casino

Just realized that my "homework" for one of my classes entails 70 pages of reading and a 5 page paper due Wednesday so I gotta make this quick.

Friday evening we headed up to Cache Creek Casino for Will's bday. It was pretty awesome that we managed to get enough folks to head up there (85 miles north of SF, about 40 min east of Sacramento). We'd never done an out-of-town, overnight stay, casino bday party before. Some highlights:

- seeing that Denny travels with a tiny purple Pochacco suitcase (photo to come if he allows me)
- realizing that 40% of the suitcase is occupied by cups and dice
- getting upgraded to a really huge jr. suite after they messed up my specific request for two queen beds (since we were planning on cramming 5 people in there refugee style)
- Elena getting stopped by security for carrying around this heavy silver suitcase thing that looks like a bomb or a gun (it's actually her box of goodies -- dice, cards etc.)
- me getting locked out of the party room, calling simon to open the door, and then having to call him a second time because midway across the room he got distracted playing with Will's Transformer and forgot to let me in
- realizing that casino bday parties are not terribly social affairs since everyone is sitting by themselves at some smoky blackjack/poker table
- due to the point above, making a point to spend at least two meals together as a group
- really fresh oysters and yummy meatballs at the Harvest Buffet ($14.99)
- the whole casino is really really surprisingly nice and newly remodeled

So there ya have it. I hardly saw anyone at this bday "party" except from afar as we waved hi to them from across the casino floor but we made the most of the time we shared (during the pre-casino drinking and over breakfast and lunch).