The 4th of July

This year I had a great 4th of July Weekend, I had a friend in town and got to play tourist on the 4th since I had the night of the 4th and the 5th off, and said friend was nice enough to let me commandeer the extra bed in his room at the 5 star Imperial Palace Resort and Spa.

Here's a summary of the weekend.

It all started on July 1st when I won free tickets to see Vince Neil at the Palms Pool via the Palm's Twitter. I worked until showtime, but figured since the show was 2 hours long, I could get there fashionably late and still see a good chunk of it...well was I wrong. When I won the tickets I got a message on twitter that said, " Enjoy the show. Tix will be available at the box office".

However when I got there at 9:10 and the Box Office was closed. I checked with the door at the show and the Bouncer said it wasn't his fault and without a ticket we couldn't get in, we should check with the Hotel. I checked with the players club and concierge and got no where, apparently the Box Office and the Pearl theater are ran by a separate company and once they leave it's tough shit. Who closes a box office when there is a concert going on?

Finally after the concierge calls 15 people they get someone who tells us to go recheck with the bouncer and it's up to his discretion, thankfully he takes pity on us and lets us through, this was my first time at the Palms Pool and I have to say it's a pretty nice set-up, we get in and make a bee line for the bar. I'm just about to order when the person next to me gets their beers $8 each for the 16oz aluminum can's of Miller Lite...I think not, so we head over to the stage and catch the last 5 songs of the set, which was pretty much a selection of Motley Crue songs, not too shabby, but if I had paid for the tickets and gotten that treatment I would not have been as easy going.

The 2nd and 3rd were pretty uneventful as I had to work, but I did discover a sad fact, beers at Ellis Island (my favorite local microbrewery/casino/24hr cafe) had increased in price. As of 7/1 20oz drafts of their micro-brewed beer are now a whopping $1.75 not the $1.50 that they were, not much of a jump, but still notable. (If you go to Ellis Island have the heffy with a splash of stout on top of it...you can thank me later)

The 4th was the start of my "weekend"; and I did my best to take advantage of it. After I got off work I met up with previously mentioned friend, and did my best to drink the strip dry.

For those of you not in the know Bills has 48oz pitchers of either Miller Lite or Coors Light, they run $6 each, but you can get 2 for $10, 96oz of beer for $10 is pretty damn hard to beat on the strip, so I ended up drinking 4 before the night was done, you get some pretty odd looks when you are carrying stack of 3 empty pitchers with a 4th one that you are drinking out of on top!!!

We went to Bill's to watch the fireworks that were being shot from Caesar's Palace. The parking lot of Bill's offered a great unobstructed view of the launch pad, I don't think I have ever been that close to the launching point of a major fireworks show in my life. The show was around 30 mins long, and was overall pretty good, I've seen better (4th of july in Washington, DC and Boston come to mind), but still a solid offering. The only bummer was that about 2/3rds of the way through the show security from bills came up and informed us that 4th floor of the garage was closed from construction and that we couldn't be there (bear in mind there were no signs from any pedestrian entry, and there were no visible signs of any construction being done), but we made it down to the ground level and out front in time for the Finale, so I don't think we missed much.

After the fireworks..I drank up and down the strip, enjoyed a cigar, and soaked up the atmosphere. At one point in the evening I ended up in the $2/4 limit 10 game mixed game at the IP where I was quickly reminded how much the Card Gods hate me...I won't get into the details as they're a little fuzzy but it involves a 2 flopped straights and 1 turned flush running into a runner runner higher straights, and an oceaned boat.

After sleeping the 4th off, we decided to do lunch at Hash House A Go Go, I have eaten at hash house several times at both the West Sahara location as well as their Imperial Palace location, the food is amazing at both, the service at IP location can be a little lacking but the food more than makes up for it!!!

I have made it my mission to have something new each time I eat there, this time I had the 1lb Bacon, Cheddar, and Mashed Potato stuffed hamburger with a side of Mac N Cheese. The burger was amazing, I ate about 80% of the patties, filling, and bottom, but but the Mac N Cheese was pretty average (the first not amazing thing on their menu). I still have my major complaint about the IP location, if you order just water they serve it to you in a tiny ass glass, you get about 6oz at the most, and have to beg for refills, all the other drinks come in much bigger glasses, but you don't get one for the water even if you ask.

On Monday night the Slider Truck had a special night at a secret location, what made it so special was that in addition to their amazing slider menu, they were offering the elusive French Dippers, for those of you not in the know, the slider truck is great, but every once and a while they offer some special items that aren't on the normal menu, the French Dippers are one that I have always wanted to try and I have to say it didn't disappoint!!! I still think the Porkie is my favorite slider truck offering but the French Dippers are probably a close second. The slider truck may be hard for a tourist to find as they are never on the strip, but if you have a car you need to find them, trust me it's worth the wait.

Well I'm pretty sure I've rambled on long enough...Until Next Time

Some sort of Record

I was in and out of the Vegas DMV in 90 minutes today, I'm pretty damn sure that is a record...for those of you not in vegas, it's nothing short of a miracle to get out of the DMV in under 2 hours, and my personal record is 4.5hrs, so today's 90 mins is something that took me by surprise.


Should have a good holiday weekend, I have a few friends in town, plans for the weekend include Vince Neil Concert, Beer, Blue Man Group, Beer, Fireworks, Beer, Poker, Beer, Hash House A Go GO, Beer, Possible 2+2 Meet-Up, Beer and did I mention beer??? Expect a blog update with all the details sometime next week.

Until Next Time