To cap off the end of the summer (and for an impromptu celebration for a new job), Andy and I went back to Fabulous Las Vegas this past weekend. I have to say again that I LOVE my office being right next to the Burbank airport. The ease with which I can get somewhere for a quick weekend is just so nice!


Friday night I joined Andy (who'd taken the day off and flown in earlier) at Excalibur, and we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe at the MGM Grand. Afterwards we began the collectible card quest. You know, the one where you get Players Club cards at all the casinos in hopes that they'll notice that you're dumping money into them and give you nice comps (so far I've earned $1 back from MGM -- woohoo!). A little gambling at MGM (slots tonight) and New York New York. It was Andy's night, not mine. The most amusing moment for him was walking up to an extremely bored-looking Casino War dealer and dropping $10. He was dealt a 4, but the house got a 2, so he just walked away with extra money. I thought things like that weren't supposed to work!?! My inner chain-smoking grandma was most unhappy, but at least one of us wasn't losing too badly. Then we got the One Club card at Monte Carlo, where we discovered that they were giving a car a day away this weekend. Of course, you needed to get 100 points on the card for a ticket, and after playing slots for something like 6 points we quickly decided that it might be easier to just BUY a car instead. By that point it was getting late and we were tired (a theme of the weekend, as you'll see), so it was back to the castle for a good night's rest.



Saturday we got up appropriately late, leaving the room somewhere around noon. First order of the day was to pick up tickets for the show we were seeing that night, so it was off to Bellagio (by way of NYNY, then the Monte Carlo shuttle). I had been through Bellagio VERY briefly in 2001, so this was a lot of new stuff for me. I hadn't seen their conservatory before, and I really really liked it. Water arches, bouncing fountains, and a nice turn-of-the-century "American liberty" theming. Totally unexpected. After picking up the tickets, we went back to the conservatory and ate at the cafe there, which turned out to be a fine choice. Very good food, not too long a wait, a little bit of "manager vs. staff" drama at the nearby waitstation, and my first game of Keno ever. I broke even at Keno, which was nice, because I probably won't play it again: I don't think it's my thing. It was neat to have the woman just come up, take the money and run off and magically put us into the game, but it was ultimately a pretty big "blah" when the numbers all just popped up with no real fanfare. I'd probably be more likely to do it if it were more of a production number.

After lunch, while we were in the area we crossed the street over to Bally's, where my tradition of slot wins actually continued (the FIRST win of the weekend for me, my inner grandma would like to add, and it wasn't much). From there we decided to head up and take a look at the Wynn, so we took the monorail (pretty keen!) up to Harrah's (got the card: they were running a The Price is Right promotion, but we didn't win). From there we walked. Turns out we should have gone one more monorail stop, but we didn't realize that there was a free shuttle there. Oops. We walked through Casino Royale (always fun to see the difference in crowds between something like the Bellagio with its $15 minimum tables and expensive rooms and restaurants and CR, where $5 everything and a Subway counter practically on the casino floor), then on past the Venetian to Wynn. Wynn is a very pretty hotel. You can definitely tell that the guy behind Bellagio was behind this one, too, with some of the same touches here and there that are his hallmarks. We got the card there (the Red Card, because apparently red is fun), and again Andy did well at slots while I waved a twenty or two goodbye. The inner grandma doesn't like that...

We didn't plan on a long time there, so after a brief stop at the golf pro shop (where I got my father a fantastic gift), it was off to the monorail back to the MGM and then back throuh NYNY to Excalibur. On a side note: I have to say that Las Vegas managing to make a public transit system without using public funds just rules. Transportation and urban planners, can we please have a good system in LA, too? Thanks. While we're at it, we'd also like a high-speed rail that can compete with the airlines to Vegas.


Andy wanted to go to the pool and I wanted to relax, so we went down to the pool where he swam while I fell dead asleep on a lounge (in the shade, so no embarassing "waking up looking like a lobster" stories here!). I thought I was dozing but apparently I was doing more than that, because I don't remember him visiting in the middle of his swim and dripping on me, but I was wet.... at any rate I needed the sleep. Ever since my parents' visit started on the 4th, I've been going full tilt both weekdays and weekends, working and organizing weekend activities. This is the first weekend I've had where there wasn't a big Plan of things to do, so I knew going in that relaxation was going to be important.


Then back to the room so that we could get ready for the evening. Dinner was NYNY's Il Fornaio. I ordered the seared rare tuna dinner and made a point of asking the waitress if it was really rare. She got a little mock-offended, and assured me it was. It showed up, well, not pink at all, which made it really dry and chewy. She apologized when I complained (apparently another diner had asked for that: please people, do yourself a favor and NEVER brutalize your sushi-grade tuna by cooking it all the way through!!!). That was followed by a trip through Monte Carlo and the shuttle to Bellagio. We were in plenty of time for our show, so we stopped and Andy got in on a session at Roulette. Played a number for terraplanner, it didn't win. But Andy did. He and the woman next to him (who was also going to the show) got on a roll: the same number (14 I think) hit something like 4 times. It was truly freaky. After Andy cashed out we came across a $1000 minimum blackjack table (which had an audience around it). Normally aren't those in the high-roller section away from the teeming masses? All we've ever seen out before is $100 up to $500. At any rate, two people were playing. It hurt me to watch: if you really want to throw that much money away, please throw it to me. I need it more than the casino does!

