Cross Another off the List

Well, we can cross another hotel off the list of those I've never visited. This one would be Palace Station.

My friend Mike was in town for a small conference at the original Station casino, Palace Station, and I met up with him last night on the strip. Our first order of business was to get him downtown, since he'd just been roaming the strip and doing other touristy stuff (like the Hoover Dam) since he'd arrived in town. Oh, did I mention it was his first trip to Sin City!!

As usual, I parked in the Main Street Station parking lot across the street, headed in to get validated, and on to the 777 Brew Pub for some damn good beer. The brewmaster's special right now at the 777 is a pumpkin spice beer, that has a very tasty, yet extremely subtle, pumpkin aftertaste. Afterwards, we spent the next couple hours or so just hopping in and out of the Fremont Street casinos, taking in the sights and allowing Mike to see the "other" side of Vegas as opposed to all of the fountains and volcanoes he'd been getting used to. I also insisted that we grab a beer at the Elco, even though Mike was not a gamblin' man. I've probably said this a little too much, but I am definitely impressed with the El Cortez and the way it has cleaned itself up. It still has the occasional freaks and riff raff I've come to expect and enjoy, but that acrid smoky smell is now being masked by some scent coming out of the air handling system (similar, but not exactly like some nicer places on the strip like Monte Carlo). The new carpet still looks to be in good shape, and there is no longer a 1/3 inch layer of tar on the ceiling!

Unfortunately, a long few days for Mike were catching up, and the fact that he had to be up at 6am for his flight didn't help matters. So the rest of the night was pretty subdued. Back to Palace Station we went, where we picked up a 12 pack of Miller Lite at the corner 7-11, put it on ice in his room's sink, and just relaxed with some cold brews for the rest of the night. There was a scenario outside our window which defied the sense my brain was trying to make out of it. It was just a random sight that caused Mike to exclaim, "hey, security is out on the,.....WTF!!". I'm sure it's a "had to be there moment", but there were 3 security guards in a golf cart on top of the deserted parking garage gawking at 2 mini-coopers that just happened to be parked there. No rhyme, no reason.

By the way, Mike does keep up on this blog and posts comments as "MB". It wasn't the most insane night in Sin City, but I thought I better blog it anyway since "MB" makes up approximately 50% of my commenting readers, he he! :-)

It was good to see Mike, and I'm glad he had an extra bed for me to crash in. But it was up at 5:30am, and back to the apartment where I crashed 'till well after noon.

Here's just a few pictures of the night.

http://s239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24/recsports_rob/Mike/

Changes on the Strip

While I was home in Ohio a couple of weeks ago, I was going through a few old boxes (the same box that I found that Indians ticket in) and came across a couple piles of photos. One stack included the pictures I took on some disposable cameras during my very first trip to Las Vegas back in 2002. Like any new gawking tourist to this town, I spent an entire day with my friends just walking up and down the strip, taking pictures and ordering a beer in every casino! While looking through the pictures, I realized how much the strip has changed in these past five years, and wonder what it'll look like five years from today!

Whether old or new, the Frontier is no longer among the living.

The Stardust is now just dust.

Here's Treasure Island before all of that TI business.

I was actually a big fan of Alladin before the change-over. However, I must admit that I really like the design and atmosphere that Planet Hollywood brought in.

Here's the front facade of Monte Carlo. I haven't been to this part of the strip in months, but I'm aware that it doesn't look like this picture anymore.

Here's a picture I took (I think I was standing somewhere in front of the Bellagio) of the construction in front of Caesars Palace. You can see the Colosseum going up.

Here's a closer picture of Caesars. Is that front sign still there? Mikey believes it is, but it just doesn't look familiar to me. Maybe it's changed, I don't know.

