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

The Vegas drought? I'm over it. 2 days til XmasVegasfuntime. All is ready. The bag is down and 70% packed, most of the money is out of the bank and the rest drops in tomorrow, I'm checked into the room, and have early bird boarding with Southwest so that's locked in, too. The money's a little better than I thought it would be. Will be able to take a little over $5500, so that's helpful. Even then from this last check that allows me to pay down the CC to about $500 and will make it a breeze to pay off when I'm back, even if I plunk a grand onto it in town. Sometimes it's just easier to use a card and frankly if MGM opportunities to use it present themselves it's dumb not to (triple points). Cash will be king for most of the trip though, no excuse to not get to MGM Gold again fairly easily without having to smash the CC. Naught but MGM gambling until I do.  I have added a reservation for the 26th just in case I haven't yet by that point (last day of th...

No real need for a plan post. Here's my plan post. Sunday: If all goes well with Southwest, I should be on the ground by about 9a, in a cab and over to Aria, and depending on the check-in sitch may be able to head straight up to the room, or may have to dump the bag and chill for a while. Hopefully the former. In whatever case, I can start to unwind, maybe find someplace to sit and watch one of the early NFL games, then scope out the lunch deals. If I'm not checked in will probably stay close to Aria so maybe Proper Eats or something at Cosmo. Other than that my day is free so commence the gambles and drank. Monday: No day plans, maybe a sleep in day after the long day prior. Shits and giggle in the daytime then probably freshen up later afternoon to head down to MB for the 1st free (minus tip) food reservation of the week. Love the Bolognese and it will be ate, mate. After dinner, tits to the breeze. See where the night takes me. Tuesday: Xmas Eve. No plans. I am Cowboy. Wedne...

In just 10 short days I will be on the ground in Vegas. It almost feels a little unreal. It's been so, damn, long since the last trip. It's been tough to get a heat on for this one but it's here now. Good room, great resort, good location, should be a good time all around. I so need a week to just fucking relax and get out of my own head. Was thinking about adding a night on the back end if I got an even bigger bonus in my review today. No more bonus but a 6% raise, which is better in the long run. So the trip is locked. I committed to "just" 5 days at the start of this after the Junepocalypse and I'm sticking to it. I really can't get myself into too much financial trouble on this one and that's going to make it more enjoyable. If I blow through the $5K in cash I'll take, fine, but no more lasting damage than that will be done. No more coming home to $7K in CC debt on top of cash broke. My SF weekend adventures for the month are over too, which wi...

Man, has it been a stretch since I've been able to say that. My long harsh Vegas drought is close to coming to an end. Less than 3 weeks now until I get release, and relief, from the daily drab. No changes to the arrangements. Aria it shall be. Black Friday deals came through and nothing remotely in the resort/rate range of Aria. MGM rates have gone way up too so it's Aria. Fine. Not every trip has to be a room blow out like the April trip was. That was a special occasion and this is just...another Xmas. Less than $100/night for a Stay Well view room in a 5-Star is fine by me. Still the same reservation regime, just the two dinner rezzies at Carama and Jean Georges, and then I'll grab bar seats for whatever else I need while there. I looked at shows, as Vegas.com has their normal buy $75 get $100 thing on, but there just aren't two shows I'd even want to see anymore in Vegas. I've seen the ones I want to see and the rest are either boomer-bait or otherwise unint...

The money pressure is...off. Decided to stop paying 24% interest every month on my hard-to-kill CC debt and took out a loan against my 401k at 8.5%. Will pay off the card this month and still have a little extra to put toward the Vegas cash fund.  I will pay back the loan via payroll deductions (painless) over 4 years and all the interest goes back into my 401k account, so essentially I'm paying myself the interest instead of some bank in Omaha. With this I can get back to living within the means on the CC, paying it off every month and in the long run saving money lost to ridiculous CC interest. So the $2K I'm banking here for cash, along with the work bonus coming in early December knocks the Vegas cash save dead. Won't have to scrimp too much or get creative over the next month to make the save number, as I was going to have to otherwise. Also won't have to murder the CC in town as I'll have a full $1K per day (or maybe a little more) while there. Is this ideal, ...

