Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong

Viva Las Vegas - Part 2

There isn’t much you can say about having to be in Las Vegas for work for extended periods of time. The casino sounds and smells get you pretty quickly. There’s only so much coffee shop food you can eat. The restaurant choices here at the South Point Hotel and Casino are limited so it gets old pretty fast. On the positive? If there is a positive, each room has nice, big plasma TV’s, if you’re spending any time in the room. The rooms are decent size and because the hotel is less than 2 years old, the grime and grossness hasn’t permeated everything. And since this hotel is about 5 miles from The Strip, it’s not overwhelmed with crowds. Still, luckily, we’re only here for 10 days this year instead of 15 like last year.

One of the few fun perks of this hotel is they have 24 hour bowling. A full 64 lanes to choose from and it provides plenty of entertainment. We didn’t have time to bowl last year but we made time this year. On Saturday night, G, C, me and S (our babysitter but she’s so much more) went to the bowling area to meet up with some of the other folks who work on the show. We took over two lanes and got our game on.

You have to realize a few things about me. I’m completely athletically challenged. I’m Jewish and grew up with music, not athletics, as my extra curricular activity. I got into aerobics in college. I learned to ski right before I turned 30 and I haven’t done that in 5 years. I’m about to start taking golf lessons (an upcoming post) That’s about it for my athletic prowess. The other thing you need to know is that the last time I bowled was about 7 or 8 years ago when several friends and myself threw my sister a surprise birthday party/Bat Mitzvah (again, a future post). I couldn’t tell you the last time I bowled before that. So with that history behind me, I pick up my orange 10-pound bowling ball, wind up, throw the ball and I had a STRIKE! My first strike ever and on the first ball! I was quite proud of myself if I can brag a little. I proceeded to bowl 3 more strikes (holy shit!) and finished the round with a 123. Without a doubt, my highest score ever and certainly the first time I broke 100.

C did well too and had quite the fan club with everyone from the office. She assumed a squatting position, pushed the ball and with some help from Dad, the ball managed to get all the way down the lane. One cool thing with “modern” bowling. You tell the front desk which bowler number the kid is and the bumpers come up automatically. Awesome. C did very well for that first game and bowled a 62. She was quite proud.

G and S, of course, did well. G bowled a 143 and S bowled a terrific 136 including a turkey which is 3 strikes in a row! You go girl! She claimed she learned her fine form after watching be bowl my awesome strike right out of the box.

Now, (stand by for bad parenting), it’s about 11PM and we think it’s time to go to upstairs. (Gee, ya think? Is it wrong to think that 11PM is a little late to be up for a 4 year old, even on a Saturday night?) C starts to whinge that she wants to bowl some more. So what do the model parents do? We pay for another round of bowling of course! So we get started with Round 2. Clearly, it was too much for me because my scores went downhill very fast. No strikes. I think I had 1 spare. Even C got a spare. By the time we hit the 10th frame, C and I were neck and neck. When we finally finished (okay, a little after midnight), I only beat C by 2 points. Yes, my 4 year old bowled only 2 points less than I did. It was definitely time for bed and quit while we’re ahead.

Sunday night after dinner, someone decided she wanted to bowl again. So C, G and I went back up to the bowling alley. It was a more reasonable 8:30P at this point. Much less crowded on a Sunday night. C managed to come up with a bit of a new technique and kind managed to stand and throw the ball down the lane as opposed to squat and roll. She understands the hand air dryer and think that’s pretty cool too. No strikes for me but a few spares. I redeemed myself from the debacle of the 2nd round the night before. I finished with a respectable (for me) 94. C bowled well and finished with 60 including one frame where she knocked over 9 pins. G, naturally, won with a PBA Championship challenging 129 points. We had a good time and that’s all that mattered.

Nice shoes

Such form

But it seems to work...


Bonding with Dad while watching the ball go down. (I love this pic)

Scores from game 1

The downslide in game 2

Have to air dry the hands. Makes for better control, dontcha know.

Here comes the ball.

Looking way too cool

Final score from round 3, day 2.



The other excitement that happened on Sunday night (which C actually slept through) was the huge thunderstorm that happened overnight. For about 4 hours, all we heard was thunder claps. We couldn’t see lightning from where we were. That was happening to the east and we apparently face west but there was TONS of thunder. Being from So Cal where we rarely get weather, much less thunderstorms, it was quite amazing. It didn’t rain much where we were but there was tons of flooding all around Las Vegas which caused lot s of problems the next morning. It rained .56” of rain in a really short amount of time and being in the desert, there’s not proper drainage. It was an adventure and sounded really cool. I would’ve liked to have seen the lightning though. Of course, there were some amateur photographers with shots shown on the news and they were really awesome. See? Sometimes, Vegas can be fun.

posted by Juls @ 1:15 PM