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

Settling into week 2 of Unemployment "Woo!", Electric Boogaloo. Running out of things to do already. My life has always been very simple, even in the busiest of times. I have no significant other, no kids, no friends, no real hobbies, no real interests that don't involve sitting in front of a computer screen, so taking 40 hours of activity away from an already light schedule is a challenge. Not complaining, this is what I wanted and needed, but it's already getting boring. I wanted to join a gym, but the only one around here would be $60/month and I don't really want to add any extra expenses right now, for obvious reasons. I have been walking a bit, trying to do a couple miles at least 3 times a week and hopefully more if the knee holds up. Ideally I'd love to get back into tennis again but then there's the aforementioned knee and the expense of rackets and shoes and balls and such. Don't see it happening. Golf, all the same things, and even mo...

*Warning - not much of a Vegas post* Whelp, the time has come. I've been bellyaching about my dead-end and degrading job for a year now, and I finally have done something about it. I quit. Deep. Fucking. Sigh. I gave my 2 weeks originally after accepting a job with a tech firm by the airport, but after weighing all the ups/downs I decided to bail from it. Commute, less money, strange initial working environment (apparently the guy whose job I was supposed to be taking was going to train me?), parking issues here in the City and other factors. One of the biggest being I just need a god damn break. I've been working non-stop for 10 years and I just need some time to clear my head and get some happy back. This last job was really a soul vampire for the last couple years. Yeah I'm stepping into uncertainty and don't have a guaranteed job lined up but I've never had much trouble in my life finding a job and in this job market I don't expect much ...

Been trying to lock down the Xmas trip, and, as a side note (as far as this blog's concerned), life. Originally had 5 nights booked at Mandalay Bay for less than $60/night. Then comps opened up a bit and booked 3 nights at Tropicana (meh) and 2 nights at MGM (nice). Then a gaggle of nights became available through Total Rewards for some reason to stay at the Linq. Not wanting to resort-hop, I jumped on those. Now last night Mlife counters with 2 free nights and $15/night rooms for Mandalay Bay, which was the place I wanted to stay in the first place, so I dumped Linq and re-booked MB. It would be about $100 more in total but MB is 3 times the resort the Linq is. Now today after cancelling the Linq reservation, 5 free nights at Bally's in the newly renovated Resort room have opened up. THAT'S a dilemma. Bally's is not half the resort MB is, but having stayed there the new rooms are quite nice and the location of Bally's is far better than Mandalay. More and mo...

3rd trip of the year done and dusted. Overall a good trip. Some ups and downs. Flight was about a half hour late getting in, jumped in cab and straight to MGM. Had used the mobile app to check in and I was told it would allow my phone to be the room key but after getting all the way up there of course it didn't work so had to come back down and use the kiosk to get a real one. Once up there, room was on the 27th floor. Room was nice, I'd say similar to the Mirage room I stayed in last year. Tub/shower combo and smallish bathroom but otherwise it was fine. View was the above pic, not bad. Once I got in it was out to drink, stopped first at the Losers country bar in MGM, then Rock & Reilly and made my way upstrip to the Linq area. Mainly just farted around, was trying not to spend much money or gamble on the first night. Stuck mainly to beer. Packed it in relatively early, prob was out by 1a max. Good nights sleep, then day 2, first full day, sorta was all over the pl...

Tomorrow. The work week is done, the bag is half packed, the money is out of the bank, I'm checked into my flight and pre-checked into my room. This time tomorrow night I'll be having a drinky (or seven) on the strip. Not much else to say, just wanted to check in one last time. Have a good plan for this one and feel like it should be a fine trip. Staying in two places I haven't stayed before so that should be a good exploration experience if nothing else, though I certainly know my way around the casino floor of MGM at this point. I've stayed at Palms proper in the past but this is Palms Place, the more upscale side and apparently Palms itself is very much renovated since I was last there end of 2015. Weather will be toasty for the first couple days - 109° tomorrow, 105° Monday and at least a hundy the rest of the trip but it's Vegas in August so it is what it is. Monorail, shuttles and taxis as much as possible to keep from melting. I get to use my new W...

T-minus one week to trip #3 of 2018. More or less all set for this one. The money is going to be a little less than normal for a 4 1/2 day trip for me but really only by about a hundy. $500 for the short first night, will take it easy there then will have an average of a few bucks less than $800/day for the 4 full days. Should be more than enough with the way I gamble now, which is minimal. I may have to make a trek over to BoW to pull out the last $1K one day of the trip, as I may or may not be paid on the Friday before, it will depend on how the payroll rollout happens. I'll have enough to get through the first 3 days of the trip for sure and if I have to go to the bank I can do it before I cab to Palms on that Wednesday morning to make it a combo plate and save time. I've more or less resolved to stop throwing money away on non-skill slots, and to try to grind out some positive numbers on video poker. I'm using a simple online trainer and have gotten pretty good...

Two weeks to Vegas time. Going a slight bit batty in the pre-trip rut. Haven't gone out in the City in weeks, and have 2 more weekends of boredom to endure before I can be released into an orgasm of fun, craziness and debauchery. Which for me means eating a lot, drinking even more, talking with people  bartenders who don't care about me and losing money to machines that care even less. My Vegas trips in a nutshell! Under the "life in general" heading, work is a rut, nothing interesting going on for me and the one big project I had that could have elevated my standing there looks like it's on permanent hold. It's a dead end now, but the benefits of having been in a place for 6 years (matching 401k, dental/vision/FSA, 3 weeks of paid PTO) makes the inertia of not leaving hard to resist. I'm half-assedly looking for something else but it would take a pretty perfect situation for me to leave. Close to home, more money and something I more or less know...