Vacation – Page 7 – Fascination Place

Once More Around the Bay Area

An account of my Mom’s recent visit.

As I mentioned, I was on vacation for a week, with my Mom visiting for the first time in a couple of years. It’s taken me a while to get this entry together, but better late than never, right? She flew in two Wednesdays ago and left last Tuesday.

And boy, did we ever have a good time!

First of all, her flight was 40 minutes early, which seems just about impossible in these days of air travel, and especially on United. On the other hand, this did mean that I didn’t quite have time to get everything done I’d wanted to do before she arrived, but then, setting up the bed for her isn’t really all that much of a burden.

We had a pretty simple first day: We drove to Apple to visit the company store so that she could pick up some gear for my nephew, and we went out to dinner with Debbi, getting Thai food and hitting some bookstores in downtown Mountain View. Mom was delighted by the weather, since the northeast had been socked with rain, snow, heat, cold, and probably also locusts in the month before she flew out, whereas we were having highs in the 60s with occasional rain and clouds, which felt downright balmy and pleasant to her.

Mom wanted to make sure to see the coast, but since there’s plenty of coast around, that was no problem. Thursday morning we drove over to Half Moon Bay where we had breakfast at the Main Street Grill (Mom thought their Eggs Benedict was excellent). After doing some shopping (I picked up a copy of Bizarro and Other Strange Manifestations of the Art of Dan Piraro), we drove along the coast to several beaches to see the ocean, which was particularly energetic that day. We went as far south as the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, which made for a full day. Returning home, Debbi cooked her yummy spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

Our routine during her visit was pretty simple: Mom woke up earlier than me and went down to get the paper and read it while having tea. Once I got up (lazy slug!) we’d sit around and talk for a while until we went off to get lunch and see whatever we wanted to see that day. Then we’d come back and hook up with Debbi for dinner, and have a quiet evening at home (albeit occasionally not getting back from dinner until 8 or 9).

Mom also loves the cats. Blackjack – to our surprise – decided that he just loved having Mom around, going in to snooze with her at night, and play with her in the morning. The other cats enjoyed the extra attention, but Blackjack really bonded with her.

Friday our outing consisted of going to the San Jose Museum of Art to see an exhibit of M.C. Escher’s artwork. (“M.C. Escher” sounds like the name of some sort of philosophical rapper these days.) It was good – if small – exhibit, and “good, if small” actually describes the museum as a whole. I bought a book about Escher, mainly because I was very impressed with his architectural and cityscape drawings, which I mostly hadn’t known about.

We hit another of the many excellent used bookstores in the area, and then went down to Santa Cruz where we shopped, walked out the wharf (and saw some sea lions), and then went over to the lighthouse (although the surfing museum was not open). For dinner went want to the Peninsula Creamery, where we stuffed ourselves full of milkshakes.

Debbi hooked up with us for the weekend. Saturday was overcast and rainy, but not too much so, and we went up to the city anyway, spending much of the afternoon in Golden Gate Park. The Japanese tea gardens were flowering, and we walked through a slice of the botanical garden (a different slice from the one Dad and I walked through on his last visit). I didn’t know they had a little redwood forest in the botanical gardens! I really need to spend a larger part of an afternoon exploring that place, now. (Debbi said we need to hit the museums in the park again, too, and I’ve also never been to the Conservatory of Flowers.)

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Mom particularly wanted to go to Pier 39 to visit the sea lions again, so we did that and did some shopping. Then it was off to Ghirardelli Square for yet more ice cream. All my vacations these days seem to be giant food-fests! Yummy ones, though. Once we got home, we were tired enough that we just ordered pizza out from Amici’s.

(I find that I am taking the great food around here for granted, since Mom remarked how good everything was throughout her visit. Debbi says she doesn’t take it for granted, though, so maybe it’s just me.)

Sunday we drove up the east bay and went to Berkeley, where we walked around the Berkeley campus. Then we drove down to the Westover Vineyards to taste (and buy) some wine, and then ate at Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too! for dinner.

