Flight:    Left Burbank (CA) for LAS.  Flight right on time, and a great
ride on Southwest as always.  Got there early enough to get the seat I
wanted.  While David and I were standing in line, a cute, young blond girl
started talking to us.  Dave, me and the rest of the guys are in our late
40's.  This young girl was about 24 (and a whole lot more!).  When we
entered the plane, she sat with us.  Me at the window, girl in the middle,
Dave on the outside.  The pilot came on and said the flight would be pretty
bumpy.  Dave got nervous and moved to an empty window seat.  He said he
wanted to be able to see out the window.  I thought that was great, as I had
this cute blond all to myself.  She was a friend of Jim Belushi, and was
meeting him at Mandaly Bay, where he was doing a concert or something like
that.  We got invited to it, with backstage passes.  I declined, however,
cause I was meeting a client of mine that night.  Remember the girl, though.
More on her later.

We stayed at Ballys.  I have not stayed there since 1990.  I have been to
Vegas at least 5 times a year since then, and have played at Ballys.  Their
98% machines have been good to me until last year, when they got new
machines with a different algorithm for the RNG.  They also added
progressives to some of the machines, and they are even worse.  My "package"
consisted of 3 nights, Thursday free, Fri. and Sat., $69 each.  Not a bad
price.  The room (pool tower # 2126)  was larger than I remembered.  2 beds,
a small couch, a writing table with chair, and a 19 new TV.  The bathroom is
not great, but more than adequate.  Blow dryer in the bathroom.  Bathroom
also had $4.50 bottles of water, which we left alone.  There was a safe,
which cost $3 a day, that I did not use.  There are 8 express elevators from
the lobby to the upper floors.  Even through the weekend, we never waited mo
re than 60 seconds for an elevator going either up or down.  The maid
service was very good, the room always clean when we got back from the pool
around 2 pm.

The food:    We ate at Ballys coffee shop on Friday morning, next to the
escalators going to the lower level  (I forgot the name). I had eggs
benedict and Dave had some eggs over with bacon.  Both the breakfasts were
served fairly fast and hot.  The hollandaise sauce was very good, and salted
correctly.  For dinner on Friday night, we ate at Asia's at Harrahs.  I
usually stay at Harrahs with full RFB comps.  I called my host and told her
I would be there Friday night.  She said that even though I am not staying
at Harrahs, she would comp me for dinner for 4, which she did.  I think that
Asia is one of the best Chinese/Asian restaurants in all of Vegas.  They
have some lobster dishes that were great.  The service was excellent.  The
cost was good, too.  Please eat there.  It is very good.  On Friday night,
we ate at the Paris buffet.  Another very good choice. Lots of big shrimp,
large King crab legs, and lots of spiced and not so spiced foods.  I tried
not to pig out, but did not succeed.  I put this buffet as #2 in Vegas.  #1
IMHO is Belagio.  Saturday night was the Aladdin buffet.  This was also very
good.  Not as good as Belagio, though.  We had all 11 guys at the time, and
dinner took a while, which was OK.  We sat and chatted for 2 hours.  The
place was packed, but we got no pressure to leave.  The rest of the meals
were pretty mundane.

We did some walking up and down the strip, to walk off dinner, and get some
exercise.  Lots of other people walking, too.  There we so many people this
weekend.  I only know that there was a shoe convention.  It was funny, but
with all the people there, the casinos were not that crowded.  More and more
people are coming to visit Vegas, but gambling very little.  With all there
is to see for the first time visitor and the cheap room and food, you can
make a 3 or 4 day trip without gambling at all and stay pretty busy.  Even
though the Aladdin buffet was very crowded, the casino was kinda empty.
(about 7 pm.)

Ballys pool:    The pool is pretty nice.  Even on Thursday afternoon, it was
pretty crowded, with a mix of young and old alike.  The younger ones looking
good, and the older people (like us) trying to look younger.  There were
quite a few older ladies wearing thong bikinis.  They did not look too bad.
There were very few younger girls wearing thongs.  We thought that would get
better by the weekend.  Not so.  The crowd got older, with more 35 to 45ish
women with revealing suits trying to find something to do, and someone to do
it with.  One Italian woman Dave had been talking to was getting ready to
leave.  She took off her top, put it in her purse, slowly, then put on a tee
shirt.  We got an eyeful of two breasts (not to bad, either) and very
quickly, there were 3 security guards around her telling her that that was
not to continue.  Dave turned red.  We told him that she was hot for him.
On Saturday night, he made a side trip for an hour, and was incommunicado.
He came back with a smile on his face, though.  He would not tell us where
he had been.  You figure it out.

Gambling:    Played VP mostly at Ballys, Paris, and Aladdin.  Some at
Belagio.  On Thursday night, I hit some triple poker DDB.  I hit some quad
3's and 4's to keep me going, but nothing big.  Broke about even.  On Friday
night, I found some loose deuces deluxe.  I do not know if they were close
to full pay or not.  I had never seen them before.  Quad 2's, 1K, 5 aces,
800, quad Aces with a 2, $2K.  I stick in a $100 bill.  Very first hit, quad
2's.  One thousand credits.  I play it down to 800, and cash out.  While the
slot woman was getting the cash, I moved to the next machine.

Put in $100. Same game.  On the 10th hit ( I count how long it takes to get a good
result) I got dealt 2 aces and 2 deuces.  On the draw, got another Ace.  $
800.  while getting the hand pay for the first 800 on the first machine, I
hit another quad 2's for another K.  I cashed them both out, and I was up $
2500.  Great way to start off the gambling.   The guys wanted to play Craps.
Sure I said.  Pulled out 300 to play.  I play 10 pass line with full odds,
and 10 come with full odds.  I lost the 300 in 5 minutes.  None of us could
get any kind of a good roll going.

On Friday afternoon and night, I was about even.  On Saturday afternoon, I hit
a couple of quads for a $1200 profit.  On Saturday night, all went downhill.
I could not find 3 of a kind, much less quads.  I ended up losing about $ 800.00.
Apparently I had played enough on my Ballys connection card, good at Ballys,
Paris, Caesars, and others.  They comped my whole trip, including food and
room for the 2 days they were going to charge me for.