Did you blow bubbles when you were a kid?

Well he's back in town and wants your new phone number! :-)

Sorry, really bad joke from Amazing Jonathan, but the past couple days reminded me of it. Beginning last Wednesday, all of the folks from the T2V message board began filing into town. The week before was when all of my friends from Columbus visited, so I figured I'd be having yet another insane weekend of booze, partying, etc. It didn't really turn out that way though.

First off, I had to work on almost every night of the T2V festivities. On Thursday, I missed the little "happy hour" that Jack21 hosted due to a severe sore throat that I was battling. I did, however, muster up enough strength to go to the 2nd City show at the Flamingo that night with Danielle. But if the tickets hadn't already been purchased, I would have skipped out on that as well.

On Friday night, when the main T2V party was happening, I was still recovering from my sore throat and the cold had pretty much turned into a cough/sneeze-fest, with the throat feeling better. I had to work though, so either way I was screwed out of the partying. I did NOT want to miss the T2V private poker tournament the next day though, so since I was feeling a little better, I resisted the urge to call in sick to work and basically worked for poker that night.

On Saturday, I pulled myself out of bed (the shift the night before was a bitch!!) and dragged myself down to the Flamingo for the tournament. Even though T2V MMV had been in full swing for basically 3 days at this point, this was the first I was able to see anyone. Fortunately, almost ALL of the usual suspects were in attendance. Jack21, IllMarty, Doc Al, Shock, Jer, Sticky, Blackjack, Beach Crazy, LV Terry, Kikky, Mikey, Sin, Keno, Mikenhe and a horde of others (32 total entrants plus more interested spectators) were there. Of course Dougie was also there since he is the point-person involved in planning and implementing this tournament every year. He always does an EXCELLENT job!!!

As I just mentioned, 32 people took part in the event this year with a $65 buy-in. I NEVER play in no-limit hold'em tournaments, which is why I was dead set against calling in sick the night before because I was certain I'd just be donating my $65 to the T2V cause and I don't really have that much money to throw away these days. Much to my surprise, I did really well.....just not well enough. I was pretty conservative in the opening hour, pissing away a few chips here and there and stealing a couple blinds. I was in one of the most exciting hands of the entire tournament early on against Sticky. I raised pre-flop and she went over me with an all-in move. I quickly called and revealed my pocket-kings, which were up against her A-Q. The flop was nothing, but she caught a miracle ace on the turn. She had me covered so I figured I was dead. KING ME! I sucked out on the river, which pretty much crippled her.

After surviving that all-in moment, I did pretty well until the final table. I got lucky one more time on an all-in semi-bluff, but my open-ended straight was completed on the river and I made it to the final table (10 players) about in the middle of the pack. Fortunately, players 10, 9 and 8 were eliminated really quick. Unfortunately though, none of their chips came my way, so I was quickly becoming a short-stack. A very exciting hand occurred a little later which I think eliminated 7 and 6 in one hand! So it was down to the final 5 players. I was short-stacked, but if I could hold out for just one more elimination, I'd finish in the money!

As my opening joke hinted at though, it was not to be. I finished on the bubble in 5th place when my pocket-fours were cracked by a Q-2. As you'll see in the pictures, Dougie purchased a very nice parting gift for whoever was unlucky enough to finish on the bubble! It was a very fun tournament and I was glad to be able to briefly catch up with everyone having missed the "Party at the Palace" the night before.

The only other T2V event I was able to make it to was dinner last night at Grimaldi's. Danielle graciously tagged along to meet a couple of my internet geek-friends. Although it was cool seeing everyone and doing MUCH better in the tourney than I thought I'd do, I really hope to have some extra time and cash next year when the party returns!

Oh, one more thing. Thanks to the Coasters, the Flaggers and Lars for making it out and playing at my dice table Saturday night! We really appreciated the dealer bets guys. I truly hope I'm working at a joint next year that will be much easier to visit!

To my left at my starting table at the poker tournament were Vegas Jer and Sticky.

To my right on my starting table were Marty, Keno, Kikky and Blackjack (nice tattoo dude).

