From the least likely source, too — St. Francis of Poretto.

OK, maybe tomorrow some time. I will not be tagging anyone, by the way.

My Thursday was a wackadoo dealio just getting to LW. Hadda fly to Houston, then get on a non-stop to Vegas, which was no prob since it was a free flight. Once I got there and got my large rental vehicle, I proceeded apace to the Plaza to get my room. Check-in was the usual ass-whip, with some nice lady typing for what seemed like hours before I got my key. I tried the Pauly-recommended $20 tip, and landed a half-decent suite with a king-size bed, a work table, and a couple of couches. However, the room had the oldest window-unit air conditioner in the desert west. Which turned out not to be so bad, since the roar from it drowned out the sounds of the freight yard 20 yards to the west and the idling Greyhound buses 10 yards to the south.

After unpacking, and checking email, I headed out to the Fremont St. dealio. Now, I’m glad that LW has gotten some action cracking downtown again, I guess. Probably good for the city and all, but my gosh, the people populating it were fairly spooky. Never have I seen so many motorized scooters with giant people on them, so many walkers with center-pull hand-brakes, so many crutches and normal wheelchairs and canes. It’s like Fremont St. is the Lourdes of Nevada. I half-expected abandoned mechanical conveyances with people dancing jigs around them, shouting about how they can walk again.

Literally two minutes after wandering into the freak show of Fremont, I ran into a group that included Maudie, Felicia, Human Head (mit frau), BIll Rini, Joe Speaker, and others. I was eager to drink beers and walk around soaking up the misery, so I snagged Fel and walked down to the Western to see the cement floors she had talked about. Which, of course, the cement floors had been covered with wood, and there was no poker room, so ultimately, it was kind of a waste of time, except I got to stretch my legs a little. Felicia was inordinately interested in pointing out the working girls for some reason. I didn’t notice that many, but I figured it was early still. NB: I never made it past the Four Queens for the rest of the weekend, thank heavens.

I took my leave to go take a little nappipoo, having been up since 4:30am LW time. I got a few logs sawed, but not enough, really. I was planning to hit the bait & choir shindig set up by Felicia, but when I got out on the street in the car, I found that I’d left the directions I’d painstakingly copied down to an easy-to-carry 3×5 index card in the room. I thought that I could find it anyway, but that was another total wash. No luck, and no printed out sheet with phone numbers to call. I was hosed, and about ready to pull into an In-And-Out Burger for a fine hamburger experience.

Fortunately, though, Grubby saved me. He called and said to meet at the Caesar’s Palace Mesa Grille for dinner with a few others. I felt sure I could find Caesar’s, and once there, the Mesa. The Mesa, of course, is a very foo-foo hip&trendy joint run by that Bobby Flay character from FoodTV. I am not a foodie, so I could care less about cranberry-infused duck cheese burritos, but I have to say, they poured a decent margarita and the steak was, well, steak-house steak. Nothing to really write home about, but certainly adequate for a state not known for their beeves. The company was great, though, with Maudie, Iggy, Grubby, Hank, and Helixx. This was probably the last dinner I had that didn’t come wrapped in wax paper or cardboard, so hey! Thanks, Grub, for thinking of me, my young playwright friend. I also can’t say enough about the joy of sitting around, drinking margaritas, and shooting the breeze with a bunch of really nice folks. That’s what it’s all about, to me. Thankfully, much more of that was to come all weekend long.

From that point forward, though, it becomes a bit of a blur. After dinner, we hopped into the LeSabre for a quick run down the strip to the MGM Grande for the big blogger private-room mix game. Which is where I met about 10MM poker blogging peeps. Too many, too fast, too loud, and too lively. I was getting seriously weighed down by the steak and the margs and the subsequent beers to be of any use at a poker table or in a conversation. I felt like I was made of lead, and surrounded by shiny blobs of mercury. The ones that truly stound out through the fog were Chris Halverson, Professional Poker Player; Dr. Pauly McGrupp and his younger brother Derek, Big Al (really me, time-warped forward from the 80s) and the loverly Eva, Austin April, some wacko named Matt who was clearly on a crystal meth IV drip, the famous Boy Genius from Gambling Blues, and…well, Christ, so damn many others that I feel like a fool for not remembering who all. Otis, CJ, hell, who else? I mainly remember slamming Anchor Steam after Anchor Steam, getting pulled into playing freaking Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, and probably Soap in Your Eye, too. I finally just peeled off, shambled to the car, and navigated back to the Plaza.

Where I could not fall asleep. I was in that ridiculous tiredness zone where it doesn’t freaking matter. So, I sat down to play idiot blackjack. 45 minutes later, natch, here comes the entire downtown crew swaggering through the astroturfed casino of the Plaza, just looking for trouble. They found me, and they found trouble — they convinced the poker room manager to open up a 2/4 NLHE table just for us. This proved to the scene of my greatest victory of the week, where a set of 4s took down pocket fours from Heather for the biggest pot I’ve ever played. She was understandably steamed. What can I say, sugar? It were 8am, I’d been up for 28 straight hours, and I failed to catch the signifigance of your pre-flop raise. I can only say that if the table hadn’t been begging for any kind of action by playing live straddles for nine straight hands, I might have folded those things to your raise. But when you want action, and you get action, particularly from the least likely place at the table (who’s been moaning about the straddles), you might want to think twice about calling his all-in. Just saying.

