No Thanks, Jay.

Good stuff Rob, now u must pick up where Mikey is leaving off for the Summer. This can be theraputic for you, especially if your feeling burnt out from work. Write your days here, even if its the same old thing! Get some use from this Blog!!!

Jay

That was a comment left in the Binions trip post below. Jay, thanks a ton for reading and commenting, but I really doubt I have the blogging interest to even attempt to fit the gap that Mikey is leaving by taking a couple months off (let's just see if he's truly serious about that anyway). To give people a sense for the time that blogging can take up, that Binions post took me around 1.5 to 2 hours to complete, including uploading the pics off my phone, writing up the story, adding the pic captions, proofreading, etc. It's just not something I can do on a nightly basis like Mikey has somehow managed to do!

On average, I'm only getting about 50 hits per day during the week and less during the weekend, which is kind of how I like it. I really appreciate any T2V fans and others who wander in here every once in a while, but for the most part, I write my posts with the thought that I know for a fact that only about 10 people are hitting my blog on a daily basis (you know who you are).

Here are examples that I spend my time on a daily basis BEFORE thinking about blogging:
- Work
- Girlfriend
- Netflix
- What's on the DVR (includes Deadliest Catch, Suze Orman, The Office, Lost, NASCAR, football in the fall, etc. etc.)
- Hanging out with roommates
- I could think of a couple more bullet points, but you get the point.

So for now and the forseeable future, I'm just using the blog to update my friends on things that I'm up to. A secondary use is writing something that I would also write up on the T2V message board, but I'll just link it from T2V board to here since it would be silly to write it up twice.

Chances are I'll be away from the blog for a little over a week. My vacation started Tuesday when I got home from work and the plane takes off at 8:40am to Ohio! I'll be in Ohio until next Wednesday (July 1st) and I actually have jury duty scheduled on July 2nd....and then July 4th weekend at work. So who knows when the next time I'll get on here will be. Just check back every few days or so if you'd like.

Have a great week everyone!

Cathedral Rock

We went hiking again on Monday and accomplished another two hikes up at Mt. Charleston. We first did Cathedral Rock, which is 1.4 miles one-way up 1,000 feet. The other was a very small hike called Little Falls, which was only 1/4 of a mile one-way. However, after Cathedral Rock, Little Falls was pretty tiring due to the elevation change on that one too! It really took me off-guard and I was extremely tired after our hiking....even having to force myself to stay awake at the wheel on the way home! I did take a few pics of Little Falls, but I won't post them because just about every pic shows canyon walls with graffiti on them, which is pretty ugly.

Here are a few pics from Cathedral Rock.

Here's the sign for the trailhead in the parking lot.

This is looking up 1,000 feet at Cathedral Rock

This is looking up at our destination as we start to wrap around the south side of it. We are now walking through a big avalanche chute.

Looking down you can see the trail. Somewhere in that area is where I took the previous pic.

We've made it to the top in this picture. If you look really closely (try clicking on the pic to make it bigger), you can see the trailhead parking lot. My car is the fourth from the left.

This is looking east through Kyle Canyon, which is where the road is leading in and out.

For anyone thinking they've come a long way, this is looking up at Charleston Peak (the only peak above the tree-line). It's WAY up there!

Binions Technicolor Dream

Okay, so I went through with the one-night vacation down on Fremont Street after researching those hotel prices down there for last Thursday night. I had worked 10 days out of the previous 11, and almost every one of those shifts sucked....to put it bluntly.

For the past 6 months or so I've thrown around the idea of taking a night off and staying downtown for the simple fact that I LOVE the microbrews at Main Street Station and I hate having to worry about designated drivers, etc. I almost went through with this idea a few months ago when I found the Plaza (right next to Main Street Station) at $25 for a night during a slow time. But I never followed through.

I knew Thursday night would be a work-night for Danielle, but she was happy to join me for a portion (turned out to be a very small portion) of the night. I got up at my usual time on Thursday but was VERY lazy, so I didn't really get around and head downtown until about 5pm....right into the rush hour traffic! Oh well, I wasn't in any real hurry since Danielle wouldn't get down there until much later.

