Thanks to Dan for this one… and a little reference to a similar loss for Dan

If any of you have heard about my epic trips to Las Vegas then you’ve certainly learned of my fondness for Gilly’s. Well that has all come to a close now. I knew the New Frontier was on it’s way out, just didn’t know when. Gilly’s had some of the strongest, cheapest drinks in town along with a wonderful country music atmosphere and the ever popular “bikini bull riding”. I always found it to get raunchier each time around. It was great for cheap (relatively) entertainment. I remember once when Mason even got to be a judge… R.I.P Gilly’s

I’ll try to make a long story short…

I went to get my hair cut over lunch today and my primary location was no longer!  I even looked online before I went to find something closer to work.  I didn’t find anything, nor was my location listed.  I thought nothing of it, but when I drove by the signs were gone and I didn’t have a goto.  I was pissed since I needed a haircut badly.

I got back to work and started talking to BT as I know that he cuts his own hair.  I have some experience cutting my hair back in the high school days but it  didn’t include the “fade” which is what I need now.  Any way he convinced me to go back to the home haircut and buy myself a clippers.

Well I cut my hair along with some help from LBT  Its not too bad.  I think it’ll take a few more tries to really hone in the skills, but now that I am saving myself roughly $300/year I don’t care all that much.

Final regular season game of volleyball tomorrow.  Let’s keep this shit going!  And Happy Birthday BT ! and Mom!

On a side note… When will I get back to Vegas!?

I know, I know, it’s been a while since I last blogged.  I’m catching from every which way so I figure I better get this over and done with.

The new job is going well, I’ve learned quite a bit and there seem to be some good opportunities here to learn and grow professionally even more.

There isn’t too much excitement these days.  I’m finishing up some projects around the house, waiting for Guitar Hero III to come out, and working a fair amount.

I have found time to watch my beloved Packers.  It’s been a pleasant surprise, but I still think they are an 8-8 team and the lack of a running game will catch up with them soon.  Hopefully they can prove me wrong!

I’m thinking I need a trip to Vegas, it’s been too long for me.  Although the weather window in Vegas is quickly closing.  May need to hold off for a tropical vacation this winter.

I survived and it turned out to be a success. I even managed to gamble $0.00. w00t!

Thursday — After an early flight and a screwdriver on the plane, and several attempted conversations with Mason about why he wasn’t at the airport for our flight we landed without incident. We get to McCarren and I get ahold of Mason who has left me a message. Turns out (and this isn’t the first time) he misread his itinerary and had to catch a standby at 4:00. God bless Airport check-in. If there is ever a time you need to make a choice between hotels, pick one with airport check-in. What took 15 minutes at the airport would have been probably 45 minutes to 1 hour at the hotel and that’s the last thing a guy wants to do when he arrives in Vegas. Dan, Jason, and I hopped up to our room at the Flamingo, put on more appropriate Vegas attire (shorts and a t-shirt). Then we started walking and hit every beer special we could find $1 taps at O’Sheas and a sweet deal at some convenience store $1.99 24 oz Bud Lights. We walked and walked and walked. Made it from the Flamingo down to the Stratosphere. Once we got there we stood and looked at each other and in a Forrest Gump moment we turned around and walked the other way back to the Flamingo for some eats. As we waited for Mason, Dan went to play poker and J and I started to get into the drinking. We witnessed a very drunk vegas local piss himself at Caesar’s and manage to be escorted out by security and his drunk buddy. Mason finally arrives and we head off to Gilley’s for some bikini bull-riding which is always a hoot. Of course the amateur’s have no chance of winning as they bring in the ringers for the $500 prize.

Friday — After one heck of a first night (including many red bull vodkas) I had to play it easy the next morning. We spent a fair amount of time lounging by the pool. Had a few girly drinks. This is when the day turned sour for Chad. I was hungry and went a grabbed a sandwich.  I am convinced that sandwich gave me problems the rest of the day.  The nightlife including a trip to the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay for the Spazmatics.  Once again, I enjoyed their show.

Saturday — It took awhile to recover.  A good buffet downtown at the Main Street Station and some meandering downtown in and out of the Formula 1 series car race and I started getting a bit tired.  We almost witnessed a serious crash.  On this particular straight-away stretch I would guess the F1’s were probably pushing 175mph.. maybe even close to pushing 200mph.  For whatever reason there were some speed bumps in the road (probably there naturally since it was a street race).  For the most part the drivers did a fine job navigate around them to avoid jumping.  One car hit it a little close and almost planted the nose of the car right into the sidewall.  Needless to say there was a loud “ohhh” from the crowd.  After getting back to the hotel, we found ourselves at IP’s Embers for a nice steak meal to set the night out right.  We hit the Piano Bar at Harrah’s.  These guys were ok.  I’ve seen better.  Some chowder head was dropping cash for songs like it was his job.  Oh well.  Once again we hit Gilly’s for a little more entertainment and cheap”er” drinks.  After Gilly’s it was off the the Famous Glitter Gulch.  62 Girls were on show, or so they say.  I ended up with a few lap dances… but honestly the best part about the place is the bathroom attendant.  He’s an older African American gentlemen and he’ll gladly offer you his opinion on anything you ask him.  I’ve heard him say some crazy shit.   We finally got to bed at 7AM and a few drunken phone calls and SMS’s later.

