Totally OT: Vegas Sucks

Unlike almost every other time I went to Vegas I had money in my pocket and credit cards with an available balance.  I was struck with how every single thing costs.  I don’t mean things are expensive ($11 for a domestic beer in a bar), but that every single little thing costs.

A couple years ago I drove back and forth across country to take care of some family business.  I stayed in relatively inexpensive hotels along the highway, and there was complimentary coffee and a coffee maker in my room in every one.  Some even had some basic breakfast stuff like rolls or cereal I could take advantage of before I hit the road.  In Caesars Palace coffee pods were in the mini bar… well not ours… and they charged for coffee.  I took a trip down the street to Walgreens and bought a 30 pack of coffee pods.  One lady in the elevator said they charged her $70 for putting her own sandwich in the fridge in the mini bar.   I don’t know if that’s really true, but in the moment it sure felt plausible.

Patti was at a medical conference, and I mostly hung out in the hotel watching TV and working on CAD designs on my laptop.  One day I went through all my old designs.  Many nobody but me has ever seen because they didn’t work.  I was amazed how often I looked at one of those old designs and thought either, “How did I ever design anything that bad,” or, “Oh!  I see why that didn’t work and I see how to fix it.”  Sadly there were fewer of the latter than the former, but I’ll probably be redesigning and recutting some of them for release over this next year.

I enjoyed the Pinball Hall of Fame with my oldest friend Jim one day.  He works master control at KSNV-TV.  We picked him up from work and headed over to play pinball.  He had an old Crown Royal Bag full of quarters saved up just for the occasion.  They don’t have every pinball machine ever made, but they have a lot of them from old school stuff to the latest digital wonders.  We spent a couple hours acting like little kids and had a great time.

For me that was about it.  Patti enjoyed the food, and we ate at a couple fancy places, but my favorite was a bar/pub place in the forums.  Other than that the food was to fancy for my simple pallet.

I’m not a big gambler anymore.  I used to like to play 7 card stud, but all the casinos push Texas Hold’em.  Its a little fast and aggressive for me.  I like the long absent sound of coins clattering in the change tray.  The slots make noise, but it sounds muted and dead to me.  On the other hand Vegas has a constant loud jumble of noise 24hrs a day.  It never ends.  Even late at night.  I did drop a $20 bill in a slot machine.  It still feels to so weird to me to put paper money in a slot machine.  I won $30 on the first pull.  I should have cashed out and left, but I was hoping my $20 might buy me a little more entertainment than that.  Nah.  I quickly blew it all back to the machine.  Just a matter of minutes.  That was the limit of my gambling.

On my last trip to Vegas a few years ago one of the high points for me was the street performers.  Some were amazing, and I felt it was worth putting money in their hat/case etc.  Maybe I wasn’t out late enough, but what struck me this time was that there were hardly any.  It wasn’t that I didn’t walk the strip either.  I did.  There were a couple crazy people ranting and raving about one thing or another, but hardly any street performers.

I did briefly consider taking a trip to Bass Pro Shops or Sportsmen’s Warehouse, but I am still disappointed years later in how underwhelming the Bass Pro there is.  Well, and they jerked me around about a warranty trolling motor repair in that exact store on my last visit.  I did look on-line and there is a Sportsmen’s Warehouse in Vegas as well.  I considered that, but we have one right here at home I can go visit, and honestly… I don’t really need anything.

HOW ABOUT THE SHOWS???  I wasn’t feeling it.  I was hoping for something that might excite me, but it just wasn’t there.  I looked at all the billboards, and could even see a few out the window of my room on the 20th floor.  I briefly thought about seeing Shin Lim or Pif the Magic Dragon (magicians), but I’ve seen them before.

In the end I would have rather stayed home and gone fishing.