The Final Step

Let's talk post-processing, the "final" step in digital photography. Often, this is the most involved, and can save even terrible photos. I rather like a shot I recently took and put through the paces, so I figured I'd document the high-level view here. Not the individual steps mind you (there are plenty), but enough to show why this is such a key part of the process. Each picture can be clicked to show a larger version.

My route home from Las Vegas flies over/around The Grand Canyon. Usually, I'm in an aisle seat, or asleep, or my camera is in the baggage compartment, or it's 1am and dark. My last trip, I made sure that none of these was an issue -- I flew home in the afternoon in a window seat on the right side of the plane, with my camera in my lap. Then I fell asleep. But I woke up just in time. One of the MANY pictures I took was this one:


Nothing special, it's washed out, poorly-composed, and looks very little like what I saw. But I loved the landscape, the plateaus and canyons and cliffs. I figured I had to be able to save something of this shot. So I ran it through a bunch of Lightroom editing to get to this:


Better,but I'm still not a fan of my crop, it's VERY blue, and the details are still ill-defined. So to Photoshop it did go for some sharpening. Then there was more editing in Lightroom after that to come to this:


Now we're getting somwhere. The colour is reaching something recognizable, the details are, well, detailed, I like the crop more, and the contrast is showing off the depth of the scene. I could have left it here and been fairly happy with it. In fact, I almost did. But then I decided to see if running it through Photomatix as a 1-image pseudo-HDR shot would add anything.

It was a good call. It cleared it up even more, brought out more detail, and was a measurable improvement. I went through another round of editing in Lightroom, now mostly tweaking, and called it day and uploaded it. Then I looked at the next day and realized how BLUE it still was. Being away from my computer, I opted to play with a few other options. On my phone with Snapseed I hit the "auto" button and was immediately sad that it had fixed it so well. Then I tried the same with Flicker's online editor and it automatically made the blue shot even better than Snapseed had.

Well, this upset me a bit, because I figured I should be better able to tune a photo on my desktop with all my fancy software better than an app on my phone or some Yahoo! web tool. So I returned home and started futzing with colours and white balance and saturations until I was able to replicate what my phone could do. This is the final product:


Deeper shadows, the blue gone, the haze lifted, the details popping out - what a difference from that original image up top. There are trade-offs to this - the noise is pretty obvious in some areas, and what noise-reduction I did apply smoothed out some of the rougher edges to the rocks. It's also developed a somewhat surreal, alien-world look, but I rather like it myself.

There's more that could be done here. I could work on specific shadows, do some localized noise reduction, manually edit details. I may still do some these things. Eventually though, I have to step back and stop, otherwise it's a paintbrush on individual pixels that nobody will ever notice.

Of course, not every shot needs all these steps, and a lot of an editing workflow becomes second nature over time. Still, the fact that I go through every shot I take to one degree or another has really slowed down the rate I post photos. But then again, it's also made me somewhat more picky in what I choose to actually show.

Four Days in the Desert - Day 4

Finally, I'm wrapping this thing up. Amazing that I got the trip report out before I found myself back in Vegas (that would be mid-January).

Day 4.  Of course, I don't request a late checkout even though I'm red-eyeing it back. So I have to be out by 11am, and I crashed sometime around 5.  Easy.

Up, shower, pack, and check out right on time.  Absinthetics was kind enough to offer his room up to keep my bags in. His mistake as I undoubtedly woke him up for it.  Lesson taught to another American - don't offer Canadians kindnesses, we'll assume you're sincere and take you up on them :).

Bags stowed, I made my way to the Aria sportsbook bar for some good ol' fashioned... umm... whatever is done at the bar by the sportsbook. See, I ain't much of a football fan, but I do like seeing people.  So I hung out, grabbed some quesadilla and wings and beer, and chatted a bit.

At some point, Jordan announced there was cake coming.  It showed up. It looked like this:



It turns out that Pokerist sponsored a whole bunch of stuff for our charming group of degenerates. An extra grand into the team last longer, a bar and food tab on Sunday, and this lovely cake that was about 5x more cake than was needed to feed our group. It was rather tasty to boot, and apparently made by the premiere Vegas cake-makers. I also hear it weighed about a ton.

Very cool of them.

People cheered and sweat and cried about their sportsball teams winning or losing or beating spreads or somesuch.  Myself and OhCaptain opted to wander a bit with cameras in hand.

Between Aria and Crystals is this sculpture:



The ol' refocus your eyes for 3D trick.

We made our way to The Bellagio to see their winter display.  We voted unanimously that it was last year's re-organized and therefore not all that impressive. I have pictures of the penguins and igloos and such, but the reality is that I'm not overly thrilled with most of what I grabbed.  Maybe I'll be able to edit them enough to find something interesting, but for now, there's this:



Outside the Bellagio, we crossed the driveway to see what we could see. Turns out, you can see Paris.



From there, I didn't get too much, but the Cap'n kept snapping.  Hopefully he'll have those pictures posted somewhere at some point. We swung by M&M World, a stop I figured I wouldn't be making this trip, and of course picked up a bag of coconut M&Ms.

Can I mention that the street mascots are all a bit creepy? I can? Good, because they are.

Wandered back through Monte Carlo to Aria, a route that would come in handy later when I was schlepping my bag down the strip. It was determined that the Monte Carlo is about the most boring casino on the strip. Zero character, zero effort.  It was an excitement-sucking vortex of meh.

It was a good walk with another photographer. The last time Cap and I wandered around with our cameras (outside of the Neon Boneyard, but that's different) was Niagara Falls at Eh-Vegas a few years ago. I'm always intrigued by the pictures other people see and their attitudes towards photography.  One of the most fun ways to learn anything is from someone else.

Back at home base, I found myself with time to spare. The Sportsbook bar was dying down, the marathoners were warming up, and the bar was largely empty.  I decided to roll some dice.

Big mistake.

I was impressed Aria was running $10 tables, so I opted for them instead of the $15. Oops. The $15 table was cheering for hours. My table was ICE FUCKING COLD. I blew through my buy-in in around 30 minutes and was down for the trip because of it. Shit. The table was empty and stayed that way for at least an hour afterwards. Nobody was going near the cursed felt.

I, however, couldn't resist the siren call of the Blazing 7's machine. Which promptly handed me around $500 or so, easing my pain.  During this, April let me know that there was an entourage heading to Mandalay Bay to cheer on the marathoners.

Right, the runners. So a bunch of our group was running in a half marathon because they are insane I assume. By this point they'd been pounding the pavement for a while and were expected to hit the finish line in the not-too-distant future. The tale that ran beneath this whole trip was Dan training this group to run this thing, and the tragedies both major and minor that were befalling them in the final days.

Dan almost didn't make it to Vegas because of cancelled flights, but was saved by blogger hearts.

Much bigger was Otis. His father passed away days before, and it was widely expected that he wasn't going to make the trip so soon after the funeral. Nobody could possibly blame him for wanting to spend time with his family, grieving someone who sounds like a great dad. Our thoughts were all with him.

Then the note from him - he was coming after all. His family had convinced him that he couldn't abandon what he'd spent the better part of the year working towards. He needed this run. He needed the accomplishment. And he needed his friends. As word spread among our group, smiles went with it. Partly because we all wanted to see the guy, and largely because we here happy for him and his ability to complete this journey.

They all finished. Otis raising his hands in victory and creating a memory for everyone watching. Or so I hear.  Pauly sums it up well over here.

See, I had grabbed my bags and meandered towards Manadaly Bay (no easy feat with a stuffed check bag in tow). But by the time I got there, the group had already made it out to the street to cheer the runners. Cell service was crap out there, so tweets and texts looking for them went unheeded. I finally figured out where they were after a quick run-in with Garth, and realized there was no way I was getting to them with bag in tow.  The bell desk was a nightmare with all the runners and guests, so I found a spot, and kept an eye out, but saw nobody I knew. I eventually had to turn around find my way to a cab and my flight. I wish I'd been able to stay the extra day so I could have better participated in the festivities.

