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

I'm somewhere in the middle of my long Vegas exile. This will be a whine post. Things are - not great. Struggling on a few fronts. The one that concerns me the most is...I hate my fucking job now. In order to stay with the company I'm with I had to start commuting every day back and forth across the Bay Bridge. For that to work I have to be there by 6:30a, meaning I have to wake up a little after 5a. This, this is not good for me. I hate getting up before the sun, hate going to bed at 9p, it's just totally against my body clock and it's not getting any better after almost 3 months. Then there's the job itself, which essentially entails me sitting in a chair for 7+ hours properly formatting documents to store. It's mind-numbingly boring and soul sucking. The people suck too. It's just a bad environment in general, more industrial plant than drug discovery facility. I'm searching for a new job but the prospects aren't great, I've had 2 companies wa...

Aria Xmas. I snapped up a *breathes in* Stay Well Deluxe King Strip View Room for the Xmas festivities. Say that 5 times real fast. I guess some of that bad gambling in June/July paid off, at least in a way. My offers went up across the board, had good, better than standard rooms available at at least 3 or 4 comped nights at almost all MGM resorts. Coming in Sun-Fri probably helps, too. No weekend days = better rates and more comped nights. The base Aria room is one I've had many times and is solid if a bit boring, but the Stay Well package will be a new twist. The location is perfect as always for my generally center-strip tendencies. Less cabbing and hopefully more cash saved by not being on an extreme end of the strip like I have been lately. Plus, baby gets a view. Couldn't have done much better on the resort/room/rate ratio, really, I ended up spending more on the airfare than on a 5-Star resort in Vegas, as this one all in was only $442 for 5 nights, 3 nights comped and m...

Well, that wasn't great. The trip was standard, the gambling was not. Absolutely got ass-blasted on VP. Took $6K bankroll, came back with $400. I have thoughts. I realize, and even realized DURING the trip, that I expect to win on VP now. My VP skills have evolved enough and I play perfect strategy to the point that if I don't hit at least one handpay on a trip I'm peeved. On this trip, I was very peeved. It made what should have been a fun trip, less so. Much less so. And it shouldn't be. In the old days I expected to lose my whole bankroll. It's a budget, and more often than not (see about 90% of these post-mortems) I came back with bupkus. It didn't really bother me. But now that 3 out of the last 5 trips have been successful (coming back basically even or at least only down a bit) that has now become an expectation.  The rest of the trip was fine. I did fun things, had some good meals, saw a lot of my Vegas buds, it was good. MB was good. Good room, resort ...

Last check in before go. It's been a strange lead up with the new job and all, but still have managed to work up a decent hype. A pretty standard trip after all the "ballerism" of the last one - staying in a standard room and flying commercial, but it's a good room and a good seat, FWIW. Back in the warm embrace of Mandalay Bay after flirting with Fontainebleau...in the end saving more than $700 over the Bleau was just too good a deal. 2nd time I've chickened out on FB, I swear I will stay there sometime. The money's out of the bank, full $6K for the 5+ days. As expected, had to float a little bit of my MGM CC debt to make it fly but unless I have another June of '23 trip (cursed be thy name), I should be able to get it all paid off in July and get back to normal. I'd love to come back more or less even so I could squeeze in a September trip but I'm not looking ahead, $6K is the budget and as long as I come back with enough to pay rent I'm not ...

Less than a week now. In keeping with tradition, a plan post. Spoiler alert: there's not much of a plan. Saturday: Dropping the car off at the parking lot at around 12p, then over to the airport. Flight's at 4p so I can hit a bar/resto to have a light snack and a couple beers, then hopefully be on time for the departure. If all goes well I'm on the ground by 5:30p, cab to MB, checked in and bag dumped by 6:30p. Then it's out to the bars. May start at MB spots like Foundation or maybe Skyfall, then may branch out a bit to the south/center strip. Don't think I'll get too adventurous on night one but I will have a full day's spend and should be slept up so no limitations there. A bit of gambling but probably nothing crazy. An ease into it night most likely. Sunday: The first full day. Thinking it'll probably be pretty mellow in town as it's the weekend before a holiday. Good for me as there should be plenty of open bar seats. May sleep in a bit then hea...

A decent haul, y'all. -6 nights at Mandalay Bay Las Vegas. $412 all in. Would be $1409 all in with the best website rate. Saved $997 over rack rate. -$30 Freeplay and $50 Resort Credit included in the deal. $80 value. -Roughly $160 in Freeplay from MGM by the time I get to town, $160 value. Total overhead saved = $1237. Not nearly an all timer but not bad for a holiday week trip. Would have been $700 more had I stayed at Fontainebleau as originally planned so a bit of frugality after the baller April trip.  1 month.

Flight locked in June/July Vegas. Back to having to deal with TSA again but at a good rate at least. $170 with Alaska. Get in around 5p on the Saturday and am out at around noon on the Friday. Solid. Could have gone with JSX again for about the same rate as last time but it would have been 3X as much and then would have to add on the crazy Uber rides from OAK again. It ends up being close to $700 all in. Just too much to do every time on non-baller trips. So as it stands 2 months out it's a very nice room at Bellagio (which may change if a banger room from elsewhere comes in) and a solid flight set with no out of pocket time issues. Total overhead well under a grand. The countdown begins again.