Derek,
I couldn't sleep, so I did some digging around with some "connections" I have.....
I'm kinda bored so Ill write up a quick trip report on what actually happened in cliffnote form. . .
The plan was to get to vegas around 9 am from Indy. I get to Indy with my handy lil privileged space pass that Joey Strazzante hooked me up with which means I get first dibs on any open seat on the plane from Indy to Vegas. Well, let the nightmare begin.
I walk right up to this African American, wanda sykes lookin woman, hand her my pass, and say, what do I do now? She tells me "you cant use this pass, you'll have to wait for the next flight, and its going to phoenix, not las Vegas."
Ummm what, why not? Because , he reserved this seat for you, and seats can only be reserved for paying customers, you have a buddy pass" So IM all like, WTF, so I call up Joey, "Joey, SET THIS WOMAN STRAIGHT AND LET HER KNOW WHO YOU ARE" so long story short, im sitting in the airport waiting to go to phoenix because Joey has no pull apparently.
So instead of a direct flight to las vegas, I now have to wait 90 minutes to get on some bullcrap flight to Arizona, oh well, ill tough it out. We board the plane with no problem, but its POURING down rain, so I'm a nervous wreck. We get to the runway, and sit there for like 10 minutes. Then the pilot lets us know that, "Our weather radar is broken, he have to go back, hopefully it can be fixed within 20 minutes" Well, they couldn't fix it, so they had to bring in a whole different plane. Another hour wait, and finally were airborne.
Land in Phoenix. Go to the vegas flight terminal and wait. they start boarding. Once everyone is on, any left over seats, I get to scoop up. So I check the stand by list to see how many people are in front of me, and the list is a mile long, WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. Why the hell are there so many damn people on this stand by list?!?! A nice woman tells me, "Oh, they're having a Party in vegas for southwest employees, so every flight to vegas has southwest employees jumping on to get to this party" Since I am not an employee, they get dibs on the seat over me. I mean, hooray Im at the top of the non employee list, but each flight to vegas has 20+ employees ready to scoop up the seats.
After about 8 hours, I get super lucky and end up on a flight, I thought for sure that I was going to stay the night in arizona. So as I'm up in the air, I text joey, and tell him that they've re-routed me to Utah, lol. I tell him "joey this has been a nightmare, this wasn't even worth the free ticket dude, they're tellin me that I have to stay the night in salt lake, and if im lucky, ill be in vegas by noon tomorrow" We exchange a few more text messages, and by the 4th one, Im in line at the RIV trying to check in. The line had 20+ people in it, and they had ONE employee checking people in. NEAT. My plan was to keep up with the charade, and surprise joey while he was playing poker. Plan failed because it took me 45 minutes to check in.
I call Joey once I'm up in the room and first thing he sais "Dude, youre in utah? man that sucks dude, I'm sorry about that" I tell him no, Im up in the room, come up. He doesn't believe me, he thinks im pullin his leg, but I finally convince him that I'm there, and he tells me "Bro, I'm about to get in a cab and head to this southwest party, hurry up and get down here" At this point I was up for about 30 hours, but its vegas, so Ill sleep when I'm dead. We hop in a cab and head down to fremont Street for the party, Joey slow rolls the cab driver by talking about all the hard times in vegas, how tourism is down, how the tips must suck, then gives him a dollar on a $18 fare, lol! Its not all that bad tho, the guy totally took the long way on us, so a dollar was generous.
This was my first trip to Fremont St. and it was pretty neat, definitely better in person. This southwest airlines party had 2 blocks barricaded. Free food and Alcohol at every corner. It had been a long day , so I start knockin back the free Sandwich wraps, and cranberry & vodkas. Hey wow this is neat, all this stuff is free, ill take another. So after about 3 of these, we bump into a group of 4 girls. At this time these fine ladies looked like 9s. But in actuality they were trolls. BUT, im 3 drinks in and im ready to make it happen. Fast forward a few hours, im sitting in middle of fremont st as its clearing out cause the party is over. Joey is nowhere in sight, the trolls are gone, and random strangers are offering to help me up, but I cant even stand at this point, I just tell them that my ankle is sore, and I'm just chillin. .
I get up to my feet, stagger over to the side of the gold nugget, and yack up about 3 of those wraps. I feel like I'm glued to the ground, and all these bright lights everywhere aren't helping things. I realize I have to find a cab. After hours on Fremont St can be pretty scary, lots of homeless people and random thugs. Walk about one block, which felt like 10 miles, and I find a cab with some russian sounding man that looked like fabio. No way this guy is gonna rip me off, he looks like jesus. I open the back door, sit down and just lay my head on the window. "where you headed friend?" Ummmmm the Rio? the rivo? R something, where the pool tournament is at. NOW, he could just drive me all over vegas, and drop me off where ever and tell me, ok, 40 bucks, but Drago/fabio plays 20 questions with me until he figures out where I'm staying. We head down the road, and he sais "here let me roll down that window" MAN that cool breeze on my face KNOCKED me right out. i feel a tapping on my shoulder, I felt like I had been sleeping for hours. I think to myself "oh S*it, the meter is gonna be like 5 thousand" it was 15 bucks. I give him 20, but tell him Ill give him an extra 5 if he just sits there for a few minutes while I gather myself. 20 minutes go by and hes like, "ok my friend, I have to go now"
AMAZINGLY, I walked from the cab drop off, up to my room without falling down/puking/urinating/picking up a prostitute. So I figure im in the safe zone. I lay face down on my bed, and I get the urge to vomit, but I cant even move a muscle, I reach down for the ice bucket, cant find it, so I just figure on the blanket and floor will work just as well. So that's where that red mess came from. I pass out. . 4 hours later, 8 am, JOEY comes strolling in. This maniac is not phased by alcohol or anything. "Hey bro when did you get here, ive been playing craps and getting hammered since 4 am, omg dude did you puke on the bed? ?? " I reply "joey, slow down, you're making me sick again" And about that time, he suggest I sit up for a picture. And right after the picture, there is a Knock at the door "House keeping" I say "NO GO AWAY", followed up by joey "yes, we need new blankets". Joey man what are you doing??? "They need to get in here and clean all this Sh*t up, this is gross" I laugh and I'm like, COME ON IN!!
So there you have it, there is the story behind the picture.