I think you've figured out already that I've mixed and matched days when recounting my little Vegas Vacation (my summary hasn't been in sequential order). I'm saying that just to say that my friend Geoff didn't hang out with me every single day of my trip, although his name is popping up in pretty much every blog entry. : ) On the morning of the Blues' Stanley Cup ticket being cashed, Geoff picked me up at Harrah's, and we ventured down Flamingo Road out towards Sam's Town. Just shy of this casino in eastern Las Vegas, my friend Joey has opened up an auto shop called ATL (All Tune and Lube) Vegas. His shop is located at 4728 E. Flamingo Rd. for those of you who live in the desert and might need an oil change or some work done on your car. If you mention my name, Joey probably won't charge you more than double the normal rate for any work done on your vehicle. ; ) For those of you who have been following this blog for a while (Bikini Hill turns eight years-old next month), this is the same Joey who made weekly football picks here (along with myself and my brother Pete). I decided to stop posting the weekly picks because it started to seem like a homework assignment, having to meet the deadline every week, but Joey is still going strong. I worked with Joey at the Riviera when I dealt poker (going on fifteen years ago now), and from there, Joey went to Palace Station, working as a ticket writer in their Race & Sportsbook (speak up when this starts sounding familiar)... Geoff and I got to spend significant time with Joey when we visited, and we got to see his whole operation. If you've followed my adventures, you know that I'm good at DRIVING cars, but repairing them is a whole other world to me. It was cool to roam around in the "back of the house" and see what an auto shop looks like behind the scenes.
Joey is the superstar pictured on the left, and if you need any work done on your car, the number to his shop is shown in the top left of the photo.
Fridays. Now we're fast forwarding to my very last night in town. I had planned on being at the Ladies' No-Limit Hold 'Em event at the World Series of Poker right when it kicked off at noon, but my sleep was all out of whack (neverending story), so shortly after my alarm went off, I vetoed it and went right back to sleep. Later in the day, my friend Mike (who I met at my orientation in Las Vegas when I became a part-time employee with Caesars's) and I made plans to meet up later to go check out the WSOP and get something to eat. As any good blog writer should, I'm COMPLETELY BLANKING on his friend's name right now, but the three of us met at the Flamingo poker room (total miracle that I was able to find that, huh?), and we ventured over to the Ladies' event. Since I hit the 'publish' button earlier this morning, we"ve confirmed that Mike's friend is named Geoff (yes, the same as my friend!). I thought it might be Jeff, but I couldn't pull the trigger... :D Once we arrived, they were at the point in the tournament when players were beginning to drop like flies, fast approaching the pay bubble. Once we had roamed our way through the tables at that event, we ventured around the action in the other convention rooms (hosting the WSOP), and we collectively saw several people that we knew. Our visit was capped off by a visit to TGI Fridays at the Gold Coast Casino. Our meals were fine, but what made this visit memorable was that we were all starving, and having been slow, the restaurant had just cut a bunch of their staff. Sure enough, after you cut people, that's when you're going to get a rush... : ) Regardless, it was great hanging out with Mike and Geoff, and afterward I went straight back to my room, because I had a long day on the horizon...
Now the day after the poker and Fridays was ACTUALLY Friday, which meant that it was time for me to check out from Harrah's after my mammoth eleven-day stay. The problem was, what was I going to do all day after I checked out? Check-out is at 11:00 a.m., but to make my trip cheaper, my initial flight for Biloxi wasn't leaving McCarran until 10:30 p.m. that night. I only had one carry-on bag, so it wasn't like I was lugging a bunch of bags around, but still. Long story short, I made some phone calls (Jonni) :D , and the result was that I found out that I was allowed to bet horses at one of my former properties. So I ventured to Paris, knowing that there was no conflict of interest, and after hanging out with my former coworkers for SEVERAL HOURS, I felt lucky to have lost only $20.00. : D Now this was on a Friday, and there weren't many tracks running, so I was betting on EVERYTHING, but I was only betting a few dollars at a time on everything...
Alright boys and girls, that's all for today. Next time we'll talk about my LOVELY trip back to Biloxi, and then we'll summarize my poker and this trip at a future date. Have a great week everyone!
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