Monday Mom said she wanted to head back to the city, so we stopped off for lunch on the way at one of our new favorite places, a build-your-own-burger restaurant called The Counter and then headed up. Unlike Saturday, Monday was bright and sunny and warm. We went to the Musee Mechanique, which Mom found fascinating. I had forgotten that their new location has info on many old-time amusement parks, including Playland-at-the-Beach, a park which existed at the north end of Ocean Beach until 1972 (which frankly boggles my mind, that San Francisco had a full-blown amusement park). We spent a good long time looking at the exhibits and starting many of them up. As always, it impresses me that some of that stuff still exists at all, as some of it is pushing 100 years old.

Afterwards we drove along the bay past the marina, over to the Cliff House and Ocean Beach to see the ocean again. Then we headed back to meet up with Debbi for dinner. Sadly, my favorite Chinese restaurant Su Hong is closed on Mondays, so instead we went to Max’s, which was fine.

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Tuesday morning I took Mom to the airport and she flew out. I was sad. We had a lot of fun during the week and were able to catch up chatting about things. She said she had a terrific time seeing everything and enjoying the weather, and she hopes to come back before another 2 years have passed.

I hope so, too!

Vacation Time!

It seems like it’s taken forever to get here, but I’m finally on vacation today. Nope, I’m not going anywhere, instead, my Mom’s flyng out to visit me!

I decided recently that I’d had enough of the goatee I’ve sported for the last year or so, so I shaved it off this morning. Debbi was sad, since she likes the goatee. I was getting tired of maintaining it, and it’s getting a little too gray for my preference. On the other hand, it does slim my face a little, since I am gradually starting to show my age. (I joke a lot about how “I’m getting old”. I’m not really getting that old, but late-30s is an age where one does start showing those telltale signs, and I do have a few.) On the other hand, shaving off the goatee felt at the time like the return of an old friend.

This is Mom’s second visit, and we’re going to go see a few things a second time (like the coast), and go see some new things. Maybe the M.C. Escher exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art. It should be fun. And after last week’s rain, everything is still green and blooming, which will make for a different look to the area from her last visit, which was in the fall, when everything is tan and brown.

Anyway. Mom’s flight took off right on time, it looks like, and it may arrive anywhere from 30 to 60 (!) minutes early (!!), which will be nice for the both of us, but it does mean that I have less time than I’d expected to get things done before she arrives. So I’d better get cracking!

DisneyWorld

I’m back! Back from my week’s vacation with Debbi and, well, her entire immediate family visiting DisneyWorld and her parents in Florida.

We flew out last Saturday, and the trip was fairly uneventful other than a delay with our connecting flight out of Dallas. We got in a bit late, but we picked up our car and got to our hotel with no problems. Sunday morning we drove over to meet Debbi’s relatives who flew in from Boston: Her two sisters Dianne and Janine, Dianne’s husband Shawn, and their three kids. Then we caravaned towards Orlando to meet Debbi’s parents (well, father and stepmother) for brunch at Cracker Barrel. Deb’s parents have a time-share near DisneyWorld, so we checked into two rooms in the afternoon. Shawn, Dad and I went shopping, while everyone else went swimming. With all the people, Debbi and I were fortunate to end up with one of the king-sized beds to sleep in. And we needed it because, it was a long and busy week!

DisneyWorld (officially “Walt Disney World Resort”) is an odd place, even odder, I think, than Disneyland. It’s spread over a much larger area, and you have to drive on myriad roads to get to any of the four parks within, and you’re surrounded by swampy Florida landscape along the way.

The “main” park, the Magic Kingdom, was completed in 1971, and is basically laid out the same as Disneyland. However, it has fewer rides in a large space. So you have more space to walk around without bumping into people, but there’s not as much to do. The park feels cleaner and more polished than Disneyland, but by the same token has a lot less character. This may be because the design aesthetic of 1955 has less in common with our modern aesthetic than that of 1970. But it might also be because the restrictions of space in Disneyland force the Imagineers to be more creative. Or it might just be that Walt Disney personally oversaw Disneyland and gave it an attention to detail which the forces which created DisneyWorld – mostly after Walt’s death – just couldn’t attain. (After all, the 60s, 70s and 80s are not exactly remembered as a golden period in Disney’s history.)

We started the week at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, which has a few good rides, such as Expedition Everest (basically a variation on Big Thunder Mountain), but which is mainly notable for the Kilimanjaro Safari ride, which travels through a refuge with elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, and other animals. It’s actually quite scenic. The Flights of Wonder show is also quite cool. But overall the Animal Kingdom is not a terrific park.

