The flight attendant thought we weren’t serious, but when we got our money out, she realized we weren’t kidding. The only real decent story from the flight was when Whale Jo and I decided to try and buy the entire coach cabin a drink. In all of our flights together to Vegas, I had not had this kind of luck. So Whale Jo and I keep playing the blackjack game and I keep winning. I had a feeling this would be a good trip.
He’s a great dude, part of my family, and certainly added to the excitement and fun of this trip.Īnd so there you are, the full crew, enjoying some early morning cocktails in first class. but that’d give you readers the wrong impression about this guy. We never really came up with a good nickname for him on this trip. Īnd in back of me was a new member of the crew – well, sorta new. He was wearing some sort of lid on his head that reminded me of my grandpa. I’ve known this guy for 16 years as well. Going into this trip he as just plain ole Chaz and he’s asked that I add the Smooth title. A true Vegas hound.Īcross the aisle to my right was Smooth Chaz. Very refined and very cool to hang out with. You can always count on Frankie to throw in some comment or observation that is a gut puncher. To the right of Buzzy was Frankie Styles. and then we didn’t see him for the rest of the trip – at least not until we got on the return flight home.
or the time he demanded free rooms from MGM after they took too long to bring his coffee and he dumped a ton of cash into a blackjack game. including the time he demanded security tapes from a pit boss after getting run over in a $2-$4 hold ‘em game at Luxor. he’s had some great Vegas moments over the past trips. A good friend of mine now for at least 16 years. as in, ‘I just caned that bottle of wine’ or even can mean beating a particular machine or dealer) a rather strong bloody Mary and was warm and fuzzy inside. a verb type word that means finishing something. I looked around the first class cabin – Whale Jo was on my left, and the rest of the crew was spread about the cabin. Heck, you can even do it when ordering at McDonalds I suppose. one of the Miss USA contestants walks by. You win a $100 bet at blackjack, you yell out ship it!. The phrase itself is simple enough – basically it just means in Vegas-speak, “Pay up”, or “I won” or even “She’s kinda hot”. “Ship it”, on this trip, certainly was put to extreme use. OK, I don’t know what it is about Vegas, but it certainly seems, at least for Whale Jo and myself, to up the “let’s run a barely understandable catch phrase into the ground” factor. And you thought I was talking about REAL blackjack? Don’t worry, that day is I looked over at Whale Jo – he had crapped out. $3 got you a chance to run up an initial $1k in chips. Oh yes, baby, the 2009 Vegas trip definitely had just begun.Īnd I mean that literally, to start the trip off, we had decided to challenge each other to a blackjack tournament on my iPod. I looked over at Whale Jo and smiled defiantly. “Heck ya! Two minutes in and I’m up $2,500 on blackjack!!! Beat that!”