My sis, Vickie, is now a long haul truck driver! What? That little tiny chick is cruising down the highway in a big semi? Monte (her sweetie) and Vick hit Vegas on Friday evening, on a long haul trip, they parked at the big truck parking at NV Palace and we had a two hour visit for food and hanging out. She saw my new digs – I saw hers. The kids in the truck behind them are my son Darian, Chad (Vickie’s son) and Eric (Vickie’s grandson)…all those kids live here in Vegas and they showed for the meal and visit. I caught Vick with her mouth open but she didn’t have a cigarette in it. Can you believe it? This girl used to eat cigarettes…and SHE QUIT!!! Way to go sister!

Monte’s been a long haul truck driver for some years. It’s only been in the last year that Vickie started seriously considering going to school and hitting the road. I feel it was an extremely good move for her…benefits galore, real money, and always on the move. Perhaps we can meet somewhere on the road when I get to kick into the travel mode. Sweet! It’s kind of like camping out all the time.

*****

The Pan Game hasn’t been playing anywhere as of late. Marie is in Iowa…still…I spoke with her today. Damn I miss her. She misses Vegas a lot more than she misses me I’m sure. Viv has been ill. Mark is out and about and says he’s going North instead of South…he’s got a profile on the main page of PokerWorks right now, Greg and Amy are out of town, Chad is working as is Suzanne, leaves me and Wayne to kick around the casinos of Vegas. We did so on Saturday night. Wayne met me after work at The Tropicana. I played a little $1-2 NLH game for about an hour, $40 min. – $200 max. I won one small pot which left me $2 loser when Wayne showed. We went off in search of food…and to look at the stained glass ceiling. Yes – that’s where the ‘Cameo’ picture was taken, Paboo sent me an email:

*Begin email*

Linda,

I do think this fine piece of art is located at the Tropicana.

What did I win ;p

Paboo

*End email*

This is the stained glass ceiling – complete with surveillance – from the floor and from here you can see the small cameo panels that were featured in the last post:

This is the view of the end piece from upstairs, overlooking the pit area below:

Wayne and I ended up cruising to Hooters to find food, after all it’s just a hop and a skip from The Tropicana. He was my limo service again because I had parked out in the N. 40 to keep from damaging the silver steed in a low assed parking garage. He said I couldn’t say one word about his car. I didn’t. I put my feet on top of the heap of left over cartons, empty food bags, etc., and even got a certain amount of satisfaction in throwing my own empty Dasani bottle into the mass.

In Hooters, we found the three table poker room and Tim, friend of Greg and Nick ,was in the game…of course he’s our friend too. We thought he was going to deal the WSOP but he says he has a bankroll and he’s going to play…good luck! We left to him to continue our search for food. We bypassed the Hooters eatery and went to the coffee shop, I believe the name of it was the Dam Cafe. It was kind of strange – the whole experience. We could see the line to the Hooter’s eatery and it was two days long, there was no line and no wait at the Dam Cafe. However, once we were seated and ordered, we waited for three weeks for our food to be delivered. Our waitress was kind of ditzy, nice but really ditzy, and the theme was like a 60’s malt shop. I had the best dam filet I’ve ever had in my life there. The company was great, the steak superb, what else can one ask for? BTW – we saw three different groups order the nachos plate and share it. From the price on the menu, it’s around $8 unless you add meat then you can chunk out another $3 – $4. But it is the biggest plate of nachos I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s a must eat next time we venture through but we need a few more people in the group.

It was typically Vegas HOT! The temperature outside was brutal. Wayne said he felt as if he could never cool down. I asked him if his alternative was to melt into a grease pile and disappear into the cracks in the asphalt. That was the way I felt the first few years I was in town – yes he’s been here longer than that. Now the only time it really bothers me is if I’m in and out of the car a lot on a day that I have a lot of errands to do. Even at night, it’s up in the high 90’s, sometimes low 100’s.

I headed for home, ending my big night on the town. And did I forget to add that I had another four day weekend? I walked into the room and Pete asked me if I wanted to work…yikes! Choices? See ya!

I believe I am going to be approved for a personal LOA in July and August. The upside, I may get to travel a bit and see the world from a new angle, the angle where I can stop whenever I feel like it, cook in my own little kitchen, shower in my own little shower, sleep in my own little bed, and never have to pack my toothbrush and clothes to get there. Sweet! The downside is I got a voice mail from my little girlfriend, Kayanna, stating that she doesn’t want to come to Vegas this year. She wants to go camping with her mom…and her mom’s going to get married. Same beau for the last four years so that’s not a shocker. Well…hell! I knew when Kayanna left Las Vegas that my time of having her with me for the first five and half years of her life was a gift. One must always appreciate a gift and never try to tarnish it in any way. I do. I love that little girl. I just was hoping she wasn’t going to reach that stage this fast. *heavy sigh*

On another note – poker players type of note – someone I know is having a major turning point birthday this year. That someone wants a ‘tat’ – you know, INK! I had to send some images of my favorite deck, Le Florentin to that someone. And on the subject of tats – and because I’m moving old posts over slowly from the original ‘diary’ format – it brought to mind Curtis Bibb and Mike Danino.

I first remember Curtis coming to Vegas back in the early 90’s – not that he hadn’t been there before – and he played high limit stud at the Mirage. He was a tourist type of visitor, hitting the nightspots in town, checking out the chicks, and friendly. One night he showed me a tattoo he had gotten on his upper arm. As we started talking, he told me who did it. HOLY SHIT! My son Josh gave him the ink. Curtis didn’t know Josh was my son when he got the INK. Small world. Unfortunately, as the years went by, Curtis was unbearable to deal to and I have posts about him that aren’t pretty. He died a few years ago.

When I met Mike Danino AKA Israeli Mike, it was along the same time period and he only played stud. He had a bit of a temper and attitude but he still was fairly easy to get along with. One night while sitting a dead spread, he sat down to talk to me about getting a tattoo and wanted to know who did my work. I told him my son Josh had done it. Mike had lost a baby and wanted to have INK that said something about his son. That was when we spoke, all of that changed over the years as it became sheer hell to deal to him. He is still alive and kicking, every now and then he plays on my shift but mainly in the $10-20 NLH game. And I’ve more than one post on him and his behavior. He once got 86’d because he threw cards at a player. LMAO. He threw them at dealers for years. Management did spend a lot of time toning him down to where he seems fairly functional at the poker table now. I don’t know if he ever got the INK or not, if he did, it wasn’t from my son.

Well to that someone that’s going to get inked…enjoy. And I’ve never seen this someone behave badly at a table which makes them better than good in my book. Happy Birthday!

And on the subject of birthdays – my beautiful granddaughter, Lisa, lives in Germany. She is 14 today. Happy – happy, sweet child.

It’s almost time for Sand Woman Land. But I may have time for one more round of Cactus Bruce and the Corporate Monkeys. Hey…if you ain’t played it, you ain’t living.