Sunday — It was a doozy.  Tired and worn out from the weekend we lounged by the pool while waiting for our later flight.  The cab ride to the airport was a nightmare.  We were almost nailed by a speeding car.  I don’t think our cabbie was paying attention.. and she may have been a little sauced.  A bumpy plane ride home made it tough to catch up on any sleep.

All in all it was successful and thanks to everyone who came.  For those of you who didn’t you missed out on a good one.  Now I am sick and trying to recover.  Whew this was a long one. Hopefully you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Well the time has finally arrived and me and the boys are leaving for Vegas in just over 12 hours. I think I’ve got everything covered. Sunblock, the appropriate travel medications, a charged camera battery, an (almost) full ipod, swim trunks, and a reservation at the Flamingo in Las Vegas.

The weekend weather report looks fabulous (high 80s) and it’ll be nice to get out of this 30 degree weather for a few days. I decided it would be a good idea to have a few red bulls tonight. We’ll see how good of an idea that is at 5AM tomorrow. Anywho, I am pumped and ready for this one. I’ve got a couple loose ends to tie up tonight, finalize the suitcase, and get some shut-eye for a real barn burner.

Beware of drunken phone calls and text messages.
I hope to report back on Monday.

Jason , Dan, and Mason.. I’ll see you on the other side.

Over and out!

I stumbled upon an entertaining flash “tutuorial” about Learning to Dance with Napoleon Dynamite. It was entertaining not because I hadn’t ever seen the movie or revel in his sweet dancing moves, but I never knew there were names for all of his moves.  I bring this up because Vegas is a mere week away and when Jason and I drink and end up in strange bars with thumping music, we tend to pull out some of the classics… i.e. “The Lawnmower”, “The Shopping Cart”, “The Bus Driver”, “The Chainsaw”, etc.  Well now I can add an entire new set of moves.  Watch out, I’ll be studying this intently. You can bet they’ll be out at the wedding too.

Tina informed me last night that we have 100 days before the wedding. It sure seems to be coming up fast. While it feels like we have just about everything taken care of I don’t feel like I can coast along quite yet. There are few ends that need to be tied up. We gotta purchase the wedding bands, book transportation, send out the invites, pick up the marriage license, get the pig and the spit for the roast… hmm my head is starting to spin thinking about all of this.

Let me move on to something a little more pressing… Vegas in 13 days! Think “Very Bad Things” without the “Rainman” suite, and the coke, and the hooker, and the killing, and that’s pretty much what we’ve got. I’ve got big plans to lounge at the pool and get smoked out in the warm intense sun of early April in Las Vegas. I plan on hitting Gilly’s for some bikini bull riding as well. After that, it’s wherever the lights take me. I’m pumped, Dan says he’s ready for some poker, and J says his recent birthday gifts have him pimped out for a Vegas weekend, and Mason doesn’t tell me much about what his plans are, and Big Tuna wanked out, and Chris is “still deciding”. Let’s get it on!

I also recently received my Fonera router. If you happen to be in the neighborhood feel free to leech, but I’ll be watching!

Finally booked the flight to Vegas for the bachelor party. So far it’s Jason, Dan, and I. I believe there will be a few more stragglers as the date approaches. If you’ve changed your mind or want in, let me know and I’ll pass along the details.

The lamp on my dlp went out. I hope 9 months is not indicative of the normal lamp life. OEM bulbs run for about $150, and I have seen that my particular bulb is on national back-order. Sounds like everyone’s is going out. I have a service call into Samsung since it should be covered under warranty. Sigh.. 3 - 5 business days to set it up and then who knows how long before they will come out to my house. You can bet I’ll be buying a spare for the next outage… then again maybe I’ll have a different TV by then. So Tina and I have resorted to the good old days of the 19″ TV in our upstairs living room. It’s not quite the same :-/

The Choxie bar experiment is complete. 207 bars in just over 3 weeks. Not too bad. I won’t disclose the juicy details here but lets just say we saved some money on our wedding favors.

I can’t sleep… I can’t eat, I can’t drin…… whoa whoa whoa.

Yeah, I’m still up browsing the net and calling hotels for good deals. Like they are gonna change every few hours or something… or succumb to some random guy giving them the bachelor party spiel. I think the problem is that I don’t have a whole lot to worry about, as far as the wedding plans go. I have to thank Tina for being so proactive and on top of things. I think we’ll start getting stressed pretty soon as some of the finer details come down to reality.

Even if you are here for something random, check out the gallery for some entertaining stuff… and you can now rate the pics.

Enjoy! I gotta hit the sack.

Just throwing this out there as a possibility… but J and I are looking into going to Vegas for my bachelor party. It looks like the weekend of April 5 - 8 (Thursday - Sunday).

My preference is to stay at a decent hotel on the strip with a pool… although a guy has got to wait for the right price. Prices seem a bit high to me at this point. I’ve been monitoring The Flamingo, Tropicana, and Hooters (ghasp). I don’t know much about Hooters other than their hotel rates have been reasonable

If I get a shot to hang out at the pool, drink over-priced booze, slam on the ponies at ESPNZone, place a couple of wagers, have one more shot at the Gilly’s girls, Glitter Gulch, etc.. etc.. I’ll take it.

If you want in let me know.