off at 8. The flight was smooth, and we arrive in Vegas at 8:30 AM. Take a shuttle bus to the hotel, and eat and gamble until our rooms are ready.

We saw this guy waiting for our room key. 

No, not Travis. Look behind him. He's wearing something like this

Speaking of the rooms, they are nice. Here are some snapshots that don't do justice.

Entering our suite

Taking a right into our bathroom

Bathtub + shower to the right

Toilet + TV to the left

Back into the room, here is the king bed + flat screen

In the next area you have the desk + phone + view of the strip

And here's the couch

I thought one of the coolest parts was that the curtains and lights were controlled via remotes. As we leave, we can just click the "close drapes" button and hit the "All" lights button to turn off all the lights. Oh and they faded in and out, too, which is a nice touch.

The remainder of Day 1 was spent gambling away all my money in blackjack and craps, and eating. It should be noted that except for maybe a handful of occasions, the craps tables were very cold this entire trip. I'm talking about a continuous cycle of hitting a point, then rolling a seven-out. Losing $10 after $20 after $30 every few minutes.

We gambled a bit more, then went back upstairs, got into nicer clothes, and then hit up Switch, a cool restaurant inside Encore where the walls periodically "switch" (get it?!). Now by switching, I mean they had walls that raised up into the ceiling or came up from the ground, providing different combinations of ambiances, including no walls at all. It's kind of hard to explain, so if you didn't understand that, then check it out next time you're in Vegas. The food was very good, but I regret not getting a steak like the others; I got a red snapper plate which was good, but not as filling as a juicy steak.

After food, we continued our gambling binge. I went up the room earlier than everyone else because I was bummed out about my losses and my still-nagging cough. At the time, most everyone was up at least $100-200, so I wasn't thrilled being down $260.

Day 2
Those curtains sure do a great job of blocking out any light, because I slept until something absurd like 11-11:30 AM Vegas time. That would be 1-1:30 PM Austin time, and for those keeping track, the last time I slept until 1 or later was probably college. So much for keeping my sleep schedule remotely intact, right?

Ate some food, and let the gambling continue. More blackjack and craps. The morning was better to me, I think in the morning I was up around $60-100 for the day. I needed a break from the non-stop gambling, so I decided to hit the pool and the others joined me at various times. They had a European-style pool, in other words women can go topless. Naturally, that was my pool of choice. More important than having topless women everywhere (which there were practically none), the pool was 21+ and there were not little kids running around screaming like at the other pools. It had a more relaxing vibe.

For dinner tonight, we hit up another restaurant inside the Encore: Wazuzu. I don't think it was as good as Switch, but it was also cheaper and more casual, too. They served different asian food, including sushi rolls. I had miso soup, some yellow tail sushi, and their Wazuzu roll (snow crab roll topped with an eel fillet and eel sauce).

More gambling and time passed, then we went to Spearmint Rhino to hit our strip club quota for the trip. Not much to say about a strip club, as I'm sure you know what happens inside them. One thing I didn't quite understand was the cover charge situation. We had two options: 1) pay a $40 cover charge or 2) let their free limo pick us up, take us to the back entrance, and pay no cover. Why the hell would you not take the free limo?

The night ended after the club.

Day 3
Day 3 was the best day for me in terms of gambling, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We woke up, ate some food, hung out a bit, and I hit the pool again. One piece of advice I have for those going to Vegas is to find ways of having fun or wasting time without spending money. There isn't much to do in Vegas that won't cost you, and you can only walk up and down the strip so much before you don't care anymore and your feet hurt. My sanctuary this trip was the pool; I just sit outside, read a bit, lounged in the pool a bit, and talked with whoever was out there with me (mostly Blake today).

After a couple hours in the pool, we did stuff I don't remember, then eventually head out to old Vegas on Freemont St, which had Golden Nugget, Freemont Casino, 4 Queens, and Binions. This is where I won at Vegas. We casino-hopped between those four casinos all night, playing mostly blackjack with some craps mixed in, and finally my luck turned around. I came up on top on almost every table we played, whether it was $10 or $200. By the end of the night, I was up close to $400. Break-even baby!

