....someone gets hurt

And now part 2 of the Vegas 09 Diary.

Where did we leave off - the cabana? Oh yes. Yes, I love that day. It forces you to go outside, get some fresh air, and step away from the immediacy of the casino. It's kind of like when your mom kicked out outside to pl ay when you were 10 and you have the Atari 2600/Intellivision all ready to go for an 8-hour "Air/Sea Battle" Marathon.

Again, I thoroughly enjoyed the cabana. Watched the games (except for these two "friends" of Wiz that came over -more on them later), had a massage poolside, sat in the hot tub, did my basketball reserach for Sunday - this was the day that finally loosened me up and let me relax.

Two basketball games, however, did not help; LSU did not cover (+13) even when being tied with 4 minutes to go; and the Michigan/Oklahoma under did not cover. The total was 135.5, I had the under, and the score was 73-60 with Michigan having the ball and 15 seconds left. It was apparent that this was it - Michigan was giving up. They launched a 3 - air ball. But the ball bounced off an Oklahoma player and went out of bounds.

12 seconds left. Another 3. Miss. Now the ball is being tipped up and out inside the lane. "Fine", I thought. "Let them have their two. I'm still ok". One tip. Two tips. Three tips. Nothing. 5 seconds left. Another tip. A WHISTLE. The ball goes in - a FOUL - and it counts! Michigan makes the free throw, and I lose on that turn of events.

After the pool, I headed to the Mirage to find Layup, Wiz and Ira in a marathon Ultimate TexasHold Em session. I have no idea if they were trying to prove a point, or wanted to set a record for most time accumulated at one table - but it was clear they were in it for the long haul. Of course, I joined them - and so did Laura.

So the five of us occupied the table from about 6 pm to 10 pm (with Wiz, Layup and Ira being there since about 3). Boy, did we make asses of ourselves. Me and my basketball signals when singalling how much I would bet. All of us accidentally gooching each otehr at least once....I can't believe what I did one time - I leaned over and saw Laura's A-A ; I immediately took her hand, raised it and yelled "Winner! Winner right here!"

Uh oh.

About 1/2 seconds after I did it, Wiz and Layup just glared, and I realized what I had done. She ended up winning - thank goodness - but I can't believe I let myself do that.

We also had an ethical question at the table. There was a hand where I bet double (I think), so $40 was in play. The dealer truned her cards over, and I lost. However, the dealer paid me. She put the chips down, and then moved to Laura.

I grabbed them (hurriedly) and put them in my pile.

Layup admonished me for this - saying I was "cheating" - but if they pay you money, you take it. The don't apologize for their mistakes. Thoughts?

Layup said "You will get punished for this"; I said to him "You're probably right. This next hand I will get A-A, be foreced to be 4 times,and then lose".

I got dealt my cards - and, of course, A-A was under there. I freaked out. (but I ended up winning).

This was also the table for the cooumnity pastrami sandwich, where most others got hungry (I was smart and ordered extra food at the cabana in the late afternoon - who's laughing now, Don?). Ira had this huge pastrami sandwish, and Layup/Wiz started to drool with envy.

"Want a bite?" Layup, Laura and Wiz all took a bite from the pastrami sandwich hich just spent about 30 minutes on teh floor of the casino. Classic.

Once we were done, we were admittedly a bit drunk, and somehow - it was Ira - dared me to jump over the ropes that defined the line to get into the Revolution club. These ropes were about 2 feet high off the ground, and I had to do a standing jump over them. Well, as soon as we started to get serious about this, the Mirage employee comes running over to supposedly shoo us away from the "elite" club.

We told him that we were there for a bet to see if I could jump over the ropes; after that - no problems. He joined in the fun also disblieving that I could do it.

Well, with no warmups, I did it. I raisd my arms before my feet even hit the ground on the other side. I daresay it was my best athletic achievement in the last 5 years - and I won $3 to boot!

After dinner at BLT, we headed back to the Palazzo, where Wiz, Layup and I were called by the $25 craps table. So we decided to jump in. The lasting memory I will have of this session is the roll Wiz had. Wiz and I bet the same style at $25 craps - one pass line, single odds, and just the 6 and 8. Nothing crazy - for God' s sake, it's $25 craps! Well, Layup bets the same aggressive way - come bets all over the place.

Well, Wiz rolls - point of 4. He then proceeds to roll every number multiple times except for 4, 6, 8, or 7 - so Wiz and I are just sitting there not winning or losing money - but then I look over and Derek has 4 come bets out and is raking in the money. Wiz has this "do you believe this shit?" look on his face as Layup was up at least $500 on that roll.

Sunday brough an early wakeup call, as I headed to the Mirage to check lines. It was about 6:30, and I saw a completely open $10 craps table. I desperately needed to do something to break my horrible rolling performance on this trip - and what better way to get in a boatload of reps than at a table all by yourself? I asked if it was open. "Not yet - we're vacuuming the table". Sure enough, a maintenace worker was holding a vacuum and vacuuming the felt.

I came back in 5 minutes. "Ready now?" Yes, they were. I stayed there for about 90 minutes and made $300, mostly all by myself and my rolls alone. Felt great to get off the snide.

Played craps with Wiz again later - and we started to use basketball terminology on our rolls. Wiz was being the coach calling plays ("The Diamnod Press") looking for numbers; I would be the ref calling the end result of the roll. If the point was made, I did the "swoosh" of the basket, countng the bucket and giving the foul. Harmless fun.

Well, we went to the Mirage later that day to play craps (again). (Wow, that's a lot of craps in one day). This is the scene of the hot roll that Layup talked about - this lady (and, in fact, it started withthe guy before her) just hit point after point and point. And we were getting drunker and drunker and drunker. And I was getting mre and more emphatic with my calls.

On the 5th point made - another hard way - I called the block. I slammed my forearms to my waist 2, 3 times. Thought nothing of it. Another point was made. I did it again - maybe even harder. My fists were now pounding into the front of my stomach. This repeated another 3 or 4 times.

Anyway - got back to the room - caught the wild ending of the Missouri game, where I had Missouri -3.5 and they eventually covered after Marquette stepped on the inbounds line with 5 seconds left while trying to pass the ball in, down 2.....I ended up pacing the floor yelling at the players on how to execute their roles so I would win the bet - a personal record high bet, by the way. Well, 3 steps became 5, 5 steps required quickly became 7...and Mike had the quote of the day.

"Boy, they're turning this process into a P&G process, huh?"

I guess that's more of an inside joke.

PLayed blackjack, won with Don, had the asshole dealer at the Palazzo, and then got smoked at blackjack at the end of the day. I went up to my room. For some reason, my waist felt sore.

I took my shirt off - and uncovered the big welt on my left waist.

"How did I get....oh, no way....."

It looked even worse the next morning. The picture in the previous blog post was how it looked on Monday afternoon. It still looks bad - although there's no pain whatsoever. It was fun trying to describe this to Janice.

"What happened to you??"

"Well, I got injured"

"Injured how? At the cabana? Golf?"

"Um, no. This is a craps injury."

"How? Did the dice hit you?"

At least the trip ended on a good note - video poker in the airport has treated me well twice....