Start the Work Week

Yesterday marked the last day off in a string of 12 days off out of the last 13. In fact, ironically, the only day that I did work during those 13 was Christmas day itself! Since my family was in town for an entire week, I decided to use up the vacation time that I had accrued and was paid for the majority of my time off, so I won't feel a pinch at all during the holiday spending time. When I was back in Bowling Green, I seemed to horde vacation time for no real reason. I think I cashed in more than 4 weeks of it when I left. However, that's not really the smartest thing to do in the casino business. If I should happen to leave my current place for ANY reason (layoff, job switch, etc.), I would only get minimum wage back for any cashed-in vacation time.....no tips at all. Don't read anything into that though. I have no intentions of leaving my current job, but anything can happen and if I average around $80 per day in tokes during my vacation days, that's about $480 that I would NOT have gotten if I just cashed in those days at the end of my tenure.

To summarize my family's trip to Vegas, here are some bullet points:
- They stayed all week at the Silverton, which I would definitely recommend
- Their Christmas gifts included an all-expenses paid meal at Mon Ami Gabi and great tickets to see KA at the MGM
- My Christmas present to my niece was taking her to Build-A-Bear at the Fashion Show Mall, where we also happened to run into Mayor Oscar Goodman
- My Mom's birthday occurred during the trip and, per her request, we all enjoyed a great meal at Fuego Steakhouse at Fiesta Henderson....one of the most underrated steakhouses in town.
- The Silverton had 2-for-1 entree specials at ALL of its casino owned restaurants this month, which included a much better-than-expected 24-hour cafe!
- It SNOWED while my family was in town! Now my niece will think snow is perfectly normal in Las Vegas!

I made the best of my last day off yesterday as I spent most of it with Danielle. We did a little shopping as I had to spend a gift certificate to Bed, Bath and Beyond that my sister got me for Christmas. I ended up buying a mini-food processor (which I have yet to play around with) and a replacement to a corkscrew that has come up missing in my many moves this past year.

After shopping, we went over to my old place of employment and caught a movie. I looked around for Mikey in the poker room, but didn't see him. It had been a long while since I snooped around in there, but it didn't seem too different. It did, however, seem much more smokier than I remember it! The movie we saw was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I won't go into any detail but I do recommend that you see it ASAP. It's an excellent movie all-around!! Just make sure you use the facilities beforehand since the running time is the better part of 3 hours.

After the movie, we jetted over to the Orleans for dinner at the Oyster Bar in there and then we caught the Las Vegas Wranglers game. Unfortunately, the Wranglers got behind 3-0 early in the 1st and weren't able to fully comeback as they lost 4-3.

All-in-all it was a pretty nice break. To be honest, I didn't really need the break though. I certainly wasn't feeling burnt out in any way before taking the time off and part of me wished I had tried to take a vacation in the spring at some point instead. It was nice though to spend all the time with my family and since business usually picks up in February and March, any time off during those months would not be promised.

This week began on Sunday with a dice shift all day. Business is SLOOOOOW though. The biggest buy-in that I had was only $300 and the biggest single bet that I booked was a $30 place bet on the 8. I like dealing craps, but this slow and low action is getting pretty boring! I did get 5 days on the schedule this week, which is nice, and it includes a 9-hour shift on New Year's Eve and a shift on New Year's Day. So hopefully the tokes will pick up later this week and get me by a potentially dry week that will follow (only 3 days on that schedule as of right now).

I hope everyone had a great holiday and will be able to get back in the swing of things for what is probably another shortened week this week!

If I don't happen to get back on the blog within the next couple of days, have a very happy and safe NEW YEAR!! Since I'm on day shift now, I'll actually be able to get home in time to see the ball drop Wednesday night, assuming I don't doze off before it happens.

Norm Revisited

I couldn't really think of a nice holiday post to make this year on Christmas Eve, so I just though I'd wish anyone reading this a very Merry Christmas and holiday season and best wishes for the New Year!

Here's a video that I busted out on the blog last year. Since it makes me laugh every time I watch it, I thought I'd replay it this year!

Surviving the Elements!

