After working the last 10 days straight, some good R & R was in order. Oh, yeah the party at the icehouse was last weekend but it WAS a working weekend. That's what naps are for :) I flew into PHX coming back from Alabama, and grabbed lunch with buddy Velasco, then hopped on a flt to LAS.

Yep - my first time in "Sin City". I didn't get into any trouble. I drank moderately, and had a B L A S T with the group I climed Mt. Kilimanjaro with (minus Paul - I know you were there in spirit, Paul, but it still wasn't the same). I had the Vegas deer-eyed look the whole time. I arrived in time to grab a quick workout, dinner then we saw KA. My first Circue du Soleil performance set the bar high. Phenomenal. One of the most amazing things I have ever expreienced.... hmm like climbing the tallest mountain in Africa? There seems to be a trend with these folks, the 'Ecclectic Eight'.

On the way back to Luxor where Ed, Rachael and I were stayin we stopped at this ridiculous looking slot machine in the casino downstairs. Ed and I looked at each other and had 'the look' of two guys up to something. After examining the machine that looked like it belonged on the stage of a "The Price is Right" show we saw it took $1 increments.

Ed said, (let me know if I got this wrong, Ed) "My Granfather always said you should never bet more than a dollar." I figured, ah what the heck - threw a dollar in and off we went. Spinning the wheel and earning and losing credits. I had commented, "this is pretty good entertainment for a dollar," after about 30 minutes of this. I must ahve been really buzzed because I didn't understand when the machine stopped and we had 4 credits left. Ed was convinced we had won something. I didn't understand what was happening. Good thing he was there. Some lady came up and asked if we needed a cup for quarters. I still had no clue, but was starting to get my hopes up. Then some other casino employee came over and threw a card into the machine and then left. Ed was more vehement in his stand that we'd won in fact he said we won 480.00$ what I didnt see was the number 480 come up on the side of the machine Ed was on when the guy put his card in the machine. Now a small group of people started gathering around us. I was getting more nervous as time went on. This was really weird. I wanted to believe Ed, but didn't wnat to get my hopes up. I didnt understand where he got the figure 480$ from and he didn't tell me about the display he saw. Finally the guy with the card came back and opened a wallet. Right there he counted out one - two - three -four hundreds and twenty - forty - sixty - eighty dollars into Ed's outstreched hand. I was dumbfounded. Had we really just won $480 of one dollar? I was so content flying home, only hoping I had had the time to stay longer.


The money I split with Ed and my take paid for everything except for the flight. Having tight funds right now really had me nervous taking the trip. There wasn't going to be another chance to hang out with the Ecclectic Eight anytime soon. All in all an awesome time. Although it was one single day I feel like I compressed three into the time I spent there.