September 13
I really gave it to Bi-Bob in briefing. Well, not give it to him give it to him, but give it to him as in teasing him giving it to him.
Sunday, in the mood for some comfort food, I went to Jerry’s Nugget and indulged not only in my usual 10,000 calorie Stromboli with double pepperoni and double sausage, but also in a hot fudge brownie sundae, which was another 10,000 calories I didn’t need, but Jerry’s Nugget makes some of the very best desserts on the planet and I was in the mood. I was reporting this to the guys when I said “And they really packed the fudge on it, too, Bob. There was fudge packed all over the place.”
Rich almost spit up his coffee. Not quite, but close, and it got a good laugh from Bi-Bob, too.
Even though I spent the night manning the short term lot keeping evil non-hotel guests from parking there, I did make it to the hotel twice. The first time was when I got a wheelchair and helped a guy get his sick wife to their room. For this I was rewarded with a $3 gratuity.
Later, I’m minding my own business when something goes down in the hotel. I am not paying too close attention, but 77Rick and Dougie Fresh are up there when 77Rick says “Let’s get another unit up here, 9-127” and it’s a simple matter to enter the lobby and use the bellman’s elevators to get to the 100 wing of the ninth floor.
I get up there and am surprised to see the floor deserted because it is being renovated. Not only that, no one is at 9-127. I run into 77Rick, Dougie Fresh and White Sox Metzger at the E-Core.
“What the hell’s going on here?” I ask. “Can’t you guys handle even a deserted floor without Mary unit assistance?”
77Rick laughs, but I never do find out what went on, so it remains unclear why a supervisor and two Henry units were required to deal with an empty floor.
September 14
Here’s how shorthanded we are: last night we had 17 officers on shift, an almost unmanageable total which included three officers guarding garages at New York, New York and MGM! That means we had only 14 actually patrolling anything. There were six Charlie units, two dispatchers, three Henry units and three outside units.
Six Charlie units are insane. Come 0230 when the pit drops start, there is simply no one 10-8. There are four on the drops, one at the podium and one at Eddie – 2 and if anything more than someone losing their sunglasses goes down, God help us.
We were so shorthanded I ended up manning Eddie – 1, which is usually manned by a casino unit, and with Schempp at the New York, New York gate and Redneck Randy at the four-way, there was no one on routine patrol outside.
And I almost ended up in the hotel. Fred was scheduled for the hotel, which he dislikes, but he didn’t get to the briefing room till a quarter till and I was already dressed for outside and had already been issued a gun and didn’t really want to change and it would’ve been way too much trouble anyway.
Which is all right. Sure, there was a time when the hotel defined who I was, but that time has passed, though, inevitably, through my co-founding of the International Henry Units, my mentoring of X-Ray and my legendary Foot on the Desk percentages, I will always be associated with the hotel, sort of like Paul McCartney is always associated with Wings, even though he’s enjoyed a great solo career.
In transportation news, I am trying out a new route to work. I used to take Russell Road east to Rainbow, then head south to 215, and then east to 15, north to the Frank Sinatra Drive/Russell Road exit, then take Frank Sinatra north a bit, cut between the Luxor and Excalibur, behind the Tropicana and then head up to the MGM, an 11-mile trip.
Russell Road, however, now goes all the way through to Las Vegas Blvd; before it used to stop at Jones and pick up again at Decatur. So the past couple of nights I’ve been taking Russell straight in, going over I-15 and turning directly on to Frank Sinatra Dr. It’s a couple to a few minutes longer, depending on the lights, but four miles shorter, which comes out to eight miles a day and forty miles a week.
Key – and unknown – is the gas mileage difference. Are the eleven easy freeway miles better gas mileage than the seven stop and go miles? I simply don’t know right now.
More new supervisor rumors were heard tonight. The latest one is the seven-seven’s and eight-eight’s turned in five names to the Director, with me being among the three names that are considered ‘serious’ candidates. I am not believing any of it and won’t until someone tells me to go get fitted for a suit.
September 2 & 10
September 16
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