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

Xmas 2017 booked. More free rooms with CET, booked Some Dude's Palace this time. Will be my first stay at the Flagship. Won't worry about a flight at this point (it's a fucking year away) just locking in the room because, why not? I can always change/cancel it with no penalty. Palace Tower. Looks like the rooms are fairly recently updated and are somewhere in the middle of the CaPa hierarchy. Should be fun spending some time in the Flagship, I've not spent more than a couple hours there in all my trips.  This would be the second comped trip of next year, I have March booked, and that would leave a August/September/October gap that's free at this point. Probably will leave that alone to see if Cosmo comes through with anything during the year or if, Jeebus forbid, I actually decide to go somewhere OTHER than Vegas during that period. The gap from March to mid-year will give me a chance to get caught up on some CC charges I'm going to have related...

2016 Vegas done and dusted. Another 4-trip year, another pretty standard trip to close it out. A fun one though. Just going to go with highlights/lowlights here, as a day by day breakdown is sorta unnecessary. Highlights: -The Dorsey, the new bar/lounge at Venetian. I went there three times on their first three nights of business and had a good time each time. Mellow, good vibe, good drinks and a personable staff makes for a bar I will go out of my way to go to. -The Cosmopolitan. Spent a LOT of time here, in Vesper, at the 3rd level Chandelier, at the Henry, a little bit at the sports book and then...STK. I dumped my reservation at Striphouse at PH to go here and had, hands down, the best steak I've ever eaten in my life. I literally was rolling my eyes back in my head after every bite. This place lives up to every bit of hype. I also earned enough (bad) gambling points to move up to Sterling on Cosmo's player's club, which hopefully will mean an offer or two...

Two more sleeps, one more half-assed day of work, and I'm off to Vegas for the last trip of the year. The money is out of the bank, the clothes are washed, most of them are packed, it's pretty much all over but the shouting. The money is good, best/most I've ever had for a Vegas trip. Over $5300, so that's a full 1K a day and some "walking around" money for the airport bar and the limo driver tip and the supplies for the room when on the ground. Should have no reason to dip into the Cap 1 fund at all aside from the room hold/resort fee extraction. Have no real reason to hold on to much of the cash this time as all the other financials in my life are good up to my next check. Which means I can (though who knows if I will ) gamble more than I usually do. We'll see how the first couple days go. If I'm winning anything it'll embolden me for the later days, if it goes to usual plan I'll make my normal $3-400 donation daily and spend the rest ...

T-minus 1 week to splashdown in Vegas for trip #4 and closing out a pretty good Vegas year. All the details are set at this point, I'll be driving the new car to the airport and parking it; the other option being leaving it on the street here, getting a street sweeping ticket and being worried about it sitting unmoved for a week while prying eyes notice that fact. I do live in the Bayview, after all. So I'll eat the $100 parking fee and at least save myself having to worry about getting a cab on the way back, so I'm really only down about $60 on the deal and will have more peace of mind. Once in town, I'm doing the Bell Limo thing to and from the airport again. For only $30 plus tips round trip it really can't be beat. Even though Uber Pool is in Vegas now and I could save maybe $20 it's like, fuck it, I'm in Vegas, let's arrive at the resort in style. I may end up using Uber Pool in town though to get around as walking up and down the strip in 40...

Well the bullet has been bitten. I have a car now. Audi TT coupe. The pic above is more or less the exact car. Pretty pleased with myself, I got a good deal on the car with a decent financing rate. $3K down and the rest paying over 60 months. A long time, but the payments are relatively low, under $150/month. Car is an '05 with less than 90K miles, and runs really well. It's a little turbo-laggy in normal mode, but in Sport mode it's smooth and quick. Guess which one I'll be in all the time. It's a proper sportscar, very low to the ground and visibility is pretty minimal but the looks and style can't be beat. I've loved the look of this car since they came out, and the fact that it's an Audi and has that "German-ness" about it is a plus for me too. I'm not a snob about many things but cars is one of them. Despite its small size I fit in it fine despite being 6'2", getting in and out is a thing but once in it's comfy as h...

