rdw4potus's Blog

August 29 – Flew from ABE to MSP via EWR. This was my first time on the UAL-operated bus from ABE to EWR. It was pretty awesome. From when we got on US22 until when we left I78, our driver used a method that was quite interesting. I’m pretty sure his foot never left the floor. We couldn’t go faster than about 75, but we NEVER SLOWED. The bus is something like a rental car shuttle so it’s not a huge motorcoach or anything, but it’s still bigger than you really want to be slaloming through traffic in.

When I arrived at MSP, I went to Budget to pick up my rental car. There was only one person at the counter, and a line 8 people deep. At the front of the line was a young guy who was desperately trying to look cool by asking about every possible car. Finally, the guys behind him started heckling him for taking so long and not booking in advance. Even once that guy left, we still crawled forward as the desk clerk apparently had to drive the cars up from the prep area to the pickup area. Kudos to that guy for not going postal on his coworkers who were supposed to be doing some of that work. And, yay, he forgot to run my credit card in advance so I went without the usual $200 hold during the term of my rental. My car was a Ford Taurus, which they consider to be a premium car. They were going to give me a Volvo S60, a VW CC, or the Taurus. While the car was fine, it absolutely does not belong in the same sentence as those other options.

From MSP I headed down to my parents’ for the weekend, stopping at Mystic Lake to collect a bit of free play. Mystic has made some big changes in the last year – Now that alcohol is served, they’ve put in a couple great bars. The one by the hotel lobby is especially cool – it has a clean, modern look with the requisite backsplash of bottles. It pretty much looks and feels like a downtown hotel bar, but with a 150,000 sqft casino right behind it.
August 30 – I had a meeting in Minneapolis, which meant that I found a way to put Treasure Island into my path. Unlike at Mystic, not much at all had changed at TI. In fact, the only difference from before is that my tier and rewards points had expired and that regardless of my prior standing, I couldn’t get anything from them on this trip. That was sad. But, I found a Golden Monkey game with 8 of 10 steps already illuminated and won a net of $90 on that. So the blow was slightly lessened.

August 31-Sept 2 – I hung out with my family over the holiday weekend. Parents are good, grandparents are good. Grandpa finally talked his doc into cataract surgery, then went out and shot a 74 (he’s 82). Wow. Just wow.

Sept 3 – Stayed the night of the 2nd at Mystic, then had another meeting in Minneapolis on the 3rd. Mystic no longer requires a deposit on comped rooms. That was pretty awesome. Grabbed the week’s freeplay there and headed to Kansas City after my meeting.

On the way to KC, I stopped at the Lakeside Casino just south of Des Moines on I-35 (formerly Terrible’s) and snagged a chip from that property. They have Texas Shootout, so I played that to collect the chip. I still just love that game. Expect a pic of the chip when the CoD thread gets to IA. The property has a gas station on a hill, then down the hill is the casino. Something about it reminds me of the Titty Twister from Dusk til Dawn. I’m not sure what it is, but I think of the reveal from the back of the TT every time I drive down the hill to the casino.

I stayed at Harrah’s NKC on the night of the 3rd. That’s a great hotel there, with a decent casino attached. They also have Texas Shootout, but they require the players to play their cards all face up. I don’t know why they do that, but it’s nice to be able to use that info to inform the decision about whether to split.

September 4th – I left Harrah’s at about 2 and headed to Saint Joseph to visit the former Terrible’s property there. Played more Shootout, collected another chip, and hung out for a bit. I’m a big fan of the pizza at Casey’s convenience stores, so I grabbed a couple slices on my way out of town. Then I headed into KS to visit Casino White Cloud. That property had only electronic games the last time I was there, but now has a small table games pit. I arrived at White Cloud at about 4pm, and needed to wait until 5 for the tables to open. I killed that time by walking around the casino. By doing that, I noticed 3 things: 1. The bingo hall is HUGE – as big as the casino itself; 2. They have more new slots than I’ve ever seen in a casino that small – sort of a one-of-everything take on slot placement; 3. Walking around a tiny casino in circles for an hour is a good way to get noticed by security. They just laughed at me when I explained what I was doing. I didn’t play for long, but the BJ game was pretty fun. There was lots of light banter between the locals and dealers.

