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

In 24 hours I will be sitting in an airport bar waiting for my quick flight to LV. All set aside from some housekeeping tomorrow. Going in for a half day of work, out at about 1:30, hit the bank to pull out the Vegas funds and rent. Head home, quick shower, pack the rest of my shit then it's back in the car and over to the parking lot by the airport so the Audi can chill in safety for 7 days. Shuttle to the terminal, get through TSA a couple hours early then it's the waiting game for the (hopefully) on-time departing 7:55p flight. Always love the feeling of the hour or so in the airport before the flight takes off. Getting there plenty early takes the stress out of any possible security delays, and it's a great opportunity to relax, have a beer and get the head into a Vegas state; let all the day to day bullshit go and get amped for the upcoming fun. Then if all goes to plan it's on the ground around 9:30p, over to the Mirage in a cab by 10:00p, up to the room ...

Final countdown to Vegas-Xmas underway. Weeks/days flying by now. Not much left to do. One last laundry load to run, probably Monday or Tuesday. Kinda wishing I had a bigger backpack or real carry-on for the in flight on this one, I've never had to pack for essentially 7 fucking days before. My poor backpack is going to be heavy as fuck and bursting at the seams on the way in. I will have a lighter pack on the way out though as I have to trim weight and size to be able to take it with me on the Frontier flight back. They only allow "personal items" that fit under the seat or I'd have to pay as much as the flight ticket to take it on with me. So, I'll be shedding my undershirts as I go. 5 of them are probably 6-8 trips old anyway and are getting ragged so I'll just replace them when I'm back. No biggie. Everything else should squish down fine. No change on the money. It'll be enough to have a full, nearly normal save for each day. Looking back at...

It dawns on me that I'm starting to close in on having stayed in the bulk of the major resorts on-strip. At least most of the CET/MGM ones. The list as of the end of this year (and rolling updates): Stratosphere Riviera (RIP) Luxor and the Luxor Towers Excalibur THEhotel (Delano) NYNY Harrah's Flamingo Mandalay Bay Monte Carlo (RIP) Cosmopolitan Palms  Aria Planet Hollywood Paris Bally's Mirage Caesars Palace Park MGM MGM Grand Tropicana Vdara Palms Place That's a good chunk of what's out there. In terms of un-stayed major resorts that would leave: Venetian/Palazzo (would love to but pricey) Wynn/Encore (would love to but pricey) Circus Circus (LOL no never) SLS (probably not, SO north, see what happens after new ownership takes over) Waldorf Astoria (unlikely due to expensive and no casino) The Linq (quite possible at some point) Cromwell (would like to but it's pricey for smallish r...

The money is set for Vegas, and it may get slightly better. Got the Xmas bonus very early this year, it's the same as always with the caveat that instead of a big stack of ones like the last several years it's in the form of a check with taxes taken out - so it's $425 this year. Eh, the other $75 would be nice but I also don't want to be having them break the law for it. So that allows the total save to be a respectable $4570. That will mean $530 (see below) to spend in transit to Vegas and on the first short night, then exactly $700/day for the rest of the 6 days. My goal is always to have $1K per day but with the long-ass trip this time that was never going to happen. As stated previously, the level of gambling I do anymore makes the 7 bills enough for every day. I'll also have around another $2000 if needed on CC's as a backup, so it'll be plenty. My math could be fuzzy too (fuck math) so there might be a little extra to work with when I finally pu...

Weeks flying by now as it's just 3 more until Xmas Vegas. A flurry of activity lately. The financial hit I thought I was going to take for a tax bill has strangely gone away temporarily, so there's $300 more in the Vegas fund that I wasn't expecting. The total save now will be $4200, plus about another $1700 available on CC's if need be. Should be more than enough with as little as I gamble anymore. I plan to blow it all though, I'll have 2 full months before I need to start saving for the April trip so I can pay myself back if I blast through the cash and some of the card balance. If I'm only going to take 3 trips a year going forward I'm going to make them blowouts and try not to hold much of anything back. If I come home with enough to buy a loaf of bread until the next paycheck (which will only be a week later) then I'm good. Last time it was enough to buy a computer so I'm not really concerned, Plus, even though I'm in less than good ...

