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

A scant 10 sleeps until we be rollin' on up into the Vegas. Absolutely nothing whatsoever to report, but I'm here reporting shit anyway. Barring some last-second hallelujah rate at an interesting resort, the butt will rest on one of the two queens in the room at Aria. After a brief dalliance with Cosmo I'm pretty locked in now. It's fine. Aria is fine. I'm fine. No drama elsewhere, the job is pretty slow so I should have no issues leaving for a week and being carefree about it. The money will be on point almost to the dollar. It's a good thing I get paid on the last day of the trip or I would have no way to pay rent for the second half of the month, unless I come home with some of the save. Then it's one check and on to the Xmas save. Back in the "save money for Vegas" grind but I guess it's better that than spending it all on drugs. Which, oh, there will be blow on this trip. A buddy unexpectedly hooked me up so there will be a little of that...

I'll have the full spend for this trip, but it wasn't easy. It'll come down to the wire. I have $4800 in da bank now, with one check to go before the trip. After rent and a couple other necessaries coming out of that check, I'll be able to pay down my MGM CC by $500. That will leave me with the needed $1200 and a little airport bar money. Paying down the CC a bit, along with some prudent spending over the next two weeks, will get me to Vegas with more than $5000 spendable on the card. I won't use nearly that much, but it makes it comfortable in that I won't have to worry about it when I - whip it out - in Vegas. The credit card. Moving on.  I may take the Apple card and its $7K+ limit with me just as an emergency backup but I can't think of any scenario that I would use it. Guess that's why it's the emergency card. Wanna bang the MGM card exclusively to rack up sweet 3X points on spend. That takes a little pressure off the cash in pocket too. So it...

Cosmo fuckin' with me. They currently are running a low price, no resort fees promo. I could get a Terrace One Bedroom suite, one of the nicest rooms I've ever had in Vegas, maybe THE nicest, for a little over $1200 for 5 nights. These rooms are big, comfy, have a great walk-out terrace and a Japanese bath that has a strip view. This wouldn't be the fountain view I had several years ago, but still a killer room. Would be a sizable resort and room upgrade from the standard room I have booked at Aria. Downsides are that it's only for 5 nights, the Thursday is blacked out so I would have to find a room for that night somewhere else at additional expense and would have to change rooms on NIN show day. Not ideal. It would also be $700 more than what I'm paying at Aria, right next door, and I wouldn't get any of the related MGM rewards points I'll get from staying at Aria, which I need right now. I could swing the extra expense, it would just be a pay-it-down sit...

One month from today I will be sipping 'tinis at Lobby bar at Aria. The real countdown begins. The save is in a good, but not laugher state. I'm at $4K, so will need to put away a grand on both of the last 2 checks. I slipped a bit on this last check, was supposed to have $4500 RN but I was a bit too randy with the spending over the last month, so I need to reel it in now over the next 30 days.  The MGM CC is what's killing me, but that's expected since that's the only payment method I really use outside of rent. All told I should be OK, may be carrying a little more on the CC when I get to town than I'd like but with the $6500 limit I won't be in any real trouble. Just need to keep my Saturday spending in check a bit over the next 3 weekends, and maybe stay in on the w/e before the trip. We'll see. Going to get going in earnest today on VP training. Try to do 100 hands a day with low errors and get a tune up on for the real thing. With the full $1K per ...

It dawns on my that this may be one of the more Posh (capital P) trips I've taken in a while.  I'll be at the top-end, 5-star Aria, firstly. Yes the standard rooms are a bit run down but with my Gold status I may be able to finagle an upgrade to something more posherer. In any case in terms of resorts you can't do any better in the MGM pantheon. Don't even mention the sleepy, overrated Bellagio to me. Aria's no Wynn, and no Cosmo, and not even a V/P, but it's damn nice and for the price I'm paying it's stonking great for that week. I've also upgraded to the Alaska Premium Class seats on the flight's in and out. 4 inches more legroom, guaranteed overhead bin space, row 6 for easy in/out, complimentary beer/wine and early boarding before the unwashed masses in the rear of the plane. How disgusting it must be for the little people. In actuality it was only $22 or so more per flight so not sure why more peeps don't do it. This is one of those ti...

Upgraded the tech package a bit prior to the upcoming September trip. Picked up a new 2022 iPad Air for the media blasting/Bluetooth hub duties on the trips. M1 chip, nice big screen, and 256 GB storage. Plopped it on my Apple card at 0% interest, plus about $200 off for trading in the Mini so only about $550.  The iPad Mini served my well for a few years but the pitiful storage was just not cutting it anymore. After loading up all my music I only had room for a couple movies and not much else. 64 GB storage is just not doable for someone who likes to have stored copies of things. Especially when dealing with potentially spotty WiFi when traveling it's important to me to have downloaded copies of stuff ready to go. On this one I have all the music, about 20 movies and Alien Isolation loaded up with half the storage left to play with. The Air is blazing fast, ridiculously thin and not much heavier that the Mini so I'm not really losing much portability. It still fits in my under...

I know. Lame reason for a post but I'm not going to rack up page views any other way. I'm trying to get to 3 views on this one! But hey - August! No changes to report. Everything is locked in and I don't expect any changes. There would have to be a mind-blowing discount on something at Priceline or the bottom to fall out of rates for V/P or Wynn for me to change up the great rate locked in at Aria. Can't possibly add any more events or reservations than I have, without removing all freedom from the week. So now it's the slightly excruciating countdown. As it gets inside 45 days or so, as I am, a long-gap trip like this starts to fill my head daily. Going to start pumping a little VP practice now, not 100 hands a day yet or anything like when I get to September but 50 hands or so every few days just to get the feel again. I drunkenly lost my MGM CC this past weekend, so it'll be a week until the new one arrives. That'll ding the accumulation of rewards points...