Johnathan Nightingale (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} johnath) wrote,@ 2004-03-29 14:59:00 |
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wtf?
I did not expect to be in atlantic city this weekend.
lethie has already mentioned the trip, but for those who missed it, here is the quick summary:
I did not expect to be in atlantic city this weekend.
The guys (Kevin, Chris, Rob, Matt, and Brian) surprised me friday morning with a van, and a duffel packed by my sneaky fiancée, and instructions to shower, pack some deodorant, and prepare myself to hit atlantic city in an unofficial pre-bachelor-party bachelor party.
Totally snowed. I had not a whiff of a hint this was going on. Truly truly stumped. They rock! :)
We are not on the road ten minutes before problem one strikes: my bank has locked all my accounts. This creates a problem when seeking to play poker for something other than potato chips. I route around difficulty by using a dormant (and empty!) line of credit at another bank, then get back on the road and then start sorting that out. Turns out an affiliate cheque Barnes and Noble sent me bounced, and in my cleverness I cashed it through the one account without overdraft - so my account was overdrawn and locked. Solid. Fixed now though.
Cross border, driving down the 476 through Pennsylvania, van dies. Quarter of a tank of gas left, and after 10 minutes it's rolling again, sort of, so we figure probably the gas gauge is crappy, and vow to keep it topped up above half for rest of trip. About a minute later it dies again and is less willing to restart. Out comes CAA card, which is then chained to AAA, which is chained to some other people and 15 minutes later a nice man comes and gives us some gas. We drive to the next station, fill up, back on the road.
Hit motel around 9:30, hit the Tropicana around 10:30. I'm playing fucking poker in atlantic city, and the first thought that runs through my head is:
I did not expect to be in atlantic city this weekend.
The trop's poker room is huge, though the tables, chairs, and dealers are not as nice as Rama, but the size, coupled with the concomitant improvement in speed getting through the waiting list makes me quite happy to be playing there. I make a couple questionable bets and am down $8 when we head to hooters for "dinner" around 12:30am. Fabulous sauce on the wings, but I've never had wings so greasy that grease quite literally squirts out of them as you bite them. "3 mile island" is also less spicy than the name might suggest, but very tasty. We keep playing at the trop till about three then back to sleep. Total sleep, 4 hours.
Saturday we decide to check out the Borgata, a new casino off of the main strips (Atlantic and Pacific avenue -- monopoly streets everywhere, so fabulous!). Best decision we made the entire trip. Their breakfast buffet made me weep - strawberries the size of peaches and tasty as all get out - waffles with choclate chips and pre-warmed maple syrup, and country gravy for the hash browns and scrambled eggs. And their poker room is where God goes whenever he plays poker, I think. Fabulous surroundings (no smoking, natch), fabulous dealers, even the seats were top notch. The waitresses were such thoroughly successful eye candy that I almost looked right at them, despite being an almost-married man. We sat at 12pm and got up at 3am, basically. After that breakfast I wasn't really hungry till at least 12-14 hours later anyhow.
Some of us sat the entire session, but Brian and I took a breather around 5 and went for the nickel tour of AC. We went to the Taj Mahal (big poker room, but cramped -- many old people) and the Sands (a hole, not to put too fine a point on it), walked the boardwalk to get there (like a permanent CNE), and drove on at least half the monopoly streets in the process (Never did get to Park Place, but we covered the greens and yellows, I think, plus some oranges and reds.) Came back to the Borgata even more impressed with it, having seen more of the competition. Also won myself back into positive territory.
After a whirlwind 3am tour to collect a souvenir $1 chip from each of the poker casinos, we were back to the the motel. Total sleep, 4 hours.
We're driving back and Kevin decides to get himself dropped off in Kingston to visit Tracey, so we reroute to cross the border through Kingston instead of buffalo/niagara. What this means is that when the van broke down again, and much more thoroughly, we were dead on the 401 instead of a US interstate, which, if one is looking for silver lining, is a nice thing. This time van's got 3/4 of a tank, and more importantly, it's simply not interested in starting at all. The other nice thing is that Kevin is not in the car anymore, so we have no real proxy representative of the *owners* of this vehicle. He's also not answering cell phone.
