Still back filling…

Ok I am up to Wednesday.  Wednesday was planned as a laid back day.  The only scheduled thing we had was dinner at Capo’s, a place my Dad got me a gift certificate to for my birthday.  We started the day as we did the three previous with a trip down to the fitness room.  They had a decent little spread of equipment with three treadmills, a cross trainer and a recline bike as well as a universal weight machine.  This was the first day we found ourselves being annoyed while working out.  There was a little girl there that was shouldn’t have been there.  I couldn’t tell if she was there with an older sister or her mom that just had her when she was a kid herself.  Anyway the little girl started out walking on the treadmill but soon got bored with that.  She soon discovered the remote control for one of the two tv’s.  Before long we were treated to various channels flipping with the volume turned up way too high.  At one point the little girl started dancing around and pressing the channel up button in sync with her steps.  It was incredibly annoying but I just bit my tongue.  I didn’t want to be the grumpy  40 year old.  Well evidently the woman that was on another treadmill was equally annoyed.  She responded to the chaos by turning up Regis and Kelly loud enough to drown out the other tv.  There is a reason kids aren’t supposed to be in fitness rooms.

I found another source of entertainment at our timeshare, getting rid of the trash.  At the end of the hall was a special room with a trash chute in it.  Since we were on the 11th floor the trash had a long way to go.  When I opened the chute and threw my bag in I stood there holding the chute open so I could listen to the trash fall all the way down.  It took quite awhile.  As I listened to my trash falling someone above me threw trash in and I listened to it fall as well.  Later in the week I showed Ali the trash chute in action.  For some reason she wasn’t nearly as impressed as I was.

So we decided during the day to hit some casinos we never went into before.  First stop was Circus Circus.  Circus Circus is old.  It looked like it was built in the 70’s and never updated since it opened it’s doors.  It is built for kids plain and simple.  They have a huge indoor entertainment park, complete with a double loop roller coaster.  We were amazed how empty the place was, there were only a handful of people here and there walking around and many of the carnival type of games/attractions were closed.  It was mid-morning so maybe that sort of stuff doesn’t get going till later. 

We walked around and round and decided to take the leap to at least do the roller coaster.  You could buy an all day pass for like 25 bucks or pay 7 bucks to ride the coaster once.   Well I only intended to ride it once so we went the cheap route and bought two $7 tickets.  So we go up to where the ride loaded.  There was no line, in fact only a couple of the rows had any people in them at all.  The coaster pulls up and we realize that we are not lined up with the seat we wanted so we scurried to the side to get into the next row.  We were met by the angry voice of the young girl on the microphone.  I knew she was talking to us but for the life of me I couldn’t understand what she was saying.  After asking her to repeat it a couple times I heard it.  “Enter STRAIGHT into the seat in front of you” We were attempting to do a 90 degree slide to the right and then enter a seat.  Well I found this incredibly annoying, and stupid.  I stood there, looked at the girl, looked around at the the empty rows to my right and left, looked back at the girl and raised my arms in a “WTF” motion.  She again repeated the orders to go straight into the seat.  I said loudly, again with my hands raised.  “There is NOONE HERE…”  She said it was a “safety issue”.  Ali immediately caved to the madness and walked back and into another row while I stood my ground, staring at this girl giving her a “You are a f’ing idiot” look.  The girl was flabbergasted.  She looked around awkwardly, there was a long pause with nothing said by either of us, just more stupid looks.  So I tell Ali to come down to me.  I backed all the way out of the row I was in, went into the row to the right and went STRAIGHT in.  As I was getting locked into the seat I was still grumbling to myself and shaking my head.  In retrospect, maybe I was being an asshole.  But at least at that moment, the girls refusal to engage the common sense portion of her brain really annoyed me.  So the ride commences.  It was short but filled with action.  It threw us around quite a bit.  It was pretty impressive for an indoor coaster.  As we exited I told Ali that the girl just guaranteed herself a starring role in my blog, the big dummy.