I checked into Binions (confirmed at $16.65) and the front desk person told me she'd upgrade me to a "petite suit". I wasn't too sure what that meant, but I tossed her $5 for the effort. The room wasn't too bad. It was worn in spots but it was a good sized room with a table/chairs/couch/coffee maker and a fridge, which was a nice bonus that I think only came in the "petite suit".

While waiting for Danielle, I walked around Fremont Street for a while but, of course, ended up at Main Street Station playing low-limit video poker and enjoying some comped microbrews, which they deliver to the machines and table games. The casino I work at only serves crappy domestic beers at the machines/tables, so I felt like I was being spoiled a little bit!

Before Danielle got downtown, I wanted to make the walk way down past the El Cortez and check out the Western. There was a pretty extensive thread at T2V about the place and I wanted to see what was up there since my last visit well over a year ago. It hasn't changed much. The general atmosphere of desperation and bottom-dwellers was present. The price of a draft beer has skyrocketed from $1 to $1.25 which is not bad for a plastic cup of Coors Original, a banquet beer! There were exactly 4 blackjack tables in the one and only table games pit. Two were open, both $3 shoe games, and both were completely empty! Perhaps the Western is driving away business by only offering these high-rolling $3 tables! I didn't stick around very long at the Western and I'm glad I didn't try to talk Danielle into going down there with me. It's not a very prim and proper place and I'm glad to have made use of the waining daylight on my solo walk back to the canopy.

Once Danielle made it down there, we headed right back to Main Street Station and had dinner at the Brew Pub. I went with the nachos while Danielle chose some sushi. A sidenote.....it just took me about 5 minutes to remember what we both had to eat. That foreshadows the state of mind that I was already in at the time and the haziness of things to come. There was an "incident" with a jalepeno pepper making its way onto one of Danielle's sushi pieces, which I made up for a little later in the night with the gift of a stuffed animal!

To be honest, I can't really remember a lot of what happened after dinner. I think we played some video poker for a while as I downed a couple more microbrews. Then we went out to take in the sights of the Fremont Street Experience. While walking around we saw some stuffed monkeys hanging from one of the stands in the middle of Fremont Street and I made a quick remark about being glad there weren't any Steeler monkeys up there. I think the attendant heard me say that and immediately pounced on it by pointing right to a happy hanging Steeler monkey around the corner from where we were standing. Crap, I guess the laws of boyfriends warranted me buying it no matter what the price, which turned out to be not-so-bad.

Not long after this, Danielle hit the sack since she had to get up around 7:30am the next morning to go to work. This is the very beginning of when things got really hazy! I remember wandering through almost every downtown casino in a vain attempt to find a full-pay jacks-or-better video poker machine. I ended up back at Main Street Station (for the third time that night) since that seems to be the only damn place that has full-pay machines (at the bar of all places).

After a while I got it in my head that I wanted to walk back down to the El Cortez to play some Pai Gow. When I got there, the Pai Gow table was completely full and I also realized that I was running very low on cash. After paying in cash the tip to the front desk person, a couple beers at Main Street, the Steeler Monkey, dinner, etc., I hit the ATM at the El Cortez, which is normally a death sentence! Before I knew it, I bought in for a hundy at the $3 craps table and proceeded to do my best impression of a Elco flea! The Coronas were coming very quickly and the table was never really cold the entire time I was there. Unfortunately, my main strategy was just starting at $3 on the six and eight and maybe a pass-line with $5 or $10 odds. It's not the cheapest strategy in the world, but I power pressed the six and eight the first two times each hit, so I'd usually have $12 on them after a few rolls.

At one point, the table got incredibly hot, but I had to take a whiz like crazy so I just told the dealer to "same bet me" until I got back. When I returned, she handed me like $80 in red chips, which confounded me. Apparantly I had some hardway bets up there that I didn't know I had, so I just told her to keep half of whatever she was giving me. In my state-of-mind, that seemed to be the right thing to do! I also remember power pressing the six and eight a few times and just putting the change on dealer hardway bets. After about 3 hours, the dealer money that they were stacking up in the middle of the table had to be well over a hundred bucks and, unfortunately, I knew it was ALL from me since nobody else was showing any love for those hardworking dealers.