At least there was Twitter so I could send my congrats and follow along with the action from afar.

I joined the throngs of runners and their friends and family leaving Mandalay via tram. I wandered the bridge to the Tropicana, snapping shots along the way.



I feared the closures and increase in people would result in a taxi issue, so I had budgeted extra time for the airport trip. Turns out I either timed things well or was wrong.  The taxi stand at the Trop had a few people, but nothing tragic.  The first cab that pulled up took a couple people, and the next guy in line begged to come along, as it was an SUV and he was also going to the airport with his wife. The cabbie agreed and then asked if anyone else was going to the airport solo.  I raised my hand and skipped the line.

Immediately the driver was letting us know how pissed he was with the marathon. The shift to a night run (it had previously been in the afternoon) really screwed things up for the cab industry that night. Road closures, HUGE traffic jams, and a lot of pissed off tourists had made for a bad night. We were his first Tropicana pickup (a favourite spot of his) and first airport run of the night. Refreshing surliness aside, he was the best cabbie I'd had this trip.  He backroaded and shortcut to avoid traffic and we were there in no time. As we approached McCarran he pointed at the highway - backed up for miles as traffic hit the Strip, and we were all glad we had a guy who knew what he was doing.

I was the first drop, and he came out to grab my bags for me. I handed him double the total fare and wished him a better night. I figured after all the crappy cabs I'd had so far, this guy deserved my appreciation.  I have no idea what he got from the other two groups in there, but I hope they tipped well.

Airport was a breeze, no crowds, no lines. Leaving me with tons of time to spare.

Sadly, food options were severely limited, and after Jaleo, Raku, and Carnevino, I was forced to order from royalty, his highness, the Burger King. Talk about a long fall. Still, it was food-like, and it filled a hole.

Flight home was spent largely asleep, and all was well. Another trip over. Down cash, up far more in worth was the fun and memories.  I can't wait to do it all again next year.  By then I expect someone will have created a time dilation device so that we can all hang out a bit more.  There's never enough time.

Four Days in the Desert - Day 2b

Full set of Neon Boneyard shots can be found here.  More added as I get around to it.

The concept of Vegas as being 24/7 nonstop action is a bit of a myth.  Mid-day is a pretty open period as people groan off their buffet indulgences, realize that three hours of sleep wasn't really enough, or just find a nice poker table to sit down to for the next 8 hours. Sure, there are still people at the bar, but the real drunkery doesn't get seen until late at night when 21-year old girls in little black dresses keep trying to hold up the buildings as they stumble around vaguely recalling what hotel they're staying in.

During nearly all my Vegas trips, the afternoon is where I slip in things like ziplining, buying M&Ms, or finding a cheap tournament to flip coins in.  This time I opted to head to my room, unload my memory card to my laptop and maybe catch a couple zzz's before a planned mega-dinner. Except that the sun was setting and my room faced west.

So the tripod and camera got set up by the window and all the lights went out to cut reflections. Now my room looked like I was either a spy or voyeur. Who's to say I'm not both though?  Regardless, the goal was to get some sunset shots. This turned into getting night shots as the sun dropped and I wasn't thrilled with what I was getting of the horizon.  Luckily, even the buildings a short walk off The Strip light up as night approaches, and I was able to get some pics I rather liked of the Vdara, the Bellagio tram terminal, and the various loops of road that is Harmon.

Among them was this one.



There are plenty more I'll soon get around to posting.

The whole process of shooting out the back of the Aria took a long time. Enough that plans like "taking a nap" were no longer feasible. I set up the photo dump to the laptop and went about getting ready for a dinner whose sheer size was grossly unplanned for.

There was texting and such to arrange rides, and I eventually met F-Train, Drizz, JoeSpeaker, and Doc Chako in front of the hotel. Raku is a tiny place in a strip mall about 10 minutes away from The Strip. Our group of ten necessitated a fixed price menu, but beyond that, details were unclear. Let's see if I can recall the whole group.  Myself, F-Train, Doc, Drizz, Speaker, Garth,  Saunter, Grubby, Absinthetics, and Katkin.

The easiest way to convey the meal is by cribbing from Speaker's post about it.

We started with a few pitchers of Sapporo. Then the food started to come. If I don't comment, then take the description as "tasty and fairly self-descriptive".

1.- Tofu with Bonito, scallions, wasabi and green tea salt - tofu was served like a giant ball of soft cheese. the green tea salt was on the side, as was a jar of soy sauce.

2.- Bluefin Sashimi Salad with spinach and crispy onions

3.- Red Snapper sashimi and seared- Delicious two-ways snapper. They then asked about deep-frying the leftovers (ie.- the removed skeleton, head, and skin of the snapper). We said yes.

4.- Seafood soup - Kind of. Eel, chicken, (shrimp?), matsutake mushroom, and some kind of nut for people who weren't me, broth in a teapot. Absolutely AMAZING broth.

5.- Shellfish and broth - An understatement. Clams, mussels, whole shrimp, scallops... piled on top of one another. I dislike most of those things and ate them all.

6.- Fried chicken thighs on spinach with balsamic vinaigrette - The first "meh" dish of the night. Generally low on flavour in the chicken, but the bed of spinach underneath was great, having basically marinated in the balsamic.

7.- Asparagus deep-fried with panko bread crumbs

Around here is when I got a text reminding me of my plans to ride the New York New York roller coaster later that night. Hrmm..

8.- Roasted mackerel

9.- Red Snapper bones and skin redux - The snapper from earlier returns as crispy goodness!

10.-  Tofu in beef broth with Salmon roe - I fail to see the point of tofu as anything other than a base for other flavours. Man, what amazing other flavours. Oh, and the tofu is made in-house.

11.- Bacon-wrapped mushrooms, two ways - They're bacon-wrapped mushrooms, two-ways. Of course they were delicious.

I think it was at this point (although it might have been a couple courses earlier) that we were brought hot wet towels and assumed the meal was over. We all agreed that we had certainly received our money's worth and were well-sated. Full, yet not explosively so.  Then this happened:

12.- Kobe beef with wasabi - Oh, there IS more! And it's delicious meat! [nom] REALLY delicious meat!

13.- Pork cheek - Chew the inside of you cheek. Fell how tender it is? Now imagine it tasting like pig.

At this point I assumed our waitress was fattening us up in order to kill us and feed the next party.

14.- Ground chicken on a stick - Again, the chicken was low on flavour. I took a bite and deemed it not worth exploding over.

15.- Salmon rice with salmon roe - Because we weren't moaning in stuffed agony, a giant bowl of carbs is just what the doctor ordered. I had two delicious bites.

16.- Asian pear and strawberry sorbets - This was truly the last dish. And one that was desperately needed. the excellent sorbets cleansed the palate and fit in the tiny spaces left in my stomach.

On top of all this, the ten of us probably went through seven pitchers of Sapporo. Cost per person? $115 all-in. That's the food, beer, taxes, and tip. Best damned deal in Vegas.

So big thanks to F-Train for putting this one together. Fantastic call.

We rode back to Aria to observe mixed games.  Well, I waddled around the tables a bit to check on roller coaster status.  Yup, even stuffed to the gills and barely able to walk, I was going to ride a 203ft, 67 mph coaster. After a bit more (I assume) winning at the tables, Alan and Caity rose to join Dawn, OhCaptain and myself for our trip into oblivion.

By this point, I was actually feeling better. The food had had about an hour to digest, so I wasn't a bloated mass of groaning anymore. We made our way to the coaster, briefly feared it was shut down (due to some drunk walking past saying "it's shut down!"), and paid our $14. I recall it being $25 on my first trip to Vegas, so now it seemed reasonable. I reminded Dawn about the time we rode the Cyclone at Coney Island and she thought she was going to die, and I did nothing to alleviate those fears.

"How much did that cost?"

"$8. I remember because that's how much your life and dignity were worth."

"Grrr..."

Good times.