  Discounts and freebies, the 2024 Xmas edish. -5 nights at Freddies Aria: Stay Well Strip View King, $442, 3 nights comped, would be $2328 rack rate, savings of $1886 (youch). -$50 Freeplay, $50 Resort Credit on booking package, $100 value. -$230 in Rewards Points (resort credit), ~$200 in Slot Dollars from MGM Rewards, value $430. Short list but a sweet one, and all from being a loyal MGM slave  member. $2416 saved or earned. A good haul, maybe top 5 all time? Dunno, but it makes it a doable trip whereas in this crappy financial year it may not have been possible. The room rate the star of the show, as usual. Sure, I could have stayed at a similar rate at quite a few resorts on strip this time, but not in this nice a room at this nice of a resort. With nearly $300 in RC avail, if I play my cards right that can be 3 great meals, and with the $250 in FP I will probably sit down at a triple play VP machine on dollars and try to turn it into $4K minimum. 40 days, 40 days.

Life is minimizing my Vegas. It's only going to be three trips this year. I'm accustomed, since 2014, to doing four or more. The financial realities of my life now make that difficult. Last Xmas I did OK on money, paid it forward into the Birthday trip. Birthday trip I did OK on money, paid it forward into the June trip. Then the June trip happened. I still am not, and won't be this year, fully recovered from that ass-whupping. So no late summer, early fall trip this year. 6 months of drought. I'm not OK with that. I've come to really need the time off and release that comes with a regular, every few month Vegas trip cycle. As I'm now less than 2 months from a trip I'm starting to emerge from the funk, but the funk was real. August/September were some dark days , stuck in a shitty job with no prospect for any real time off until December. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, but may find myself in a similar tunnel next year. The realities now wi...

I'm done. Done buying stuff before the Xmas trip. I gave up this week on any fantasies about getting the MGM CC paid off, and bought everything I will need to be Vegas-ready. Started with the return flight today. Fares just weren't coming down, and at basically a month and a half out I was concerned that they never were going to drop, so I bit the bullet and pulled the trigger on United for the come-back. $145 one way. Was able to use some points so a little less painful than it otherwise would have been. 4pm flight so not ideal, but I can just add late checkout to my rezzy and it'll be fine. The other reasonable option was Frontier and just, no. So the total cost of flights is about $315. The price of flying on the Sunday before and Friday after Xmas. Also picked up some new jeans for the trip, some new glasses to replace my 3-year old pair, and various needed underwear items. The glasses are a bit bougie, Gucci's, but I'm wearing Prada now so whatev. They are no-l...

A couple rezzy's booked. To take advantage of the windfall of MGM RC we will be luxuriating in on the Xmas trip, I have booked a couple restaurant reservations. 1st one is on the Monday at the lovely Carama in MB, where they have a killer pasta Bolognese. So nice I went back twice on the last trip. And it's MGM, so, points. 2nd is on Xmas night at the reliably great Jean Georges steakhouse at Aria, I've eaten there many a time and never a bad meal. Seems like a steak splurge is always a good idea on Xmas night, and Aria is good place to jump off from for the rest of the Xmas night once the protein is on board. With the RC dump I have to blow through, I will likely add at least one more good meal on the trip, I just don't want to load myself down with too many scheduled reservations. I'll play it by ear the other nights and just sit at the bar wherever I happen to be if I'm in need of foodz. I'd like to use up most of the RC as it will reduce the overhead on ...