I call CAA (again - loving that card more and more) and get the details on what they can do for me (turns out, a great deal). I call Amy who looks up Kevin's parents. I call Kevin's parents and explain situation -- my card'll cover 200km of towing, but we are more than 300km from their house or their car dealer. I suggest we tow it as close as we can without paying any extra fees, and they can take it from there. They are rather distraught, but agree this is more sensible than the other options. I call CAA (again) and chitchat with Marnie, who is a fabulous human being, but whom, despite it, tells us that there is not likely to be any way 5 of us can ride with the van 200kms. That's bad news.
But Marnie is just getting started being fabulous, she puts me on hold and talks with her dispatchers, then rushes through explaining to me that if we get this order in RIGHT FUCKING NOW there is one (ONE) truck with an extended cab that can take us, all five of us. We rush. We get the truck. I tell Marnie that she is welcome to at least one of my kidneys. I call the Kevin's parents, tell them we're taking it somewhere in Pickering. I call amy and have her find somewhere in pickering to go, and she calls her dad to get minivan to pick our sorry asses up from pickering. Not 10 minutes later the truck is there (I'm still on the phone) and Charlie, Marnie's tow truck driver from heaven is loading us in and taking us home(-ish). I chat with Charlie most of the way about the towing business, the truck, the quality of various cars, and his boss' fight with alcoholism. We thank Charlie profusely at the other end, and then I caress my CAA card fondly for saving us what would otherwise have been a $500 tow (not to mention the $50 gas up service in the states). I will keep that membership till the day I die.
Amy picks us up - and we ride home in a non-broken-down van, dropping people off along the way like sleepy little paratroopers, each of them falling asleep against their front door as we drive away.
So to make the very long story short, it was an awesome weekend. Car troubles are par for the course on a car trip and give us something else to talk about - the big story - visiting atlantic city and having an absolute blast playing poker all weekend with the guys -- that was fabulous. And they rock for organizing it right under my nose without me seeing a thing.
I did not expect to be in atlantic city this weekend.
I did not expect to be in atlantic city this weekend.
lethie has already mentioned the trip, but for those who missed it, here is the quick summary:I did not expect to be in atlantic city this weekend.
The guys (Kevin, Chris, Rob, Matt, and Brian) surprised me friday morning with a van, and a duffel packed by my sneaky fiancée, and instructions to shower, pack some deodorant, and prepare myself to hit atlantic city in an unofficial pre-bachelor-party bachelor party.
Totally snowed. I had not a whiff of a hint this was going on. Truly truly stumped. They rock! :)
We are not on the road ten minutes before problem one strikes: my bank has locked all my accounts. This creates a problem when seeking to play poker for something other than potato chips. I route around difficulty by using a dormant (and empty!) line of credit at another bank, then get back on the road and then start sorting that out. Turns out an affiliate cheque Barnes and Noble sent me bounced, and in my cleverness I cashed it through the one account without overdraft - so my account was overdrawn and locked. Solid. Fixed now though.
Cross border, driving down the 476 through Pennsylvania, van dies. Quarter of a tank of gas left, and after 10 minutes it's rolling again, sort of, so we figure probably the gas gauge is crappy, and vow to keep it topped up above half for rest of trip. About a minute later it dies again and is less willing to restart. Out comes CAA card, which is then chained to AAA, which is chained to some other people and 15 minutes later a nice man comes and gives us some gas. We drive to the next station, fill up, back on the road.
Hit motel around 9:30, hit the Tropicana around 10:30. I'm playing fucking poker in atlantic city, and the first thought that runs through my head is:
I did not expect to be in atlantic city this weekend.
The trop's poker room is huge, though the tables, chairs, and dealers are not as nice as Rama, but the size, coupled with the concomitant improvement in speed getting through the waiting list makes me quite happy to be playing there. I make a couple questionable bets and am down $8 when we head to hooters for "dinner" around 12:30am. Fabulous sauce on the wings, but I've never had wings so greasy that grease quite literally squirts out of them as you bite them. "3 mile island" is also less spicy than the name might suggest, but very tasty. We keep playing at the trop till about three then back to sleep. Total sleep, 4 hours.
