Sure, we’ve still got a mountain of debt (diminishing, for sure, but still there), but the one thing I simply cannot give up my weekend in Las Vegas with my Goodboys pals. We’ve been going the weekend after Super Bowl for the past seven years and, since with age comes wisdom (at least supposedly) every year it gets better: we worked out all the kinks, the mistakes, and the lack of tempo and judgment a long time ago. These days, we’re all older and wiser and look forward to this weekend as a way of enjoying each other’s company, play a little golf, and exchange the stress and long hours of our work lives for a few days of harmless fun and reindeer games.

As I wrote last year, what I love most about Las Vegas is its other-worldliness, the things you can or would do there that are just so far beyond anything you would do in the town you live in. Sure, there are the casinos, the bars, the strip clubs, the gambling, the restaurants, and the people-watching (as far as I’m concerned, you can’t beat the latter), but it’s just the fact that money means nothing (as long as you have it, of course). The saying goes, “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”, but I prefer, “if you go looking for trouble don’t be surprised if you find it”. Nowadays I get as much joy out of a fun round of golf or an afternoon at the hotel spa as I do anything else anymore.

The important thing, of course, is that, while in Vegas you can bend the rules to your heart’s content, you can’t take the city, the gambling, the money, or the pretty people too seriously; otherwise you’re likely to find yourself in a world of hurt. Have a great time, but don’t do anything stupid or something you’d regret down the line. Because the temptations are always there, and Vegas thrives on temptation and the weak. Which is what makes Vegas what it is and why I love it. The only place I know where you can’t wait to get there, three days days later you’re glad to get out alive with the shirt on your back, then two days later you’re already conjuring up ways to get back and do it all over again.

Viva Las Vegas, baby!!