The reason I had made so much money was almost exclusively thanks to the "$5 Yo" bets I would randomly make on the craps tables. "Yo" is another term for eleven, and it's a 15:1 bet. If the next roll is 11, you win 15:1, and if it's not, you lose your money. Somehow I managed to bet at the right time three different times, and each time net me $70. I won $210 on 3 lucky $5 bets - imagine that.

While we were in old Vegas, we ate at Grotto in Golden Nugget which was a nice italian place. I had some sort of shrimp pasta plate, don't even remember anymore.

The intersection between the four Freemont St casinos.

They built an arched screen in between the casinos where they projected videos.

Day 4
Last day in Vegas, and we had to checkout by noon. I woke up around 10 and started packing then showered. Once we were all ready, we checked out of the hotel and took a taxicab to In-N-Out. It was busy as hell there, as you would expect In-N-Out to be at noon right by the strip. From there, we took a taxi to ARIA, and walked our way north all the way back to Encore, stopping at Bellagio and Caesar's Palace on the way. Since I couldn't help myself, I made some stupid roulette bets and also played a bit of craps, and ended up down about $150-200. Oh well, what fun is Vegas if you break even?

From the hotel we went to the airport, where we waited a very long time since our flight was delayed an hour.  Landed in Austin around 1 AM.  Goodbye, Vegas!

cough to vegas!

It occurred to me after I wrote my last blog entry that I forgot to mention that we're going to Vegas tomorrow, August 8^th through Wednesday, August 11^th. Six of us are staying in two suites at the Encore, a newer hotel by Wynn. We don't have anything really planned, except to get drunk, gamble, and have fun. I'll take some pictures to share with you all when I get back, but probably not too many. You know what they say about Vegas...

What's going to put a slight damper on this trip is that my cough is still problematic. I was hoping that I would be over it by today, but sadly I am not. I went to the walk-in center at the Austin Diagnostic Clinic (which I recommend for quick, unplanned trips), and the doctor gave me a prescription for a respiratory infection. Luckily for everyone else, it isn't contagious; luckily for me, the prescription does not clash with alcohol. When I arrive in Vegas tomorrow, I will be armed with a trifecta of doctor-recommended drugs: Claritin, Sudafed, and Zithromax. Hopefully between the three of them, my trip to Vegas will be relatively cough-free.

See you guys in a few days!

Recent pedometer counts:
8/5: 9173
8/6: 6328

the pedo is back

Wait, what? No, not a pedophile. I'm using my pedometer again to count how many steps I walk in a day.  I will be updating you periodically on my daily totals, and I encourage you guys to participate even though none of you have pedometers.

Yesterday, having taken the day off, my step count was a meager 3433. Today included our last kickball game and was a whopping 12784.

Oh, you're curious about kickball? Well, we only had 7 players and we lost 9-3. Not a great kickball season.

cough cough

The highlight of the past week has been an incessant cough that just doesn't seem to go away. I haven't really felt sick, nor have I had any symptoms aside from drainage into my throat (yummy!). I've been told mold has been high, and that is an allergen I'm fairly certain I'm allergic to, so I believe it's only allergies causing this cough. Nevertheless, even today I am still suffering from the cough, although it seems to finally be calming down (knock on wood).

In reality, there have been several highlights in the past week. The main one was our house party last Friday night, in celebration of Justin's 24^th birthday. We had quite a few people at the house, and overall I had a fun time. I was up until 3 AM, whereas people more hardcore than me were up until around 5 AM. I was surprised I lasted as long as I did, considering my bedtime is typically 11 PM nowadays.

The other highlight has been my motorcycle maintenance. As of writing this, I have completed the following tasks:

• Disassemble and replace forks
• Remove wheels, take to shop and get new tires put on
• Tighten kickstand bolt
• Replace sprockets and drive chain
• Flush coolant lines, replace antifreeze
• Replace oil and oil filter
• Replace and lube clutch cable

I still have the following tasks to take care of, but as of right now my motorcycle is finally ridable again:

• New brake pads/brake fluid
• Adjust valve clearance
• Replace spark plugs
• Clean air suction valves
• Carburetor sync

The fun part is that I don't know anything about a couple of those! Don't worry, though, I have a service manual that details every step.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything else to add (or more appropriately, I don't feel like thinking about what else to add), despite not having blogged in a week. Most of my free time in the last week has been spent doing the above, so really there hasn't been all that much. Remember when I jammed my thumb? My thumb is still not fully healed, but it's mostly better. I can't put full pressure on it, and there are some things I still can't quite do. I wonder how long it'll be until it's 100%?