Here's my view of the final table. I can't remember everyone's name, but Shock is next to the dealer, then there's Jer, Lars Vargas, Dougie, Aggie (I think), Royal Flusher, and Don (I think). Kikky and I think Jen were to my right (not pictured).

Here are the top 3 finishers holding their celebratory shots of Patron. Royal Flusher (middle) took down 1st with Lars in 2nd and Kikky in 3rd. Also finishing in the money was Shock in 4th. You know, in this pic, Royal kind of looks like me, doesn't he???

Okay, here's the not-so-coveted prize for whoever finished on the bubble, which would be your's truly!

And here I am sporting my fancy new $65 fanny pack!

A good time was had by all Sunday night at Grimaldi's! That's a better picture of Dougie (on the left) who did just an awesome job of implementing the poker tournament again this year!

Pictures of the Great Trek

If you remember a while back, I wrote up a pretty long post reliving the cross-country trek that Chris and I went through on our move out to Vegas. If you haven't read that story yet, you might gain more enjoyment from these pictures if you do so first.

When I wrote that post I had completely forgotten that Chris had taken some pictures AND videos of the adventure, so what little pictures I did include in that post were just stock pics from google images. I went over to Chris' last night to hang out for a while and play some playstation, and while I was there I uploaded all of those trip pics and videos onto my photobucket account. I realize it would have made that original post much better if I had just included those pics at the time (if I had remembered they existed), but I'll just try to put them here in as close to chronological order as possible. Some are boring and some you may get a kick out of. Since I took no pictures or videos of any kind, this'll seem like its being told from Chris' point of view.

Day One

Chris takes a picture of himself shortly after starting the trip from Bowling Green, Ohio.

Chris' old Ford Contour reaches a milestone

It's not very long after the start when he apparently needs a pick-me-up

This was taken after dark, I think to show how damn rainy it was.

We reach Missouri and cross the river, the rain still unrelenting!

Day Two

We wake up on day 2 to find the bushes outside our hotel window completely frozen.

The roads start off okay, but we can tell it'll be far worse ahead.

A nice sign at the first of many truck stops we stopped at which were CLOSED DUE TO THE STORM!

We enter the wintry nightmare!

Another pic of the icy hell. That's my car up ahead. I guess I was the point person at this time.

We should NOT be on the road.

Our soon to be ice covered vehicles at the Days Inn in Joplin, Missouri. A whole day's drive and we're still in the same damn state we started in!

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SUPPLIES!!!

That's me breaking the news to my parents about our current situation.

Pizza and beer tend to keep spirits high, at least temporarily.

Chris is drinking said beer.

Rob is eating said pizza.

Day Three

It was a common practice to put the wipers in this position to keep them from freezing to the window. I personally de-iced my car about 2 times a day, mostly to try to kill an hour or two each time.

Boredom and depression start to set in as the beer supply dwindles.

This was the gas station next to our hotel (the hotel is seen in the background). It was the supplier of pizza and beer. It has an interesting name.......

......with interesting paraphernalia.

The pizza supply dwindles. Thank god the NFL playoffs kept us occupied.

Day Four

Condition critical on the beer supply. Another day in Joplin would greatly strain our saneness.

Day Five

We finally escape Joplin on day 5. I'm not sure how Chris produced this artsy pic of himself that morning, but I think it accurately shows in physical detail the current state of our mental health.

Chris happens to catch a bird-of-prey in this shot. The ice is still omnipresent.

We encounter a bright sphere in the sky that we had forgotten existed.

The farther we travel across Oklahoma, the less ice we see.

Literally hundreds of wind towers greet us as we make the first real headway in days.

On a mission from God? Uh, not exactly.

The sun goes down on day 5. At the end we would find ourselves in Grantz, New Mexico.

Day Six

The view east from Grantz. Albuquerque was about 50 minutes back that way.

We strolled along Route 66, eating lunch and waiting for Chris' brakes to be fixed. Regrettably, there are no pics of the service station with office cats, a vodka supply, and the friendliest station owner-lady in town!

After an 8 hour layover in Grantz due to Chris' car issues, we finally get on our way.

I find the Arizona landscape beautiful!

We continuously chase the sun as it sets in the west, enjoying the Arizona scenery.

It finally beats us to the horizon. We would be heading toward Flagstaff under cover of darkness.

