Tuesday - part one

On Tuesday morning, the alarm clock went off at the ungodly hour of 4:10 AM. I had what cannot truly be considered "sleep," but rather a few hours of laying in bed and picturing busting out Phil Hellmuth. But all things considered, I felt surprisingly refreshed and hopped right out of bed.

We arrived at the Little Rock airport shortly before 5 AM. I think that this particular airport has a sum total of 12 gates...which was great. No snags getting to the gate, aside from the woman in front of me who held up the security checkpoint a little bit. Apparently she thought that she'd have no problem clearing the metal detector with her six metal bracelets on.

Once at the gate, I popped on the iPod and tried to catch a quick nap. This prospect was made a little bit tougher by the presence of two young kids, one of whom seemed to be trying to cough up a lung while the other chattered away like a chimp. Naturally, upon boarding, Plauge Girl and Monkey Boy were one row behind me. I debated whether blasting cold air on my face would do anything to combat the germs or just contaminate me quicker. I opted for a light breeze and a cran-apple juice for some much-needed vitamin C.

The plane from Little Rock to Dallas was a puddle-jumper that may or may not have been held together with rubber bands and duct tape. The only thing that could possibly make this flight any less appealing was the captain's announcement that "we've got a couple of things going on." I'm quite sure that during the entire recorded history of air travel, this has never been followed by good news. No pilot ever says "we've got a couple of things going on: surf and turf in coach and free cocktails for everybody!" In this case, the flight was oversold and some weather had come up on our flight route, and we would now be "flying around it." Thus, we took the scenic route over Mississippi and Louisiana. In Dallas, said weather put another kink in the plans, keeping us on the runway for about 90 minutes. I slept the whole time.

In Vegas, I checked into my hotel...at the airport terminal. I cannot explain how brilliant this concept is. The hotel line took 5-10 minutes, after which I was completely checked in, including room keys. Then I walked out to the first baggage carousel, within sight of the hotel line, and immediately grabbed my bag and hopped in a cab. My driver apparently has aspirations of joining the NASCAR circuit, as I'm pretty sure he hit about 200 miles an hour. Fine by me, as he got me there quickly.

I don't want to hog the computer here at the Full Tilt suite for too long, so I'll update again when I can. Juicy content to expect includes my first trip to the Palms, more poker pros than I could shake a stick at, and my official registration for the WSOP (I got Saturday, day three).

Talk to you soon.