2014 Trip #2 Updates...Death Of An iPad.

News and musings as I'm a little over a month away from my 7/18 trip.

Got a pretty good fever going for this one (as always). Adding the extra day and night will make it easily the longest trip I've done to Vegas. The first trip, over 4 years ago now (2/11) was a night and a day. I was in and out in a flash, I flew in on a Friday night about 10:30, had the one full day Saturday, then flew out mid-day Sunday. Not sure how I even had the time to get hooked on the place. I remember feeling sensory overloaded by the time I left, it was so out of the experience I had had for decades of sleepy Bay Area towns with nothing like the action of Vegas. It was almost another year before I went back again, and that trip hooked me. It's been 6 trips in 2 years since and I'm officially a junkie.

This trip will be 5 nights, 4 days. I make a habit now (unlike the first couple trips) of having at least $1K per day of blowable cash. That's drinking, eating, and slots. I've had this rule in place for the last 3-4 trips and It's worked out well, I almost always have a little left of the 1K at the end of every day, and if I have to do the MGM $100 per-day room deposit thing at the start of the first day then I'm guaranteeing myself that I'll have a little left to go home with.

I've been a little lax thus far on my saving for this trip, but today I sold my iPad for a little over $500, so I'm back on track now to comfortably have the $1K per-day covered for this trip and have the deposit/resort fee covered on top of that. I loved the iPad, but when it really came down to it I used it very sparingly...I just don't get out much where I have need for a mobile computer. At home it's the laptop and I have the Nexus for everywhere else. I got the iPad as a yearly bonus from work so I wasn't attached to it financially. I have ironically been using it mostly as a music player for my Vegas trips, which the Nexus and my little sound bar can do just as well. So this adds $450 to the Vegas fund and puts me ahead of track to hit my saving goal.

Truth be told, though I'm there the extra day I probably won't be spending much on Saturday; early in the day I'll be sleeping off the effects from getting into town the night before, and then it's pretty much straight to the NIN show after sleep, which is already paid for. A few hours of party time after the show will be about all I'll be spending money-wise on that day so really the extra night/day is rolled into one.

I've changed my flight on Southwest to come back a day later and I have the room at Harrah's booked as a (free) back up plan if I am getting low on funds by Tuesday, but I'm thinking most likely I'll get a better room for that last night, that's a pretty dead week apparently and the rates are good, especially with my Mlife discounts (Vdara suites for $77, Bellagio rooms for $115, etc.). It would definitely be nice to go big on that last night and stay somewhere luxe...THEhotel suite was nice but a fountain view Bellagio room? Pimp.