The Pros of Consignment

So do you remember that Dole banana box that I was using as a night stand from that picture a while back next to my fancy air mattress? Well, it has officially been upgraded! My room finally looks like a nice living space, as opposed to a 19 year-old's off-campus college apartment room with egg crates and an old beer can collection. I drove down to Serene Ave the other day (right near I-215 just west of Eastern Ave) where the Sam's Club and Wal-Mart are located to buy a new night stand. I wasn't really happy with the selection, but kind of decided on one of the "nicer" stands (term used extremely loosely seeing as how I was in Wally World), which would have set me back $84. However, from about 2 months ago, I remembered that I had once walked past a consignment store in the same big shopping center (next to Home Depot). To be honest, I wasn't even familiar with that term before, but I thought I'd give it a try, since I didn't have much else to do that afternoon.

Well, I'm glad I did. In case you haven't been in a consignment place before, it's basically a giant store with articles such as jewelry, furniture, art work, etc. for sale, by the owner of the article, by way of the store itself. It's kind of a cross between a pawn shop, garage sale and flea market, except that almost all of the stuff in there is pretty high quality, thus keeping away the mullet-wearing white trash crowd. A lot of their stuff comes from well-off families in Henderson or the outskirts who just want to update their furniture, and some comes from model homes/apartments. So the stuff is pretty nice!

After basically getting lost in that place for about 30 minutes, I finally found a stand that caught my eye, which was not a small miracle considering where the thing was located. Honestly, look at the picture and tell me that they weren't trying to hide that thing! Can you see it? It's like finding Waldo! I found it almost impossible to find a good stand that was the right size for sitting next to my taller bed AND was not part of a bedroom set, which was the norm for the items in this store.

There's my stand, back beneath the lamp and behind that big, uh, whatever that is in the foreground.

One thing that I did NOT realize is that all the prices are negotiable, just like a flea market or garage sale. Once their employees fished the stand out from all the other stuff, I instantly knew it was mine. It's 100 times better quality that anything I'd get a wal-mart, it doesn't have a scratch on it, and my roommate doesn't have to hear me swear for a couple hours while trying to assemble it! The sticker said $99, so I figured for an extra $15 compared to wal-mart, it was worth it. Another plus is that when I was talking to the lady as she ran the credit card, she took another $10 off, I guess because she knew it was my first time in there and that I didn't know any better than to haggle. Score!

Here's the stand in its place next to the bed. The drawers are pretty high quality and are NOT removable.

So now I FINALLY have someplace to set my box of cereal, VHS copy of Strange Brew, beer coozy and bottle of Kahlua!!

A Night Out!

Well, it's a little after 12noon on a fine looking Thursday, and I am just now crawling out of bed upon recovering from last night's activities. Since I've been getting WAY more hours at work lately, I've been looking forward to getting out of the apartment and cutting loose a little bit. More hours equal less time to do things, but a little more discretionary money to do things with when the situations present themselves.

So I called up a friend of mine who I met here in Las Vegas at dealing school, but hadn't seen in a while, and asked if he'd be up for catching the Red Wings hockey game. His name is Steve and he currently deals at a break-in place on the Strip, but will be foregoing his dealing career soon to take a cushy desk job at an off-strip property, working the "normal" 9-5 days that I'm sure most of my readers enjoy. He just happened to have the night off, AND has NHL Center Ice on cable, so the plan came through.

What I didn't expect was my former roommate Chris showing up as well (who deals at the same place as Steve). They're both from Michigan and both huge Wings fans, so we had a great time watching Detroit beat Vancouver over some awesome nachos that Steve's gal made, plus some beer graciously supplied to us by our host!

Chris is WAAAAAAYYYYYYY too proud of his new Wings "helmet", while Steve looks on!

After the game, what was planned to be a relatively quiet night in turned into a pretty impressive gathering as Chris called up 2 other dealer buddies from their work. We all decided to go out and create some Vegas moments, which is exactly what the doctor orderd, since I completely missed out on all of the T2V "Not-Soberfest" activites this past week! So where do 5 craps dealers go to have some fun on a Wednesday night? I'm sure you've all guessed it, Joker's Wild casino and it's $1 dice table!!

For being a relative "dive", Joker's Wild really isn't a terrible place to spend your gambling dollar.

