Day 3 in Las Vegas, as with most Las Vegas trips is usually about just recovering and taking it relatively easy. This trip was no different. After getting into bed a little after 4am and then up at around 9am, my body was completely worn out and I was pretty Vegased out at this point. But my flight wasn't until 9:30pm that night, so with my last 12 hours or so in Vegas, it was necessary to actually try and accomplish something sort of useful, or at least in the realm of degeneracy.
After showering and taking care of my morning routine, I had some miscellaneous business to take care of. I went down, finally said hi to my host, and dropped off an envelope for him. My roomie was stirring as well, and I let him know that I had a bunch of little things to take care of, and he offered to tag along. I introduced him to my host, and my roomie seemed interested in how the whole host-client relationship works and how it gets set up, etc. So I let him know, what I know about how that side of Vegas works.
I needed to pick up some gifts for my girls at home. So we headed over to Crystals at City Center which is within easy walking distance of the hotel. Big mistake. I should have known better. I was looking for typical retail stores, specifically a Disney Store, while Crystals is a high end shopping mall. We did stop off at the Tag Heuer store, the Donna Karan store, along with one other high end men's fashion store that I forgot. I whipped out my handy dandy smart phone and searched for a Disney Store, expecting to find one in the Miracle Mile shops at the Planet Hollywood casino. No luck, unfortunately. So we ended up visiting the Aria gift shop and I got some earrings for my older girls and a pretty little Las Vegas dress for my youngest. For my wife, nothing. Instead I gave her 1k in cold hard cash when I got home and told her to buy something for herself. Much easier that way, although I did make an honest effort to look for something for her at Donna Karan. Unfortunately, they already had their fall collection on display, and there's not a lot in that collection that is appropriate for San Diego. They did have a small discounted section with the previous spring collection that I quickly browsed but didn't see anything that caught my eye.
Eventually my roomie and I ended up in the high limit salon playing blackjack again. I made lunch reservations at Olives in the Bellagio for 1pm. Once again as has become my tradition, we ordered a feast of food for only 2, but managed to finish everything, and I was even still a little hungry when we left. From the menu we ordered the Grilled Squid and Octopus, Beef Carpaccio, I had a Traditional Caesar Salad, I had the Scallops and Prosciutto, while my roomie had the Lobster Roll. From off the menu we ordered an Olives Classic Flatbread and the Shrimp Skewer appetizer as well. Mostly good, with the exception of the shrimp which was just plain awful. I let our server know about that and she happily took it off the bill, not that I was paying for it, but it was the principle of the matter. I got lucky in that I somehow managed to get the same waiter I had last time I was there and she remembered me and how much food I ordered last time and was still able to finish it, therefore wasn't too surprised when she took our order how much we requested.
After lunch we wandered over to the Bellagio poker room and fired up a 40/80 heads up game. We tried buying in with Aria chips, but they wouldn't allow us so we just used cash. We played heads up for like 20 minutes or so before a third player joined us. My roomie ran extremely bad and ended up losing 2500 in 90 minutes or so, while I picked up 1200 and the third wheel got the rest. No super interesting hands I played with the exception of my 62dd I had in the big blind. Wheelie opened the button, roomie called the small blind, and I defended. Flop came 245 two diamonds. Checked to the opener, he bet, small blind called, I raised, both called. Turn was an off suit queen. SB checked, I checked, button bet, SB folded, I called. River was a blank, and I checked, button bet, I contemplated and finally called only to be shown the bad news. Button had A3 offsuit for the flopped straight.
Anyways around 4pm, we quit since my roomie had a 6:30 flight back to San Diego. We headed back to Aria, ran into Cecil and some others from the bachelor party at the Aria poker room. We chatted for a bit and then my roomie said his goodbyes and then ran off to the room to grab his stuff and head off to the airport.
I managed to find a craps table calling my name. I played until about 7:00pm or so, giving back about 5k before quitting, hitting the cage, getting a check cut for the majority of my winnings and taking the rest in cash. Cecil and his best man invited me to dinner at Julian Serranos, but I wasn't feeling up for dinner after lunch even though I was a bit hungry. I think my body just hadn't adjusted to my weird sleeping schedule and odd meal scheduling from the past few days. I hooked up with them in the high limit lounge after grabbing my stuff from the room and we shared my limo back to the airport.
At the airport we said our goodbyes and I had an opportunity to talk with Cecil's best man, who happens to be an attorney with DLA Piper here in San Diego about the profession and law school. Boarded an uneventful flight, besides the early turbulence, back home to San Diego and I offered to give Cecil's best man a lift home since he lived downtown and was on my way home anyways. Stopped off at taco bell to grab a quick late bite to eat, arrived home around 11pm, chatted with my wife until a little after midnight and then slept like a baby until about 11 am the next morning.
I have the most awesome wife in the world. She realized that I was in no condition to be actual useful to do anything and she offered to get the kids out of the house and told me to go to the Rancho Bernardo Inn, get a massage, relax and then meet her for dinner at Roy's in La Jolla.
So that's what I did. Here's me enjoying a cup of wine by the pool before my massage.