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Tuesday we went to the Magic Kingdom, which as I said is very similar to Disneyland’s main park. Overall I felt the rides were at best the same, but often not as good as those at Disneyland. The Haunted Mansion, for instance, is missing the nifty walking corridor at the beginning. While some of Pirates of the Caribbean benefits from the additional space, it’s missing the initial ride through a Lousiana swamp. Space Mountain is just as good, but its veneer feels a little old, since the Disneyland Space Mountain was completely renovated in the last few years. The Enchanted Tiki Room at DisneyWorld was converted to The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management), a pointless revision which is not only not as much fun, but is probably incomprehensible if you’re not familiar with the original. Tomorrowland has the old Peoplemover (rechristened the Tomorrowland Transit Authority), which is a fun and relaxing tour of Tomorrowland, but it also has the execrable Stitch’s Great Escape, which is a pointless and gross non-ride to be avoided at all costs. Ew.

DisneyWorld is missing several Disneyland rides, such as Indiana Jones, the Matterhorn Bobsleds, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Alice in Wonderland, and the Storybook Land Canal Boats. Some of these aren’t exactly essential rides; nonetheless, despite its size, it feels like there’s less to do at the Magic Kingdom than at Disneyland.

Debbi’s family went off Tuesday late morning to a character breakfast, so Debbi and I got to do a number of things without the eight other members of our party. Which was nice since we could go on several rides less appropriate for kids. Debbi was able to go on all the rides she really wanted to go on, which made her happy.

Wednesday we went back to the Magic Kingdom for part of the day, and then went to EPCOT for half a day. We didn’t see a whole lot of it, and apparently the park bears almost no resemblance to Walt’s original vision. We did ride the Test Track ride, which is quite cool, in that you get up to around 65 MPH in the little car. But we weren’t too impressed with the World Showcase, and we didn’t have a chance to ride Soarin’ or Spaceship Earth. We did see the fireworks show, which was fun. But overall we weren’t too impressed with EPCOT.

Finally, on Thursday we spent the day at Disney MGM Studios, the fourth theme park. The Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is quite cool (although perhaps not much better than California Screamin’ at Disney’s California Adventure next to Disneyland). Lights, Motors, Action! is a pretty neat demo of how car stunts are staged and performed for films. More than the other parks, this park packs more into a fairly small space, and we were all a little surprised that we managed to pack a full day into this park.

Our days were long, however, and we were regularly getting up at 6 and going to bed at 11 or midnight, so we were pretty exhausted at the end of it all. The kids had a great time, though. I don’t know whether they’ll remember much of it when they’re older, but they had so much fun that I don’t think it matters. I think the adults got worn to a frazzle from time to time, though.

Thursday night we drove to Debbi’s parents’ house where we spent the next couple of days. Sleeping arrangements were, uh, suboptimal, with me on an aerobed, and Debbi on an uncomfortable couch (she didn’t seem to think doing it the other way around would be any better, though I offered). We did enjoy hanging out at the pool, and playing dominoes until midnight on Friday.

Debbi and I wrapped up our trip leaving early Saturday afternoon. We got to the airport three and a half hours early, which is good because we found that our flight to Dallas was delayed over an hour, so we’d miss our connection. But we were able to act promptly and get rebooked on a flight to Chicago, then switching airlines to fly to San Jose. Despite the longer flight, we took off 2 hours earlier and got to California at the same time we’d been scheduled to arrive. We only had a long dash across Chicago O’Hare to make our connection, but otherwise we and our luggage arrived safe and sound (much to my surprise). Debbi was completely exhausted, but Subrata and Susan picked us up, so all turned out well.

The cats were extremely happy to see us.

Sunday we relaxed. Indeed, Debbi took a long nap in the afternoon. I did some work in the yard, did some housecleaning, and cleaned the grill (and boy did it need it) before grilling hamburgers. A pretty successful end to the whole vacation – even if it wasn’t the most relaxing vacation ever.

Vegas Trip Poker Roundup

A roundup of my poker exploits on our recent trip to Las Vegas.

Okay, a roundup of my poker exploits on our recent trip to Las Vegas.