As we were walking around some more we spotted an old video game batting cage game I used to enjoy a lot years ago.  You basically step into a mini batting cage and swing a small, light bat with reflector tape all around the barrel.  In front of you is a big screen with a pitcher throwing to you.  The object is to time your swing to connect with the pitch.  I used to be half decent at it.  So the first pitch comes, I swing, HOMERUN to the center field bleachers.  Yea, I still got it.  Then the next seven pitches come, seven swings and misses.  I was so pissed.  It seemed like I had the timing right and as I went on I swung progressively harder, like that makes a difference.  I came out of the cage defeated.  I offered up to Ali that the machine didn’t work very well for lefties.  Actually if I remember correctly, you used to set it for right or left handed.  I didn’t do that this time.  I came out of the cage with burning pain in my right shoulder.  Somehow swinging something barely heavier than a wiffle bat managed to hurt my shoulder.  Yay for 40!

We ate at the bare bones food court there.  Before leaving we stood in on a learn how to play craps session.  It was taught by a an old guy with thin greasy hair.  He looks like he was a textbook Vegas veteran.  He explained the basics of the game.  I actually picked up a few things I didn’t know.  Ali knew next to nothing about craps.  The lesson actually helped give her at least a basic understanding of the game.  After the class we talked to the guy a bit and then headed out. Circus Circus is definitely the spot to go in Vegas if you bring the kids.  It certainly shows it’s age compared to the new stuff but it isn’t half bad.

Our next stop was one of the newer places, New York New York.  It was weird when we parked, for some reason they asked to see ID before allowing you to park.  It was the only place that happened.  The inside of the place was very cool, styled in classic New York style.  You would think you were in the city itself walking the halls.  I talked Ali into doing the roller coaster they had there.  She was hesitant because it was still quite cold and the coaster went from the inside to the outside.  She eventually agreed.  The price of this one was even steeper at $10 a head.  Again there was no wait for most of the cars except a few people waiting for the front car.  I told Ali we should take advantage of light crowd to get the front seat, so we got in the line of 4 or 5 people.

We had to wait awhile till we got on, not because of a lot of people, rather because of a lack of them.  The ride requires a minimum of 10 people to go.  We didn’t have 10.  So after a good 10 minutes we finally had enough recruits for the rear seats to board and go.  The roller coaster is located on the third floor of the hotel.  Ali hates heights.  After starting on the third floor already, you climb what feels like a VERY steep and high hill before beginning the fun.  As we were getting pulled up the hill Ali proclaimed that it was “too high”.  It was high but didn’t feel significantly higher than other coasters we have been on.  The views as we ascended were quite panoramic.  We finally reached the apex and the fun begins.  The first half of the ride is crazy with non-stop looping, sharp turns and twists.  After that, things settle down quite a bit and the second half of the ride is rather tame.  I thought it was pretty cool overall.  After we got off Ali said she would not do that one again because of the height.  The snapshot of us in the coaster was hilarious.  Ali had a look on her face that was priceless, like someone just passed a dog turd under her nose.  Ali said she was surprised I didn’t want to get it so I could use it for the blog.  I told her it was ok, I didn’t need it.  I really laughed hard at it though, more than once.

After the ride we decided to navigate down to the casino and try to play some blackjack.  I actually had very little expectations of finding a $5 blackjack table at a fancy place like NYNY.  Most of the big expensive places start their games at $10 and if they do have a $5 game it is packed shoulder to shoulder.  Well we were pleasantly surprised when we found a $5 table with two chairs side by side for us, cool.   

We sit down, throw down I think $160 for us to split and have at it.  The guys at the table warned us jokingly that the dealer, an asian guy named Yogi was hot.  They said he went through the entire last shoe without busting.  Oh well.  Well Yogi was the first dealer we sat down in front of since coming to Vegas that was actually friendly.  He was very talkative and even helpful.  He would advise players if they were making a play that was sort of risky.  He also would help push them towards doubling or splitting if the odds were in their favor to do so.  A new player like Ali, especially appreciated this.  Yogi was great fun and even though we started off having generally bad luck, we didn’t mind riding it out.  We were bummed when Yogi rotated out and a woman swung in.  I can’t quite remember her name, Catherine, Caroline, something like that.  Well we were treated to yet another friendly dealer.  She was great as well just as Yogi was.  Again our luck was bad and our $160 dollar start had dwindled to somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 but we hung in there cause we were having fun interacting with the dealer and the other players.  Then our luck started to change.

