Vegas Trip Report Part 1

The trip started off in a bit of a tizzy Thursday evening. As I was going upstairs to do some exercising before dinner, the power died. This made it too hot to elliptical in the bonus room and put dinner plans up in the air. We decided to grill some pork chops since that could be done without power. Crisis averted easily enough and we left for the airport at our scheduled time. Apparently, flying out on a Thursday night is the bomb, because I was at my gate about 45 minutes after we left the house. This gets me there plenty early, and I killed the time by watching some poker on DVD.

The flight was easy thanks to High Stakes Poker and Will Ferrell's Best of SNL. I got in to Vegas around 11:30 PM local time. My buddy picked me up at the airport and we rode back to his place in Henderson. Along the way, I was introduced to his new dog that was along for the ride. It was not the most pleasant ride back because this little 10 pound terrier has the worst gas I have ever had the misfortune to share breathing space. OMFG his farts were horrendous and he did 2 in the short trip to the house. I really appreciated the ride, but come on!

The first night started off with a dream about a live TV channel version of Carmen's blog, complete with Iggy in a clothes hamper like Oscar the Grouch. If this wasn't weird enough, in between the segments, it showed graphic ads for porn. It was like those "free tour" sections that none of us ever, ever see on the internet, yeah right. When I woke up, I knew my brain was not quite ready to handle a weekend in Vegas with these folks.

I started my early weekend with a bit of acrobatic flying Friday morning. My buddy has a kick ass hanger full of toys. He's got his bi-plane, his wife's boat, another buddy's plane and it's a great place to hang out and drink a beer when you're done flying. We did some low level terrain following through the canyons on the way to the California border. When we got there, we found a nice open area and did a loop, roll, some tight turns and just general goofing around. He is an excellent pilot and I always felt at ease. We flew around for almost an hour and it was starting to warm up so we headed back to the airport. With the rising temperature, increasing turbulence, and decreasing adrenaline, my stomach finally started to feel a bit queasy, but never to the point of getting sick. We did 1 touch and go and then came in on the other side of the field for our final landing. Landing in a tail dragger can be quite exciting to say the least. It is not for novices or faint of heart.







We grabbed some lunch after flying and then I went down for a 2 hour nap. I ate again and then headed down to the MGM and met the bloggers around 10PM at the bar in the sports book. The first non-ATL blogger I met was the social butterfly herself, Carmen. She led me around and introduced me to the others. Falstaff, our organizer, Astin, IG, LJ, Columbo, Bayne, MeanHappyGuy, the Surly Poker Gnome. Next up, some actual playing.