April 7-11 - Too much Vegas, It's all fun until somebody.. gets arrested...

Stayed at work until the absolute last minute. Too many phone calls, too many msgs and too much work drama but I was able to drag myself away 21 minutes late (4:21pm). Of course rushing to the train station means I just had longer to wait for the train to actually get there. I did however manage to get home before 5:30 and had enough time to turn off my computers, change my jacket, grab my duffel bag and lock the place up. The ride the airport was as quick as I thought it would be and we pulled up in front of Jetblue poste haste. We walked right in walked up to the kiosk and made sure the seats were together, then checked the bags and got IDd. Getting that over with we headed for the gate. For some reason (planning only 2 weeks or less) I was flagged for the full monty search, so my carryon laptop bag was thoroughly searched and I had to get fully wanded over and patted down (chest and back) to make sure I wasn't carrying airline contraband. The experience wasn't too invasive and the airport security people were very friendly so it was not so bad. We ate at the italian place (I had the baked chicken) and got ready for our flight by picking up magazines and newspapers. When the announcements for boarding was made we entered the plane and headed for the seats. Of course the guy near the window (Sneezy) actually had a magazine on the seat and I had to wait the few seconds for him to realize that I was not about to speak to him and ask for my own seat but he got the msg and moved his stuff so I could sit down. We arrived to the fanfare of vegas quite easily. The Jetblue flight disembarked both front and rear so we could get out sooner and they could clean up and get on their way even faster (works for me). The air had a slight chill on the tarmac but was manageable after the breezes in NYC. We made our way through the airport to the baggage check and waited with the crowds under the ads for the suitcases to return to their owners. After we both got our bags we headed out to the taxi stand to catch a car. Of course even though it was 11pm at night it seemed to be the time when everyone was arriving as the roped off waiting area had us looping back and forth for a 15 min wait before we reached the front of the line and assigned a number to pick our car. Of course in front of us the drunken arrivals at first overfilled their cab and then decided to give up on their own car and walk down the line to steal our assigned vehicle. Confronted at first by Pais and then by myself the drunken man and his arm candy decided they better retract their bag out of our cars trunk and move on. When you are right you better act like it. Anyway our driver then helped us with our bags and then we were off into the night. We chatted a bit with the driver on our way to the hotel and he told us that the good burgers were at In and Out Burger and Fatburger. He also gave us passes to club Ice that we ended up never having the time to use. We were dropped off at our hotel, the Paris, and walked right up to the front desk and checked in quickly. The room was on the 29th floor and we were at the end of our hallway but I didn't mind too much. The room was a nice size and had a great view of the Bellagio fountains. We headed right back out and met the rest of our crew downstairs at the bar not far from the elevators. Bruce, Jodi and Phil were all already started at the bar and we would have had to used a funnel to catch up on drinks but it was all fun and gambling. We ended the night around 2:30, Vegas Time and decided we needed to catch up on our rest and get over some jet lag.

Friday morning we woke up to the sounds of the Bellagio fountains (sounds like guns going off) as it was almost noon and we headed downstairs to meet the rest of the crew by the pool. After some hellos and meeting some more of our extended travel crew we headed over to the outside restaurant by the pool and ordered a late brunch. The turkery wrap was good but Pais did not like his sandwich much. Kinda generic but you kind of expect it to be washed out when its next to the pool. Afterwards went back to the room and napped before going back down and hanging in the casino for a bit before getting ready for dinner. All dressed and then we hopped into a taxi and rode up to Treasure Island to go out to dinner with the whole gang. We walked into the place and sat down at a nice long table. The staff extended it to fit our whole group and we ended up getting the appetizers that we ordered covered by the house as we ordered all different kinds of main dishes. The food was good but the portions were type small. We ended up with a bill of $40 each and settled out with no drama. Afterwards we headed out across the street to check out The Venetian. The weather had taken a turn for the chill and we had to hold our arms around ourselves and hug ourselves as we ran across the bridge and crossed the street. Of course nothing really great happened there and I was over the hotel fairly quickly. The inside was very much like all of the others. We soon took a taxi ride and returned to the Paris and ended our night before it was too late.

