Pages

Tuesday 1 August 2017

Vacation Blog VIII, Part V, and I think today is going to be a much better day

7:00 AM - MUCH better. I wake up feeling pretty refreshed and rarin' to go. Of course, Sleepy Bear will still be asleep for hours, so I "rare to go" down to the gym to get in a nice little workout. It's a very nice fitness room here, but it's also very busy.

8:30 AM - Back up into the room and I'll just hang out until hibernation ends. Watching the NFL Network training camp reports. It's so exciting that football is almost back!

9:00 AM - Tracey's up, breakfast is underway, and then we will be out the door on the way to the Mirage to pick our tickets for tonight's show and redeem a bunch of our MyVegas rewards.

But first, I'm going to have a short bath.



Oh boy, now I think I understand why Tracey loves this bathtub so much.

Gotta get out of this bathtub before it becomes a part of me and I will never want to leave. Out the door to the Mirage, first stop to Rhumbar for a frozen Pina Colada!!

CLOSED?!?!?!?! Those Mother Fuck**g Pieces of S**T how DARE they deny me my tasty frozen goodness?????

Well, OK, we'll go get out tickets and surely by the time we are done, they'll be open.

11:40 AM - They are still not open. And don't call me Shirley.

Screw it, I'm not waiting around until Noon. Off to the Forum shops to peruse their goods and we just happen to wander into a Louis Vuitton (you know, the way Trump happens to fire people in his administration) and I make the mistake of trying on a pair of their running shoes; yes, running shoes at LV. And they are without a doubt the most comfortable shoes I have ever had on in my entire life. But seriously, if I'm going to shell out around a grand (CAD) for a pair of casual running shoes, I'm going to want to wear them on semi-special occasions, and I can't remember the last special occasion I had that called for bright red L.V. shoes. So, regretfully, I decline to purchase them. But I'll tell you, if I win any money playing poker this trip, I may just reconsider.

We have lunch at Trevi, one of our favorite spots here, and it is fantastic as always. I have the Meatzza Pizza, same thing I had last time, and Tracey has a gluten-free pasta dish (nice selection of gluten free pastas here) which she loves. We both eat about half of our meal, and the rest came home with us for dinner tonight. Two huge entreés and 2 pop for under $50, even better considering it is also going to double as dinner.

2:15 PM - Back at the resort for a few hours before Terry Fator tonight. Popped open a bottle of wine and we may nap, we may hit the pool, we may do both, or neither....we'll just see....

2:17 PM - Well, Tracey chose "nap".

6:10 PM - After eating our leftovers from Trevi for dinner, we are off to the Mirage for the Terry Fator show. I have seen him once before, but this is Tracey's maiden voyage. First, however, I am finally able to double my Pina Colada count at Rhumbar. MMMMMMM delicious.

7:30 PM - The show starts right on time, and Fator starts it off by singing Dean Martin's classic, "Ain't That a Kick in the Head". From there, he spends the next 2 hours entertaining us with a couple of his own songs and even a little audience participation, but this show is really all about the puppets. If you aren't familiar with Fator, he was the winner of Season 2 of "America's Got Talent". I remember it well; I remember thinking "Oh a ventriloquist. Wonderful. If he is the greatest ventriloquist on the face of the Earth, he still doesn't have a chance to win this show". Boy was I wrong.


I remember one review I read of this performance: "I never thought I'd hear a voice like Roy Orbison's again. Tonight I heard it from a turtle".

What a fabulous show. He is very funny, not to mention that all of his impressions are good and most of them are absolutely spot on. Highly recommend this show the next time you are in Vegas.

After the show, Tracey heads back to the resort while I stick around to play a little poker. The Mirage spreads a $65 tournament at 10 pm. Unfortunately it only draws 14 entrants so it's hardly worth even entering, but it's been over a year since I played so I sit down anyway. I'd love to post a bunch of interesting hands for you poker fans out there but I can really only think of one.

I'm chip leader at this point, 10 players left, 6 players limp into the pot and I am in the SB with AQo. I consider raising but I decide it might be worth it to play it sneaky, try to catch a flop and get all the money in. Not to mention that there is exactly zero poker talent at this table. I mean, hardly a surprise for a $65 buy-in tourney, but even by those modest standards, these guys really suck. One of the players in this hand is a girl in her early 20's playing in her first-ever tournament (I know this because I heard her and her father discussing it with the floor before the tourney).

The flop comes Q72 rainbow which is obviously huge for my hand. I bet $1500, about 3/4 of the pot, everyone folds along to said girl in late position who shoves all-in for $2200. More folds around to the guy on the button who calls the $2200 (and has about $4K left, I have him covered). Because her raise was so small it does not open up the action to me, I cannot re-raise, I have no option but to call. The turn card is irrelevant and I put the button all-in, he calls, and he tables AA!!!!! I though *I* was being sneaky! LOL. She had QT so I had her crushed but all the chips go to the button and I am left with about 15 big blinds which I am not able to turn into anything and I am later eliminated in 8th.

So I decided to hop into a 1/2 cash game, where I struggled to hit any flops (I mean, like, ZERO flops) but I do get dealt some premium pairs and they hold up, so despite all the lousy flops I am only losing about $100 when I get dealt Kh9d in the big blind, unraised pot. Finally I nail a flop of Ks9s2d, but my lone opponent has As3s and you can imagine where this is going. After all the money goes in on the flop, he turns his flush and I am done for the night, $400 poorer but it was nice to play cards again at least.

4:00 AM - Jesus I am starting to get used to 4 AM. I manage to get into bed and not wake Tracey up, which was what I was hoping for....what I was not hoping for was about 15 minutes later when she flails her arm into my mid-section, not knowing that I was there. :)

No comments:

Post a Comment