(apologies for the picture quality, I'm pulling them off facebook, not the camera, for convenience)
Day 1
Our trip begins inauspiciously. It's 9am and we are on schedule. I'm heading out the door and we have a 1.5 hour drive to SFO to make a 12pm flight.
My phone rings. It's my mother. She needs me to check my email for an important legal document her brother is sending (she doesn't have a computer so she uses my email for this purpose). With some haste I locate the email and inform her of the contents - utter humdrum boredom. She seems concerned about it however, as it has something to do with a family trust. She asks me to repeat the email at least five times. This is the entirety of the message:
"Morgan, please ask your mother for her contact information. Cell, home phone, mailing address and email, etc. This is about dissolving the family trust."
After the fifth time she seems somewhat satisfied. She mumbles something cryptic and insane about the rest of the family lying to her and wondering out loud about who is being two faced etc. At this point I am impatient and growing more aware of my tight schedule. I ask her if she would like me to respond. She says no. I ask her what exactly this is all about.
She only says, "it does have something to do with you."
I then say, "well shouldn't you tell me what it is then?"
"No," she says flatly.
"All they want is your contact info, and really, they already have your home phone, which is the sum of your contact info. Haven't they called you?"
"Yes. But I don't pick up."
"Why???"
"They think they can push me, but they can't. I can still control this part."
"Control what? How is not picking up the phone achieving any amount of control?"
"It does."
Ridiculous. I suddenly realize I am 30 minutes behind schedule. "This is insane and paranoid mom, I have to go."
My girlfriend is irritated, but not surprised. She knows that like most Asian moms, my mother is categorically and clinically insane. We hurry out the door and start the drive.
Everything is pretty smooth until the bay bridge. Of course it's jammed! You wouldn't think there would be a problem between rush hour and lunch but God surely exists and he has a real shitty sense of humor, so predictably it is jammed.
We make it to SFO and I am repeatedly calculating the various times for security and check in and I am concerned but not yet panicked. That is until I see the security line. It's at least 200 people strong. Thinking on my feet I show a security person our boarding pass and she ushers us to the front of the line because we are late. It still takes much longer than I had anticipated. Going through the checkpoint itself is a blur of undressing and placing my crap in multiple bins. I then make my way, in a totally disheveled state towards our gate. I sprint towards it but my gf can't keep up. I have images racing through my mind of a plane taking off and vacations being ruined.
Finally I hit the gate and I see people. People sitting. People with a bored countenance. People obviously waiting for a delayed flight. I'm out of breath. And I forgot to put my belt back on so I'm holding up my pants slightly. We sit down and my girlfriend pulls out her blackberry.
"Oh I got an email saying the flight was delayed."
"When was this?"
"An hour ago."
----
I call the two guys we are meeting who flew in a day before us, Tim and Dustin. I tell them our flight was delayed. After an hour or so we board and the flight begins and concludes without us dying... so there's that at least. We land and I call Tim and Dustin, they tell us they need a ride from some Thai restaurant on east sahara. I say to him "that's far from Bally's, why the hell are you there?"
"Dustin had a craving for Thai iced tea."
"Did you order food?"
"Yes."
"Dude we are eating at Raku in 3 hours, I had to make reservations. The lady said she'd only hold the table for ten minutes."
"Don't worry we'll make it."
I hang up. We need to get our bags, get a rental car and check in to our room before Raku. When Tim says "we'll make it," he probably assumes somewhere in there that we don't have to go back to our room for my girlfriend to change and get ready for dinner and he probably thinks this because he's never had a girlfriend in his life.
While we are checking in at Bally's I get a call from Tim. "Hey man, where are you?!" he asks in an irritated tone. Holy fucking shit I blow a gasket right there in the check in line.
"We are checking in right now," I say tersely.
"It's been three hours!"
"Didn't I tell you our flight was delayed? Also, who the fuck told you to take a cab all the way across town right before our dinner?"
