Still in Las Vegas, August 7-8, 2006

We're still here. John is making plans to go home but can't leave until tomorrow morning. I am still here and will have to stay until I see the best suites in Las Vegas for my ForbesTraveler.com article. Ditto on the most expensive restaurants, but I'm at least allowed to do that by menus since I can't take any comps. So, I'm guessing I can leave on Friday. But I won't know if I'm headed to SD or Pasadena pretty much until it happens.

WSOP 2006 down to 27 players. Jamie Gold is in the lead. The media seem more concerned with everything wrong with Harrah's and Cardplayer coverage than they do what's atcually going on. This cartoonist did a fine job of pointing that out.
My friends that are blogging are Jay Greenspan for Full Tilt, Pauly for Tao of Poker, and the whole crew of Otis, CJ, Pauly, and Wil Wheaton over at PokerStars Blog. I'm doing pics and quotes on BreakfastClubPoker and PokerBlog. And of course we can't forget about my fave poker blog of all time, Wicked Chops Poker. Every day Pauly cries out in his best female voice, "I love Wicked Chops Poker," and I die. I have to tape that. Colin said they were thinking about having that play on their site when people click to it. Man, I 'd love that.

I want to leave Vegas on a good note. Even though I'm pretty fried and had the grouchiest of days yesterday, I'm feeling considerably better today. They're expecting a long day at the Rio as they go down from 27-9 players. Then tomorrow is a day off. But who needs to wait for a day off to have some fun? I'm trying to think of some fun things to do before I leave that will help end this summer on the good side of the memory banks. I'd like to go to the Charleston Lodge, have a chocolate eclair at Wynn, maybe have a nice steak dinner...and? Now I'm remembering my fave things. Pate on the balcony at Mon Ami Gabi, I've never been to the Verandah at Four Seasons, and I need to do some shopping at the Premium Outlets. Oh and btw the crew of Oceans Thirteen is in Vegas and filming. Wouldn't it be nice to bump into them?

Money on the upturn. For the first time in my life I could actually pay 4 months of rent and still have $$ leftover, and that doesn't count the checks that are waiting for me in the PO Box back at home, or the 3 more months of rent coming within in days. That said, I have a lot of travel coming ahead. But at least I don't have to worry for a while. Possibly until the end of the year. John is being very good about making sure I don't go blow the lot...damn him. ;-)

Coming up to San Francisco. I just used cheapcarrentallinks.com to book a car for my SF trip. I'm going to be having a fantastic event for Jockstrap where I sit on stage and have a chat with the writer that got me into travel writing, Tim Cahill. This will be a ton of fun as Tim and I have known each other for some years now via the Book Passage Travel Writers Conference. It'll be the event of the mini tour, for sure. I just wish Rolf was around. I really miss him. The thing is, because I don't live in SF anymore, I'm staying longer so I can visit. Now I just need to tell people I'm coming! I'm excited to drive and have some alone time after having none for the past 4 weeks. It'd even be nice to stop somwhere along the way, but where?

Ok, that's all for now. Thanks for following a long.

Current: Las Vegas
Next: San Diego (Aug 12-13) , San Francisco (Aug 15-20)