Day 1
Thursday May 12, 2005

Trip to Airport:
Picked up a rental car yesterday at the local airport. I reserved a full sized car through Avis with an upgrade coupon. I wasn’t given the upgrade and got a Chevy Impala with over 26,000 miles on it. The car was in good condition and I had no issues with it.

The ride to Newark was uneventful and I got there in a fair amount of time. Dropping off the car was smooth as well. So far things are going to well this trip!

Flight:
Once again America West was the best deal with a fare of $288 plus taxes. This is the most I’ve paid for a flight in years but the high fuel costs aren’t helping any! I had flight 601 departing at 7:45am. We were scheduled to arrive at 10:30am in Las Vegas but arrived at 10:10am. That works out to a free 20 minutes of vacation time!

Being that I was very tired I actually slept a good portion of the flight. This was a good thing though since I hate the flight. It’s just too damn long! I don’t even know what the movie was on this flight and I didn’t even get my soda! Baggage Claim was a little slow but nothing terrible. I had my suitcase in a few minutes and was on my way to the rental car shuttle.

Rental Car:
For the first time ever I had 3 reservations with 3 different companies, Alamo, Dollar, and Avis. I chose Avis this trip. Not only did they have the lowest price, I had an upgrade coupon. I’m a member of Avis Preferred and the driver dropped my off right in front of my car. I was upgraded here from a full sized to a premium. This Buick Le Sabre is brand new with only 61 miles on it for a cost of $107 for the week. Not a bad deal.

Hotel:
I’ll be staying at Main Street Station for the next 4 nights. I booked this through a host and have a silver card good in a number of restaurants at all 3 of Boyd’s downtown properties. I also have a mailer offering triple points.

I arrived just around noon and my room wasn’t ready but I was able to check in. I just had to stop back in a few hours to pick up the keys. I was given room 920, non-smoking, 2 queen beds, facing the freeway. This room is pretty worn. The carpet is filthy and the bathroom fixtures are falling apart.

After lunch I picked up my room keys and got settled into the room and took a short nap.

Dining:
After checking into Main Street Station I located Yahtzee Mike at some VP machines. From here we headed over to the Market Street Café for lunch. I went with the hot open turkey. Everything was good and did the trick. From here it was time to get my room keys.

Tonight we all had dinner at the Garden Court Buffet here at Main Street Station. Tonight was filet and scampi night. They also had NY Strips. I loaded up on steaks and a few other items. I think MSS has a decent buffet although the items offered don’t change too much. After dinner it was time for more video poker.

Gaming:
My first stop after picking up my rental car was the Hard Rock. They had sent me a mailer that had 4 coupons valid this weekend only. Each one was good for a $250 free bet. This is HUGE! I hit the craps table and sat out until it was my turn to shoot. I got the dice and bet the coupon. My point was 4. Not looking very promising but I took $200 cash and took odds. The very next roll I hit a 4 for a nice $650 win! What a great way to start to the trip. I was still shooting so put 10 on the line and set a point of 5. I threw every number and then went out. I tipped the dealers and was on my way down town already up $585!

After getting settled into the room and a quick nap, I hit the VP machines down here at MSS. I took a shot with some DDB. A game I don’t really like because of the volatility. I popped in $100 and shortly after I was down to my last bet and pulled quad queens. Shortly after I hit quad sixes to get back even. Then a few minutes later I hit quad threes with an ace kicker. I finished this session up $115. My 3 scratch cards were all $2. No big surprise there.

After dinner we all played some video poker. I started off at the slant tops by the bar playing DDB. I quickly dropped $100 here hitting only 1 quad. I switched to deuces after that and dropped yet another $100 in less time. Next stop was the bar top machines. I played a while up here but lost another $100 hitting no quads. I wanted to continue to play but decided not to so I could save some of the earlier wins and finish the day on the up side.

At the end of the night for some entertainment we played some penny slots. I lost $10 here but did get quite a bit of playtime and it was fun for a change to do something mindless.

In total for the day I got just 4 scratch cards for $9.

Other:
Went back up to McCarran at about 7:00pm to pick up Rich and Dawn Boston. I haven’t seen them since the last trip back in December and looked forward to seeing them again. Once again the 4 of us (Yahtzee Mike the Bostons and me) will all be here at MSS for the weekend and as always is sure to be a good time!

Total win/loss for the day: $400
Total comps for the day: $351