It's about 3:15am on Thursday morning, but my Wednesday is just wrapping up. My parents, sister and niece are in town visiting and my plan was to head over to the Silverton where they are staying, have breakfast with them, drive my sister and niece to the airport so they could fly to San Diego for a wedding, take my parents back to my house and cook them dinner. The plans needed some slight tweaking as the day progressed.

The breakfast was fine and everything seemed to be going smoothly until about an hour before leaving for the airport.

About an hour before leaving, Danielle called and said that my sister's flight was delayed. So we bummed around Silverton for a little while and I caught my first picture of snow falling in the Vegas valley outside the Silverton valet area.

The valet pulled my dad's rental van and we hopped in, right after taking another picture of the snow.

Before heading down to get the van, I shot this pic out of the window of my parent's room at the Silverton. Quite a view, eh? I couldn't believe I was actually seeing snow accumulate in Vegas!

This is the first snowball that I've made in almost two years. The last snow that I was in before today was midway through Oklahoma when Chris and I made our epic trip to Vegas.

Once we got on the road and heading to the airport, I realized how serious the situation was becoming. I called Danielle so she could get back on the internet and let us know if the flight status had changed.

This is a picture while walking from short-term parking to the main terminal at the aiport. Seconds after taking this picture, Danielle called letting me know that my sister's flight had been cancelled!

After spending over four hours in the airport waiting in line so she could re-book her flight, we walked back to the rental van (being guarded from the ticket police by my dad) and I took a picture of this mass of humanity huddled around the luggage carousels. These were NOT incoming people who just landed in Vegas. These were all of the people who had checked baggage right before the airport closed, thus stranding everyone you see in this pic in Vegas for at least another night.

A trip from the airport back to the Silverton usually takes about 15 minutes. It took us 90 minutes!!! This pic was taken in a rare moment of light traffic on Pebble somewhere between Eastern and Las Vegas Blvd. I wanted to avoid the highways because I had visions of overturned SUVs and jack-knifed semis in my head. Eastern Avenue was a clusterf**k all the way from Tripicana to Pebble, and I heard it was even worse going farther south!

We finally got back to the Silverton as I took this pic from the top of the parking garage.

After spending a few more hours with my family at the Silverton, I walked out to my car in the parking lot by way of the pool area. The jacuzzi sure looked tempting!

I found my car covered in snow for the first time in two years.

How the hell am I supposed to get all of this snow off??

Even I laughed at myself when I decided to keep my snow scraper in the trunk of my car these past two years. Now who's laughing? I am!

After cleaning my car off and making the very wet, yet uneventful drive back to my place, I took a pic of my neighborhood at around 2am Thursday morning.

I also deciced to walk down the street and check the mail for some reason. I was greeted by this friendly creation near the mailbox.

While driving home from the airport, we were listening to Vegas news radio. Apparently, this is the biggest accumulation of snow since 1979. I've really been missing the white stuff this year as I've NEVER gone a winter without it until last year. Unfortunately to see it again, it meant my sister missing at least a day in San Diego with the wedding party/bachelorette party. Hopefully all of this stuff will be melted down enough tomorrow for her to make her flight around 4:30pm.

Tomorrow is also the day when I am supposed to implement my parent's Christmas presents. This year Danielle and I will be taking them to a nice dinner at Mon Ami at Paris and then getting over to the MGM for the 9:30pm showing of KA. At least that's the plan, which greatly depends on if my sister will make it out of Vegas!

I'm suprised I found this time to post on the blog. Even without working (vacation days), its been a very busy and tiring week so far with my folks in town. I'll try to catch everyone up at some point early next week, so have a great weekend if I don't check in again before then.

Watch your family jewels

Tony sent me this youtube video link in the email today. If you have a couple minutes and want a good laugh, click away!!!

Debit Cards.....why???

Just a quick question to any readers out there who use a debit card on a regular basis.

Why?

I've had this discussion with Danielle and many others and still don't understand our fascination with using debit cards to pay for things! I have NEVER used a debit card as a form of payment, but I believe I understand the gist of what it is. It's basically a card that allows you to pay for things out of your checking account without actually having to physically write out a check, correct? So I ask you again, why? I've opened up accounts at two new banks since moving to Vegas and the bank employees usually looked at me like I was crazy when I told them I was not interested in having a debit card!

