So Continued from
part 1
Day 2:
Woke up, got a good breakfast up at the skyfall lounge (Pepsi took this over all weekend). A cold brew old fashioned and omlette bar? Sign me up.
First off was a LIV Golf event. Much different that I was expecting. Got to be very close to the golfers. We had to move out of the way to let a player take his shot that landed just outside the fairway. Lots of money being spent on making it very fan friendly. They kept slapping wrist bands on me as we met more people. One to get in, one for access for this lounge/that lounge. Think I had 4 on before we left. Started out at the 'party hole' which was the 8th hole. Free Beers/Free food, No free liquor (the NERVE). Anyways, we hung out, saw Brook Koepka probably with the worst shot on the par 3 (saved by the fact the luxury boxes were right behind us. A guy working for LIV were talking, and knowing I am a bills fan let me know that Thurman Thomas was here 'somewhere', but I never did find him. That guy did get us the hookup for the LIV private box that DID have liquor. Bloody Mary's all around. The Bartender in the box was from Attica and was hoping some Bills players would show up (none did) so we sat, we drank, we watched golf. The final 3 trio was Dustin Johnson/Bryson Dechambeau and someone else. We saw Phil Mickelson leaving the 8th hole as we walked up as well. After that, there was some afternoon things my friend had to do, so we went to the "club" where they had free lunch. And it was probably some of the best food of the weekend. As we ate, saw Wayne Gretzky getting a drink from the bar. Was mildly annoyed to be asked for a photo, so I just took one for my buddy and let him on his way. Was going to try again later but he disappeared soon after with two drinks in his hand.
After my friend had to attend some 'brand activations', essentially get a sales pitch from Rockstar Energy and and Gatorade. Essentially a bit of paying the piper for the free weekend. So we did those, not a ton to report other than Rockstar energy is sending me a 3d printed action figure of myself at some point and Gatorade loves to give you free bottles.
Next was a free 45 minute massage at the day spa. No complaints.
Dinner was pretty nuts. It was the 'pre game party' It was unseasonably cold for Vegas, probably down in the 40s and for an outdoor dinner, I think killed the turnout a bit, but was still pretty crowded. It was at a pool, surrounded by tables and heat lamps, fire dancers, a woman in a bubble doing acrobatics, in the pool, and other vegas pomp. As we walked to the Bar, jerry rice was hanging out and talking and Emmit Smith was nearby in the same area. Both were pretty surrounded so we decided to try for a picture later. The food here was probably the most disappointing, mostly because it was poorly lit and you couldn't see what was in the Buffet trays so it was a bit of a gamble. But hey, free booze. We sat down and ate and Shaq gave opening comments. Led the crowd in a 'Coke sucks' chant and talked about the charity work he has done with Pepsi. He didn't real circulate much in the crowd, just came out for some pre arranged promotional shots and escaped. As we went back to the bar, we were able to get a picture with Jerry, was really nice and made sure we got the shot we wanted. Emmitt was long gone. We discovered that tucked a away a bit, Hennessy had a stand up and offered a maple Hennesy cocktail as well as cigars being handrolled on site. Most people were circulating near the stage because of the concert coming (Black Eyed Peas). My friend and I found comfy lounge area in the corner, smoked our cigars and had some more to drink. I think the cigars made us a bit repellent to the sales folk, as people were dressed up. Jokes on them, they are going to smell like smoke anyways going back through the casino, should have had one. We enjoyed a good bit of the concert from afar and when our cigars were up, we decided to go checkout Amazon's private lounge at the Aria. We were expecting bad traffic but it honestly wasn't too bad.
The Amazon lounge was was pretty small, but had a bar, seating, and not too packed. They were custom embordering Thursday night football hats, and my now tipsy ass got 'Doak Rules' on my hat. A mentalist was there and tried to pull some tricks on drunk folks. was pretty good sleight of hand and even had a custom app that generated a ton of wifi APs with the name of a persons card on them. Pretty neat. Soon after, in walks Ryan Fitzpatrick. Said hi real quick and he got pulled away. Felt almost like he had a friend there whose job it was to pull him away if a fan started talking to him, but my drunk ass was adamant about waiting it out and getting a photo. Probably 10-15 minutes later he was free and he actually spoke to us a bit. Talked about going to the Bills/Chiefs game this year, and how sad it was at the end as they were waiting to go, fans would come up and say hi and just leave dejected because of the game. Told us the Niners were going to blow out the Chiefs (my drunk ass also used this as an excuse to put $50 on the niners at the sportsbook) and he wasn't a huge fan of Joe Brady. Said this year would be a transitional year for us. We had an event the next day where Tom Brady was going to be at, and I was told that if I boo'd him, I would lose my superbowl ticket. I told this to Fitzy and he said 'No, you can boo Tom Brady' Thanks Fitz.
We headed back to our hotel and back to the top floor lounge for a few more free drinks. We stopped at the sports book to bet moderate amounts on the niners (I bet 50 my friend $40). After probably two more drinks upstairs, my buddy called it a night and my drunk ass went to the poker tables. Thankfully I ran stupid good and made $300 or so in about 40 minutes and started to sober up and feel extra tired so I went to bed.
It's now time to Shovel, so I'll recap gameday later.