"Whatever, we're walking to sahara right now. The waitress is looking at us funny."
"Fine, I'll get you there."
I hang up while yelling a few more expletives into the phone.
"Do they think we're their chauffer?" my girlfriend asks.
"I guess so."
I'm angry, but I vow not to let this ruin my first night so I calm myself down and we get ready. We pick them up and I make some fake chit chat about their poker session from earlier to disguise how pissed I am. They lost money. They're bad players. I already knew this.
We do make it to Raku in time. They serve a kind of japanese bar/grill food. It's delectable and unique, unlike anything I've had before. The homemade fried tofu in dashi broth with salmon roe is the best, along with the kobe beef skewer with garlic.
After the divine experience that is Raku we drive back to Bally's and drop off Tim and Dustin. They don't want to hit Body English with us. Fine, I don't expect everyone to want to party five straight nights.
I already set up a guest list/grease situation with Dillon Reese beforehand. I get to hard rock and what do you know... Body English is closed. It hits me right then that this is midweek during a super slow season. This will be a recurring theme during the week.
We call Misha, another friend who coincidentally has an overlapping Vegas trip. This first night is the only night we can party together. We meet up at LAX, he's staying at Luxor so getting in isn't a problem. Actually getting in wouldn't have been a problem this week anyway, is what I learned in hindsight. Even that little vip card they pass out liberally gets my girlfriend and me in free.
Before that however we sit down at the poker table to pregame a bit. My girlfriend and I play, he doesn't. He has some irrational socialist objection to taking other players' money. He will only take the casino's money. It's alright, he's sitting with me so I can order him a drink. When the waitress comes however, she's clearly sloshed herself, so I wonder if I can push my luck. I order 5 drinks for the two of us. Usually casinos don't want to do this, I suppose it's irresponsible or something. She doesn't give a fuck. Score!
After 21 drinks (they were watered down) between the two of us, and me coming out a little ahead at the table, we feel sufficiently buzzed to go in.
I've never been to LAX before, it seems pretty cool. It's a bit of a sausage fest but that's ok.
Day 1
Our trip begins inauspiciously. It's 9am and we are on schedule. I'm heading out the door and we have a 1.5 hour drive to SFO to make a 12pm flight.
My phone rings. It's my mother. She needs me to check my email for an important legal document her brother is sending (she doesn't have a computer so she uses my email for this purpose). With some haste I locate the email and inform her of the contents - utter humdrum boredom. She seems concerned about it however, as it has something to do with a family trust. She asks me to repeat the email at least five times. This is the entirety of the message:
"Morgan, please ask your mother for her contact information. Cell, home phone, mailing address and email, etc. This is about dissolving the family trust."
After the fifth time she seems somewhat satisfied. She mumbles something cryptic and insane about the rest of the family lying to her and wondering out loud about who is being two faced etc. At this point I am impatient and growing more aware of my tight schedule. I ask her if she would like me to respond. She says no. I ask her what exactly this is all about.
She only says, "it does have something to do with you."
I then say, "well shouldn't you tell me what it is then?"
"No," she says flatly.
"All they want is your contact info, and really, they already have your home phone, which is the sum of your contact info. Haven't they called you?"
"Yes. But I don't pick up."
"Why???"
"They think they can push me, but they can't. I can still control this part."
"Control what? How is not picking up the phone achieving any amount of control?"
"It does."
Ridiculous. I suddenly realize I am 30 minutes behind schedule. "This is insane and paranoid mom, I have to go."
My girlfriend is irritated, but not surprised. She knows that like most Asian moms, my mother is categorically and clinically insane. We hurry out the door and start the drive.
Everything is pretty smooth until the bay bridge. Of course it's jammed! You wouldn't think there would be a problem between rush hour and lunch but God surely exists and he has a real shitty sense of humor, so predictably it is jammed.
