Our first real, full day here. With the site-wide Wi-Fi, things are a lot easier. I couldn’t resist on not checking my work stuff. Holy buckets, over 100 e-mails already in 36 hours. My favorite was from the boss (Eddie nowadays) telling the team to use their tools and procedures because he had noticed several visiting my cube for assistance. I guess I’ve bored them so much about this vacation they tuned out. Actually I thought it was nice to know I’m missed.
One thing I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t let slide is my running. I love running even more on a day off. I push myself to go farther and with a hot tub being present, I make sure to get those jets on my lower joints.
After spending the rest of the morning kicking around, checking what our paychecks would be come Friday, watching cartoons (they get both feeds of Cartoon Network!), eating breakfast and laying out a loose agenda…we headed to New York, New York for lunch. Somara’s lunch tradition is the fast-food fish joint, Fulton’s it says on the receipt. You can’t get this easily in Austin, Long John Silver’s isn’t popular nor close. We had round three of our video poker challenge (see below), tried a new game since it’s harder and harder to find good Jacks or Better machines. I don’t recommend Pick ’em, sure you break even with Nines or better, just the rest is rather lame.
I got a more complete futures sheet on sports. The MGM-Mirage chain has been proving itself to be superior over the Caesar’s Palace chain here. The guy at NYNY was super nice. He gave me a self-addressed envelope to mail in any winning tickets. I told him, I like your optimistic attitude…I have 60-1 on my alma mater Marquette to win the NCAA championship next year. HA! Those douchebags will choke in the second round. Should they win, I’ll take the $600, it will probably cover most of what I got screwed on for textbooks. The remainder were NHL futures for the Cup. Incidentally, the LA Kings are playing back-to-back preseason games at the MGM this weekend. The Strip has been awash in Kings jerseys, not a one in the original purple and gold which tells me they’re all fair-weathered, post-Gretzky fans. Just teasing. Back to the bets. Dallas Stars for Jeremy (30-1), Detroit Red Wings for Brian at work (20-1) and Philly Flyers for me (20-1). Detroit has it harder due to their move to a real conference, this will give those Chicago crybabies a few more byes to defend their asterisked Cup they share with the ’95 Devils and ’99 Stars.
The Packers have the week off which is a mixed bag, I enjoyed the hell out of them stomping the Bears last time. I didn’t want to break my new NFL tradition because football is better with money on it, so I went with the 49ers over the Rams. The 49ers were already favored but I went with them for two different reasons: I don’t like the carpetbagger team in St. Louis and the nickname of my new Enterprise team is Niners, a story I’ll cover later. Obviously I won. The game was a nailbiter in the first half yet there were more flags being thrown than a parade. Hockey has less meddling from the officiating on a rough night. It’s over, the 49ers got me my first victory, I’ll take it.
Hot off the win, I hit the craps tables at Palace Station. This took a while, few people were playing. I don’t like to do table games alone, craps is a social game and fun with a group. Eventually there was a small crowd. Didn’t get one hard number. Did walk away slightly ahead, five. Tipped the staff a buck occasionally, plus two for the shooter who landed on six several times for me. How I wish I had Jose, Nelson or my brother-in-law Aaron along. They’d enjoy the action.
Up next…let’s see what the owner’s meeting has to offer besides tickets to see Blue Man Group and a half day spent.
Gambling Report:
- Video Poker: Steve 2, Somara 1 ($6.25, $10?)
- Somara: No idea, I guess -$60
- Steve: -$19.25: VidPoker -$33.75; Football +$9.50; Craps +$5.00