VEGAS BABY!

So I’m here in my hotel room at The Orleans, Las Vegas. It’s only noon here but man I’ve had a long day. My flight from edmonton left at 6:30 am. Since I live nearly an hours drive from the airport, I had to get up at 4am to make it there in time. Since I was excited, I didn’t manage to get any sleep, so I didn’t so much ‘wake up’ at 4am, but went vertical.

The flight was interesting….they announced we were beginning our decent into Las Vegas and I looked out the window…..all snow on the ground. I thought wtf?!? Then about 5 minutes later, the snow just ended abruptly, with no transition at all…just BOOM, red desert. Bizzare. It isn’t terribly warm here this week (currently 53F/11C).

I was blown away by the portion sizes last time I was here. Well, I can assure you nothing has changed. I just got back from having breakfast in one of the restaurants downstairs. I ordered a harmless sounding ‘itallian style fritatta’. I so wish I had brought my camera to take a picture of this behemoth. The fritatta itself was the size of the dinner plate it was served on. At first blush, I could not see any egg…just cheese. In fact, what itallian style meant in this context was a PIZZA with eggs instead of dough. It had sausage and tomatoe sauce and mozza on top. I guess it makes perfect sense in hindsight. Anyhow….that would be only moderately interesting to report. But it also came with three other medium plates: 3 slices of toast, a big slice of melon, a plate of oily hashbrowns, and a large (as in not small) cake thingy. Seriously, this $8 breakfast probably contains my entire calorie quota for the day. I made do with the fritatta, melon, and just a nibble of the rest. In my home setting, I have remarkable self-control. But I have trouble when food is put in front of me, so I consider that a mild CR victory for the day. Unfortunately, this evening I have dinner with all the PA Online crew, with little more than 500 calories left to spend today if I’m to remain CR’d.

Anyhoo, in a few hours I go to meet everyone and have a grand time. After that we’re all going to play in a poker tournament here at The Orleans and see how we fare. I’m sure there will be many pictures to post this evening. Stay tuned!