In honor of our nation's 231st birthday, I thought I would compose the second and final part of my Vegas recap. So here we go, no holds barred.
Saturday morning saw us rise bright and early, 7am, to make it to the fields in time for a 9:30am kick-off. By 10am it was 100 degrees. Thankfully the games were shortened to 25 minute halves, otherwise I think we all would have died. The percentage of people playing in these games hung over or still drunk far outweighs those playing sober, like I was (thanks to my early crash-out the night before). The day's festivities was only made interesting by the member of my team who spent a few hours throwing up blood in the bathroom. Apparently this is a sign of dehydration - who would have guessed? In either case, my friend chose not to play the rest of the day. Smart move.
Saturday night was not very eventful as Vegas standards go, but fun anyway. We went to some steakhouse in the New York New York casino area and ate like Spanish royalty. My steak may have been the best thing I've ever tasted, mostly because none of us had eaten anything substantial since noon and our food arrived at around 10:30. I'm learning in my old age that if you want to remember a meal for the rest of your life, best to go into it absolutely starving, that way everything will taste better as it hits your lips. The highlight of the night would have to have been the walk back to the MGM. As we progressed across one of the pedestrian overpasses, we saw a girl who was in and out of consciousness. She was half-sitting, half-laying down and her boyfriend was attempting to revive her. What made this rather typical Vegas spectacle memorable, however, was her Britney Spears-esque decision to forgo underwear. As she lay on the overpass, covering herself up was the last thought on her mind. I believe at least three people were stopped and taking pictures with their camera phones... idiots! Don't they know that the picture won't have enough detail to be worth their time?! But I digress. As I am a gentleman, once I noticed that this poor girl was exposing herself to the world, I continued on without looking. Well, that, and the fact that I was pretty drunk at this point and felt that if I stopped to gawk, there was a good chance that, like Friday, I would lose the group I was traveling with and be lost in Vegas again. We continued to wander for awhile and did some gambling, but it was an early night (relatively speaking, 3am) for all.
Sunday morning we played bright and early again, and had to wait for several hours before finding out if we played again. In the meantime, we went to IHOP and received the worst service from a hostess ever. We waited for nearly an hour, and had to tell the hostess at least three times that we were still waiting to be seated. Eventually we just seated ourselves, since half of the restaurant was empty. Thankfully the waitress was on point. She killed it, getting our orders quickly and bringing our food quickly. She was rewarded with a handsome sum for her skill and effort. I had french toast. It was delicious. We returned to the field to find out that we'd been eliminated. Bad news.
So we consoled ourselves by going to the MGM pool and drinking heavily. I no longer had a functioning phone to destroy. Everybody else drank heavily. I drank some, but my conscience was starting to nag at me. Three days in Vegas and I'd only studied for roughly 2 hours. One hour on the flight down and another in between games. I decided that I would sit in the sun but that I had to get some reading done. It made things much less enjoyable for me, and after three hours of sitting in the sun and reading while everybody around me got wasted, I had to leave. I returned to the hotel, showered, checked out, and headed to the airport. Little did I know that the worst part of my trip lay ahead.
McCarran airport, as I stated in the previous post, is the seventh circle of hell. The walk to the gate was just short of two miles. Security was light, however, which saved me some time. I was early. I needed food and time to read. I got to the gate, hearing that my flight, the Alaska Air 11pm flight arriving in Seattle at 1am, was on time. The earlier flight, leaving at 9:30, was delayed an hour. I should have known. In the meantime, I managed to procure some food and a quiet place to read for half an hour, before meandering to the gate.