My First Tournament

After a fashion, the highlight of poker on the trip was playing playing the 11 am $65 no-limit hold ’em tournament at the MGM Grand. This was actually my first experience playing no-limit hold ’em; all of the cash games I play are low limit, which means the amount you can bet in each round is strictly structured. In no-limit, of course, you can bet any amount at any time up to your total chip stack.

This tournament provides everyone with $2000 in chips for their buy-in. Blinds start at $25/$50, and go up every 20 minutes. This is a very fast tournament; by the fifth level, someone was going all-in on every hand because of the escalating blinds and antes. Moreover, only about 10 hands (i.e., one full orbit around the table) were played per level, so everyone would post only one set of blinds before they went up. The tournament started with 6 tables of 10 players each, and an alternates list who would sit when someone got knocked out. I was alternate #2, and was seated about halfway through the first round. Ultimately there were about 95 buy-ins, including people who got knocked out and rebought as an alternate. One guy next to be rebought twice. The top 8 finishers won money.

I sat down and my very first hand I was dealt a pair of 7s. So I raised to $300, everyone folded to the big blind, and the big blind went all-in. He had about $900 left, so I could either surrender my $300 raise, or potentially lose half my stack. I dithered for a moment, and decided to fold.

Over the next 40 minutes my stack steadily dwindled, as I never managed to hit anything on the flop. Finally I got down to about $1100, with blinds of $100/$200, and played J-To. I flopped two pair and pushed all-in, getting two callers. One guy made a straight on the turn, but then another ten came on the river giving me the winning full house. I had tripled up and was still in it! I went all-in again not longer after that with A-K, and everyone folded so I won the blinds and antes. I managed to win a couple more pots, and when the first break came after the fourth round I had about $5500, which I judged to be above-average.

Shortly after the break I went all-in against a short stack, and a larger stack went all-in as well, forcing me to go all-in, along with a fourth player. The short stack won the hand, but I came in second, and since I had him covered I picked up the rest of the chips, and came out slightly ahead.

Shortly before 1:00 we were down to 3 tables, and a woman in early position went all-in. I judged her to be in a position with the escalating blinds where she felt she had to push, and I looked down at… a pair of 7s. Again. I figured while she might have a bigger pair, more likely she had two big cards (which would make us a coin flip as to who won), or maybe even an Ace-rag (low card). So I called her. She had A-T. The flop and turn didn’t help her, so I was about 7-to-1 to win the hand, but a Ten hit on the river, she doubled up, and I was crippled. I went out the next hand when I pushed with T-7 and lost easily. (I probably should have waited the 3 hands I had left before the blinds hit me to see if I could get something better, but that wasn’t the hand that killed me.)

Overall I was very happy with my play, finishing 24th out of 95. I had some luck, but I think I played fairly well, too. This tournament is so fast-paced that luck probably oughtweighed skill overall. (Games that emphasize skill tend to have higher buy-ins, $150 or more.) But I think I got a feel for how the game is played, and I had fun. And that’s what counts.

Cash Games

I played about 9 hours of cash games, almost all of them at $2/4 limits, and one at $3/6 limits. The ritzy poker rooms tend to start at $4/8, and I don’t think I’m quite good enough to go to those limits. I’m still not a winning player, after all.

We made a tour of poker rooms on the Strip, and there’s a lot of variety. I think the MGM has the nicest room of those I’ve played in: It’s a space between the sports book and a bar, with walls on both sides, nice tables, and good dealers. (Debbi noticed that all poker rooms in the casinos seem to be right near the sports book. I wonder why that is? Do sports gamblers like to play poker between making bets? Do poker players like to bet on sports during their breaks? Is it just convenient for the casino somehow?)

By contrast, the Excalibur‘s poker room is right in the middle of one of the main access ways. Even though all poker rooms prohibit smoking, the Excalibur’s therefore gets a lot of ambient smoke, which is not so great. Bally’s is similar. The Luxor and Flamingo put their rooms in corners at the edge of the casino, which is sort of a compromise. Mandalay Bay and the Rio put them in separate rooms which are open on one or two sides; the Bellagio and Venetian do something similar, but dress up the room to make it stand out more. And Caesar’s Palace and Harrah’s have completely separate rooms for poker.

Some poker rooms have snazzy video waiting lists, which makes it very easy to figure out what games are going on and whether there’s any wait. I was more willing to try new rooms when they had these screens; some rooms don’t have visible waiting lists, which deterred me somewhat from trying them.

