Sunday, November 10, 2013

TR Snippet - Interesting Strangers

I met many interesting strangers while traveling around.  I was unsure of where to catch the SDX after being dropped off at the Tropicana by the 201 from the Orleans.  Wild Bill thought I should go South.  I thought I should go North, but there was all this construction.  I asked the driver and she sent me North.  As I excited a woman I think was Vietnamese said, "Just follow me;  I'm going to that stop." and so we struck up a conversation that lasted all the way to the Riviera.
She had lived in LA with her three boys in a tiny apartment that cost $1100 a month.  She worked minimum wage jobs so all her money was going into rent.  Her drug addicted husband was constant trouble in spite of being separated and she had a mother to care for as well.
She decided to go to Las Vegas and see if she could make it.  And she was thrilled to be a success.  She works at a Home Depot and has managed a three bedroom apartment in a good neighborhood for half of what her tiny place cost in LA. 
Her boys get free after school child care.  Soon she will bring her mother too.  And the husband seems much farther away. She was happy and proud.

On the SDX one other time going downtown there were three girls who were lively and having a good time.  One was from Scotland.  One was singing songs and doing the facial and hand gestures of a stage presentation. 
A tall Black man with a huge Afro and a backpack sat in front of them, but when a couple came on the bus and looked for seats, he offered his and moved to sit next to the Scottish girls.  That started a very interesting conversation in which each told parts of their lives.  He was not hitting on them, but going home to watch "The Good Wife" on television. 
It seems he sells bootleg beer from his bag on the strip and so they bought a couple cans at $2 each.
The couple that entered wore black T shirts that said bride and groom.  They were not beautiful people, but short and quirky looking, but they were beautifully happy.  Three house ago they had gotten married after being together a few years and they were in love and finding the celebration a great deal of fun.  A few wedding guests were in the front of the bus.  I loved the idea of getting married and then taking the bus.

Once the girls discovered all of this, they were very excited and got up to take pictures.  They popped open the beers and gave them to the newly married couples and it was laughter and smiles all around. 

I could see it all easily from my side seat in the SDX. 

I met plenty of interesting people playing poker.  At the Monte Carlo I used my small bit of Spanish to help an older  Portuguese gentleman understand that it was a limit table, not no limit.  The dealer had been unable to get that idea across in English.  At the Golden Nugget I met a guy from Amherst NY, a suburb of Buffalo where I was raised and not far from where I went to college.  He was very funny and he had the Buffalo accent.
There too I met some of the fellows I had played with on my last trip, including a very pleasant guy name John from the UK.
IThanks for that info on tournament tables.  I have not played tournaments there.  I might next trip.  I'm reading my Dan Harrington.  I wonder if they will pay $2 for tournament players as well.  Perhaps not. 
I really play poker as much for the people as for the game.  Vegas is rich in visitors and all have stories.  Most are on vacation, so they are easy to engage in conversation or banter at 2-4 limit.  I mostly play that.
Here is one experience I had at the Golden Nugget:
[I]I had the most fun with a young Eskimo woman and her Western dressed man.  She was the worst poker player of my trip, betting and raising on anything and losing quite a bit.  He could play, but he started to raise her if he thought he might push out others at the table, just to make the damage less severe.
He started the story telling by telling us about being a long line halibut fisherman in the Bering Straight.  One large halibut had flipped the wrong way and dumped him in the very cold water.  He could survive in that just a few minutes as he had not put on protective gear.
The captain donned protective gear and went in to save him, arriving just as he was going unconscious.
When he woke up, he was in bed with the Captain's wife.  She was dressed just in a bikini and held him tightly in her arms. 
"Oh..oh, he thought.  I am really in trouble now."
But this was at the captain's bidding, a way to warm him up and bring him back to a conscious state.
It turned out there were two other players at that table who had fished the Bering Straight.

The Alaskan girl, Juanita, told me about cooking fish in her village.  She said they used a curry that they made there in a traditional recipe or perhaps they used thyme.  There was too much catsup in her recipes, but I've now tried just thyme and liked it.

Once after I bet a hand and she folded, I collected chips and said, "Well, I put out the bait, but no fish bit."
Juanita did not miss a beat, "Maybe you need a longer rod."

Coming in such a dry delivery from this sweet girl, this crack was one of the funniest jokes of my trip.

She and he man bickered a bit about when they would leave and he left her to pack up and get ready to drive out.  They had a six hour drive and he wanted to get on the road.  She wanted to stay and play. 
While her man  was gone, another player moved to her left and used her betting to raise when he was strong and narrow the field.
She was a great puzzle to many of the players and one of the newest at the other end of the table suspected collusion.
"Are you two together?" he asked, pointing to the fellow to her and the fellow to  her left.
"No," the table answered.
"I looked at him and said, "She and I are together," and that really left the other end puzzled for a long minute.
"You are a couple?" the fellow asked incredulously.
"Yeah," I answered, "In my dreams."
And the table cracked up. 
For an old guy such interaction with a sweet and pretty young thing is a great deal of fun.  I don't get much of this anywhere these days except in Vegas.[/I]


Fisherman were all over the Golden Nugget this year.  I met a fellow who traveled all over the world to fish Salmon. He lived on Kodiak Island in Alaska.  He was not a great story teller, but he had great passion talking about salmon.
Right at the table with the Eskimo girl was another fellow who had fished the Berring Straight only with a trawling net.

At that same table on another day I met a fellow who lives now in Thailand, but lived a long while in Central America.  He and his buddy behind him told about Nicaraqua and I'm interested in going.  He had build an apartment complex on a high cliff at Ocatal Beach on the Western shore of Costa Rica.  This is one of my favorite beaches for swimming and snorkeling.

I met another fellow older than I am who had lived most of his adult life on sailboats.  He now lived in Bermuda.  In between boats he had built an orphanage in Thailand and lived there a while.  He loved the kids.  He said that he had delivered a boat from South Africa to Miami once, but that generally if he wanted to live in a place, he did not sail there, but sold his boat and bought on in his new location.
It was a hard life to keep a steady woman relationship.  Hard to get a boat "wench" as he put it.  He had had a long relationship that just ended because she needed to be near grandchildren from a previous marriage.
He handled his medical needs by depending on the Veterans hospitals, but I guess he had been very healthy most of his life.  That is a poor way to get health care.
I asked him about pirates and he said that the sailors talk and know pretty much where it is safe.  He also thought that he was not much of a target for pritates, but I would be afraid to be at risk of kidnapping or worse.

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