Day Seven

We head west towards Laughlin. On the other side of those mountains would be our new home state.

We cross the Colorado River and pass through Laughlin.

We finally reach success. Around the bend reveals the Las Vegas Strip in the distance.

Continuing on 95 north, we approach downtown Vegas.

A little while later we pull into our apt. complex. Yikes, am I wearing the exact same clothes as on day 2??? It was a very, very long trip!

Hockey Blooper

This clip occurred last year, but for some reason I don't think I've ever seen it. It's one of the most embarrassing/dramatic things I've ever seen! In getting hyped up for the NHL playoffs, I just spent a little time browsing some of Youtube's hockey clips. This is from a game last year in the NHL. In case you're not familiar with hockey, teams "pull" their goalie late in games if they happen to be down by 1 goal. This allows another "regular" skater on the ice to try to score a last-second goal, but it leaves the net with nobody to protect it. So if the other team gets the puck, they can USUALLY score a pretty easy goal. Just watch what happens in this last-second one-goal game.

In Limbo

I thought I'd be able to give you a good update about the job on the Strip that I thought looked pretty good, but I had my audition yesterday and I simply can't give a good update right now. The whole interview process went well and my audition yesterday did seem to go well, but when it came time to sit down with the hiring manager, he told me there weren't any specific spots open at the moment and he would put my file on the very top of the list. "You'll be one of the first I call when they open up", was the line.

Although to most people that would seem to be positive news, I've heard that line before at other jobs, so it may be just a common line used to say, "Thanks, but no thanks". I won't go into very much detail about the whole situation, but there was some incredibly bad luck/timing concerning the person involved with getting me the interviews in the first place. It seems that person may/may not be with this property as of today, and if he's not.....I'm probably not either.

We shall see. In the meantime, the worst case scenario is that I just keep working the four full days at my current off-strip place until something better comes along. It's not a great place, but its actually a better paycheck than my previous place since they almost never send me home early and schedule me the maximum hours allowed every week.

Wish I had more interesting stuff to write about these days, but with my friends being in town, work, job searches and the T2V people arriving very shortly......I'm about tapped out as far as energy goes!

When I was down on the Strip for my audition, I walked to the Flamingo afterwards and bought Danielle and I tickets for the 2nd City Improv show for Thursday night (2-for-1 coupon). I've seen the show twice before and liked it both times, so I'll let you know how it goes.

The Columbus Gang Leaves Town

On Friday, I got up earlier than I thought I would and drove down to the Strip to meet the Columbus gang at Planet Hollywood, since they were on the Strip today to do some touristy stuff. We ate at La Salsa Cantina in the Miracle Mile Shops, which I think is Spanish for "The Cantine full of Salsa". The seafood burrito was pretty decent. I finished my plate, but again, I'm not sure I'd get excited and write home about the place. Right as we were walking outside to the Strip, the place I've been interviewing with for the past 2 days called to set up an audition next Tuesday. Okay, so I guess I didn't get out of having to show my mad dealing skillz. Wish me luck on that.

After lunch, the group headed over to the Bellagio to check out the conservatory. This was an activity that Danielle and I covered on our second date, which wasn't to long ago, and I also checked it out with my mom a couple weeks back while they were in town. So I wasn't too enthused, but fortunately the theme had changed within the past week or so. We also caught the "Luck Be a Lady" fountain show.

After walking back to PH, we bid our farewells since I had to go to work. I almost called in sick, but since I took early out on Tuesday night AND tokes suck to begin with, I couldn't really afford to miss a night of work. The shift was irritating to around the 9th degree! My friends never showed up because Michelle got sick (and she was the designated driver). If I had known they'd be a no-show, I definitely would have re-thought my sick call scenario. I had nothing but loser strokers all night on the dice table, and to top it all off, I HAD to stay an extra hour of overtime! Yuck!! To give you a microcosm of what my night was like, there was this one complete idiot who, at one point, had a $20 place bet on the five. It hit, so I cut out $28 (1 green chip and 3 blue chips). He told me to "take it to 30", so I did. He got pissed off and said it again. At that time I realized he was actually telling me to make it a $3 place bet (our tables are $3). Honestly, what kind of absolute human piece of stroking garbage presses a place bet from $20 to $3????? Did I mention my current place sucks ass!!!

