Random thoughts flying back home | Page 5 | Syracusefan.com

Random thoughts flying back home

My best chicken sandwich ever was at the Crack Shack in SD. Amazing.
Original Crack Shack is fantastic.

Interestingly, a restaurant ownership group opened up a bunch in Utah. It was good, but not quite as good as the original, and they all got pulled.
 
Not everyone goes with duck fat fries. Shows a real lack of conviction by them.

RIP to the duck fries at the former Blue Monk on Elmwood Ave in Buffalo. Have never had a better french fry in my life.
 
My favorite is the Win-Dow but it's more local to LA. But I'm back in OC now so it's a haul. Think the closest to OC is in Long Beach.

Also there's this place in Santa Monica called Pono Burger that's a Hawaiian burger place, I think they only have one location but that place is really good.
I was just in Laguna Nigel at a friend's house...such a nice area.
 
Driving home from Vegas, my wife and I pull off somewhere after crossing into California for some gas and coffee. As much as I hate to do it we drive through McD’s for a breakfast and coffee. I order the steak egg and cheese bagel meal with a large black coffee. She orders the bacon egg and cheese meal with a large coffee. We got a sausage biscuit meal for Winston our French bulldog - photo added as a reference below. Now I haven’t been to McDonalds for a very long time, and I was shocked when the tab came in at over $40. Even Winston was shocked.


View attachment 245707
If it was Baker...should have gone into "The Angry Greek" for food
 
What did Winston have at McDonalds?

No complaints about the McDonalds across from Mandalay. The Big Mac was $5.99 I think and solid when I went to go get more beer. 2 Egg McMuffins + 2 Coffees were $10.99 one morning. I almost never eat McDonalds so it usually hits the spot unless you get an awful location most of the time its just a diet coke for me and ice cream for my dog.

Has anyone drank a Busch Lite recently? I had one for the first time in a decade last year and its an amazing light beer super watery 4.1% no nasty taste. Each day I sunk around 20 of them between the pool and room with no hangover and was able to keep going at dinner or the game after. $7.99/12 or $1.05 per for 16oz. Very solid unsung heros of the trip. Modelo Agua Frescas for the lady came in better than expected as well. Lime Cucumber 10/10. Pineapple and Watermelon 7.5/10. Pink passionfruit wasn't great maybe 4/10 and the weak link in the 12 pack.
I bought more light beer than I ever did before for a tailgate. Cuz 104 degrees
 
I happened to be observing much of this with Tom.
I didn’t have a deep enough wallet to sit down at a black jack table ( 7 or 8 hands ) so I played a slot machine……. I don’t get it…. I know people that head to the Turning Stone once a month to play slot machines ….. again I don’t get it.
Vegas was a bucket list trip for me, and it was fun but I don’t think I will be back . I can see the appeal for a bachelor or bachelorette gig or something like that.

I'm glad I'm not the only one, I don't get the slot fascination at all. Walked through probably a half dozen casinos 98% of the people playing slots looked like they'd rather be anywhere else and appeared to be losing money hand over fist.

Did play a few slots as my parents wanted to just try them. Good lord you need a masters to figure out the combinations needed to win. I spent 5+ mins on one trying to figure it out and gave up.

Did put in a few sports book bets including Syracuse that hit wish i had bet more...
 
I got home a few hours ago, and went right to work by meeting a client. Back to reality. But there were still several Orange fans that I ran into in the airport. It was great seeing so many of you in a different environment than when I make my one visit a year to a Syracuse tailgate. I had such a fun time. I hope the high lasts for a while.
 
I am bored and need something to keep awake. So here are some thoughts on my weekend and SU football in general.

Vegas is a strange place. So much to do. It is a foodies paradise. I didn’t really take advantage of that this. I did visit the In and Out burger joint close to Allegiant before I left. My burger tasted fresh. The beef was good, the lettuce and tomato were solid. It didn’t change my life and I think a Five Guys or Shake Shack provide about the same high quality burger. It was relatively cheap. Impressed with the drive through layout, which looks to be years ahead of what we are doing in CNY.

The monorail and tram were cool and made me wish we had one in Syracuse.

There were a lot of homeless people around. They all hung out on high traffic corners with traffic lights. They were not aggressive. But some walked around in traffic pretty boldly.

Speaking of traffic lights, the lights in Vegas seemed like they took longer to change than in any city I have ever been to. Orlando has been dethroned. Congrats!

Let’s talk about UNLV fans. They were unusually polite and respectful before the game, and the ones I talked to were also quite confident they were going to win. But they were cool and not confrontational at all.