After leaving White Cloud, I headed north up the river to WinneVegas. Last time I tried to visit that casino, it was an island in the middle of the Missouri. This time, it was hard to even see where any damage remained from the floods. Even the roadway was in better-than-expected shape. I collected a chip by playing BJ. I don’t know why, but I thought the chips would be in relatively good shape; almost like they’d have been reissued post-flood. They were very worn, which is OK, but I spent a while just finding one that was in fair condition. Like with the Lakeside property, this chip will be shown when the CoD thread reaches Iowa.

I left WinneVegas and headed to Argosy Sioux City. I don’t know where my chip from this property went, but I couldn’t find it so I stopped by to grab another one. Last time I visited this property, the water was so high that they had to fashion stairs in the ramp from the ground to the boat. This time, with the water at normal height, that ramp went slightly downward from the ground to the boat. I played BJ for a couple minutes, then headed on my way. By this time, it was about 11:30pm, and I was scheduled to fly out of MSP the next day at 10am. I wasn’t quite sure how that was going to work since I was 3 hours from Minneapolis. I left my housing decision open that night, so that I could stay wherever I was when I got tired. It turned out that was Albert Lea, MN. I also decided to push the flight to noon the next day. Check-in in Albert Lea was…interesting. It was about 2am when I got there, and the desk clerk kept saying “your reservation was for yesterday.” I kept saying “yesterday was 2 hours ago. This is still the night of the 4th, give me my room key.” Finally, the night manager/auditor had to step in to complete my check in. The hotel is right at the intersection of I-90 and I-35. I can’t believe I’m the only patron who’s checked in after midnight. In fact, I’m pretty sure I checked in after midnight 3 other times in the stays covered by this trip report.

September 5th – I woke up in Albert Lea and drove to Minneapolis to catch my flight. I made it to MSP with about 90 minutes to spare, returned the car, and headed to the counter to check my bag. I drove 1,450 miles on this rental car. That’s much more than I’d expected to see, but I think the intra-minnesota driving added up to more than I’d accounted for. I used the TSA Pre-check program to go through security. Wow is that slick. Just leave belt & shoes on, empty pockets into cup, and put cup & bag on conveyor. Definitely gave me enough time to hit the United Club for a free banana and some cheese.

From MSP I flew to ORD. The plane was an Airbus A319, which had been upgraded to have UAL’s inflight wifi. Cost was $4 on this flight. I would have bought it, but we were more than halfway to Chicago before the signal became available. So, instead, I settled in and watched the random Big Bang Theory episode that was on the overheads. It was one of the Fun With Flags episodes, and included the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. I find it very annoying when the National Anthem is played in situations under which it is impossible to stand.

In Chicago, I grabbed my rental car as soon as possible and hit the road. I rented from Alamo this time, and got a Chrysler 300. I asked for a fuel efficient car, and they gave me that. It did much better than I thought it might, but Seriously. One customer actually says “no, really. I want a Chevy Cruise. I knew what I was doing when I made the reservation” and they still get a bigger car for free…when does that ever happen??

I left the Alamo lot at a little before 3 and one problem quickly became apparent with the rental car situation. There was no kind of plate pass device in this particular vehicle. Coming from MN and MO, I hadn’t considered the toll situation in IL and IN. I had a couple big bills in my pocket and about $4 in change. I wound up wasting time and stopping at a rest area to use the ATM to get smaller bills.

I headed to Dowagiac, MI to pick up a chip from the Four Winds facility there. The casino is new, and the casino is very small. It also carries over some of the design elements of the other Four Winds properties. Really, it looks like a scale model of the Hartford property. I played BJ to grab my chip. I played for 10 minutes, won $40, and ran off with my new chip.