 We made a big comeback.  The Yogi and this woman rotated as our dealer and we had equal luck with both.  Ali was splitting and doubling down like a pro.  At one point she had four sets of cards in front of her and she won on each one.  Everyone at the table enjoyed a comeback and as a result the fun factor got even higher.  We sat there a long time.  The table minimum got raised to $10 but we got to keep playing at $5 if we chose since we were grandfathered in.  As we continued to have success I started a “bank” pile, a pile of chips that was to not be touched.  I would add to the bank as I hit bigger bets.  Anytime I got a green $25 chip it went in the bank.  We were there so long that the players around us changed several times.  It seemed like whoever sat down there was nice though, it was just awesome.

We were coming up on the time we had to leave to get ready for dinner.  At one point I think we were around $150 over our original money.  We cashed out around $270 bucks after a run of bad luck towards the end.  Both Ali and I said that if we didn’t have dinner reservations, we would have stayed even longer.  As it was we probably spent a good 3 1/2 hours at that table.  Yogi was dealing when we cashed out.  We thanked him for his great attitude.  Both he and the woman got a lot of tips from us as our luck improved.  It makes the game even better when you throw the dealer a dollar chip to play with.  He actually is pulling for you since it goes in his pocket.  We had an awesome time.  It was our first and last good experience with a blackjack dealer during our 5 days in Vegas.     

So we go back to the room and get ready for dinner.  I had the address punched into the GPS so it was easy to find.  We had no idea what to expect other than the place served italian food.  We go in the door and find ourselves standing in a small square with no windows.  The wood was dark in color and the lighting was dim so we couldn’t even really make out a door either.  Then all of a sudden a little window slides open, a guy sticks his head in it and welcomes us and asks for our names.  Evidently Capo’s is a throwback to the old gangster days when you weren’t allowed in till they checked you out.

They opened the door and welcomed us in.  Just like the entrance, the interior was very dimly lit and darkly decorated.  We got escorted back to a booth in the corner that had tapestry along the front and separating us from the booth next to us, it gave you a nice cozy feeling.  They were playing Christmas music as well as mixing in a guy that was walking around singing like Frank Sinatra, it was very cool. Dad had given me a $100 gift certificate, looking at the prices on the menu we realized we may be hard pressed to actually spend all of it.

Since we had a lot to spend we did something we don’t normally do, get an appetizer.  Ali said the bruschetta sounded good.  Normally I would cringe at the thought of ordering something like that.  A big plate of bread and dipping stuff on top of the bread you get with your meal?  Eh we were in Vegas, knock yourself out. So the appetizer comes and we dig in.  Ali dips in, takes a bite and gets a look on her face like she just won the lottery.  She said it was the best bruschetta she ever had.  I tried some as well.  It was very good although they could have cut back on the garlic just a bit.  Ali continued to rant and rave over how good it was.  I just sort of chuckled at the way Ali was carrying on about the appetizer.  Ali said she felt bad for me that I couldn’t allow myself to get excited about really good food. I told her I didn’t think it was a bad thing at all that I don’t wet my pants over what I shove in my mouth.

  To me food is supposed to be a fuel for your body, not something akin to masturbating with your mouth.  I have always thought it was odd how many old people seem to direct the majority of their conversations around what they were eating, have eaten or will be eating soon.  To become so focused on food has always been synonymous with being old to me, probably part of the reason I never allowed myself to do it.

Anyway, we polished off the appetizer, our salads and then dug into our meals.  We had already eaten more than enough to fill us up.  We ate about half of our meal and boxed the rest to “save room” for desert.  Just like the rest of the meal, the desert was extremely good as well.  We cleaned our plates and that was that.  I felt like a grade A, USDA certified hog after eating enough carbs and calories for an entire day at one meal.  Conversely Ali was jubilant after enjoying her meal.  Even with us trying to overspend, the bill still only came to 87 bucks.  So I gave the waiter the gift cert and only laid an extra $10 out of my pocket to add to the remainder for tip. On the way back to the room, Ali was still gushing about how awesome the place was.  She was moved enough to call my dad during the ride to thank him for getting the gift certificate for us.  I’m sure dad enjoyed hearing his gift was a success.  End of Wednesday.