Starting to get just a tiny bit of a stiffy for Xmas Vegas. The mantra a month ago was "just get through October", both in a life sense and a Vegas sense. Well, it's just a week and a bit away, and I think I'll make it. Next week is already Halloween, for fuck's sake, so yeah. Then once we're into November it's only a couple weeks until Thanksgiving and then it's almost December and then it's only a couple weeks until Xmas and then it's December 22nd.  I'm not saying I have a full heat on like I will in December, but I'm starting to take note of what's happening in town. Checking the news sites a bit more. Checking the forum a bit more. Just starting to keep an eye on things. Maybe at the start of November I start putting in 50 hands of VP practice a few times a week, to start loosening up. It WILL be a gambling trip, as I will need at least 10K points once I arrive to make Gold again, which should be doable without blowing the whol...

Blah. Don't care much about Vegas right now. Usually between trips I'm obsessing about new things in town, new openings of food or entertainment venues, additions to existing resorts, and just Vegas news in general. Right now I'm just completely disengaged. Maybe it's because there's still 3 months from the next trip, with 3 months gone from the last. It's the dog days of the Vegas drought.  I have a good suite booked. I have the in flight booked. Hell I even have 2 food rezzys booked, 3 months out. But it all seems by-the-numbers right now as opposed to being excited about the trip. It's possible the Junepocalypse has taken a mental toll, losing $7500 on 6 days of vacation is not something you forget (or forgive) quickly. My tail was solidly between my legs as I sulked out of town last time, and I'm still not remotely recovered. This month will help a bit as it's essentially a 3-paycheck month and I can throw $4K at the problem, which I will.  It...

Got a nice little Resort Credit bump today, from an old job.  While I was with Kit/Ro in late '22 to early '23 I racked up some Marriot points while I was flirting with the move to Phoenix. Now that Marriot and MGM are bumping uglies, I was able to convert those (otherwise useless) points into MGM Rewards points. It turned into about $190 in credit, which, thanks old job! That means with what I already had earned, I will have over $230 available for the Xmas trip. Hello, Xmas dinner on Marriot, and one other dinner too. That's on top of the $50 I will have from the Aria booking package, and the potential $100 RC bump from getting to Gold on the trip, if I do. 3 nice meals (at least) inbound. We eatin'  good  for Xmas, y'all. The Xmas-freebies post coming up this year will be tidy.

  Booked the in flight for XmasVegasExtravaganza2024. Round trips just too damn pricey to do all at once, so booked the in through Southwest for $170 with Early Bird. If all goes well the flight arrives around 9a, hopefully can check in at Cosmo right away and start the festivities. The out is the one that was killing me on price, I'm splitting it up so I don't have to take the financial hit all at once. I do have 3+ months to spread out the pain. May even JSX it if the commercials don't come down some. So, now this trip is real, I have non-refundable skin in the game.

I'm somewhere in the middle of my long Vegas exile. This will be a whine post. Things are - not great. Struggling on a few fronts. The one that concerns me the most is...I hate my fucking job now. In order to stay with the company I'm with I had to start commuting every day back and forth across the Bay Bridge. For that to work I have to be there by 6:30a, meaning I have to wake up a little after 5a. This, this is not good for me. I hate getting up before the sun, hate going to bed at 9p, it's just totally against my body clock and it's not getting any better after almost 3 months. Then there's the job itself, which essentially entails me sitting in a chair for 7+ hours properly formatting documents to store. It's mind-numbingly boring and soul sucking. The people suck too. It's just a bad environment in general, more industrial plant than drug discovery facility. I'm searching for a new job but the prospects aren't great, I've had 2 companies wa...

Aria Xmas. I snapped up a *breathes in* Stay Well Deluxe King Strip View Room for the Xmas festivities. Say that 5 times real fast. I guess some of that bad gambling in June/July paid off, at least in a way. My offers went up across the board, had good, better than standard rooms available at at least 3 or 4 comped nights at almost all MGM resorts. Coming in Sun-Fri probably helps, too. No weekend days = better rates and more comped nights. The base Aria room is one I've had many times and is solid if a bit boring, but the Stay Well package will be a new twist. The location is perfect as always for my generally center-strip tendencies. Less cabbing and hopefully more cash saved by not being on an extreme end of the strip like I have been lately. Plus, baby gets a view. Couldn't have done much better on the resort/room/rate ratio, really, I ended up spending more on the airfare than on a 5-Star resort in Vegas, as this one all in was only $442 for 5 nights, 3 nights comped and m...