We had an absolutely bitchin' time at Jokers! There was a pretty cool temp dealer on our end all night who kept things light (even though 7 straight shooters missed their point when we first bought in), and we did our best to throw some dealer bets their way. Alas though, the dice Gods were not looking kindly upon us, as I lost the equavalent to about 2/3 of one day's worth of tokes throughout the 2 hours we were there. The one oddidity about the night at the table was Steve throwing 4 or 5 hard tens in a span of about 7 rolls. Of course, nobody was on the hard ten until it was way too late!

So without much more spending money, what are 5 loser dealer drunks supposed to do here in Vegas at 12 at night? You've probably guessed it again, MIDNIGHT BOWLING!! So off we went to our favorite locals casino in Henderson for some $1 bowling (with shoe rental, it came to $5 for 2 games). The beer was flowing freely at the alley, but man did it taste skunked or something because I could barely choke it down. I crushed everyone the first game, but that bad beer must have gotten to me during the second game, since I barely broke 100!

There's me and my super professional bowling form!

Well, all good nights must come to an end at some point, so back to Steve's we went where Chris needed to drive me home. But of course on our way back to my place, we got some mad munchies, so we ended our mini-tour of Henderson gambling establishments for the night and pulled into Green Valley Ranch to enjoy some late-night Fatburger action! Mmmmmmmmmm, sweet sweet drunk food!

All in all, it was a really fun night! Chris crashed on my couch, but was long gone by the time I emerged from the sancity of my room. I wish we could have had better luck (especially since we weren't really playing like idiots), but I think it's okay to invest a little "fun money" maybe once a month or so. Doing nothing but sitting around the apartment and going to work for weeks on end makes me go nuts sometimes!

Some Vegas Lists

Without much else to write about these days, I just thought I'd sit down and compile a few lists associated with my new "hometown". So let's get to it.

First, all of the hotel/casinos that I've actually visited (at least stepped in and walked around). Sure, it would probably be quicker to list those that I haven't visited at this point, but I guess that'll be a different list.

• Mandalay Bay
• Luxor
• Excaliber
• New York, New York
• Boardwalk (no longer standing)
• Monte Carlo
• Bellagio
• Caesar's Palace
• Mirage
• Treasure Island
• New Frontier (no longer with us)
• Stardust (now just dust)
• Westward Ho (RIP jumbo hot dog)
• Slots-a-fun
• Circus Circus
• Stratosphere
• Sahara
• Riviera
• Venetian
• Casino Royale
• Imperial Palace
• Harrahs
• O'Sheas
• Flamingo
• Barbary Coast (now Bill's)
• Ballys
• Paris
• Planet Alladinwood
• MGM
• Tropicana
• San Hooters
• Terribles
• Ellis Island
• Tuscany
• Gold Coast
• Orleans
• Rio
• Palms
• Sam's Town
• Nevada Palace
• Longhorn
• Joker's Wild
• Eldorado
• Skyline
• Silverton
• Sunset Station
• Red Rock
• Green Valley Ranch
• Rampart
• Suncoast
• Fiesta Henderson
• Fiesta Rancho
• Sante Fe Station
• Klondike (the one in Henderson)
• Plaza
• Main Street Station
• Las Vegas Club
• Golden Gate
• Binions
• 4 Queens
• Fremont
• Golden Nugget
• Fitzgeralds
• El Cortez
• Western
• Lady Luck (is she still around or not?)

Casinos where I've worked:

• Nevada Palace
• my current place (not gonna tell you which one, but it IS one on that first list!)

Hotel/Casinos where I've spent at least one night in a room:

• Tropicana
• MGM
• Monte Carlo
• Planet Alladinwood (right after the change over)
• Riviera (my very first trip)
• Imperial Palace (probably the most nights out of any)
• Sunset Station
• Las Vegas Club
• Plaza
• heh, that's it, I thought it was more

Las Vegas strip clubs that I've visited:

• Not one! Nope, I'm not kidding! I haven't stepped foot inside of one.....YET!!

