Trip Report Part 3: The Neon Museum and more flushing sounds #WPBT

So basically, parts one and two got you through Thursday. What can I say, there was a lot to Thursday.

Friday started the way Fridays usually start on this trip. Very slowly and please, for the love of Pete, keep it down. There are headaches among us. It's not like I really slept a lot. I think the total for the night was 3 hours. Weee!


So my credit card receipts show me as having breakfast at the buffet at MGM. This matches my memory fairly well and a photo I took (shown on the right). Again, my company was really the highlight of the meal. Gracie, Pablo and BettyUnderground.

The food there was pretty tasty, but the service, well, we had to beg to get our check. When we finished eating, most of the staff were just standing around, except our waitress. No one knew where she was or interested in helping us find her. Bad, bad, bad.

I wondered over to the card room, still a bit shellshocked from the night before. I hate losing, it destroys my confidence. There's this new thing being dealt over at the MGM card room. It's called "Beginner Hold 'em". My poker dyslexia read it as "Lightly Breaded Fish". The one kind of seafood I like. It's regular ring hold 'em with a max buy in of $50 and set up as a 5¢/$1. I only had about 35 minutes to kill before we needed to leave for the Neon Museum, so what the hell? Pablo, California April and Shelly were in...

Really, if you need $15 quickly and know how to read people and play aggressively, this is your game. In 30 minute I made $15. Most of it just firing at pots no one wanted.

But I had places to be...

Kat was running into some logistical problems so it was up to me to find Mattazuma and his lovely lady down the Strip aways to catch a cab. The Neon Museum is on the other end of the Strip and by the other end I mean go past Downtown other end. It's most definitely a cab ride.

We played twitter tag until we finally hooked up at the taxi stand of Bally's. I had the address of the Museum and experience getting there, so the cabbie's lack of knowledge didn't stop us. Of course, we called ahead just in case to make sure they knew there was a good chance we might be light. We are bloggers and not terribly organized.

The first picture on this post is of the new gateway to the Neon Graveyard. The city invested in a very nice entrance. This is much improved over last year. Now the city dudes using the leaf blowers were a bit annoying, but I understand things need to get done. This was one indication to me that things were indeed moving forward on this place. Last year we were told that by this year, they would have a building ready. The building was still in the same shape as last year with the offices still across the street in a small office complex. Hopefully, their dreams come true soon. I'd love to be able to shoot at a different time then none or 2 PM.

This following picture is of our tour guide. She was most definitely a girly girl. Right down to the peroxide blond hair. Thankfully, she knew all the good stories to tell about the many pieces on display.

A probably should look at the white balance of this one. Seems a little cold. For some reason, I just love the layers of signs.

This dude is still here! It would be so awesome if he was moved to somewhere that made a better background. Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait until I get some better glass. The detail on this one is amazing.

Finally, the silver slipper. This is the first in a series of restored signs that the hope to place down the center of the Strip, a bit of nostalgia for us history buffs.

I'm still going through the pictures. A lot of stuff hadn't changed since last year so I didn't bother shooting it again. I still very much enjoyed the tour. She told a few new stories and hanging out with Kat and Mattazuma is always a good time.

When we were done, we shared a cab back to the IP. I was an easy monorail ride back to MGM. I figured I go back there, freshen up in the hotel room and get ready for a night of poker. Tonight was cash game poker.

After sitting on the bed in my hotel room, I noticed a hour had passed. Let this be warning to you new people. If you stop moving for a few minutes, be prepared to lose some time sleeping. It happens.

I cleared cobwebs out of my brain from the unscheduled siesta and headed down to the card room. I bought into the $2/$4 limit hold 'em game as per my custom. I've never been very profitable at these stakes, but they weren't spreading $3/$6 either. Shelly and April were looking for that as well.

I sat at the table all night. Shelly was there. Wolfshead, Jasper6294 and a blogger I'd never met and didn't catch his name was there. Wolfshead was there when I got there and couldn't wait to get to a bigger game. I had fun tweeting that I could see him and was at his table. At that point, we'd never seen each other formally. Jasper was running with the gods and so was the other blogger. This very nice pharmacist from Chicago was sitting on my left, a cowboy on my right. The cowboy was a good, solid card player. Shelly was 3 to my right. The cowboy's wife was on the opposite end of her husband. I had nice conversations with the people on either side of me. I should the pharmacist my blog. She seemed to have a good time reading it on my phone. She also thought it was kinda cool I seemed to know tons of people in the card room. Hi fellow bloggers!

The night didn't go well at all.

Shelly mentioned it in her blog. she said I was "...getting kicked in the gut." Frankly, it felt like repeated kicks to the nuts with a "thank you sir, may I have another" coming from my mouth every 10 minutes. Let's see. I ran into quads, once while I was holding the big end of the full house, once were I flopped the nuts straight and they rivered it. My two pair was never good. AA lost to AQ. If I flopped the straight, someone would improve with runner runner to something bigger. It was some of the most miserable poker I've played in forever. I could tell bad beat stories all night. I really should have listened PokerGrump, "$2/$4 limit is impossible to beat. Don't even try." $200 lesson learned.

I will say this about the MGM poker room, there is a very good chance I will never play there again. This has nothing to do with the dealers, the players or any of the staff in the card room. My experience there was just fine. No, this comes from the fact that someone decided to place a live band right next to the poker room. There were times that night we couldn't hear the people sitting next to us. As for hearing the dealers, not a chance. They were yelling and doing the best they could, but the band was just too loud. To put icing on the cake, beside being loud, they also sucked and sucked bad.

At one point, a few of us were trying to figure out what the song was they were trying to play. Granted, I know nothing of country music, but this was indescribable. One guy finally cracked it. They were playing "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton. We had no clue. They were stumbling all over their instruments. Sad. I hope they pick a new venue next year for the mixed games. This was awful.

So, here's my degeneracy so far.

• +$35 playing Pai Gow
• -$100 playing blogger $1/$2 NLH
• +$15 Beginnger NLH
• -$200 playing $2/$4 LHE

I'm stuck $250 at this point. Sigh. I suck.

Up next: The WPBT Winter Classic, Lagasse Sport Stadium and a Photo Walk to remember. Stay tuned!