Countdown to Vegas trip #4 of the year in full effect now. Nothing really has changed in the planning. Good eating, questionable drinking, bad gambling. The usual. Have a bit of a life change that will affect Vegas a bit, going to get myself a car now that I'm licensed again. Too damn likely to die as a pedestrian in the City anymore, few days go by that I don't almost get mooshed while walking to and from work. Going to buy one outright via a 401k loan, so the only long-term financial impact is repaying the loan (bout $200/month directly debited from pay) and the insurance payment, which for all the cars I've modeled is less than $50. Looking at used Mercedes or Audis, I've always wanted a real car, no more crappy American or Japanese 4-bangers, and now that I have the means to do it finally, I'm going to make it happen. Good loan rate from Vanguard, less than 5%, better than I could get at any dealership so pulled the trigger. Still leaves a nice chunk in...

Some airline weirdness may have me going to A CITY OTHER THAN LAS FUCKING VEGAS next year. I know, I'm shocked too. So I booked the "out" flight of my March Vegas trip with Frontier Airlines, which apparently is dropping the SFO-LAS route in the new year. The upshot of that is I was refunded the full fare amount, AND was given a $100 flight voucher for anywhere Frontier flies. My first thought was Palm Springs for the tennis tournament down there in March but I will have just come back from Vegas and Frontier doesn't fly there anyway. Also thought Austin for F1 but that's not until next October, I'll be outside the booking window of the voucher. Then I thought "go see my mom", but North Dakota, yeah no. So now I'm thinking a Giants away game. I can't book it yet because it's too far out but the G-men will be in Denver in mid-April, or will be in Chicago and New York in May. Probably would just be a two, max three day excursio...

I'll have thoughts about last night, but not now. All I want now is to get to the weekend, get about 6 bottles of wine and try to forget Tuesday ever happened.

The older I get, the less I give a shit about sports. I've always been pretty selective about what I follow sports-wise anyway. I didn't share my dad/brother's passion for sports as a kid, I was much more interested in playing with Star Wars toys than watching sports with them. I didn't play any sports as a kid, I was in a youth basketball league for one season probably just at my dad's pleading. I sucked at it. I got into martial arts around when I was 13 or so, but that wasn't really a sports thing, it was an idolizing Bruce Lee thing. I didn't play or follow anything sports-wise until I picked up tennis when I was in high school. My mom had been into tennis and I had hit the ball off the garage door here and there but when I finally started playing in my sophomore year, I went crazy. I was obsessed. Played pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day in the summer from my soph year to my first year in community college. When I wasn't playin...

Because, mystifyingly, CET continues to provide me with free hotel rooms for no apparent reason, and because I'm silly, I have booked a March trip for next year. 5 free nights at Paris in a brand new Burgundy room with an Eiffel view. Just paying resort fees again, less than $200 where normies would have to pay over $1200. Arriving on a Wednesday night late and leaving on a Monday. In on Frontier  (UPDATE:Frontier dropped the SFO/LAS route, so had to spend $25 more to go in on Virgin), out on Virgin. Arriving around 10p, so really it's 5 nights, 4 days, then out in the afternoon on Monday. Round trip flight ridiculous at exactly $100 (UPDATE: now more like $125. Still good). All told should only have to take Th/Fri/Mon off work, and it's usually slow around then at my job so no big whoop. Haven't spent much time at Paris in all my trips, so this should be interesting. Good location as it is with PH for Xmas. Again just paying the resort fees for 5 nights, so aro...

