Brother’s Birthday, Part One: Sin City

I went home. Not “home”, exactly, because that place doesn’t exist. And I don’t mean that in the sense that “this house was never a home”, but because we moved around so much growing up that a childhood home is simply a thing of fiction. No, I got in the car early Saturday morning with Sara and, like a good Southern California resident, or for that matter, a good Utahan, drove cross country to Las Vegas.

Normally, I’m not a Vegas guy. I lost five bucks at the slot machine, so I don’t have the magic touch, but I did find a dollar in the parking lot of our hotel/casino/mammoth-sized min-world, so perhaps I’m lucky.

The reason for going to Vegas on sort of a whim has to do with my brother lamenting to me over the phone a few weeks back about how he misses me never being at his birthday parties any more. I’m sucker for birthdays, even if he was turning 14 and should be out of doe-eyed guilt trips by now. Still, I agreed and am glad for it.

Sam is a different kind of kid. He will often be switched fully in the “on” position or completely in the “off”. I was worried to bring Sara into the mix, along with my parents and the road-trip stress, but things went fairly smoothly. Being that it was his birthday Sam only had one melt down and it was at his birthday dinner, but it was his party so…

All in all, we had some of the most eventful days in recent history: driving from San Diego to Las Vegas to stay at the South Pointe (which was a nice choice—off the strip), dipped in the pool, went to the arcade for the first time, ate at the Enough-to-Feed-a-Nation buffet, did the slots perfectly, went to see “Coraline” (best movie of 2009, thus far), went to see the lights on the strip, including the very provocative rooftop show on the old strip that was my parents idea to see (good one, guys) and then rode the New York, New York rollercoaster before taking Sam back to play the three new games Sara and I bought him for his Play Station 2.

Hard to think that I would undergo some process of enlightenment in the City of Sin, but I came to several conclusions over the two day trip. The first being that my brother, for all of his antics and headaches, is a fairly good kid to have as a sibling. Yes, he bends the truth far to often and yes, it is ironic that he still orders way to much food so that he can only take one or two bites of it (he comes from India, where there is no food and he’s starving, to America where there is plenty and chooses to be full after one fork of prime rib). But I love him nonetheless and hope we can come back to Vegas when he’s older to be…well, goddamnit, bro’s. Which leads me to my other revelation: I don’t know what I was so blah on Las Vegas for prior to the trip. Dirty, flashy, and unclassy—sure. And in a way, it’s heaven. People shoveling their plates with food and imbibing much alcohol while they play fun money games with flashing lights in a hotel that includes a bowling alley and movie theater. Plus, down the road is a roller coaster.

Up next: the party moves east to St. George, Utah.