The calendar rolls on and we close down to just over a month from Xmas-Vegas-O-Rama. The Xmas week is always generally my favorite trip of the year. Why is that? It dawns on me that one major reason may be one of the things I constantly decry on these trips. Solitude. You're never truly alone on a trip to Vegas, even on the slowest days of the year there are still tens of thousands of tourists and resort staff all over the strip, all busily trying to have their "What Happens..." trip or just putting up with us to be making enough to pay the damn rent. But the density of those throngs (maybe half of what would be there during NYE?) is far less during the holiday week, and for an introvert and shy individual like myself, it's a lot like heaven. I've never liked big crowds or crowded rooms. Even when I go out on weekends here in the City I try to seek out the mellow, uncrowded spots in town and will move on from even my most favorite spots if they start ...

Maybe an all-time great haul this time? Can't be arsed to go back and check previous freebie posts but: -5 nights comped at Caesars Palace - $795 value as of today. -myVegas reward for 1 night comped at Mirage - $64 value. -One comped night through Mlife at Monte Carlo in a Park room - $92 value -myVegas reward at Camelot Steakhouse for $50 off of $100 so $50 value. -myVegas reward for $50 drink credit at NYNY, $50 value. -Piff the Magic Dragon show at Flamingo using Vegas.com promo code, $50 off $60 show so $50 value. -Flight IN to Vegas on Southwest - $75 flight, used points, just paid $5 in taxes so $70 value. -Restaurant.com certificate at Slice for $25 off of $75 tab, bought for $4 so $21 value. -Restaurant.com certificate at Senor Frog's for $25 off of $50 tab, bought for $2 so $23 value. So that's around $1200 in free stuff. Not shabby in the least. myVegas has just recently changed its LP earning policy for the worse, so this may be the last time I ...

Took advantage of a little bonus money this past week to shore up Vegas - for the next trip and the next after next. Was asked not to pay half of rent this month since there's horrid house construction going on here, so used that extra bonus to: A) buy the plane ticket for the April trip. B) buy the ticket to Mystere on Xmas eve. C) buy myself another winter sweater so I don't look identical to last year on this upcoming trip. All good stuff. I figured I was going to be skint from now til the trip so rather than thinking short term and using the extra funds to go out this weekend in the City, I took care of making sure large portions of the next trips are handled. I'm pretty much resigned to last Saturday having been my last day out here til after the trip. It's 2 full months now, 8 weekends of boredom, but it is what it is at this point, it's the price I'm willing to pay for 5-6 nights in happy land. I'm more willing to pay it...

Less than 2 months to go-time, and the plan is coming together. Good mix of plan/no plan, with a ton of shows and steak to keep things interesting. Wednesday the 20th, fly in night, I'l be in town by around 9:30p. Catch a cab or Bell, be to Mirage by 10p, check in, get freshened up and head out to do some damage by somewhere around 11p latest. This will likely be a low or no gambling night, probably just get some drinks and a light snack and take it easy on the money. I was, with an unexpected tax expense, in slight money trouble for this trip but have decided to take out a Discover card with a couple grand limit so if any emergency pops up or if I'm just taking a cash pounding I'll have backup. So former money worries are now no worries. That said I will probably take it slightly easy the first night in town, knowing I have 6 FULL FUCKING DAYS ahead of me. Day One: Zero plan for this day. After checking out of Mirage and into Caesars, this will be one of the ...

In what's becoming a Xmas Vegas trend, I'm going to go see The Last Jedi in Vegas on the 22nd. I saw The Force Awakens for the first time in an almost empty theater on the strip 2 years ago. This time it'll be a bit further down in the Town Square mall thing, but will be seeing it in IMAX 3D. Town Square is a good mile or so from the southern end of the strip (Mandalay Bay) so it'll be a cab to get down there but that's fine. It's a noon show so not too early and shouldn't cut into my Vegas day all that much. In essence it's just like seeing a Cirque show or something in terms of the time hit and in any case I DID say I needed to do more planning for things to do on this trip so this is a good start. Maybe this and a strip show somewhere some other day and I'll feel like I haven't spent the entire trip staring at a bartender or a TV. Behind a bar. Then maybe after the movie that becomes the day I do my normal pilgrimage to Delano/MB for ...