Alan pulled out his phone to tweet something, and was promptly attacked by the ride nazi because phones are loose and have to be stored. Pleas about his jacket having a zippered pocket weren't enough. I was tempted to tweet about it on my phone that was in my totally not-zippered jeans pocket. Instead, I pulled out my equally loose wallet to hand him a quarter for the locker. The irony was completely lost on the attendant.

With that, the coaster took off, we had fun, I didn't puke on anyone (and in fact felt just fine TYVM), and we wandered back through the carney games that don't give you money. Where I believe it was Alan (or was it OhCaptain?) and I who lost $5 each to claw games because Dawn dared us to play.

Walk back to Aria, drinks, jokes, chats, more battle stories about the dinner with the other survivors, and finally I wandered up to bed.  Yah... 2 days, 4 posts, 2 more days to go. So far? Amazing WPBT. Next up? The tournament and games about gladiators.

Four Days in the Desert - Day 2a

The alarm in the Aria is a curious beast. From bedside you can program how you want the room to wake you up. I opted for lights on, blackout curtains (but not sheers) to open, and the TV to turn  to CNN (although I found myself turning to FOX news for the pure entertainment value). I also set my phone to make odd noises at the same time to force me to cross the room and shut it off.  After all, I wanted breakfast before heading to the Neon Boneyard.

Everything worked as planned, I fired out a tweet along the lines of "anyone want brunch in an hour?" and promptly crawled back to bed for half an hour. At which point I got the first reply, followed by more. Excellent. 4 of us (Maigrey, BrainMC, Alan, and myself) would be heading to Wicked Spoon at the Cosmopolitan - a buffet I'd been looking forward to since I'd heard about it earlier in the year.

So I rushed around, got presentable and went out the door in search of the buffet. For those who didn't make it out there at some point (and shame on you), Wicked Spoon is on the 2nd floor of the Cosmo, towards the taxi/valet area, past the death rays. Seriously. Death Rays. Cool steampunky Flash Gordon-era death rays mounted on podiums in the hallway.

I found 2/3 of my dining partners in line with Maigrey texting that she was on her way.  I paid for myself and Maigrey and waited for the table to be ready.

Eventually we were all around the eatin' slab and ready to grab some grub.  Wicked Spoon is unique in its presentation of buffet.  Most of the items aren't presented in troughs of goop, but put out in individual servings. A small bowl of salad, a mini-pan of eggs benedict, fruit cups, dessert shots, cup o' sweet and sour pork, etc.. And the carving station is plenty impressive too. Slab bacon, tri-tip, sake marinated turkey in a black pepper glaze, and more.  I never even bothered with the omlette station, but have no doubt it would have also impressed.

I asked for a cappuccino and was told "it costs extra".  Okay, how much? "I'm not sure... around $5?" That's a bit steep, but I wants me my foamy milk on espresso dammit! It was a perfectly serviceable capp that didn't offend. Which is saying lots for a buffet. We never saw a bill though, so I tossed an extra $5 on the tip to cover the cost. Looking back, I probably got hustled for an extra $5 on the tip.

Three or four plates later we were plenty stuffed and Brian and I had a boneyard to visit. Tweets and texts back and forth with PokerVixen and OhCaptain had them wrapping up Vixen's Canadian treachery by becoming a US citizen (totally not part of our continuing plan to invade the states slowly via immigration), and she wanted to get home and change before wandering around a dumping ground for Vegas signage. So, Brian having a car, and standign rigth next to me, I opted to ride with him. OhCaptain would meet us shortly.

But first I needed to swing by my room and grab my camera. Plus, Brian, who was staying at the IP, wanted to see the fancy Aria rooms. He was duly impressed by the geegaws and whosamawutzits in the room and we went in search of the cap'n.

Here was the problem after we found him. Brian's car was at the IP, we were at Aria, and the tour started in 30 minutes.

To the cabs!

A quick ride to the IP and we were doing not terribly on time. Then came the search for the dog tracks.

See, Brian might have been a touch tired when he parked his car the previous night, but he made a point of remembering that there were dog tracks leading him to his parking spot. The problem was, he couldn't remember where the tracks started. So we spent 5 or 10 minutes wandering around the back of the IP looking for dog tracks before finally asking the guys at the oxygen bar/water massage area. Tracks found (they lead to a sqaure of dog bathroom grass because the IP is pet-friendly), we then found the car and were on our way with about 5 minutes to tour start.  That's when we hit highway traffic. Three cops, cars pulled over, multiple arrests.

Luckily, OhCaptain called the boneyard and told them we had no sense of time due to me being on Canadian time or something, and they completely understood his thick Minnesota accent enough to say "whatever, we're starting without you."

We found our way thanks to Google maps and Cap's having been there before.  The tour had indeed started, but was at the "so this is the place we stand to start he tour" phase. Plus the woman in the wheelchair still hadn't made it, so we weren't last. Yes, we were able to beat a wheelchair-bound guest, I'm so proud. Not beat as in battery, but beat as in get there before them.  We clear? No lawsuits? Good.



After the spiel about how they're totally building an indoor museum, we started the tour in the middle with this guy:



Here he is in 3D.  Cross your eyes funny 3D. It's better if you click on him and visit the larger image.



They have lots of piles of letters.



And occasionally even some neon.



Neon is apparently billed per bend in the tube. That thing up there must have cost a fortune. But not as much as this car rental joint's mascot:



The high cost of neon means that a lot of the signage is actually good ol' light bulbs.



We wrapped up at gigantic skull, from the old Barbary Coast, which must have had MASSIVE signage.



For perspective, here's the Googly map of the Boneyard, complete with skull. You may need to turn off 45-degree perspective to really see it.

The Boneyard is a worthwhile way to spend an hour or so of your time. You get plenty of Vegas history stories from the guide and see some cool abandoned signs, if that's your thing. If you have a camera, it's a great place for shots.

From there it was back to The Strip, via Las Vegas Blvd this time, to see the "sights". Man, what a depressing drive that is.  But in many ways, it's a more accurate representation of Vegas, without the veneers and façades that The Strip puts up.

This is, once again, long. So I'll split up day 2 here. Up next - how to combine and epic feast with a roller coaster.

Four Days in the Desert - Day 1b

When we last saw our intrepid Canadian, he was jumping a cab at the Cosmopolitan all by his lonesome to get to the Excalibur. I seem to recall this cabbie actually taking a route that made sense. This opposed to the one who took the highway to the Aria (I wasn't paying attention) earlier in the day.

So I find myself at the Excal and I am, as usual, struck by the cheap cheesiness of the place. But I knew there was a murder (I assume that's the proper group designation) of blogger-types hanging out by the bar, so I just beelined towards Lynyrd Skynyrd's reportedly terrible BBQ joint and swerved at the last second towards the sea of recognizable faces congregated around cheap beers.

I started by giving Bam-Bam a hearty slap on the back, followed by hugs and greetings to the man from Bedrock and his lovely wife Pebbles, who moved from the frosty rolling hills of 45 minutes away from me to the flat golden fields of Saskatchewan (provincial motto: Easy to draw, hard to spell.).  About 5 seconds after this, Bammer tried to convince me to jump in a cab with them and head to The Palms for some HORSE. A game I detest 3/5ths of. Try as he might, he couldn't get me to budge from the Robin Hood-themed drinking establishment I had yet to ensconce myself in.

There was chatting, the some quick chat with newly-minted full-time author John Hartness, an all-too-brief talk with Iggy, hellos to Mattazuma, Yestbay, JoeSpeaker, Lightning, and general all-round chaos as I tried to catch up with 20 people at once.

I of course made some time to talk to Carol (no links because she's secretive that way, but you already know how to find her), who is totally my Vegas foodie insider and all-around awesome person who I don't talk to nearly enough.

Then it was chatting with OhCaptain and PokerVixen about any number of things.  In short, everyone was catching up on their year.  Our 140 character spurts of information and all-too-rare ramblings in these bloggy things just don't measure up to face time with these "Internet friends" (I can't possibly call them imaginary any more).