Once the last person aside from myself called it a "night", I rolled a couple more times and colored up with a $160 profit. It wasn't a big profit, but considering I wasn't making too many bets to begin with and much of my $ went to the dealers, it was a very good run! It was also a blast!!! I can't remember the last time I had that much fun at a craps table.

Then came a very bad realization. I walked out on the street and, sure enough, the sun was out (God's flashlight). Joggers were running by....looking at me....and they knew. So then I did something that I will forever regret. I became that of which I hate! I walked straight into Fitzgeralds and sat down at the lone empty seat at the $2 blackjack table! I really don't remember much about my time at the Fitz except for bits and pieces, which include trying to give my beer away without any takers, trying to get a new players card and get rated at the $2 bj table, etc. I was a mess! However, I broke even at the high-roller table and waddled all the way over to the California to partake in their great graveyard specials. One problem.....it was 7am! I somehow made it into the cafe and I think I just went right to the breakfast buffet, but I might have looked at a menu. I'm not really sure. For some reason, I had a problem with the cashier not being able to use the 40 cents I had on my players card to help pay for the meal and I can't really remember paying at all (I hope I didn't just walk the f**k out of there). At any rate, I walked back out directly into the sun again and that's when Danielle called. I told her I was on my way back to Binions and crashed into the room around 7:50am, just in time for her to go to work.

She kindly called the front desk and left a wake-up call for me for 11:30am since checkout was noon. Unfortunately, I found myself up at around 10am with a medical emergency. I'll spare you some of the details, but suffice to say, I had some cleaning up to do in and around the bathroom area for the next 40 minutes or so! I mean the WHOLE area: bathroom door with its full length mirror, bathroom floor, bathroom sink, bathroom toilet, and perhaps other places that I never discovered! I remember using an entire roll of toilet paper and a bath towel during the cleanup, and then back to bed.

I woke up at the wake-up call and somehow made it down to the front desk in time to check out. I left a ten-spot and an apology letter for the housekeeping staff since I think I left about 5% of the mess behind. The will just wasn't there to do more cleaning once I woke up. I know I'm an ass for that, but at that point, circumstances were out of my control.

Friday was spent recovering. I really needed to blow off some steam, and I accomplished that task! Oh, and I somehow managed to profit a few bucks through the whole ordeal!

Here are a few pics. You'll notice they are completely random and not very numerous. I think the last thing on my mind was taking pictures for a coherent blog posting!

I guess this is what a recession looks like on Fremont Street.

Then again, the recession has given the Fitz a reason to turn their noses up on all of those crazy casinos offering the high-rolling $3 blackjack tables!

No rhyme or reason at all for this picture. I have no idea what I found so interesting about this video poker flush.

Here's the Western's massive table games area. Yes, that dealer is actually waving at me to NOT take a picture. I played the roll of a dumb tourist and actually tried to strike up a conversation with her until I realized that English is not her strong suit.

And here's the outside of the "Stern Otel"

Okay, I actually found a video poker machine that took ONLY quarters at the California. I mean that literally. You CAN NOT buy in on those machines with currency. You have to get change at the machine like in an arcade and feed in the quarters on EVERY SPIN! It was novel enough to take a picture I guess, but after 15 minutes my hands were filthy!

Meet Danielle's new friend, who she quickly named Steeley Dan.

$16.65

That's the cost of staying in a room at Binion's Hotel/Casino this Thursday night! Yep, it's $15 plus tax for one King Bed Tower room. Alas, there weren't any cheaper rooms downtown. My search for that night came up with:

Las Vegas Club - $20
Plaza - $20
Four Queens - $18
El Cortez - $31 (yes, this surprised me as well....seems a bit high in comparison)
Fitzgeralds - $39
Main Street Station, California, Fremont - $36
Golden Gate - $29.06 (really? WTF is that 6 cents for anyway!?!)

