Welcome to the Southwest

Why aren't we flying? Because getting there is half the fun. You know that.
--Clark W. Griswold

So far on this trip we've spent about $4,272 on gas, I lost over $500 playing paigow in Tunica, and I had to physically restrain CK from throwing my iPhone out the window for having "too much 80s music" on it. We've also spent the last two days traveling across Oklahoma, the panhandle of Texas, and eastern New Mexico. It was flat (except for the parts where we gained elevation). It was windy (all parts). It was boring (all parts). There weren't even any bugs to obliterate themselves on our windshield in a rainbow of sparkling colors.

To say that I was looking forward to the outdoors portion of the trip is an understatement. That was supposed to begin with 9 holes of golf in Albuquerque this morning, a day at the Grand Canyon tomorrow, and golf in LA on Monday.

Unfortunately we forgot to pre-clear this portion of the trip with Mother Nature. Her response:

* pouring rain in Albuquerque this morning;
* up to 4" of snow at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon tonight; and
* a high temp not above the low 60s in LA on Monday.

It figures that I would go to arid country in late May and it would be 47 degrees and raining / snowing. I am thinking back to that Friday night in late January when I initially agreed to this craziness and wondering just how much I had to drink.

UPDATE: It is 5:33pm local time. The temperature has dipped to 37F and it is snowing. We are in the world's worst strip mall sports bar to watch the Laker game. I am looking under the tables for Rod Serling.

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Gas Update!

Last night we made it to Norman, OK (casa de Maudie). We've filled up 6 times so far. The most expensive was at a Shell in Hamburg, PA ($3.799/g). The cheapest was at a Love's Travel Plaza in Jackson, TN ($3.499/g). We've put 77.9 gallons in the tank and have spent a total of $288.26. The fact that this is the equivalent of a coach class ticket from New York to LA is not lost on me.

Some things I have been pondering to this point in the trip. Feel free to provide answers to any of them in comment-land:

* Who were Mason and Dixon, and why is there a line named after them?
* How many crackers are in a cracker barrel?
* Why are aircraft necessary for enforcing the speed limit on I-81? And how do they do it? Do they drop bombs a la Spy Hunter?
* How are you supposed to know how much gas to pump if you have to pay before pumping?
* Who chooses what services go on the blue highway "services at this exit" signs?
* Who is Paula Deen?
* Why are there so many parking lots at the Tunica Grand?
* Does Carrie Underwood really deserve signs along I-40 for winning American Idol in 2005?
* Why does every bridge on the highway have a little yellow sign that says "Bridge Freezes Before Road Surface"? How does this information enhance my driving experience in any way?

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Dueling Banjos

11pm, Sunday night, Tunica. Someone has thrown the doom switch on me at a 4-8 table that I was playing for shits and giggles, so wandering down to the Asian games pit and playing some $50/hand paigow seems like the thing to do. There is a tiny, wrinkled, white-haired woman sitting next to me. She's "in her cups", swilling down bottles of Budweiser. We start talking and she tells me, almost proudly, that she is down $1,000. Playing paigow.

She's very unhappy that I'm not playing the fortune bonus and asks if it's ok that she play my fortune bonus on her money. I agree because I don't really care -- I never play the fortune bonus under the theory that the house edge is too huge to justify playing it.

[Amusing side note here: One of the things I learned on Sunday is that hitting a royal flush in paigow pays 150-to-1. If you're playing the fortune bonus. My royal flush in clubs paid me fuck-all.]

Because the casino requires that I have to be the one to place the bet on my fortune bonus spot, in between each hand the old woman slides me $15. It becomes crystal clear to me how she could be stuck $1,000 playing paigow.

"Where are you from?" she asks.

"New York City."

"New York City! How about that. We're from Arkansas! What do you all think about Mrs. Clinton up there?"

Now I am actually prepared for this question. Before leaving New York, I read something somewhere (2+2 maybe) that claimed that most of Arkansas thinks Bill and Hillary Clinton are gods. Never, under any circumstances, should you say anything negative about the Clintons to someone from Arkansas. The problem is I'm not the best at lying. So I equivocate a little bit and say that she's ok, but I'm not her biggest fan.

"We hate her," the old woman states emphatically.

"Really? I thought everyone from Arkansas loved the Clintons."

The old woman glances to both sides and then leans forward as if she is about to let me in on a huge secret. I cock my ear a little and she furtively replies, "Blacks!"

Hmm. I just nod politely and give her an "Ah. I see."

"Yep! They're real popular in Niggertown. Well, that's what *we* call it."

I can only imagine that "we" refers to a bunch of 70-year old white people in a little town outside of Jonesboro, Arkansas who proudly fly their Confederate flag in their front yard and drive 40-year old pickup trucks with bumper stickers that read "I HATE NIGGERS". I ponder the wisdom of telling the old woman that my girlfriend is Asian and Jewish. I'm not interested in causing a scene in the Asian games pit (where sympathy will most assuredly be on the side of the genteel blue-hair from the South and not on the young whippersnapper Yankee) but I'm also not interested in condoning such blatant racism. As the old woman drains the last of her Budweiser my elbow, of its on accord, makes a motion towards "accidentally" nudging her chair backwards so it tips over. Do two wrongs make a right? I feel like this case should be the exception to the rule since it would be a neat solution to the problem without creating confrontation but I manage to regain control of my limbs and the blue-hair stays upright in her chair.