Somewhere during all this people started to split off and I found myself throwing money away at the Burger Girl machine (slot with a giant burger side-game) while Bam-Bam, Pebbles, and Carol looked on. it was very embarrassing... for the burger girl. Then a tweet came in that OhCaptain was learning craps... so I quickly found myself dropping a few bucks on a craps table with the Cap'n, Maigrey, Gus, Speaker, April, Garth, CJ and Lefty, and eventually Drizz (and maybe others, apologies if I forgot you). Basically, we surrounded the table, and the Excalibur gladly took our money.

However, I did introduce CJ and company to my ideal strategy of ALWAYS playing the come bet and putting full odds on. Regularly stating that "nothing could POSSIBLY go wrong with this." At some point it got dubbed the Canadian strategy. As expected, nothing at all went wrong, except the time I was fully loaded and some asshole sevened out without hitting a single damned point. But that almost never (read: always) happens.

With the craps table holding on tightly to my money, I wandered. I dumped some cash in slots, strolled past table games, and eventually found myself wondering where everybody had gone. Turns out a good chunk were at The Palms, but at this point (some 24 hours since I had woken up to head to Vegas) I really didn't feel like dragging my ass over there to give more money away.  What I DID feel like was a hot dog. Probably from staring at the "beer and dog" banner hanging over the Sherwood Forest bar. I started wandering outside to find food.  I contemplated McD's across the road, but I was on the wrong side of the strip and it wasn't the "nice" one by IP, but the scary one in that odd strip mall between MGM and civilization. Nathan's in New York New York was closing up (and who wants end of night hot dogs?), and I kept walking, dropping money in slots and pulling some out along the way.

I made to the Aria without food and my stomach grumbling most unhappily.  I debated on continuing to the IP in search of food or people, and made it as far as the tram in Crystals before turning around and heading to my room. Thinking, "I'll just grab something snacky off room service." There was no such thing as "snacky" on that menu, and I really didn't want a full dinner.  If only I'd known about Secret Pizza in the Cosmo before I got back home... as it was, I passed out on the ridiculously comfortable bed as sleep beats food cravings most days. Besides, I had to be up in time for breakfast at Wicked Spoon the next morning and a visit to the Neon Boneyard.

Four Days in The Desert - Day 1a

For the first time in the winter gathering, I was travelling solo.  I'd been to WPBT events in the summer by myself, but come December I always had a small entourage of local friends who wanted to gamble it up a bit. This presented a few problems. First we were always co-ordinating flights. Some people couldn't get off work and took later flights, others got delayed a day by vacation scheduling SNAFUs, I would generally be rushing to the airport while others were whiling away the hours waiting for me.

Then we'd get to Vegas and I'd be splitting my time between two groups of friends. The ones I saw regularly, and the ones I saw yearly. My priorities were scrambled.

This year, nobody could come with me. I was a both a little disappointed, and a little relieved. Solo for WPBT is easier. Besides, I'd be returning to Sin City with my usual blokes in January.

In short, I was heading to Vegas by myself to meet up with dozens of friends. I get tired of explaining this to people every year. Maybe I'll tell them I'm going to Scranton. Nobody asks who you're going to Scranton with.

I wisely gave myself some extra time to get to the airport, and the accident on the expressway justified the reduced sleep schedule, for I arrived with still plenty of time to spare.

Not that it mattered too much, as the plane was seemingly delayed about an hour. I'm not sure why, as I was asleep on it as soon as the doors closed, so I didn't notice us sitting on the tarmac the whole time. In fact, I didn't notice we were delayed until I thought, "hrm, we should be there by now."  This put a bit of a kink in my plan to play the Aria 1pm as a Winter Classic warmup.

I strolled through McCarran Terminal 1, a bit concerned about the impending taxi lineup, and tweeted such (yay US roaming plan!). But I won the check-in lottery (2nd bag out) and the taxi stand was a well-oiled operation, so I was checked-in at the Aria by the time I got the "Hey, we just landed and have a rental, want a ride?" tweets.  Bloggers rock.

I was riding the high of being back in Vegas, so decided that yes, I could use some help with my ONE bag, and tipped the bellman as I strolled to the front desk.

The past couple of years I've slipped $20 to the check-in clerk at the Bellagio and am running about 75%. Yes, 2/3 of 2.  The first year was a slam dunk with the penthouse floor room with a lake view (you all know the picture that resulted). The second year was a bit of confusion. Spa tower, strip/lake view, 8th floor. But she didn't touch the $20 and made no suggestion that an upgrade had been given. So I kept the cash.

This year I opted to try a different route. I'd ask for the basic upgrade first (strip view, preferably higher up) and tip if I got it.  No dice.  "I'm sorry, we don't have any strip rooms available, but we do have a very nice room clean and ready for you with a mountain view." Fine... no tip for you.

Ah yes, Aria. Fancy new hotel in the centre of The Strip. I was intrigued by it last year, and April  had swung a pretty solid deal for us degenerates this year.

Sixteen floors up I walked into this:

 

Well, I thought, this ain't too shabby. Purple, but nice. I think I made the right call. The rooms were nice, the bed was amazingly comfortable, and the elevators were fast. Being plunked down two doors from the elevator bank made for a particularly easy walk, with surprisingly little hallway annoyance.



That clock there? It controls the whole room. It's the god-clock. Blinds, lights, TV, you name it, the clock controls it. I think I could have ordered room service from it.  The technology in Aria is well-used. Although a couple light switches wouldn't hurt.

I set up my tripod and started shooting the room.  Why? Because I had an assignment on interior design shots due the Monday I got back and had bupkis. Above are a couple of the shots.  Yes, I started my Vegas trip with homework, but that's only because I knew that once I left the room, I wasn't getting any more work done for days. I immediately realized that my setup looked like I was about to shoot amateur porn in a Vegas hotel room. How cliché.

Far too long later, I had my shots taken, adjusted, and sitting on my laptop.  But before I left, I snapped a quick iPhone pic of my view.  Actually, before I left I searched the room for the safe. I took a tweet to @AriaLV to finally locate it. Twitter is damned useful.

 

Walking outside I realized that the mountain view might be the better option with Aria. Corner suites probably have a good view, but dead-front strip? You get Polo Towers... not much to look at.

I decided to check out the surroundings. I hadn't really explored CityCenter on my last trip because it wasn't entirely finished yet. I also figured it would be good to know where the hell Jaleo was as I was meeting April, Dawn, Maigrey, Peaker (Dan, Dan, the marathon man), Grange, Absinthetics, and the artist formerly known as TheWife (who would be getting in too late, but made it for the bill) there for dinner in an hour or so. I meandered through and around and outside Crystals before finding my way to The Cosmopolitan, noting the much simpler route I could have taken (and later used all the time).  Jaleo wasn't too hard to find, except for them not really putting the name in an easy-to-see location. With time to kill, I wandered The Cosmo a bit more and decided I rather liked the place. There's something unique in its overall design and layout... it feels new with a touch of rat-packy retro-Vegas. The chandeliers, the decor, the death rays on the way to the buffet...

Anyway, I wandered back to the restaurant to await the group. I plunked myself on a chair and played Angry Birds or something, occasionally looking up. I'd met most of the above people before, but had no clue what Absinthetics or Grange looked like, so I figured one of them would show up first. A few lost souls wandered around and left, and I tweeted my curiosity if one of them were who I was looking for. Then someone who stuck out just a bit started wandering, and checking his phone regularly. I knew I had a blogger in sight.  I casually strolled behind him and glanced at his Twitter stream... why, I knew all those people...

"That looks like a familiar list of followers."

"Hi, I'm [Absinthetics]."

"Astin/[real name]"

And so the group started to form. Dawn tweeted that she was on her way and blaming F-Train for her lateness. April and co were coming straight from the airport and a wee bit delayed due to Budget having a no horns, and no honouring your quote policy or something. Oh, and Dan had made it town on time too! Which we were all very happy about because it sucks to have your flights cancelled.  Read about it on his blog.

