It all stared with me heading out to get Tires for the trip. I went to the local Tire distributor and after 2 phone calls over 2 days confirming they had my tires in stock, told me it would take about 4 hours to complete. I was running an hour late and wanted to be on my way to AC at this point. I wound up leaving there and calling House of Tires in Levittown, NY. They had me in and out in under an hour and replaced both tires. They also have a good reputation in the area, so I may use them as a mechanic. In fact, one of the guys who used to work for my mechanic is there now. I left there, hit the car wash which was right next door, and took off..On to JaypoCON 2005!

The trip up there was great. We made good time. About 15 mins from AC we decided to stop in the rest stop, fuel up and stretch (We thought we actually had like an hour to go). We pulled out from the stop and heard a clunk. I thought it was just a rock or somethin' on the road, but aparently it was a piece of my car! The power steering went out and the car stalled. I restarted it, but the car was overheating. We pulled over and let the car cool down, but as soon as we took off it heated right up. I didn't have more than a few seconds before it was overheating again.

Vince and Josh in front of my overheating car
What am I going to do now?

We got the car to a Sonoco station and found the accessory bely had fallen completely off. That explained why I had no power steering and why the car was overheating! We called for a tow-truck which conveniently took 2 hours to get there. Even worse, Sunoco ran out of hot-chocolate!!!

Stuck in Sunoco at the Airport Circle in New Jersey, just 15 minutes from Atlantic City, Vince demonstrated his ability to adapt in any situation and the absolute versatility of duct tape!

Click Here to view the picture.

The coffee cup was hot to the touch so using the duct tape and napkins as insullation materials, Vince wrapped the cup to keep it's contents hot and his hands cool. He even made sure to cover the top and bottom of the cup to reduce head dissipation!

Then using the last of the duct tape and the roll on which it came, he proceeded to create a Ketchup dispenser. lol....It was about time that the tow-truck got there!!!

We got to A/C around 9 at night. Unfortunately I had lefy my phone's home charger at home and left the car charger in my car so my phone was about to die. We tried to foward my number to another number and screwed something up. Now my phone was stuck pointing to an invalid number, and we didn't know how to turn off the fowarding. That, plus the fact that it was dying, I just gave up and put the phone in my bag. We're lucky that everyone was able to find me! Some people almost didn't!

We all finally did meet up and headed to the Hard Rock Cafe... After offending a neighboring table (with kids) and enjoying a good meal, we headed to the casino to play some games then headed to bed!

Saturday was much better! I woke up at 9AM and called the mechanic. The car was going to be fixed that day, and it cost less than I expected to fix so I was in a better mood already. We went to Ceasar's for breakfast. We missed the Breakfast Buffet by just a few minutes, so we went to the small Cafe next door.

I got the breakfast Buffet, and being I could take "anything from the buffet" I was nearly dared to take the Pineapple from the buffet, so.... I did. I brought back a plate of eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, a danish, and one full pineapple.

Sure, this was amusing and all, and we all got a kick out of it, but only Vince could decide to eat it... not cut it and eat slices... eat the pineapple. after we all pleaded against it (and with the ok of the waitress) Vince took a huge bite out of the pineapple... CHOMP!... Though amusing, we all found that Vince happened to look a lot like the top of the pineapple :)

Pictures:
Chomp!
Guess which is the pineapple

We spent the day in Caesar's gambling. I played at the tables for the first time and didn't do too bad. The cheapest blackjack tables started at $15/hand, so I sat down with Shawn and we each dropped $60. I didn't do too bad. I started out pretty good and almost trippled my money. Of course, AC wouldn't be in business if everybody won, so I kepy going until I lost most of my winnings. I kept about $30 or so above my initial $60 so I didn't make out too bad.  Later on, I was just playin' around with the nickel slots. Stuck $5 into Slingo and walked out with $27 only a few minutes later.

It's great playing cheap slots in the Casinos... You can sit there and play all you want and the drinks are free. We need somewhere like that here in NY. Somewhere you can sit down at a quarter-video-poker machine and drink all you can. Hell, Friday night I put $10 into a Video Poker machine and had 3 drinks while losing only $2.00 in the machine. Tipping per drink, It was cheaper to have all 3 drinks and play poker than it is to buy one drink here in NY!

The Adventures of Action Vance!

We're in tThe lobby of Bally's "Wild Wild West", a casino with a cool landscape scene blocked off to the public. Action Vance wanted an action shot with the cacti on this set. He sent the group to distract the guard in the casino while he jumped up on the ledge and I took a picture in the scene with a cameraphone.

View the picture

The Adventures of Action Vance! Part 2

Walking through the casino, Action Vance's mind explodes into action again. He makes the arrangements with the 2 girls in our group. He makes his way ahead about 300 feet and leans up against a column directly across from the Table games (Blackjack, Craps, etc..) and pretends to be planning his next big movie on his cellphone. All of a sudden, the girls charge at him screaming like loony fans and ask for his autograph. Janna even had Laura take her pic with Vince on her cellphone.

The girls ran back to me and Josh as we continued on towards the Buffet. We had to shrug off the dealers and pit bosses who were really curious who the "star" was. They'll always wonder who that star was who was in their casino.

JaypoCON 2005 was eventfull and loads of fun. I had a great time, and I think all my friends did too. The gears are in motion for JaypoCON 2006 but I think I'm going to plan something more local. The only downside of the AC trip was that a lot of people couldn't make it because of the distance and conflicting schedules.

If you're interested in reading about JaypoCON 2005: This Link brings you to all the posts in the right order.

Until next year.....