Travel Insanity
January and February 2007
March 3-6, 2006
With my last weekend of my Welcome Aboard Pass, it seemed appropriate that I make one last trip to Las Vegas. The trip started out really well - I got upgraded to Executive class on the flight down; when I checked into the Venetian, they upgraded me as well. What a start!
Given that it's weeks later that I writing this, I don't think I'll elaborate much on the weekend. It was an OK weekend, poker-wise. I ended up overall positive on the weekend - not as much as I would have liked, but a win is a win. It was a nice, sunny weekend; I had a chance to relax a little bit; and it wrapped up my two weeks of non-stop travel.
2007-02-05
My plan had been to go somewhere else this past weekend, but when my buddy Graham decided that he wanted to watch the big game in Vegas, who was I to say no? After some stops and starts on the dates, it ended up just being another quick trip down. We booked a room at Imperial Palace (won't do that again - what a dump), as it was the only hotel I could find for less than $300-$700 a night. Even at $175 for the two of us, it was way too much.
While my other trips had been focused around playing poker, this one was more about having a good time, and checking out some of the things I wouldn't do, if I was there solo. After arriving and checking in, I played some poker at Caesar's while Graham played roulette, and checked out the scoop on the Super Bowl parties.
Around 7:00, we decided to head over to the Palms for dinner. We had dinner at "9", the steak house at the Palms. In addition to one of the most amazing steaks ever (easily top 5 for me), I ordered a bottle of the 2003 Chateau de Beaucastel (Châteauneuf-du-Pape), one of my favorite wines. I have a bottle of the 1990 vintage at home, that I need to drink soon. The 2003 was amazing; I can only imagine how good the 1990 will be!
After a throughly amazing meal, we headed up to the Playboy Club on the 54th floor of the Palms Casino. Now I'm not much of a club guy, but let me tell you, this place was worth checking out at least once. Graham had managed to get up "VIP" tickets for entrance to the club. I'll admit that i was skeptical about this - but it turns out we needed 'em! After jumping the line, and a bunch of really big bouncers, we were whisked up on a private elevator. The elevators opened onto a very cool bar, but over to the right was the main attraction. The place was floor-to-ceiling wrap around windows off the 54th floor. There are pretty much 270 degree view of the Strip and downtown - all of Las Vegas is laid out underneath you. On top of that, there are three full bars, plus a mini-casino with blackjack tables, roulette and a bunch of other games. All this stuff was major high-roller action. But I did play a few expensive hands of blackjack, just to be able to say that I've done it. :-) Oh, and did I mention that all the dealer were Playboy Bunnies? I'm sure they make lots of money off those tables...
At about 11:00, they opened up the nightclub on the 55th floor. We went up for a bit, but like I say, I'm not much of a club guy. Again, the view from up there were very cool, and the dance floor and bars were awesome. The best thing about the club (not that we were able to see it that night) is that the roof is retractable! Imagine that - nice night, they open the roof up and the club becomes outdoors. I love Vegas!
I left Graham up in the club for a while and headed down to check out their poker room. This ended up being a bad idea, as I had had too much to drink to be playing poker. I guess that's the lesson to be learned in all of this - if I'm going to be partying, I shouldn't be playing poker. Hopefully lesson learned, and fairly cheaply. We ended up crawling into the hotel around 6:00 a.m. and grabbed a couple of hours sleep.
Super Bowl Sunday
Around 10:30 we were out of the hotel and back over to Caesar's where we were planning to watch the game. The sports book was packed - the line up to place bets on the game was over an hour long. We tried (unsuccessfully) to find a restaurant to have breakfast in, but settled for food court food. After that, Graham was kind enough to let me go play poker for a couple of hours. In the interim, he managed to track down tickets to a party in one of the bars at Caesar's. This was way better than standing around the sport's book. It included food (which was OK, a few drinks and most importantly, seats with a view of some big screen TVs with sound for the game.
The game itself was a lot of fun. There was a good mixture of Bears and Colts fans - the Bears fans were way rowdier! There was this hilarious group of four Asian guys sitting next to us that were just over-the-top crazy. It was a really fun afternoon. Sadly, I had to fly out not long after the game ended, so I couldn't check out some of the after parties.
2007-01-29
I just can't get enough of Vegas - the place is so much fun! Saturday I caught the same mid-afternoon flight down to Vegas. This time, the weather was a little more to my liking - sunny and 12 degrees. Not warm really, but better than Vancouver! The one lesson I learned from the first week was that a hotel was a good idea. I had found a pretty reasonable rate at the Venetian, so I booked a room for the night.
Let me tell you - that place is amazing. The lobby is spectacular - the whole ceiling of the hotel is painted in Renaissance-style paintings. It sounds like it should be cheesy, but they've managed to pull it off. The room was huge - they're all full suites and beautifully done. And I can;t say enough about the customer service - all top notch. I took a couple of pictures, and will try to get them up later.
Once again, the main reason for heading down to Vegas was to play some poker. I split my time between the poker rooms at the Venetian, the Mirage and Caesar's. Caesar's was the most profitable by far. Over all, it was an OK weekend. I covered all my expenses, and still managed a small profit on the weekend. Could have been better, but I won't complain.
