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The Memorial Day Weekend is off to one hell of a start.

If you happen to be in town this weekend, then you are witnessing somewhat of a strange rebirth of Las Vegas.  Had you just awakened up from a coma and taken a stroll down The Strip, you would probably swear that the DOW was still at 12,000.  Minimum.

I started out this morning in my motor vehicle, drove to the intersection of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard, and promptly pulled a u-turn of questionably legality.  What I saw ahead of me was complete Manhattan-esque gridlock and I had no intention of spending the day defending my lane or fighting for spaces in a self-park structure.

Instead, I drove immediately back to the garage from where I started, took a short walk, and purchased a $1 ticket for the Monorail.

Say what you will about the financial feasibility of the system (there were few passengers on the rail despite the traffic), but they deliver on the only promise that matters to me – “Sahara to MGM in 12 minutes”.

Memorial Day represents the beginning of the summer tourism season, and the tourists have responded by showing up in size.  Everything is relative, and no, this is not 2005 again … nor is it even close … but it’s as close as we have seen in some time.

From straight eyeballing it,  this weekend almost certainly seems larger than the Super Bowl or any of the March Madness weekends.  Excluding New Year’s, this may be the largest weekend crowd I have seen in the last 12 months.

I know, that’s not saying much, and we are nowhere near full capacity, but if this level of participation can be maintained for the foreseeable future, there is cause for optimism.

While the gaming tables were doing huge business everywhere from the Sahara to the Mandalay Bay, there is little doubt what the main attraction has been so far.

The pools.

They were cranking all day, and even though they are still overwhelming lumber yards with more logs than bush … the complete dearth of hot females was not quite as evident as it has been in weekends past.

Personally, I hate the sun.  If I never saw it again it would be too soon.  Overcast and rainy is by far my weather of choice.  Despite this, I make sure to get out in the sun at least once a day and I keep a tan throughout the summer completely for self-defense purposes.  Regular heat exposure conditions the body to prevent heat stroke and a tan prevents burns.  If there was anything to do other than read lame vampire novels in Forks, Washington … I would live there.  It’s the rainiest city in the USA.

The only thing that makes summer in Vegas tolerable are our dozens of air conditioned mini-cities … and this:

On second thought, screw Forks (the city not the utensil).  I can live with triple digits for 1/3rd of the year if this is my reward.  Life is a series of tradeoffs.

For half of the day I was a walking Viagra commercial.  This was both good and bad.  The presense of attractive  women actually help keep males healthy.  Seriously.  Testosterone levels elevate (which has positive medical benefits), but things start to get a little uncomfortable when you don’t have enough room to, uh, expand.  Males need no further explanation.  We’ve all come home with the “zipper imprint” at some point in our lives.

I also ran into a buddy of mine from our forums.  As I was crossing the pedestrian bridge from the MGM to NYNY, my BlackBerry vibrated and I lifted it out of my pocket to see the following message … verbatim:

“At MGM taking a shit just in case you wanted to know.  Where are you?”

He had just landed in Vegas a mere hour earlier.  I informed him that I was also near the MGM, and we hung out for about half an hour.  As I am typing this, I just realized that I forgot to ask him if he washed his hands.  He’s a dentist so I assume that he is in the habit of washing his hands, then again, most dentists get into the practice for easy access to opiates and ether, so who the hell knows.

During our brief stroll, he also remarked on the visible increase in people.  There is nothing like a little affirmation to solidify an opinion.

It was not just numbers, though.  This weekend has also brought back a different type of tourist.  While the Walmart folks are still here, in the past 24 hours Vegas appears to have regained its most coveted demographic.  The demographic which signaled the apex of the swinging 2000’s.  Douchebags.  They are currently everywhere.

For the first time in a long time, I actually heard someone shout the phrase “Vegas, Baby!”.

For the first time in a long time, I was reminded why I do not carry a gun.

It got worse.  I was walking behind a group of five or six mousse-using Americans, and I actually heard one of them say “What happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas!”.

Jesus bring back the recession.

This weekend reminded me a little bit of why I like our Walmart friends.  They tend to be a little less trendy and tend not to quote terrible movies or even worse, marketing campaigns.  Unoriginal, coiffed metrosexuals may look down on our less moneyed visitors, but at least they haven’t completely ceded their entire neuronal capacity to Hollywood and the LVCVA.

I probably shouldn’t be too hard on them, though.  Douchebags bring money and they bring enhanced woman who are using them for that money.  They pay for the plane tickets, rooms, and meals.  They have to listen to these creatures speak and express their opinions … but I simply eye hump their females with none of the cost or hassle.

On second thought, welcome back Douchenozzles.  You guys are tools, and Las Vegas is the machine.  I guess we need each other on some basal level.

Anyway, one day down, three days to go.  I’m heading out to meet with some folks tonight (I hope they wash their hands), and I’m scheduled to play some swim-up Blackjack tomorrow.  I played Sigma Derby today, but most of my gambling that doesn’t involve mechanical horses will take place on Sunday and Monday.

All things considered, I don’t think the town is making any windfall profits, and I know we aren’t breaking any records, but for 2009 … what we have going on now is acceptable.

As I once told Mick Jagger:  You can’t always get what you want.  But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

Sometimes I wonder if he remembered my sage words of wisdom.

It’s not important.

What is important is that Vegas is back.  If only for a weekend.

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