We awoke on Saturday and had a groupo breakfast in the restaurant near the casino floor. The breakfast was good and everybody left full up. We changed after breakfast and the group headed down the street for a walk down to Hotel New York, New York. Pais bought a cigar for the walk and we made it to the hotel fairly easily despite the weekend crowds. We got in and the group split up and checked out the different parts of the hotel casino floor. We regrouped a while later after some went on the hotel rollercoaster, checked out the shops and sampled the casino itself before deciding to head out and find something to eat. Following the recommendations of the taxi driver of the first night we took a taxi ride over to In and Out Burger and got dropped off to sample the burgers and fries. We thought the food was OK but we were told that the places in California are even better. We then walked out into the street and then over the bridge over the highway until we turned into the Excalibur hotel and caught a taxi ride over to the Paris hotel. It was then time for rest before meeting up with our friends in Bruce and Jodi's room and hanging out for a while before heading downstairs to the casino once again. I had looked up the surrounding clubs for the evening and saw that Jeffrey Sanker was hosting a party at Krave with DJ Tony Moran. At 11:45 we headed out and walked past the Aladdin and around the corner to club Krave. After waiting for the doorman and cashier for a few minutes we headed inside the club. The space was kind of small when used to the places in NY but the bar staff was friendly and the music was good for the small space. For some reason the dancers seemed to have all been cut from the same cloth and took stiff boy band dancing on a box to an extreme. The one standout dancer I noted I did go up and tip to show I appreciated what he was trying to do. My uncomfortable footwear however kept me from getting too boisterous myself. However when we tried an order of the "jungle juice" for 5 bucks Pais did not like it and I ended up finishing up that drink as well as my own. Pais decided to call it a night around 3:15am and I decided to stay and hang on my own. The night would have been ok but without the benefit of a drink cut off I ended up rather dazed and confused. I ended up walking back to the hotel (through a construction site, and past the Aladdin Hotel front and into the Paris with no shirt on. I made it upstairs but ended up choosing the wrong hallway out of the four available and picking the wrong door. When the light refused to turn green, the security guards that had followed me upstairs stepped in and decided to escort me downstairs. They led me to the secure area in the back of the hotel and had me empty my pockets and sit quietly while they asked who I was staying at the hotel with. At 7am Pais received a call. "Sir, Do you know...? Well he is downstairs here in security, half-dressed and highly intoxicated." After Pais came down to get me I was able to finally return to the correct room, clean up for bed and then go to clean sheet sleep.

Sunday I awoke in the early afternoon and we ate breakfast at the restaurant downstairs once again and then walked up the street across the bridges and headed over to the Caesar's Palace so that we could do a little shopping at Guess, A&F, Nike and Armani Exchange. Bags in hand we headed back over the bridges and dropped off the bags and chilled out for a while before heading out once again to get some dinner. We walked through the back of Paris and went through Bally's to get to the monorail. We bought tickets and headed up to the platform and waited for the next ride to come along. Of course when our car did arrive it was full of loud and boisterous partiers from further up the strip. We rode with the noisy bunch the one stop over to the MGM Grand and debarked and headed in the opposite direction that they were taking. We remembered the MGM Grand from our trip last year and the Sunday Night Party on the MGM backlot. This time we were just looking for dinner and walked through the MGM casino floor to settle on Wolfgang Puck for a little bite. The chicken wing appetizer was nice as was the main course steak and fries on a hot platter. We took in the ambience and I noted the waiter was wearing a blue Freedom wristband like myself and we headed out to the casino floor to hang a bit before stepping outside and walking back up the street to the Paris and putting the feet up for the night.

Woke up in the morning with plenty of time to pack the bags up and head downstairs to catch a car back to the airport. The ride back was quick and the driver gave us a few more talking points for silly tourists and tourist traps in vegas. A good restaurant wherever you stay and always a place to drop a quarter or a dollar or more. We checked in at the airline counter and found out that we had been selected for the thorough search once again. The good side of this was that our line was much shorter than the regular line which had like 250 people on it. Our line had like 25 people on it but we were in line for the thorough search. When one lady yelled "why are those people so special?" "I yelled loud enough for her to hear "Because we're gonna get strip searched". My comment made the older couple in front of us giggle and we made ourselves ready for another thorough patdown. Of course all of my stuff meant I actually took up 3 basins (laptop, computer bag, and fanny pack and shoes). After all of that I found I would volunteer again if it kept me from having to wait on the longer line. Anyway, I found that once through the check-in I could not locate the border's books I found on the way out and had to settle on the smaller magazine place near the Burger King in which we had our final meal before flying. The book I picked up was actually very good and I gave it to Tanya the next day at work to read after I finished it. The flight was good if not long since we came back across the 3 time zones and lost all of those hours before landing in NY. We got off of the plane nice enough but I actually picked up someone else's bag (looked just like mine) at the carousel. Thankfully it did not have my name or the bag I had tied to the top to mark my own bag. Of course when my bag did come off of the carousel I found the baggage check people had damaged my bag by breaking one of the elastic strings on the bag closure. At least it was not as bad as the people in front of me who had a bag of some kind of gel bust in their luggage and goo up the area inside their bag and out. We did have to wait a bit for the car service to pick us up but it was not too bad. Castle car service retrieved us fairly easily and we were able to get home in time to order Chinese Take Out from Uncle Liao's and have it delivered before their delivery cut off.

Another vacation over with and the jet lag set in to make the beginning of my week a little hazier than necessary. But I had such a good time I plan on going back again with my family, brother and sisters in June. I think I'm prepared for it. I guess it will all work out in the end.