I finally got home around 4:30am, all wound up, and didn't get to sleep until 6:30am. At 10:30am on Saturday my alarm with off. I dragged myself out of bed and headed back downtown. I found Mike, Matt and Sherri standing around the table games area at the Nugget. Since I just got off my shift and I going on so little sleep, some things are slipping my mind. I just know that I said so long to Mike, and never saw John or the Michel(l)es again, since they were taking the rent-a-car and I think doing more Strip stuff. Matt, Sherri and I went back to the stand-by at this point, the flea-gow game at Elco. This time I got off to a TERRIBLE start, and did good to only lose $50 this session. That kind of sucked, but to be fair, I did set aside some extra cash to play tourist these past few days, and some of that money is still in my wallet! :-)

The afternoon wound up with lunch at that Italian place next to the pool at the Nugget (Matt and Sherri generously picked up the tab) and I drove them both to the airport and said goodbye to them (thus saying goodbye to "tourist Rob" for the week).

A quick nap was in order before heading to work. The shift tonight wasn't too bad since I was forced home an hour early after dealing on the "high roller" $5 dice table most of the night.

A couple good days

It's been a couple pretty good days with the Columbus gang in town. On Wednesday morning, I dragged my ass out of bed on about 2 hours of sleep and made it down to the Strip for my interview. It went pretty good. This one was just a one-on-one interview making sure my information was all correct and her asking the common questions such as why I want the job and how I can exceed expectations. It almost seemed like a formality.

After the interview, I called my friends to see where they ended up and they happened to be at Green Valley Ranch, which is conveniently located right down the street from my apartment. When I got there, I found them all standing around John and Michele playing some $10 pai gow. We quickly left to go back to my apartment to change, and then it was off to Grimaldi's for their first food in three time zones. I honestly don't know how we finished off the entire order, but the only thing left were some crust slices. Yes, there were 7 of us, but between all of us we ordered 3 salads, 2 personal pizzas, 2 medium pizzas and 1 large pizza. It was a feast of epic proportions!

After we hauled ourselves back to the car, it was downtown for us so they could finally check into their home base for the next couple of days, the Golden Nugget. I was going on 2 hours of sleep, one of the guys was on the same since he works overnights in Columbus, and the rest were completely full and worn out. So a quick 2-hour nap interrupted the Vegas festivities.

After everybody regained consciousness, we all walked over to the 777 Brew Pub at Main Street Station. The beer was flowing freely since we got there in time for happy hour, which consists of $2 16 oz. microbrews. I had 2 specials (the Hefeweizen), 1 pale ale and 1 (or possibly 2) stouts. I drank them down pretty quickly, so I actually can't remember how many I had. At around that time Danielle showed up after a full day of work to join us and meet my friends. A good time was had by all.

Once we got our drink on, we wandered around for a little while but we all eventually made it down to the El Cortez for some crazy $5 flea-gow action. After about an hour, the group had completely taken over the entire table! I even got Danielle playing, which was her first time playing pai gow. It was kind of scary since I was helping about 3 people set their hands, I was playing too, and I added about 4 or 5 more beers to my tummy in the process. It was awesome, although I got brave a few times and banked, thus taking some cash away from the gang (even Danielle who was playing with part of my buy-in, so in a sense, I was playing against myself). After about 3 fun hours, my $65 total buy-in was colored up for $50. Not a bad night!

Danielle was my driver, so back home I went and crashed. The next day (Thursday), I took it easy for while, napping and watching some tourney action before heading back to the Strip for part 2 of the interview process. This happened to be a "group interview", which kind of mimicked a little mini-orientation. It was just a few questions asked, with ALL candidates answering in order, and a couple group team-building "rah rah, go Team Company" types of activities. These weren't all dealers, the group consisted of about 15 people applying for different positions and various properties. Once again, it seemed like just a formality since we ALL passed on to the next step. So now I just have to wait for the property to call. It almost seems like I circumvented the audition process somehow, since I figured that would be the very first thing I'd do. I guess we'll see.

