Preparations and Plans #wpbt

Snowmageddon is bringing with it the 4 horsemen here in Minnesota. Loads of fun. Our local weather people have promised me that my plane will leave MSP as planned barring the freezing solid of the planes fuel. The forecast for Thursday is a balmy high of 9°F, that's -13°C for our Canuck friends. Those highs in Las Vegas of mid 50's sounds FANFRIGGINTASTIC!

Not to sound too excited, but I finished packing Sunday, a full 4 days early. Here's a sample checklist for the weekend:

• Pocket Purell
• Camera, lens and select gadgets
• Chargers
• Ibuprofen
• Tums
• Imodium
• Bounty (Part 1)
• A couple of books

Yeah, packing for this thing ain't all that hard, it just that when I rush at the last minute, I forget all my chargers. I know me.

The rest of this week has been all about building up my anxiousness. One way I've found to get me really in the mood has been listening to the Gambling Tales Podcast. I'll make it real simple for you, here's the iTunes link. This podcast is brought to us by WPBT bloggers Falstaff and Special K. Their 3rd episode is out. Awesome stuff. What makes the show so fun is these guys are pretty well read in the gambling history and use that converse on more modern topic. Very cool.

Twitter has been buzzing this week as well. If you are looking for the best way to follow the live action of this weekend, I'd suggest following Peacecorn's list. As far as I've heard, she's got the most comprehensive list any where. Go check it out! I stopped using Tweetdeck for iPhone a few months ago. The damn thing was as buggy as it gets. I've heard it's gotten a lot better, but it also sports the ability to have columns for searches. #WPBT should be your hash tag of choice.

One addition to my preparations this year was purchasing a portable battery for my iPhone. I'm still sporting one of the first units that came off the assembly line. The aluminum jacketed iPhone 2G. The biggest problem I've had when traveling with it has been battery life. This year, I bought the 3GJuice iPhone/ iPod Battery Charger. It should give me a double long day without having to crawl under the table looking for an outlet. Let's just see how it does.

After all that, now we wait.

So here's my plan for the weekend. To avoid outrageous parking fees, I'll be meeting my brother at he'll drop me off at the airport. Unfortunately, his only free time to do this is a little under 4 hours before take off. So I'll be getting to the airport at 2 where I should also be running into Drizz. His flight leaves just a few minutes after mine. Yeah, we planned that well, but I should be buying him his first tasty birthday beverage(s) before take off and discussing the opportunity to wager on our arrivals.

Thursday night: drinks at the Imperial Palace's Geisha Bar. I should arrive there around 8? My plane is scheduled to land at 7, so we will have to see. I believe Colombo described this as EXTREME networking. Actually, it is, and it's a ton of fun. New for me this will hopefully be drunken pai gow. I'm really looking forward to meeting people I've been connecting with over the last year through twitter, facebook and their blogs. More massive link dumps coming soon!

Friday, I'll be joining Kat and others at the Neon Graveyard. Vegas continues to be one of my favorite places to photograph. This trip will be now different. I need to go to the Pinball Hall of Fame sometime too. Not exactly sure when everyone is going. I need to figure this out Thursday night.

Friday night, we head over to the MGM, more drunken games. The WPBT Mixed game table is something I really want to try that this year. Not saying I'll avoid the cowboys at the limit hold'em tables, but mixed games it is.

Saturday, the only thing planned is the Blogger Tournament. This year, Otis hooked up the Luckbox Last Longer Challenge with a surprise from PokerStars. They are juicing the pot with an extra $2,000. Even before that big news hit the intertubes, we had created Team D-Listers: Lightning36, PokerPeaker and myself. Should be really fun. Guys, let'show those A, B, C listers how this game is played!

After this, my weekend is pretty open. I'd like to check out the private box Luckbox has set up for the sports betting day on Sunday. Kat has suggested she'd like to rent a car and go shoot more of the Las Vegas and surrounding, I think maybe it was to head up to Red Rocks or even Hoover Dam. Kat, I've brought with about 100 GB of storage. Let's do this.

Monday morning, my adventure ends. I'll get back in a tin can and prepare to be flash frozen, but I'm not thinking about that right now. I'm about 36 hours away from leaving the office and getting the hell out of Dodge. You going too? Looking forward to see all of you again!

Tick tock, tick tock...

###UPDATE###

Crap! Forgot to mention...Saturday, 12:30AM - STEEL PANTHER! I'll be there! Rock on!