I didn't even bother to try Golden Nugget since its the jewel of downtown.

Here's the deal. I think it would be good for me to give myself a one night vacation before the big vacation next week. I have Thursday and Friday off and Danielle is well aware of my longing to make it downtown and partake in some magnificent microbrews at the 777 Brewpub at Main Street Station. So I figured her and I could hit the downtown on Thursday night and since downtown is half-way to her work, she'd be cutting out half of her commute on Friday morning......so EVERYONE'S a winner! Plus, Main Street Station has some full-pay jacks-or-better video poker machines at their bartop in the casino where they will comp you their microbrews if you're playing.

So I'll check into Binions sometime Thursday afternoon, wait for Danielle to get downtown after work, have dinner (probably in the Brewpub) and then become spirited from there. Sounds like a plan!

Bonehead move of the day

Anyone wonder why I haven't mentioned work on my blog in a while? Two words: Burn Out!

Yep, I'm officially burnt out. If you've read any of my postings over on the T2V board lately, you're probably aware of my disgruntlement (is that a word?). Apparently, some of my fellow dealers are aware as well. Chris attended a party the other night and ran into some of the dealers from my casino. They knew that Chris and I were roommates and actually mentioned how bad of mood they've noticed that I've been in lately. I haven't mentioned much of my rantings to anyone but Chris, so I suppose its getting obvious.

What does this mean for a casino dealer? Unfortunately, its a slippery slope. The main overriding factor for my particular case of burn-out are dropping toke rates and the stiffs who are causing our tips to drop. This can snowball. Lower tips=lower money=disgruntled dealer=unfriendly dealer=unhappy players=lower tips! Full circle!

Sometimes I can rant about my job and have bad days, but for the most part I enjoy dealing and I enjoy dealing at my current casino. However, I've noticed 2 very bad warning signs lately that I'm in more than just a rut.

1. I am increasingly rooting for an empty table. Harking back to my days on graveyard shift at Sunset Station, things on that shift were so slow that I would sometimes KILL for some action....ANY action. Now, I just silently root for players to run out of money and leave to give me some peace and quiet. I realize that no players equals no tips, but I'd almost rather have a boring day than a lucrative day right now.

2. I am not really looking forward to going to work on days that I'm scheduled to deal craps. This is a BIG WARNING SIGN! Craps is by far my favorite game to deal. When you deal craps, you deal it the whole day (you don't switch to other tables).

Part of me says that I have no room to complain because I do have a fairly solid job during the worst recession since the Great Depression. Some of my fellow dealers work two jobs and they don't seem to complain much (maybe 'cause they're too tired). I'm still part-time, which means I don't work 40 hours during some weeks.

The fact remains though, I'm burnt-out. Right now, due to weird scheduling, I am in the middle of working 10 days out of 11. My only day off recently has been this past Friday, which ironically, was the best tip day in a month! And the next three days before my next day off are weekdays with NO craps shifts. That means my next three days will probably be dealing to cheap stiffs on the $5 blackjack tables or the chain-smoking losers on the Let It Ride tables. Great choice!

All of this has caused me to have some brain farts recently. I'm finding that I'm making more mistakes on the tables and having to call over the floor supervisors more often. I'm doing this NOT because I'm a bad dealer, but because my head usually isn't really in the game or I'm just simply bored off my ass dealing to $5 minimum players. Here's a little secret.......surveillance doesn't give two s**ts about $5 blackjack tables. The surveillance department at my casino also has to supervise an entirely different casino that neighbors ours, and they have much bigger fish to fry than checking to see if I accidentally paid someone $5 on a push. It seems like I could royally screw up 10 hands in a row on a $5 table and nobody would notice.

The title of this post refers to my head being in the clouds yet again on Sunday. Near the end of my shift, a former student of mine from Bowling Green stopped by my table to say 'hi'. I talked him into waiting around about 30 minutes until my shift was over so we could walk the Strip a little bit and catch up. After my shift, I stowed my uniform in my locker and hurried back down to meet him waiting at the bar. He'd never been inside the Venetian or Wynn before, so we walked north on the Strip for a while. Right as we were about to enter the Venetian, my cell phone started ringing and it was Chris calling. For a split second I didn't know why he'd be calling.....until I remembered that we carpooled and I drove!!! Ooops!