As mentioned, they were not very loud. Even when they took the lead and almost had the game secured. I talked to a couple after the game and they were impressed with how many fans we brought and had a passionate our fans were.

A couple mentioned the refs and thought they would have won if the refs called it both ways. Not sure they had good memories.

I was impressed with the UNLV offense and think they will win a lot more games this season. Would not be surprised if they win out. Their defense is more suspect but they have a couple studs there and it should be good enough for most of their opponents. They have very good team speed and are well coached.

Sorry to see what happened to Grayson McCall. Hope he makes a full recovery and does not subject himself to more risk.

It will be interesting to see what happens with NC State this week. They got off to a bad start last year as well and eventually settled in and finished strong. Hard to do that with a true QB but we will see.

The warehouse where Battlebots is filmed is on Koval a few blocks south of where I stayed. Cool.

Another hotel with no normal soap but that body wash they keep pushing on me. I don’t like it. Not gonna buy it. I used it but I don’t like it. Did the major hotels all buy stock in body wash? Someone needs to investigate this.

I used Turo for the first time on this road trip. It was a little funky but cheaper than the big car rental places and it was nice to have an alternative. I will do it again. Not a paid endorsement but it worked well for me.

Wish it was easier to walk near the Strip. Getting from MGM to Excalibur, to go from monorail to tram, was not as easy as it should be.

It is easy to walk on Fremont but with the sleazy girls dressed up like showgirls trying to pose for a picture with you and all the NYS Fair midway type folks there and the ever present smell of marijuana in the air, it wasn’t a great experience. Maybe best for people who are partaking in the ganja?

The longest walk I have ever had between gates for connecting flights was at the Minneapolis airport today. It is a good thing there were 3 hours and 45 minutes for me for me to make the journey. Walk walk
Walk. Ride ride ride ride. Go up a
Floor. Go down a floor. Turn 180 degrees. Repeat. The people were all
Minnesota nice though.

From reading posts on the board I see a bunch of people I have never met were at the tailgate and I did not have a chance to meet up with them.

I just want to say I really enjoy meeting people from the board, or seeing people
again I have not seen for years. Want to encourage people to say hi. I only bite when extremely hungry and that is rare with our tailgates. ;)

I also want to apologize to anyone I offended with my in game alternate personality. I have never really met him and can’t really control him but I ask my friends to try and keep him out of fights and out of jail. Props to my peeps for doing that at the UNLV game.

Woke up after the game feeling exhausted with an extremely blown out throat. Very happy I was not in jail and had zero black eyes.

I think this thing is kind of like the catholic gift of tongues except the new language is trash talk.
I don’t travel a lot but I do at least a half dozen times for work and the big bottles are prevalent more than ever. It started a while ago but Covid put the nail in the coffin and made it easier to change. For the record I don’t mind the shampoo but I always bring at soap. For getting around Vegas I think it is knowing how the traffic and getting around right he resorts. I been to the main three stretch and I figured em out. It just familiar jsut like driving around a big city and it takes time.
 
Tom, you waking up with a blown out throat on Saturday is the least surprising thing I've read on this board post game. Mine was certainly struggling as well. I'm sure that you'd agree that it was 100% worth it!
I lost my voice Thursday lol.
 
This trend started long ago. Yeah costs are a big thing…. Higher end places you still get the fancy stuff.
 
I am bored and need something to keep awake. So here are some thoughts on my weekend and SU football in general.

Vegas is a strange place. So much to do. It is a foodies paradise. I didn’t really take advantage of that this. I did visit the In and Out burger joint close to Allegiant before I left. My burger tasted fresh. The beef was good, the lettuce and tomato were solid. It didn’t change my life and I think a Five Guys or Shake Shack provide about the same high quality burger. It was relatively cheap. Impressed with the drive through layout, which looks to be years ahead of what we are doing in CNY.

The monorail and tram were cool and made me wish we had one in Syracuse.

There were a lot of homeless people around. They all hung out on high traffic corners with traffic lights. They were not aggressive. But some walked around in traffic pretty boldly.

Speaking of traffic lights, the lights in Vegas seemed like they took longer to change than in any city I have ever been to. Orlando has been dethroned. Congrats!

Let’s talk about UNLV fans. They were unusually polite and respectful before the game, and the ones I talked to were also quite confident they were going to win. But they were cool and not confrontational at all.