Not much of a plan. Pretty unhindered on this trip. No messing around with myVegas, no being tied to Mlife resorts or any resort for that matter. No resort swapping as I have done in the past on Xmas trips, just 5 long, free days at Planet Hollywood. I get in on the Thursday before Xmas, around noon. Probably a little early to try to check in, so I'll likely get the car to take me to the Cosmo, maybe grab a quick lunch at the Henry to get some liquor soaking going on, then have a drink or two at one of the bars before crossing the street to check in at PH. Check in, grab a six-pack from The Store by the lobby to take up to my in-room fridge (a free one with no strings attached!) and head up to check out the Ultra Hip Fountain View room. Unpack, iron some shirts if needed, relax for a little bit, have a beer and check out what should be a pretty great view. Don't think I'll need a nap as I don't have a crazy early wake up call this time. After that I'm fre...

Oh Mlife. I love you and hate you. Was thinking about getting a double book situation going on for the Xmas trip, since I almost always have some sort of Freeplay/Resort Credit in all my offers. Just last week there were still up to three nights and FP/RC in my offers. Logged on to the Mlife site tonight - all gone. I get a "tier discount" of about 5 bucks off on nights I want to book. Just, whatever. I guess I didn't throw enough money away in the trip a couple weeks ago, so now I'm a second class citizen again. In about 2 weeks all my tier credits go away too as they do every October 1st. Wouldn't be surprised if I lose Pearl status when that happens. UPDATE: Nope, still Pearl. Hooray? I don't get the algorithms Mlife uses. After the last time they demoted me I actually got BETTER offers than I was getting at Gold. Now, despite staying and playing at MGM resorts exclusively this year, and staying at MGM resorts on 13 of my 17 Vegas trips, I'm...

Finally, completely, totally done with myVegas, once and for all. Just tired of it. Not fun anymore, too hard to win any chips and the rewards aren't worth the effort, or once you've found a reward you like you can't use that reward again for what, a year or more? Forget it. Also allows me to close my Facebook account, which I only had open as a requirement for myVegas. Try to find me now, high school reunion peeps! Feel like I'm getting an hour of my day back. Won't say it was wasted time all these years, I was able to cash out quite a few good rewards, but the ends no longer justify the means. I mean, I really never NEEDED to spend $150 at Tender to get half off, anyway. So the Xmas trip will be very simple, rewards-wise. No Freeplay anywhere. No resort credit. Just 5 free nights from Planet Hollywood and that seals it. I suppose I could double book with MGM somewhere if they give me a good FP/RC package for those dates and just use up the freebies, but...

So yeah, that happened. Another Vegas trip in the books. Almost exactly as I had foreseen. Drinking, bad gambling, decent food, rinse, repeat. Got in on schedule via United at around 9:30a. Jumped in the Bell town car, easy peasy, straight to NYNY to drop off the bag then headed straight over to Cosmo. Went in to the Henry, had breakfast, Eggs Bene, good as always in there. Headed over to Vesper, losing the first of many, many $100 bills in the slots on the way. The bartender in the afternoon is kind of a jerk (strange for the Vesper), just one of those guys who's been a bartender too long and is cynical and stressed out and needs to find another line of work. So I just had 2 quick ones in there then it was up to the 3rd level of Chandelier Bar, talked to Abel, a good guy who runs that bar in the day time. much better experience. Just me and him most of the time. Had a couple more and by this point it's after 1p and time to head back down the strip to check in at NYNY....

Man, it seems like the wait for this trip has been endless. Working Monday, a short Tuesday then I'm out of this bitch and in the desert for 4 days. Right now it's looking like right around 100° for the 4 days I'm there. Not too bad, par for the course. 105° on Thursday but that's the day I'll be inside Mandalay Bay most of the day, so no worries. I'm laundered up and more or less packed, going to try to jam everything into my new Timbuk2 bag for this trip. A little small, but on summer trips where it's just underwear and polos it's fine. Back to the backpack for the Xmas trip. Decided to book the Bell limo again for this trip, about the same $ as a cab and no worries about getting long-hauled by the corrupt Vegas cab drivers. Plus I get to roll up like a baller at the resort in a Town Car or Escalade. I feverishly thought about adding a night to the trip last night, thought I had a great plane rate for the return trip to replace the United one ...