One obvious nice thing that I've been doing lately to relax is hiking. Unfortunately though, I haven't gotten a chance to go out for over a week due to working on the weekends. To go on a good hike, it has to be with Danielle (for safety reasons) and our days-off just don't match up a lot. Hiking is also part of the problem though. The times that I have been able to hike are days where I go back to work the next day. Ideally I'd like to use the day-after to recover physically. I'm usually sore and physically beaten on those days at work right after hiking for 6 miles or so at 8000 feet!

So, it goes without saying, I need a vacation. I just need to somehow plow through these next three days before I finally get a couple days off. Then there'll be 3 more days of work next week before Danielle and I fly back to Ohio for some much needed R&R. Next Wednesday is our flight into Columbus, and here's what is on docket for our trip:
1. Spend a day with my sister since she's taking a day off work
2. Spending TWO whole drunk-filled days at Comfest in Columbus!
3. Attending my nephew's birthday party.
4. Taking a boat out to Kelley's Island in Lake Erie and just hiking around the island for a day.
5. Going to Cedar Point Amusement Park (America's Roller Coast)!
6. Going at least 9 days in a row without hearing a slot machine, dealing to a chain-smoker or hearing the words "winner, winner, chicken dinner!"

Fletcher Canyon Trail - Mount Charleston

Okay, so this is my third or fourth straight posting involving a hike. Danielle and I went back up to Mount Charleston again on Saturday and knocked out a whopping 3 hikes! Two of them were the same two that I accomplished on Monday, so it wasn't too big of deal. But added all up, we hiked somewhere in the 5-7 mile range for the day, which isn't too shabby. The easy Sawmill Loop and the short (but not-so-easy) Robber's Roost capped the day after we got done with the Fletcher Canyon trail earlier in the day. We had gone about 3/4 of the way into Fletcher Canyon on our first trip a couple weeks ago, but darkness forced us back before we could get to the really interesting part of the trail (deep into the canyon). So all of the pictures below will be of the Fletcher trail, mostly at the end of it which was completely new to both of us.

The Fletcher trail gets pretty damn tricky the farther you get into it. It goes from being a trail to simply following an old dry creek bed in the bottom of the canyon. In fact, the "official" trail that is maintained by the forest service ends after only a mile or so, so all of the trail that goes into the canyon is technically "unofficial". Once the trail ended, there was a lot of "scrambling" up and around boulders, logs, etc. As you can see in some of the pics, its not the easiest of going, but the views from inside the canyon walls were definitely worth it!

The majority of the trail is anticipation of the canyon, and the mountain walls on either side of you slowly but surely close in on each other.

We actually discovered this moss covered cave on the way back, but it is found before you get to the canyon. Water literally drips from inside the cave ceiling allowing all of this moss to grow.

Here is looking back as soon as you start to enter the canyon. Behind me in the picture is the beginning of the canyon, which is full of trees and plant life until the end.

Okay, now the walls are starting to close in as the actual trail has ended. From here on out we're just scrambling up the dry creek bed, over boulders, logs and loose rocks.

The canyon walls have really squeezed us in, but at least its a much easier walk at this point.

The dog is checking out the canyon as well. It seemed that the tighter the canyon walls got, the easier the hiking was.....until the end!

Okay, here's close to the end of the line. This is a pretty cool little waterfall. You can see how its cut a big groove right into that boulder. Just to the right of this picture (to the right of the boulder) is a very little space that we had to crawl up to keep going. It was a tricky climb of about 8 feet......

....which, unfortunately, the dog was not able to make. The boulder on the right is the same as in the previous picture, just looking back and down. The little waterfall is to the right.

Here I am climbing up there. Did the dog take this picture?!?!

