Friday, December 21, 2007

Las Vegas Trip Report, part 5

Saturday morning we went back to (yeah, you guessed it) Ellis Island for what else – steak and eggs. If you have not figured it out yet, this place is awesome for inexpensive but good food. I am going to try their ribs next time but I never got around to them on this trip. From there, we headed to the Venetian where the Blogger Tourney was going to be held. I was really looking forward to playing and meeting more of the guys and gals whose blogs I really enjoy reading. At the top of this list was Tripjax whom I had not had the pleasure of meeting the night before. He is also a blogger that writes about balancing poker with family stuff and I can relate to that. While we were walking around the ridiculously overpriced shops in the Venetian mall waiting for the tourney registration to begin, my lovely wife advised me she had really felt somewhat neglected on the trip and would appreciate me spending the day with her sight seeing around Vegas instead of playing more poker. Wow. This was definitely not what I had planned. I really wanted to play with the bloggers. But, upon careful reflection, I knew I had gotten the sweetest end of this deal. We were there in Vegas solely as a result of her business conference and I had been able to party and play poker the entire time while she had been forced to actually work and sleep. I could have said F’ it and been a jerk but I knew that would be wrong and would bring a deluge of bad karma down on myself. So, I made the +EV play and agreed to toss my opportunity to play a poker tourney with the bloggers on the proverbial fire. We did go into the really nice (although open with the general casino) Venetian poker room before we left and I found Jordan. He introduced me to Tripjax. Tripjax was really friendly and sat with me for a photo before returning to the tournament which was already in full swing. After that we left the poker room and I mentally resolved to have a good day with my wife and not think about the action I was missing. We went to the Madame Tussaud’s wax museum at the Venetian and had a good time taking funny photos with the figures. After that, we went downtown to see the Golden Nugget. It is owned by Tillman Fertita, a local legend and businessman from Galveston.
It was recently remodeled and it is by far the swankiest of all the downtown casinos. Good work, Mr. Fertita. While there, we saw Montel Williams playing poker and he waved and smiled at us as we looked on. After walking around downtown for a few hours and going by Binion’s, etc. we headed back to the castle. We had honeymooned at Excalibur back in 2000 so we decided to return to the nearby Wild Wild West where we had eaten plenty of cheap T-bones back then. Unfortunately, it was not as good as we remembered. Then we headed back to the MGM to hopefully see some famous people. The MGM was packed with fight fans and others. We never saw anyone famous and by the time we were through walking around, it was already midnight and although sorely tempted, I decided not to play any poker since we had to get up at 5am to catch our flight home.
Leaving Vegas always sucks. The time/date to leave always seems to come too soon and for some dumb reason we always seem to have to catch an early flight. So, we got up even earlier than necessary since my wife insists on being early and not just on time for flights and such. I do not like airports or flying so I am fine with arriving at the last minute and not wasting any time sitting in the airport lobby buying overpriced drinks or food. The flight home was uneventful and seemed long. The only good thing about coming home was I really missed seeing my Son. We had been away for almost 6 days and I was ready to see and hold him again. We picked him up from the In-laws and finally made it back to our home, cat, and 2 dogs. All in all, a great trip and one I am ready to do again as soon as possible.

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