Well, that wasn't great. The trip was standard, the gambling was not. Absolutely got ass-blasted on VP. Took $6K bankroll, came back with $400. I have thoughts. I realize, and even realized DURING the trip, that I expect to win on VP now. My VP skills have evolved enough and I play perfect strategy to the point that if I don't hit at least one handpay on a trip I'm peeved. On this trip, I was very peeved. It made what should have been a fun trip, less so. Much less so. And it shouldn't be. In the old days I expected to lose my whole bankroll. It's a budget, and more often than not (see about 90% of these post-mortems) I came back with bupkus. It didn't really bother me. But now that 3 out of the last 5 trips have been successful (coming back basically even or at least only down a bit) that has now become an expectation.  The rest of the trip was fine. I did fun things, had some good meals, saw a lot of my Vegas buds, it was good. MB was good. Good room, resort ...

Last check in before go. It's been a strange lead up with the new job and all, but still have managed to work up a decent hype. A pretty standard trip after all the "ballerism" of the last one - staying in a standard room and flying commercial, but it's a good room and a good seat, FWIW. Back in the warm embrace of Mandalay Bay after flirting with Fontainebleau...in the end saving more than $700 over the Bleau was just too good a deal. 2nd time I've chickened out on FB, I swear I will stay there sometime. The money's out of the bank, full $6K for the 5+ days. As expected, had to float a little bit of my MGM CC debt to make it fly but unless I have another June of '23 trip (cursed be thy name), I should be able to get it all paid off in July and get back to normal. I'd love to come back more or less even so I could squeeze in a September trip but I'm not looking ahead, $6K is the budget and as long as I come back with enough to pay rent I'm not ...

Less than a week now. In keeping with tradition, a plan post. Spoiler alert: there's not much of a plan. Saturday: Dropping the car off at the parking lot at around 12p, then over to the airport. Flight's at 4p so I can hit a bar/resto to have a light snack and a couple beers, then hopefully be on time for the departure. If all goes well I'm on the ground by 5:30p, cab to MB, checked in and bag dumped by 6:30p. Then it's out to the bars. May start at MB spots like Foundation or maybe Skyfall, then may branch out a bit to the south/center strip. Don't think I'll get too adventurous on night one but I will have a full day's spend and should be slept up so no limitations there. A bit of gambling but probably nothing crazy. An ease into it night most likely. Sunday: The first full day. Thinking it'll probably be pretty mellow in town as it's the weekend before a holiday. Good for me as there should be plenty of open bar seats. May sleep in a bit then hea...

A decent haul, y'all. -6 nights at Mandalay Bay Las Vegas. $412 all in. Would be $1409 all in with the best website rate. Saved $997 over rack rate. -$30 Freeplay and $50 Resort Credit included in the deal. $80 value. -Roughly $160 in Freeplay from MGM by the time I get to town, $160 value. Total overhead saved = $1237. Not nearly an all timer but not bad for a holiday week trip. Would have been $700 more had I stayed at Fontainebleau as originally planned so a bit of frugality after the baller April trip.  1 month.

Flight locked in June/July Vegas. Back to having to deal with TSA again but at a good rate at least. $170 with Alaska. Get in around 5p on the Saturday and am out at around noon on the Friday. Solid. Could have gone with JSX again for about the same rate as last time but it would have been 3X as much and then would have to add on the crazy Uber rides from OAK again. It ends up being close to $700 all in. Just too much to do every time on non-baller trips. So as it stands 2 months out it's a very nice room at Bellagio (which may change if a banger room from elsewhere comes in) and a solid flight set with no out of pocket time issues. Total overhead well under a grand. The countdown begins again.

Went to Vegas. Drank a lot. Ate a bit. Sat in bars. Flights good, room good, no drama. Spent only $2000 after winnings, of which there were several. Came back from Vegas. The end.