The disaster in Vegas on Sunday night has me so heartbroken. I've come to think of Vegas as a home away from home, and this incident has shaken me like very few events in my life have. I'm not a Vegas resident but this feels like a knife being driven into me, even if it's from a distance. This isn't about me.  Literally hundreds of innocent people have died or been injured by this thing, and how this affects some washed up old fuck living in San Francisco is pretty irrelevant. But all experience is relative, and we all process things as they relate to ourselves. So here goes. My first thought is just sadness for the attendees. I'm no great lover of country "music", but this could just as well have been any other venue and type of show. Apparently Paddock had rented space above where the Life is Beautiful show took place the week before, so the type of music seems to have been irrelevant. These people were out on a lovely night in one of the gr...

So now I've figured out why my traditional first trip of the year weekend, the 1st of March, is so jacked up on hotel rates. NASCAR. So yeah, I won't be going to Vegas 1st week of March like normal - both for the expense and for the redneck cousin-fuckers who take over town. Lowest rates at any respectable resort for my non-comp having ass is $130+. Homie don't play $650 just for room rates; with resort fees and a flight tacked on to that I'd be lucky to get it done for less than a grand. So, that gives me options. A) Don't go to Vegas at all. I think those of you who follow this blog know how that plan would end up. B) Go earlier than 1st week of March. That's risky as I rely on my tax refund to supply a goodly portion of my 1st trip fund; with filing usually opening up around the last week of Jan/first week of Feb that's cutting it dangerously close. Too close. C) Go in April. This might make good sense as for a lot of reasons I'm prob...

One more go-out weekend in the City this coming weekend, then the Big Rut starts. Nearly 3 months of nothing. No going out, no buying anything, just saving up for 5 days in Vegas, almost 90 days in the future. It's a game I've played constantly for the past 6 years now. 3 months of saving and scrimping and having nothing to show for the time in things or experiences. it's just a big wait, a wait for a (not even a) week in the desert. It's almost like I'm putting my life on hold for half of the year, if I'm doing (minimum) 3 trips. In truth I'm sure I'll manage to get out at least a couple weekends of the 3 months, I'll go stir-crazy and put off a Vegas fund payment by two weeks, increasing the pain down the line for a furtive excursion on a Saturday. Usually that will be the first month (in this case October) of the save. Then reality will hit in November and there will be nothing but the Big Rut. Gotta have that $4K to blow on liters of liq...

A little over 3 months out from Vegas trip #4, VegasXmasalidocious. The hangover (literally and figuratively) from the last trip has more or less worn off. I still have a lingering sense of wariness about the way forward when it comes to my trips (i.e. am I going to continue to exclusively vacation in Vegas), but I'm getting jazzed for the Xmas trip, which is always my fave of the year. I've said it many times, I love the vibe and atmosphere in town over the holiday. I'm also jazzed to be staying at Caesars, which is a pretty amazing place to explore. Going to try to work in a show or two this time possibly, need to have more of plan for this trip but DAMN seeing a show in Vegas is expensive. At least $75+ for any decent show, and that's in the nosebleeds. Could do the myVegas redemption thing but that's only for two shows I've already seen. Maybe the "vary up the routine" will be more geographical rather than entertainment oriented. Maybe this ...

Finally all set for Xmas Vegas transportation. Used part of my left-over funds from last trip to pay for a flight back. I had booked the flight in a couple months ago with SWA points, but now finally had a good price drop show up on United so I booked it. Only $79. So with the $6 ticket for the flight in it's $85 on flight overhead, pretty good. I would like to have used my JetBlue $75 credit on this flight but all of their flights out of Vegas on that day are with a stop in fucking Long Beach which, no. So I'll save it for the next one, whenever that will be. That good price comes with a caveat though, it's a 6a flight. Normally that would be horrifying after 5 days in Vegas but since the night before is Xmas day it will likely be a pretty mellow night in town so I'll just party it up during the day and get into bed by about midnight so I can get a few hours of sleep then head to the airport. I'll be back here by 7:30a, which will give me a nice full two da...

