US Airways can kiss my ass. 

Shelley and I caught a cab to McCarran International and saw the only curbside line at USAir.  They also claimed the longest check-in line inside.  40 minutes later we were at the check-in desk, and turns out starting July 2008 we have to pay to check bags.  $15 for your first, $25 for your second, so we have to pay $55 for our three bags.  This takes about three minutes.  And we wonder why there's a line. 

Now, on to the scale, we both think we might be heavy, and we're both at 55 pounds.

"That'll be $50 each for the heavy bag, or if you want to take five pounds out of each and put them into a different bag and check that then that'll be $25 instead of $100."

Now, I understand the whole heavy bag thing, but wtf is this horse shit.  I mean seriously.  Those baggage handlers that you're trying to protect from not having to lift too many heavy bags aren't going to see a cent of that hundred bucks.  And seriously, they'd rather have three bags with more bulk and total weight than two 55 pound bags?  It just doesn't make any sense, from an aircraft, logistical, or business perspective. 

So, anyways, I'm steaming at this point.  I hate lines.  All other airlines don't have huge lines.  Now I discover that it's to fuck me out of $155, each way by the way.  I ask the cute but annoying blonde for a way to contact somebody about this policy, because "honestly it will keep me from ever flying with y'all again."  She disappears, comes back with a supervisor, and I'm like, hi.  What?  This is the contact that she came up with.  I was think an address to write a letter to, but whatever.  I wasn't rude or a dick or anything, I was definitely upset, and the lady didn't give a damn about what I was saying.  Like, visibly obviously was ignoring me.  Like, after I was done talking she gave me a look of, "Are you done yet?" and left after about three seconds of silence. 

Whatever happened to the day when a manager cared that they were losing a customer? 

Anyways, we check in for our first leg to Phoenix, their hub, where we're going to catch a flight to Orlando.  We can only be checked into the first flight, we have to check into the next one when we get there.  An hour later we're there, in line at the gate, and turns out they overbooked the flight by 17 people.  OK... how do you screw up a flight from Phoenix to Orlando that bad?  I understand overbooking a Sunday night Vegas to LA flight, but Orlando?!?  And when they ask for volunteers and do that whole dealio, they say their next flight is tomorrow night.  It's noon in Phoenix on Saturday and they're asking for volunteers to arrive in Orlando Monday morning at 1:30am. 

Anyways, we finally get our boarding passes.  Shelley is in 5E.  I'm in 24E.  WTF.  They put is in middle seats 19 rows apart from each other?  Several families were scattered, the entire plane was having a crappy experience.  Everybody had a crappy service story. 

So I bribe the girl next to me to trade seats with Shelley for $50.  She's in the aisle seat, and her mom, dad, and sister are in 24 A-C.  Dad leans over, points to his wife, and says, "You can have her for five bucks."  Hahaha. 

Other funness...  Bud Light $7, I had zero.  All flight attendants rude.  Passed out credit card applications in-flight. 

There were so many poor customer service and management screw-ups that I will never fly with them again.  Almost everything an airline can do poorly was their policy.  Oh man I forgot about that one too.  We sat in Phoenix for 20 minutes waiting for a guy from "maintenance to return from the hangar with a part."  That's what the captain said.  Delays + connecting flights = stressful. 

We made it to our BahamasAir flight and were immediately greeted with a smile at the gate counter.  Ahhhhhhhh.  These guys were the polar opposite of USAir,  completely awesome, and if I ever come back to the Bahamas I will make sure that I do fly them!
So anyways, Orlando to Atlantis was awesome.  Flight was great, airport was great, Thomas the cabbie was great, check in was immediate, and the view we were greeted with was awesome.  As far as mega-resorts go, I've never experienced anything similar outside of Vegas really, and this place is huge.  Just beautiful everywhere inside and out.  We unpacked, watched the rest of the Charger game, and headed downstairs to do some drinking.  Jon/Sketchy popped into the room right after the game, and I had him do a breathlyzer, which I decided to video, and then had him set a line (he slurrishly picked 0.13 and I took the over for $20).  He then blew a 0.28.  It's a great 53 second video that I might get around to posting.

From there we wandered around, drank at the bar, check out aquariums, and then went to make gambool.  We walked down one row of tables and back on the other side, and didn't see a table with a minimum under $100.  Ok, seriously?  I found like one $25 blackjack table, and ended up on the $10 dice table.  I say to the guy on the right if it's okay for Shelley and I to squeeze in and play.  He looks at me and smiles real big and starts laughing real hard.  I don't really get it.  Him and Shelley start talking and smiling and laughing, and it takes me about nine seconds of staring at him going, huhhhhhhh???... before saying, "Phil!" 

While in the customs line I hear, "Devonshire."

I look up, it's a dude that I recognize, think from Canada, he confirms that quickly, and reminds me that I was drunk.  Well duh I was in Vancouver.  Anyways, his name is Phil.  I like him quickly.  We share a cab to the hotel, and Thomas the cabbie tells us about the game they play on the island called "three by four".  It's basically holdem with 3 hole cards and 4 community cards.  I'm not sure if they're 3 or 4 betting rounds, it kinda sounded like there were two post-flop streets with two cards each, but he also could have just meant that they got it in on the turn if you will.  Flop's two cards, and Thomas tells us about this hand where he had 5h6h9h.  He then says, "If yoo flop dem strait flush, do yoo bet dem or check dem?"  Phil and I kinda laugh in stereo and then both say, "bet hahahaha."  Thomas doesn't get why this is funny to us, says, "Yoo don't try to suck dem in?  Me neider mon I bet fohty dollas, dey all call, and da guy on da buton raises me.  Dat's when I just call dem mon!"

He then goes on to describe the hand, "Yah, so first too kards mon de six and de seben of hahts."  He then invites us to the game, turns out it's at a bar, he says it's with "Hundred dollar stocks."  I'm assuming this means it's a $100 max buy-in style thing?  I decided at that point that I pretty much must have a drunken poker night at one of these games, and since Thomas drives a huge van with a bunch of seats, I bet we can have a good ol time and rally some troops from here. Poker TV

A big piece of me is pretty uncomfortable here though.  It's way too nice, expensive, resorty, etc.  I mean, I had a jamba juice this morning.  There's a Starbucks here.  I can spend USD no problem.  My "Kalik" beer was $7.  Two eggs in the room:  $18.  I mean FFS.  I've been comparing much of my experience here with St. Maarten this summer, unfortunately, and I need to stop.  I totally need to get into a different paradigm otherwise I'll be way too critical of the white-ness of this place.  I'll need to get out and explore the island a bit else I go insane. 

Anyways, we lost four points in a row after walking up to the dice table, but stuck around and had a good time.  Almost left, but we were on deck to shoot, and good thing we did cause Phil went on a decent roll and I got unstuck from 500 to up 300.  Three winning days this year, the first two coming in online cash games.  Batting 1.000 in 2009 :).

We're watching the Ravens kick butt right now, and then the online poker Stars welcome party is sometime tonight.  I'm playing tomorrow day 1A so will be taking it easy tonight, plus I have enough some extra hangover right now so beer does not sound delicious as usual.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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