I presented myself to the ladies at the restaurant to let them know my party was a bunch of slackers who don't believe in watches or "time" so they were late. No worries I was told, and no worries were had. The group showed up about half an hour late and we were promptly seated.

Drink menus on iPads were delivered, wine was had, and much delicious food was ordered. Chevre on endive, iberico ham, serrano ham, veal cheeks and morels, chicken wings, bacon-wrapped deliciousness, amazing lobster paella, lamb ribs, flans, and so much more. Tapas is amazing for a group like us - food gets passed around by design, more of any dish can be ordered on a whim, and good times are had.

But my personal food highlight was a simple thing. On the drink pad, "Jose's Gin & Tonic" is listed as "the best gin and tonic you've ever had!"  So I had to inquire what I was getting for $17. I mean, I make a solid G&T, and there are really only two ingredients.  I was assured by our very competent waiter that it would surpass all expectations or he'd take it back. I suggested I simply drink it and not pay if it wasn't "the best" but only the second best. He declined this generous offer and I ordered the drink anyway.

Damn, they were right.

"This ice ball is quick-frozen over dry ice with pure water for absolute clarity."

"Umm.. okay. It's ice."

"The gin is from Scotland with hints of cucumb.."

"So it's Hendrick's?"

"Uh... yes, it's Hendrick's."

"And finally our tonic, it's Fever Tree tonic from the UK. You can find this at Whole Foods."

"Never heard of it."

It's all in the tonic boys and girls. DAMN. Not as sweet as the usual stuff, this made for one FINE G&T. Not mentioned were the slice of lime, the zest of lemon, the two juniper berries, or the bay leaf floating in my drink as well.



$17 worth? I dunno. But it's Vegas, so expect higher prices.  Which reminds me I need to go to Whole Foods after work to find that tonic. (please be in Canada, please be in Canada).

Anyhoo, dinner was fantastic, and from there we went to storm the castle.  Well, *I* went to Excalibur, everyone else went to check in or tag along with those who were checking in.

Yah, this is a long one, and it's still day 1, and I haven't reached the Excal yet. Okay, I'll break it up here.

How not to Plan a Trip

"Oh, you're coming for CES?"

It was a refrain that rang out a few times during WPBT when I mentioned I was returning mid-January.  But my answer was "no."

But I can see why there was confusion. I mean, why the hell would ANYONE go to Vegas during the biggest convention week of the year? Geeks and porn stars descending on the city for their annual pilgrimages for awards and toys.

Well, this guy is going because he let a friend plan a trip. A friend who decided a US (but not Canadian) long weekend in January would be an ideal time to go because it would be dead here on the Monday. The whole trip existing solely because he didn't want to keep missing Christmas parties during the usual WPBT jaunt in December.

So now I'm looking at room that normally go for $70/night jacked up to $800. I'm amazed that my tier status went up with M-Life during my latest stay and that it makes no difference. The big "deals" are charging $150/night for Monte Carlo. Hell, even the IP is charging me.

Aria has a decent rate going for a deluxe king, but everyone is of the strict "I don't share with dudes" maxim.  Whatever. Having 5 people makes for an odd room situation anyway.

I can only imagine that restaurant reservations will be just as easy to come by, and that table limits will be kept nice and low.

In short, probably the most expensive possible choice for a weekend. Time to see if there are some strings I can pull.  Shame I can't whine my way to a better deal.

1.5 Sleeps

I've been travelling all my life. With dad working for the airlines, and mom teaching geography, it meant a lot of plane rides. This also meant a lot of packing, a lot of early mornings, and a lot of time spent waiting around the gates to see if we would get on the flight with employee passes, or try again later.

Of course, over the last decade or so, most of my travel has been for myself. Among those trips have been 8 to Las Vegas. Thursday will be #9.

And every single one is tinged with excitement. Also, rushing the night before to get my shit together. US cash, passport, clothes, bounties, toothpaste, etc.. It hasn't always gone smoothly.  Two years back I left my whole bankroll, bounties, passport, and casino cards sitting in my nightstand as I rushed out the door to make my flight. Luckily, I realized it as I was standing on the subway platform across the street from my place and was able to retrieve cash and passport, but the rest stayed behind. Which was fine since I didn't need the bounties anyway that year.

So I expect a full sleep tonight, and maybe half of one tomorrow as I pack, prepare, and procrastinate before waking up at 5:30am to make my 9:30 flight.

I'll make up the rest on the way over, and then deprive myself of sleep for the next 4 days.

I fully expect the usual tune to run through my head as the bright light city draws into view.

Staying at the Aria, hoping to swing a photo-worthy view. Then I'm thinking I need a practice run before Saturday, so I'll probably drop my bags off and then head downstairs for the Aria 1pm tourney.  Same buy-in and structure as the WPBT, and I'm crazy rusty.  I figure it's $125 flushed in the name of warming up the poker instincts. Dinner at Jaleo with good company (still 2 seats up for grabs at 6pm if anyone wants in), and then a castle will be stormed.

Friday has some dead neon in it, more dinner, and then some sort of reckless gambling I'm sure.

Saturday I plan to win a tournament, with Team Bedrock (yours truly, Summers, and BrainMC. Hey, you dyslexically steal our name, we'll straight up abscond with yours) finishing 1-2-3, and then play it by ear from there, although there are rumblings involving arcade games that I suck at...

Sunday - ummm.. wake up? Eat? Find people cheering their sportsball game in a large room? Cheer for insane friends who have decided to run down a street in the middle of a desert? And then go home.

I think the only thing on my "want to do" list that isn't covered in here somewhere is grabbing some breakfast buffet at Wicked Spoon at the Cosmo.  I mean, what's Vegas without at least one breakfast buffet to fuel your whole day? Who's in?

Year in Review

- I didn't post much
- I tweeted a bunch
- I didn't play much poker. When I did, I lost.
- I travelled - Montreal, New York, Buffalo a bunch, Orlando, Montreal again, Vegas.
- In most of those places, I ate some fantastic food. Orlando wasn't anything spectacular on that front.
- I didn't cook nearly as much as I should have. Especially nothing new or exciting.
- I took a ton of pictures. I've so far posted almost none of them.
- I saw Dawn Summers, Mary, and VinNay more than most of my non-blogger friends
- I took some photography classes, and learned that 3 per week is too much for me. Down to 1 per week next semester.
- I lost in Vegas money-wise, but won friends and food-wise.

Come 2011?

Probably more of the same. Already planning another trip to Montreal (they have such good food), and Vegas is permanently in the schedule. The rest is pretty open right now. Maybe I'll try and play more poker and actually work on and post some pics - there are so many I want to share. I also expect to be cooking a whole bunch more soon. Let's start simple with some fondue and egg nog for New Year's. I make awesome nog.

Disney

Just spent nearly a week in the land of the Mouse. Let's guess 1000 pics to go through... on top of the NYC ones I haven't gotten to yet.



Maybe one day I'll get around to blogging about this summer. Feels like I've spent more time in the States than home.

NY Bound

My buddy E (bald Korean dude some of you met/played with in December) came to a realization last year that the majority of his non-business trips over the past few years involved me. Banff, Whistler, Vegas a few times, and Israel. Most people would be sick of me and strike out on their own. E? He calls me up and asks where I want to go this year. He suggests Oktoberfest or New York City. I've done NYC a couple times in the past, but wasn't feeling the Oktoberfest vibe, and decided that NY needed me back.

Fast forward a month or so, and it's all booked up. I'm heading out to that little, unimportant island in late July. I hear summer in New York is quite tolerable and not humid and gross at all.

So, outside of the usual touristy things (Empire State Building, maybe go up that Liberty chick's skirt, Guggenheim, MoMA, etc...) what's there to do? Any locals feel like showing a few friends around your podunk hamlet?

Should I bring my camera? Anything photo-worthy that way?

Oh, and I might want to eat whilst there... any good restaurants?

Man, I can't wait to ask people where Hewston street is, and where Times Square is while I'm accepting coupons to comedy clubs. Maybe I can see Bob DeNiro and keep asking if he's talking to me...