I actually ended up sleeping in really late Sunday morning, which was not part of the plan. Guess I needed some sleep...
2007-01-24
I received my finisher's certificate for the Marathon in the mail yesterday. I had completely forgotten that they were sending it. My only complaint in the handling of the Marathon has been that the things they've sent through the mail aren't properly packaged. Much like some of the pictures I ordered, the certificate got a bit banged up in transit. Oh well, it's still very cool...
2007-01-22
For the record - I love San Francisco. It's definitely one of my favorite cities to visit. So much like last week, I flew down Saturday morning, and my flight back was Sunday, early evening. Not a lot of time really, but I had some ideas as to what I wanted to see and do.
Left to right: San Francisco skyline from the public pier; Golden Gate Bridge from Land's End; the Coitt Tower
After arriving, I picked up a rental car, and headed to my hotel. This time, I was a little smarter and booked a room. After dropping off the car at the hotel and checking in, I wandered over to the weekly farmer's market down near Fisherman's Wharf. It was nice to stroll through the stalls. Lot's of interesting things to see. Across the street, there was a major demonstration/protest going on. It seems that the Pro-Life crowd was doing their thing, which promoted the Pro-Choice crowd to start their own parallel protest. It seems that later this week is the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade US Supreme Court decision that made abortions legal in the US. They've been having these demonstrations for a number of years now. In the paper the next day, I think they mentioned that it was close to 30,000 people in total. Wild.
Pro-choice crowd getting their couple of minutes...
After avoiding that whole mess, I wandered up Market street to the main shopping district of Union Square. One of my goals was to do some browsing in the small, independent art galleries. My guide book suggested a few, and so I made a number of stops along the way, before getting to Union Square. One in particular was amazing - and I almost missed it entirely. The guide book indicated that it was "nondescript" from the outside. What an understatement. I had the address, and basically walked right up to the outside of the entrance. The doors appeared to be closed, and it looked like the lobby of a typical 5 story office building. I assumed I had the address wrong, or it had been closed or something, and started to wander off. A security guard came out of the lobby and asked me if I was looking for the art galleries. After confirming, she sent me up the elevators. It was so cool - basically every floor of this office building had been converted to gallery space. There were at least 20 or 30 galleries, all doing very different art. I spent a good two or three hours in that building alone. After hitting a couple more small galleries, I wandered into Union Square and grabbed lunch at a little Italian deli on the edge of the square.
Everyone needs hugs it seems... Union Square on a very nice Saturday afternoon.
Have I mentioned that the weather was amazing? By this point in the day, the high cloud cover had burned off, and the sun was shining. It was about 15 degrees, and not a breath of wind. The whole weekend continued that way; it was absolutely spectacular! After lunch I spent the rest of my time wandering the streets, checking out various neighborhoods, and taking pictures, Hopefully I'll post some later this week. San Francisco is a great city for walking - as long as you don't mind the hills! It affords some amazing views of the city, the Bay and the bridges. It was about 5:00 by the time my meanderings led me back to my hotel. I crashed out for a bit, then headed out to dinner.
Fisherman's Wharf; the Golden Gate Bridge
Sea Lions at Pier 39
The concierge at the hotel recommended an authentic Chinese restaurant, and I headed over there. The recommendation was to have the Salt and Pepper Crab, and man was that a good recommendation! It was a whole Dungeness crab, deep fried in this salt and pepper batter. Oh my god... Dinner was made even more enjoyable by the two women that sat next to me at the bar (where I was eating, 'cause the place was packed!). One was a local, the other her friend from Salt Lake City. They ended up ordering exactly the same thing I had, which led us into conversation. They were a riot, and we had a good laugh throughout dinner. Eating alone is the only thing about traveling solo that's a bit of a drag. So it's nice to have an evening like that every once in a while.
After wandering back to the hotel, I grabbed my car and headed to - your guessed it - a casino. The Bay 101 is about 40 minutes from San Fran, in San Jose. I like to play for a bit in every city I go to, and the Bay 101 is one of the bigger name casinos. I got there close to 10:00 and played to about 1:00. I didn't want to make it too late. I won a little bit - covered the cost of my rental car basically, so it was an OK night. I got way up at one point, then got very unlucky and gave some of it back.
Sunday, my plan had been to go for a run over the Golden Gate Bridge. Seemed like a cool idea. Sadly, it didn't really pan out. I had planned to get up at 8:00, and go for the run. I didn't bother t get a wake up call, as I always wake up early. This time, 10:00 had come and gone by the time I woke up. I guess I was a little over-tired. The run would have taken me a good 2-3 hours all together, so I decided that I'd do some more walking instead.
I headed over to an area of town called The Marina, which I had not seen before. One of the big attractions is the Palace of Fine Art.
It was built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and is an amazing structure. I'll try and get some pics up. Sadly, it's starting to get run down, and the city is trying to raise funds to restore it. It's an amazing structure, and I hope that they manage to save it.