Overall, I think Excalibur and Luxor have the easiest tables to play at of those I’ve tried, while Caesar’s is the toughest. The MGM is somewhere in the middle. Of course, I probably don’t have a large enough sample to draw any firm conclusions.

My worst round was at the $3/6 game at Caesar’s. I didn’t play real well, didn’t have a lot of luck either, and lost $73 in an hour. Ouch. I had a session at the Excalibur that was about half as bad, but in that case I just never got any cards. On the other hand, I had another session at the Excalibur which cancelled out the bad one. And I was up-and-down at the MGM, and had a bit of bad luck at the end of a session at the Flamingo which left me down a little after being up a bunch. Bummer.

The more I played, the more I had to think about: I realized why some people say that slowplaying two pair is a bad idea, since it’s much easier for someone to beat you. Two pair is a good hand, but you do want to knock out people on draws. I need to be more careful playing two overcards to the flop, as I think I’m too quick to call bets in that situation, or bet out myself. Finally, I need to pay better attention to the odds, as I think I fold in some situations where I could continue.

The one hand I keep coming back to is this: In one session I kept being dealt Ace-rag. It was a loose and very passive game, so I started playing some of these hands. One hand I had A-7 offsuit. The slop was Q-8-2 with two clubs, and I had the Ace of clubs. One player bet, and I thought for a moment and folded. But in retrospect I think I should have continued. The reason is that any bettor probably had either top pair or a flush draw. If I hit an Ace, then I will have a better top pair, and since I have the Ace of clubs, anyone on a flush draw would not be helped in that case. However, if a club hits, someone on a flush draw would make it, but I’d have a redraw to the nut flush, if a fourth club came. With 7 bets already in the pot, I think I had the odds to call, and it was likely that there would be enough callers that I could continue to the river, as well. So I should have called. And indeed, the next two cards were clubs, and the winner had a flush that I would have beaten had I stayed in.

Ironically, the very next hand I had A-6 offsuit, the flop was like A-K-3 with the K-3 being of my Ace’s suit. This time I did go to the river, and my top pair beat my opponent’s pair of Kings.

Anyway, I had fun, even though I didn’t win. I look forward to the day that not every poker session leaves me with more things to think about and work on than to be happy about and proud of. Maybe someday…

Good Karma in Sin City

A summary of our trip to Las Vegas last weekend, with pictures!

So as I said, Debbi and I went to Las Vegas for a long weekend. We left Saturday afternoon and got to Las Vegas without a hitch.

No, the hitches only started after we landed.

First, the shuttle bus we took (Showtime) had a very grumpy driver, who took forever to load all the passengers, and took forever to get us to our hotel. It took us an hour after getting our bags to get to our hotel. Not cool. We stayed at the Excalibur, which is not the flashiest hotel, but its rates are cheap. Unfortunately, for the third consecutive time they didn’t have a king-sized bed that Debbi had requested, so we ended up with two queens instead. This isn’t a horrible thing, but it does make you feel like they’re pulling a fast one on you.

And on top of that, I realized after we were nicely ensconced in our hotel room that I’d left one of my poker books on the plane. Argh.

Fortunately, things mostly got better from here on out. Starting with dinner. I did some research on restaurants on the Strip (for instance, at Vegas.com) and found some places we hadn’t been, at least not there. So Friday night we went to Il Fornaio at New York New York, which was quite tasty.

The Hoover Dam

The main reason we made this trip a 4-night stay was to visit the Hoover Dam. We took this tour, which was actually quite good: A chatty bus driver who provided perspective on the trip and some funny commentary (often using the word “dam”, of course), a 2-hour stay at the Dam, lunch at the buffet of a nearby Casino, and a trip to the Ethel M chocolate factory and cactus garden. All things considered, the lunch and Ethel M stops are probably not essential, so if you decide to go you might want to skip the Deluxe tour, but it wasn’t bad.

The Dam, however, was cool. The thing is really huge, and the tour takes you down into the Dam to see the turbines, and further down to see one of the huge metal spillways built into the canyon walls. There’s also a lot of fascinating historical info on the Dam, which was built during the Great Depression and was a cutting-edge engineering feat then, and would probably still be a pretty impressive effort even today.