At least you have Tim Horton's.

WPBT Report - Day 4, or where I kick your ass

Day 4. Saturday. The last day of consequence for me. The biggest of 'em too. This will be a long one.

First though - the view from my room as I returned the first night/morning




Up for the Bellagio buffet breakfast, I roped Kat, Lightning36, JJOK, and OhCaptain into it with myself and E (N & M off golfing in the cold rain). It just doesn't feel right to do Vegas without at least one buffet.

We talked, we ate, we talked, and then went off to prepare for the tournament in our own way. For me, E, and JJ, that meant walking from the buffet to Caesars.

The tournament kicked off, and I was 100% zen. I had no expectations, and just wanted to have fun. In fact, I knew I wouldn't mind busting out early because it would mean more time hanging with the other bloggers who were done.

That didn't quite happen.

Here's a quick hand recap from the beginning of the tourney to the final table:

crap, crap, more crap, crap, not quite crap so I'll raise, oh re-raise? fold, crap, crap, KK - raise and win blinds, crap, crap, nada, nothing, zip, zilch, crap, crap, 1-gapper raise, called, get bet out on broadway flop, crap, crap, shit, crap, more crap, what the hell is this crap? AQ - raise, get blinds, crap, crap, where are my chips? AJ raise, get re-raised, fuck it, all-in over the top for less than the re-raise, you folded? Sweet. Crap, crap, crap, crap, table change, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, garbage, small pair all-in with the short stack, double up and survive, crap, crap.... etc...

You get the picture. It was a game of pushing with an M of 3 and whatever I had holding up to keep me alive a bit longer. Any strong hands tended to win the blinds alone, and I caught nothing on the board. The first hour was so useless to me that I tore up my Bellagio buffet receipt and folded some origami card cappers (a crane and frog). I commented that I needed 999 more cranes to win the damned thing.

N went out somewhere in the 60's (69th according to him, 60th according to CJ), which pretty much kiboshed hopes of winning the last longer. Nobody could beat Team Roach (congrats guys!). E went out 12th with KJ losing to Alceste's aces or something, just before Change100 bubbled the final table.

And just before E and Change went down to put us at a final 10, I managed to double through AlCantHang (his second double up for me in the game). Q6s or something similar against AJs or something similar from him. I caught a card and it held. It's one of the few hands I remember, along with presto catching a set on the flop earlier to save my ass, and pocket 3's making it through an all-in on the flop from me and scaring off people who should have called.

No aces so far, by the way.

The highlight to this point was my second table. Pauly, Iggy, Garth, Maigrey, Obie, Smokkee, Blinders, Bayne... and someone else I can't recall. Blinders went out and was replaced with AlCantHang. Talk about the TV table! I figured that table was as good as any to double up at. I did a couple times, but only to survive.

Leading to the final table, I was barely above water. 40k in chips was not nearly enough at 4000/8000/1000. But we made that final 10 and the blinds were rolled back to 1500/3000/400 for some serious breathing room added. From here I had one goal - build a big stack. I knew I could take this down if I could get enough chips to take some risks and push the table around at the right times.

The bubble was tight, but it was quickly decided that we'd all chip in $10 for the bubble. Chilly got $90 to nearly break even when he went out in 10th.

Once we were in the money, my game shifted a bit. I could now take those risks without necessarily having a monster stack. It wasn't that I thought the $200 for 9th was big money, but that I'd just beat my bubble-boy performance of the previous year. 10th sucks.

So I stole some blinds, took some shots at flops, and kept ahead of the blinds as much as anyone could with the insane "get the hell out" structure that we'd hit at this point.

What was most surprising was how long the final 9 held out. Nobody was going out. Nobody was risking a significant portion of their stack to call a short all-in, because you just couldn't afford it with those levels.

I can't remember how everyone went out, but we lost Elissa, by far the best looking one at the table, in 9th. That was a loss for everyone. I blame The Rooster for distracting her with his manly charms.

Anyway, eventually people started dropping out. It was just a matter of time. Somewhere in there I knocked out someone, took some bigger pots with the right moves at the right time, and found myself as chipleader with 8 to go, then again with 5 to go, and I generally stayed up there.

By far my best played hand was against Gnome. He'd been using some timely aggression preflop to take blinds and antes, and had c-bet with some success when he actually saw a flop. He'd chased me off at least one hand earlier, and ran some air into a decent Al hand to reveal his range.

He raised preflop from the button, around 2.5x the BB, and I looked down to T8d in the BB. I called. Flop came J87 with two spades. I was pretty sure I was ahead here, and was sure he'd bet into a check from me. So I checked. He thought for a second and checked behind.

Hrmm... turn brought Qs, and I thought briefly about him having hit. I opted to check with every ounce of body language that said *I* had hit it. He started debating. I started wondering how I'd deal with a bet here. He reached for some chips and counted out a few, running them through his fingers. I put him on air, and knew he wasn't sure about me either. He put down the chips and checked.

River was a T. I didn't like this one. It gave me two pair, but also put the straight out there if he had a 9, or AK, along with the three spades on the board. But I had played this whole way with the intent of checkraising his action into me, and still had a hard time accepting he had anything. If he had hit the Q on the turn, it wasn't enough to keep him in, and he knew it. He was short enough that he could risk a bet, but not a call of a re-raise if he wasn't positive he had this. No, he had air... I checked.

And he bet 40k.

I paused, counted out the 40 while debating on the size of my raise. I wanted enough to get him out, but also wanted to leave enough behind that I could fold if he came over the top himself. 50k on top seemed like a good number. It was too much for him to just call, enough for me to leave on the table, but also enough that it looked like I was committed if he did raise. It said "I've got this and want you to call this bet..." It wasn't quite a value bet, and it was a semi-bluff even though I was almost positive he didn't have anything.

And he folded. There were plenty of mumblings around the table of what I had, if I'd just pulled off a monster bluff, or if I had the stone cold nuts there. That might have been almost as good a feeling as winning the whole thing. Especially since I have a ton of respect for Gnome's game. It was easily my favourite hand of the tournament.

Eventually, we got to 3-handed between myself, JoeSpeaker, and AlCantHang. Two guys proclaiming their drunkenness, one making sure we knew he was colour blind, and me. Both these guys were dangerous though. Speaker had been hanging back and using his whole stack strategically. Strong preflop raises and re-raises, and pushes for c-bets that were working. Al was happily shoving and raising seemingly at random, but he had enough chips to make it work.

And I realized exactly what I had to do.

Play them against each other.

But first, we had a chop discussion. With $4800 in the pot for top 3, and 7 1/2 hours of play behind us, it wasn't a bad idea. Joe and I were good with a straight up split, as only 10k separated us, and we'd even toss Al a premium as he had about 1/3rd more chips than us. But Al wanted the trophy too, and that was non-negotiable. We were playing for the trophy, not just giving it up. Al refused to chop without the Golden Hammer in the deal, and I decided it was time to start talking.

"No worries, that sounds like the kind of thing someone who doesn't think they can win it on their own would say."

That got Al ready to rumble. There was laughter and "ooooos" from the rail. Someone asked if we're going to go Canada vs America, to which I had only one response - "Find five more Americans to sit at the table and we'll call it an even match."

Game on.

The three of us passed around chips. There were walks, position raises, and some legitimate hands that got bet and shown. Al and I were pretty evenly matched stack-wise and I wasn't getting much I wanted to tangle with him with. But I also happened to be sitting directly across from him, and could tell when he was planning on pushing his stack in the middle. I avoided at least two bluffs and bet with a small pair from the button by reading his intentions. Twice Speaker bet into him only to have to fold to Al's push, and the third time Al grumbled about getting a walk and flipped over an ace.

The downside of this is that I wasn't winning more than I was losing, and my stack was shrinking. I needed something that could stand up to an Al all-in (a regular occurrence by now). This is the time when you learn who your real friends are.

