Now that summer is officially here (it’s supposed to reach 94 degrees in Portland today!), it’s time to take a break from soggy snowboard boots and goggle tans. Until the summer shred season kicks off at Mt. Hood next month, why not hit up the pool and soak up some much needed sunshine that’s been hidden under thick, heavy outerwear all winter? And there’s no better pool to do it at than the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV. After the WCI in Mammoth last week, I took a little detour through Vegas on my way down to SoCal. The drive from Mammoth to Vegas is sick; hit about 120 mph on Hwy 168 down the stretch, and was maintaining a solid 100 mph average. That road would be a good one to drive with J2.

I arrived with SNOWBOARD model Chandell around midnight on Sunday. Rehab, The Hard Rock’s weekly Sunday pool party is back in action and the hotel was still poppin’ from all the day’s excitement. The Body English line was backed up around the outer perimeter, and the circle bar was filled up with residual moto dudes in town for the Supercross. Plus, the Gumball Rally just kicked off from the hotel on Saturday, Snoop Dogg had played later that night, and HBO's Entourage was filming there all week. Still, all I had was the crappy camera phone to shoot with—it comes thru in a pinch though. Chandell and I came up on Blackjack—so I hit up Rocks The Jewelers to complete a little transaction that I’d began during SIA, and ended up with an iced out dogtag & chain.

So about 5 am we ran into Lyle Gaddis and all his homies from Hawaii who were there for a bachelor party. These guys were ballin’ outta control. One dude came up like 10 G’s at the craps table, and the others were either passed out, still drinking or gambling. We chilled hard up in the rooms, until 9 am, when the pool finally opened for cabana-ing. Yes that’s right, canbana-ing. The cabanas at the Hard Rock are so dope that cabana is now a verb, as in “to cabana.” We cabana-ed all day, from open to close, no expenses spared. The cabanas have wraparound couches, plasma TV’s, mini fridge, misters on the roof and super hot waitresses in very tiny bikinis serving you constantly. It’s ridiculous. Eventually, I ran into my Calgary homegirls from Monster Energy Drink, and we were rollin’ deep.

After the cabana sesh, we were ready to keep rollin' so it was back to the tables for some more Gamblor. Gamblor was mad at me that night though, and unleashed his wrath upon my chips with a vengeful fury. I know when I’m beat, so when Gangster Snowboard’s Jesse Gibson showed up and suggested we roll across the street to the newly opened Rainbow Bar and Grill, I was down. The Rainbow Bar is a Vegas version of the Hollywood Sunset Strip Classic and plays all the Rock and Roll you’ll ever need.

Jesse reminded me of this cool pic he got when Proof and the rest of D12 were partying at the Hard Rock just weeks before Proof’s death in a Detroit shooting. R.I.P. to Proof and SNOWBOARD's condolences go out to D12 and Proof’s family.

At this point I’d been partying for way too long and was straight jacked. Anyway, the night got even crazier when I randomly ran into even more girls I knew from Canada, so we partied ‘til sunrise for the second day in a row. It was the perfect end to my vegas vacation; big ups to Lyle, Russell and all the boys from Free HI, Tracy from Rocks, Jesse from Gangster, and of course, Lucky Lopez for makin’ it all happen. Check out www.hardrockhotel.com for info on rooms, events, live web cams and more.