The Hoover Dam
(click on an image to view it full size)

The views from the Dam are stunning: Lake Mead on one side, the continuation of the Colorado River on the other, the walls of the Black Canyon, and the highway running right over the top of the Dam. Meanwhile, a new superhighway is being built to run over the Canyon a few hundred feet downriver from the Dam, to help with traffic and to provide some redundancy in case the Dam ever comes to harm (natural or otherwise) and has to have its roadway closed.

The Dam Turbines

Plus, each side of the Dam are in different time zones, which means you can walk across into another time zone. And beyond that, I added a new state – Arizona – to the list of those I’ve visited.

The Hoover Dam: A very cool visit. I recommend it.

In the evening we made our usual trip to the Bally’s steak house. It’s really quite good, as I’m sure I’ve said before, and well worth the price. Casual dress is fine, and the wait staff treats everyone promptly and well. Someday we may try another steak house in Vegas, but we’re in no rush; we like this one.

Penn & Teller

Monday I played in my first-ever poker tournament (about which more later), and then had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe in the MGM Grand (mainly because I wanted the chicken-fried steak). Then in mid-afternoon we headed over to the Rio in order to see Penn & Teller.

Now, I should mention this up front: The Rio is not on the strip, and is in fact about a half-hour walk from the nearest point on the strip, through an area which – while not dangerous – is in fact extremely boring (you walk over a freeway, for instance). I highly recommend not doing this walk, and instead catching the Rio shuttle from one of several strip hotels (such as Bally’s, which is also on the Las Vegas Monorail). Unless you really need the exercise, which – after eating a chicken-fried steak – I arguably did.

The Rio as Seen From Our Walk Over

The Rio is also the home of the World Series of Poker, so I was curious to play in their poker room. However, it turned out to be rather small, and the whole time they were there they only had 2-3 games going, so I never did. Oh, well!

Penn & Teller themselves were quite cool. Although the show was on the short side (about 75 minutes), the hour before the show features Penn on bass and Mike Jones on piano. I liked Jones’ style a lot, and may need to pick up some of his work on CD.

Now, I’ve seen Penn & Teller on TV a couple of times, including their turn on Babylon 5, but that’s only a few appearances, so their act was basically new to me. I think what I enjoyed most were Penn’s feats of dexterity, by which I mean juggling, as well as his witty banter throughout the show (it wouldn’t be the same show without it). I found the magic tricks to be uneven: I enjoyed the tricks where they revealed how they did it, although it mostly seems to rely on sleight-of-hand, much the way that Richard Feynman described lockpicking as mainly using some heuristics that work in many common cases, but not all. I was also intrigued by Penn’s demonstration of psychic scams such as cold reading, hot reading, and a third whose name I can’t remember. I was disappointed that he didn’t discuss how these tricks worked (which made me wonder whether they actually did employ a very sophisticated mechanism for using plants in the audience, despite the pains they took to show that they weren’t), but at least I can read up on them on-line.

(If anyone knows their act and can remember the third method Penn used, please let me know so I can read up on it!)

Honestly, even knowing how they do it, it’s still pretty impressive.

My biggest disappointment was their closing trick, the “magic bullet” trick, which despite the large build-up just isn’t a real impressive trick, I thought, mainly because bullets are so small that there’s not a real big “wow!” moment.

Despite that, it was a cool show, and I’d go see them again, since I guess they change up their act on a regular basis.

Gambling

Most of the rest of our trip was spent gambling.

Now, I get ribbed a bit by some of my cow-orkers about this: In general, you have a negative expectation when gambling. But the whole point of gambling is to win money, yet overall you can expect to lose money. So am I just paying a math tax, or what?

Well, some of both. I don’t find slot machines very compelling, since there’s no skill at all involved. While the bright lights can be entertaining, I don’t want to spend a lot of money on them. So these days I only play the penny slots, where my losses can be minimized. I’ll also play some video poker, where you can win money. And then I play “real” poker, because I figure with some practice I will eventually actually be better than most of the poker players in Vegas (who tend to be tourists), and I can actually win money. Plus, in poker there is skill involved, so it’s a real game, and therefore interesting to me, because I like games.

But I also enjoy gambling because I get to spend time with Debbi while we’re in Vegas. In fact, I tend to repeatedly confirm with her that it’s okay that I play poker, because since she doesn’t play, that means we’ll be doing separate things while I play. But she doesn’t mind. So we do some things together, and other times I play poker. So it works out.

