Vegas trip '07...........

I took a trip to Vegas over the weekend with the family, including the first Vegas trip for Kali 0.8. Let me first get Kali 0.8's impressions of Vegas out of the way......

---Flashing lights are very pretty and make me laugh.
---Dinging sounds when people win money are very pretty and make me laugh.
---Lots of people in the casino mean plenty of people to wave at and flash smiles.
---Having my aunts and mom take me around Vegas is tons of fun.

That sums her thoughts up. Now, on to the trip.

We got in early on Friday morning. Kali 0.8 did well on the flight until the last 20 minutes. 3 hours is a long time to ride on a plane, so she did awfully well. We checked in and found that our room wasn't ready yet, so we walked around to the various hotels for awhile. Mrs. Lime's sister, Blondie, got in around 10 AM and we met up with her along with Mrs. Lime's uncle and ate at the restaurant at Ellis Island. It's a small joint off the Strip where you can get enormous dinners for a cheap price in a place that looks like a 1970s-era restaurant. Always good food.

On the way back to our hotel, we got word that our room was ready. We got everything moved into the room. Mrs. Lime, Blondie and Kali headed out to check out the town. I headed down to the poker room in the Venetian.

Really fun table. I played $1/2 No Limit Hold 'em. Most players had between $100 and $200 in front of them. There was an Asian man who kept the table lively with constant banter and lots of bluffs that he wasn't afraid to show off. We also had a girl who looked like a poker player. She wore a cap, sunglasses, and an iPod. She had all her bases covered. The only thing she forgot to do was learn how to play poker well. She didn't raise enough when she had a good hand and got into too many pots that she never should have been in.

I profited off her bad play when she only raised to $5 on a hand and I called with 5/6 of spades. The flop came down Q94, all spades. I had flopped a flush and had two other players in the pot. I gambled a bit and made small bets to keep both of the players in the hand, hoping a 4th spade didn't hit on the last two cards. It did not and I raked in a $120 pot. The girl that had only raised to $5 had AA. Had she raised a bit more, I would have never been in that hand. Instead, I raked in a monster pot and she lamented just how bad my call was with 65 suited. I just chuckled and agreed with her, when in fact, the only bad play was her first raise which set up a big loss.

After a few hours and up $80, I left to go eat dinner with the girls at a steakhouse run by Emeril of Food Network fame. Great food and Kali was well behaved. Blondie had champagne and a cake ready for us when we got back to the room since we were still celebrating Mrs. Lime's birthday. Great strawberry cake that I'd love to try to make myself at some point. My sister and brother-in-law later arrived to finish off the champagne and eat some cake and then everyone headed to bed.

Saturday morning was a bit of a jumble. Everyone slept in late except Kali, so I got up with her and played for a few hours. She was on Central time and we were on Pacific time, so she woke up around 5:15 AM ready for action. Everyone else slowly got up and I headed over with the girls to the Forum Shops at Caesar's. First thing I noticed was that Pete Rose is still there. He has this deal with a sports memorabilia store where he signs autographs 5 days a week for about $35 a signature in addition to a flat fee that he receives from the store. Many of you know that Pete Rose was banned from baseball for sports gambling. Evidently, old habits die hard as I found out from a poker dealer. Pete still goes to the Rio and Palms casinos to gamble a few times a week.

We ate at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in the shops. After that, I headed over to the Wynn to meet my sister and her husband while the girls did more shopping. Mizzou was playing against Colorado and I wanted to get in a bet. We sat down next to some people who were Notre Dame fans and watch the game with them. Great game that Notre Dame lost in 3 OT's. Once the Irish game was over, we took over their seats and watched the Mizzou game. Mizzou laid a beating on the Buffaloes, winning the game 55-10 and winning me $20. Lots of fun to watch all the games at the same time on the various TV's.

