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

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...

Quick and dirty birthday trip done. All went more or less according to plan, aside from more fucking flight delays. Got to the airport here in plenty of time Monday, they had a shortish but still annoying delay on this end that pushed me forward on arrive time by a half hour. Eh. Got into Vegas around 7:15, cabbed over to Flamingo. Room check in painless, got up to the room with no delay. The Go room has pretentions at being nice, but is still basically a low-end room in a low-end resort. Room was fine size wise, but had simple, dumb maintenance and detail stuff wrong with it that just a little bit of care could correct. Multiple light bulbs out above the beds. No batteries in the bathroom remote. The Go rooms are supposed to have in in-room sound system, mine had none. Scuffs on the walls from former guests. Nothing that really seriously diminished the room's basic functionality, just things that an Aria or a Cosmo or even a NYNY would take care of. In all the room wa...

Still slightly bemused by the rapidity and short term of this one, but yeah, in a little over 24 hours I will be back in Vegas, albeit for a quicky. The laundry is done, the (small) bag is mostly packed, the car is safely parked; it's just a half day of work, a bus ride to the airport and hopefully an on-time flight away now. Just have to shave head and balls tonight and the prep is done. Completed and loaded up my Vegas playlist today. Nice tight 30-song set, some birthday songs, some songs about getting fucking older, and just a few good comfort songs to soundtrack the trip. The GO room at Flamingo has an in-room sound system but I'm still bringing my UE Boom so I can have shower/bathroom tunes. Not doing the Bell limo this time, don't want to wait around for a ride this trip since it's such a tight timeline. Just want to jump in a cab and get the hell over to the room when the plane lands. Taking $1200 cash, and will be liberal on using the CC, especially ...

Can't believe I'm even doing a "plan" post for this trip. All told I'll only be IN Vegas for a little over 40 hours. Minus two (short) sleeps and the time to/from planes and it's really just a full day, time-wise, of waking Vegas. SO, here's the plan: Nada. Nothing. No plan. I will get in to town, cab to the Flaming-Go, get up to my room, shower, change clothes and from that point on it's go time. There will be drinking. There will be eating. There will be ogling of girls. There will be...I don't fucking know what there will be, because I have no plan. Not going to get bogged down with any preconceived notions when there's so little time. I have a vague thought that I might try to slip into STK at the Cosmo for the birthday dinner but if I'm not in the neighborhood, there are plenty of steakhouses in Vegas I can end up in. Or maybe I'll eat at fucking Taco Bell. It's my fucking birthday, fuck you. Oh, yes, there will also ...

I'm an idiot. So I'm in the shower this morning (a dangerous place, clearly), when a thought comes into my head. "Gee, I wonder, theoretically, what the feasibility would be of taking a very short Vegas trip for my birthday". Literally as soon as the thought arrived I knew I was going to do it. I got out of the shower smirking into the mirror like some naughty schoolboy who just peed in the pool. Flying in the face of my best laid plans for the year, I got to work and spent the better part of the morning (on the clock), planning and carrying out the booking of a 2 night, 1 full day birthday Vegas trip. I will fly in in the evening of the 24th, be staying 2 nights at the Flamingo (only place I could book a reasonable rate, some big convention in town), and fly out early afternoon the 26th. Jet Blue in, Virgin out, less than $120 for the flight, upgraded to a Go room at Flamingo so that's about $140 with resort fees and all. Tried to book a free night at Co...

Whelp, it looks like the well of free rooms at CET properties has run dry. Tried to book my next March (yes, March 2018) trip today for shits and giggles, and I no longer have any comped rooms available. I guess the fact that I've booked 20 free nights over four trips in the past few months without playing more than a hundy or so in CET resorts in the past year has finally sunk in to the Total Rewards computer. I'm all comped up for the next two trips, but after that I'm hat in hand. Sigh. So, now the plan I've been hatching to try to get on Cosmo's comp radar needs to get serious on the next two trips, or starting next year I'll have to start *gasp* PAYING for a room. Like a commoner. Horrifying. I suppose that could be liberating in some sense. Maybe could book a room at Wynn? Venetian/Palazzo? Mandarin Oriental? Hopefully it doesn't come to that. There are still two trips left this year to rack up enough comps somewhere to get roomed up, but at ...