Sometimes we just go watch the Bellagio Fountains

Anyway, our first night there I played some poker for a couple of hours and went up to cash in my chips. The woman behind the desk said, “So that’s… six hundred and ten dollars.”

“Uh,” I said, “those are ones.”

She smacked her head and gave me my one hundred and two dollars, and thanked me for being honest. “So many people around here just try to get anything they can, even if they have to lie about it,” she said. Well, while an extra $500 isn’t nothing, it’s not going to change my life, either, so I figured why not be honest about it? (As people have pointed out to me since, the $500 probably means a lot more to her than it does to me.)

Debbi points to this bit of honesty as the moment of good karma which explains my good luck for the rest of the trip, to wit:

I won $220 playing penny slots!

I mean, geez, have you ever heard of anyone winning this much at penny slots?

When playing a slot machine, I usually look for one with several “controls” to make the game slightly more interesting, even though I know it doesn’t make a lick of difference in whether you actually win. At the Rio, I noticed a new (to me), Mardi Gras-themed slot called Carnival of Mystery, so I played that. After figuring out how it worked, I started making some $1.25 bets on it, and soon found myself regularly winning $10 or $20 every few spins, and was soon up over $60 from my original $20. This seemed deeply peculiar, and though I would usually cash out with that amount of profit, I kept playing. And eventually got up over $150. Then the machine finally went cold (another concept which makes no mathematical sense since the machine presumably uses a true pseudorandom computer algorithm to perform the spins) and I cashed out at $100.

This was the silliest thing I saw at the Rio
Part of the Masquerade Show in the Sky

Then, the next day at Bally’s, I found another of the same machines, put in my $20 and played for a bit. I got down to $5 and figured the end was nigh.

And then on one spin I won $144.00.

Since the machine pays out in credits, I had to do the math multiple times just to convince myself that I’d really won $144.00 and not $14.40. But no, I really did. After a few more small wins, I cashed out at $150.

I had some more wins on an old standby, Hexbreaker, and ended up about +$220.00 on the penny slots for the trip. Which is really just amazing. It paid for (basically) my losses at the poker tables and our Penn & Teller tickets. I’ll say it again: Geez!

Like I said, it’s not life-changing money, but it doesn’t hurt, and I came by it honestly, so I have no regrets about it at all.

My poker exploits were less impressive. I stuck to low-limit games an lost about $80 during the weekend. Plus the entry fee for the tournament, since I did well, but not well enough to cash. I’m going to write a separate entry for all the geeky poker goodness of the trip. I had a good time and learned some stuff, but I’m still not a winning poker player.

Lion Cubs at the MGM Grand

Going Home

We ate a lot of good food on the trip. Besides what I mentioned above, we also had lunch at the Cafe Bellagio (which turns out to border the hotel’s conservatory, not its famous outside pool as I’d thought) and at Kahunaville at Treasure Island. While Kahunaville had good food, it was its mixed drinks that really stood out: I got a White Chocotini, which consisted of white chocolate liqueur, Bailey’s Irish Creme, and vodka, in a martini glass lined with a veneer of chocolate syrup. Wow. Debbi got a Rum Runner, an extremely tasty fruity drink. They were really, really good.

View from our table at Cafe Bellagio

But finally on Wednesday it was time to go home. Actually, I was feeling like the trip was a day longer than it needed to be, and coming home was not such a bad thing. We certainly had a good time, but next time we’ll probably stick to just 3 nights in Vegas.

Getting through security at the Vegas airport took forever, but we finally made it back home, and were greeted by happy kitties on our arrival. Coming home was marred a bit by dropping my stone turtle which I use as card protector when playing poker, and breaking two extremities. I might be able to glue it back together, but I was really angry, since it’s a really nice little carving that I picked up at WisCon last year. Grrr. Thinking about it still makes me upset, but I have no one but myself to blame.

But, we’re home now, and we’re one big happy (mostly furry) family again. It was a good trip, but it’s good to be home.

Return to Disneyland

This past weekend was time for our annual trip to Disneyland. It’s “annual” in the sense that Debbi and her friends really love Disneyland and the Disney characters, but while I enjoy the rides I don’t enjoy them so much to go more than once an year, whereas they, well, do. So I guess it’s really my “annual” trip to Disneyland.

