Puerto Rico in 36 hours

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The Puerto Rico trip started out a little hectic. The plan "L" was flying up from Washington D.C., "Z", Popop (“Z’s” Grandfather), and Dad (“Z’s” father) were meeting me at the Philly airport. We had a late addition some guy reading my blog contacted me and asked to join in on the trip. I told him the more the merrier. His name is Dwayne, he is flying in from Madrid, Spain meeting us in Philly and then we are all fly together to Puerto Rico. I stayed with some friends north of Philly gave myself 2 hours to get to the airport had no idea traffic stops dead when it rains in Philly, sat on I95 for 1 hour 20 minutes. Sat in the security line for 20 minutes and got to the plane with 10 minutes to spare. Got a text from Dwayne to hold the plane his flight from Madrid was late but he beat all of us to the plane and got upgraded to first class. A 4 hour flight no food or drinks. Good old U.S. Airways.

We took a taxi to the hotel got a great rate on the hotel using priceline.com $132.00 a night on the beach at a resort hotel. Once we were settled in we went to a local dive for some lunch and to plot our 36 hours in Puerto Rico. We had three goals for the trip and they all revolved around "Z" and were all firsts. "Z" had just turned 18 so the goals in order of importance:
1) Have a legal drink. The legal drinking age in Puerto Rico is 18.
2) Play live poker. "Z" has been playing internet poker for 2 years but never live.
3) Loose his virginity. "Z" is a bit of a ladies man but we have some concerns with his experience level so we thought we would help him take it up a notch. (Popop’s idea)

Right away we accomplished goal number 1, at lunch "Z" had a beer. Our
Hotel was very close to several casinos. So we felt goal number 2 would be easy to take care of. Goal number 3 we felt would be the toughest. We had to find a woman willing to sleep with "Z". Fortunately for us there was a gentlemen’s club directly across from our hotel so that was plan B if we could not find a lady that had a liking for "Z".

Puerto Rico is one hour later then Eastern Standard Time. So by the time we got lunch it was almost 5 pm. We headed back to the hotel to get ready to go out and hit the casinos.

The first casino we went to was the Marriott. They had 2 poker tables but they did not open until 8pm so we put "Z’s" name on the poker list. We then played some table games. Dwayne was a maniac he was playing this game called 3 card poker he must have lost $14,500.00 in less then 30 min. Popop played the slots and won $4.93. Dad did not gamble so he was a winner. "L" was down a few hundred bucks playing black jack.
"Z" tried his skill at 3 card poker quickly lost $40.00 realized it was a game of chance and not skill and decided to save his money for real poker.

We left the Marriott and went to the Condado Plaza to check out that casino. Nicer then the Marriott but no poker. Dwayne dropped $18,371.00 this time playing black jack, "L" lost $45.00 playing black jack,
Popop won $.67 playing slots and Dad did not gamble. It was approaching 7:30pm so we headed back to the Marriott to achieve goal number 2. Once we got there Dwayne lost $7,952.00 playing let it ride. "Z" noticed the poker was limit and not no-limit so we were out of there as "Z" would say, “Limit poker is for wimps”. We had had heard the Ritz Carlton had no limit Texas Holden so we all hopped in a cab and went to the Ritz.

The Ritz indeed had no limit poker the buy in was $500.00 so we pooled our money so "Z" could achieve goal number 2. "Z" played 4.5 hours of poker and won $100.00 he played good poker but not great poker. I think "Z" did a nice job considering he was 20 years younger then the next oldest player, the only player that did not speak Spanish, and the only player that did not know all the other players. It was now 2:30am. Popop and Dad had gone back to our hotel around 12:00am. We had not had dinner yet so we went back to the dive we had lunch at and had a very late dinner or very early breakfast.

In the am Dad "L" and I went for a run to Old San Juan. After that we all headed to the beach for the day. The weather was just awesome 2 goals down and 24 hours left, the clock was ticking but we had time on our side.

While at the beach Dwayne was chewing my ear off about buying a software company. Dwayne is a top sales person for a large software company that keeps screwing with his compensation plan and territory.
The management sounds like a bunch of idiots. Since Dwayne reads my blog "LifeOfDUG" he knew I was in the software business. He has found this software company that is for sale that is in the same industry he currently sells into. I think it might be a great buy and I might partner with Dwayne.

At 5:00pm Dwayne "L" and I went to Old San Juan for dinner and plot our plan for goal number 3. What a great dinner, we then picked up "Z" and headed to the Ritz for some Poker and women for “Z”. It was 7:30pm and the poker table was just opening. Tonight "Z" was covering half his action and "L" and I had the other half. Dwayne won $26,852 at 3 card poker with a straight flush and we had only been there 15 minutes. I won $100 playing black jack. No poker for me since I am a professional poker player I would have to show my card and all my statistics would be tracked and reported to the poker commission which I rather not have happen plus I was content to watch "Z". "L" was making a killing at black jack up $1,500.00. At "L's" black jack table were 2 very loose looking, tattooed, ladies in there middle 20's. "L" thought good prospects for "Z". These ladies were from Texas not very smart and very, very, very drunk. We made up a story about "Z", how he is a professional poker player worth millions. They went over and introduced themselves. Next thing you know "Z" took a break from poker he was gone about 30 minutes (dam young kids) when he returned he had a smile ear to ear we asked were he had been and he just said, "I do not kiss and tell" a few hours later we saw the Texas ladies and the had smiles bigger then "Z's". We think we hit goal 3, but we do not know for sure. After "Z's" break he dominated the poker table and won $500.00 doubling his chip stack. Then he won another $100.00. He proceeded to lose a few hands and knew it was time to leave up $300.00 for the night.

Dwayne ended up well over $34,563 for the trip. It was 3:30am and we were calling it a night.

We had 6 hours left in Puerto Rico we hit all our goals as far as we could tell so we were all feeling good about the trip. We hung out at the pool then toured Fort San Felipe del Morro — which is a sixteenth-century citadel which lies on the northwestern-most point of the islet of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Named in honor of King Philip II of Spain, the fort, also referred to as "El Morro" or "promontory", was designed to guard the entrance to San Juan bay, and defend the city of San Juan from seaborne enemies.

In 1983, the fort was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations and is part of San Juan National Historic Site. Over two million visitors a year explore the windswept ramparts and passageways making the fort one of Puerto Rico's main visitor attractions.

Facing "El Morro", on the opposite side of the bay, a smaller fort known as "El Cañuelo" complemented the fort's defense of the entrance to the bay.

After the visit to El Morro we headed to the airport. Sometime while visiting the fort the skies opened up with a down pour. All the roads flooded very quickly which made for a fun taxi ride to the airport.