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# Escaping Las Vegas with some maturity
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/escaping-las-vegas-with-some-maturity/
- Published: 2008-03-27T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:45:12.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

MY FRIENDS MADE EXTENSIVE preparations for our trip to celebrate their 30th birthday in Las Vegas. For over a year, they conspired, toiled and saved, carefully combing Hollywood outlet stores for suits, gathering the necessities for a Sin City rendezvous.

The idea was to say farewell to the habits and hang-ups of our 20s and embrace our 30s with optimistic style. We departed Hollywood in a Porsche Cayenne Turbo S SUV at 3:30 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 29, arriving two and a half hours later at our Bellagio VIP suite. We were like pimps at the Rapture, toasting our good fortune with Alize and champagne, soaking up a golden view of The Strip at sunrise. Our four party troopers included Jesse Wagler, a Hoosier by birth and player for life, who wore a fedora and kept an “ace” card in his coat pocket. Jesse works as a film editor and brought a wardrobe worthy of a prince. He also had 30 condoms in honor of his age, candles, incense, cigars, Cognac, Zippo and an engraved whiskey flask. All Jesse lacked was a babe, but he met one quickly into our foray after getting the crowd dancing at Tryst.

Also inaugurating three decades of existence was Drew Flichtbeil, piano player and real estate guru from Portland. Besides busting on the keys and making smart investments, Drew enjoys cycling and his pit bull, Dodger. He arranged to meet an old fling, but easily distracted by other beauties, he acknowledged his tactical blunder, saying,“It was like bringing sand to the beach.” He had a blast anyway.

Mike Fresh, a cool dude from La Jolla with exquisite tastes, was the organizer. At 31, my age, he works as an appraiser, keeping an eye out for his friends and the finer things. Mike came with $10,000 in a wad of hundreds and an Amex Black card. He met a lovely gal from Miami and bonded with her until departure day.

As for me, I had little expectations for the adventure, thinking nothing could top my previous romp. That was seven years ago, when Bush was fresh in office, Iraq wasn’t an American colony and 9/11 was six months on our brains. I worked full time as a liability investigator for a major insurance company and part time as a writer. In for a bachelor party, a foxy British brat duped me into believing a bomb had been planted in the Bellagio. I ran for dear life though the casino, knocking over gamblers, chased down by security. I came to an upper-level outdoor bar. There, I leapt off the balcony, the “A- Team” theme song playing in my head. I was “heading for the light” as I soon explained to authorities. I crashed through a fiber glass veranda, swung off a roof beam and landed on my tailbone, without obvious injury. They found me by the pool washing my feet. I was released from the hotel after a grueling police interrogation. Management threatened to hit me up for property damage, and I threatened to hit them up for lacking clearly posted exit signs. We came to an agreement.A beautiful woman escorted me off the premises while a few guests and staff, aware of my escapade, lined up for autographs. The incident is chronicled in the story,“Invitation for Disaster.”

Returning to the Bellagio, I felt a surprising sense of hope. Sure, there were the phone calls made to my girlfriend back home about the alarming number of Communists and Nazis I was encountering on my tour of duty, and, yes, I vaguely recall terrorizing The Strip like a werewolf, laughing and snarling at the moon. I think I lost $200 paying for cab rides that took me in circles. At one point I pissed myself in hysterics during a crowded elevator ride. I can’t remember the joke now. Eventually, I came to peace with the war waging in my mind.

The light came into focus as hours, days slipped by. Soon, I realized, America will have a new President. We sat at a café, watching the Bellagio fountain, smoking cigars. “F--k it,” Drew said. “Let’s take this show on the road.” My friends seemed older, wiser, but perhaps that’s because we hardly slept. The sun rose Monday morning, and I surveyed The Strip one last time from our suite’s vantage point, basking in the warm glow. It was like divine intervention, the dawning of a new age. Our last lines spent, it was time to go. Some things are best left in Las Vegas. Its radiance will always captivate me, but I’m thinking bigger for future birthdays. Like Bali, or Brazil. This decade is ours to own.

RYAN HYATT is a former Daily Press staff writer and author of the nouveau western, “The Death of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” He is seeking a publisher for his second novel, “Stay Younger Longer,” a political thriller that takes place in LA in 2046\. He

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 27, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/032708.pdf?ref=smdp.com)