After the group interview, I drove over to the Rio to wait for my friends to show up for dinner. I killed about 2 hours getting there and sitting at a bar watching some more basketball games. When they did arrive, they decided on the All-American Bar and Grill, which was okay but nothing to write home about. Right when we were about to order was when the Duke/Belmont game was finishing up, so the men at the table were a bit distracted at that point. After dinner, Danielle met up with us again after a long day at work. The group waited around to see the 8pm showing of the Fancy Frilly Sky Show or whatever they call it and then it was up to the Voodoo Lounge.

I had never been to the Voodoo Lounge before. The view was fantastic!! I guess we were a little early for the real action to start, but that's okay since the music was turned down a little lower than what I would guess normal is. The very cool highlight of the night was running into a pretty substantial celebrity out on the deck. He graciously took time out to chat for a little bit with us and take a couple of pictures with me and the whole group! It might have been a different situation if it was busy out there with people mobbing him, but he seemed like a really down-to-earth guy. I'll hold you in suspense and wait for Matt to forward me the pictures (which are on his digital camera) before letting you know who it was. It'll probably be its own post within the next week or so. One hint, he's a MUCH bigger music celebrity than that guy from Warrant I dealt to last year!

Once we left Voodoo, we all headed back downtown. A few people wussed out at that point, but 4 of us headed back to Elco for some more $5 pai gow. This time I lost a whopping $27 in about an hour and a half, so we cut our losses and called it a night.

Tonight (Friday), I have to work, so I probably won't see them at all during the day. They have expressed an interest in showing up at my table during my shift, so I might see them then. If not, we have plans for a final lunch on Saturday before their flight.

Unexpected Phone Call

I don't have much time to post tonight, but with my friends arriving in town within hours, I figured this might be the last opportunity for the week.

The biggest news of the day is that I finally got a phone call from that Strip property I was talking about a few weeks ago asking if I'd like to come in for an interview in the morning. Although the timing of it all couldn't have been worse (I worked tonight, the interview is in the morning, and my friends are landing at 9am), I'm glad they called. It's not the best Strip job in any way, shape or form, but the money is better than my current place and I wouldn't have to deal to a bunch of degenerate stroking flea-bags for eight hours a night!

So wish me luck. At this point I'm not quite sure if I'd try to work both jobs for a while or what, but I obviously don't have to make any decisions until this place offers me a job, which isn't in the bag just yet.

The Madness Roll Call

Well, it's Monday. Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!!! It's also just two days until the Columbus gang gets into town for three days of shenanigans. It didn't really hit me until late last week that their arrival was soon approaching.

They'll be flying into Vegas around 9am on Wednesday morning, which I've already mentioned is a bit of a problem with my current work-shift. The good news, which they are all aware of at this point by way of a convenient text message, is that I am not on the work schedule for 2 out of the 3 nights they are in town. The tentative plan on Wednesday is for them to pick me up at my apartment when I can drag my ass out of bed and catch some lunch at Grimaldi's. Then it's probably downtown since they need to check-in at the Golden Nugget. Danielle will meet up with us after she gets off of work, so I even have a designated driver lined up to get me back home in one piece! Also, Mikey just mentioned a little while ago that he's meeting up with T2Ver SteveB at Main Street Station that night, so things could get a little interesting! Tentative plans on Thursday night include the Voodoo Lounge at the Rio. Who knows how we'll fill in the holes, but I'm assuming there will be an ample amount of NCAA tourney viewing in there somewhere.

I have to work Friday night, which is their last night in Vegas. So perhaps they'd be interested in showing up at my dice table that night to give me relief from the fleas! We'll see. In all, there are three couples coming into town. Mike and Matt are old friends that I met in the dorm years at Ohio State, John is someone I had met who Matt worked with, and the wives are Sherri, MicheLe and MicheLLe. Roll Call!

Matt and Sherri are in the back while Mike and Michelle are in the forefront.

Here's Matt and John hanging out with NASCAR legend, Ricky Rudd. Ricky has a history of being on road trips with us. It would be a an enormously epic feat if Ricky were to make an appearance this week!

I'm really sorry Michele (headless on the left). This is absolutely the only picture I could find of you. I'll have to get some better/ more incriminating pics this week!