She wipes some beer from her mouth with the back of her hand. "Yep, them niggers love Bill and Hillary. It's all niggers really." Her initial apprehension about saying the word "blacks" has vanished completely and the N-bombs are flying fast and furious. People the next pit over now know her views about Bill, Hillary and "niggers". I'm desperate to get out of the conversation.

Another hand of pai gow. She bets $15 on my fortune bonus again. "I'm not leaving until you win!" Right then. Time for a color up. Nice talking to you.

Or not.

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Day 1, My Take

CK's version of the day's events.
My version: We made it to Roanoke VA. She hasn't killed me yet. The day's a success!

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See You On The Other Side

For the last two years I've had a photo of a Santa Monica sunset as the desktop background on my office computer. I originally put it up to serve as a reminder that my goal was to be back in LA. Funny how plans change over time.

Prior to shutting down the work computer for the last time yesterday I wiped all of my personal files from the hard drive. Except that one Santa Monica sunset. Even though we're not headed to Santa Monica, I drew a fair amount of motivation from what the photo represented: change and hope. So I left the photo as the desktop background. Maybe the next person to use that machine will be similarly motivated by it.

(If half my life weren't packed up, I'd dig out the CD with the photo on it and insert the photo here. Ah, to be organized.)

[Edit: Serendipity! Found the CD in my laptop bag as I took the laptop out tonight.]


With that, we're off to a predictably late start -- predictable because neither of us is a morning person. Good thing we don't have anywhere particular to be.

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The Price Is Right

In four short days, CK and I are hitting the road to begin our sojourn across the country to Vegas. My idea is to take lots of photos along the way and to keep detailed records of random, esoteric crap - a travel log, if you will - so that I have lots of writing material. The price of gasoline being what it is, I expect we'll be broke by the time we pull into Summerlin and I'll be attempting to sell my meager possessions to pay for the trip (not that anyone would buy any of my crap).

That brings us to the contest. CK and I are driving a 2004 VW Passat wagon, with approximately 18,000 miles on it, from New York to LA and then up to Vegas. According to Google Maps, the total distance we will travel is 3,275 miles. How much do you think we'll spend on gasoline for the entire trip?

Each person who leaves a comment to this post is entitled to ONE guess. The closest guess will win... something. I haven't decided what yet. It could be as pedestrian as a Mookie buy-in or as ecologically unfriendly as a baby seal skin (hat tip, Ugarles). This is not a Price Is Right-style contest, but in the unlikely event that an overguess and an underguess are equidistant from the final total, the underguess will win.

Have at it. Contest closes at 9pm ET on Friday.

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"Expand the Brand"

There's been a fair amount of discussion lately about Harrah's decision to delay the final table of the Main Event of the WSOP and about whether this is finally the "jump the shark" moment for poker. People have been looking for that moment for several years now, ever since the UIGEA obliterated the Golden Age of internet poker. It's hard to believe that a game that has been played for hundreds of years could ever "jump the shark". If it could, it happened before the decision to delay the final table of the Main Event. It happened the day Harrah's set up the World Series of Poker(R) Platinum Plus(R) Visa(R) Credit Card With WorldPoints(R) Rewards through Bank of America.

Four registered trademarks. That's a credit card that packs a punch. Listen to this marketing copy:

The World Series of Poker Platinum Plus card with WorldPoints rewards offers you exclusive World Series of Poker merchandise like poker chips and poker tables, plus buy-ins to World Series of Poker Finals and Circuit Events. [emphasis in original]

Um... yeah. Really? What consumer needs multiple poker chip sets and poker tables? (Other than you, Jamie.)

If it wasn't clear enough that this is a poker-themed credit card, subheadings in the copy really bludgeon the point home: "Here's the Deal", "A Winning Hand", "The Deck is Stacked in Your Favor" and "The Rewards Are All In". Get it? They're poker idioms! The copy goes on to let me know that every purchase I make with this card puts me "that much closer to exclusive WSOP rewards". Thank God for that! Some examples of rewards:

4,000 points - official WSOP baseball cap (so you can look 'legit' at the poker table)
5,000 points - $25 cash back (how is this a WSOP reward? Is Bank of America taking the money out of a special 'HAHAHA here's how much Harrah's raped the players this year' fund?)
10,000 points - WSOP professional 11.5-gram poker chip caddy including 200 chips
13,000 points - $100 gift card
25,000 points - one round-trip airfare to anywhere in the continental U.S. on major U.S. airlines
50,000 points - WSOP $500 buy-in

Points are accumulated at the rate of one point for every dollar spent. For the privilege of spending fifty large, you get a "buy-in" to a WSOP event. I guess that must be a circuit event because last I checked the cheapest buy-in at the WSOP was $1500.

But those are just details. I've already sent in my application form so I can possess one of these magical credit cards as soon as possible. I want my opponents at the Rio this summer to quiver in fear when I casually whip out this bad boy to pay for a ham sandwich. If it's not the mark of a true balla, I don't know what is.

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Kentucky Derby Blogging

Uncle Bracelet, after watching Bob Blackjack lead through 3/4 of a mile only to finish 16th out of 20, says, "Well at least my horse didn't die."

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