The Xmas trip is booked. For some unknown reason, I have a free room for 5 nights at Planet Hollywood. I was dicking around on a Vegas blog I follow and clicked on a link to Caesars properties just for the hell of it. When I logged in to my TR account all the rooms I was looking at came up...free. I could have stayed at almost any of the Caesars props for free, for 5 nights. I have literally no idea why, I rarely play in Caesars resorts any more, I think I skipped them altogether on my last trip. I have a comically low TR points balance. Unreal. So I'm paying just resort fees and taxes for 5 nights in a Ultra Hip Fountain View room, it's $180 for the whole 5 nights, where normally it would be $1300 if I was just Joe Dudeguy with no TR card. I decided on PH since it was about the best room in any of the resorts I could have selected. Could have gone Caesars or Paris, but those rooms looked a little stuffy. The Ultra Hip rooms are fairly newly remodeled and have the "...

So I will be in Vegas during a holiday weekend. I'm going to try to do something almost unheard of for me. Relax. I'm a ridiculously impatient person. I hate waiting in lines, hate being behind slow walking people, or having to navigate around people who are stopped for whatever reason in a throughfare. I suffer fools or people who are driven to foolishness by circumstances poorly. It's one of the reasons I prefer to travel solo and prefer to live my life alone. It adds stress to my life, but it is what it is. So for me, I'm going to try a crazy thing on this trip, when there is likely to be shitloads of people on the strip in 100 degree heat. I'm going to slow the fuck down. I'm going to try to walk at a less rapid pace, take in the sights of the amazing Vegas exteriors that I rarely appreciate since I'm always in such a damn rush to get inside the next casino or bar. Crowds of people move slowly. Crowds of people who are tourists move even more ...

I think I'm over my Vegas hangover. All one of you (thanks!) who reads this sad little blog know that I've been of two minds about Vegas in the last year or so. I look forward to and on some levels enjoy the quarterly trips, but also lament the enormous sums of money, time and mental effort that I put into them. I save up $12K a year for these little excursions. Not a petite sum if you were to see my total yearly take-home, and not including flights and hotel overhead. I play myVegas daily trying to rack up a steak or show or two, taking an average of around an hour a day. I spend time on this well read blog. I put time and effort into planning "the perfect trip", which has yet to work. In the past, in exchange for all this time and effort, I've for some reason been expecting to have the mythical "What Stays In Vegas" trip, that on its last day will leave me naked, broke, covered in hooker hickies and with a small mammal lodged in my ass. At lon...

I just realized the weekend I'l be in Vegas...is Labor Day weekend. Fuck. I had no bleeding idea. I'll be there slightly early, flying in on Wednesday, but I will be there for Friday and Saturday. Ugh. Getting up and down the strip is going to be a nightmare . This changes things. I may have to keep myself much more rooted to the south end of the strip Fri/Sat, or even just to NYNY. I assiduously avoid holidays and big weekends in Vegas because I DON'T want to have to deal with the extra crush of humans and human stupidity. Hopefully I can try to stay off the beaten path enough not to end up stabbing someone with a frozen slushie straw while I'm there. Should be...interesting.

Pretty much good to go for trip #3 of 2016. Cash saving may be slightly low this time, I have a couple likely reimbursements coming this month that will get me to normal territory but worst case I'll have $3K cash and another $2k (probably not needed) on my Cap1 card. It was hard to keep myself out the the Saturday go-out routine this last month, should have another $1k in the bank but oh well. I rarely spend more than $3k on any of these trips anymore so I should be fine. I have $2K in the bank now and the last check before the trip fills it out. UPDATE: just realized due to the Labor Day bank holiday I should be getting paid on the 2nd, i.e. the Friday that I'm there, right in the middle of the trip. So the money should be fine. UPDATE UPDATE: Got an MRA bump just in time, $585 more going in to the fund, so $3585+ whatever comes in on the 2nd. I'm fine. Don't know if it's the consistent lack of winning anything on these trips or what, but as detailed in a...

