A Pretty Nice Day in Reno

It's never really a good time to have to do semi-emergency auto repairs while traveling, but if you must do so, today was pretty good. It didn't rain or snow, the sun shined all day long, and at least when you were out in the sun, it wasn't that cold as long as you wore a jacket. Lisa was confident that replacing the starter motor would be pretty easy, so we did not rush. We walked the 2 km or so from our hotel down to the Silver Legacy hotel and had their weekend brunch. Of course that's too much food, so I didn't mind walking back. Indeed, I would have liked to have walked even more, especially as the cold-but-dry-and-clear weather was nice for it, aside from the ice patches.

( Trains, Auto Parts, and Real Estate Scouting )

It is very dry here. This makes Lisa, who is waterlogged from too much time in Oregon, very happy, but in my case my eyes hurt a lot. The smoky casinos don't help. Must drink more water.

More About Slot Machines

As I mentioned earlier, Lisa is unhappy that the casinos have mostly gone to non-coin slots, dispensing tickets that have to be redeemed from machines rather than paying coins that fall with a satisfactory clunk into the bucket. After breakfast this morning at the Silver Legacy, we were walking through the casino -- not very busy at 10 AM -- and she spotted a management-looking person. Buttonholing this assistant casino manager, she told him how disappointed she was with this switch, which most of the casinos seem to be making. He said they switched over last October.

She said that one of the main reasons she came to Reno was for the slots, but if they're all going coinless, she might as well just go to the Indian casinos back home.

The manager looked pained. "Ouch, that hurts," he said, as he admitted that other customers had been expressing similar complaints about the changes.

It's unlikely that these complaints will change the casinos' decisions. The case for coinless seems pretty obvious: less coin handling means fewer people handling the money, less mechanical hassle, and so forth. But Lisa says she wouldn't be surprised that the casinos will see a further drop in business as they convert themselves into something that you could do just as easily on the internet.