Weekend Wrap Up – Vegas SEMA Edition

What a week. To quote DeMarco Farr, “I just get a great feeling the second the plane touches down in Vegas … it is the best city in the world.” I too get that same feeling. It is like a boost of adrenaline. I assume it is because all the potential the city offers. This Vegas trip was like none other but still a good time but let me start from the beginning.

The plane ride got the trip off to a good start. I upgraded to first class since I know I would need a little sleep. I had Demarco Farr sit next to me. He was studying SEC “inside” info sheets for a FSN show he was doing in LA on Saturday so I tried not to bother him until late in the plane ride. I also had Christian Cantwell sit behind me. We really had an interesting conversation in the last 20 minutes as we were really early so we had to site on the plane on the tarmac while they readied our gate. We discussed how both Christian’s agent and Justin Smith (high school friend) both thought he should try out for a NFL team but he said he hated to run so he wasn’t considering it. He said he can now bench over 650lbs. He actually maxes out the bar with plates … pretty impressive. He instead was thinking about being a pro wrestler. We then brainstormed on persona for him. An Olympic themed one with a shot put was the final decision but I wasn’t on board.

The SEMA show was awesome as ever. The show had more people than I was expecting but overall there was a lot less people in Vegas. As you can see from my pictures, I am obsessed with the new Nissan GTR. I really wish they would have badged this car as an Infiniti. It has a back seat so obviously it is not a Z. The $70k price tag is out of my range so I don’t expect this to be my next car. I sat in the car at the Nissan booth. It was awesome. I love the paddle shifters. I also liked the little details like the reverse resessed door handles. It made the car look ultra smooth.

Thursday night was actually pretty fun. We hung out in the casino bar all night and then had a very late dinner at the new pizzeria in TI. It was very good.

Ted got in late Friday. Josh did not show up at all …. somehow about he booked his flight for the wrong weekend and he had no clue that the trip was this week. We ended up drinking at the hotel for a while then checking out Audigier. It was pretty good. I danced my heart out. I did not see any pictures of me on their website from that night though. We concluded the night with the usual late night trip to Dennys.

We ended up spending about 10 hours in Casino Royale on multiple occasion on Saturday. The $1 beers and $1.50 wells made it hard to leave when every over place was charging $7+ for a drink. The pure ambiance was surreal. Ted did have a great quote about the 24 hour 80s music. He said, “this casino is so outdated that the music they are playing is the last music they probably bought thus why they keep playing it.” We ended up watching MU, Texas Tech, Florida, etc games at the Caesars Palace sports book. We actually scored some seats in the front row somehow when the place was packed. Ted also sweet talked one of the bet takers so he gave us some drink tickets so we got to drink premium drink for free. I did have Kid Rock walk right past me when I was ordering pizza at halftime at Wolfgang Puck. He really looks like a bum. As for Saturday night (when we were not at Casino Royale) we wandered around the strip. We thought we were going to go to Pure but never made it. We also thought the same thing for Friday. Linday Lohan was hosting a party along with her girlfriend being one of the DJ. I wouldn’t mind going just to see if she actually gets on the dance floor.

It was a weird time since we did not go to any real Vegas clubs plus we did not do anything that was planned like go to the pool or Freemont Street. It was also weird that I lost a lot of money gambling but did not play a single Roulette game which is my game of choice. I did learn a couple lesson: (1) do not go to Vegas when you are short on money. It is just not as fun. (2) insist on cabs no matter how much people say they would rather walk. I recorded over 100,000 steps on  my pedemoter in only 3 days. That was even with me not wearing it all the time. My legs and back sure do hurt. (3) I really think you need a group in Vegas. Luckily we had my friends group from work but it is not the same. On One last note, I do not think I get psyched up for Vegas as much as I use to. I thought about this after last years trip too when I spent a lot more money even with being there on the work’s dime. Almost everything you can do in Vegas you can do in St Louis. Now even more with the no loss limits at the St Louis Casinos. I feel like I have an equally good time at the St Louis bars without having to wait in line nor pay high drink prices. I would rather put that money into a trip to somewhere tropical.

Here are my pictures for the week. They are mainly SEMA pics. I probably would not have taken any Vegas pictures but I felt like I needed something so I took some at the last minute.