Just figured out why I don't get really big offers from Mlife anymore. I looked at my slots tax info from the last few years. It's as follows (totals rounded off): In 2013, the year I joined Mlife, I played $19,000 on slots in 4 trips, with a loss of $2200. In 2014, I played $15,000 on slots on 3 trips, with a loss of $1900. In 2015, I played $11,700 on slots in 4 trips, with a loss of $700. In 2016 so far in two trips, just $3500 coin in, with a loss of $700 already. I mean, no wonder I'm not Mlife Gold anymore, I hardly play slots anymore. It's gone down every year. I'm also playing some at Cosmo now, and a teeny bit at Caesars resorts, but the bulk is still MGM. Kinda shocking I put that much money into slot machines in '13 and '14. And '14 was only a 3 trip year. Wow. I guess I can see now why I'm a lowly Pearl member and should be happy that I'm even getting these 3-night comp offers to anywhere, much less NYNY. Happy now the...

My thoughts and opinions on all of the MGM resorts on the strip. EXCLUDED: Circus Circus, because I've never been there, and because LOL. And the Signature, because I've never been there. Starting from the far south end of the strip: -Mandalay Bay. A mid-high range property that has a lot going for it but is so remote on the strip that it suffers. A big, beautiful pool complex, hopping dayclubs out there, a focus for that reason seemingly on the millennial crowd but as far as I can tell they don't really hang out in the resort proper. When I'm in there it's usually older, retired slots grinders and the odd occasional family trudging through on the way to the pools. I stayed there once, it was...nice? Kinda unremarkable. Checking in was easy, room was fine, had a good view but it was nothing mind-blowing. I stayed just before they started the last round of room remodels so maybe it's a step up now but I have no real desire to stay again, unless it...

Another good haul of freebies from Mlife and myVegas on this trip. -3 comped room nights at NYNY: $117 a night so $351. -No resort fees for those 3 nights: $33.60 X 3 so $100.80 -$100 resort credit -$75 Freeplay -Shark Reef at MB myVegas ticket: $20 -$75 off $150 Tender Steakhouse myVegas reward: $75 -Free drink at Hexx: $14 Total freebies: $736. Damn. The overhead (1 night's room, resort fee and the flight) is only about $200 so a hell of a net haul on this trip. Far better than the Aria trip. I'm up $500+ before I step off the plane. So despite my love/hate thing with Mlife, and especially myVegas, it's still worth the bother at this point. I may jump ship again and go back to Cosmopolitan for the Xmas trip, as it was pretty awesome last year to close out the year feeling like a prince in that amazing room, but MGM is still keeping me in the 4 trips a year game when I might not be otherwise. 5 weeks.

The plan for trip #3 this year is set. A little planning, but not too much. Wednesday, early flight in, doing the Bell Limo thing again, good value and no potential long-hauling by the shitty taxi drivers. Find a bar to hang out in for a while until check-in, then maybe get a quick nap depending on how I feel. Probably just get around after that, do the Cosmo thing, wander the strip and see what turns up, get something to eat somewhere, no plans at all on day one, nice "ease into it" day. Thursday is "plan day". Probably will sleep in a bit to recover from the early wakeup call Wed, then the morning/afternoon is a myVegas redemption day. Going to see the Shark Reef attraction there, probably will be touristy but I'm fascinated by sharks and have never been up close to one, so eh. Then around 5p-ish I want to head up to the Foundation Room lounge at MB to check out what's supposed to be one of the best views in town. If there's any time I may go ...