In keeping with the upcoming all-baller Vegas trip, I have some new wrist candy coming along. Plunked down a little over $3K for a Longines HydroConquest full ceramic piece. Flirted with a Tudor as well, but it would have been a grand more and frankly I'm getting a lot more watch with the Longines. Love the simple, clean diver look and the full ceramic case and bezel will mean it'll look better far longer than a stainless piece. Apparently the stuff is basically scratch proof for all intents and purposes. Full ceramic from most other luxury brands are generally $10K and up. 43mm case so should be a good size for my wrist. Ordered it two-day from Jomashop, so it should be here well before the trip. Slightly worried about not having a manufacturer warranty, as it's a pretty pricey piece, but that's the chance you take getting a big discount from an online dealer. It's a $4100 watch from an AD, so I'll take my $1000 discount and my chances. So along with the privat...

MGM fucking with me again. Trying to dump rooms with 2 weeks to go, clearly. Could book the 6 nights at a $27 rate at Aria, less than $500 all in. Or Delano, NYNY or Vdara less than $400. Gah. Could save me over a grand. Could be at Encore for the same $$ as Conrad now too. Venetian $500 less. If I went with MGM props, I could be prudent and bank the extra $1K with the somewhat uncertain future RN, but I still don't want to give up the baller suite at the Conrad. The Encore suite is nice but I greatly prefer the resort at RW to the WynnCore complex. And I don't feel like I  have to scrimp, so unless that situation comes up (don't see how it could) I'll be at RW in 14 days. Plus none of the other props have the ROOM Conrad does. This thing has high ballerism to value quotient. Do I need it? No. I could get by with a 350 sq ft room and have on many occasions. Chances are extremely high no one but me is going to see it anyway. But I will see it, and appreciate it. And I c...

Things on track, generally. 2 /12 weeks to Vegas. No changes to anything trip-wise. MGM fucking with me. I could be at Delano again for less than $400 all in, but not going to bite. Sticking with posh. Work sitch unchanged but worrisome. As far as I know I still have a job after June, but my boss has gone quiet on me and it makes me nervous. I don't think he would pull the dick move of cutting me loose after the current contract is done, but if he does it's going to be unholy hell thrown at him. You can't tell someone their job is safe then pull that rug at the end. Going to try to corner him soon to get some surety. As it stands 2 Vegas trips and, you know, not being homeless depends on it. Not much out there in the job market, but I'm looking. Despite the slight uncertainty in the workplace, I've decided I need a new toy before the April trip. Getting a new watch. Took advantage of a 15-month 0% interest rate CC deal from my bank. Looking at either a ceramic Lon...

3 weeks out, starting to see things form up to final states. The last MGM Rewards points have dropped in, I'm over the 20K threshold, without having set foot in town, which would be great if I was actually TRYING to get the Gold this year. Whether I even make the effort will hinge on this trip, probably. If I do manage to drop some coin at MGM sites and get 10K in the bank there I might make an effort. Not going to bust my balls to do so though. The bigger plus I'm getting from the MGM CC now is all the Freeplay, of which I'll have nearly $200 going into town. That will be the main thing that will end up dragging my ass to Aria or Bellagio from the north strip. I'll cab all over the place anyway like I do to drink, but otherwise I'd probably be content to concentrate most of my gamble spend between RW and FB. Outside of those 3 not much else will likely make any money off of me this trip.  Also have a more or less final number of what will be in the wallet. After pa...

30 days until we hit the (vodka and) rocks. We about to go Titanic and get a little Lusitania. Only hoping I have some Endurance and things don't end up a Terror. Santa Maria. One month from today I will already be several cocktails in, on the ground in the Vegas. No changes to the itinerary as of now, still locked into a lovely suite at the Conrad with a backup for Delano in case I see a (financial) ghost in the next month. Flights on JSX. Could definitely have saved a couple hundy flying commercial but this trip ain't that. This trip is Bruno Mars - leaving town $50M in debt. As a result there will be no Freebies post this time, because, well, there aren't any. Not entirely true, I will have about $180 in Freeplay at MGM resorts while there, but the trips where I'm saving $2K over rack rates and with comps - this is not that trip. In truth I also saved about $1500 booking the room through Priceline over today's rate at the RW website, but it's not like I had s...

