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.