And they came to my defense in a BIG way. I was in the BB, looked down, and saw my old buddies A and A looking right back at me. I'm pretty sure they winked too. They'd been holding out the whole game so they could show up when it counted the most. Al pushed from the SB and I instacalled, flipping over my rockets to a round of "oh BIG surprise! Astin has Aces." from the peanut gallery.

They held... they more than held, they brought along another of their ilk on the flop, killing all drama for the hand and announcing to the world that they had my back.

I was now the monster stack.

Al got pushy again, as Speaker picked his spots. Then Al says, "all-in in the dark" from the SB. I look down at K3o. Al starts with "instacall! You have a King? Insant!" I wait. Is he really in the dark? Is K3 worth it for 1/4 of my stack and a courtesy double-up for the biggest wildcard at the table? I'm leaning towards "no" when he peeks and says "Oh, I have an ace." I fold. He flips over AQ. In the dark my ass.

A few hands later, he tries again. "All-in in the dark." Sigh. I look down at A9o. Good enough, I call. "I have a pair." Pocket 4's from Al hold up and he's doubles while I drop 1/4. We're close again, and Speaker is letting us fight it out.

It goes between the 3 of us for a while, and Al and I are really close in chips, when I bet with A6o and he goes all-in. I think about it. I put him on nothing particularly good. In fact, I figure my ace is good. He isn't as strong as he was with his "in the dark" bets, and is hoping to get rid of me here.

I call.

Al flips over KJo, and we're away to the races. My ace hits the turn, and Al is livid. "CON-GRAT-ULATIONS! You just won the blogger tournament!" "Ace-six? Ace-six!" "What about me told you your ace-six was good?" Okay, livid isn't the right word. Tilted might be, and it wasn't even entirely from that hand. But my instincts told me I was good there, and I've lost more by ignoring those instincts than by following them.

Al is about to leave when I point out we're pretty close. Turns out Al had me beat by 4000 chips... or an ante.

Al's ante goes in, I call the BB, Speaker completes his SB. Al triples up.

Al ends up all-in with the SB, and I'm auto-in with my BB, Speaker folds. I had crap, and Al had better crap. Al doubles up.

Joe has the BB in, Al goes all-in, I look down at AKo. Speaker says he only has a few thousand behind, so I put him in, and he calls. Al has presto, Speaker has a dominated ace. Presto is gold and Al triples up, I get the remainder of Speaker's chips, and we're HU for the Golden Hammer. GG to JoeSpeaker.

We go back and forth a bit, but I have a huge chip lead, so I'm just waiting for the spot. It comes when Al goes all-in and I see AKs and insta-call. Al flips over AQh, and that's all she wrote.

Wait... what? I won? I WON? I WON! WOOOHOO!! Have I truly entered the illustrious guild of Golden Hammer winners? Is it sad that the $2600 prize is the biggest score I've taken down? Who cares! I have a hammer trophy that turns into a screwdriver (I think that may be ironic), and I went from sadly down on the trip to happily up! Up is good. Down is bad.

Now to find a place of honour for this trophy. Also, there's the parade planning. I wonder if I can catch up to the Olympic torch and help draw more crowds...

Anyway, I never thought it could happen to me, etc, etc.. Congrats to Al for taking 2nd and putting on a hell of a game. It could have gone either way a few times if not for my luckbox powers activating when needed. Thanks to April and F-Train for setting the whole thing up, CJ for the last-longer tourney, PokerStars for adding some gravy to that one, and everyone there for making the actual game a secondary concern to just having a good time and enjoying the company and competition amongst friends.

Post-game I chatted with Smokkee a bit before heading back to the room to drop off some of the winnings and meet up with E & N for dinner (having taken M back to the airport for the red-eye). Since it was after 10, most of the higher-end establishments were closing down. We opted for Burger Bar, where I had the Kobe burger on an onion bun with caramelized onions, aioli, dijon, peppered bacon, and something else I'm sure.

But that all took longer than I expected, and we didn't get back to the IP until 1am. There was a small group of bloggers at the Geisha Bar (Al, Iggy, OhCaptain, April, and a few others), Falstaff at the Pai Gow table, and a couple others scattered around, but no group... this saddened me, as I was hoping to see more people I hadn't had a chance to talk with at any length yet. I remember last year being crazy at the IP late into the night.

Regardless, I was there losing at Let it Ride and craps, and slots until 6am. The plan was to go until we needed to get to the airport, but once I started passing out at the the LiR table, I knew a power nap was needed. One hour later, we were up and out to catch the flight back home.

My Vegas Itinerary

Ah, it's that glorious time of year. The leaves have fallen, the air is crisp (actually, it's been pretty warm here the past week), and my blogger brethren and sistren start heading into overdrive on the anticipation of the coming Winter Gathering.

I, of course, am no different. The excitement for the upcoming trip continues to increase as the date rapidly approaches. The flight was booked awhile ago, and the rooms at the Bellagio shortly thereafter. Car is rented. Ziplining is booked. Two dinner reservations are made. Golf payments have been forwarded, and the poker tournament has been RSVP'd to.

In other words - all that's left is the waiting. Well, the waiting and maybe a new pair of pants.

So, because you care, here's the general outline of my trip:

Wednesday

- Get in around 10:30pm, check-in, and hit The Strip until my brain stops working

Thursday

- Up, eat, and head out to Boulder for noon to zipline over Bootleg Canyon - want to come along?
- Back, do some shopping, and then gamble if there's time before dinner at Robuchon
- Dinner at Robuchon. This is where new pants may be needed.
- Mosey over to the IP for degeneracy and the gathering of degenerates
- Gamble and drink until my brain hurts

Friday

- Up, eat, and head out to Golf course for to take pictures of the golfing bloggers. Really, I do it to zip around in a golf cart.
- Golf ends, Strip is returned to
- Dinner at Delmonico
- Back to finding bloggerdom. MGM mixed games I believe are in order? Whilst I dislike mixed games, I like the MGM card room
- Gamble until my brain screams at me.

Saturday

- Up, eat, be amazed that I'm still in Vegas
- Register for poker tournament
- Play in poker tournament
- This period is foggy due to uncertainty of how I'll do in the tournament
- Eventually, everyone will gather at the IP and we'll drink, gamble, and be merry
- Brain thing again

Sunday

- Get up, be totally sick of Vegas, go home
- Get home, start missing Vegas already

Random Babbling

So I went to Israel a few weeks back. I've been sitting down and doing some post-processing (although really, in this digital age shouldn't it just be called processing?) on the photos. Some have lent themselves nicely to HDR in various degrees of visual veracity, but most have involved minor tweaks in colour, contrast, sharpness, etc.. Skies never come out quite as blue as they are, although the ones that seem least real are the untouched ones (but shot via polarizer). This shit takes awhile. I'm halfway through day 1 of 11.

I should also sit down and do my trip report. That needs to be done from home though, where I have my log. Yah, that's right, I'm blogging from a log.

I'm also trying to fit back into a suit in a month, for the one wedding this fall that I can actually make (it's in Toronto), and then continue to shift this belly somewhere else through the rest of the year. Israel derailed these plans somewhat, and I haven't really lost any weight. But I'm at least maintaining a daily exercise regimen again this week, and that should help things along. After all, my weight (181 lbs) isn't that bad for my height (5'11") - it's on border of normal and overweight, it just happens to all be in one place (my gut). This makes things like buttoning the jacket a bit difficult.

In that pursuit, I'm trying to eat less crap, with some success. I couldn't resist the coffee crisp at work yesterday, but the roast chicken on a bed of vegetables for lunch, while high in salt, couldn't have been that bad... could it? They probably soaked it all in oil.

But dinner was delicious, and I share it here.

As usual, all my meat is frozen, and I'm lazy, and somewhat on a diet. So I decided on salad, because I should really get to my vegetables before they go bad. But simply tossing stuff in a bowl gets boring after a while.

So I roasted.

