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Apr 28, 2013 - 10:03 PM |
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Angel goes to Vegas |
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Its going to be a long journal.
Despite how much I work, one perk that comes with this job is knowing that any time I request to have time off I can get it and I usually have a little bit more disposable income to travel to places I've always wanted to go.
I've made it a new rule that I need to travel at least once a year, kind of like giving myself a little reward for all the hard work I've put in. I think for as long as I work up here I'll be traveling to the states or another Canadian city at least once a year. There are other places my wife and I would like to go such as Japan, Brazil, England, Ireland, and Australia but we'll save those trips when we get closer to retirement.
My wife and I already went to Seattle for Pax Prime in the summer of 2012, but one place I've always wanted to go was Las Vegas. Not necessarily for the partying and the night life, but just to see some shows and have some good food. Vegas is a big destination for a lot of the oil workers up here and you can fly to vegas for pretty cheap from Northern Alberta. A lot of guys I work with always have great stories to tell so I thought what better opportunity to go.
We left to go to Vegas in the middle of March and we decided to go down there for 3.5 days. A lot of people told me if you go to vegas, your best going for 3 to 4 days. Besides there was no way I was going to get a week off especially with a small office staff over the winter. Its kind of funny the days we left it was like -30 degrees Celsius and when we arrived in vegas it was going to bordering around +30 degrees Celsius. So we're literally going from one weather extreme to the other.
Thursday
We got into Vegas around 9:00 pm and we just wanted to relax for the night. We stayed at the Monte Carlo which was a pretty good hotel, and it was rated 4 out of 5 stars. We didn't do too much, we just literally explored the hotel, casino floor, and food court just to what services and stores we're being offered at the hotel.
Friday
Friday was pretty much our biggest amount of free time throughout the entire trip. Saturday and Sunday we pretty much had plans for the majority of those two days. We spent a great deal of Friday morning walking as much of the strip as possible. We stopped into a few stores bought souvenirs for family and friends. We had to make it back to the hotel before noon because I was going to meet one of my youtube gaming friends. We coordinated our trips to vegas so we can meet and hang out for a few hours. Well we couldn't be down in vegas without making a trip to the cheesecake factory. When we were in Seattle my wife got addicted to that restaurant so anytime we go to the states we have to eat at a cheesecake factory every time. I can tell you this much it was a chore to find it. It was located in the Forum Shop, which is the shopping centre for Caesar's Palace and it was literally at the very end of shopping centre.
After the meal, one of the places I really wanted to go to since I'm a really big retro gamer at heart was the Pinball Hall of Fame. Some of my friends had told me about it, and I was a hardcore pinball player during my teenage years and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to play some pinball games I haven't played in a really long time. They even had my pinball machine which was The Machine: The Bride of Pinbot and every time I see that machine I need to play it. They even had a pinball machine for Tron Legacy and that was a sweet pinball machine as well. Fast as hell but a lot of fun all the same. They even had some old school arcade games as well such as Ms Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and one of my personal favorites the 1980's tron arcade game. So my youtube friend and I spent a good bit of time reliving old arcade memories of the past. We also stopped in to A Gamers Paradise (Retro Game Store) which was next door. I was hoping to find some hard to find games, but it was very slim pickings, I was kind of disappointed with their stock I was hoping to find more games I was interested in. I still picked up:
Threads of Fate (Ps1)
Koudelka (Ps1)
Witch's Wish (DS)
That pretty much summed up Day 1. We spent the rest of the evening having supper at Magaritaville with the owner of Game Deals in Vancouver, he was in Vegas the same time I was. I've become really good friends with him over the last 2 years. During the night time we checked out the Volcano show at the Mirage and the fountain show at the Bellagio. We had our pictures taken with some of the performers on the street.
