Ain't Nothin Like Them Summer Nights...

Well, the summer is winding down to an end. For most of you anyways. For me, it’s just beginning. Friday is the final day of my internship, and then I’m off for 4 weeks. Gotta love graduate school. I’ll be doing a lot of traveling – mostly domestic, but also 8 days in Croatia (apparently the new Riviera spot). Have you ever noticed that when you travel domestically, you never really do any sightseeing? Even when you go to places you haven’t ever been, do you kinda just go to hang out and party? For instance, 2 years ago, I went to Chicago to vyatisit and meet up with some friends, and all we did was eat, drink, and watch a Cubs game. My only lasting memories? Being served drinks while waiting in the long line for the club (a fantastic idea which needs to catch on in Hollywood), and falling off my subway seat after coming back from the Cubs game (no explanation necessary).

So next week when Aashish and I visit Manish in Chi-town, in addition to going to a Cubs game (which fortunately will not require a subway trip this time around since Manish now lives in Wrigleyville), I’ve requested that we do some “Chicago” stuff. Sears Tower, Michigan Avenue, maybe an architectural boat tour that we’ve heard good things about. And of course some deep dish. Hopefully by the end of the trip, when I’ll be visiting Boston and NYC, I’ll still have some motivation and energy to check out some major landmarks and/or museums.

Anyways, I’ll try to post any interesting stories that come up as I travel. In the meantime, I can’t really concentrate right now as I, as many of you readers might be, am super-stoked about Cal-Tennessee. Saturday, 5 p.m. Primetime. National TV. Time for revenge for my painful trip to Knoxville last year. Go Bears!

The most interesting thing going on these days, however, is work. That’s right – work. My boss must know me well already. Trying to avoid the typical “check-out” week that most people go through at the end of their internships, my boss assigned me an interesting little project. Vegas. That’s right, Vegas. My boss asked me to take a look at the casino companies and see if there are any interesting investment opportunities I can come up with in a few days. While it has been a lot of typical dull research, it has been one of the most interesting projects I’ve had to work on all summer, probably in my life. It’s just fun learning things about Vegas that don’t involve Smitty’s dirty hook-up stories. For instance – did you know that casinos on the Strip earn only 40% of their revenues from gambling, with a whopping 20% from food and beverages? And that they earn slightly more profit in aggregate from slot machines than they do from all the table games combined?

OK - if those random financial stats don’t interest all you party animals out there, I also learned that a new club (Blush) is opening at the Wynn on Labor Day weekend, the Luxor is gradually losing its Egyptian theme and adding a bunch of upper-scale bars and clubs, and the company that owns the Venetian is opening a major expansion called the Palazzo in late 2007. Also, the average table game (i.e. per blackjack or craps or 3-card table) netted the Wynn over $10,000 per day. Meaning I’m just a tiny little drop in the bucket. I guess that wasn’t really new information though.