Wii

It's been a bit since my last significant post, due to life business and technical difficulties.  Friday morning insomnia, gives me some free quiet time at home while everyone sleeps.

To recap my Vegas trip, it was a complete debacle.  I never seemed like I was winning.  I think I had a total of maybe 10 good shoes with solid positive counts.  In one of those shoes I made like $6500, all the rest bad things happened.  Either the 20's or 21's would end up with the dealer, or some ploppy who was min betting would hit the good hands, while I would end up with the stiffs, even though I was pressing my bet higher.  And the few times I decided to degen it up at the craps table didn't work out well either.  Both craps and blackjack even when played at a disadvantage to the player have a very small house advantage.  Nowhere near the losses that I actually incurred, which just goes to show how bad my luck was running. 

Then the stupid casino's collection department screwed up and deposited my markers before my 30 days was up and overdrew my checking account.  Normally, I just cut them a check if I need to before I leave, but this last trip I forgot my check book at home, and I figured I'd just wait for them to send me a statement before I sent in my check.  The checking account they have on file for me is my joint account that I have with my wife, that I leave a minimal amount of money in to handle monthly expenses, and it didn't have nearly enough to cover my markers.  I'm still in the process of dealing with the casino, but they did agree that they screwed up, and are willing to pay all of my bank fees and offered me a 5% loss rebate on my markers, so there's at least that. 

My host at the casino, is already in hot water in my book as well.  Multiple screw-ups on his part, in my opinion.  The limo was late picking me up at the airport (not the first time that this has occurred).  The room wasn't ready for us when we arrived.  The beer, red bull, and cigars weren't ready in the room like I asked for.  The beer and red bull didn't show up until I think until Friday afternoon, which by that time was too late for me to consume all by myself.  The cigars weren't the exact type I specified, but he did get me some good cubans, so I guess that's ok.

My friend and I met a cougar at the blackjack table, and I invited her to have dinner with us at Jean George's which she graciously accepted.  She was in a town due to a fashion convention.  Turns out if I remember right, she was from Texas and married to a plastic surgeon, and judging from the rock on her finger, he's quite successful.  She said she had 3 kids, with the oldest like 21 or so.  She didn't look much past 35 or so, so she obviously keeps herself in good shape, and I'm sure her husband has had something to do with that as well.

After Vegas my wife went on her cruise to the Caribbean with her 3 sisters and her mom.  She flew from San Diego to Atlanta, met 2 of her sisters there, and then the three of them flew into Miami.  They spent their first night in Miami before her other sister and her mom arrived in Miami the next day.  They took Celebrity cruise lines out of Miami on a 5 day/4 night cruise to Key West, Cozymel, and then back to Miami.  My wife said she enjoyed the cruise immensely.  Especially all the fine dining she was able to do, and really enjoyed the service she got from her waiter.  She let me know, that cruising is definitely not for me, since it was quite obvious you are on a boat, and she knows that I would not enjoy myself and would have gotten seasick as usual.

While she was gone, I was in charge at home, and took care of the kids.  For the most part everything went fine until Sunday.  My youngest got sick with some kind of stomach flu and had a slight fever.  Most likely caught it from the birthday party we attended on Friday.  Sunday morning she puked.  I thought she was better, but at Sunday evening mass, she actually fell asleep in the pews, so I knew something was up, but she said she was fine.  At the restaurant after mass she puked again.  And then to make matters even worse, Monday morning around 12:30 am, she puked for a third time all over me, my bed, and herself.  Nothing better than being awoken to a puking kid.

Due to my organization, we got a second scheduled day of 40/80 at Oceans-11.  I did a survey sometime in February asking the 40/80 regulars which days were good for them to play a second day, and the consensus was to start the game on Wednesdays mid-morning.  So the first scheduled day of this occurred on March 6.  We had games on both March 6 and the 13, with also some random firing ups of the 40 game on Tuesdays as well.  The 10/20 no-limit normally goes on Tuesdays and Fridays, and for the last couple of Tuesdays has been weak, and we got some no-limit players who wanted to play the 40.  Maybe a sign of good things?

My run bad in the 40 game continues unabated.  I got crushed in February, losing 5 straight sessions, including a shortish session at the Bellagio while I was out in Vegas.  March has been marginally better, while I am still in the red for the month, I at least have 3 winning sessions to match my 3 losing sessions, including a Commerce excursion where I got crushed.

Our family has annual passes for Disneyland, and my wife wanted to get back out there before the spring break crowds show up, so we went there last Friday.  I dropped the kids off at school, headed up to Oceans for a quick morning session, and then my wife picked me up there and we headed up to Disneyland.  My last hand I played at Oceans?  QQ vs K7 spades on a JJT, one spade board.  No I didn't win that one, as it went running spades and I didn't fill up.

In any case, we spent a nice fun-filled day at Disneyland.  It wasn't busy at all, and the weather forecast was a bit ominous.  However, it turned out to be a beautiful day, right up until about 8:45pm at night, when it started to rain unfortunately.  They had to cancel Fantasmic and the fireworks, and by this time my kids were tired, cranky, and wet and just wanted to go to the hotel.  So off we went, to LA's finest, the Commerce Casino Hotel and Spa.  I made sure my kids pretty much just saw the hotel lobby and the room.  I hit the casino around 10:30pm at night and returned to the room around 6am, with my tail between my legs and my wallet a lot lighter.  My wife let me get around 2 hours of sleep, and ordered room service for breakfast.  Afterwards we spent the rest of the day at the Wii family spa in Los Angeles' Korea Town. It was awesome, and I had a great time there.  My wife got a body scrub and massage.  She let me sleep for about 2 hours in the men's sleeping room as well.  We had lunch and dinner at the restaurant there before leaving for home.  We got back to Oceans around 8:30pm or so, my wife dropped me off, I grabbed my car and met the family at home.  It was a fun LA trip, and I am contemplating another excursion to Commerce and Wii spa over my kids spring break.  The play I saw at Commerce was just horrid, but I could never get my hands to hold up and just lost chips pot after pot.  But the play that I saw certainly reinforced what I had heard in the past, that the Commerce 40 game is a gold mine.

At Oceans this week, the game went again on Wednesday.  We started a little late at 11:30am, and was a little weak throughout the day, before it filled up and went strong into the night.  I took off around 10pm, and booked a nice win for once.  Hopefully I'll do the same today.

Last Wednesday, there were shenanigans between two regulars, that ended up with one of the regulars getting kicked out for the night.  That's an interesting and funny story, but it'll have to wait for another time.

Eh Never Mind!

Through some creative out-thinking of Google, I have simply changed my identity slightly and reclaimed my blog, so uh, forget about what I said before.

Phoenix

This will be the last post in this blog.  The blog has been reborn here, due to technical difficulties.  Hope you all will continue to follow my adventures and pursuits!  I will try and keep this blog around for as long as possible for posterity's sake, but I need to clean up my google account and my daughter's so if things get blown away because of that, oh well.