Fast forwarding to Friday, go home day.  Thursday night we had suffered our first significant gambling losses for the week and it bothered me.  Even though it was only $200 lost, it burned at me.  For whatever reason I woke up at 4:15 am Friday morning.  Once I woke up my brain instantly started focusing on the losses and I knew I would not be able to go back to sleep.  So instead of just lying there I got up.  I ate my breakfast, punched out a long blog entry that recapped Thursday and still only reached 6:15 on the clock.  So I ran through my options.  Well I knew I had to fill up the Prius before returning it and I wanted to grab a birthday card for Ali so I decided to do that.  I was still wearing my shorts I slept in and I didn’t want to go into the bedroom so I didn’t wake up Ali.  I decided to be stupid and just throw on my jacket and head out.

I am sure I looked ridiculous in my gym shorts out in 43 degree, windy weather as I pumped gas.  Then I stopped at an Albertson’s and got Ali’s card as well as a $5 mini-rose bush.  I thought it would be cool to have a “Vegas rose” bush to be planted at our place in addition to the “Wernersville rose” that we moved with us from PA.  I returned to the room and Ali still wasn’t awake. 

 I started to pick stuff up a bit in prep for us leaving.  Checkout was at 10, our flight left around 11:30.  Eventually Ali woke up and then clean up started in earnest.  She had packed up a bunch of stuff the night before so it wasn’t too bad.  Although the 5 days in Vegas seemed to actually be longer because of all the stuff we packed into each day, I felt a bit remorseful about leaving.  Our timeshare accommodations were awesome and we had some great times seeing the sights as well as gambling.  The one thing I would not miss is the cold weather that whipped at us as we loaded up the Prius to head out.

Returning the rental car was just as easy as picking it up.  Big kudos to Enterprise.  I don’t know if they have this sort of customer service at all airports, but if you are flying to Vegas, I highly recommend using them.  With all the driving we did in the Prius I only had to pump less than 7 gallons back into it.  We averaged 45 mpg without even trying.

So we get bussed back to the airport and drag our luggage over to the American Airlines counter.  We do the self service check in kiosk to get our boarding passes but then we still have to go to the counter to get the tags for our bags.  There is exactly one representative behind the desk.  She finished with a guy so we walked up.  She was looking down and punching stuff into the computer.  She never looked up, never acknowledged our presence, never offered a “hi,  I will be with you in just a minute”.  Ali and I stood there, patiently for at least a minute as this woman continued to ignore us.  Finally Ali let out a “this is ridiculous” laugh.  The woman looks up as though we were pests and said “I’ll be with you shortly…”  Gee, sorry to bother you.  Thankfully another woman came up and offered to help us.  This was the first in a series of bad experiences we would have with American Airline that day.

So we find a seat in the crowded waiting area.  Normally the flights start boarding a half hour before departure.  The half hour mark came and went and there was no announcement.  Soon we saw they pushed back take off ten minutes with no announcement as to why.  Then they pushed it another 10 minutes with no explanation.  Finally after pushing it back a third time, they get on the PA and offer this explanation, paraphrasing. “The plane arrived at the airport YESTERDAY from an international location and as a result has to undergo a security check.  As soon as this check is complete we will begin boarding.  Um ok, so the flight has been here since yesterday but they didn’t decide to do the security sweep until it is scheduled to depart the next day, BRILLIANT.  So finally we start to board about 40 minutes after we were supposed to due to AA procrastination.   

We get on the plane, it is one of those 3 seats one side, 2 seats on the other side old models, an S80.  This thing looked old as hell.   The seats were cramped as hell.  It appeared to be state of the art in 1973.  It didn’t even have tv’s.  The only good part was Ali and I were on the 2 seat side so I didn’t have anyone jamming their elbow or shoulder into me.  So we land in Dallas. 

We had a little time before the next flight so we thought we could quickly grab lunch.  We went to a TGIF near our gate.  I would assume that most people that eat there on a pretty tight schedule.  You would think that the staff there would be wise to that concept.  Well we stood there forever until the hostess decided to come check to see if anyone was waiting.  Once she did show up she was unsure of what tables were available so she sauntered away slowly to check.  She came back our direction, again slowly and walked past us without offering up what the deal was.  She comes back and then asks if we wanted to sit at the counter.  We said we would prefer a table so she had to once again saunter away to clean one off.  In the meantime the people behind us in line were getting really pissed as they had limited time as well.  In fact once the hostess came back to finally get us, the people behind us just walked in to find a table themselves.  After we sat down we saw them walking out shortly afterward, I guess they had enough of the sloth like pace of the restaurant.  We had an average meal and waited for the check.  I had the feeling the waitress spotted my Eagles t-shirt I had on under my coat during the meal and secretly hated me for it.  Just a vibe I caught.  Maybe that is why she took her time getting us the check.  Eh, Tony Romo blows, f u Dallas.

