Here we go.
Saturday, October 29 -
I should back up a little bit here. For anyone who doesn't know this, Nevada doesn't celebrate Columbus Day. This is convenient, as there seems to be a bit of momentum for the anti-Columbus people. Instead, we get the last Friday of October off as Nevada Day, commemorating the day Nevada became a state. I probably don't need to go into the full history of how or why we were admitted to the union, but I do like that we came into the Union at the tail end of the Civil War and thus our motto, "Battle Born".
I decided to take the week of October 31 to November 4 off of work. I had no specific plans, but I figured I'd get a head start on the vacation with Nevada Day looming, so what the hell. Shortly before I left work that Thursday the 27th, I had a bit of a ****fit. I had been ambushed by someone from another department to work on a project that HOLY **** HAS TO BE DONE TODAY I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO BRING THIS TO YOU BUT I NEED IT TODAY. Ugh. Fine. We sit and talk about it for a good 45 minutes. I crank out exactly what she wanted. I even emailed to confirm that this is the way she wanted things. Yup. Good to go. I send. Within 15 minutes, she called me three times, emailed twice, called my boss twice and emailed him twice about how I ****ed something up and she really needed this done in a completely different way.
This is why I take vacations. To get away from nonsense like this.
We did get it all sorted out. In reality, I had done things right. She just didn't realize that she was asking for everything to be combined under one category, but I pulled everything into four categories (which was the natural break - I know I'm being vague about all this and what I do, etc. Just know that the way our stuff is set up, it breaks everything down to the most granular level possible; she didn't realize this and asked for things under one certain heading). My boss even sent the revised final product without CC'ing me just so I wouldn't have to deal with the rash of inevitable follow-ups during my time off.
My wife's birthday was Thursday the 27th, but we were both swamped so nothing happened. We decided instead to celebrate on Saturday by getting dinner at Gordon Ramsay's Steak at the Paris. Being the good husband, I also booked her a spa appointment for that night. We walk around for a minute, find the spa, and she's off to massage bliss. I, on the other hand, know that the Bally's poker room is right around the corner. So I fire off down there for a little while, but end up booking about a $40 loss by the time she's ready to go. We have a little bit of time to kill, so we check out those shops in front of Bally's. I actually like that area quite a bit. It's not somewhere I thought to go, ever, but I may actually be back to grab some food or something there. It looks interesting.
Steak is... fine, I guess. I mean, "steak" (as in, the product) is delightful. The restaurant by that name is... fine. The service was outstanding, of course, and dessert (sticky toffee pudding) is my wife's favorite. But the meal wasn't anything that far exceeded Echo & Rig, Old Homestead, Vic & Anthony's, Oscar's, etc. Well, it exceeded them in price, for sure.
Monday, October 31 -
I woke up relatively early for a vacation day because I had something in the works. I drove over to my wife's office (passing the ol' Desert Manor on my way), we had a little pow-wow with one of her co-workers, and then we waited for high noon. The clock chimed, I logged on, and the page was active! Fifteen minutes later, after much deliberation and going back and forth, it was done.
I've got my seats for the (as of yet unnamed) hockey team when they start play next season. Section 221. Row D. Seats 3 and 4. Bring it on.
It sort of surprised me how interactive and intense the seat selection process was. The site was really easy to navigate and they had the actual view from each and every seat on the site, so you could really see what you were getting in to. My wife's co-worker and her husband are going to be sitting behind us, too, which will be fun. I have a feeling that by about game 3, the wives will be sick of our incessant screaming and end up sitting in a less embarrassing area.
After grabbing the seats, I decided to head over to Red Rock. I wasn't really planning on playing any poker, but I had enough for one bullet with me so I decided to grab a seat. I sat down just in time to post the big blind, and we were off to the races. And by races, I mean every OMC at the table folding to a $7 raise.
After about an orbit and a half, I have a slight read on a couple of the old timers, but two new players just sat down. Then, the hand that crippled my week happened. I'm going to put the results down at the bottom of this post as a spoiler just so you can check it out later. I will say that I am convinced I made the correct play. It's just really hard to not be results-oriented.
Everyone at the table has between $120 and $200, except the OMC to my right ($80) and the BTN ($450ish). UTG limps. UTG+1 raises to $15. MP1 calls $15. MP2 (OMC) shoves all in for $80. I'm in the HJ with $180 and see TT. I tank for about two minutes before making the decision (below).
After about an hour of play, I decide that my mind isn't on my game and it's going to be dark soon. I have to get home to give out candy for the trick-or-treaters. We didn't have a ton of kids last year, so the wife and I went out and bought full size boxes of candy to give out to the few kids we might actually see.
Zero. Zero kids showed up. All the lights were on, but I looked outside around 7 and all of our neighbors had shut their lights off. Meanwhile, I called my dad back home, and he had over 140. They were being shipped in from other towns, which was strange since their towns were nicer than mine. Oh well.
Tuesday, November 1 -
I spent most of the morning doing housework stuff. I had class that afternoon, so I went early to use the computer lab. The software for this one class just refuses to work on my laptop, which is super annoying.