After visiting Dowagiac, I headed off to Columbus to visit the Hollywood casino there. That’s a long drive, and I killed the time by listening to the Sox/Yanks game on internet radio. I was interested in the game – specifically in rooting against NY – but I didn’t care what radio feed I listened to. I picked WCBS, figuring that the flagship of the world’s largest broadcast company would offer quality. I don’t know the play-by-play announcer’s name, but his cadence was maddening. Most announcers would say “and the pitch is…a strike! He swung at a ball there, but the count is now…0-1!” This d-bag says “and…the…pitchisastrikeheswungat…a…balltherebutthe…count…isnow0-1?” I made it through about 4 innings of that before changing to the Sox broadcast, which was excellently presented.

The drive to Columbus took about the same amount of time as the game (so…5 hours. Gotta love it when Boston and NY play each other!). I guess the Hollywood has had very high turnover since it opened. The other players and the dealer were discussing that when I sat down. The dealer was explaining that Columbus isn’t a casino market where experienced people were available, so there were a bunch of employees who weren’t prepared to work holidays and weekends, or to stay at work when/if a coworker had to call in. Then a player deadpanned “Yeah, plus it’s Hollywood. This is a 6:5 CSM $15 BJ table. It’s almost worth driving to Cincy to avoid this shit.” Shame on me for not realizing that a CSM table with a $15 min could possibly also pay 6:5. And, really, shame on Hollywood for creating that situation in the first place. At any rate, I took wry guy’s advice and drove to Cincy.

Horseshoe in Cincy was about as different as possible from Hollywood in Columbus. The location was central, the staff was friendly, and the games were fair. The casino was almost too great – Horseshoe Southern Indiana is also well above average and is pretty close by. One of the two properties, probably the one that isn’t brand new, is now easily expendable. I spent too much time at Horseshoe Cincy. I played BJ, and the dealer was infectiously charismatic. I wound up playing for her whole rotation, instead of just for the half-shoe that I’d planned on playing. It was about 3am when I left Cincy to head Horseshoe Southern Indiana to check in for the night. I arrived just before 5, and was checked in with no problems. They even offered to let me check out late, at 1pm.

September 6th – I woke up at about 10am and headed out from Horseshoe. I stopped at the Trop in Evansville to pick up that chip. The casino itself is almost completely unchanged from when it was the Aztar. They did get all the Aztar name info taken down, but I didn’t notice any renovations or upgrades to go along with the name change. I guess Trop had owned Aztar for a while, so it’s not like there was an ownership change where the incoming corporation felt the need to put their own stamp on the property.

After leaving the Trop, I headed to Harrah’s Metropolis to check into my room there. I had originally made my reservation at Metropolis for 2 nights. Then I decided to spend the night of the 6th in Tunica. But the Total Rewards website wouldn’t let me reduce my nights in Metropolis because “I already have a reservation at one of (their) properties for this night.” So I instead did what Harrah’s apparently wanted me to do and took up space in their room inventory at two different properties on the same night. I got to Metropolis relatively early – about 3pm - but a room was ready for me. Since I was running ahead of time, I decided to go to the Trop Isle in Cape Girardeau on my way to Memphis and later Tunica.

I always forget how awful the drive from Metropolis to I-55 is. It’s all short stretches of county roads, small towns, and corn. When I was leaving Tamms, IL, I got pulled over for going 43 in a 30. The officer who pulled me over was almost embarrassed about the whole thing. He literally said “look, this is the last thing I want to do. I know you had a clear shot out of town, and the limit goes up right there. But I have the Chief with me, and he’s my father-in-law…” The ticket amount wasn’t terrible, but the payment rules were interesting. Payment was to be made more than 10 business days after the date of infraction (so that the ticket would be entered by the time that payment was recorded) but not less than 5 days before the court date on the ticket (so that payment could be recorded before the court date). That left a 7 business day payment window, from 2 weeks to 3.5 weeks after the date of the ticket.