Huh. What to say about this one. Not much TO say, really. It was about as standard a trip as there is for me...and there may be a problem brewing on that. Just some general impressions on this one as frankly a blow by blow would be boring for anyone reading this (like myself). -The flight in: Hell. I arrived at the airport before 4p. Early, but I figured, heck, I'll have time to relax, reset my head, have a couple beers and it'll be fine. That was when the flight was scheduled to leave at 7:04p. It didn't leave until after 11p. Thanks, JetBlue. I sat in the airport stewing for 7 fucking hours, totally ruined the first night in Vegas. I was supposed to be in town by 8:45, I wasn't there until 12:30a. JetBlue's compensation for all that? A $15 dollar food credit in the airport (no alcohol) and a $75 flight voucher afterwards. -The room: once I finally got into town, got over to Bally's and settled in. Changed my 2 queens room to a single king. It was plenty...

24 hours from...NOW I will be in the air on the way to the Veg-yaassss. All is ready. Laundry is done, I'm checked into my flight, the money's out of the bank and the plan is good. I lucked out tonight and finally sold my 2 tennis rackets that had been collecting dust for the past 3 years, so another $150 into the 1st night fund. Keeps me from having to worry about taking it easy so much. Maybe a beacon of good luck on the eve of the trip? Been trying to sell the bastards for a year or more. I'm 48, chubby and have a right knee held together with baling wire and bubble gum. It was time. One normal, hopefully full night of sleep. A go-through-the-motions half day of work tomorrow. Print all the stuff I need to print, then come home around 1p, park the car on the right side of the street, shave, shower, then...off to the bus to take me to the airport to get me on the plane to fly me to Vegas to make with the funning. Nothing else to say except goodbye and hope I don...

A hibernation weekend, 3 1/2 easy days of work, then it's off to El Happy Land for 5 nights, 4 days of get down. No illusions about what will happen, this will be trip 21 in a series of who knows how many more, and I know what they look like at this point. Drinking, bad gambling, good eating, more drinking, sleep, shower, repeat. I've set minimum expectations for my trips at just relaxing, being on a bender and enjoying soaking up the vibes of my favorite place. If anything gets sideways it can only really be a good thing. The money is out of the bank aside from having to go pull basically all of this next paycheck out on Friday. That'll take me out northwest of the strip and I considered making a few stops at say Palace Station or Artisan or Lucky Dragon but the only real reason to do that during the daytime would be to gamble and I don't plan to do much of that. Besides, whatever gambling I do will likely be at Cosmo again, as it's the only place I ...

Back on the myVegas train again, back with some freebies to tally up. not the haul of past years as there's no Freeplay/resort credit on this trip, but... -5 nights comped in a Jubilee Strip View room at Bally's: $800 value on Caesars site as of today. Only paying $164 resort fees/taxes so $636 saved. -Jetblue flight: used all points, paid $6 for a $150 round trip flight so $144 saved. -myVegas: $35 Nine Fine Irishmen credit, $75 Tender Steakhouse credit, $20 off of $40 at Public House = $130 value. -$25 Restaurant.com coupon for Senor Frog's, paid $2 so $23 value. Also have a couple coupons for Lettuce Entertain You eateries that I may or may not use, could end up saving me another $50 or so if I use them. Altogether the savings/comped value comes out to $933. Pretty tidy, definitely a huge reason why LAS is still the airport I type into the vacation finder every few months. I honestly don't know how I'm going to be able to swing all that if I ha...

Have pretty much got my playlist locked in for the August trip. Going with a retro vibe on this one with a list of songs that were in daily rotation on the local Bay Area alternative station, "Live 105". As is true of a lot of old farts, I tie a large part of my formative years to music, and I was lucky to have grown up here where one of the best alternative stations in the country was operating. KITS was independent, had some of the most diverse programming and some of the best, most hooked in DJ's in the US in the late 80's, early 90's. You would hear electronic, reggae, dance, ska, indie rock and goth music in the course of an hour, and it was amazing. Bauhaus followed by Pato Banton followed by Style Council followed by Chris Issak and so on, and it all made sense and flowed into a whole. It was never boring. So my playlist for this trip pays tribute to that, I've got some Depeche Mode and Cure and Siouxsie but also more obscure stuff that Live 10...