Saturday we decide to check out the Borgata, a new casino off of the main strips (Atlantic and Pacific avenue -- monopoly streets everywhere, so fabulous!). Best decision we made the entire trip. Their breakfast buffet made me weep - strawberries the size of peaches and tasty as all get out - waffles with choclate chips and pre-warmed maple syrup, and country gravy for the hash browns and scrambled eggs. And their poker room is where God goes whenever he plays poker, I think. Fabulous surroundings (no smoking, natch), fabulous dealers, even the seats were top notch. The waitresses were such thoroughly successful eye candy that I almost looked right at them, despite being an almost-married man. We sat at 12pm and got up at 3am, basically. After that breakfast I wasn't really hungry till at least 12-14 hours later anyhow.
Some of us sat the entire session, but Brian and I took a breather around 5 and went for the nickel tour of AC. We went to the Taj Mahal (big poker room, but cramped -- many old people) and the Sands (a hole, not to put too fine a point on it), walked the boardwalk to get there (like a permanent CNE), and drove on at least half the monopoly streets in the process (Never did get to Park Place, but we covered the greens and yellows, I think, plus some oranges and reds.) Came back to the Borgata even more impressed with it, having seen more of the competition. Also won myself back into positive territory.
After a whirlwind 3am tour to collect a souvenir $1 chip from each of the poker casinos, we were back to the the motel. Total sleep, 4 hours.
We're driving back and Kevin decides to get himself dropped off in Kingston to visit Tracey, so we reroute to cross the border through Kingston instead of buffalo/niagara. What this means is that when the van broke down again, and much more thoroughly, we were dead on the 401 instead of a US interstate, which, if one is looking for silver lining, is a nice thing. This time van's got 3/4 of a tank, and more importantly, it's simply not interested in starting at all. The other nice thing is that Kevin is not in the car anymore, so we have no real proxy representative of the *owners* of this vehicle. He's also not answering cell phone.
I call CAA (again - loving that card more and more) and get the details on what they can do for me (turns out, a great deal). I call Amy who looks up Kevin's parents. I call Kevin's parents and explain situation -- my card'll cover 200km of towing, but we are more than 300km from their house or their car dealer. I suggest we tow it as close as we can without paying any extra fees, and they can take it from there. They are rather distraught, but agree this is more sensible than the other options. I call CAA (again) and chitchat with Marnie, who is a fabulous human being, but whom, despite it, tells us that there is not likely to be any way 5 of us can ride with the van 200kms. That's bad news.
But Marnie is just getting started being fabulous, she puts me on hold and talks with her dispatchers, then rushes through explaining to me that if we get this order in RIGHT FUCKING NOW there is one (ONE) truck with an extended cab that can take us, all five of us. We rush. We get the truck. I tell Marnie that she is welcome to at least one of my kidneys. I call the Kevin's parents, tell them we're taking it somewhere in Pickering. I call amy and have her find somewhere in pickering to go, and she calls her dad to get minivan to pick our sorry asses up from pickering. Not 10 minutes later the truck is there (I'm still on the phone) and Charlie, Marnie's tow truck driver from heaven is loading us in and taking us home(-ish). I chat with Charlie most of the way about the towing business, the truck, the quality of various cars, and his boss' fight with alcoholism. We thank Charlie profusely at the other end, and then I caress my CAA card fondly for saving us what would otherwise have been a $500 tow (not to mention the $50 gas up service in the states). I will keep that membership till the day I die.
Amy picks us up - and we ride home in a non-broken-down van, dropping people off along the way like sleepy little paratroopers, each of them falling asleep against their front door as we drive away.
So to make the very long story short, it was an awesome weekend. Car troubles are par for the course on a car trip and give us something else to talk about - the big story - visiting atlantic city and having an absolute blast playing poker all weekend with the guys -- that was fabulous. And they rock for organizing it right under my nose without me seeing a thing.
I did not expect to be in atlantic city this weekend.