  With a little over a month to Vegas, looking ahead to possible Next Vegas. I'm about to begin a final work project at the site I'm currently at which has a more or less hard end date of end June. So, logically, before I would want to begin the next assignment I would, of course, want to do another Vegas trip. I've put in the time for June 29 - July 5. Another five full day trip, Saturday to Friday. That's pretty much the sweet spot for me now for mid-year trips; any less feels like not enough time and any more starts to tax the failing body. No room or flights yet. Google Flights has it as somewhere around $200 for the airlines and JSX is at $500 again for semi-private. Will probably end up going JSX because fuck TSA. Haven't dug deep with all resorts yet but MGM has some good rates for the MB/Grand/NYNY level hotels, even with resort fees. Plenty of time to figure all that out though. Still 4+ months away, won't probably book anything until I return from Apri...

Don't think I'm going to need it, as the theme of the April trip is All Birthday Baller, but I booked a bailout backup if I waver. 4 comped nights, including the weekend night, and $26/night before resort fees made me stick down the MGM CC for Delano, as a backup to the Conrad. I could save myself over $1000 on the booking, and add another $150 in RC and FP from the MGM booking package if I cancel RW and go Delano. For April it's by far the best price/resort combo I've seen within MGM-land. I just don't want to be sensible on this trip though. Turning 55 is a milestone birthday, one I was never guaranteed to get to, after the events of about 15 years ago. I'd like to celebrate it in big style. I stayed at Delano over Xmas, it's fine , more than enough space for a single guy, and as I've always said I like the MB campus. It would also bolster my chances of regaining Gold this year if I stayed there. AND it's literal walking distance from the airport w...

The site where I work will be shutting down at the end of March. J&J research site. Less than a year and a half old. Crazy. But big money companies do big money wasting things. Apparently this is somewhat par for the course for J&J.  What it means for me is unclear. Right now it's not even official, apparently it gets media dumped tomorrow at 5p Eastern to minimize the stock drop it'll likely cause. More details about whether it's just...over on March 31st or if there will be months of decommissioning equipment (which we would likely be involved in) is also unclear. I've been assured that since I'm not J&J, that I'm a contractor, my job is safe. Apparently this comes from the higher reaches of my company group so that's good, but what that means for what and where I'll have that job is unknown. If it's a remote job, great, if it means commuting to someplace like fucking Fremont or something...not great. I spent some time dusting off the r...

T-minus 2 months from Next Vegas. Nothing has changed in the plan. Still locked into Resorts World and JSX, otherwise known as baller and baller. I requested early arrival and at the Conrad, so hopefully that will come though so I can get into the room a couple hours early. Flight time would make that ideal. Still have just the two food reservations, no shows or anything this time. Little early for a Birthbies post, but booking the King Suite on RW or Hilton's website would cost me $2380 right now, as opposed to the $1500 it cost me on Priceline. Tight. And I have the whole $2K from JSX and the room paid off now, so it's all gravy save at this point for the next 4 paychecks. Already have the full cash save needed in the bank and will try to bump it up some between now and then to have a cushion. I keep checking MGM pretty much daily for rate drops, but anything even in the same tri-state area of niceness as the Conrad suite (like a Resort Tower King at Bellagio) are just as muc...

