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

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 ...