[Tommy Angelo]

Vegas day one / drive and arrive

I escaped from Ohio in 1997. Before the move to San Bruno, I looked at my map of California about a million times. It had Vegas on it, on the edge. After I moved, would I fly to the WSOP each year, or drive? Looked kinda far. But not any further than Columbus to Atlantic City, which I had road warriored a dozen times, but never much enjoyed the drive. I figured I had to drive to Vegas at least once from my new home, even if only to do the central valley and the Mohave Dessert from the ground.

Now I look forward to the drive every year as a meditative earth-bonding revival. Or something. It’s so awesome. With the San Luis reservoir that looks like a miniturized (but nonetheless huge) version of Lake Tahoe with grass on the mountains instead of snow. The Mexican music on every dial with the DJ’s all pumped up from Cinco de Mayo. The passage into the real desert, at the town of Mohave, where endless windmills line ridges near and far, whirling triads in concert, hypnotic. Then the land and sky open up and the horizen moves back all at once in every direction, to the next mountain range, however far away it happens to be.

I checked in at the Nugget, got settled, and picked up my Ohio brother at the airport. He came out for two days of touring with me. We did downtown -- the canopy show was particularly rocking -- and crashed.

Poker score: even.


Day two / the dam and blue man

Up early and off to Hoover Dam with my brother who is an engineer who had never seen the dam. We did the full tour. His worry going in was that the real dam would not be as big as the pictured dam in his mind. Turns out the real dam was the bigger one. We did a walk through of a couple of casinos on the strip and we finished the tour at the Luxor as planned, in the second row center at the 10:00 PM Blue Man Group show. My sixth time, his first. I’m afraid that before I can say anything else new about the Blue Man Group show using adjectives, I’ll have to learn another language, because I’ve used up all the appropriate English ones.

Before the show, my brother wanted to watch me play poker, so I got in the $2-4 game at the Luxor poker room. I played for an hour, I turned over one hand, and I wound up plus $14.

Poker score: +$14


Day three / some quality windbagging

I packed my brother onto a plane and I hooked up with Clarkmeister in the afternoon. We talked for two hours, then we went to the Nugget poker room and played $10-20 for half an hour. I did not turn over any cards and I won $17. We quit and went to the Mirage where we met up with Ed Miller and J.A.Sucker. Two more hours of gabbing in the comfy lounge chairs. Then we took Sucker to the airport, and the three of us found some chairs.

Poker score: +$31.

I’ve got an idea for a new unit to keep score with. Cards shown. So far this trip I am ahead $15.50 per card.

luv and viva,

Tommy