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

Going to be arriving to My Town in style for Xmas Eve. Flight prices for basic economy have been hovering around $330 for crappy flight times for the Xmas week. Finally got fed up with it and said fuck it, I'm going chartered plane and finishing out the Vegas year in style. Booked a JSX flight going out of OAK. Small, fast, roomy and no FUCKING TSA to have to deal with. Hop on fare, only $430 round trip so only about a hundy more than flying with the cattle on a major carrier. No having to get to the airport an hour early, can just get there with a half hour to spare and jump on. Then can catch an Uber to the resort, or if I end up staying at Mandalay Bay could literally walk there from the JSX terminal, it's like half a mile. Will have to Uber to and from OAK a couple times but for the charter jet experience it's worth the extra expense. Pretty excited about this. Sure I could probably save a couple hundy waiting for an Allegiant fare to come down but then I'm flying i...

4 days back. Can't quite believe it happened, and that it's over. But here we are. Flights: No issues. Both on time by Alaska and no delays. Getting the 6th row seat both times was worth expense. Got on and off in no time. Seatmates were fine. Played Alien Isolation on the iPad on the way back. Room: Aria, got upgraded to a King with a strip view. was able to check in right away after getting to town, but had to spend an hour switching out rooms due to yet another dead in-room safe in the first room. Me and fucking in-room safes at MGM resorts. But once up there the room was in good shape, everything worked and it was quiet and had no issues with housekeeping. Only gripe would be it took 10 minutes for the water to get warm but a piddly gripe really. A good base for the 6 nights. Resort: Aria its normal, boring, pretty self. It's got the personality of an aged cheese and about as much excitement, but it is nice to look at. They fixed their taxi line since the last time, at ...

Vegas is happeNINg.  The laundry is done. The money is out of the bank. The balls are shaved. There's really nothing standing between me and my sweet Vegas, barring a drone strike or something. The money was a scraper but I got it done. I should apply for food stamps with what is left in my checking account right now, but the full $1K per day save is in play for all 6 days. The Xmas save is going to be a scratch but I'll worry about the Xmas save when (if?) I return from the September trip, thank you. At least I get paid while I'm in town so I won't have to eat crickets when I'm back. Hoping the good juju from the last Aria stay follows me this time. Last time there I bracketed first day and last day $2000 hits...that'd be a nice this time too. Winning a little early in the trip takes so much pressure off, would love to drop that in this go 'round. Praying to the MGM video poker Gods the next 3 nights. But if I spend the whole wad, it is what it isn't. N...

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 ...