Friends/Family who have visited since I've moved here in January:

• Mom
• Dad
• Old high school buddy, Naveen, who was here for his bachelor's party
• Scott R from T2V (bought me a very nice lunch at the MSS brew pub, yum!)
• Old college buddy from Bowling Green, Ryan (just last weekend, who also bought be some food and beer at MSS!)
• Former fellow employee at Bowling Green, Gary (has visited TWICE and let me crash in his room at PH)
• All of the cool dudes and dudettes from T2V during March Madness
• C'mon folks, it's VEGAS. This list should be bigger at this point! Get your asses out here and let's have some fun!

Favorite places to gamble:

• Strip = Monte Carlo (I haven't been in here in a while though)
• Downtown = El Cortez (good rules, cleaning itself up but still has the freaks that I've come to expect and enjoy)
• Off-Strip = Rampart (very good comps)

Worst places I've gambled:

• Strip = MGM (just too big, with not-so-good rules)
• Downtown = Las Vegas Club (just a bad vibe)
• Off-Strip = Nevada Palace (DIRTY, DISGUSTING, DEPRESSING, both to visit and to work)

Favorite restaurants I've eaten in (no particular order):

• Binions Steakhouse
• New York Pizza and Pasta (corner of Saraha and Jones)
• Paris breakfast buffet
• Canellettos (in St. Mark's Square, Venetian)
• Margaritaville (very good view and very good nachos)
• Grimaldi's Pizza (authentic Brooklyn style pizza on Eastern Ave., near my apt.)

Things I don't like about Vegas since moving here:

• Lack of things to do that don't involve going to a casino
• Traffic, especially through the Spaghetti Bowl!
• Noisy neighbors (better at my new place)
• Lack of money. At this point, being part-time extra board, I'm still making less than what I did at Bowling Green, which annoys me. If/when I ever become full-time at my current place, it'll be the best money I've ever made by about 10 grand!!
• Being away from Buckeye Nation during college football season! (Oh, and not seeing my friends and family very much either, he he)

Things I like about Vegas since moving here:

• No more 12 hour days (salaried). I work 8 hours, I'm paid for 8 hours. It's a brilliant concept!!
• I like dealing so far. I also like only having to work 6 hours (at most) during the work-day, but being paid for 8 (because of breaks).
• Much more to do here than "small-town", Ohio.
• The mountains, especially during dusk and sunset!! Beautiful! Like when I was living in the Shenendoah Valley in Virginia, I never get quite used to seeing them every day. They never get old!

That's about it, if you have any ideas for other lists concerning Sin City, let me know.

Video Experimentation

I haven't really had much time or energy to post in the last few days, but I thought I'd get on today and see if I could figure out how to post a video within this blog. The one that I'm trying to post is a short clip from a Roger Waters concert I attended here in Vegas in June. In case you don't know, Waters was the bassist and chief composer within Pink Floyd, until they split up in the early 80's. I'm a huge fan and it was an AWESOME show!!! You can read all about my review over on the travel2vegas message board at the following address:

http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28298

Cool, I believe we have success! This might open up a little more possibilities for my blog, but not many really. I'm not super fancy yet. The only means I have of taking video is my little camera phone. As evidenced by some past posts (Mark May picture, Nacho picture, etc.), my phone has the potential to take some kickass pics if the lighting is right. But the videos are a different story. It can only take 15 second videos and, as you can see, the audio isn't the greatest in the world.

Buzz Killington

Have you met my friend, Mr. Killington, first name Buzz?

One quick warning: this post will make me look like an unfeeling jackass, but please think twice the next time you sit down at a blackjack table and the dealer just isn't quite as excited to be there as you.

For only getting about 3 hours of sleep last night, I was in a pretty decent mood when I got to work this morning at 3am. The Indians beat the Sox last night to go up 3 games to 1, with a chance to put the series away tomorrow night in Cleveland!

