As promised, this week's update will be rigidly structured.
Saturday, May 26th, Or, The Day That We Did Nothing of Importance That I Can Remember
Seriously, there's always that day every week that I just can't remember what we did. Though, really, if it was something worth writing about, I think I would remember it, wouldn't I?
So let's assume that we did our usually Lazy Day Activities: 1) Gym (yup, I remember vividly following Pam to the gym, and neither of us wanting to be there); 2) Laundry (because I have like three pairs of clothes, so I need to do laundry twice a week); 3) Cooked something (this was our first repeat cookery of the trip, Reuben Chicken in the crock pot); 4) Watched The Sopranos (just finished Season 2 last night, and I think I'm finally into this show)...
Oh man! The Sopranos! Now I know what we did on Saturday! We finally made it to the Mob Museum.
Yes, that's Pam and I at the first exhibit, where we were the mobsters being booked (and yes, I forgot the camera and had to use my crappy phone to take a crappy picture).
We were in the museum for about two hours, and it was some fascinating stuff. We learned all about the history of the Mob, both about specific cities where the Mob action was the bloodiest, and about the national syndicate of the Mob that stretched across the whole of the United States. We got to see videos of sharply dressed killers with tommy guns, look at old-timey photographs of Las Vegas hotels and casinos where the mafia hung out, poured money into, and stole money right back from, and sit in the actual courtroom where the Las Vegas mafia was tried and convicted. This was some good stuff.
Sunday, May 27th, Or, The Only Way To Celebrate A Holiday
Sleeping in. That should be the first giant step in any holiday plans, and it was certainly for ours. Of course, sleeping in is different for everyone, so I slept in until about 11 a.m., and Pam until about 1 p.m. (and now Pam is reading this, and she exclaims sarcastically "Yup! I'm that lazy! Keep freaking blogging about it!" and her voice is cutting and she rolls her eyes and mutters God and turns her attention back to the computer screen).
A big breakfast. That's the next step. And we go all out for Memorial Day Breakfast here at Can 341. A big pot of scrambled eggs infused with melted taco cheese. Enough turkey bacon to insulate the walls. Pancakes stacked so tall that my Barbie's gotta climb it. Frozen grapes fed off the vine by bikini'd slave girls with palm leafs flapping and creating a nice breeze. And of course, it's never too early for a mimosa or too.
Next step is digestion.
Then there's the getting ready to go out. I totally could've blogged during those hours, but like, what would I have written about? The Mob Museum, I guess. Oh well. I played some Super Mario World instead.
Finally, we stepped out the door, and took the now familiar path to the Las Vegas Strip all the way down Flamingo. After the obligatory stop at the Stage Door Bar for to-go $1 Michelob Lights, we headed through the abnormally thick crowds of the Strip toward Señor Frogs.
Apparently Vegas is the #1 destination for Memorial Day. I'm not sure where I read that, and I don't know how true that is, but believe me when I say that we've never experienced crowds like this yet on our trip. And why is it that people walk so slow? Right, I have long legs, and yeah, I always rush to everywhere I go, and I get it, people that are here for five days instead of five months want to slow down and soak in the sights, but still! C'mon, people! Let's get moving!
We eventually made it to Señor Frogs. A party atmosphere is what we were looking for, and we found at this bar. They have one in Mexico too, right? Is that why the name is familiar? I don't feel like looking that one up. Anyway, we had fun there. Check out these rad pictures!
Here's the actual bar area. It's on the shores of Treasure Island's lake out front. Ya know, the one with the absolutely embarrassing pirate show that the Pussycat Dolls perform every hour on the hour? That one.
Places like this always have comically large drink portions, and Señor Frogs is no different. I got the "Yard-long beer." I call rip-off. Look at the thing. It's not a yard. The bottom two-thirds of the plastic container is razor thin. How many ounces? 24 oz., maybe? A 16 ounce beer was $6, and this guy was $15. One and a half times the size for two and a half times the price. I couldn't help but bring this up a few times to Pam. She knows I'm cheap.
But I'm smiling. Hey, it's a tall thing of beer.
It was the house draught too. And if we've learned anything over the course of the past few months, the house draught is usually PBR.
All the chairs had something funny on them. This was the only one that was appropriate for a family blog. There was another one that made it look like I was only wearing a thong.