The Trop Isle in Cape Girardeau was a cute little casino. It was in good shape, but didn’t feel like a brand new casino. It’s obviously a big building, but they did a good job of making it feel like it fit into downtown. I played BJ and grabbed a chip, which will eventually find its way into the CoD thread. The session was interesting for a couple reasons. First, I went straight up to $5 under my win limit. Then I fell down to $5 over my loss limit. Finally, I reached my time limit and left exactly even. And, maybe more interestingly, the other players were a smoking hot basically naked girl and her BF. I couldn’t quite figure out what they were celebrating, or how/why she was allowed to be there in a bikini, but it was her first time at a casino. She was doing everything wrong (touching cards, touching bet, touching the BF’s chips, CRAZY play decisions) but she couldn’t stop winning. The dealer was actually kind of mean, refusing to let the girl stand on hard 15 against a 6 after accidentally signaling hit and refusing to let her hit on soft 13 after signaling stand. The girl won both hands. After about an hour, I left the Trop Isle and headed back to the interstate.

On the way from Cape Girardeau to Tunica, I stopped in at Southland Park in West Memphis, AR. That was an interesting and somewhat sketchy place. I’ve seen digi tables before, most recently at Harrah’s Cherokee, but those pits were only BJ. At Southland Park, I played digi UTH. It took a while to learn the buttons and flow of the game, but then it pretty easy. One thing that could have been different was that it only let each player go in turn. There’s really no reason for that, and it just added time to the game. I’m sure that logic is there because of BJ, where waiting for other players to hit/stand is required. Some players were tripping all over the game, both in terms of strategy and technology usage. The dealer was trying to help, but she was advocating a terribly strange methodology. The two prongs of that method were: 1. Never bet more than 2x, and 2. Never fold. Needless to say, that wasn’t working very well for the other players. Also probably needless to say, they were all mocking me for playing correctly and going 4x with “garbage” like K6 and Q9. The whole game at Southland Park is digital, but cashout is handled with chips. So, after my session, I cashed out for $340 and took those chips (minus $5) to the cage. West Memphis is NOT a good area. The parkinglot at Southland Park did NOT feel safe. Large groups of people were loitering in the lot, and one guy followed me from the cashier (he didn’t have a transaction) and then joined one of those groups. This was as nervous as I’ve ever been leaving a casino, though ultimately nothing happened.

After leaving West Memphis, I headed down to Tunica and checked in at Harrah’s. I’d been ahead of my schedule pretty much all day, but I slid back to pretty much on-time and arrived in Tunica at midnight. I can never seem to get the check in process at Harrah’s right. The 3 hotels are not physically connected, they all have their own lobbies, and there’s really no way of knowing which one your room is in. Even with a “reservation” in one of the hotels, there’s still no guarantee that Harrah’s won’t just put you in another one. So my method is to go to the hotel attached to the casino, go to the desk, act innocent, and check in. This time, they were able to check me in, but my room was in one of the other hotels. So I went back out to the car and drove over to the second hotel. By then, it was about 12:30. Normally, I try to play at least a little at the casino I stay at. But, this time, there was just no way I was going back to the car to drive back to the casino. So I just caught up on WoV and crashed.

September 7th – This was the day on the trip that I most looked forward to. I had the whole day to drive a simple (but long) loop from Tunica to Greenville to Hot Springs to Metropolis. I really like Greenville. It’s a very very poor town, but everyone is so friendly and happy. I knew that Bayou Caddy’s had closed, but I didn’t realize that the boat had been taken away and the dock had been removed. There were a number of people fishing where the boat used to be, and the parking lot and its steep grade were being used as a boat landing by some folks. I’m not sure if that’s actually supposed to be a landing – there’s NO dock, so I suspect not – but it seemed to be working OK. There’s a park downtown between what used to be Lighthouse Point and where Bayou Caddy’s Jubilee used to be. Parked in the Bayou Caddy’s lot and spent about an hour in the park watching the river and watching a group of kids practicing a choreographed dance to Katy Perry’s E.T.