So I tap into a $1o shoe blackjack game right away, and two pretty cool dudes, aided by liquid enjoyment, were joking around with me for forty minutes and putting the dealers up on a hand or two for good measure. When I got tapped out, I began walking toward the break room when I passed an older gentleman with a hat on walking my way. "Good morning, sir", I said with a cheer. The result of that salutation...........3 minutes of how he just came off of chemotherapy and was now bald, as evidenced by the removal of his hat as proof, as if I needed proof! Ugh. Obviously, it was a pretty gloomy break from there on in.

I brushed myself off though, came back from break, and had a decent shift. One jackass did decide to call me a "f*****g vacuum cleaner" and a "piece of s**t", but to be honest, it's nothing I haven't heard back in the day when I was officiating high school football and basketball. A very unfeeling warning put him in his place, and the shift continued.

About half way through the shift though, I heard that one of my favorite fellow dealers was possibly a no-call, no-show. I know he's had some problems at home, so that obviously put me back down on the low end of the roller coaster I was riding this morning.

But no fear, super dealer is here to make your day just a little brighter, provided that there were any players to deal to, which there weren't for about 4 straight hours. 4 hours of staring blankly into space questioning the meaning of existence and whatnot. Also, questioning how to spell whatnot.

The shift mercilessly ended 8 hours after it began, and back to the break room I went for some much deserved food. By this time, I was back in a good mood since my shift was over, my day off had begun, and I was about to fill my tummy with free mediocre cafeteria food. When I sat down, a women was sitting next to me who obviously dealt on day shift. Since I'd never seen her before, I introduced myself. "Hi there" I said, "my name's Rob." The result of that salutation......5 minutes of how she can't really think about looking for another job because her kids are in another state after the divorce and she has to prove certain restrictions associated with her benefits to be able to get them away from their father! Ugh. Fortunately, I had forgotten to punch out right away when my shift ended, so I only had a couple minutes left before I'd be truant in that action. It gave me an obvious reason to get up and leave the room, most of the food going uneaten.

Well, you'd think I'd be able to finally leave work without anyone else forcing the weight of the world upon my shoulders. As I was walking to the parking garage, I started walking with one of my fellow dealers on graveyard, and she mentioned that she just bought a new car. "Cool, let's go check it out", I said. The result of that salutation........I kid you not............three minutes after we got to her car, she explained in detail about how her daughter-in-law died and how her son was struggling taking care of the kids! Uuuuuuuuuggggghhhhhhhh!

It wasn't the most fun I've had at work. However, there is one piece of news, a great and magical piece of news, that has now given my life new meaning and hope! When I first got to work this morning, I realized, with much glee and excitement, that the casino I am working in has gotten NEW CARPET! I now offer proof!

Former athletes turned broadcasters

One of the obvious career moves when an athlete's time on the playing surface has passed is to make the move to the booth. Being the sarcastic jackass that I am, I'd just like to take this opportunity to call out some of the worst sports broadcasters that I've seen. But first, I'll give a nod to probably my favorite ex-athlete turned commentator, Don Cherry! I'm sure 99% of the people reading this are asking, "who's Don Cherry?" The other 1% are probably rolling their eyes. But I compare good ole Don to Harry Carey, except his ramblings actually make sense most of the time. His wardrobes aside, Don exudes class, and when he does make the occasional controversial comment or crosses the line, it's because of his unending love and passion for the game of hockey. For those of you who are unware of Don, here's a little youtube vidoe to give you a taste. Pay special attention to his point starting at the 4 minute mark, which is just one example of why I'm such a fan!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bO_bhcAVQZo&mode=related&search=

But taking the low road, allow me to reel off just a few of the sports announcers out there that make me cringe everytime I see them on my precious HDTV.

Dan Fouts - "The game can't end on a defensive penalty", "The ground can never cause a fumble", and I'm sure there are other great misconceptions that have been propagated by idiots like Dan, making officials who actually know what they're doing look bad because they can't have the chance to sit down with this idiot for five minutes and introduce him to a great resource known as a RULES BOOK!

Shannon Sharp - It's all just clicks and whistles on my end.

Chris Collinsworth - It still surprises me how he can fit his ego into such small studios!