Saturday
We spent Saturday morning visiting the Titanic Exhibit they had at the Luxor. This was an exhibit we had no idea existed, we would of never found out about it, if it wasn't for our friends mentioning it to us at Magaritaville last night. It was a very interesting exhibit, they tons upon tons of artifacts taken from the ship itself. My wife is a big Titanic buff, she watched the Titanic: Blood and Steel mini series, and she considers herself very knowledgeable about the disaster. They even had the big piece of the titanic showcased at the exhibit.
We spent the afternoon just relaxing pool side at the Monte Carlo. I even learned how to swim, poorly now mind you, but still a pretty big personal accomplishment. We spent supper at Gordon Ramsey's Steakhouse at The Paris. We booked reservations well in advance, and I must admit the food is quite good. It was the most money I ever spent on meal for both of us. I think for a three course meal for both of us it cost about $225.00
I think the biggest highlight for Saturday was seeing Penn & Teller at the Rio. It was an awesome show, and they did a meet and greet after the show. My wife and I managed to get our picture taken with Penn & Teller and one interesting thing to note when we were talking to Penn, we mentioned to him that we were from Newfoundland, and Penn actually has ancestral ties to Newfoundland. He was actually quite happy to find out that is where we came from. We even got the first season of bullshit signed by both of them.
Sunday
Our final day in vegas we went to the Siegfried & Roy Dolphin and Wildlife reserve at the Mirage. That was enjoyable to see a lot of the wildcats. They had Tigers, White Tigers, a White Lion, Leopards, and a Black Panther. The dolphins were pretty enjoyable to watch, the youngest dolphin was incredibly friendly and this was actually my first time seeing dolphins in the flesh.
Throughout the rest of the day my wife was really tired, and she didn't want to go anywhere else. We did a lot of walking throughout the entire time in Vegas. We managed to cover a lot of the strip. We managed to walk from Mandalay Bay to Treasure Island. My friends told me I had to visit fremont street, so I set off to fremont street myself because I wanted to see the huge retro toy store they had there. When I got there I was amazed with the amount of boxed G1 transformers they had there. It was incredibly pricey, but it was nice to see transformers such as Metroplex and Fortress Maximus complete in their box.
I also met the owner of Game Deals while I was walking fremont street, so we had supper at the Heart Attack Grill which was lets just say an interesting experience. You can build burgers at least 7 patties high, and if you don't finish your meal you get spanked by the waitresses with a paddle. I didn't even take a chance and I just got a double pattie burger which was still quite a mouthful but I finished my meal. My friend however didn't, so it was pretty funny to watch him get spanked. They even had something called Mexican Coke which I had never tried before.
Sunday night we went to see the Blue Man Group which was a really awesome show. I really enjoyed it, especially the amount of comedy throughout the show. The audience interaction was pretty amusing and I especially enjoyed where they brought up a female member of the audience and they had a Twinkie date.
Finally you can't really come out of Vegas without doing some gambling. I wasn't going to gamble very much money. I talked with my wife about it and whatever money we had leftover on sunday night with regards to petty cash we would spend on the casino floor. She took 15 bucks and spent it on the slot machines and won nothing. However I took 15 bucks and played blackjack where the minimum bet was $15 and the maximum bet was $1000. Turned my final 15 dollars into 150 dollars which in all honesty was strictly beginners luck. It was kind of funny because I only ever expected just to play one hand and be done with it.
Overall it was a pretty awesome trip and I can see myself going to vegas again, maybe not for another 5 years but it was an awesome trip.
With regards to me right now, I'm just fighting the good fight right now. We're less than two weeks away from the start of the busy season, so this is pretty much the calm before the storm. I don't think this highway project will be as busy as what it was over the last two years but there is still a lot of work left to be done. I still can't believe in less than 6 weeks I'll be heading down to Maine to see you guys, so that is definitely something to look forward to as the summer seasons starts to ramp up.
I hope everybody is doing well and I'm really excited for the playoffs this year. Maple Leafs are in, its just too bad we're matched up against Boston in the first round. One team you definitely don't want to be going up against in the playoffs.
| Currently Playing: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia |
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