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

3 little months separate me from my Vegas. Still locked into 4 nights at Hard Rock as of now. Great rate for a suite, don't see this reservation changing unless some high-level resort rooms comp up at CET. On the job front, have gotten some nibbles and even a bite or two, I've been phone interviewing at least once a week and had 2 of those with Thermo Fisher Scientific to be onsite at a Merck plant last week. A little concerned as they haven't contacted me since. I would be interested in the job but I think the person I interviewed with last who would be my direct supervisor may think I'm qualified to do HER job, and may hold that against me. Politics get played in the business world sometimes before you even have a job. Have another set of interviews onsite at another pharma firm in South City for Thursday, but that's a startup and startups make me leery. I had an interview with a startup company named Munchery back when I wasn't really looking for...

Whelp, that was an interesting one, huh? Everything started more or less normally. Work, weekends, and Vegas trips. Work-wise, was plugging away at a thankless job and continuing to grow more and more disillusioned. Surrounded by employees and bosses that didn't understand what I did and didn't appreciate when I did it. An owner stopping my inventory process right in the middle to completely re-vamp the database that I used all day every day, with no warning. Most importantly, a new "boss" was hired as operations manager and became my direct report. Dark foreshadowing. Weekends were the usual, out to Polk street to party it up, with the twist that during the course of the year I started leaving Polk in the evening to head down to SoMa to go to Butter and Driftwood and occasionally Cat Club. Predictable, somewhat routine but still fun. Got nowhere whatsoever during the entire year with the opposite sex, but my strong "oh well" attitude made that not mu...

Oh fuck it. I am going to Vegas for my birthday. Most likely. I have booked air flying in late on Tuesday the 23rd and flying out early on Saturday the 27th on my birthday week. I took advantage of a discount voucher I got from Alaska for the cancelled flight a couple weeks ago (it pays to complain) to book round trip non-stop for $43. Bit of an early fly-out on Saturday morning but I will just have to hit the rack relatively early Friday night to get 5 hours or so, or, more likely, just power through and sleep once I'm back here. Got a great rate at Hard Rock in an HRH Suite so I'm going to be living the suite life on my 50th. Wanted to go suite on this trip because this is obviously a milestone birthday, and hey you only turn 50 once. Anything else this nice directly on strip would have been hundreds more. All in for the 4 nights with resort fee is less than $500. I can cancel any time so if comp nights drop in before go time I can re-book, but TBH unless CET c...

The last trip of the year and the last trip I have planned is done. May be the last trip for a while so might as well do a blow by blow. Long, boring post ahead. Day one, had a flight cancellation literally 12 hours before the flight was supposed to depart (thanks Alaska) so didn't end up on the ground until 11a. Jumped in the limo and over to Vdara. Too early to check in so sat and had a few mimosas at the little bar there. Vdara kind of a nothing resort but I guess that's sorta the point. Got checked in after noon and up to the room. Calling this thing a suite is a stretch, even with the little kitchenette, but it was fine I guess. Sort of a vague Asian theme. Dark wood and frosted glass. Nice enough but showing its age. Still a very nice room for the price of free. Got settled in then headed over to get some food at the Henry. Had their good eggs bene. Then hit Vesper for a couple, and decided to go back to the room to attempt a nap. I had been and still was fighting ...

Last update on this wunderblag before the Last Vegas Ever of the year. Bout to go live like a Caesar for the next week. All the prep is done. Pulled out the money, am most of the way packed, all the arrangements are made and I'm ready to light this candle and see what trouble I can get into in the desert. Unfortunately I've caught a low-level sick right before the trip, because of course I have, but it doesn't seem to be anything too serious and shouldn't impact the proceedings much if at all. I get these little snotty head colds a few times a year, and it rarely gets much worse than that. I've still got a day and a half to rest and relax it away as much as possible. Loading up on fluids, slept a bunch last night and will try to do so strategically before the 3a wake up call Sunday morning. Oh man, why did I book a 7a flight.   UPDATE Alaska cancelled another flight on me like the last trip so now I don't get in until 11a. Ugh. Guess it gives me the cha...

The last of the pre-Vegas funds came in, so financially it's all but an ark lark. I will hit $5300 on the number. So that will be $1K on the first day to get things off on a good foot, hopefully rolling some of that forward to the next day, then $900/day for the 3 other "rage" days and $800/day for the 2 "cool down" days. It would be nice if I came back with some of that (or Jeebus forbid if for once I came back UP) but I'm not pulling any punches on this trip and if it all goes in the service of a great trip then it'll all go. Again this leaves me with $18000 worst case scenario in the bank when I'm back from Vegas, plus the $1800/month coming in from UI for another few months. I should get something back from my tax refund in February, too, though how much with all the pension cash outs I don't know. In any case, I'm comfortable with that being the cushion once I'm back and can settle into the job hunt. I still have something ...

T-minus 7 days to Vegasocity. I'm going to just remind myself, here in print for all (me) to see: Don't forget to have fun. I have a lot of the Vegas thing down. After 25 trips, I know the spots I like to hit, I can navigate around the strip efficiently despite the throngs of tourists, mainly by knowing where the bottlenecks for foot traffic are and how to avoid them. In damn near every resort I know what the bar scene is, what's my "style" and what to avoid, and in some cases can pick right up with bartenders I've spoken to dozens of times. I KNOW how to do Vegas. But sometimes I can get too regimented. I feel like I have to be in all places at once, or wish I was. I feel like I have to "make all my stops" and hit 10-20 places a day. Sometimes in that mad rush to do and see as much as possible in a Vegas day I sometimes forget to do the thing that's supposed to be the whole reason for the trip. Have fucking fun.  I'm going to try ...