They had a bunch of funny signs up all over the place, now that I remember, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a picture of it. It read: "Sorry Mom, you know I love you, but I'm not accepting your friend request on Facebook." I thought that was relevant.
After a great meal of American food (it's an American holiday, ain't it?), we went to our usual spot outside of Caeser's, an outside courtyard adjacent to the Absinthe tent that's strangely never crowded.
That's where we brought these awesome skull mugs:
That'd be a Facebook profile pic if I wasn't opposed to putting alcohol in my Facebook profile pic (anymore). Hello all potential employers that have found this blog! My girlfriend and I are of the legal drinking age and always enjoy our drinks responsibly!
The night was young, and we were looking for something exciting to do. I mean, we love hanging out together, but just sitting at a table drinking beer doesn't scream excitement to us. So, like bees to honey, we ended up at... you guessed it... karaoke.
Ellis Island's bar is home to karaoke every night, apparently. And by the grace of the karaoke gods we got a table at the crowded bar. Turnover between turning in your song and getting to actually sing your song was about an hour, so we stayed for at least an hour, and more. The highlight of the night was a really drunk Elvis impersonator doing a very very drunk rendition of "Jailhouse Rock." Pam captured the insanity on her phone, but it might be too much of one of those "you had to be there" moments to put on this ol' blog here.
We made it home. It was a great holiday.
Monday, May 28th, Or, The Day That Was The Actual Holiday
Oh boy. This day. I can still feel this day in the aches of my bones, in the pounding of my head, and in the curdling of my stomach. It was a hurt that only a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger from Jack in the Box could heal. And even then, I was just barely healed enough for this day's adventure.
Pam dragged my sorry carcass over to the southside, Mandalay Bay specifically, to see their Shark Reef exhibit. After waiting in line for like an hour (due to their computers crashing, not a long line, freaking technology right?), we saw all kinds of fish and amphibious creatures.
We saw snakes, sharks, alligators, that annoying fish from Finding Nemo, piranhas, those fish with the noses like chainsaws, jellyfish a lot scarier than the disgusting ones that wash up on the shores of Wildwood, tortoises that totally looked like Lockjaw, etc. etc. Mesmerizing, some of it. You could also pet the stingrays. We both declined to do so for personal reasons.
I gotta say, that cured my hangover.
Tuesday, May 29th, Or, Why Oh Why Did That Weekend Have To End?
Back to work for the both us. Pam saved like 20 lives, ho hum, normal day.
I had a decent day at work as well. The administrative staff gives out "Caller of the Week" awards every week. First, second, and third prizes of $100, $50, and $25, respectively.
Now, this isn't to say that the winners of these awards is necessarily the best caller of the week. It has more to do with processing than anything else. If you call someone, and it is anything besides a No Answer or Call Back, than it is a processed card. This includes anything from a Wrong Phone Number, to a No English speaking prospect, to a prospect that has Already Pledged, to a straight up Pledge or No Pledge (however rudely they tell you that they aren't pledging). You are expected to have 35 processed cards at the end of the shift to meet your quote. Bonuses such as Caller of the Week have a lot more to do with processing than it does with how many pledges you get or how much money you raise.
The week previous, I believe it was Tuesday, I was given (randomly) a stack of prospect numbers that all had six attempts on them already. With my seventh and final attempt, they are processed out as a No Contact. So throughout the whole day, I processed like 250 cards, which like quadrupled the expected amount of processing for one person.
Which is all to say that for a completely arbitrary reason, I received a bonus of $100 on my timecard.
"You better treat your girlfriend to a nice dinner with that money," said my boss.
"I sure will. How many Jack in the Box cheeseburgers can I get with $100?"
Wednesday, May 30th, Or, Only Three Days Until The Weekend
Poor Pam. She only gets five hours a week all to herself. Wednesdays three until eight must seem like heaven to her. That one day she has off while I work, for those give hours, she doesn't have to deal with sick patients or yours truly (who, let's face it, is kind of like a sick patient of life). God bless her. She deserves some time off.
Meanwhile I was wracking up those bonuses again, tacking on another $20 of what I guess you could call a kind of commission, except I raised like $4000 for West Point, so that's a pretty paltry commission all things considered. Still, it was one of those days that I just had a really good, fun time at work. The next day was awful, so I won't bother typing about that work day or the like $5 I raised for Miami Dade College, and let's just leave my description of my workweek here and end it now.
That night we made some awesome garlic and mushroom chicken over rice. Didn't even need to use a recipe, WE'RE JUST THAT GOOD.
