It's Very Close

Good afternoon everyone.  Yeah, the title of today's ramble is basically just Friday's reworded.  I'm SO FREAKIN EXCITED for the start of football season and games that mean something.  Today is August 20th, and the first real college football games kickoff on August 30th, the NFL on September 5th.  YES!!!  I remember the waiting and waiting to move back to Las Vegas, and now I've played close to 40 hours of live poker and am just a week and a half away from what will hopefully be a very profitable football season.  Let me say hello to Atlanta and her husband here, and let y'all know that my poker post will be coming on Wednesday...  I played with "her husband" first on Saturday, but then my session with 'Atlanta' yesterday was longer, so she gets to be Atlanta...  :)  A preview for that Wednesday blog entry was this guy that we were playing with who knew EVERYTHING about poker, EXCEPT when it was his turn to act... (you can't make this stuff up)...  More about that on Wednesday.  The people in Las Vegas ("the people" = tourists in 98% of cases) are still in a rush and are completely OBLIVIOUS to what is going on around them.  The star of this story is in the 2% due to the fact that he had a Nevada license plate, a vanity plate at that, which hinted at the fact that he's a photographer...  So I've just entered the self-parking garage at the Riviera on Saturday, and this car comes SPEEDING IN FRONT OF ME, having used the 'exit' of the garage as an ENTRANCE to cut me off...  Appropriately, we both get stuck behind a couple of other cars that are snailing their way up the garage ramp...  One of these cars parks, so now we're only stuck behind one more after turning right onto the next ascending ramp.  That's when Race Bannon, this GENIUS, decides to be SPEED RACER, and PASSES THE CAR in front of us on the left..., IN THE PARKING GARAGE..., which is IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED by his DARTING BACK into the right lane so he doesn't hit the car attempting to exit the garage HEAD ON...  "Viva, Las Vegas..."  Last night after visiting the Flamingo to get some information on their freeroll tournaments (there are LOTS of freeroll tournaments and poker promotions in the desert these days), I strolled over to Bally's to see if I could find the FOURTH GROUP of friends to visit town in the less than three weeks since I've moved back.  It was already close to 2:00 in the morning, but here's a shoutout to Amy, Penny, and Sophie, who I was able to find.  Sophie had an 8:00 a.m. flight back to San Marcos, America, but I did get to spend some time with Amy (who I hadn't seen IN YEARS, and who doesn't have facebook or twitter - shame, shame!!) and Penny as they successfully did the last of their Vegas vacation drinking while making the slots spin around...  I always enjoy catching up with friends in the desert, and these two even had the Bally's count team smiling at 4:00 a.m.  :)  I'm not going to snitch on my friends too much, but we laughed a lot...  ;)  As luck would have it, I spent ALL of last week unpacking, and I still have a few more small bags to go through, so the job applications will begin this week (with any luck).  I am about dead-even on my poker playing and sports betting since I returned to Vegas, and since my friend Carmel put me up for a few weeks after I returned, I'm not out all that much money yet, so good for me...  :)  I also need to give a shoutout to my friend Lindsey here, and not just because she said that I left behind the most immaculate apartment that anyone has ever moved out of (okay, those MIGHT be my words)...  :)  Lindsey asked me how I was doing in Las Vegas, and I responded that I was fine and that she should follow this blog, because it is at times a 'diary' of what's going on with me, at which point this bright young woman said that she reads the blog...  ;)  Oh, to be in San Marcos, America during September when the Texas State Bobcats have three home football games and the Texas Music Theater has Blue October, Cory Morrow, and a bunch of other live music...  Hopefully there will be enough football games to keep me occupied...  :)  (Really, I'm getting very excited if I haven't gotten that point across yet...).  Well, after waking up at 2:00 p.m., I do admit I feel the need to get some things accomplished before the day ends, so have a great one and I'll see you again on Wednesday!