As the true countdown begins to the next trip (T-minus 30 days), a few observations and resolutions on the state of my Vegas obsession. In short, it's waning (a bit).  I've spent the last two months feeling very poor, saving up for the 4 day orgy of fun that is a Vegas trip. I have another month of poorness to come. To give you an idea, after saving $650 out of today's check and paying all my 1st month's check bills (most of my bills come due on the first paycheck of the month), I'm left with an even $100 dollars to get me through the next two weeks. That's all I'm allowed to spend for daily life over the next 14 days. That's a little over $7 a day. In San Francisco. It's such a weird feeling knowing I have literal thousands of dollars sitting there not being able to be used, when I'm trying to figure out how to budget in enough funds for toilet paper for 2 weeks. Especially with the car expenses now (payment, gas, insurance, mai...

As of  today I am one month out from Vegas trip #3 of 2017. I suppose it's almost silly to do these "plan" posts anymore, because unless I'm seeing a show, (not this time), I really don't do much planning on trips now. I've come to realize over the years and trips (this will be #21) that having no rigid plan is the best way to go, for me anyway. I have literally dozens of places I can go that I feel comfortable in, and the only real challenge at this point is trying to add one or two new ones to the list. It's almost become a bit of a stressor while I'm there, that there are so many places I want to be in a day, spread all up and down the 4 miles of the strip, that I can't get to them all. I think the only logical "plan" at this point is to have a general play book to start the day, then feeling that if I deviate from it, oh well, it was never set in stone anyway. My only real planning now is based around coupons or reservations I...

Locked in my myVegas rewards for the upcoming trip. Using a reward I've used before, that is about the best one value-wise on the entire list for mV, the "2 for 1 entree" at Nine Fine Irishmen at NYNY. It's actually a $35 credit to the place, no strings attached, no minimum buy as I remember. Good lunch belly-filler to soak up the previous night's alcohol and hopefully some of that to come. Then will roll down further south to use the first of two rewards on the day at Luxor, which, to be honest, I probably wouldn't step foot in anymore if it wasn't for myVegas, but it's on the way to Mandalay anyway, so I'm getting the $20 off of $40 spent in the decent Public House there. Having just had lunch this will probably be shots/beer. Also locked up the $75 off of $150 buy at Tender steakhouse in Luxor again. I've used it twice and always have had an excellent steak, some good apps and solid wine. It's pretty pricey but I like to do on...

No, not the Phil Collins song, one more night added to the Xmas Vegas trip. I've been keeping an eye on flights for it now that it's just a little more than 6 months away (I know). I had considered driving out, but with parking fees and gas it'll end up costing me more than the flight. Realized I had a few latent RR points on Southwest, despite not flying that vile airline in couple years. Had enough to cover one leg of the flight, but only if I booked it for the night before I had rooms booked, so I went ahead and grabbed it for Wednesday, the 20th to arrive around 9:30p. That meant I need a room, so I will be booking a night at the Mirage via myVegas for that night. It'll be comped aside from resort fees, and it'll be nice to check out Mirage as I've never stayed there, even if it is only for the one night. Somehow in my 3+ years of Milfe stays Mirage never came up in the queue. I like the place, it's one of my normal hangouts and it's ...

T-minus ~60 days to the August Vegas hotstravaganza. Have started the painful saving regimen...I'm on the first of 7 of 8 weekends with no going out in the City (squeezing one in there in the middle) while saving up Vegas cash. Ouch. Part of it though is I have both a HSF and a DMV payment to make in the next couple months, so whatever. It'll be down to the penny on the final save, but $3550 will be the savings goal for this one. That's $50 for a beer at SFO on the out night and cab fare to the resort, $300 for the short first night (no gambling just drinking), then $800 per day for the 4 full days I'm there. With the level of gambling I do anymore (minimal), it'll be more than enough. I just don't have the stomach for gambling anymore that I did when I first started going, though that's probably more due to the fact that the slots are far tighter now than they were then. In 2013 I put almost $20K into the slots over the course of the year, and only l...