Tim McCarver - He continually overstates the obvious, but all the while throwing grammatical caution to the wind!

Feel free to add to the list.

College Football Exhaustion!

Just in case you missed one of my very first posts, please refresh your memory as to the TV setup in the apartment's living room (dubbed the "man cave" by my roommate).

http://flyingwinnebago.blogspot.com/2007/09/college-football-overstimulation.html

Yesterday, that system was working overtime! My day started off by waking up at 7:30am to get ready and make my way down to the Boulevard Bar and Grill on south Las Vegas Boulevard (http://www.boulevardbarandgrille.com/). This is one of two bars in town that I know of that cater to Ohio State/Cleveland sports fans. The other is a Kopper Keg way over on the NW part of town on Rainbow. Apparently, the Clark County chapter of the OSU alumni association watched the games there, but I just can't justify the extra 20 minute drive to get there.

As far as the Boulevard is concerned, it's a pretty nice place for OSU games. I counted approximately 45-55 other Buckeye fans there, bright and early, wearing the normal Troy Smith jerseys, rediculous looking plush Brutus hats and their buckeye beads! The service is very good! I would say the food is slightly overpriced and underwhelming. The beer, also a little overpriced. I ordered the chicken parm sandwich (which had way too much breading) and a total of 3 Bud Light drafts, and it set me back $20, including a 20% tip. So the place isn't bad, but I doubt if I'd be a regular there on non-football Saturdays.

Obviously, the game was excellent. Can't run. Can't pass. Kent State!! The only issue I took during the whole game was that blatant cheap shot taken by a Golden Flash that took out Anderson Russel, OSU's strarting free safety! It didn't draw a flag, but I honestly hope that jackass gets suspended or benched!

Once I witnessed the drubbing, it was back to the apartment, where I just settled into the loveseat to watch the college football carnage! The entire day is now a blur, but the obvious game of the day was watching the boys from Lexington knock off the LSU Tigers! Yep, yet another #1 bites the dust! At one point during the day, I was able to watch THREE undefeated teams (Cincy, Mizzou and Cal) on all three tv's, and ALL three went down! However, sometimes 3 tv's just aren't enough, as I had to do some pretty swift flipping back and forth to keep track of other games, such as Auburn vs Arkansas, AND the NASCAR race in Charlotte, AND the ALCS game that my Indians pulled out of the hat in the 11th inning!

The night ended with Arizona State drubbing Washington. Now, it's time for a full day of NFL coverage. However, with the Steelers on a bye and my fantasy team completely riddled with byes and injuries, I'm not feeling all that excited about the action today. Perhaps I'll actually be a little constructive and finish getting all of my cd's ripped into the computer or something.

One last thing. The initial BCS standings come out later today. By the end of the night last night, just about every commentator was projecting who "should" be #1, not who "will", but who "should". As absolutely chilling as this may be, the only guy that I agree with is Lou Holtz! Ugh, yes I said it. He's the only one who put Ohio State at #1. The main complaint of most is how the Big Ten is down this year and how Ohio State hasn't really beat anyone yet. My two main arguments for the Bucks are as follows:

1. It's not just the Big Ten, but EVERY other conference in the country kind of stinks, with the obvious exception of the SEC. The ACC? The class of the field over there is Boston College, who actually struggled against a pitiful Notre Dame team yesterday. Big 12? Who is the class over there? Kansas?? Oklahoma? OK, who lost to COLORADO!! The Big East? I guess South Florida is carrying your colors, a team that didn't even exist 12 years ago (but IS full of studs and who should probably be ranked #2). The Pac 10? Pleeeeeease! The Pac 10 consists of a team who actually found a way to LOSE against Notre Dame and USC, who is still ranked in the top ten despite LOSING to the Pac 10's equivalent to Duke or Northwestern!

