Vegas Hockey

Well, I made it out of Vegas alive again. And as always, there were some crazy times. At the moment, I'm in the ghetto of LAX waiting to get back on a plane and head off to San Jose for the week -- doing my best to remember what happened over the last 36 hours.

I barely made it out of Connecticut. American decided it'd be a good idea to cancel all flights in and out of BDL because it was snowing a little, so I had the joy of flying to Vegas via Minneapolis on Northworst. Woo freaking hoo. Needless to say, my brain clock was reading about 3:00am by the time I hit ground and 3:04am when I lost my ass at the blackjack table.

We went to Pure, a pretty good night club on the strip. Minding our own business, doing whatever it is guys do at clubs... I ran into (quite literally) Mike Tyson. Honestly I expected him to be taller. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not about to pick a fight with the guy, but 5'11 looks a lot bigger on TV. I think it was 11am or so by the time we finally got back to our hotel room and slept... which put me at something like 30 hours without sleep. And all I had to eat was a double cheeseburger and a plate of bacon. Somewhere between the club and the bed we managed to blow a few hundred dollars on blackjack... which isn't hard when the ATMs are all spitting out hundos. But I guess a few hundred for 5 or 6 hours of playing isn't too shabby.

I dunno how they did it, but my friends managed to get up and play a pretty good game of hockey on a few hours of sleep. After the game we did it allllll over again. Only this time we went to LUX, and we were bumpin' uglys with Coolio, carrott top, and Ashlee Simpson. Hella good time, and Coolio puts on a damn good show for 43 years old. This time I think we managed to crash out at 8 and be up at 10 for another hockey game. Championship didn't go so well, so I'm done watching playoff games this year. I'm sick of seeing my teams lose.
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Superbowl!

San Jose one week, San Diego the next. Phoenix is on the way... right?



So I decided to drop in for the Superbowl. After all, the Patriots were 1 game away from going 19-0, the first perfect season since 1972. First team ever to 19-0. Wow, to think I could be a part of that.

I stayed about 17 miles from the stadium, but the partying was EVERYWHERE. I spent most of Saturday night bar hopping around the stadium in a place called Westgate. They had the area roped off so you could wander with your beer. perfect. Sights and sounds, celebrities, fans, scalpers, hoodlums. Craziness.



The day of the game was amazing. I got to the area a few hours before kickoff and went right into the NFL experience area. Home Depot put together an area twice the size of the stadium with rides, food, exhibits, and vendors. There was even a guy selling a brick from Fenway.

Made my way into the stadium, and holy nuts I was close. Only 37 rows off the field! Not the closesT I've ever been (see: skins at pats oct '07), but for the Superbowl I thought I did really well. The whole row of us had bought our tickets a few hours before the game, and the two around me were pats fans thankfully. WAY more fans of the stupid Giants than the Patriots.


By far the quietest game I've ever been to. Even the outside games were louder. First and second downs were almost silent. You could even hear the players yelling at times. Bizarre. The half time show was INSANE. They gave us all these little button LED flashlights and spent 5 minutes explaining when and how to use them. We all thought it was dumb... but during the show when they cut the lights and everyone turned them on... well, I'm sure you saw it on TV.


As for the rest... well, you know the score. I don't really want to talk about it. Don't ask me how much I paid for the ticket, or how much the weekend cost, what I did the night before the game or why the sky is blue -- I have no idea. One more thing to scratch off my list of "Things I've Done". Worth every penny.
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Tax Nightmare

Next time you want to complain about doing your taxes, just think of us consultants who have to file a tax return for every state we work in (thank you Oracle and IRS). Yes, that's right - I will be filing 7 tax returns this year. Blech. Full Post...

Perry's Visit

I was in Buffalo, had a few hours to kill, so I took the opportunity to visit my good friends at Perry's. It's the first time I've been back since I left last year, so it was kind of weird. More than twice I'd be talking with a group of people, someone would walk by and casually say "Hi Ben", and keep walking - and not realize for a few seconds that "hey wait - he's not supposed to be here!". Must have been the Perry's jacket I was wearing. REALLY REALLY good to see everyone, and reminded me that I need to keep writing all this stuff down... only get one ride on the merry-go-round eh? Full Post...

PLATINUM!

ALAS! After many months of hard work (and a serious monetary investment by my wonderful clients) I have achieved PLATINUM status on American Airlines! What's that... you don't care? Tough. This is my blog :)

So now I get to skip the lines at security, board first, get boku miles, upgrades, and other fun perks. Actually makes flying tolerable. Next stop... executive platinum (free upgrades, more miles, blah blah blah). All I have to do is fly another 100 times... Full Post...

Schtuck in Schicago

Infernal airlines. Was all set to have a nice long trip from Minneapolis to Dallas to Chicago to Buffalo to do some partying... leave it up to Air Traffic Control to throw a wrench in things. We get on the plane in Dallas, get out to the runway... "This is your captain speaking - its snowing in Chicago so we've been delayed 30 minutes". Another few minutes go by... "This is your captain speaking - we've been delayed 90 more minutes". Fortunately I was sitting next to someone interesting for a change... a nice girl who works for a glass company in Niagara Falls (canadian accent and all). Turns out we're both trying to get to Buffalo and have had about enough of the cursed delays.

We get in the air, pilot makes real good time - and we're both very optimistic. There we go, sprinting across O'Hare (which, if you've ever done that you'll know is no small feat). Get all the way to the gate and the plane had JUST LEFT. They couldn't hold the plane of 30 people up 10 minutes for the 15 people who were coming in from Dallas trying to get to Buffalo.

After some hissing and spitting, I got a free night at the Hyatt Regency. So... to make the best of a cold situation, a bunch of us got sauced at the hotel bar courtesy of American Airlines. Now I get to wake up at 5am tomorrow to catch a plane to Buffalo to do some REAL partying. Good night. Full Post...

Da Bears

So I'm sitting in the terminal at O'Hare today, minding my business because that's what I do. A cart pulls up, which usually means one of two things: old people or important people. I am neither, so I don't get a cart. I didn't pay much attention (see: minding my business), but the girl next to me pokes me in the arm and says "is that... is that who I think it is"? So I give the cart a good once over, and sure enough... it's Mike Ditka!



He gets to board first because he's either old or important... by now probably both. So as I'm getting on the plane I ask the flight attendant if Mike got on our plane - since there were two planes at one gate - and sure enough... there he was right across the aisle from me! We're flying in one of those soda cans with wings, so he may as well have been in my lap.

I said "hi" but he spent most of his time chatting it up with the lady sitting next to him who had absolutely NO idea who he was. He could not have been a nicer guy, especially given his record as a bruiser and a coach. I wanted so bad to lean over and say "da bears"... but I thought today is not a good day to get a broken nose, what with Christmas fast approaching and all.
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