Once that 8ft. climb was accomplished, the canyon forked. This is Danielle standing under a boulder in the left fork. All of this is in a very tight area. Just to my left is the 8ft. drop and the dog waiting patiently. One of us had to stand here at all times making sure the dog didn't wander away. The left fork pretty much ends right there (unless you grapple over it).

The right fork went a little ways further. In this picture I have walked up the right fork as far as I can possibly go. This is looking back. Off in the distance you can see Danielle standing at the designated spot on top of the 8 ft. drop watching the dog (where I was standing while taking the previous picture).

And this is looking forward at the end of the fork. Without ropes and advanced climbing skills, this is the end of the road. That rock blocking any possible pathway up there is known as "obstacle rock".

Rob's Roost

On Monday, I had a single day off and got out of bed at my normal 10:30am time. I wasn't really planning on doing anything much except for the normal laundry-grocery shopping-lounge around routine. But around noon I got the crazy idea in my head to drive back up to Mount Charleston and partake in my new favorite hobby. So I got some grub at BK, stopped by Wal*Mart to pick up a "trekking pole", and got up to the Charleston area around 3pm. Since I was alone, I just decided to check out 2 of the shortest and easiest hikes in the area. The first was a tiny hike of just a few hundred yards in total called Robber's Roost. However, there still was a significant elevation change that I wasn't expecting (as you can see in the pics below). The main spotlight of this hike is the presence of a natural cave cut into the rocks.

The second hike might be the absolute easiest hike in Southern Nevada called the Sawmill Loop. This was a 1.3 mile loop hike with very little elevation change at all. It was nice getting out of the Vegas area for a late afternoon jaunt, but I doubt if I'll ever go hiking alone again. Despite the relatively safe hikes I took, there were some definite dangers at Robber's Roost and I actually turned my ankle a little on the Sawmill trail, which would have been pretty bad if it was anything worse. Due to it being a weekday and the time of day I was out there, I didn't run into ANY other human beings on either trail at all and my cell phone service is extremely spotty in the whole area.

Oh, I also stopped at the Dessert Overlook on state route 158. Here are some random pics of the day.

Caves at Robber's Roost.

Looking up a popular rock climbing area at Robber's Roost.

Looking down on state route 158. The trailhead is somewhere down there behind the trees.

The view at the Dessert Ovelook. It was kind of overcast and hazy when I took this, but it was MUCH more impressive in person. The pic is just a little crappy.

Random view from the Sawmill Loop trail.

A Lost Blogger

For those of you who still check in from time to time, I'm sorry for the severe lack of posts lately. One bad influence that Danielle has introduced me to is the TV series Lost. I started watching it with her last year about midway through the fourth season and we've watched every episode together through the season 5 finale a couple weeks ago. Well, the past week I've taken it upon myself to rent the entire season 1-3 and watch them continuously almost every single night. I just wrapped up season 3 last night, and for those of you in the know, I now know why everybody thinks Ben Linus is such a dick! Although I've enjoyed seasons 4 and 5, I now have a WAY better insight on everything and won't have to repeatedly pause the DVR and ask Danielle what the hell is going on every time we watch a new episode (which sadly won't be until next January). Here's a question, does Dr. Chang have a fake left hand in the Swan orientation video? It looks like he does, which would be explained in the season 5 finale. But he definitely does NOT have a fake left hand in the Pearl orientation video. Both videos were copyrighted 1980. I'm pretty sure the bomb going off IS the "incident" and the timeline will stay intact, but we just can't be sure, can we?!?!

Anyway, as promised last week, I've uploaded some pictures from my first day of hiking last Saturday. Mount Charleston has many different hiking trails, but these pictures are from the one single most popular trail called Mary Jane Falls. Danielle and I will be hiking the Fletcher Canyon trail again this Saturday and will hopefully get further into the canyon for some good pics. I hope you enjoy these Mary Jane pics. They are in no particular order.

Looking out of a cave at the very top of the trail.

Where else can you go find a huge mound of snow in late May in the dessert?

This is Mary Jane Falls looking directly up while being sprayed by its refreshing water!