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

Finally all set for Xmas Vegas transportation. Used part of my left-over funds from last trip to pay for a flight back. I had booked the flight in a couple months ago with SWA points, but now finally had a good price drop show up on United so I booked it. Only $79. So with the $6 ticket for the flight in it's $85 on flight overhead, pretty good. I would like to have used my JetBlue $75 credit on this flight but all of their flights out of Vegas on that day are with a stop in fucking Long Beach which, no. So I'll save it for the next one, whenever that will be. That good price comes with a caveat though, it's a 6a flight. Normally that would be horrifying after 5 days in Vegas but since the night before is Xmas day it will likely be a pretty mellow night in town so I'll just party it up during the day and get into bed by about midnight so I can get a few hours of sleep then head to the airport. I'll be back here by 7:30a, which will give me a nice full two da...

Huh. What to say about this one. Not much TO say, really. It was about as standard a trip as there is for me...and there may be a problem brewing on that. Just some general impressions on this one as frankly a blow by blow would be boring for anyone reading this (like myself). -The flight in: Hell. I arrived at the airport before 4p. Early, but I figured, heck, I'll have time to relax, reset my head, have a couple beers and it'll be fine. That was when the flight was scheduled to leave at 7:04p. It didn't leave until after 11p. Thanks, JetBlue. I sat in the airport stewing for 7 fucking hours, totally ruined the first night in Vegas. I was supposed to be in town by 8:45, I wasn't there until 12:30a. JetBlue's compensation for all that? A $15 dollar food credit in the airport (no alcohol) and a $75 flight voucher afterwards. -The room: once I finally got into town, got over to Bally's and settled in. Changed my 2 queens room to a single king. It was plenty...

24 hours from...NOW I will be in the air on the way to the Veg-yaassss. All is ready. Laundry is done, I'm checked into my flight, the money's out of the bank and the plan is good. I lucked out tonight and finally sold my 2 tennis rackets that had been collecting dust for the past 3 years, so another $150 into the 1st night fund. Keeps me from having to worry about taking it easy so much. Maybe a beacon of good luck on the eve of the trip? Been trying to sell the bastards for a year or more. I'm 48, chubby and have a right knee held together with baling wire and bubble gum. It was time. One normal, hopefully full night of sleep. A go-through-the-motions half day of work tomorrow. Print all the stuff I need to print, then come home around 1p, park the car on the right side of the street, shave, shower, then...off to the bus to take me to the airport to get me on the plane to fly me to Vegas to make with the funning. Nothing else to say except goodbye and hope I don...

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...