The flight attendants weren't that cute. They had that seasoned "I was a stewardess when you could still smoke on a plane" look about them. I was drinking, because that's what I did in those days. Plus, it was New Year's Eve and 1996 was about to turn into 1997.
The uniformed ladies were doing their best to make the cabin look festive for the holiday. For some reason "Rocky" was the in-flight movie.
Two of my buddies sat behind me as we crossed some imaginary line over the dark waters of the Atlantic. We were barreling toward Europe on an east-bound flight, all of us maintaining a tacit understanding that as we flew at several hundred miles per hour against the time-zones, we were eating up the rest of 1996 faster than we'd ever ended a year before.
After "Rocky" had ended, there was some general chatter about the New Year having passed. I had hoped for some rowdy celebration on the plane that involved me tongue-kissing the aged stewardesses. Instead, the flight attendants said we were going to celebrate in a different way.
"We're going to show 'Rocky' again," they said.
And so as Balboa again began his beef-punching, I settled back for a two-week trip through several counties in Europe.
And not once did it occur to me that I had only a book-bag full of clothes to last me through the next fourteen days.
***
That bag sits in my cloest right now. I call it a book-bag rather than a backpack because it's not one of those external-frame monstrosities that you see other backpackers carrying across Europe. Back in those days I was not flush with cash (not much has changed) and I didn't have the cash to drop on a suitable pack. Plus, I was only going for two weeks.
So, I packed as much as I could in the bag. A couple pairs of pants. A few shirts. A few pairs of socks. Five Snickers bars. Etc.
After a week of rambling across the Eurpoen countryside in one of the coldest winters in European history, my socks literally crunched when I tried to roll them up to pack.
Fortunately, I ate less on that trip than I drank. And I spent a couple lost days in Amsterdam. As such, I didn't care that much about what I looked like or how I smelled. And looking back at pictures of me and the boys standing on a rock in the middle of the North Sea and at a castle in Scotland, I think we don't look that bad.
I made it back home with the bag and my sensibilites in tact.
And, as I said, the bag now sits in a closet at Mt. Otis.
***
So, why bring this up now? Europe was many years ago. I'm older and, maybe, somewhat wiser now. So, I know that the bag is good for two things: Day-hiking trips and as a catch-all bag for our music festival adventures.
So, why, as I sit here in my final seven hours of work (like any work is getting done today) am I wondering if the bag should come back in all its glory as a mutiple-day trip bag?
Well, it's like this: Whereas in the past I prided myself on my ability to wait patiently, these days I just don't like to wait that much. And baggage claim in Las Vegas just isn't that fast.
So, if I could somehow fit my stuff in the one bag, I could carry it on the plane and hit the ground running at 9:30am PST Friday.
***
It was 2002 and Carmine was a playa.
The running joke--and we weren't even all that sure it was a joke--was that Chicago Carmine was connected. He purported to have the hook-ups in Vegas. Twenty-four of us were in-bound for HeCon: Vegas. Carmine was the unknown, but we had somehow come to count on him as the guy who could hook us up with whatever we wanted. VIP passes, limos, the works.
With that in mind, we were told to make sure we brought some appropriate attire for the places he certainly could get us into. You know, classy shit.
So, I packed accordingly and it required a piece of luggage that was bigger than I wanted.
The first night of the trip, I found myself in a limo en route to a place Jim McManus would eventually make even more infamous in the sub-title of his book, Postively Fifth Street. I found myself getting in free. Later, I found my friends pretending to be gay lovers because the....waitstaff...was a little too pushy with their sales pitches.
But that was about the end of Connected Chicago Carmine's hook-ups. I've found that's pretty much the case with most people who say they know people. That is, they know some people, but not a whole lot of people. And the people they know usually don't care whether you know them. I've also found that the people who really know people usually don't talk about the people they know.
Learning that comes with experience, I suppose. Much like packing for Vegas.
***
In 2003, I packed lighter for Vegas. My last trip had taught me that my money is better spent gambling and drinking with my buddies than forking over cover charges and ill-gotten gratuities. Though I was always intrigued by the scantily-clad 3:00am crowd at Drai's, I rarely stood up from my throne at the table to see what all the excitement was about.
And when I left Vegas last year, about half of what I packed had gone unworn.
***
Which brings us back to my 8:00am flight direct to Vegas. I just got off the phone with a very nice lady who confirmed my reservations, made sure I'm going to get my mileage points, and took down a phone number in case anything causes my reservations to change.
I've reached the point at which most of my thinking involves the next 24 hours of working, packing, and travel. I've got my bankroll in place, the appropriate account numbers memorized, my supplies for the trip purchased, my reservation confirmatin numbers in a file, and my listing of games and tournaments waiting to be printed.
I'm ready. Almost.
BG seemed almost embarassed that he was pre-packing for the trip. While I didn't do a test-run on the luggage like he did, I share in his embarassment. After all, we're heading out to meet a group of people who I suspect were not the genesis of the alread-trite description "metrosexual." Clothing, while not optional, is certainly not a priority.
As stated above, I'm not so concerned with what I'm bringing. As I've mentioned before, if you see me outside blue jeans and some cheap shirt, I'm likely at work or at a funeral. My plans in Vegas don't involve much of anything but playing poker and drinking with my buddies, both which require comfortable clothing. The only chance I'll need some decent clothes are if one of our group knows somebody that can get some line passes to a fun club and find some way to avoid those pesky two-bottle minimums. Or if BG can talk me into having a good meal at a decent restaurant.
I'm not a club-boy, though. And while I am a bit of a closet epicure, I'm admittedly damned hard to drag away from the fun I'll inevitably be finding.
So, now that I have my travel and gaming plans in order, I have little left to do but pack.
And I fucking hate packing.
***
And so tonight I'll have the battle with myself. Do I go bohemian and avoid baggage claim, or do I pack comfortably and wait at the carousel Friday morning.
As I actively consider this, I realize that I'll be arriving on the same flight as BadBlood and will likely catch a ride with him to the hotel. I wonder how he's going to pack. If he carries on and I carry on, we can beat tracks to the cab line quickly. But if we differ in how we pack, one person is going to be waiting on the other.
It's a bit of a curious question. Here's why: I've played with Blood many times in the past six months. Every time we've played together he's been wearing the same t-shirt. It's like that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry's girlfriend wears the same dress all the time. I've only see Blood away from the tables once before. I ran into him at a Sunday breakfast joint. He was wearing something different that time. He's a confounding man, friends.
Already set-aside to pack: Three t-shirts, two hats, two pairs of jeans, one pair of pants, five pair of boxers, one pair of shoes, five pairs of socks, a jacket, a laptop, and an assortment of remedies for whatever ails me.
I could fit all of that in one bag. But I fear it's not enough.
Or maybe it's too much.
What's really too much is this post. It's gone on much longer than I intended it to.
Forget it. I'm just going to steal Blood's t-shirt and wear it for five days.
That's it folks.
Next time you hear from me you'll either be reading the trip reports here or actually looking me in my crooked-nosed face.
Have a good weekend, folks.