Xmas Waffling and Life.

Been trying to lock down the Xmas trip, and, as a side note (as far as this blog's concerned), life.

Originally had 5 nights booked at Mandalay Bay for less than $60/night. Then comps opened up a bit and booked 3 nights at Tropicana (meh) and 2 nights at MGM (nice). Then a gaggle of nights became available through Total Rewards for some reason to stay at the Linq. Not wanting to resort-hop, I jumped on those. Now last night Mlife counters with 2 free nights and $15/night rooms for Mandalay Bay, which was the place I wanted to stay in the first place, so I dumped Linq and re-booked MB. It would be about $100 more in total but MB is 3 times the resort the Linq is.

Now today after cancelling the Linq reservation, 5 free nights at Bally's in the newly renovated Resort room have opened up. THAT'S a dilemma. Bally's is not half the resort MB is, but having stayed there the new rooms are quite nice and the location of Bally's is far better than Mandalay. More and more though I don't do the long walks and just cab around late at night when I have a ways to go, so the far south MB location might be academic.

So for now I have them both booked. Don't have to decide until week before trip, but leaning toward MB unless something else comp-y comes along. It would likely have to be Caesars comped to make me dump Mandalay. Still haven't booked flight yet as they're still hovering around $200 round trip, if it drops to around $150 I'll likely jump on it. Worst case scenario I could always drive but parking would likely be an issue if I did that. May have to price it out and see what makes more sense, as I'd have to pay to park it here anyway. EDIT Vdara/Caesars!

Life...oh life.

As feared I got a really shitty, hack job of a review for the second year in a row. Less than a 3% increase. Total slap in the face. So, me being me, I naturally cornered one of the owners and asked to be fired, contingent on my being able to collect unemployment. Figure that's a face-saving way for all parties to end a miserable situation with everyone getting what they want: me the hell out of there without going homeless and them me gone. They're mulling it. Apparently the owner who has my back is trying to salvage the situation somehow by modifying my position/duties but it'd have to be some miracle package for it to work. I just want out. I've been going through the motions there for over a year now and I'm done, even if it means being thrown back on the job market nearly at age 50.

Positives are it's a very strong job-seeker's market. I already, in half-assed looking have 2 phone interviews set up for next week, so one way or another it looks like I move on this year. One of the jobs looks promising and they didn't balk at my salary requirements so we'll see. Some way or another I'd be shocked if I'm still at the current job by the time the Xmas trip comes around.

Money-wise I'll still be OK no matter what for the Xmas trip at least. Worst case, no job, I'll still have unemployment coming in and with some frugality I should be able to do most of the normal Vegas save with that, and will have the 401k cashed out to assist if needed. Should have $12-13K in the bank from that if I leave the current, so with that and EDD funds I can probably survive for a year without work. If it gets on that long I can take something, anything to get me by until a good opportunity comes along. Not really worried, but I would be if I hadn't opened that 401k account. Makes my current situation a lot more relaxed.

What's up in the air now is the looming 50th birthday trip in April. Can't do any planning for that until I know what my employment situation will be and it's settled.

So it's a time of uncertainty, which I hate, but sometimes life does that to you and all of the above is of my own doing..."life" holds none of the blame. Situation should shake out in the next week or so on some tangent so I will update when it does.