Eventually, I walked over to the new Trop casino where Lighthouse Point used to be. The boat is still there, but is closed. The Trop is land-based and is directly in front of the walkway to the boat that used to house Lighthouse Point. The Trop has a small pit, with BJ, 3CP, and craps (that I noticed). Only one BJ game was open, and it was completely full when I arrived. I killed time by playing a Deal or No Deal Join & Play slot. I’m not sure, but I’m relatively certain that it was +EV. The progressive for 5 howies was $1,4xx. I’ve never seen that over a couple hundred dollars before, and it was not more than $100 on any of the other three seats here, either. I hit a lucky string of bonuses, and made it to the case game even and with a 25x multiplier. After 3 rounds, I took a deal for about 1,700 credits with the 5,000 credit case still in play. It was revealed that the big prize was in my case, but correct strategy would eventually have been to switch away from my case. I cashed out after the case game, up about $370 but without having every even come particularly close to winning the howie progressive. At that time, a seat had opened at the BJ game. The players were great! They all played perfect BS, goading and mocking each other into making the borderline plays. I played for a couple solid hours, and it was really hard to leave that table. But, I had to get on my way. After the BJ session, I left Trop still up about $300 net. My chip from the Trop will eventually make it into the CoD thread.

I headed from Greenville into Arkansas en-route to Hot Springs. That drive was much prettier than I’d expected it to be. Some cotton fields, lots of trees, rolling hills…I could get used to that. I’d left Greenville at about 3pm, and arrived in Hot Springs at about 6:30. Oaklawn was very cool. The parkinglot and façade were not too special, but one step through the doors and you can just feel the history of the place. In the lobby, there’s a little museum highlighting the evolution of the track and of horse racing in general. On the second floor of the property is the casino. The casino is small and kind of hokey. It’s nice enough, but the games are all off-brands. I didn’t see a single slot that I recognized as I was walking around. The BJ pit is digital and very similar to what I’d seen at Southland Park, except that cashout is done by ticket and not by chip. Turns out I’d driven halfway across Arkansas to visit a place that didn’t even use chips anymore! I would have stayed in Greenville longer if I’d known that, but at least the drive through Arkansas was pretty.

When I left Hot Springs, I wasn’t sure quite what I was going to do with my evening. I needed to be in Metropolis eventually, but I didn’t know quite how or when I’d head there. I wound up returning to Southland Park for another digital UTH session. I had the table to myself this time, which was both good and bad. On the one hand, play was super fast. On the other hand, play was super fast! Variance was not my friend in this session. I won most of my 1x bets, and lost most of my 4x bets. I played for about 90 minutes, lost about $100, and ran away. They more-or-less forced me to get a players club card, which I used in this session. I’ve now received a pair of coupons for $15 in free slot play. That’s more than fair given my theoretical loss during this session. But, it also is an example of the odd table play = slot credits casino promotions mechanism.

I went pretty directly from Memphis to Metropolis, and called it a night pretty early at the hotel at Harrah’s there. I had an odd experience at about 3am. There was a very loud group in the hall. They were loud enough that I stuck my head out to say something. I’m 32, and they were 70 year old women. I made eye contact with one, and we both just started laughing at the situation. They quieted down after that, but stayed in the hall. I’m not sure what was up with that.

September 8th – I left Metropolis the next morning after playing a bit in the casino. I lost a bit on the tables, and used a freeplay coupon on a slot. The freeplay win didn’t quite offset the tables loss, but I still got a heck of a deal on the true cost of my hotel room. After leaving the casino, I visited the giant Superman statue and headed toward Saint Louis.

I got to Saint Louis at about 1pm, and stopped in at Hollywood there. For the most part, it’s exactly like Harrah’s was. But, it’s clear that they’re working on changing that. I tried to take pictures of some of the construction that was taking place off of the floor, but I guess there’s no photography allowed anywhere on the property now. Basically, there were scaffolds everywhere in the lobby area, with a well-marked pedestrian channel through the construction area. I played BJ and collected a chip, which will be shown in the CoD thread at some point.