T-minus 2 months until Vegas #3 of '16. Happenings are afoot. Got rid of my Mido watch, crown kept breaking, so a big Amazon gift card refund will result in some Vegas swag and other related buys. Got a few new golf-style polos to upgrade the appearance. I'm not a 20-year old anymore, I can't keep showing up at the Cosmo on Saturday nights wearing a faded old t-shirt. Looking at maybe a luggage piece - would be my first, I've always just thrown the Vegas trip stuff in a backpack, but as many times as I go to town per year now it's probably time to get a damn rolling carry-on bag and be done with it. The backpack gets tedious to carry on those long airport walks. Also got a Kindle and some new quality earbuds for the airport/waiting around time while traveling. Got a new watch as well, kind of a splurge purchase that I'll have to pay down a bit before the trip. Was on a German watch retailer site and they had Bruno Sohnle Glasshutte watches at half price...

I make a decent amount of money. I also have almost no debt and very few bills. Why do I feel vaguely guilty about that? All my adult life I've been effectively poor. I bounced around from bad job to bad job, living paycheck to paycheck and rarely living within my means. If I wanted stuff, I would get credit cards to "afford" them. This led to bad debt and some bad financial decisions. For 25 years I was in a cycle of debt and low income and worry and stress and collections and blah blah. About the time I took my current job, things started to turn around. I was now making a decent wage and have a stable position. I started getting rid of all the bad credit card and loan debt. I got rid of my car. I did some consolidation. I started living within my means for the first time in my adult life. I dug out and no longer stay up at night wondering how I'm going to make rent or pay off one CC bill while going delinquent on another. I am, no doubt, in the best financ...

I had a revelation this week. I'm white trash. It dawned on me that the reason I feel totally comfortable at resorts like NYNY and Excalibur, and feel vaguely uncomfortable at places like Aria and Bellagio, is that I'm not in the nicer joint's league. I'm not a retired insurance salesman wearing Docker's shorts and a polo shirt playing $5 slots at Bellagio. I'm not a hotshot startup guy at Aria sipping Pinot and discussing stock options. I'm not an Asian whale at the Wynn throwing money away on Ace of Spades and hookers. I'm a jeans and a t-shirt guy. I like beer. I like sports. I like sitting in a dark dive bar in Vegas on a hot Saturday afternoon when the rest of town is trying to squeeze into the Marquee daypool. I'm a chubby, middle-aged, casual guy who'd rather eat at Dick's Last Resort than STK. And I suddenly realize I'm OK with that. I've been spending time in places I don't really fit in at trying to somehow ...

4 nights in early September booked. You'll never guess... NYNY!!!!!! Yep. New York New York for the 6th time. Why put out a perfectly good fire, I guess. Got a comp offer from them while I was in town last week, so I booked it this morning. Really good offer for such a lowly Pearl Mlife member like me. 3 nights comped, no resort fees for the 3 comped nights, $44 rate for the 4th night, $100 resort credit and I think it'll be $75 worth of Freeplay. So in essence they're paying ME almost a hundie to stay for 4 nights. Not bad. The all-in on the flight was $115, so my overhead on this trip will be ultra-minimal. Hotel location is perfect as I'll be seeing Coldplay at the T-Mobile Arena (in a seat this time!), so it'll be an easy walk to the show. Can't believe I'm saying this, but even though I just got back 2 days ago, I'm already looking forward to this trip. My post-Vegas hangover is minimal this time, clearly. 3 months and a week of wait time...

Back from trip 2 of 2016. Fairly normal Vegas trip, as it was. Flight out was fine, JetBlue reliably on time and comfortable enough for a short trip. The TSA line was a lot longer than I normally see, but supposedly that's a thing this summer and I left myself plenty of time to get through it. Was funny watching all the idiots trying to tell TSA members their plane left in 15 minutes and being told "too fucking bad". Once on the ground in LAS the Bell limo ride went about as well as could be expected. Had to wait about 15 minutes from check in to ride out but was solo in a limo and for only $25 each way including tip it was worth it. Taxi would have been more and this way I arrived in style. Once to Aria check in there was beyond easy, I did mobile check in earlier and asked for a 12:45 check in time, wasn't expecting to actually be in the room before 3p but I got an email as soon as I walked in the front door and was in my room 5 minutes later. Total breeze. Wi...