"I am not Joyful"

    I just got up from a well deserved nap. I spent the whole weekend in Vegas and was operating on only a few hours of sleep. It was a great trip, mostly because I got to visit Ailey, who I hadn't seen since she left Kyrgyzstan a few weeks before I did.

   I got in Friday night around 7 and had to kill some time (five hours!) until Ailey's plane arrived. She called to say that her flight was delayed and I actually didn't see her until 1:30 Saturday morning. I spent the interim drinking in the sports book and was pretty sloshed when she arrived. She flew in with her friend Denise and we stayed with another friend of hers, Adam, who lived just outside the city.

   Saturday we went and saw a Cirque du Soleil show and it was awesome. I had never really had an interest to see an artsy French circus, but I was blown away by the performance.

   Sunday we went to a free show at the Rio. Some ventriloquist guy who's audience consisted of mainly kids and senior citizens. He became a lot funnier as we downed the drinks we were forced to buy to make the show 'free'. Halfway through, he asked for a volunteer from the audience and Ailey and Denise happily volunteered me. I was brought up on stage and had to be the guy's dummy (shut up). He made me sing a song and afterwards shamelessly promoted the merchandise he gave me for being such a good sport. It was a good time though.

   Later Sunday night, we decided to go to a club in the Bellagio. Admittedly, I am not a club kind of guy and wasn't too pleased to be in a line with about twenty other guys. The bouncer noticed Ailey and Denise, though, and went to let all three of us in, until he noticed I wasn't wearing dress shoes. I had left my dress shoes at home, and as far as I know, they are still covered in dust from Kstan...So I couldn't get in and told the girls to go without me. I stormed off, pissed at the situation, and wandered around for an hour. I finally made my way to O'shea's, a crappy little casino that had cheap blackjack. An hour later I was up $300. Great night. The girls found me a few hours later. They liked the club but left early after some guy accidentally punched Denise and made her bit through her lip. Ouch.

   We took a cab back to Adams' and the cab driver got lost mostly by his deviating from our precise directions to take a proven shortcut that he knew because his nephew lived in that area. We finally told him to go our route and the meter read twice as much as it did the night before. Ailey and I sat in the back and bitched about the driver in Kyrgyz. "We will not pay him", "No problem. He will not get our money", and my favorite from Ailey: "I am not joyful". We paid the guy exactly what we paid the night before and after complaining for a while, he took the money and left.

   So, I had a great weekend and came home with the trip basically paid for by blackjack winnings. Not bad.