2. The rankings (especially the AP and coaches polls) are NOT about what teams have been beaten by whom, but what teams are the BEST in the nation. Ask every coach in the nation right now which teams they would NOT want to face, and I bet you Ohio State would be right near the top of them all! Get over the fact that the Bucks were defeated soundly by Florida last year. Before that, what was the last "big game" that Tressel has lost? You'll have to go waaaay back to figure that one out. Check out the OSU defense, probably the best in the country! Put those two facts together, and the coach can employ his very annoying, mostly boring, yet truly effective "Tressel ball" on offense, a tactic which has been proven in the past.

Of course, with the season that college football is seeing this year, all of these ramblings could be absolutely ruined by a decent Michigan St. team, somewhat similar to 1998, who will invade the Shoe this weekend (I bet I just sent chills down the spines of more than a few Bucks fans reading this). Ohio State still needs to travel to Happy Valley AND the Big Outhouse, they play a much improved Illinois team at home, as well as Wisconsin, who ALWAYS seems to give the Bucks fits, even at home! So the next five weeks should be extremely interesting!

Let's Go Bucks!

PROOF!!!

May 26th, 1993. What significance does that date have when Major League Baseball is concerned? On that night occurred arguably one of the greatest sports bloopers of all-time! With nobody on and nobody out in the bottom of the fourth, Carlos Martinez of the Indians stepped up to the plate facing the Ranger's Kenny Rogers, and the following happened:

http://www.flicklife.com/f57a720d252cd069bcd3/Home_run_off_the_head.html

As you may have guessed, I was at that game. The problem is that if you were able to ask every person in the Cleveland area about that play, about half of them would also claim to have witnessed it live. According to the box score (http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE199305260.shtml), only 14,305 faithful Indian fans filed into the 74,000 seat Cleveland Municipal Stadium that night.

So as I was looking through some old boxes while back home in Ohio last week, I came across a stack of game tickets. For a while in high school and college, I saved EVERY single game ticket that I had ever gone to, and usually wrote the final score on the back. So as I was leafing through them, the ticket for that May 26, 1993 game seemed significant for some reason, and it only took me a second to remember why! So I can now offer proof that I was one of those 14,000 lucky fans.

One caveat though, when the play happened, it occurred in right field while we were sitting in the extreme upper deck behind the third base line. We got the tickets for free for having a good GPA in high school (thus the "high achiever" marking on the ticket), and I guess they like to hide the band geeks and nerds way up there. So when it went off his head, I had just though it hit his glove and bounced over. It wasn't until we got home that night and watched the highlights on the 11:00 news when I actually realized what happened!

Ohio and Indiana Pics

O-H-I-O

Well, I'm back in Sin City after 5 VERY quick days back home! It was a complete blast this past weekend at the Ohio State vs. Purdue game, and I'm still a little tired after it all. One thing I was able to do was add a piece of luggage on the way back and stuff as many items as possible from the "wasn't able to make the original trip in January" pile. So laundry is now drying, all of those items have been put away, I've caught up on some DVR watching and I'm done with emails. Unfortunately, it is now bedtime at 7pm since I will be dealing some blackjack in approximately 9 hours. I wish I had the time to post a complete wrap-up of this week's activities, but for now I'll just post the photobucket link to all of the pictures. I'm still pretty new at photobucket, so there aren't any fancy captions or anything. Also, the pictures are pretty much in exact reverse order. I visited the OSU campus on Monday before flying back to Vegas, but of course those are the first pics you see. I hope you enjoy them.

http://s239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24/recsports_rob/Ohio%20and%20Indiana%20Trip/

Heading Back East

Well, my first trip back home since moving here to Vegas will occur literally within hours. So I thought I'd make a quick post informing anyone reading out there that I probably won't be heard from again until next Monday or so. Maybe I'll have a free minute this week to jump on the computer and let you know how my trip is going, but my schedule is completely jam-packed. The highlight should be the road-trip to Indiana Saturday for the Ohio State vs. Purdue game. Big game between two undefeated teams! Go Bucks!!!

I'll make sure to write a complete wrap-up once I get back and settled, hopefully with plenty of fine pictures courtesy of excellent camera phone technology.

Later!