Game Day. I Love The Smell of Optimisim In The Morning. It Smells Like Victory! Fat Chance.

At 0300 hours on Wednesday morning it's raining hard enough to wake me out of dead, and alcohol enabled, sleep. This is not a good sign. The night before, a few short hours ago, the weather guy on the local Fox channel said he thought the rain might let up by game time. How sad is it that you are hoping beyond hope that the guy on FOX is telling the truth? Just this once, maybe? I hope, I hope, I hope!

We got nothing to do today. We grab a breakfast sandwich at McDonald's, buy a newspaper and head back to the condo to read it. Our plan is to go to the Sam's Town Casino out by the football stadium early in the afternoon, grab a bite to eat for lunch, pick up the chocolate's that, "Amarillo" told me I could find there, and then meet our friends to tailgate for a while. Smoke a cigar, have a few drinks.

People think I'm crazy for bringing booze to Las Vegas from Utah, but I bought my friends a 12 pack of cans of Fat Tire Ale in an LV Albertson's store the night before, an it was $18! I don't drink a lot of beer anymore, but I think that's a lot for a 12 pack of anything that hasn't been distilled in another country. Or isn't being served in a bucket on a beach.

My wife and I discovered, Trader Joe's Store's years ago. And we love them. And the one in Henderson is the closest one to Salt Lake. If you are not familiar with this particular grocery store chain, think whole foods without the attitude, better service, and cheap alcohol of every variety. Oh, and everything is cheaper.

We will never have one in Utah because our liquor laws are as goofy as Gary Herbert is corrupt. Uneducated. Stupid. OK, I'll quit, but you KNOW I could go on.

So, I figure I'll go there and shop a little. I love their vanilla nut cluster cereal, but so do my kids and when we buy it, I never get any before it's gone. So this time I bought four boxes and hid 3 of them in the garage when I got home. I have plenty of wine at home, so I passed on the $36 case of, "Two Buck Chuck". But I did buy a bottle of Jack Daniels to bring home, since I haven't had that for a while. I'm a member of the, Tennessee Squires, but have found whiskey's that I like better as I've gotten older, so I don't drink, Jack much anymore.

Then we head for the stadium, and hope to find Sam's Town and get chocolate and maybe a sandwich in a coffee shop before we go tailgate.

Thank heaven's for the GPS in the Audi or we might have ended up in Arizona. But we do get to, Sam's Town. This is a locals casino. Movie theaters, .50 Cent roulette, the coffee shop's replaced by, TGI Friday's. And we find out, the Ethyl M's packed up and moved out of there four years ago. So much for, Amarillo's good advice.

I'd rather smoke a turd in hell than ever eat another meal at a, TGI Friday's. So Phil and I opt for the, "deli" in the casino to try and get a sandwich. It's not busy (I'll soon find out why), and the prices are reasonable.

I quickly drop $20 playing .50 Cent roulette, paying my Nevada property taxes and we go get lunch.

The menu is all over the place, and to my surprise, "Cuban Sandwich" is on there.

I first had a, Cuban Sandwich in Havana, Cuba in October of 2003. Went into a bar there with a bunch of other people on the KUER Cultural Exchange Tour and thought it was odd that a country would have, on it's menu, a sandwich, named after itself.

After all, there are plenty of sandwiches that are, without question, American. Cheeseburger, Patty Melt. Anything, "open face" from turkey to roast beef. But we don't have, even with the American Cheese, grilled cheese, an, "American Sandwich".

So, in Cuba it's pulled pork, sliced ham, casa nuevo, mustard and pickles on a baguette. In Miami, you might get provolone. In New York, it's Swiss cheese. In every case, the cheese is white, mustard and pickles are involved and it's served on the equivalent of, French Bread. It's not toasted, grilled, fried or otherwise exposed to heat, except from the meat that is in it, in any way.

Phil ordered a French Dip and fries, and he's eating WAY before I get my Cuban. I wait. And wait. And wait. I finally asked them why, and they tell me it's in the pannini press.

WTF? A CUBAN sandwich, in a pannini press? There is not a PANNINI press in ALL of CUBA! No one there can afford it! Who told these people to do THAT?

When I finally get it, it's burned to death on one side. Crispy, black and not edible. I make them give me back my money. I'll go to the game hungry. But I stood up for Cuban Sandwiches everywhere.

We park, for $10 in a lot that was so gooey I wouldn't have gotten out of it without the quattro. Meet our friends, and have a really nice few hours. Smoking cigars, having drinks. Catching up. At this point, we still have thoughts of actually winning the game.

It's raining like hell but we don't mind. We have a picnic table under a roof. And we just enjoy each other's company. And, by game time, the rain has all but stopped. I grab a beer, a burger and some garlic fries in the stadium and we watch the game. Shortly after it started, I'm on double Jack Daniel's, and can't believe I drove through all I went through to watch my team fall this far apart.

3 points? Really? That's all you could do? Everyone who was second guessing the quarterback situation all year? Really? You wanted THIS? Really? Oh, the horror.

I now know how all those Alabama fans felt two years ago in NOLA when we kicked them to the curb. I actually got to rub their noses in it the next morning in the lobby of the Intercontinental in NOLA, and it felt good.

My wife and I went out early to get a newspaper and a breakfast biscuit someplace on Bourbon Street. And coming back into the hotel lobby, in our, "UTAH' shirts there was a whole line of, "bama" fans waiting for buses/taxis, etc. to leave town. And after a whole week in town of listening to them yell, "ROLL TIDE" in our faces every time you got NEAR one of them, the silence was AWESOME! I walked in, looked at the line and said, as loud as I could, "Geez, Honey. Ain't no one, "ROLL TIDE'N" US THIS Morning, is there!" Stayed silent in that lobby. One guy took the bait and hollered, "Roll Tide!" To which I replied, as I took the escalator up to our room, "Around the bowl and down the hole! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I left town the next morning too early to see any Boise State fans, and that's probably a good thing. I had a handgun, and a lousy attitude.

Phil drove home. I didn't feel too good but I blame breakfast, not the previous nights alcohol. I was in bed by midnight. And he likes to drive the Audi.

PJ O'Rourke once called the chicken fried steak, "The Nevada State Bird" and he might be right. But the one I had at the, Orleans on the morning we left town was great, but an hour later, I was feeling awful and tossed the keys to Phil.

By about 5:30 on Thursday, our odyssey was over, and we were home. The Utes lost, we saw some shit we wish we hadn't. Lived through some shit we probably shouldn't have except for German engineering. And it was less of a, "Boy's Night Out" than I had hoped. But more of one than you could hope for. A good time was had by all.

Now, if I can just figure out where to get some, Ethyl M's chocolate's and lap dance by someone who I'd actually LIKE to have in my lap the next time I get to go there, I might go to Las Vegas again. But not for a while.