We make it to SFO and I am repeatedly calculating the various times for security and check in and I am concerned but not yet panicked. That is until I see the security line. It's at least 200 people strong. Thinking on my feet I show a security person our boarding pass and she ushers us to the front of the line because we are late. It still takes much longer than I had anticipated. Going through the checkpoint itself is a blur of undressing and placing my crap in multiple bins. I then make my way, in a totally disheveled state towards our gate. I sprint towards it but my gf can't keep up. I have images racing through my mind of a plane taking off and vacations being ruined.
Finally I hit the gate and I see people. People sitting. People with a bored countenance. People obviously waiting for a delayed flight. I'm out of breath. And I forgot to put my belt back on so I'm holding up my pants slightly. We sit down and my girlfriend pulls out her blackberry.
"Oh I got an email saying the flight was delayed."
"When was this?"
"An hour ago."
----
I call the two guys we are meeting who flew in a day before us, Tim and Dustin. I tell them our flight was delayed. After an hour or so we board and the flight begins and concludes without us dying... so there's that at least. We land and I call Tim and Dustin, they tell us they need a ride from some Thai restaurant on east sahara. I say to him "that's far from Bally's, why the hell are you there?"
"Dustin had a craving for Thai iced tea."
"Did you order food?"
"Yes."
"Dude we are eating at Raku in 3 hours, I had to make reservations. The lady said she'd only hold the table for ten minutes."
"Don't worry we'll make it."
I hang up. We need to get our bags, get a rental car and check in to our room before Raku. When Tim says "we'll make it," he probably assumes somewhere in there that we don't have to go back to our room for my girlfriend to change and get ready for dinner and he probably thinks this because he's never had a girlfriend in his life.
While we are checking in at Bally's I get a call from Tim. "Hey man, where are you?!" he asks in an irritated tone. Holy fucking shit I blow a gasket right there in the check in line.
"We are checking in right now," I say tersely.
"It's been three hours!"
"Didn't I tell you our flight was delayed? Also, who the fuck told you to take a cab all the way across town right before our dinner?"
"Whatever, we're walking to sahara right now. The waitress is looking at us funny."
"Fine, I'll get you there."
I hang up while yelling a few more expletives into the phone.
"Do they think we're their chauffer?" my girlfriend asks.
"I guess so."
I'm angry, but I vow not to let this ruin my first night so I calm myself down and we get ready. We pick them up and I make some fake chit chat about their poker session from earlier to disguise how pissed I am. They lost money. They're bad players. I already knew this.
We do make it to Raku in time. They serve a kind of japanese bar/grill food. It's delectable and unique, unlike anything I've had before. The homemade fried tofu in dashi broth with salmon roe is the best, along with the kobe beef skewer with garlic.
After the divine experience that is Raku we drive back to Bally's and drop off Tim and Dustin. They don't want to hit Body English with us. Fine, I don't expect everyone to want to party five straight nights.
I already set up a guest list/grease situation with Dillon Reese beforehand. I get to hard rock and what do you know... Body English is closed. It hits me right then that this is midweek during a super slow season. This will be a recurring theme during the week.
We call Misha, another friend who coincidentally has an overlapping Vegas trip. This first night is the only night we can party together. We meet up at LAX, he's staying at Luxor so getting in isn't a problem. Actually getting in wouldn't have been a problem this week anyway, is what I learned in hindsight. Even that little vip card they pass out liberally gets my girlfriend and me in free.
Before that however we sit down at the poker table to pregame a bit. My girlfriend and I play, he doesn't. He has some irrational socialist objection to taking other players' money. He will only take the casino's money. It's alright, he's sitting with me so I can order him a drink. When the waitress comes however, she's clearly sloshed herself, so I wonder if I can push my luck. I order 5 drinks for the two of us. Usually casinos don't want to do this, I suppose it's irresponsible or something. She doesn't give a fuck. Score!
After 21 drinks (they were watered down) between the two of us, and me coming out a little ahead at the table, we feel sufficiently buzzed to go in.
I've never been to LAX before, it seems pretty cool. It's a bit of a sausage fest but that's ok.
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