After my stop at Hollywood, I ran up to the Mark Twain casino in La Grange, MO. I picked up a new chip from the property (without the Terrible’s name), and played UTH for a while. They have a shootout table, but it was completely full. I’d originally planned on hanging out and playing shootout for a while, so I wasn’t sure what to do. I did play UTH for an hour or so, but then I got bored and headed out on my way to Joliet.

The route to Joliet was much shorter and faster than I’d expected. I arrived at Hollywood Joliet in the early evening. It was a much nicer place than I’d expected. I was less than impressed with the dealer at my BJ table. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but basically he was obsessed with speed and much less focused on accuracy or even common sense. He certainly was speedy, but he was also removed from the table after a call from surveillance following a ridiculous hand where a player was allowed to bet less than the minimum, and then increase her bet and double that amount after seeing her 11 count hand. I collected my chip and headed over to Harrah’s to check into my room.

I’d never stayed at Harrah’s Joliet before this, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was generally impressed with the hotel. The room was big and clean, the lobby was convenient to the casino, and everything was smoke-free. I did have two small gripes: 1. There is insufficient signage for the hotel parking ramp. I didn’t even know it existed, and I lugged my bags from the casino ramp to the hotel lobby; and 2. The elevators were very slow. Waits were long, and ride duration was also long. I played the new Spiderman slot at Harrah’s, mostly because it looked cool. And, it was pretty entertaining. They use the images of the movie characters, and what sounds like some of the voices, but Spidey sure isn’t voiced by Tobey Maguire. I never hit the free spin bonus, but I did get several of the in-game bonuses, including one that created a full screen of Peter Parkers for a nice win. After doing my part and showing play to Harrah’s, I called it a night.

September 9th – I left Harrah’s at about noon and headed to O’Hare. I flew from O’hare to Allentown in the afternoon, and spent the next 2ish days at home. I’d put about 2,100 miles on the rental when I returned it to Alamo. The intake kid just looked at me and said “Dude…HOW?!?”

September 12th – I flew from Allentown to Houston via O’Hare. I thought I’d be able to work on the flight from ORD to IAH, but there was no Wifi. So I just hung out and watched the overhead entertainment. That meant that I lost a half-day of work that I wasn’t planning on losing. I’m still not sure that I’ve fully caught up.

Once I landed in Houston, I collected my rental from Hertz. There was a Chrysler 300 in the Choice area. The one from Alamo worked so well earlier in the week that I grabbed this one as well. As an added bonus, it had satellite radio. I got a little stuck in rush hour traffic heading out of town towards Beaumont, but things thinned as I got closer to Louisiana. I’d thought about stopping in at Delta Downs, but decided against it following the traffic delays. So, I headed straight to L’auberge in Baton Rouge. My playing session was pretty miserable – straight down to $0 – but the property was beautiful. I learned pretty much right after this trip that my college girlfriend now lives in Baton Rouge. Had I known that 2 weeks ago, I’d have tried to see her. As it was, I rushed over to Biloxi to check into my room at the Grand. I got to the Grand at about 2am, got to my room, and fell into bed.

September 13th – I checked out of the Grand around 10:30, and headed off to the Golden Nugget. I thought the nugget was a bit odd. Specifically, the table games area I played in was just barely past the front door and nowhere near the cashier. That came off as unwelcoming somehow. After playing at the Golden Nugget, I stopped by Margaritaville on my way out of town. That was a very fun casino. I thought it was also well done, with a simple and open layout. My chip from the Margaritaville will eventually be posted in the CoD thread (note: “…eventually be posted…” is code for “one day, I’ll take a picture of this SOB”)

After I left the Margaritaville in Biloxi, I headed to Natchez to grab a chip from Magnolia Bluffs. That casino was very quiet when Doc visited last winter, and I commented at that time that I hoped it would last until I could visit. Not only did it last, but it was somewhat busy when I visited this month. The casino’s location is a little strange. It’s “land based” only because it is over-but-not-in the water. I collected a chip, reached my win limit, and ran for the door since it was going to rain and the walk to and from the parking garage is outdoors. The chip will eventually appear in the CoD thread.

