Kids, Doping, and the Cheerios Flushing Game--Why I Went to Vegas

Just got back from Vegas. Yep, I spent 3.5 days in a nice hotel room with two kids 2 yr and younger. Vegas, Baby!

We were there on a work trip, actually, but babysitting arrangements fell through at the last minute, leaving me with diaper duty. Seeing as I’m their Daddy, and they are pretty dang cute, and I don’t get all that excited by Interbike in the first place, this really wasn’t that bad of a deal for me. Heck, there are lots of Dads out there wishing they had their kids while their wife did the work gig for a few days. That’s what we did.

Since they are little ones, we weren’t about to order them room service type fare. Since we were on The Strip without a car, we had to walk anywhere we wanted to go. Pushing a double stroller along The Strip is bad, no matter what time you try to go to Walgreens for groceries. And shopping for groceries at a drug store is silly in the first place. But when one is in the wilderness, one has to rely on one’s wits to survive.

Needless to say, room 4-120 at the Venetian probably won’t ever be the same again. I recommend it if you like cheese and cheerios and milk and lunchmeat and whatever else didn’t make it to digestion nicely ground into your floors. All of the outlets are 100% accessible to kids, so you can let them rearrange lamps, phones, clocks, etc. There is one children’s channel on tv there, so you are sure to be able to read or think quietly for 2-3 minutes each day.

The bathroom is tile from floor to ceiling, so the acoustics are great for high pitched squeals. Believe it or not, the bathtub is situated just so that a nimble 2 yr old can climb on the tub and then transition to the counter and sink. Your 2yr old may or may not eat makeup, but some do.

Your kids may or may not get a kick out of flushing one cheerio at a time. When you have time to kill, the cheerio flushing game may not be good for the water supply in the desert, but it will give you something to do on hour number 4 of a 12 hr day in the hotel. Remember, loading two kids into a double stroller, maneuvering through a heavy door and into and out of an elevator, through a hotel and casino AND THEN to The Strip isn’t as easy as it looks when you see smiling kids in a stroller in a catalog.

The wife would come back after a hard day (really) at the show, but she’d bring back an autograph from Eddy or Floyd and tales of jackhole company reps and friendlies. All the while I’m glad to miss out on the obnoxious music blaring from “The BMX Zone” and having to talk with people who think their new model of carbon fiber valve caps are the thing that will help everyday racers win The Tour, because, you know, “Flamiano Bowlachilli used them in The Giro this year to help him to his 37th place on Stage Eleventeen.”

But dang if my wife didn’t get pushed by a water bottle salesman who gave her such a good pitch that she thought buying waterbottles right then was a good idea. That guy must be a genius or something. I mean, we have a hundred waterbottles at the house already.

But she made up for it by getting me a cool DVD thing from Phil Ligget personally.

Now I have to drink some coffee, because I have to write some Interbike reports of all the cool and hot stuff that was there, even if none of it got me inspired to say, “Neat!”

Oh, the longest autograph lines of the week…Tyler Hamilton at the Celltrans booth.

Austria, Germany, and Russia Kicked My Ass

Red Bull is often billed as a "sports drink." Vodka is not, but it usually comes from Russia, and they've been cranking out good bike racers. Jägermeister is German. Nobody in their right mind would consider this a sports drink, though it can be consumed as a sport.

We started at Party Central. Party central is loosely based as a house, but it is really a crew of people. We had it turned up to ten, since it was The Assassin's bachelor party. The appropriate movie is playing on the big screen tv, Jackass. There were several computers displaying other fine art as well. Burgers and dogs were grilled up by the captain of the GSTz Party Team. He'd even booked the party bus. He had a black eye. But that was before the party started.

I've been taking it easy for a couple of weeks. Sort of letting the body recover from the stress of the season. Been feeling pretty good, actually, and ready to start the building process for next season. You know how those hurricanes that have been hitting Florida? Things were looking so good for me for a minute there.

Since I had been taking care of myself, I figgered I'd imbibe in a few drinks over the course of the night, but I wasn't going to turn myself inside out, even if it was his bachelor party and B. Thomspon was conducting the orchestra.

But when Robbie put that damn Jägermeister shot inside an already nasty glass of Red Bull, something turned inside me, and at that point, it wasn't my stomach. Chugalug. Hopefully the 'rita before and after would dampen the damage. Well, it made sense at the time.

Since Red Bull is a sports drink, and Vodka looks pretty much like water, the drink of choice as we hopped a couple of bars was already made. I mean, I'm taking care of myself, so the sports drink has to be the healthiest choice.

What the fugg?

So we're all walking around the Dallas hot spots wearing t-shirts with Erik Estrada prominently displayed on the chest. But we made it look cool.

That is, we looked cool until The Assassin decided it would be good fun to tell anyone and everyone that it was he and I to be married...to each other.

So I had another one of those healthy drinks.

Whatever you do, don't drink seven of those things. Six may be OK, but I don't know. I didn't have six.

We managed to get most everyone and the extras we picked up along the way onto the party bus. We went to another establishment where it was like my sixth grade dance--only the girls were dancing. It was just a token appearance there, though. Sort of like crossing off an item on a scavenger hunt. By the time we got to the dance, the outcome of the game had already been decided.

Back on the bus and back to Party Central. A few guests were sucked into The Vortex, and seeing it happen and develop was kind of like that scene in Twister when you see the cow, still alive, in the tornado being taken to wherever tornados take cows. Those guests were just hoping they got let off the tornado in some way that they could tell the tale later.

Jump off the roof onto the bouncy house, put on the head gear, tilt your head back to stop the bleeding. Flower Mound sure is a long way from Party Central. Chloe beat me home, but not by much. I hit the bed just as the kids were waking up.

I've said, "That was stoopid" 112 times so far today.

Good times.