Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:42:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Frank Brabec
Subject: [BARGE] NUT-Z's 2007 TRIP REPORT

 NUT-Z's 2007 BARGE Trip Report

Grab a seat, and a beverage. It's gonna be a long ride.

OK, so I didn't take any notes. See if you can spot the made-up shit:-)

Got to the airport, and it was closed. The bars, that is. Yeah, OK, it's 5 a.m., but this is BARGE, dammit.

Get in the air, get a cocktail, am watching this movie "Premonition", and I get the feeling that I've seen it before.
Well, I have, last month, on the WSOP trip. It sucked then, too.

Tell my daughter (Lori, who along with her boyfriend Tom, are taking their first adult trip to Vegas) about channel 13, this alternative station I usually listen to on Ted flights. Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Nirvana, etc.
I also mention listening to a bunch of old time Vegas music on one trip out, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, et al.
"Yeah, the Pack Rats!" pipes up Sheri.

Never used to check a bag, now with the liquid restrictions, you almost have to, wait bout an hour and a half for our luggage to show up, should have given the Ted employee a map to get from the D gates to the Baggage claim, guess there's a first time for everything, this is the first time my baggage got long hauled.

Not to worry, cause my limo is late anyways, Typical of the level of service from Fitzgerald's, which has plummeted from well-intentioned but screwed up to non-existent in just one year. Oh well, thank Ja there are plenty of other places to stay in Las Vegas on future trips.

Looks like the rooms won't be ready till the afternoon, so check bags and head over to Binions to pickup our Badges, and say hi to whoever is in town already.

First guy I see is Randy "Mitch"" Schmengie" Collack, who is happy to see me, and is sorry I missed BARGE last year. 
"Last year, like when I made the final table?" I ask.
"Oh yeah, I guess you were here," he replies.
It's a shame when your friends start to lose it. It was like having a talk with Ronald Reagan, at the end.
 
I spoke loudly, and made sure I was facing him  him every time I saw him the rest of the weekend.

It got to be nighttime, and time for the stud-8 tourney, which is also known as the three-babies-BRICK-BRICK-BRICK GAME. Soon it became time to go home. I think I finished 19th, typical, play a few hours, and bust out just short of the money.

On Wednesday, stuff happened. I wish I could remember what, right now.

On Thursday, we began the day with the C-HORSE event. That's where you fold nine hands, drink for an hour, fold nine more hands, drink for another hour, then get a bring in, pair your door card, and find an opponent who, yeah, knows what it means when you pair your door card, but decides to pursue his draw anyways, then has the audacity to catch on the end. Nhs, wp :-)

Damn straight I got the blues. So we go see John Lee Hooker, Jr. out at Boulder. It was great, except for the Crap table during intermission. Asya and Ben can really dance. Amy, Chuck, JR, David, Caryl, (the usual suspects), as well as Lori and Tom complete the field

The ADB Craps crawl started at Binions, then moved on to a few places where we couldn't play. It ran the longest at Main Street Station, where I gave them some pretty good action. My friend Scottro says that's a pretty good place to stay, and that they treat him well there. One of my fellow players was quite smitten by the boxman, who was, in this instance, a boxwoman, which is good, or else this might have turned into another type of story altogether. She was kinda cute, in any case.

It was suggested we take the skywalk over to the California Club to see if we could get somebody enshrined as a "Golden Arm", but when I realized that they only offered 2x odds, I had to decline to participate.

At some point in this journey, I met this really weird cat named "Ron." Upon returning to Binions, I joined him in a game of low-limit holdem, and proceeded to listen to him ramble for a couple of hours, while consuming multiple drink units. It was a bit surreal, but seeing as this occurred during BARGE, that may be redundant. It was also fun.

Friday, some other stuff happened. No notes, so I don't remember what it was. Do we see a pattern developing here?

Saturday, I woke up feeling like crap. I haven't been feeling so hot in general (I know, I should post something about the hospital stay and stuff, but I didn't want to alarm anybody) and Tom and Sheri had both felt a little queasy after dinner Friday, so I figured maybe that was it.

Once cards were in the air I felt better, of course. At my first table, Steve Evans came by and gave me a really nice Card Protector, a Grateful Dead poker chip in plastic, with a picture of Jerry on the obverse. Thanks so much!

Time goes by, and I'm getting close to the final table, after sucking out on Jester by spiking a 9 on the river when I got it all in with 99 vs his AA. I apologize, not for sucking out, but for commenting "Well, at least it wasn't as bad a beat as last year." I didn't realize how bad that sounded until I said it, and I sure didn't mean to be a jerj.

Busting Jerrod out was a pleasure, not that I have it in for him or anything, but in that his bust out gift to me was a signed copy of "The Mathematics of Poker" I was looking forward to reading it, but hadn't gotten around to picking up a copy yet. I especially enjoyed his partner Bill Chen's inscription when he also signed it for me, "Great Job busting Jerrod"
I intend to invite my younger sister to read it, just so I can watch her head explode.