The bill has come due for my abject failure in December. Tier level updates have happened and I am no longer MGM Gold. I'm back to a lowly Pearl, where the poors hang out. My shame is beyond measure. I knew it was coming. I didn't monitor my spend well enough at the end of the Xmas trip and left myself 5K points short, which would have been easily gettable had I not been in a fog of Belvedere and cocaine the last few days of the trip. I have no one to blame but myself, Belvedere and cocaine. In a practical sense it means 2 things. The biggie is no more waived resort fees at MGM resorts. That will cost me $200-300 per trip depending on length of stay and resort. Not inconsiderable, but also not the end of the living universe. The other main drag will be no available room upgrades on check in, which is less of a big deal. I think the whole time I was Gold it might have only meant a few view upgrades, I don't think I ever got a better room class out of it. There are also thing...

This is going to be a baller-ass vacation. Private planes, 1100 sq ft suites in a 5-star resort, steaks and high-end sashimi. We be living  good  on the 55th birthday trip. It all starts with flying semi-private on JSX in and out. Flown with them a couple times before, SO much less hassle than dealing with the fucking major airports. Private terminal, no TSA, no bag worries, big cushy seats, free drinks. Hopping on in OAK and will just UBER it to and from. So much more evolved than being basically violated by TSA in the normal airports.  Then on arrival in LAS it's in the taxi and over to Resorts World. I have added early check-in to standby, so hopefully I can just roll straight up to the room at 1:30p. It's the One Bedroom Suite at the Conrad, 1100 sq ft of lovely at the north end of the strip. No resort hopping this time, one room, one unpack, one relax.  Trying to think back, pretty sure this will be the biggest room I've ever had in Vegas, I think Encore or Dela...

Holy shibbles. Just booked the 55th birthday room, and it's a dooz. I will be in a One Bedroom King Suite at the Conrad. This is big swinging baller. It's also $1500, but that's actually a sincere fucking bargain. For my dates right now, places like Wynn are wanting $400+ for a standard room, V/P even more, no other 5-star on strip is less than $170/night for a standard room, I'm getting a 1100 sq ft 2-room suite for a couple bucks less than that. Even with my MGM status I would have paid more for a standard room at Bellagio, for ex. Thank you Priceline. Have seen video walkthroughs, it's a gorgeous room and far better for a celebration trip than anything I was going to be able to book with any other resort group that week. Rates are high, must be a convention in town. Yes, $1500 all in is still a chunk of change but as previously stated, I'm only turning into a senior citizen once and damn it I'm going to leave middle age with a fucking bang.  I have 3 full...

Whelp, a couple weeks back from Xmas Vegas and I'm booked in the air for the return. JSX again this time, feeling like posh-ness for turning 55. Going in on a Saturday afternoon, early-ish, getting in around 1p. Quick Uber from the private terminal, then I can get the bag dumped and get settled for 5 full days over the Bday week. No resort-hopping this time. The out is around 1:30p Friday so no need for an early last morning wakeup, just breeze back to the JSX term with no TSA worries and it gets me home by around 4p with any luck. It's $530 fucking dollhairs but the lack of TSA hassle, relaxed vibe and the bag allowances make it so much more civilized than going through standard airlines. I'll have it paid off next month so no worries. Fuck it, it's my 55th Bday I'm going to splurge. No resort booked yet and it might be a while, I want to see what my booking packages look like with MGM when they flip in February, after all my play in December. I put through $30K co...

OK then. That was OK. Slightly strange, but a good time. Highlights by subject, as always, below. Flights: Both good, on time, but I did have to check my bag both times. Not ideal and on the in flight it freaked me out because I inexplicably left $7K in the checked bag. Luckily I had honest or oblivious bag chuckers on both ends or it could have led to disaster. As it turned out though no issues with United. Rooms/Resorts: Again no complaints. 1 night at Cosmo was good though all I really saw was the bed. Had the PH facing view. Then Delano for the last 6 nights was, again, fine. I'm an old pro on the MB campus now and the suite was a fine place to start and end the days. Resort was pretty mellow except the first couple days at MB, they had a football bowl team staying there so a lot of them around but otherwise pretty slow. Food/Bev: Had a few good meals, did a great bone-in pork chop at Blue Ribbon on night 2, good tapas on Xmas night at Jaleo and had good sushi at Kumi on the la...