May 3
Here was your Henry lineup for last night:
Henry 1 –moi
Henry 2 – X-Ray
Henry 3 – Code Four Carlin
We had a few calls last night, but nothing major. In fact, I only saw X-Ray once and didn’t see Code Four Carlin until his final 10-10. I was tired and committed to doing as little as I could possibly get away with, a quest that was, again, neither particularly difficult nor unrewarded.
X-Ray and I are trading days off next week. I will work for him Monday and he will work for me the following Saturday. I don’t want to work Saturday because I have the pleasure of working home plate for the NIAA Sunrise Regional championship baseball game and it’s a 1900 start and I don’t want to have to worry about coming into work afterwards. Plus, I’m on vacation next week and I can get a head start on that, too.
May 7
Here was your Henry lineup for last night:
Henry 1 – moi
Henry 2 – White Sox Metzger
Henry 3 – Dougie Fresh
A couple of nights ago Gorgeous George was getting ready for his first night in the hotel and we were making the obligatory jokes about Bi-Bob accompanying him for some rather special training. Sample lines included “Don’t pick up the amenities”, “Watch out for the training sessions in the spa” and my personal favorite “There isn’t a scan point in his pants” which I came up with and is still making me laugh.
There was little going on in the hotel, one of the slowest Saturday nights in memory. I didn’t have a call until right before 482, got a round in by 2330 and spent the next half hour sitting in the 29-336 storeroom fully expecting to get bothered, but no, I was left alone.
May 8
Requalified on the Springfield .40 today. Almost the entire graveyard crew was there with Judy (who brought the guns from Monte Carlo and took care of the paperwork), Guy, Ted, Jo(s)e, 77Dwayne, Schempp and Redneck Randy all showing up.
Redneck Randy can really shoot. Apparently, he has been shooting since shortly after birth because his target was more or less one big hole in the middle. I managed to qualify, but there was a shot in the head and one in the crotch of my target. Jo(s)e pointed out the crotch shot and I told him it meant don’t mess with my woman, cause I’d just as soon shoot you as look at you. Jo(s)e pointed out I don’t currently have a woman, and I told him not to worry about that, just file it away for future reference.
May 9
Here was your Henry lineup for last night:
Henry 1 – White Sox Metzger
Henry 2 – moi
Henry 3 – Dougie Fresh
They imploded the more or less historic Boardwalk Hotel and Casino last night. The hotel that housed the worst buffet on the Strip, which had been closed since January, was turned to rubble at 0230.
I was on 482 when the deal went down. I was spending it in the plumber’s office on 17 and I had planned to make my way to the 200 wing stairwell for a perfect view of the proceedings but ended up not bothering. Buildings get imploded every hour on the hour here and I’ve seen enough, though admittedly none this close. Officially, I didn’t want to be that close to an implosion without ear protection, but earplugs would’ve been easy enough to come by and the real reason was I didn’t want to leave my chair.
It would’ve been nice, however, had the front desk informed the guests the building next door was going to be imploded. The front desk, PBX and dispatch were all flooded with calls wondering what the fuck was going on.
I was surprised. The Monte Carlo is not some roadside motel run by whoever can be hired for rock-bottom wages; it is run by people who have chosen to spend their working lives running hotels so you would think they would’ve taken care to inform their guests that a neighboring building would be coming down and there might be, oh, I don’t know, a loud bang or two and the building might move, but I’m just a grunt security officer and what do I know.
The seven-seven’s are rotating again and 77Charles will join us tonight. 77Charles will expect more of us than 77Dwayne, whose mantra “Don’t get caught!” didn’t exactly inspire us to previously unattained heights, and both Rich and I are looking forward to this. 77Charles realizes this isn’t a very hard job, but he expects it to be done right, and we’re hoping that he’ll stop everyone hanging out at the podium and Eddie – 2 all the time.