Lost In The Wilderness.

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Stuck in the Vegas no-go zone.

I'm more or less mentally recovered from the posterizing Vegas gave me in June. The wallet, on the other hand, is still barking. The loss of the nearly $5K cash and the sodomizing of the MGM CC is nearly recovered, at great literal cost. By the end of this Friday I will have paid off $5100 in charges on the card since late June, again mostly from the trip. I can finally now, starting in August, begin to start recovering enough to entertain another trip in my head.

However, the spectacular financial failure of JuneVegas has me now in the desert, just not literally, for a while. I can't responsibly even think about another trip now until Xmas. Assuming that will be a 7-night trip, which is how much time I've asked for at work, it'll be a $6500-ish save meaning I will need the entire Aug-Sept-Nov-Dec span to build the funds up again. No opportunity to squeeze in even a weekender trip unless some unexpected windfall comes my way, which is highly unlikely.

Apparently with Agilent I will be getting some kind of yearly bonus that might be quite nice, but I always look on bonuses as just that, I don't count on them because if some calamity huts the economy I may not even see it. If I see $5K+ around December great, that will certainly make the save much easier toward the end but I have to assume I'll be getting bupkus and save accordingly.

So, I am currently room and flight-less. I check MGM daily for the best rates, I could score a good suite at Delano RN for less than $300, but I'm angling for something more mid-strip for Xmas. The MB complex is pretty dead that time of year. It's probably Aria/Bellagio/Vdara, just have to find the right rate. All a bit high now. Could also be comped at several CET spots including Paris but I really need to blast hard on MGM on the last trip of the year to even have a chance to save my Gold status.

That will be a nailbiter. I'm at just 35K of a needed 75K right now, with the year half gone. Even if I can max out on monthly CC points of say, 3000 per, that gets me 18K points added to what I have now equaling 53K. That means I would have to earn 20K points in one 7 night trip over Xmas. That means basically every penny gambled, every drink drunk, every meal eaten at MGM spots. Doable, but man that's a lot of pandering to a points program. Well see how things progress as we get closer to December, I may just say fuck it and give up on Gold.

So here I am, in a 6-month no Vegas rut, but things could be worse. I could have moved to fucking Arizona.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/11/us/phoenix-heat-wave.html

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