Afterwards, we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant in the Venetian. Kali managed to charm the pants off of several Italian waiters. They also had musicians wandering from table to table, playing whatever music was requested. They walked up to our table and started playing the 'Barney' theme song, which Kali loved. She laughed at the violin player during the whole song. After that, they played a song which everyone was singing, which Kali loved as well. I think the musicians didn't even need a tip after enjoying Kali's reaction to all the music and singing. But we tipped them anyway.

I took the bullet for the team (since I was tired) and stayed in the room with Kali so she could go to sleep. Everyone else headed out to a bar. They evidently had a band performing there that was lip-syncing lots of Bon Jovi songs. Evidently, it was so bad that it made for good entertainment. I also got a text message from my brother-in-law that he was sitting near Johnny Unitas. Blondie headed over to get an autograph for her boyfriend, and the guy reluctantly gave an autograph. Mrs. Lime pulled up a picture of Johnny Unitas and the picture did look like the guy, but the website also noted that Johnny Unitas had died 5 YEARS AGO. So evidently, it wasn't Johnny Unitas.

The group also went to a nightclub in the Venetian called Tao. Evidently there was a lot of dancing and drinking. The report from my brother-in-law was that he "saw a side of my wife that he never knew existed." I enquired about this comment with my wife later on. Her only response was that the group wanted her to dance on the bar, but she refused to do it unless the whole group did it. So, in other words, it was just Mrs. Lime behaving normally.

Sunday, I headed down with Kali to get a reservation for dinner that night and get some breakfast. We happened to run into a man who was obviously from Britain who was a bit confused about the breakfast menu, so I helped him out with the ordering process. He sat down near me to chat while eating.

Brit: Thanks for helping me out with the order.

Me: Not a problem. You hear on business or pleasure?

Brit: Business, though I do plan to have a bit of fun too. Does this casino stuff go on all day and all night long?

Me: Yep, 24/7.

Brit: (laughing) Bloody hell! You Americans are crazy! The time change is about 8 hours, so my clock is a bit off.

Me: Well, that's the beauty of Vegas. Sleep when you get tired and when you wake up, there's bound to be something to do no matter what time it is.

Brit: So true.

We chatted about his family and his job. I also gave him a few pointers on stuff to do. He thanked me again for the conversation and shook my hand. I finished up and took Kali back up to the room. I then headed back down to put some money on the pro football games.

I went over to the poker room to watch the Chiefs game, as it's non-smoking. The Chiefs ended up losing, so that wasn't all that great. Had fun at another good poker table. I lost around $30 for the whole session. I did manage to make a couple of good plays. In one case, I noticed a guy who was severely on tilt (i.e. he was mad about losing and was betting recklessly in anger on the next hand). I called his raise and his following raises. He shockingly went all-in on the river. I was shocked because I had hit a straight on the river card. He flipped over a pair of 6's and I took down a $200 pot. I made another good play when I had AQ and there was an ace on the flop. I thought I had him beat and made a small raise. He called. The next card was a jack, which worried me quite a bit for some reason. I bet $25. His hand began shaking violently. As he reached for his chip stack, he knocked it over and then bet $75. I just laughed and said, "You just hit two pair! You have AJ, don't you?". I folded my AQ upright so he could see my fold. He smiled and flipped over........AJ. Great read. I lost money on that hand, but it could have been much worse.

Mrs. Lime brought down Kali and I went outside to watch Kali for a moment while Mrs. Lime took care of some stuff. Kali and I learned a shocking new trick. If you are a man and you stand at the bottom of the escalator with a cute baby who smiles and waives at everyone coming down that escalator, there's a good chance that you're going to get a lot of attention from a lot of women. If I was single, Kali would have easily landed me 15-20 dates over the course of 20 minutes. Who knew? Mrs. Lime was not surprised in the least by this revelation.

We had dinner with some friends who had recently moved out to Vegas on Sunday evening and then headed back to KC on Monday morning. Lots of fun as always and we'll likely be back there again relatively soon.