amazing trip gramps..really nice of you to share this...good luck in 2016

All hail Ragnar!




Nice trip report, sounds like an awesome experience.

Tyty. Trust me, it's been 10 years in process of developing any of sort of trip-planning skills. Just kind of started showing up places and semi-failing, learning, and going from there.

Wanting to make it incredible (i.e. not screw it up ) for another person really helps too.

Keep making good money playing poker? I was a multi-game/stake/site grinder from 2008-Black Friday, so it may settle out that way again (though Stars-only would be soooooo much easier).

It's just hard to tell right now, as with the SNE squeezing that just happened and another one around the corner, there's a lot of ecosystem changes going on. Pretty much just trying to get a little better each month, be flexible about what I play right now, and evaluate. At least I've always enjoyed the puzzle of the game-outside-the-game, especially during an upheaval period (there seems to be one every several years in SNGs).

Yeah, that's kind of frustrating and kind of cool too, right? The camera only captures so much.

I still have such strong newb instincts to see an amazing panorama and say, "that's gonna be a great pic....(with my cell phone btw, lol)" and rushing to take it when it's clearly not going to come out anywhere close to that real-life visual.

With all the digital technology and ability to capture amazing scenes, it's also nice to know you get the extra reward when you go enjoy a place in person (especially with the sound, smell, humidity/dryness, movement, etc. textures around).

Thanks, I really appreciate all the positive response. Felt like I spent way to long on what 2 1/2 (or 5.7) people were going to see.

That beard looks good on a throne.

The Cirque finale video is super cool....I would love to see in person!!!

Great TR thanks for posting!

+1, really enjoyed it, thx for the effort

Awesome TR Gramps. Congrats!

Really enjoyed that, ty for sharing and GL this year

So sick. Nicely done old man .

Favorite part




To a frugal consumer such as yourself, was booking insanely expensive airfare a freeing experience or a little painful?

Awesome TR. GL this year. Hopefully these higher stakes 9m hypers weil get a bit less reggy...

It was impressive how talented the performers were, and clearly how much work went into designing and executing many of the performances (especially the various acrobats).

It being opening night, there were a few kinks to work out. The "balancing stick lady" of whom there's a picture above actually messed up ~5 minutes in to her performance. She had all the sticks laid out in order to pick them up with her feet one-by-one, then balance them on top of the structure she was holding. About 2/3 of the way through...it all came crashing down.

Instead of just bowing and walking off....she started all over again, with higher difficulty (the sticks were a jumbled mess now). Crowd was tense, probably took her close to 15 minutes the 2nd time, but she finished it all off. Got the biggest applause (pre-final curtain) of the night.

(Putting the final piece on - the noise is her intensely-concentrating breathing btw )



Thanks for the feedback guys, glad everyone liked the TR!

Old school STTF represent!!

That was one of my favorite pics as well - if you're gonna rip-off Intellectual Property like that, at least do it > the laziest way possible that makes little-to-no-sense.

My sometimes-frugalness worked in kind of a flipped-manner for this trip. If I didn't spend the full $20k, then it felt like that would be wasting (or increasing Baazov's personal net worth by an extra .001% ), so I was glad the business class tickets in-and-out of Africa made hitting the top-of-the-budget mark logically possible (without staying in some ridiculous hotel, etc.).

Btw, Tijuana Toros beisbol season starts April 1st (one home game, then on the road for ~10+ days), and I'm going to hit up a Tijuana Zonkeys BBall game on Thursday and will report back. (probably going to be JC-ish, but I wanna at least vibe it and get a t-shirt )

http://www.tijuanazonkeys.com.mx/

Think 9-mans and most other SNGs are just gonna be ugly for much of the year & into next - probably gonna be a bloodbath & culling as the ecosystem slowly adjusts to all the RB cuts going forward. Been through 3 or 4 of these big shake-ups, just generally how it plays out.

How this year going? HERO TRIP!