Anyway. If you’re new to reading about this whole thing in my journal, you can find last year’s accounts and links to earlier ones here.

This year’s trip didn’t start off auspiciously. Debbi and I went to dinner Wednesday night, and when we came out of the restaurant I turned the key to my car and – well, the lights on the dash come on, sort of, and the starter clicked, and not much else happened.

Yes, my car’s battery had died.

The AAA guy who came to jump my car said I should have my battery framed, since it was the original battery from 1999, and he says most people are lucky to get 5 years out of a battery like this, not 7. Fortunately, we always rent a minivan or something for these multi-person trips to Disneyland, so my car could just sit in the garage until Monday. Which it was destined to do, since it got home without a hitch, but as soon as I turned off the engine it refused to start again. The battery’s so dead it won’t even work the door locks with the remote clicker.

We were scheduled to meet Lisa and Michel to get the aforementioned minivan at the airport, but of course we were late, since we drove home to drop off my car and switch to Debbi’s. It turns out it wouldn’t have been much faster had my car worked properly since there was a hitch in picking up the van, so by the time we got there everything had just gotten smoothed out.

All-in-all, we ended up not getting home until around 9:30, which meant we were up until close to midnight packing and otherwise getting ready. A bit of a pain since Lisa and Michel picked us up at 8 am on Thursday morning. Fortunately the rest of our long weekend was pretty smooth. By leaving early, we managed to avoid the worst of the traffic in LA.

Disneyland was pretty good this time around, although usually we’re there on Sunday and Monday, and it seems that the park is just insanely full on Saturday. Sheeesh! I think we were a little disappointed that we weren’t able to ride some of the major rides as much as we usually do because of the long lines.

On the bright side, we did get to ride the big roller coaster in California Adventure several times, which ain’t bad since it’s probably my favorite ride in the whole park. I also got in a good zinger on the Jungle Cruise, for which the “guides” are known for their bad puns. It went something like this:

Guide: This… is a boat. Spelled B… O… uh… T… E.

(Objections from a few patrons.)

Guide: Well, how do you smell “tote”?

(A little confused muttering.)

Guide: T-O-T-E. So if you replaced the ‘T’ with a ‘B’, then you have ‘boat’!”

Me: Or you have “tobe”.

Guide: No… uh…. yes, you do.

It’s good to be a smartass.

We got a little rain Friday night, and a bunch of rain Saturday night (right while we were sitting down to dinner, naturally), but otherwise the weather was warm and mostly sunny. Thanks to that, I even was able to ride the Grizzy River Run – one of my favorites – even though everyone else in our party-of-six wimped out! (Lisa’s friend Yvonne and her boyfriend Wender were also with us.) I managed to avoid getting soaked, even though a woman on my raft had a big wave come right up over her lap and purse!

(I guess we missed a whole bunch of rain that got dumped on the Bay Area over the weekend, too.)

Debbi and Lisa push themselves pretty hard to have as much fun as possible at the park while we’re there, and my feet just give out after a certain number of hours. I went back to the hotel a little early on Friday night, and happened to stumble across a concert called Celtic Woman on PBS, which featured some orchestral arrangements of celtic music and a few contemporary songs, sung by a quintet of ladies (and one fiddler) backed by orchestra and a small chorus. It was pretty neat. I might need to buy their CD, seeing as I’m a sucker for:

Celtic music;
Lush orchestral arrangements, and
Lovely female vocals (as opposed to lovely female vocalists, whom I appreciate as much as the next guy, but whose appeal doesn’t come through in an audio medium).

Debbi enjoyed it too, as we watched some of it when re-run on Saturday night. It turns out she has a fondness for productions like that, which I hadn’t known!

So now we’re home, and we picked up Chinese take-out for dinner, I finished reading Tim Powers’ new novel (review coming soon!), and I made a fire so we could have a lazy and warm evening at home. Mission accomplished, I say!

Tomorrow I get to find out if Michel’s car-jumper works, and I’ll find some place to get my battery replaced. I figure if the dealer can’t take me, I’ll either go to Sears, or to a repair place a few blocks away (or maybe I’ll try the last place first). It’s just a battery (I hope), so I bet it doesn’t matter much.

Wish me luck!

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