Before we ate we had to check in at the desk at the gate.  For some reason we were unable to pick our seats ahead of time.  We checked in with another grumpy woman.  She hands us our boarding passes without asking if we had any preference.  The plane was another old shitty S80 with the 3/2 seating.  She sat us on the three side.  Ali asked her if there were any other seats available.  The woman seemed offended that we asked but offered up that there were two seats on the 2 side further back.  We’ll take them, bitch.

So we board this plane and feel our last blast of cold wintry air as we waited in the breezeway.  Our seats were indeed on the 2 side, unfortunately they were all the way in the back row, next to the engines and the bathroom, oh well.  We get in the air and start the long final leg of the journey home.  American Airlines is one of these cheap ass airlines that has adopted the policy of charging customers for snacks.  They will give you a non-alcoholic drink for free still but if you want any food, get out the wallet.  F that, it really pissed me off.  I drop  over 400 bucks on tickets to ride on this ancient shitty plane and you can’t at least throw us a bag of peanuts like animals at the zoo?  It was just the icing on the cake.  As I flipped through the American Airlines magazine there was a big smiley face of the CEO with a web url to go to to let him know what you thought of AA.  I ripped it out and put in my pocket.  Sure, I will be happy to let you know how I feel buddy.  I fired off a letter later that night.

So we arrived back at Naples a little after 9pm, it felt nice to walk out into the comfortably warm night air.  Our baggage took quite awhile to come out, over a half hour.  On the trip back I realized that in Vegas while cleaning out the pockets of my coat, I accidentally threw away the red piece of paper that had the code for the area we parked in.  Amazingly I remembered it was red and I thought the code was something like E-1 or E-5.  I told the bus driver that I was just going from memory but I thought we were in red E-1.  Well it turns out I was pretty damn close.  We actually we were in red D-1 which is right next to E-1, crisis averted. 

We make good time driving home and are welcomed by an estatic dog.  She ran laps around the house and could hardly contain her dog joy.  The house seemed to be more or less intact.  All the pets were alive and kicking.  The trip was an overall success even with the minor financial hit we took at the end. 

A couple odds and ends about the trip.  There were homeless people EVERYWHERE in Vegas.  At every busy intersection with their hands out, sitting on the elevated walkways that went across streets and even in the middle of traffic.  There was one old guy in a wheel chair, in the middle of stopped cars looking for a hand out.  He was lucky he didn’t get hit as he slowly wheeled back to the sidewalk as the light turned green.  One guy we saw had a sign that made me laugh.  It said “Why lie? Need beer…”  I almost felt like flipping him some money.  I dunno, I just have a hard time taking pity on these people.  Vegas has an infinite amount of jobs available, why can’t they find one of them?  Yea I know the answer for some is mental illness but it certainly can’t be the case for most of them.  I feel much worse for an animal in dire straits for some reason.

A lot of the casinos are laid out in a cookie cutter fashion.  You have the casino attached to a huge shopping mall filled with stores selling overpriced crap that you don’t need.   We went in at least three or four that all followed the same pattern.

Gas cost less in Vegas than Naples.

Having been in Vegas when it was 110 degrees and 45 degrees, we both much prefer the 110 degree option.

The sex baseball card “flippers” do not hibernate for the winter.

Cash Cab and How It’s Made are good shows. I learned how golf balls, paint rollers, fruit cakes, cabinet handles, Christmas bubble lights and parachutes are made, among other things.

I think the entire time in Vegas the only alcohol I consumed was a couple beers at Capo’s.  How does that happen?

We had numerous negative encounters with people whose job it is to interact with the public.  It’s a shame such people don’t realize their number one responsibility should be to put a smile on their miserable face. 

 This concludes the Vegas update, up next, Christmas.