Then it was time for the show: the Cirque du Soleil show 'O'. If you've seen it you know that it's amazing. If you've seen another Cirque show, then you know how amazing these shows tend to be: add to it a big pool where the stage rises into and out of the water. The clowns do a couple of great numbers as usual, and the flying and diving is spectacular. Then there are the guys in the red overcoats and tall black boots. They looked very conservative (if slightly odd in a "tall oopma loompa" sort of way) until they started dancing so that their coats flapped high enough that you could see that their boots ended and then there was nothing but thigh up to the underwear. Sort of scandalous! The show looks amazing, as all Cirque shows do. But the addition of the water tank and the extra dimension to the performances that it allows is just incredible. Plus, even though it's incredibly difficult looking (as are all of these shows), it just looks like FUN.

After 'O' (which got out at 12:20am), we were going to play Blackjack but couldn't find anything at Bellagio less than a $15 minimum, so we wandered up to Mirage for a bit (the slots were still friendlier to Andy than to me), which had only two tables with a $10 minimum full to the brim. Since it was getting late, we decided just to head back to the room and turn in.



Sunday morning we switched from Excalibur to MGM Grand (yay for email marketing: we got freebies in addition to a cheap room rate -- which is only just considering how much we ended up giving them in their freakin' casinos!). I slept as late as possible before getting out be the 11am checkout, and we walked over to MGM and checked in there. After checking in, we FINALLY sat down for some blackjack at a $5 minimum table. I have decided something: $5 blackjack doesn't do it for me. Sure, you lose money slowly, but you can't really WIN very quickly either. I know that the odds are good on it, but the excitement just isn't there. So next time I do blackjack, I'll just have to do it for more money (or, preferably, find a different game to enjoy). After running through the money I wanted to spend on that, then watching as Andy once again got money from slots while I languished, I decided that my Sunday morning masochism was over, and we settled on having lunch at the MGM Grand Buffet. Using our credit, we ended up paying $1.53 for both of us. Nice.

After lunch, it was back up to the room to change, and then to head out to the pool. MGM has a lazy river pool, and we floated around for a long while. It was hot, the sun was bright and the water was cool. But we didn't get to dive and jump around like the people from 'O'. :) Back up in the room around 4, we decided to relax a few minutes. Yeah, so the next thing we knew it was 6:30. Oops. :) Told you I needed sleep!

Plans curtailed by our impromptu nap, we headed out (catching some other people in one of the elevators that we hadn't ridden in before -- it was really ornate, and it dropped us behind a door away from the others: we hitched a ride on the VIP elevator, score!), stopped by a cocktail lounge at MGM for our free drink there (mango martini -- SO good!) and headed via monorail over to shop at The Forum at Ceaser's Palace, accompanied by dinner at Bertolini's. It surprised me to see that the Fao Schwarz at The Forum was still open, since the whole chain went bankrupt. A newspaper clipping at the doorway explained all. The Las Vegas and New York stores have reopened as toy store/ice cream shoppes, with apparently really creative desserts. Who knew? Best of luck to them, I say.

Since Andy had done well at Wynn the day before, we headed over there after dinner. I was looking to try Craps, and of course a little more slots at the shiny new casino wouldn't be unwanted. By this point, I was really calling the weekend a wash gambling-wise. I'd had one smallish win at Bally's but otherwise had been manhandled by the fates, so I pulled out the last cash I was willing to withdraw. We couldn't find a Craps table below $15 min. at Wynn, so we decided to just slot it some then head back to MGM, which would almost certainly have a suitable craps table. So putting in the last twenty I had, I played away on the slots.... and hit $125. Huh.... so my inner grandma is happy after all! :)

Back at MGM we found our craps table, and I began to learn the betting. Now, those who've known me for a while know that I know a LOT about a two-dice distribution. I've done actual statistical studies on it, and the only reason I've never played craps before is because I didn't know how the betting worked. So learning was a good experience. Had I trusted myself earlier, I'd have come out ahead. As it was, about half an hour of the game left me $10 down, but now I feel a lot more confident and look forward to it again! It was getting late, so one last trip to the slot machines before bed: I actually won again! So as it turns out, we both had only slightly down weekends, had the chance to be "the winner" at slots while the other wasn't, and I learned a new game! Yay!

The rest was the usual: pack, go to bed too late, get up too early and fly back!


It was a grand weekend and again I realize that there are some perks to living in LA and working next to BUR. A weekend of relaxing away from it all was just what I needed. I feel refreshed and ready to push through to my post production vacation. Now, back to work! :)