I drove from Natchez to Vicksburg, and stayed mostly out of the rain. In Vicksburg, I visited the Lady Luck. I didn’t really like the Rainbow, and I didn’t really like the Lady Luck either. I don’t think it’s easy to get into or around in the parking lot, and the other guests at the casino aren’t particularly nice, either. The casino itself is decent, but all of the peripherals skew negative from my point of view. The Lady Luck has a bank of Aruze’s Rich Life slots. That’s a tremendously beatable game. I made a bit of money there, lost a bit playing BJ and collecting my chip, and headed out on the way to Shreveport.

I got to Shreveport around 9pm and went to Margaritaville. I was very impressed with that physical casino. It was bright and airy inside, and the layout was great. They also had a pair of Rich Life slots that were prime for vultures. I was watching one, but missed when the player left. When I turned back, a credit hawk was taking the $0.15 that the player had left on the machine. After that, the hawk moved on and I sat down to play the 1 spin needed to reach the wheel spin bonus. The spin won $100. Margaritaville also has a couple ridiculously bad protection practices on UTH. First, they do not push back the ante on ties. They even go so far as to admonish dealers who do so. Of course, this leads to lots of accidental pays. Second, they insert the cut cards under the flop and under the dealer’s cards as they leave the shuffler. The insertion motion exposes the bottom card of each packet quite predictably, even across dealers. It all kind of reminds me of what happens when little kids are put in charge and make adult-like rules but still totally miss the point of what the adults are actually trying to do.

After I left Margaritaville, I headed to Louisiana Downs to check into my hotel. I’d stayed before at the Comfort Suites and at the Holiday Inn Express, but I think this is the first time I’d stayed at the Springhill Suites on-site there. That was a great hotel. The room was large, bright, and well laid out. I always like it when a hotel room is designed with tech in mind, and that was the case here. There were a great plenty of well-placed plugs, as well as the usual desk and half-room divider that are Springhill staples. I didn’t have a chance to play at Louisiana Downs, which is OK since I don’t know what I’d have played at a slots-only establishment anyway. I guess I could have looked for a Rich Life machine.

September 14th – I checked out of the hotel in Shreveport and headed to Houston. Of course I couldn’t help but stop in Lake Charles along the way. I really shouldn’t have done that, or at least I should have gone to the Isle instead of L’auberge. I lost very badly, and the high minimums at L’auberge made it so I didn’t dare stay longer waiting for a change of variance. I drove to IAH and dropped off the car at Hertz. 1,300 miles on this one. Then things got funny. I’d pricelined the car that I was going to use for Sat-Wed during my business meetings in Houston. Hertz was the provider that Priceline awarded my bid to. So I returned a car to Hertz, then went and stood in the line again to get a new car from Hertz. Their system had a really hard time with that process, but eventually I got my new car and headed off to my hotel. Turns out that the hotel (also a Priceline bid) was well known for being a prostitution den. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear before trying to lay in the bed and fall peacefully to sleep. I’m sure glad I called my boss that evening.

September 15 – Went to my company’s picnic at the Astros game. I guess that’s a benefit of working for a guy who owns a baseball team.

September 16 to September 17 – Training at headquarters. It’s always interesting how differently things look to people in different departments. After the end of training on Tuesday, I went to the Isle in Lake Charles because…well…what else was I going to do? I won back most of what I’d lost on Saturday at L’auberge, so that was good.

September 18 – I spent all day trying to get home. It didn’t go well. I flew from Houston to O’hare, where thunderstorms caused the ground crews to suspend operations. I watched Iron Man 3 in the air and Hangover 3 and most of 42 on the ground waiting for us to be able to get to the gate. So you could say we got to the gate a little late… Luckily, my plane from O’hare to Allentown was even more delayed than the first plane was. Instead of leaving O’hare at 7:30 and arriving in Allentown at 10ish, the second flight left at 11:30 and arrived at 2. Somehow in the confusion and delays on the ground, my checked bag did not make it onto the flight with me. And, of course, there was nobody to help me with that at Allentown at 3am. So I went a couple days without the contents of that bag.