I’m starting to get my feet under me here in Las Vegas, which is a terrible sign. This is how they get you. They make you comfortable, you let down your guard, and boom: You’re falling asleep in a booth at IHOP in the shadow of the Ferris wheel with syrup dripping down the legs of your last clean pair of pants.
Yesterday morning, I found a great Chick-Fil-A. My new favorite Chick-Fil-A in the world. This isn’t a high bar to clear—I’m a famous thumper of the narrative that Chick-Fil-A doesn’t have efficient service and is merely friendly—but this place is great. If you are ever feeling too overwhelmed in Las Vegas during normal business hours (feeling a little overwhelmed is kind of the point), go to the Chick-Fil-A at the corner of Flamingo and Valley View. They will take care of you.
Yesterday morning, I also went for a walk. I walked around the hotel pools. They seem nice. It’s too cold here to use them (I’m still confused about that), but I got a nice cup of tea and I walked around the pools and I felt very level and under control.
Again: Terrible sign. Tonight is probably going to end terribly for our hero, who will show up to the Orleans Arena tomorrow as a withered husk of a man, foam board sign cracked in two and bucket hat drenched with something resembling motor oil.
It’s a little wild that Las Vegas is hospitable. Not psychologically, I mean, but physically. This part of the country—the gigantic desert between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada—is dramatically uninhabitable. It’s Mongolia out here. Yet in this valley, in the middle of it all, is a functional city? Known in large part for how it uses electricity and water? Feel how you will about America, and about our ability to do this, but we kick the wilderness’s ass.
I think we’re going to the Strip twice today. Once to get the NIT sign picture, and once to get a nice dinner with Andy, my brother’s college roommate. Might do a roulette spin. The Roulette Tiebreaker’s off the table for the NIT Bracket Challenge, but I want to know how it would’ve turned out. I need to know. I must know.
Someone please help me.