I've never been accused of being an economic wizard, but I'll share with you my personal financial preferences.

First, I NEVER deposit money into my checking account....always my savings account. My current savings account is an FDIC insured money market savings account which has a fluctuating interest rate, but right now its around 1.5% compared to the tiny .2% for my bank's regular savings account. The interest gained in my checking account.....ZERO %! Unless other banks do things differently and have awesome interest rates for their checking accounts, why would I want to keep the majority of my money in my checking account. For those of you who directly deposit your paychecks into your checking accounts, why are you doing this?

So how do I pay for things if I don't use cash or a debit card? Credit cards of course! Gas, groceries, dining out, car insurance bills, everyday expenses, etc. etc. etc. Heck, when I lived with Mikey, I paid the entire rent every month on my credit card and just got his portion from him separately. Why pay for everything with a credit card? Why not?

There are three main reasons to pay for things using credit as opposed to debit:

1. You're not paying any more using credit than debit, unless you actually get a credit card with a monthly fee, which seems to be rare. The gas you put on your credit card costs no more than the gas you pay using debit. Same goes for groceries, etc. The only way the credit card would cost you is if you kept a balance on it instead of paying it off in full every month. As long as you don't buy any more things using credit per month as you would have using your debit card, there should be no difference at all!

2. Paying using credit and paying off your credit card every month helps your credit score! That cannot be said about using your debit card. I'm proud to say that my credit score is well above 700 right now, thanks in part by using some of my available credit every month and then paying off that debt immediately as soon as the credit card statement comes in the mail.

3. Using a credit card can get you free stuff. Currently, I have two credit cards. One card has a rewards program that funnels a small % of each of my purchases to the alumni association at Bowling Green. The other card, which I primarily use, earns me approximately $120-$150 in free groceries per year. There are plenty of credit cards out there with all kinds of reward programs that can earn you frequent flier miles, free hotel stays, free gas, etc. Why use a debit card that gets you absolutely nothing?

One other advantage to my personal strategy is that it forces money management upon me whether I like it or not. I write exactly two checks every month. One is my rent/utility check to my roommate who pays all of that stuff himself. The other is the check to my credit card company when the statement arrives in the mail. I obviously pay it in full thus avoiding interest charges. Each time I write one of these two checks, it forces me to transfer just enough money from my savings account to my checking account to cover these checks, and no more since I want all of my cash in the money market savings account. I do these transfers online which allows me to also see my direct deposits into my savings account. If the amount to write these two checks each month is MORE than what I've directly deposited into savings, I know that I've spent too much that month and I need to tone it down. The only time that's happened though was when I was "working" at Sunset and barely getting 3 days per week (as well as the brief period after being laid off).

So that's my little question of the day. For the life of me I can't understand America's infatuation with debit cards!

Topic of Conversation

So I've been a casino dealer for the better part of two years now, but most of that was spent off-strip being stroked by the same local losers every single day and not really meeting a heck of a lot of people from across the country and beyond. That changed when I got my current job on the Strip. Now I come across people from all walks of life from places both near and far. Obviously, one of the most common conversation starters when dealing to new players at the table is to ask them where they are from. Some answers that people give provide immediate conversation fodder as I have traveled somewhat extensively throughout the country. Others don't help much though. Below I'll give the answers that people say to the question and the usual result/response:

Ohio - This is obviously the most common conversation starter since that is my home state. I almost always develop a good relationship with players from Ohio since we usually have some common experiences. This is made even easier by the fact that my hometown is Sandusky, which boasts one of the best amusement parks in the country in Cedar Point. In fact, that piece of information usually brings about a positive response from just about anyone in the midwest region. The one not-so-bright spot about meeting fellow Ohioans though is a very unfortunate and weird habit for obvious Buckeye fans to become dumb douchebags at the blackjack/craps table. I know that sounds sacrilegious to say, but Mikey and I actually had conversations about this phenomena when I was still working out in Henderson. Now it must be said that Mikey definitely has a somewhat unhealthy bias against Ohio State sports for some reason, but I can justify it just slightly from what I've witnessed at the tables over the past couple of years. For some damn reason, a large percentage of people who come to Vegas with Buckeye shirts, hats, jerseys, etc. are just plain douchebags! I can't explain it. I can walk around the streets of Columbus, the Ohio State campus, etc. and meet plenty of nice and fine Ohioans with no obvious flaws at all. So either something happens to these people on the plane out here, or there's something about Vegas that ONLY draws out the least common denominator from the great state and brings them to my table. I have noticed two commonalities from the annoying Buckeye contingent though. First, if I voice out the familiar "O-H", and I do not get the mandatory "I-O" from them, chances are they have never been to a Buckeye game, have never attended and have no affiliation with the university and just simply wear the Ohio State stuff to make themselves feel important. The second thing that I've noticed is that the MOST annoying Buckeye fans invariably come from Cincinnati or that southwest region of Ohio. Sorry to anyone that's from that area, but I'm just giving you my honest perceptions here. In fact, the Cincinnati effect was pretty much confirmed on my trip to the Ohio State vs. Michigan State game in East Lansing last month. As annoying as some of the Spartan fans got against anyone with scarlet and grey on, the awards for the Biggest Dumb Drunk Douchebag contest went to the group of Cincy idiots who tailgated right next to us the whole damn day!

Anyway, sorry for the tangent, so let's get onto other parts of the world.

Michigan - You might think that I'll have a natural bias against anyone from Michigan, but that simply isn't true. It is true that I normally don't get along well with anyone with a Wolverine shirt on (which doesn't happen much anymore), but most folks from Michigan are pretty cool on my table and we get along just fine. If they are from the Detroit area, I usually talk about getting my casino certificates from the dealer school in Taylor and I can also talk a little Red Wing hockey thanks to Chris, my roommate who is a Red Wing nut!

Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, etc. - Although I haven't spent much time in these midwestern states, I can usually strike up conversations with them, if not for the simple fact that they almost always recognize Sandusky and Cedar Point.

England - I meet people from England about once a week on average. I always welcome them to the States and ask what part of England they are from. Sometimes I'll work in my obsession with Pink Floyd and it generally results in a positive response, especially for those who "went to school in Cambrigde" and the like. I will say that I don't think I've ever met more polite people than those players from England!

Hawaii, Alaska - I always welcome them to the States. They don't seem to like that for some reason.

Oklahoma, Missouri - Whenever I meet people from either of these two states, I always bring up the horrible ice storm that Chris and I drove through to get to Vegas two years ago. I talk about living off of microwave pizza and Keystone beer in a hotel in Joplin, Missouri for 3 days. EVERY person from these two states remembers the storm and has stories of their own from that time period.

Texas - Texas is such a huge state that most of the time, I really can't find any good conversation topics with people from Texas. If they are anywhere near the southeast portion of the state, I can usually talk about the week I spent in San Antonio. But the fallback I always have with these guys is college football. I've seen a TON of Longhorn gear walk through the casino these past couple of months and its only gotten more prevalent since the National Finals Rodeo has come to town!

Canada, eh - I get a LOT of canucks at my tables every week. They've come out of the woodwork since the Canadian dollar has become competitive with the American dollar, and I almost never have bad experiences with people from the frozen north. I know enough hockey to get by and I'm always shocked at the amount of people from all parts of Canada that have heard of Bowling Green State University and its hockey program! I just have to mention the likes of Nelson Emerson or Rob Blake or the guys from the Miracle on Ice team and that's sometimes enough to get on their good graces and see some tips come my way.

Pennsylvania - I get along with folks from PA, especially on Sundays when I'm allowed to wear my Steelers jersey to work! I always bring up the fact that I was raised in "enemy territory", that my girlfriend is from Pittsburgh and my dad was born in the Scranton area. I do meet WAY more people from Pittsburgh than Philadelphia and the eastern side of the state from some reason.

New York City - New Yorkers aren't the worst bunch of players as a whole, but they do usually have one annoying habit......their propensity to be the "table captain". Once again, they normally don't act real innapropiately, but there is a general self-centerdness about them. If the table is full and there is ONE guy who seems to like the sound of his voice way too much and just won't shut up, its always the New Yorker.