I cut a couple tomatoes into quarters, seeded them, tossed them lightly in olive oil, laid a single leaf of fresh basil and half a clove of garlic in each piece, and sprinkled with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. I laid them skin-side down on a baking pan. I then cut up a few large piece of red pepper, sprinkled those with salt and pepper, and put them skin-side up on the same pan. I drizzled everything lightly with a bit more olive oil, and put them in a preheated 425F oven for 40 minutes.

While that was going on, I slices up some white onion and tossed it into a non-stick pan over medium-low heat with some butter and vegetable oil. Then I poured some simple syrup on them and stirred them occasionally as they caramelized. Once they were a nice brown, I poured some balsamic vinegar on the whole thing and stirred it up until the balsamic had reduced and become a sticky coating on it all.

While all this continued, I hard boiled an egg.

Out came the roasted vegetables. I peeled the peppers and cut them up, and combined them and the tomatoes in a bowl with the onions. The egg was peeled and crumbled over the veggies. Then I shaved some carrot into the bowl, cut up and added a few sun-dried tomatoes, and mixed up the whole thing. No extra dressing required, as the caramelized balsamic onions, and the oil on the roasted veggies gave all the extra flavour needed.

Before the salad I had a couple cobs of corn. It all turned out to be a filling meal that at least felt like it was healthy.

Of course, I weigh the same today as I did yesterday.

Hmmm... and I just remembered I left my computer on at home. Whoops.

Organizing

11 days in the Middle East is fun.

Okay, that statement really depends on WHERE. In my case, it was Israel. During Ramadan. Therefore, not much going on on the negative side of the coin.

I'll have my usual exhaustive day-by-day trip report up eventually, but right now I need to organize my thoughts, my pictures, and my feelings.

I'll be going back a 3rd time. I missed too much this time, and repeated too much from last time.

Traveling with 5 other people will usually carry stress with it. This was no different. Tensions were definitely high at certain points, and there were a handful of times I stopped myself from smacking people upside the head.

But on the whole it was a solid trip. Much done. A great wedding. Good friends that I didn't end up killing. Oh, and temperatures that qualified as way too fucking hot. 45? 50? Celsius mind you. That's what? 1000000 F? Oh... 120F. Maybe my t-shirts can be saved.

More for Me

This is pretty much a list of what the fuck I need to get done before Wednesday. Really, it's for me.

- Buy shit - hat, sunscreen, and whatever else I lack enough of for 11 days in the middle east
- Assemble papers - passport, IDP, wedding invite, maps, e-tickets, confirmations, etc.
- Produce DVD of well-wishes for groom - took a bunch of videos at a party on Friday, need to edit them and burn 'em. Will add more (and photos) if time
- Rough out a schedule for the trip
- Laundry, laundry, laundry - probably 24 or 35 loads need to be done before I leave
- Stock up food for house/cat-sitter. If I fail to do this, I'll just leave money behind
- Charge various batteries and assemble electronics - DS? Archos? Burn some music and movies for the flight or stick with in-flight options?
- Pack
- Figure out communication situation. Rent a cell? Pay exorbitant roaming charges? I'm less concerned with contact back home as I am with local between friends and the groom
- Figure out where the wedding is and how to get there.
- Figure out what's open when. Getting on Thursday means our second full day is on Shabbat, which means some stuff will be closed. It also means early closures on the 1st full day.
- Make sure I have an adaptor. Stupid plugs.

I'll get this figured out eventually...

Coming Together

5 days left before I head to the land of non-stop sun and heat known as Israel.

Sheckels in hand. Car rented. Apartment ready.

Tonight? Haircut and RAM for the desktop need to be bought.

Tomorrow will involve some clothes shopping. Hat, shirts, shorts, longer swimsuit (holy sites like your knees covered... there's a joke in there I think), sunglasses, and probably a few other things I'm not thinking of.

Sunday? Regular poker home game. There's a small voice telling me this is a foolish what with the trip looming and all. But I'll be picking up my desktop from my brother on the way home, so it's a wash.

Monday - work, panic about half a dozen things I need to do.

Tuesday - work, panic about a new half a dozen things. Also, pick up TIFF schedule, pick films, and drop off passes. Hope that my picks get through so I don't get stuck with the leftovers.

Wednesday - Wake up, enjoy the fact I'm now officially on vacation. Rush around doing everything I still haven't done, panic about packing, deal with phone calls from travelling companions, make sure best friend has everything they need for house and cat-sitting duties, and get to airport a couple hours early. Fly to Frankfurt.

Thursday - Get to Frankfurt, leave Frankfurt, get to Tel Aviv. Meet friend, give him a huge hug followed by chastising him for not visiting more. Realize I sound like his mother, but don't apologize for it. Rent car, gather friends, find apartment, collapse in heap. Eat. Blog about the whole thing (assuming there's Internets, otherwise, not so much).

Rest of the time? See country again, have a blast with good friends that I don't see enough, get drunk at a Jewish wedding, surrounded by people who may not be as fluent in English as I am, but are definitely more fluent in English than I am in Hebrew, see more of the country, and eventually come home, probably 12 shades darker of skin (or redder), exhausted, and ready for my last 3 days of vacation before heading back to work.

Should be good times. Then I can focus on that Vegas thing in December.

Mutli-Tripping

I'm currently in the process of planning two trips.

1.- Israel next week. Assembling cash, figuring out a rough schedule, renting the car, and generally guiding the rest of the crew of people coming along.

2.- Vegas. Getting golf info from a few friends who will be playing in the scramble that Bam and CK have set up. Still need to book flights, hotel, car, etc, but that can wait a little bit.

Yah, if you travel with me, I become your travel agent. It's something I inherited from my mother, who would plan our numerous worldly travels most efficiently. I'm talking "Hey, should we go to France next week?" followed by a family of 5 getting on a plane a week later for 9 days of travelling Paris and its environs in what a Kontiki tour would take 14 days for. I try to go a little easier on my friends.

I'm someone's favourite commentor. I think they're being sarcastic.

To Do

In two weeks I board a plane bound for Tel Aviv.

Time zones are screwy things. I leave around 5:30pm, and arrive at 3:30pm the following day. That's 22 hours. Now, there's a 3 hour stop in Frankfurt on the way, and a 7 hour time difference, so that's 10 hours knocked off right there. Yup, 12 hours of flight, sounds about right.

Before then, I need to pick up an international driver's permit (15 minutes of my time), rent the van for the 6 of us ($1000 for 11 days, not too bad), figure out what I need to buy (no on the monopod, yes on light-coloured summer clothes and a hat... unless I advertise Bodog in the Holy Land... could be fun), and put together something for the huband-to-be.

But more importantly than all that is the stuff I've put off that won't be here when I return! Dream in High Park is doing The Tempest, and I want to see it. The Science Centre is showing Star Trek (the new one) on their OmniMax IMAX dome screen. The AGO has the Surreal Things exhibit until August 30th.

And dammit! TIFF! The full film list for this year's festival goes online on the 20th, and order drop-off is the 25th. Giving me JUST enough time to drop off my order. But I don't get back until 4 days AFTER ticket pickup, meaning I'd better not get screwed on my choices.

Yes, I have a very difficult life when my concerns before I travel to Israel for a week and half are what films I'm going to go see at the largest film festival in North America, and which plays, movies, and art exhibits I can get to before I leave.

I should probably refresh my memory about my last trip to Israel, so I can play tour guide for my friends. Lucky for me, I have that documented in pictures. Really, I'm excited about taking better equipment with me this time.

Strangely, 2 weeks feels like not nearly enough time.

V-E-G- you know the rest

And it ain't "etarian"

VEGAS BABY!

Here I still, still bitching about by Atlantic City losses, still blowing New Jersey germs into clean Canadian tissues, and the lovely, talented, far-more-organized-than-me April goes and lets us know there's a WPBT tournament scheduled for... December 12th! At Caesars!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYA!

Funny thing is, I was just writing up the e-mail to my usual gang of friends about it before the news hit.

Flights are now in the somewhat reasonable range from Toronto, but still far from the deals of last year.

Doesn't matter though. *I'LL* be there. Harrah's is giving me my money back dammit! That, or someone across the table is.