Vegas Moratorium

The Vegas trip for Jarriel's bachelor party; for me, it was a tale of two days, and the two different moods of Lady Luck. On Friday, I bet on 3 basketball games, and won two of those bets, including a bet against the TeamfromDurham. I also played in a $25 buy-in Hold-'Em tournament at the Luxor, lasted an hour, and played reasonably well. Elvis Costello at the Hard Rock that evening was also excellent; his voice sounds fantastic live, and he's a much better guitar player than I had previously thought. On Saturday, I bet on two basketball games and lost both bets, and I was basically eliminated from that same poker tournament by holding pocket Aces and getting beat by 3 Jacks. That evening was spent at the VIP section of a club that, as impressive as the club was, I didn't fully appreciate (maybe that had something to do with the $80/pp??). Still, a good time, mostly thanks to the cool dudes that were in our group (the company you keep on trips like this really makes all the difference).

Does that mean I'm itching to go back again next year? Not Exactly. Maybe it's that I'm getting older, but I prefer my vacations/holidays to be a bit less...frenetic. I like to have time to relax, and I'm reasonably sure after 3 visits that Vegas is not my type of relaxation. While I certainly like to gamble, and can't imagine the scenario where I'd turn down a free cocktail, for me the whole sum of Vegas is best taken in small doses. I figure my next dose won't be necessary for a number of years (at least five, that was my announced moratorium on Sunday). The long flights out and back certainly don't help, either - I bet if I lived out west I'd have a different take on the Vegas 'vacation'. Those were very weary flights home on Sunday morning, but at the end was Jenny (and Maya and Marty), so that made it bearable.

Meanwhile there are thankfully still more than a few plastic-and-neon-free locales on the planet that I've yet to lay eyes on. After returning from a weekend in Las Vegas, that's a comforting thought.