Construction of The City has begun..or rather destruction of everything that will stand in the way of the construction, except The Boardwalk and The Boardwalk Parking Garage. But the Boardwalk and the Boardwalk Parking Garage are already gone…they just don’t know it yet. To cop a phrase from Michael Craig, when he was in town to speak for our WPBT in December, “I’m staying at the Boardwalk. It has a big red X on it for the wrecking ball.” (Hey, that’s where I picked him up that morning).
Not to worry, Bellagio’s Employee Parking Garage isn’t finished. It only takes seven years or so for the construction on an employee parking garage to begin. That’s how long it took The Mirage to begin one for us. At one point in time, while at The Mirage, we were bussed from a parking lot behind the Frontier for approximately six months. They finally built the garage. Wow! Of course these casinos don’t need the 9,000 or so employees it takes to make them work. That’s why our ‘stress free’ arrival and well being is always thought of first. Kee-rist! Well let me jump right past that little bit of ‘lint’ because I have a day planned where I will drive boldly into the Boardwalk Parking Garage and shoot pictures of the mass of rubble and destruction that lies afoot, before The City begins. That’s coming soon…the pictures of the scene, that is.
On to poker and life in the poker room as I know it. I still haven’t dealt a card. I know that I know how to deal, question is will I ever deal again? The answer is – hell yes, silly rabbit. I’m not averse to dealing. It’s been a great lifestyle and living for me for many years. And how could I amass all these wonderful stories if I wasn’t a dealer? I’ve listened to so many players, over the years, speak about poker as if the limit they played was the only game in town. A statement that always makes me chuckle, when it comes to mind, happened about four years ago. I was dealing $30-60 H and Roy Cooke was in the game. He stated that the room was really dead. In reality, the room was rocking. The ‘dead’ part meant that there were only three $30-60 games going. Out of 30 tables, only four of them were down. Life is so limited when you are a player. You miss everything that’s going on around you because your focus is the limit and people that you play against all the time. I know that playing $4-8 limits me…I’m in a special part of poker but it isn’t the whole of poker. Ok…enough.
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I’m slowly learning the functions of the new camera. Wayne appeared – at my request when I called him from the player’s seat (I was in the player’s seat) – to be my victim…er…ahhh…subject as I tried a variety of different options on the camera. You have to love someone that will just appear and let you ‘shoot’ them. Thanks buddy. This one is so damn funny. Mainly because the camera is set for ‘fast action’…but one has to forgive the camera because the light was dim…and I told Wayne it was set for ‘action’ shots so he started moving:
This camera is going to take a lot. A lot of my time and effort to learn how to use it properly. I will damn it!