Wake-Up Call

Body still on east coast time, so I’m awake much too early here in Las Vegas this morning. Good thing, as I got a 6:40 a.m. wake-up call I had not ordered. But I’d been up for a while anyhow. First, thinking. Then, writing.

Travel yesterday was mostly painless. Am proud to report I successfully kept my pants on the entire remainder of the trip. (Explanation here.)

Boarded the plane around 11 o’clock yesterday morning. As I passed through first class to my seat, I noticed Boston Celtic legend Bill Russell sitting there talking on his cell phone, idly scratching his familiar salt-and-pepper beard. Had a cap with a little number 6 on it. I immediately decided that sharing my trip with a 11-time NBA champion meant I must be boarding a winners-only flight.

The journey was relatively smooth, made even more so by those groovy noise-canceling headphones I mentioned earlier in the week. Pretty much kept ’em on the entire way, cycling through the Bowie’s Station to Station, the Divine Comedy’s Absent Friends (a new fave), Miles’ Tribute to Jack Johnson, and a couple of soundtracks -- Koyaanisqatsi and Repo Man.

As we started our descent, I took the suckers off and the roar was deafening. No one else seemed to notice, though.

We landed a half-hour early (about 1 p.m. Vegas time), and soon I was checking in to my home-away-from-home for the next seven-and-a-half-weeks. Spent the afternoon unpacking, then went for a fun (and tasty) tapas dinner at Firefly with F-Train, California Jen, and AlCantHang.

The 2010 World Series of Poker begins in two days. Still feels like a long ways off, although that feeling will be disappearing PDQ, I think. Once we turn the corner this weekend and get to Monday (when there will be four different events happening) and Tuesday (when there will be six!), the effect will be similar to taking off those headphones. Calm suddenly replaced by a friggin’ cacophony.

The PokerNews folks are all arriving, schedules are being set, and other preparations made. At the moment, it looks like I actually won’t start live blogging until after I return from Peru (I leave next Monday), but I’m glad to be here nonetheless for all the pregame stuff. And I’ll still be at the Rio on Friday and some this weekend, too, to witness the first few acts of this year’s circus.

Will probably be heading over to that Brunson Beer Pong thing this afternoon “masterminded” by our buddy Pokerati Dan. (Had to go with scare quotes there -- sorry, Wolfman.) You can read more about this important pre-WSOP event over on Pokerati, or listen to Episode 15 of the Gambling Tales Podcast on which Dan broke it all down for Special K.

So fun now. But work to come. Soon there will be a lot of folks -- tourney organizers, players, reporters -- ordering a lot of wake-up calls. Or they’ll be ordered for them.