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

This is going to be a baller-ass vacation. Private planes, 1100 sq ft suites in a 5-star resort, steaks and high-end sashimi. We be living  good  on the 55th birthday trip. It all starts with flying semi-private on JSX in and out. Flown with them a couple times before, SO much less hassle than dealing with the fucking major airports. Private terminal, no TSA, no bag worries, big cushy seats, free drinks. Hopping on in OAK and will just UBER it to and from. So much more evolved than being basically violated by TSA in the normal airports.  Then on arrival in LAS it's in the taxi and over to Resorts World. I have added early check-in to standby, so hopefully I can just roll straight up to the room at 1:30p. It's the One Bedroom Suite at the Conrad, 1100 sq ft of lovely at the north end of the strip. No resort hopping this time, one room, one unpack, one relax.  Trying to think back, pretty sure this will be the biggest room I've ever had in Vegas, I think Encore or Dela...

Holy shibbles. Just booked the 55th birthday room, and it's a dooz. I will be in a One Bedroom King Suite at the Conrad. This is big swinging baller. It's also $1500, but that's actually a sincere fucking bargain. For my dates right now, places like Wynn are wanting $400+ for a standard room, V/P even more, no other 5-star on strip is less than $170/night for a standard room, I'm getting a 1100 sq ft 2-room suite for a couple bucks less than that. Even with my MGM status I would have paid more for a standard room at Bellagio, for ex. Thank you Priceline. Have seen video walkthroughs, it's a gorgeous room and far better for a celebration trip than anything I was going to be able to book with any other resort group that week. Rates are high, must be a convention in town. Yes, $1500 all in is still a chunk of change but as previously stated, I'm only turning into a senior citizen once and damn it I'm going to leave middle age with a fucking bang.  I have 3 full...

Whelp, a couple weeks back from Xmas Vegas and I'm booked in the air for the return. JSX again this time, feeling like posh-ness for turning 55. Going in on a Saturday afternoon, early-ish, getting in around 1p. Quick Uber from the private terminal, then I can get the bag dumped and get settled for 5 full days over the Bday week. No resort-hopping this time. The out is around 1:30p Friday so no need for an early last morning wakeup, just breeze back to the JSX term with no TSA worries and it gets me home by around 4p with any luck. It's $530 fucking dollhairs but the lack of TSA hassle, relaxed vibe and the bag allowances make it so much more civilized than going through standard airlines. I'll have it paid off next month so no worries. Fuck it, it's my 55th Bday I'm going to splurge. No resort booked yet and it might be a while, I want to see what my booking packages look like with MGM when they flip in February, after all my play in December. I put through $30K co...

OK then. That was OK. Slightly strange, but a good time. Highlights by subject, as always, below. Flights: Both good, on time, but I did have to check my bag both times. Not ideal and on the in flight it freaked me out because I inexplicably left $7K in the checked bag. Luckily I had honest or oblivious bag chuckers on both ends or it could have led to disaster. As it turned out though no issues with United. Rooms/Resorts: Again no complaints. 1 night at Cosmo was good though all I really saw was the bed. Had the PH facing view. Then Delano for the last 6 nights was, again, fine. I'm an old pro on the MB campus now and the suite was a fine place to start and end the days. Resort was pretty mellow except the first couple days at MB, they had a football bowl team staying there so a lot of them around but otherwise pretty slow. Food/Bev: Had a few good meals, did a great bone-in pork chop at Blue Ribbon on night 2, good tapas on Xmas night at Jaleo and had good sushi at Kumi on the la...

We go. It'll be a white Xmas. Somewhere, not in Vegas, silly. If it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. The money is out of the bank, The laundry is done, the bag is mostly packed. The flight and room are checked into. The devices are charging. 7 nights in the desert are upon us. 12 hours from now I will (hopefully) be in the air to Heaven or Las Vegas. Don't have much to be concerned about. Would have like to have gotten the Thermo pennies from heaven but as expected looks like that's not happening. It'll be there on the return, and will help massively. No real worries about spending anyway, have more than enough in cash and CC. Weather for the flight was a concern but that seems to have passed and it should be clear tomorrow. The airport will be busy but I do this every Xmas and it always works out, will just duck out of work at a reasonable time tomorrow. Cosmo and Delano await, good practical choices from an expense and rewards standpoint. Still will...

Pussied out on Fontainebleau.  Had 6 nights booked there for a little over a grand for this trip, was just really excited to check out the place and knock it off the list of resorts never stayed at. The place looks beautiful and though I just had a standard, no view room I'm sure it would have been pretty spectacular. Then I started worrying, as I do. I really do have to MGM-max on this trip, to get to the 20K points I need to retain Gold MGM for next year. It would have been hard to do that staying at a non-MGM resort where you're going to spend the first and last parts of your day. I need to wake up, come downstairs, and throw a couple hundy in every morning, and do the same at night on the way back to the room to make sure I get there. That likely wasn't going to happen at FB, and I would have been constantly worrying about spending enough time in MGM sports to cover all the needed spend. So, in comes Delano. It had been over $200 to book even for me the last couple week...

Nearly there. 187 days with no Vegas is about to end. Longest drought between trips since 2013. Looking to end it in glorious fashion. The last load of laundry is done, the bag is half packed, the money is right, my head is right. Two fabulous resorts over 7 nights await and I'm ready to do this. It's been a year of change at work but I feel like it all came out more or less how I planned it. Extricated myself from a bad sitch in the last job and now, all you can ask for at my life/work level is to be pretty much unfireable, and at least for the next half year or so that should be the case. Have gone through some self-imposed tough stretches financially in the middle of the year but it was never unmanageable and I was certainly never eating ramen. I feel like I've earned a good endcap to this year and in 7 days I get that. So not much left to do. 4 more full days of work to wrap up, pull the rest of the money out of the bank, pack some cool weather gear, shave my balls and ...