Thursday, May 31st, Or, A Good Irish Meal
NotgonnatalkaboutworkbutIthinkPamhadagoodday.
Afterward, we finally checked out the Irish Bar about a mile up the road. Murphy's Law was its name, and it was one of the best meals we've had thus far, I would have to say. Not even because of the food - I mean, the food was good, great even - but because the atmosphere just felt like home. It didn't try to be anything but a good clean Irish bar. The staff and owners all greeted us at the bar, asked us where we were from, were super friendly. It was practically empty for a Thursday night (though it seems like it gets packed on the official weekend with UNLV kids across the way). It reminded me of McNally's and McGillans. God, I miss Philly.
Friday, June 1st, Or, Holy Crap It's June Already, Time Sure Does Fly
Friday is Joe Day. I miss my Pammy like hell all day, but still, it's nice to just lounge around all day every once in a while. I do laundry, wash the dishes, make the bed. I get to the gym and get in the last run of the week (and hey, according to my BMI index whatever, I'm no longer considered overweight!). I watch one episode of whatever TV show I'm watching at the time (just ended Firefly today). And best of all, I get to just relax and listen to the Phillies, after missing the game almost every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday because of work hours and time shifts. And hopefully, that ritual includes listening to a win. Today it did, thanks to a few clutch hits (granted, that was out of a LOT of clutch hit opportunities) and five outs recorded by Papelbon (seriously, he is the ONLY one you can trust from the bullpen, it's pathetic).
So that was my day. Usually around 8 p.m., I start getting really antsy for Pamela to get home. It's 11 p.m. now and she should be walking in the door any minute. Yeeeeaaaaah!
The First Week of June, Or, Future Plans
1) Tomorrow afternoon we are going to sleep in, hit the gym, and sit by the pool, in that order. Then we are extremely excited to go out with some company, friends and coworkers of Pam's from the 'Rise. First it's dinner at the Yardhouse, and then clubbing at Blue Martini.
2) Sunday is going to be recovery day, because I'm getting old.
3) This Monday is all set to be food shopping day, which we usually try to coincide with my payday. However, apparently former employees or some people stole like thousands and thousands of dollars from my work, so hey, who needs a timely paycheck anyway?
4) Apparently some old friends from home are in town until Wednesday I believe? So maybe we'll be able to meet up with them, just to see some familiar faces.
5) Headed to see LOVE, finally, a week from Monday.
6) The Phillies, along with some family and some friends, will be at Baltimore a week from now, so a week from Sunday, Pam and I are going to check out Lagasse's Stadium, an apparently cool sports book at the Palazzo, and we'll see if we can spot and familiar Phillies fans on screen.
Miscellaneous, Or, Stray Observations
1) It keeps getting hotter and hotter. Ugh. Though, as I've said a few times, the sun makes a huge difference. And something I noticed today is that the sun never shines in our room (it faces south), so thankfully Can 341 stays relatively cool throughout the day (though air conditioning is still a must most of the time, duh). Anxiously awaiting the expected 120 degree heat.
2) Don't let them tell you that no one sweats out here. My shirt still gets soaked.
3) Forgot to mention that we saw someone breastfeeding at the Caesar's tent. Seriously, WHY WOULD YOU BRING KIDS OR BABIES TO VEGAS??
4) Hey, did you know that you aren't allowed to wear shorts to clubs? Is this a rule everywhere? Whelp, I guess I'm wearing jeans in 110 degree Fahrenheit tomorrow. (Pam looks up again: "God, fine, if you're gonna be such a pain, don't even go!" Kidding. She didn't say that. Especially now that I called her out on it before the fact. Writing blogs is fun.)
5) There's a ton of car crashes out here. It's mind boggling just how many we see on a day-to-day basis. One theory we were told is that it's because there's people driving here from all different places in the country, and with that comes people with all different kinds of driving styles. Some driving styles don't match up too well.
6) Just so you know, I've now gone four laundry loads now without losing any of Pam's socks. FOUR. NEW RECORD.
7) My favorite homeless man exchange thus far, as I'm walking down Flamingo with my Phillies shirt on. Homeless Man 1: "Hey man, tell him 'Go Phillies' and maybe he'll give you some change." Homeless Man 2 [badly slurring]: "... uhhhh... GO GRANDMA!"
8) Can't wait to get back to Philly.
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