Saw this weird cactus:
I went to a training on this at work, but I don't actually know what all these letter mean:
After class, I was going back and forth on whether to hit up the WSOP Main Event final table. Josephy had just been knocked out, but I figured I could check out some of the head's up action. I got yelled at for taking these:
Once I took the third one, security came over and said "Look, if you do that again, you're outta here." I tried to explain I had taken still photos in non-sequential hands, but then the guy decided to run over my words with "Someone is going to see you do that and I'll have to throw you out. You need to stop. Now." That's fine, but if I could just... "You can't take pictures in here." HEY ****HEAD. IF YOU LET ME SPEAK I COULD TELL YOU THAT THE DUDE TWO ROWS IN FRONT OF ME HAS BEEN VIDEOTAPING EVERY HAD FOR THE LAST HALF HOUR okay okay you keep talking and I'll keep my mouth shut. No, threatening me with expulsion for taking three blurry pictures on my phone is clearly more important than talking to the guy using some weird-ass camera, zoomed in on the table, recording everything. Good. Bronze star for you. Jackass. When security did finally spot the guy taping, it was "Excuse me, sir. Please don't tape in here. It's not allowed." Apparently I'm menacing enough to warrant threats, but he wasn't.
I was starving around 10pm so I decided to leave, grab some food, and head home. Nothing super exciting happened at home but I did manage to stay up to catch the end of the final table. Now that they've seen the success of one of their own, maybe Asians will finally take to gambling.
Wednesday, November 2 -
I decided to play afternoon poker at the MGM. I seem to do well against the fishy tourists there more than anywhere else. I get my name on the list and they almost immediately open a new table. And for some reason, I just can't make anything work today. I bought in for $200. I dumped some off chasing a flush (played it bad) but worked my stack back up to about $240 when this hand happened.
I'm UTG+1 and raise to $10 with KQcc. Only the BTN calls, with about $130 behind. Flop comes Q93ddx. I fire $20, he calls pretty quickly. Turn brings the 9d. The board has paired but it brought the flush. I bet $40, figuring I can fold to a shove. He tilts his head, looks concerned, puts his head down, shakes it a little, and makes the call. I figure he's either on a flush/draw and he put me on a 9. River is a 3, double-pairing the board. I see this as an opportunity to steal by repping the boat, so I shove. He tanks, and tanks, and tanks, and tanks. Finally, he calls and shows T5dd for the turned non-nut flush. Wow. Okay.
Two hands later, four players limp to me in the BB and I see A9ss, easily my least favorite hand. I raise to $12 to try and get out a few of stragglers, and again, only the button calls. This kid is clearly a tourist with what seems to be no live experience. Flop comes 922. I bet $20, he calls. Turn is a blank. I bet $20 again, figuring he's not going to understand bet sizing anyway so why risk it. He calls. River is an A. Now here, I did something I almost never do: I talked during the hand. I said "I guess we're just battling over who has the bigger kicker. I'm all in." I don't know why I did it. Maybe I had him on a deuce and I wanted to try to steal the pot out from under him by getting him to fold a weak one. Maybe I just stopped giving a ****. Eventually, he calls and shows 32o. Of course. Of course he'll call a raise pre with 32o. Of course I'll lose with A9. Of course. I hate this game.
I agreed to meet up with some people at a sports bar to watch Game 7 of the World Series. We end up at the Sporting Life bar on Jones and Robindale. Two of my friends lived in the community directly behind this property, and I lived in the apartments at Rainbow and Robindale for almost three years. I love this area, but almost never go down there anymore. Which is a shame, because one of my favorite restaurants in Vegas is in the same plaza:
About the third inning, I decide to text my boss. He's been a massive Cubs fan his entire life. As a Red Sox fan, I was sympathetic to the championship drought. Cubs and Sox fans used to be called the "Fellowship of the Miserable" by some sports writers. The Cubs were ahead, so I decided to troll him a little bit.
"Hey John, I know it's late and I'm on vacation, but do you have a minute to talk about a couple of projects? Is this a bad time?"
I figured I'd get some kind of "LOL" or "**** off, Spike" response. Instead, I got:
"I've got a few minutes, sure. What's up?"
Okay, I can salvage this trolling. "Jesus John, get off the phone and go watch the game." To which he responds.
Well... that backfired. I wished him well, then immediately shut off my phone.
After the game, I went with a few people to the South Point. We used to do the 11pm bingo session then go bowling after midnight for dollar games, dollar drinks on weeknights all the time. This was a great time to re-live all that. The South Point is hosting the Indian National Finals Rodeo, which I thought was interesting:
It's nothing but a sea of cowboy hats and boots in this place. I brought my little video camera. I wanted to post a couple of the short videos I took from that night but I don't know how to create a YouTube channel that's not connected to my Google+/real name. I'm too lazy to figure that out right now. It was a fun night, but bingo was not kind to any of us. Oh well.
Thursday, November 3 -
I met up with Joboo for lunch at:
Great food, and I love the new location, but there's zero parking there. We ended up a couple of streets away and walked by this:
With this behind the wheel:
Creepy.
Class that night, followed by passing by the Paris. The lights went out when someone accidentally cut the power lines, and the backup generators didn't work for whatever reason. It's a little difficult to see, but it looks strange with zero lights on:
As for the rest of the week/weekend, I played a couple of tournaments at the Mirage and TI. The 2pm tournaments at the Mirage are single tables at best. I ended up chopping head's up with a guy for like $200, but that was my only profitable play this entire week. Honestly, it all kinda sucked.
I have more from this past week, but it has taken me too long to type up this much. More to come later this week, including a wedding of two emotionless people, the election, and why I am officially a jinx.