As mentioned, they were not very loud. Even when they took the lead and almost had the game secured. I talked to a couple after the game and they were impressed with how many fans we brought and had a passionate our fans were.

A couple mentioned the refs and thought they would have won if the refs called it both ways. Not sure they had good memories.

I was impressed with the UNLV offense and think they will win a lot more games this season. Would not be surprised if they win out. Their defense is more suspect but they have a couple studs there and it should be good enough for most of their opponents. They have very good team speed and are well coached.

Sorry to see what happened to Grayson McCall. Hope he makes a full recovery and does not subject himself to more risk.

It will be interesting to see what happens with NC State this week. They got off to a bad start last year as well and eventually settled in and finished strong. Hard to do that with a true QB but we will see.

The warehouse where Battlebots is filmed is on Koval a few blocks south of where I stayed. Cool.

Another hotel with no normal soap but that body wash they keep pushing on me. I don’t like it. Not gonna buy it. I used it but I don’t like it. Did the major hotels all buy stock in body wash? Someone needs to investigate this.

I used Turo for the first time on this road trip. It was a little funky but cheaper than the big car rental places and it was nice to have an alternative. I will do it again. Not a paid endorsement but it worked well for me.

Wish it was easier to walk near the Strip. Getting from MGM to Excalibur, to go from monorail to tram, was not as easy as it should be.

It is easy to walk on Fremont but with the sleazy girls dressed up like showgirls trying to pose for a picture with you and all the NYS Fair midway type folks there and the ever present smell of marijuana in the air, it wasn’t a great experience. Maybe best for people who are partaking in the ganja?

The longest walk I have ever had between gates for connecting flights was at the Minneapolis airport today. It is a good thing there were 3 hours and 45 minutes for me for me to make the journey. Walk walk
Walk. Ride ride ride ride. Go up a
Floor. Go down a floor. Turn 180 degrees. Repeat. The people were all
Minnesota nice though.

From reading posts on the board I see a bunch of people I have never met were at the tailgate and I did not have a chance to meet up with them.

I just want to say I really enjoy meeting people from the board, or seeing people
again I have not seen for years. Want to encourage people to say hi. I only bite when extremely hungry and that is rare with our tailgates. ;)

I also want to apologize to anyone I offended with my in game alternate personality. I have never really met him and can’t really control him but I ask my friends to try and keep him out of fights and out of jail. Props to my peeps for doing that at the UNLV game.

Woke up after the game feeling exhausted with an extremely blown out throat. Very happy I was not in jail and had zero black eyes.

I think this thing is kind of like the catholic gift of tongues except the new language is trash talk.
I don't gamble. Never have had any interest in going to Vegas. But I do know people who love it.

I am curious about something.

I've seen some of the prices quoted (some poster quoted something like $250 for an umbrella and 2 chairs at the Mandalay Bay pool for the day).

How do they get away with that?

It seems like Vegas is nothing but hotel after hotel and it's in the middle of nowhere in a desert, not exactly the Four Seasons on Nevis.

I would think the hotel supply alone would keep prices somewhere in the sane zone.

Hell, the Mandalay Bay pool is more expensive than day beds on Capri - that should never, ever happen.
 
I don't gamble. Never have had any interest in going to Vegas. But I do know people who love it.

I am curious about something.

I've seen some of the prices quoted (some poster quoted something like $250 for an umbrella and 2 chairs at the Mandalay Bay pool for the day).
I’ll
How do they get away with that?

It seems like Vegas is nothing but hotel after hotel and it's in the middle of nowhere in a desert, not exactly the Four Seasons on Nevis.

I would think the hotel supply alone would keep prices somewhere in the sane zone.

Hell, the Mandalay Bay pool is more expensive than day beds on Capri - that should never, ever happen.
Has to do with the general area, genre visiting it, and quality of service all around. Capri isn’t exactly a good spot and it old Vegas.
 
I don't gamble. Never have had any interest in going to Vegas. But I do know people who love it.

I am curious about something.

I've seen some of the prices quoted (some poster quoted something like $250 for an umbrella and 2 chairs at the Mandalay Bay pool for the day).

How do they get away with that?

It seems like Vegas is nothing but hotel after hotel and it's in the middle of nowhere in a desert, not exactly the Four Seasons on Nevis.

I would think the hotel supply alone would keep prices somewhere in the sane zone.

Hell, the Mandalay Bay pool is more expensive than day beds on Capri - that should never, ever happen.
Very simple. Tacit collusion. Textbook oligopolistic price coordination. Keep in mind 2 companies own over half the strip
 

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