It's Not A Bender, It's A Lifestyle.

  Getting a grand back from taxes this year. Made more money and went up in tax % but somehow a better refund than last year. Meh. That'll certainly help for Birthday Vegas, which, inevitably, for good or ill, is coming. It'll be a shorty, just flying on the Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, flying out on the following Monday. Max 5 full days on the ground. So if I can only put $4K together by then, that's fine. With the tax refund that gives me 6 checks to stack as much paper as possible by fly out. Currently have a soft rezzie for NYNY on that date which would cost me about $30 with 4 comped nights and no resort fee, but we'll see what the offers look like after February breaks. The NYNY package has $150 of RC/FP value which is less for my current offers, so I might just stick with it. Also have a $100 RC bump from retaining Gold, so at least a couple good meals to be subsidized. I do tend to go a little more baller on rooms for birthdays though, so we'll see. D...

Yeah, OK. That was by far not the best trip ever, but also not the worst. Highlights: Flights:  OK on the in, a little late to be flying in really, kinda wasted the day to not even be in the airport until like 8:30p. The flight left on time though and I got there with no issues. On the out, on the day after Xmas, there was a 1 hour delay due to weather in SF. Not much to do or say, just sat there at the gate and dealt with it. Resorts: Love love loved Fontainebleau. Beautiful room. Oblique strip view, everything new and clean and beautiful. Hoping to continue to get offers from there to stay, even if it's only a couple nights. Especially based on the MGM sitch detailed below. Mandalay Bay for the other 4 nights was...fine. Gotta say, MB is one of my fave resorts but it's time for a refresh. A lot of dinks and dents in furniture, stains, nothing is automated in the room, etc. It's just showing its age. It still works but it's not up at Aria or Bellagio standards anymore ...

It don't git much better'n this. My long, depressing nightmare of a job is over. Staying with the same company but moving to a new site with just a plethora of better attached to it. Just cancelled my Fastrack, for one thing. Fuck that bridge and everyone on it. The relief hasn't really set in but it will, and it may lift a low level depression I've had for the last year. Here's hoping. I also, as of a couple hours ago, have the next 12 days off from work. Don't have to really go back until 1/5. 7 of those days will be either traveling to or being in Vegas, so maybe not the most relaxing stretch, but I'm not complaining. It's been a rough stretch from August to here with not much time off, so I plan to enjoy the living fuck out of it. I earned it. Then, oh yeah, Vegas tomorrow. All the money is out of the bank, I'm already checked into Monday's room and I'm 80% packed and ready. The save worked out perfectly, I'm not fucking myself with a...

Counting down to XmasVegas 2025. All is well. The save will be fine, with the increase coming in the next check I will have the $1K per each 5 full days and a few hundy for the first, short night. Won't even get to the resort before 11p so I won't need much. Looking forward to a couple nights at Fontainebleau, it's a pretty glorious place.  No much planned, which is fine. No shows and only a couple dinner rezzies, if I kill it on VP early in the trip I may pop into Absinthe or something but aside from that there's nothing I really am even interested in seeing. Food-wise I'll just have to get it where I find it for most meals. Just need to remember to do so, no repeat of last -trip drunk shenanigans.  No themed Vegas playlist again this year, don't even have one started ATM. Will work on it tonight, prob will just be a few holiday tunes mixed in with the stuff I like to hear in the room. upbeat and cool. This is also the last week countdown to my getting out of f...

T-minus 17 days to yet another Xmas in Vegas. This will be consecutive year #13. Crazy. Let's count up the savings on this round. -2 nights comped at Fontainebleau in a Mountain Best View King: $0. Would be $480 without my having lost played a few hundy on VP there. Saving of $480. -4 nights comped at Mandalay Bay in an Elite King: $0. $765 saved. My standard 4 nights comped offer and no resort fees due to MGM Gold. -$250 in Slot Dollars, plus $30 in Freeplay from the booking package. $280 in value. -$60 in existing resort credit left over from the prior trip, plus $50 from the booking package. $110 in value. Total haul: $1635. Not an all-timer but very respectable when you consider that my only overhead for the trip will be the fight, which is more than made up for by the RC/FP so it's a zero overhead trip. How many bitches can say that for a 6-night trip in non-standard rooms on the strip over a holiday. NOT TOO MANY BITCHES.

  Bonus fever! The FY 2025 numbers came through from my company; all the other employees covered for my ineptness and got me a 6.3% bonus. It works out to around $6100 gross, I'm estimating $4K net out of that after taxes, so along with the approx $2K I'll be able to scrimp from the remaining regular checks before go time, I have covered the save easily. This says nothing of the up to 2.7% individual bonus I could be in line for, which would be another $2500 gross, approx $1500 net. TLDR, I'm covered. This is a big improvement over last year, when I had to take a 401k loan to cover the trip FFS. I can pay down my CC normally this way pre-trip too, so I won't have to skip a card payment in Dec and dig any kind of resulting hole. I'll USE it of course while in Vegas to points max, but it should be no problem to get it paid off normally in Jan/Feb. So my 2000 hours of hard(ish) work over the past year has bought me: One Trip To Las Vegas. It's a pretty good trade, ...