Oh, and I've been going a bit crazy with the links to the left, adding links almost daily. Even if my blog isn't updated daily, you still might want to check daily for new links and tidbits.  You never know when it might help you with Qrank!

...and now for something completely different (fast-forward to the middle of the video)

here, have some pictures and videos

Oh, and don't forget to periodically check the links to the left. If you have something you want to share, let me know and I will add it!

(source)

(source)

the kickball blues

Another kickball game last night, another loss. It wasn't a terrible loss, at 3-6. The other team just had some powerful kickers. A typical strategy is to keep them low to the ground, to prevent them from getting caught. It's unbelievably easy to get out in kickball if you kick the ball up in the air, because it's so big and slow. This team said "screw you!" to that strategy. Their guys demolished the ball almost every time, getting it up in the air into the outfield. They either got lucky, or placed them well, because they generally went in between our people so that they couldn't get caught.

At one point, a ball was kicked up and fast toward me, like a line drive. I had a pretty good chance of catching it, but it got up just high enough to be in front of the field lights. The field lights are right behind the kicker, meaning anytime the ball goes up, you are being blinded by them. So, on its trajectory toward me, I lost track of the ball and barely missed catching it as it slipped awkwardly out of my hands. Even worse, the ball drove into the knuckle of my thumb, which immediately hurt. I was fairly certain it was jammed then, and this morning I am all but positive. My thumb is swollen, and I can't really use it much because applying any pressure to the joint causes sharp pain.

This comes as bad news for several reasons. First, you really don't appreciate how much you use your opposable thumb on your dominant hand until you have to avoid using it. Since it's only jammed and not completely incapacitated, I can still use it for some things. Overall, though, I have to avoid using it. Second, jammed fingers can heal as quickly as a week, or as long as a month if you're really unlucky. Hopefully I'm lucky. Third, we have a softball game tonight which I'm not confident I can play in anymore. Gripping a bat involves placing it in between your index finger and your thumb, and that is the location of my inflamed joint. I'm pretty sure that batting would hurt. Then I thought that I could skip batting and only go out in the field. However, I realized that throwing a softball involves gripping it in your hand and also using your thumb. So I might not be able to play after all. Finally, if my thumb continues to hurt for the next week or so, that will really put a damper on my motorcycle maintenance. For obvious reasons, I'm going to need to use both my hands fully. I might just have to sit on that one for a little while longer. [Update: This just in! As if my hand-writing wasn't bad enough, it is now worse!]

There is a very slight chance that it's a fracture instead of a jammed joint, but I highly doubt it. Nevertheless, I took this as an opportunity to finally schedule a doctor's appointment. I haven't been in about 3 or 4 years, so I figured it'd be a good idea to get a checkup/physical. I'll have him take a look at my thumb, too, but I don't anticipate it being fractured, nor do I believe he'll be able to help much since it just needs time to heal.

Oh well, shit happens.

hurray for reading

Many, many months ago I started the book "The Hunt for Red October", a classic by Tom Clancy. I read only a small amount, and put the book down. A few weeks back I picked it up again, and tonight I finally finished it. The ending was so gripping that I had no idea that I was past my normal bedtime. Whoops!

About two years ago, I bought 3 books: Terminal Man, The Hunt for Red October, and Kiterunner. The first two were suggestions from Justin, and the latter was one from Andrea. Two years later, I have sadly only knocked off two out of the three. It's not that I don't enjoy books, I generally like all the books I've read. Instead, the problem has been that I'd rather be doing many other things, such as playing video games or bass, watching TV shows, or hanging out with people. Reading has always been so far down in my priorities that it never came up. I decided I wanted that to change, and so far I've succeeded.

Once I finish Kiterunner, I am open to your suggestions, my fellow readers. When I say I am open to your suggestions, I'm being quite literal. I don't have a favorite genre, and I will give both non-fiction and fiction an equal shot. As long as it's engaging, I don't care, but I don't know why you would recommend a book that isn't engaging. If it's not engaging then it's not a good book, right?

So post up one or two of your favorites, and I will give them a look-see. In the off chance that I've already read it, I'll let you know so you can give me another.