My Weekend In A Bubble (Or, The Post About My Bachelor Party)

Typically, I'm pretty bad about updating Waggle Room on the weekends.  Last year's Waggle Room Reader's Survey told me that.  This past weekend, though, you saw absolutely no action from me for good reason.  I was in Las Vegas to celebrate my bachelor party.  Sin City is a perfect bubble.  Between the purified air that flows through every casino, the complete lack of clocks anywhere (not just casino floors), and all of the other distractions, I kind of lost touch with the golfing world for a few days.

Now, under the Oath of Silence, only so many details can be leaked about the weekend.  To give you a taste of what I was doing this weekend, I'll share some brief bullet points.

We got into town on Thursday night and went Downtown to stay at the Golden Nugget for one night.  After an intoxicating plane flight, we strolled into the check-in line where I politely asked if we could be upgraded to a junior suite.  Andrea was very helpful and gave us the upgrade (yup, we took the king bed) and had a great suite for $66.  Take that.

Blackjack didn't go so hot, but apparently the new thing in Vegas is to have women in bikinis shake it on a stage behind a surrounding moat of table games.  And they hand out beads.  What this has to do with doubling down on 11, I'll never know.

On Friday, I played golf with the lovely Sadekar sisters - Nisha and Seema - in what seems like my dozenth (made up word) round there.  I was crushing the ball for a lot of the round.  Now if only I could focus on golf for more than two shots per hole, I'd be really good.

They always make the pool scene in Vegas seem like a gang bang from a porno movie.  Everyone is barely clothed, downing booze, wondering when everyone is just going to stop having sex.  In reality, that's kinda overblown.  But Vegas pools are smart to have water no deeper than four feet, especially when the outside of the pool is lined with 100 ounce mini-kegs of frozen margaritas from Fat Tuesdays.  Just sayin', it's a safety risk.

Saturday was a bizarre day, but one of the best ever.  We got up, hit up the Burger Bar at Mandalay Bay - burgers and great beer, the name is self-explanatory - and then dropped by the sportsbook.  On a total whim, we went for a four team parlay.  Not a degenerative gambler?  A parlay is a bet that a series of things will happen and they all must do so for you to win.  Our bets were that the Giants with Tim Lincecum on the mound would beat the Dodgers (duh), the O's would lose to the Athletics, the Hawks would stop a Bogut-less Bucks, and the Mets would somehow beat the Cardinals with Johan Santana pitching.

First, Giants go up on the Dodgers like 7-0.  Looking good.  Hawks go up 24 on the Bucks.  Should be good.  Then it gets tough.  The O's go up 3-2 on the A's in the top of the ninth.  It's over.  But, wait, the Orioles bullpen is worse than the Bad News Bears and the A's find a way to score 2 in the bottom half to win.  Meanwhile, Cards-Mets are still scoreless.  But the Bucks are trying to ruin this for everybody in the sportsbook by making a comeback.  Fortunately, it looks like several Bucks players took the Hawks, too, and backed down on the final possession so the Hawks could cover the 8.5 point spread.  Three games in the books and the Cards & Mets are now scoreless in the 13th inning.  They're not even airing it in the sportsbook.  I'm updating MLB.com on my Droid every 15 seconds as the Mets continually fail to put anyone on base, and the Cards subsequently fail to plate any of the two runners they seem to keep getting on board each inning.

Now, though, we have to go to the rodeo.  Professional bull riders (PBR, not the beer) was in town for their World Cup.  I've never been to a rodeo, but my fiance's friend works for them and said she could score us some seats.  So, still updating my phone at every possible opportunity, we roll into the Thomas & Mack Center on UNLV's campus.  The seats are six rows back.  I think that's good for the rodeo.  We're watching grown men ride bulls for no more than 8 seconds - something Brazilians are apparently very good at doing - and the Cards cannot seem to beat the Mets.  I just want someone to win at this point.  Now, though, we're getting close to have to go back to the hotel to go out.  We leave, and at the taxi stand, we find out that the Mets scored - FINALLY - in the top of the 19th, but the Cards answer in the bottom.  The 20th inning goes on during the cab ride.  Now with my cell phone dead from updating MLB.com every 15 seconds, we get a text that the Mets finally won 2-1.  Collect!  Oh, wait, we have to get ready to go to an amazing dinner and night of clubbing at the Palms?  We'll just mail in that ticket.

After changing clothes from rodeowear (whatever that was) to clubwear (same), we get to the Palms for dinner at Nove.  The Italian restaurant headed by executive chef Geno Bernardo was just awesome.  We did a shot with him, had some amazing food, and the panoramic views from near the top of the Palms' newest tower were incredible.  After a short escalator ride, we made our way up to the Moon Club.  I've never been to a night club that high in the air, or with a retractable roof, or with bottle service.  I've never done a shot with Kenny Chesney either, but did that too.  Club rocked, and I made it all the way through the night - partially powered by a Mets victory.

Any questions?