The REAL April Fools

Hey everyone...

It's been an extremely long week for me--I've had absolutely no free time to just lounge around and be a slug, much less spend any time on the computer posting updates or answering emails. And I was basically the last person from my shift to leave the casino on Monday night--I was busy busy--and extremely tired. But I got home and of course I couldn't go to sleep without watching out watching the latest episodes of 24 and The Sopranos, so I was still wide awake at 7:00 am yesterday morning. My alarm was set for 9:30, but I hit the snooze button and didn't wake up again until almost 2 in the afternoon.

But now that I'm awake and enjoying my weekend, I've got me a tall glass of lime Coke and coconut rum, a comfy chair, and some free time on my hands, so I'll see if I can't give an coherent retelling of what my life has been like for the past week or so. This may take awhile...

I remember dealing dice last Thursday night, and looking up and seeing one of the old March Madness veterans from last year, Eric, a.k.a. Jack21, buying in at my table. Turns out that it was a good time for him to be there, because I think he made about $500 or so over the course of the next hour. He ended up hanging out until the end of my shift and we sledded it over to the Peppermill for breakfast around 4:30 in the morning.

Breakfast was ok--I had the eggs benedict and a vanilla milkshake, while Eric decided to try and be The Man and ordered both eggs benny and an order of steak & eggs. I told him he was nuts, but he ate everything but the hash browns. Speaking of which, we were treated to the latest instance of the Peppermill going cheapo, as they've changed from their wide hashbrowns that I loved so much to regular old crappyass Ore Ida grocery-store hashbrowns. I figured if they were gonna do that, they should at least offer them scattered, smothered, and covered like Waffle House does, but no such luck.

But Eric was feeling flush after his big win at the dice table, so he paid the tab.

He'd been up for about 24 hours straight by that point, so after his big meal he was needing a little sleep, so I dropped him off at THEhotel and headed home to get some sleep myself.

Work was especially exhausting this weekend, because we've started to lose all of the dealers that are transferring to the new Red Rock Station that's opening in two weeks. That means we had to do hour-and-twenty minute shifts on each table instead of just an hour. Didn't seem like such a big deal at the time, but 80 minutes of five-dollar blackjack will suck the life right out of you, since it brings out all of the best players. Good god, what a horrible night. On the plus side, since we're short of dealers, it means fewer people to split the tokes with, so the money was a little better.

After work that night, the celebration was on--all of the dealers were gathering at our favorite bar, Chilly Palmers, to say goodbye to everyone who is transferring. Friday night was their official 'last' night, although several had already left. So we decided to get together and hoist a few drinks for the last time. As you may have guessed, much buffoonery ensued. I'll share a few pics that won't get me into too much trouble:

Mikey and his trophies. That would be Jovanka and Jen making me look better.

Besides Pacifico and Patron, these are my two favorite Mexican imports, Patti and Amelia

So a Turk, a Mexican, and a Serb walk into a bar...

Jen, Carlos, and Cesar finally put their drinks down long enough to pose for the camera

David and our favorite Hooters Girl, Trixia. Word around the campfire is that she's also going to be a 'bikini pit' dealer out at Red Rock, too.

One of our more artistic colleagues expresses herself with ketchup on the only suitable medium available

It was a great time, and we laughed ourselves silly until the sun was way too high in the sky. Lots of random shots were consumed, stories were told, and there was even a bit of disturbing nudity on display. After a couple of hours, I switched to bottled water for awhile before heading home and getting four hours of much-needed sleep.

I got up at 11:30, took a quick shower and checked my messages. Longtime reader Julie and a pack of her drunken friends were in town and decided to leave me dirty messages all night long. It sounded like they were having a great time, so I called them back. We made plans to meet up at 1:00 for lunch at the Monte Carlo Brew Pub.

I arrived right on time, and a couple of attractive gals flagged me down just as I got to the brew pub. It was Sandy and Julie, and I was finally able to put faces to a couple of names who I've been emailing back and forth with for the past month or so.


I thought that I'd be spending the day with four women, but I was told that after their night at the Voodoo Lounge, one of their friends suffered a derailment and woke up with a witch doctor in her bed. A witch doctor, for those that don't know, is a monster-sized rum punch drink that will absolutely knock you on your ass if you're not careful. Apparently, Dee Dee wasn't careful, and redecorated her bed, the floor, and portions of the bathroom once she got back to the hotel last night. My kinda girl, indeed!