This was also the table where I learned that young Ignatious could be a real prick when he wants to be. For some reason, the man went on an insult tear and ended up tilting the dealer, of all people. Suffice to say, I didn’t get it AT ALL, and it made me uncomfortable, and that’s a tough thing to do. I’m chalking it up to too much grog (either on his part, or my part for my uber-sensitivity), but I never want to sit through that kind of thing again.

Cashed out, went to the room, pulled the black-out drapes, turned on the 777 jet engine AC, and passed out for the next 5 hours. Thus ended the longest day of my life for the last five or ten years. The rest of the weekend was no match for that first day from the standpoint of foolhardiness. And I’m happy with that, considering that I am still exhausted, my young friends.

UPDATE: Read G-Rob’s account of the Friday Morning at the Plaza game. Much better than my pathetic maunderings:

“Last night we let a lot of things slide because you and your friends all had one table,” he said, “but tonight you’ll have to tone it down”

Dear Lord…warned off by the Plaza. As one of those Marx brothers (or was it Dean Martin?) said, “I’ll have you know that I’ve been thrown out of much finer places than this.”

I blogged not long ago about an Atlatnic article by Robert Kaplan on China, and the inevitable war with China, and the conjecture and assumptions in that article. Well, it seems that Thomas P.M. Barnett has responded to that article, and rather neatly sets my mind at ease about a number of things. The title of the article in the newsletter should say something about the thrashing that occurs: Kaplan’s strategic lap dance for the U.S. Navy and Pacific Command (PDF). Heh.

Thanks to Critt Jarvis for emailing the link. As an aside, I snagged Barnett’s book, The Pentagon’s New Map, at lunch time today. I got through the preface, and I can easily say that I’m impressed with the writing style and Mr. Barnett’s stated intention of lining out a way to leave a better future for our children. Which, after all, is kind of what it’s all about.

And yes, I realize I’m about a year behind the rest of the smart kids. Such as it was, such as it always will be…

I am finally back home to TFG HQ (Dallas region). After getting bumped to a later flight on Monday, I arrived to find that Hertz had rented my whale car and I was stuck with a Toyota Highlander. A superb vehicle if you’re a hausfrau mit kinder in school, kinda silly for a 45 year-old harried salaryman. Still, it got me to the hotel where I met my better half, the brains of this outfit, for a single (one (1)) beer, some fake Thai lettuce wraps, and about 10 minutes of convo about the big meeting tomorrow (actually yesterday, by now).

The pre-meeting breakfast went well. The pre-meeting lunch went well, as well. The damn meeting itself was the kind of meeting that makes me get out of bed in the morning. Lively banter and repartee with interested parties who grok my dayjob’s product always get me fired up. Came out of the pitch meeting with not one, not two, but THREE more meetings to follow, which shall all be parceled out to the appropriate parties. One of which is a live customer engagement, where heroic measures are required. So, yay us.

Naturally, after that high note, things rapidly go to hell in a handbasket riding on greased rails. Key breaks off in the lock of the dumb Toyota. There’s no second key. We’re standing on a black asphalt parking lot on what has got to be the hottest day in Chicago so far this year. Emergency roadside assistance is dispatched, along with a cab for us schmoes. Cab arrives, loads our luggage, and the damn thing won’t start. Too hot — needled buried in the H on the guage. Finally does start after some minutes of cool down, but naturally, the AC doesn’t / won’t work. We bake all the way to the airport (and for the low, low price of $33, too), thankful that the windows roll down, so we can have blast-furnace air drying the sweat on our brows. Check in, trudge through the hideous security lines that define O’Hare Airport at 5PM (thanks, TSA!), trudge down to the far gate at the far terminal. Fail to receive my upgrade. Drink another $8 beer and eat another $9 sammich. Load up the plane. Back up from the gate. And they turn the engines off. We’re #35 or somesuch for departure. So, folks, you can use your cellphones, if you wish. But no AC. We finally depart the City of BIg Shoulders one and one-half hours later than planned, and arrive to the DF&W in the same temporal condition. Into (what else?) more 90° heat. It costs me another $40 to cab over (in another cheap-skate unairconditioned cab) to the secondary airport I departed from so that I may pick up the Big & Red F-150 and finally get some cool, sweet refrigerated air blowing on me, and pay my $60 parking fee, and drive to my house. Where I’m at now, with the thermostat cranked down to about, oh, 47.

But, at the end of the day (beginning of a new one, actually), it was an absolute & total great & grand time in Vegas with the poker bloggers. I will eventually get the snippets out, the ones that stuck in my brain, anyway, with names and links, because I met some super-cool folks. I don’t know that I will do it again, not unless I can clear out an entire week so that I’m not rushing around like a fool. Talk was made of New Orleans, which has Harrah’s and a few other opportunities for gamb00ling (at least that’s what I hear.)

But I definitely won’t do it without The Wife, whom I somewhat oddly found that I miss a little teeny bit when I’m gone for more than a couple of days.