New Orleans - I've met a surprising amount of people from New Orleans. Since I've spent a total of 5 weeks of my life in that city, I usually get along really well with these people. One weird aspect of our conversations is that Katrina is almost NEVER brought up. The conversation usually starts with the fact that I made annual trips there in the late 90's and we just speak of the town as if the biggest natural disaster in American history never happened.

California - Because of Las Vegas' proximity to California, I meet a lot of people from there, especially the LA area. This was especially true at my joint in Henderson. Unfortunately, the conversations I have with these people are probably the most lame as from any other part of the world. I just don't have ANYTHING in common with the majority of Californians that I see. Believe it or not, I've NEVER stepped foot in California, and don't laugh, but I usually ask them if they flew or drove in and talk about the current gas prices. Yuck! Lame, I know, but I'm almost always at a loss for what to talk about when seeing players from the golden state.

If I think of other common areas where players at my casino come from, I might edit this post later. But those are pretty much the most common. One nice thing about working on the Strip is that even if I don't know much about the area where someone is from, there's a good chance that some other player at the table does. For example, if someone says they're from Arkansas, I usually don't have much to say. But if someone else at the table is from Texas, there's usually a topic or two that they talk about amongst themselves, which can turn a boring silent table into a talkative one with very little effort on my part. This, in turn, makes their experience a little more enjoyable and makes it more possible for a tip or two to find its way to me.

Pink Floyd Down Under

Last night I took Danielle to see the Australian Pink Floyd show at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel/Casino a few blocks off the Strip! GREAT SHOW!!!

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you know that I am a huge fan of Pink Floyd. I have never seen a Floyd tribute band before and I was just a little apprehensive about the experience. However, the tickets weren't unreasonable and I've heard nothing but good things about these Aussies, so I decided to check them out. In fact, I asked for and received a paid-vacation day yesterday just to see them!

I'm really glad I did. Man, what a terrific show!! On their current tour, they are playing The Wall in its entirety, along with a few encore songs including 'Learning to Fly', "Great Gig in the Sky', 'Wish You Were Here', 'One of These Days', and 'Brain Damage/Eclipse'.

I was so impressed with The Wall recreation! The only thing that would have been a topper is if they'd actually built a wall around the stage during the performance like the old days when Floyd toured the album. It appeared that most, if not all, of the light show and graphics were created from scratch. But almost all of it was extremely close to Gerald Scarfe's movie animations. So close in fact that I can't say for sure if they did actually "borrow" some stuff or if they just did a kick-ass job of creating extremely authentic looking stuff. The one nice touch throughout the show was incorporating the Australian theme into the animations. The Wall hammerhead animations were replaced with those kangaroos that you see up in the picture.

The music was as close to the real thing as anyone could possibly expect. These guys obviously don't capture the real Floyd, but I can't imagine anyone coming any closer. The absolute single biggest highlight of the night was their rendition of Comfortably Numb. The solo was just ridiculously close to the real thing and it was the only time during the entire concert when the crowd as a whole rose for a standing ovation!!

Their Wall included everything from both the studio album as well as the stuff that was in the movie, but not the album. There were some creative points that deviated slightly from the album/movie, but those instances actually enhanced the performance! I also enjoyed the minor theatrical measures they took which included their "Pink" sitting in a lone chair with a lamp and television playing the EXACT same old movie footage that was found in the movie!

The Australian Pink Floyd Show is simply the mother of all tribute bands! They don't just cover Pink Floyd, they pay an honest tribute to them! For the money that I paid, I'd say it may have been the best bang for the buck that I've ever gotten out of a concert! If you have a chance to see them wherever you live, try to check them out!

Aside from the concert, Danielle and I also headed down to Buffalo Wild Wings earlier in the day to watch the Steelers kick ass in New England. For the locals reading this, Buffalo Wild Wings (still BW3 in my book) has completely won me over as my preference for local sports bars. PT's used to do it for me, but BW3 is now the place to go, if not for the sole reason that they actually have the balls to enforce the restaurant smoking ban in Vegas. Since I have to deal with smoke in the casino on a dialy basis, I've decided that I will simply NOT put up with it on my days off! Good job BW3!! You've earned my business.

So I spent the day with Danielle watching the Steelers roll and a great Aussie Floyd show......all while getting a paid work-day! Can't really beat that.