We got a table, and a few minutes later Kayla and DeeDee showed up to join us for a little hair of the dog.


We ordered a bunch of different beers and such, and even ordered some wings and nachos, while they regaled me with tales of the previous night's exploits. Between them at the Voodoo Lounge and me and my gang at Chilly's, it's probably a good thing that we didn't hook up the night before, or else we might've been spending the day at the Clark County lockup instead of the Monte Carlo Brew Pub.

After the appetizers were gone, we ordered some pizzas and such for lunch and kept the beer coming. Since we were all still suffering a bit from the previous nights activities, the drinks seemed to do their trick even faster and we couldn't stop laughing or being silly. Once the food was gone, we changed up to martinis and other 'specialty' drinks and I broke out the vanilla-bourbon flavored cigars. Gotta love chicks that aren't afraid to smoke cigars with me!

Julie uses olives to demonstrate what happens when she puts on her Wonderbra

We were laughing and having such a good time that a couple of oddballs at the table next to us began to try very hard to invade my harem and join our buffoonery. I just watched in amusement as the dude with the weirdest-shaped head on the planet kept getting shot down by the women. But God bless him, he tried.

At some point, and I don't know how we got there, the conversation turned to the latest activity gaining popularity amongst the young folks, The Shocker. Of course, after that, it devolved into who could come up with the best rhyme, and I heard later on that the girls spent the entire weekend making up new slang. The one that gave me the biggest laugh, of course, was Two in the cooter, one in the pooter... But I digress.

We sat in there for laughing about four hours, but once the basketball game started it got too loud to carry on normal conversation, so we divied up the $200 bar bill and headed for the casino. We played a little bit of craps for a few minutes, but couldn't get anything going, so we sat at a Pai Gow table for an hour. I managed to make about $35 and I created a monster with Kayla--she's now hooked on the game. I don't think she won much money, but she sure had a good time.

After that, it was getting late so we fetched the Sled from the valet and I dropped the ladies off outside the Wynn, with tentative plans to meet up later that night if I could get out of work. Turns out that one of the gals had clients in town that insisted on taking them out, so we didn't get to go out again. It worked out better, because we were so busy that I couldn't get out of work anyways, but I heard the next day that they didn't have much fun but couldn't break away. So we made plans to do it all over again later on this summer when they come back again.

I was bummed about not being able to get away, but my outlook improved when Stephanie showed up at that casino around 3am, seeing if I wanted to go out after work. She hung out at my dice table until we closed it, and before I knew it, we were back at Chilly's having drinks, shooting pool, and having a good time. Some more of my friends showed up, so we had a very enjoyable couple of hours. It turns out that between her school and work schedule, we can't hang out together unless it's at 4am on a Sunday morning, at least for the next six months. She got a new job at Caesars, and works at Pure half the time, and in the Pussycat Doll's lounge the rest of the time. It looks like I'm gonna have to get down there one of these nights and catch the show.

On Sunday, all I did was sleep the entire day, catching up on my lack of it from the weekend's activities. Of course I had to go back to work that night, and again, being short of dealers, we were swamped.

I managed to get about four hours in the sack after that before heading back to poker school, and it was quite a productive day. I was starting to get a little frustrated because I hadn't gotten any real 'instruction' for a couple of days--all I was doing was sitting around a table while everyone took turns dealing a mock game. It was a waste, until I sat down in the box and announced loudly that I have no idea about the proper procedure for taking the rake because I haven't had any instruction for the past three days... After that, of course, the teachers were all about making sure I was getting my money's worth, else they would suffer the Wrath of Nick. I ended the day by taking my 'midterm' exam and doing well enough on it to move on.

As I see it, I just need to work on raking faster and accurately, tracking the pot, and being able to read the low hands quickly in Omaha (it's harder than you think). The rest of it is just practicing mechanics and learning to deal tournaments. So I should be finished in the next couple of weeks if I don't take any time off.

I had all the best intentions of going back to school yesterday, but like I said, I slept through the alarm the second time it went off. But today, I'm wide awake and ready for the day. I'm gonna go make a pot of coffee, cook some breakfast, read the paper, and head back to school.

It should be a good day.

Mikey