After wandering around there for a bit, I headed back into the main street of the Marina district. There was a cool looking sports bar with big, open windows - and the Bears/Saints game was just starting. So I sat down at the bar and watched the first half. This whole situation was made even nicer by the very hot bartender/waitress who was looking after the place, and spent more time than was strictly necessary chatting with me as I watched the game. It was good for the ego. :-)
At half time, I packed up and headed back to the hotel. I checked out, grabbed the car and headed out to my last stop. I had about three hours left before I needed to be at the airport, so I headed out to an area called "Land's End". As you might expect, this was a park area perched up on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. It's very beautiful - rugged cliffs with views of the Golden Gate Bridge; interesting old structures from what was once the Sutro Baths; and amazing walking trails through big Cypress trees. After being up-close-and-personal with the Cypress trees in the area, I now understand why Van Gogh had such interest in them, and used them as subjects in so many of his paintings. The trees are amazing - they have such a unique shape, the texture of the bark is interesting, and the way light plays off them is fantastic. I think I spent a good 1/2 hour taking detail photos of a couple of the bigger ones. I hiked for a little bit, then had to call it a day.
On the way back to the airport, I drove down the beach for a while. It really is a spectacular, rugged stretch of coast line.
Overall, it was an excellent, relaxing weekend. A good one to sandwich between trips to Las Vegas...
I'm over a week removed from the first trip - sorry about that. I'll try and be better about posting. The first trip, as mentioned was to Las Vegas to play some poker. Really, this trip had two purposes for me:
1) Play poker for a sustained duration, and see how my game is. I wanted to get a realistic idea of how my game rates.
2) Hopefully do well, and see if I couldn't pay for the cost of these upcoming trips!
The fun thing about this trip was that didn't bother with a hotel. I flew down Saturday afternoon, and back Sunday evening. I figured I could handle playing straight through without any sleep. It was only 30 hours after all...
And it worked out, for the most part. One lesson learned will be to get a hotel room - the 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. stretch just wasn't very profitable, so I might as well sleep. :-)
When I arrived in Vegas, it was about 4:30... and it was snowing. OK, not really snowing, but there were little flakes in the air, and it was damn cold. Not what I had signed up for! I hopped in a cab, and headed straight to Caesar's Palace. I like the poker room there - it's big and there's lots of different games to chose from. I played the 1-2 NL game for a few hours (until about 11:00), and left up - about where I wanted to be. It could have been more, but I was pleased with my play. After grabbing something to eat, I went back and played the 2-5 NL game. I would have played 1-2 again, but there was a wait list for 1-2, and seats were available on 2-5. This ended up being an exercise in frustration, as I played until about 8:00 in the morning, but didn't get any cards. I ended up leaving a little bit down for that session, but up overall still. There were a couple of lessons learned - leave the game when the cards run dry; and sleep is a good thing.
I decide to go for a walk, clear my head an get some breakfast. After doing all three things, I ended up at the Venetian. Initially I sat down at the 1-2 table, but frankly the level of play was pretty sad. So i switched t o the 2-5 table, and had one of my best sessions ever! I played from about 9:00 until about 3:30, and built a very big stack. Again, towards the end the cards were not playing to my favor, and frankly the competition got a lot better. I had built my stack taking advantage of the weaker players at the table, but towards the end it became clear that I was now one of the weaker players. So it was time to go. I went to the sports book and watched some of the football game and had some dinner.
A walk sounded like a good plan, so I headed down the strip to the MGM. It's close to the airport, and I figured it would be a fine place to spend the rest of the evening. My flight was at 10:00, so that gave me a few hours to play. I sat down at a 2-5 table again, and pretty much immediately doubled up. At that point I was feeling pretty good - a little too good perhaps, and started to play poorly. So I decided to stop, and head to the airport. I also played some blackjack for the first time. My philosophy has generally been to avoid the table games - I figure if you're playing against the house, it just isn't going to go well in the long run. I've been watching blackjack a bit on TV, and I think I have a bit of a better understanding of the strategy. So I played for about 20 minutes and turned $100 into $150, and ran away. :-)
Overall, I think it was a successful weekend. I was quite profitable on the trip, and can easily cover my expenses for the next few weeks. Overall, my play was pretty solid. I moved up a level from what I normally play at, and was able to hold my own. I definitely wasn't the weakest player at any table, but I also know that my game needs some work. There were a number of players that were much better than I.
January 11, 2007
OK, so here's the deal. Just before Christmas I get this e-mail from Air Canada about this new "flight pass" they're testing out. Basically, they offer you unlimited flights in the region of your choice, for a monthly fee. The catch is you have to sign up for two months, and you can only fly on Saturday, Sunday or Tuesday. The fees were reasonable, so as a "Christmas present" to myself, I decided to purchase the North American Welcome Aboard pass, and see how it is. In theory, the fees are all-inclusive - no taxes, no departure fees, to fuel taxes etc. Now that it's paid for, in theory all my travel becomes zero cost.
So for the next two months, I'm planning a whole series of little adventures over the weekends, hopefully at a very low overall cost. The low cost part - well, that's the theory anyway - we'll see how it really works out. This weekend I've got a trip to Las Vegas planned. I fly down Saturday morning and fly back Sunday night. It's going to be insane, but fun... Updates as they happen (or more likely days after they happen).