Last Strip Trip of 2008

After being away from Las Vegas for about 10 days, it was time to return to the Strip to see if they were still giving away money.

I headed to Bally's where I parked and checked into the poker room. At 9 a.m. the room was busy and there was a waiting list so I headed over to Bill's Gambling Hall. Their tiny poker room - actually just a roped off area - doesn't open til 11 a.m. so I played a little blackjack and left about $10 up.

I was itching to play poker, so I went to the Flamingo and was immediately seated at a $1-2 No Limit game. For the first 30 minutes, I don't think I played more than 1 or 2 hands. I won a small pot with a pair of Kings, but was pretty much card dead. My $100 buy-in dwindled and I ended up rebuying for a second $100. After dropping about half of that, I took a lunch break and grabbed a chicken salad on rye (pretty tasty).

Then I hit the Flamingo blackjack table and after an up-and-down start, I managed to eke out a $65 profit. I didn't want to give that back, so I quit for the day and took a walk over to Caesars Palace to check out the sports book. I bought tickets on today's bowl games - I took Nevada (a loser), Rice over WMU and OKie State over Oregon. We'll see how those turn out.

For the trip, I lost about $85.

On the way home, I stopped to cancel our storage unit. I talked to the managers there about renting a larger unit next year - one that will hold our futon, platform bed, TV, dining room set and several boxes of kitchen stuff. We had a 5x5 foot unit that easily held last years items and cost us $29 a month. They suggested a 5x10 foot unit that would run $61 a month, but I think we could get the stuff into a 5x7 unit for only $37 a month. Anyway, we'll have to factor that rent into our budget. I'll be checking with them in April.

I also stopped by a local grocery store and picked up some celebratory munchies for New Year's Eve. We had considered hitting the Strip for NYE, but after hearing some of the hassles involved, decided to celebrate at home. The Strip is expecting some 250,000 people. There are several restrictions about where you can park, what you can carry (no cans or bottles allowed on the Strip) and access to some of the casinos. Today, for example, you could not park at Bill's unless you were a hotel guest or had a player's club card.

Anyway, we're looking forward to watching football bowl games and popping a cork on our champagne in the privacy of our apt. In many ways 2008 was a heck of a year and we're looking forward to 2009 with optimism.

Hope your year is filled with nothing but blessings...