When I arrived, people looked angry and frustrated. The 8pm flight had been delayed but was boarding at 9pm. I foolishly thought, again, that somehow my flight would avoid delays. When the 8pm flight finally boarded, it was 9:30. The 9:30 flight had been delayed longer now, and would be boarding at 11 (actually, 11:30). I saw a number of people I knew in the airport, all in various stages of hung-over. One guy might have actually been drunk still. Another guy is deaf in his right ear after an industrial-sized tire exploded near him last year. Fittingly, when he walked by and I called his name, it was his right ear that was nearest to me. He kept on walking. I stood in line for 30 minutes at the Starbucks. When I got in line there were 3 people ahead of my but only one person working. The first two went slowly. The third person ordered five of those mixed ice drinks. I almost punched her in the head. Seriously, inconsiderate jetway employee, your friends may want coffee drinks, but the rest of us want simple things like water and drip coffee. Have the decency to go to a Starbucks that is not busy, or place an order that doesn't require 20 minutes to complete.
Shortly after this, I went and sat down with another guy I'd recently met. We spoke for 15 minutes, after which I began studying again. In order to kill time, he jumped on the nickle slots. On his third nickle he won $240. This had happened all weekend to everybody but me. Dan had won $550 on his first and only hand of 3-card poker. Somebody else had won $800 on blackjack in 15 minutes. I was the only person to gamble and lose the entire weekend. Pointless.
Our flight didn't even arrive until 12:15. The Alaska staff cleaned the plane in 30 minutes, and we were heading home at 1am. This meant a 3:30 arrival and at the most, 3 hours of sleep for me when I returned home. My final, as you may recall, started at 8:30am. The flight was hell. I can't sleep on planes. I tried everything. I put my head down. I slouched. I put a pillow around my neck. I cuddled with the lady next to me. I spooned with the guy across the aisle. Nothing worked. I ended up spending the 150 minutes with my eyes closed, cursing my inability to sleep on public transportation and hating myself for choosing to come to Vegas. When we finally got home, I gave my friend a ride home. I mean, if I were at the airport at 3:30 in the morning I would appreciate a ride home. And it didn't really add much time to my trip. I got home at 4:30. It was starting to get light out. I grabbed 2 and 1/2 hours of sleep.
I woke up at 7. Wouldn't you know, I didn't have any blank CDs for burning my exam. I had to run to the store to pick those up. I also grabbed food and coffee. I sat down for my test. I thought everything was going well. Then I realized that by 9:30 I was no longer thinking straight. No matter, I said. I know what I'm doing.
As a previous post indicated, I broke my foot nearly a month ago. To be precise, I suffered a Jones fracture of the fifth metatarsal on my left foot. That means that one of the bones in the front part of my left foot connecting to my small toe broke. Supposedly this bone is in an area of the foot that gets limited blood flow, resulting in a slow and ineffective healing process. This all culminates in two options. I can either go without a surgical procedure, take 20 weeks, and let the bone heal on its own (which has a very high incidence of re-fracture), or I can go ahead and opt for surgery, which has an 8 week healing period and a much lower potential for re-fracture. A no-brainer, I know.
And the dilemma is born. As the proud new owner of a PlayStation 3 (his name is El Chino), I now have a gaming system capable of supporting 1080p resolution. That means that the games are broadcast in HD. So if I had an HD television, I could play my games on an HD television and they would look "Freakin' Awwwwwesome!" as Peter Griffin would say. The PlayStation 3 is a Sony product. No surprise then, that the Sony Corporation has designed the PlayStation 3 to work best with Sony HD televisions. Much like the old Mitsubishi television my parents used to own that had a remote with these words on it: "Works best with Mitsubishi batteries." Really? Aren't batteries a fungible commodity? Some are, actually, better than others, I'm sure. But does the remote actually work better with Mitsubishi batteries? Count me among the skeptics.
But what about my foot? If faced with the option of spending $1,700 on an HDTV or spending $1,700 to walk normally and be able to play soccer again, you'd think the answer would be clear. But not entirely so. A television is an investment in the future. It will provide thousands of hours of viewing pleasure over the next five to ten years. If I spend $1,700 on surgery, and it doesn't work, what am I really left with? So I have to play the odds. It's sort of like having life insurance. Each day, you make a bet with the insurance company that you'll die. "Bet you I die today," you say. The insurance company replies, "Bet you don't," and on and on it goes.
