jenna and i went to the first trip to the gas station yesterday. i’m still not sure which one we should regularly go to, but she was pretty thirsty when we got there.

14 gallons for 525 miles. GO JENNA!

happy belated mother’s day! i found the pictures from that night and realized that i forgot to post them.

though there were ten people who went on the vegas trip, i was never worried about the chemistry being bad. we’ve all been playing with each other now for quite some time and it’s been a lot of fun whenever we hang out. no one had a hissy fit or anything and we got along great.

there was one thing though where i felt like the third wheel everywhere i went. i know that some people tried to make sure that i didn’t and i appreciate it, but couples were everywhere!

the next trip i’m going on, i’m going to make sure that i bring a travel buddy.

oh yeah, did i mention that i took pictures while i was in vegas? i didn’t take many, but there were a few memorable ones…

sunday started with an unpleasant morning for some. we headed over to this buffet called cravings which was a multi-ethnicity buffet. it was quite good and pretty cheap. i was surprised.

afterwards, people wanted to do some shopping, but i wasn’t so enthusiastic about it so i opted to gamble instead. i went to a bunch of places but liked harrah’s the most. they had single deck blackjack with NO ONE at the table. i probably went through more hands of blackjack at that table in an hour than i would have at any other place in 3 hours. it was great.

the mirage’s player’s club completely sucks. they require you to play a minimum of $25 hands, but will let you use the cards to accumulate points at the slots. how ridiculous is that? i was so offended by this, i played one hand and left. the mirage is nice, but it is not SO NICE that it can be snobby like that. the wynn? paris? bellagio? the venetian? ok, maybe i’ll accept it there. but, seriously? the mirage? you’ve gotta be kidding me.

i talked to the pit boss and he said that that was there policy. i told them that it was ridiculous and the two ladies at the table asked what the player’s club card was. i told them that you can get comps if you play enough with it. they told me that they’ve been playing at the mirage all week, but only $10 hands. i told them that they would easily have gotten free meals and maybe even a free room at other places. i told them that i’m leaving this table because i thought the casino was being snobby. they said it would be the same at any table here. i told them i am leaving the casino and then they said, “so are we!” i think the pit boss was glaring at me as i left.

we all met back up in the evening and flew back to san jose to end our trip.

saturday started around noonish. we went to eat at mesa grill, bobby flay’s restaurant. the food was pretty good there and the lunch menu is actually reasonably priced. it wasn’t that crowded. i remember watching a food network special on the making of the restaurant.

it looked like the whole affair was pretty hectic, but the restaurant is swanky and nice. it’s much smaller than i thought it would be and it didn’t REALLY flaunt the bobby flay name too much, except for some cookbooks you can buy at the front.

after lunch, i went back to the hotel to meet up with diana who flew in later than the rest of us. we decided to go hang out by the pool, enjoy some of the sun and catch up on what was going on with each other.

john and gemma eventuall met up with us and then we all headed over to dinner at the mgm grand. we opted to eat at this asian fusion place which was pretty good.

we originally tried to get into pure, but the line was something like three hours long. ridiculous, i tell you. just ridiculous. so we opted to go to studio 54, which was actually a lot better than i expected it to be. the club itself is pretty small, but the entertainment was cool and the free drinks for the ladies was a bonus.

some people had a little too much to drink, so after they were put to bed, john and i went out gambling. it was actually a lot of fun gambling with him and we had a good time until around 5ish, i think. i was down $20 by the end of the evening.

my volleyball team on monday night has been talking about going to vegas for months. we finally have managed to organize ourselves and we made the trip out there. it was great fun.

friday night:
i departed san jose after swapping cars so that jenna won’t be left alone near the airport. my mom was afraid that jenna might be stolen if i left her in some dark alley so i swapped her with the pathfinder and left the pathfinder at my dad’s office. i arrived in vegas around 7ish and we ate at the rio seafood buffet.

though this buffet was on the expensive side at about $40, the food was pretty amazing. i ate too much food but i was plenty happy. the feel of vegas was settling in.

after the buffet we got ready to go clubbing and we stopped by a bar for a shot of grey goose. our friend knew the bartender there and the shot of grey goose we got was probably closer in volume to 2.5x a shot. way, way more than a double shot. so we all downed the drink and headed off in our merry way.

that was a lot of vodka.

we managed to get VIP passes to rain at the palms, but they weren’t very VIP. we still had to wait in line, but the wait wasn’t so bad. as i was waiting, i started to feel rather sick. my captain bought me another drink and i started to feel even more sick. i excused myself from the line for a little bit and ran to the bathroom where i proceeded to hurl a good portion of my dinner away. i returned to the line feeling much better. i don’t think anyone knew that i had just worshipped the porcelain throne and gave it an offering.

the rest of the night was good, i felt fine and stayed away from any more alcohol. rain is totally overrated now, the music was bad, and it was way, way overpacked. it was so bad that i couldn’t really move much at all. but still, it was good to be out with the gang.

i was really tired after rain and the gang headed back to the room. as soon as we got to the room, i rested my eyes for a bit. i probably woke up 20 minutes later to discover that a bunch of people had left the room at 3AMish to go out again to gamble. i wanted to gamble too, so i went downstairs looking for them and played a little blackjack. it was a little lonely and boring gambling alone so i went back to the room after i broke even and went to sleep.

looks like the server died again while i was in vegas this weekend. some people joked that the server must have felt neglected and shut itself off so that it would get a little attention. whatever the case may be, i’m glad that it’s back up. it was stressful while it was down.