I made a mistake when I misread a player for trying to put in a blind steal, which compounded when David Trinidad re-raised, and I thought I was getting a price to call. This was just before the final table, which I then reached short-stacked, and had to settle for 9th place.

I started feeling poorly again in time for the banquet, which is why the bar bill turned out so low.
Dinner was nice, sitting with Greg Pappas, who was so kind in giving some limited edition designer jewelry to Sheri and Lori, who had earlier bubbled in the SO holdem, her first live tourney.

Speaking of Lori, it was about this time, when in conversation about BARGE, she started using the phrase beginning with the words, "Next year, I'm gonna..." Well, who doesn't have a good time at BARGE?

Finally located Murray, as I realized that the kids had not heard the Canadian National Jopke. Got that taken care of.

Checked out Sunday, while Sheri picked up the rental car, and it's off to Mesquite, a short one hour trip north .Get the suite out in building 9, a bit of a hike, but Sheri likes to have a smoke and a cup of coffee in the morning out on the balcony, and the suite in front has just too much traffic. Get a nice dinner at Charmaine's, and it's off the next morning to Zion National Park.

We get there just before noon, and see some of the sights which we had liked on our previous trip, but that the kids, being their first time out there, were checking out new. I was hiking the easier trails, many of which are paved, and just like a walk in the park, and seeing how it is a walk in the park, that works out well.

When we walked the path which led to where the canyon narrows to about 20 feet across, about a mile in, I chose to rest, while the three of them chose to continue, hiking the canyon through the river, which at that point is the only way to go.. This is somewhat dangerous, as flash floods can occur at any time. As there are people upstream, they figure they'll be ok, as the screams of terror from those hikers will give them plenty of time to gain shelter behind or atop a boulder, as long as they remain aware of their surroundings.

So, I catch my breath, sipping my water, and realize that we never set a time to meet up again. Now, this is not a big thing, as there is but one way out of the canyon, short of scaling a one-mile vertical wall, but after an hour, an eight foot log a couple of feet wide comes coursing down the rapids, prompting the thought 
"Boy, I hope nobody got hit by that. That could leave a mark."

As it turned out, Tom's quick reflexes saved me a bit of unneccessary worry.

You see, Sheri was apparently leading the way upstream, with Lori and Tom 
following some 10 feet behind, when a gust of wind sent Sheri's ADB hat flying off her head and into the river. Tom snatched it as it went by, but had I seen an "ADB Sheri" hat come floating down the river, it would have given me some concern, as there is only one hat like that on this planet, and Sheri can usually be found under it.

Sheri and the kids emerged shortly thereafter, and we took the bus to the Zion Lodge for a snack and a beverage, then hiked to one more waterfall before starting the trip home.

Just outside the park, we stopped at a convenience store to obtain provisions (beer) for the journey across the desert. I would like to take a moment to point out to you, my patient reader, that we are in Utah, if you were not aware of that. Perusing my choices, I come across I swear that this is true a six-pack of "Polygamy Porter" with the slogan "Why Have Just One" Well, I like to think I'm inured to clever marketing slogans, after all, those Bud Light commercials are dammed funny, but to actually drink that swill? So I ask the kid at the counter, "Do you drink beer?" Well, of course he doesn't, we're in Utah for Crissakes, remember? and he's no help, so I get the Heinekens and leave.

Well, Tuesday night finds us back in Las Vegas at Boulder Station, where we meet up with Fich, Sharon Goldman, and that Amy chick again. Dan joined us later. Sharon had hit a nice jackpot at Video Poker, but when Fich was telling Sheri about it on the phone, the connection kept breaking up. When we finally met Sharon, it turned out it was *NOT* $300,000, which made the story somewhat anti-climatic. Fich gave us video poker lessons, which only cost me a couple hundred.

Sheri and the kids stay up till 5 a.m., so when I get up before noon to bet the Cubs game, everybody's sleeping. Oh, and the Cubs! I shoulda stood in bed.

Well, I go to bet them, and sure enough, that 4-8 Omaha game with a half-kill is going. I cannot recommend this game highly enough. Full of locals drawing to the second and third nuts, who insist on paying you off when they get there. I sure wish I could hold some cards sometime.

We go eat, then get on the plane, and go home.

Shrek the Third had to go off after about 45 minutes, that's all I could take. Having used up my quota of alternative and Pack Rat songs on previous trips, I tuned in to what appeared to my addled brain to be some kind of Dr. Demento programming, but which was in fact the XM Kids channel. In any event, I was treated to a song which was previously unknown to me, but will now be in my karaoke rotation for sure for all time, even if I have to sing it "a capella", which we affectionately call "a la Chic".

With a bit of research, it's revealed that the song was recorded by one Sugar Chile Robinson, a Child Prodigy who apparently had a brief career in the late 1940's. I caught some Video of the young feller on You Tube, check it out.

Anyways, the song is called "The Donkey Song" and although I haven't been able to find the lyrics, it goes something like "I'm a happy donkey all day long hee-haw hee-haw, and on and on, a great song to sing to people so you don't have to swear at them or throw staplers and stuff when they suck out on you.


Is that long enough? Hasta la next year,
Frank/ADB NUT-Z