When friends invade Las Vegas, Jealousy Happens

I blame the interwebs.

That’s right, the same worldwide confluence of URLs and RSSs and the like that that brought you to this very site can cause a lot of stress. It started on a recent Monday night with one of those old-fashioned, face-to-face conversations that us old people still have once in a while.

I was having a conversation with a relatively new friend of mine, Dane. Then he blurted out that he’d be in Las Vegas that coming Saturday. The gentle candle flickering within my heart started smoldering into a white-hot jealousy. Oh, sure, I talked the good game “Good for you, that’ll be great” and compared notes of some of his plans with things I’d done on recent trips. At one point, he walked away, and I was still in the conversation with his girlfriend, Lauren (of whom to this day I still haven’t been properly introduced, but I digress…)

Eventually, the conversation ended, I wished him luck to his face and wished that his plane would crash over the Rocky Mountains (well, not really, but you get the drift). A few days passed and I had forgotten all about Dane and his trip until I saw this posted on his Facebook page.

And I’ll give Dane credit here. Five days earlier I am pinging him for details of his trip, and he never let on one bit about the proposed, um, proposal. I was still jealous that he was in Vegas, and I wasn’t, but I wasn’t looking to get engaged, so it was fine, and I was happy for them.

I again kind of put them out of my mind, and on Sunday afternoon I checked my Facebook page and saw that they had checked into Rum Runner to watch the Packers game! I was so conflicted; again I was jealous, but, on the other hand, I thought it was cool that someone I knew also knew of that hidden gem of a bar.

So the guy likes Rum Runner and plays video poker. Suddenly – while still jealous – I am starting to look forward to their next adventure. And suddenly I recalled our conversation from a week earlier and went back into jealous mode.

My wife and I love Gordon Ramsay Steak, as it is now our gold standard in Las Vegas steak. We’ve talked about this quite a bit (as we plan our next trip to Las Vegas for next April). Do we go to a place we love, or do we explore a new steak house and risk comparing it to Gordon Ramsay Steak? We still have a while to come up with an answer.

Back to Dane and Lauren, I wonder if they’re going to…

The famous Sticky Toffee Pudding for the win! I love this guy… Dude’s having MY vacation. I am getting all the thrills while watching my precious bankroll. Geez, what might he come up with next?

I have to admit that at this point, there became a bit of a media blackout, of which I was becoming impatient. 20 or more hours of radio silence was unsettling until he posted this beauty.

So now Dane and Lauren have branched from things I don’t want to do (get engaged) to things I enjoy doing (Rum Runner, video poker and Gordon Ramsay Steak) to things I want to do (drink from Manneken Pis, who is perched in front of The D downtown.) Made me wonder, though, if Lauren was rethinking the “yes”.

I knew the trip would be winding down by Tuesday (their fourth day) and didn’t think they had any more Michael James-redux in them until I saw this.

I didn’t even need to see the Facebook check-in location. Battista’s Hole in the Wall is famous (or is it infamous) for the free wine with any meal. And any Battista’s aficionado has to know what picture would be next. I’d just have to wait for it.

Minds out of the gutter, folks… I’m talking about the accordion player, Gordon Jaffe, who is as much part of the Battista’s experience as the unlimited house wine and meal ending cappuccino.

One last adventure for them was a tip I provided; though it is one I have yet to do myself

The Verbena Cocktail (always at the Cosmopolitan Chandelier Bar, but sometimes can also be found at their other bars) has a small Szechuan button garnish that is supposed to be eaten before taking a drink. Eating the button first causes your tongue to go kittywampus, and intensifies the sensation of the cocktail. I like experiences, and I can’t wait for this one. This time, Dane one-upped me, and now I have to have one in April. I hope he gets jealous.

And with that image, the public story of Dane and Lauren’s engagement trip to Las Vegas concluded. I know that I write a personal trip report for every trip I take (regardless of location), and I am also on numerous message boards with trip report sections. I usually skim through them, but often the subjects don’t appeal to me… clubbing, shopping, $100/hand blackjack, meet-ups with other people I don’t know, etc.

But when I do read one filled with my interests, well, BLAMM-O its a lot of fun. And that is what I really like about Vegas in the macro… there is so much to do, that three people can have completely disparate trips, yet have equally fascinating times.

I gotta work on the jealousy, though.

[Article Images: Dane Wojciehowski and Katherine Zeidler | Header Image: Michael Movestro]

Michael James

Michael James is a true Vegas Nerd. First falling in love after hearing details of an aunt’s visit in the ’70s, and nurtured when the gambling bug hit as casinos started opening on every street corner across the country in the ’90s. When not reading Vegas blogs and message boards, he’s a metals buyer by day and a competitive bowler by night in Milwaukee.