Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Although our hotel room is on the opposite side of I-15 from Las Vegas Blvd, it has a good view of "The Strip"

( Balcony Views, Night and Day )

Yesterday, we decided to take advantage of the free hourly shuttle from the Staybridge to New York New York.

( An Hour Was Enough )

We had a look at the restaurants, in particular the deli, and while things made an effort to look like a cartoon version of New York, and for all we know the deli food was good, we decided that we'll stick to the Manhattan Deli at the Atlantis in Reno. We caught the next shuttle back to our hotel and drove to the Black Bear Diner (#25 in our passport) instead.

Tomorrow morning we leave Las Vegas. Having nearly driven off the road the last time we tried to go all the way home from Vegas in one day, we are heading for Tonopah tomorrow.

Sunday afternoon, Lisa and I drove into Sparks to get the oil changed in the Astro at Jiffy Lube. While we were there, I had them do an air conditioner check as well, inasmuch as it seemed to me like the AC wasn't putting out as much cool as it should. They did say we were were down a bit on coolant, and it was certainly putting out lots of cold air when we left.

Hot August Nights ended on Sunday, so we decided to risk going over to the Peppermill for dinner. (We avoid Reno during Hot August Nights because it's too crowded.) Things were mostly back to the normal Sunday night, although the price was of the Saturday night buffet. We were able to get our regular table. A lot of the staff are starting to recognize us.

As usual, I marked my normal keno ticket. We usually play five games, which covers most of dinner, and sometimes we win back some of the $10 the ticket costs. Tonight we got a lot more. During the third game, I looked up and saw that I'd gotten 4/7, which is good, particularly as this is a "way" ticket marked as a 1, 2, 4, and 7-spot ticket. (Don't worry if you don't understand what that means.) In this case, it meant that I'd hit a 4 out of 4 ticket, which would be enough to pay for dinner. Then I looked at the board more closely. When you throw in the other numbers, I'd hit 6 out of 7, the best win I've every had in my life. This ticket won $271!

(It's a pity that last number didn't hit, because if it had, I would have won more than $4000.)

The keno runner came by and said, "You look happy," consulted her book, and told me how much I'd won. Then she gave me the even better new: the Peppermill has a Sunday night promotion for anyone in their players club who plays keno between 5-10 PM. The biggest winner of the night gets a $500 bonus prize, and my $271 put me on the top of the leader board! All I had to do was stay until 10 PM and have nobody beat my win.

We'd intended to go shopping after dinner, and there was actually enough time to do so and still come back before 10 PM. (You have to claim the bonus no later than 10:30 and must be present to win.) So we went and did some of our shopping, although one of the stores had already closed. We came back to the Peppermill and at 8:30 were still leading, so we went and played slots for a while using some of the "house money." We even managed to come out $5 ahead on that.

At about 9:10, I went and checked the leader board again: $460. Darn! Someone beat us for the bonus prize. Oh, well, it did mean we could go home, which was good because I was very tired. Lisa drove us home.

Even with a $10 tip to the keno runner and a larger-than-usual dinner tip, we still came out around $250 ahead for the night. That means the keno winnings paid for dinner and for the oil change and AC service on the minivan, and then some.

That was some pretty good luck! Unfortunately, it was counteracted by some bad luck related to the air conditioning about which more tomorrow.

This morning, Lisa and I went into Reno where we used up the remainder of my comp points with the Atlantis and had breakfast at the buffet. It was a good breakfast; the remodel hasn't mangled their breakfasts the way it did the dinners, and it's harder to mess up breakfasts. Not being in any hurry and with the restaurant not crowded, we lingered over breakfast. I used up the $10 that I won at the Wigwam yesterday on Keno. (I won $5 on the $10 ticket but then spent it on more tickets that didn't win, so that was that.) Trying to get the blood flowing after all of that food, we walked around the hotel, where Rotary International was having a conference. There were a bunch of people in red vests labeled "Sergeant At Arms," and I wish we'd had WSFS ones made for Joyce and her team of SAAs that made running last year's WSFS Business Meeting so much easier.

As we headed out to the van, it started raining, so the one errand that would have obliged us to be outside for quite a while was scrapped. However, we took care of a bunch of other smaller errands before heading home. Lisa had been up since about 2 AM and decided to turn in very early. I listened to the Giants game (rats, let that one get away). Just before 5 PM, I went out and waved at Amtrak #6 running through on time. Within seconds of my going back inside, I heard the sound of large raindrops hitting the porch awning. Soon thereafter, it got very loud and very wet.

( Hail, Hail, the Storm's All Here )

That was a pretty intense storm, although it did not last long. I'm grateful that we didn't have to be out driving in it.

Lest you think I always win when I gamble: On Sunday, I had breakfast at the Wigwam Restaurant/Casino a few blocks from my house, as I've taken to doing on weekends when I'm home. I like their breakfast there ($13 including tip), and have been going more often since they've been sending free-play coupons in the form of "have a meal here and get $10 free play." The last three times before this weekend, I was able to parlay that free play into a free breakfast, and in one case enough to pay for the next one. However, this past Sunday, putting the entire $10 down on a single blackjack hand (because if I'd won, there was an additional $10 bonus free play coupon I could use), I was dealt a 15 versus a house 7 showing -- an awful hand. I drew and busted, but I would have lost had I stood as the down card was a ten; it was an unwinnable hand. I resisted the urge to try and "win it back" and went home instead.

We do a lot of small-time gambling, and I keep track of our wins and losses, because I'm sufficiently law-abiding that I know that any net wins are taxable. Having done my taxes for last year recently, I was surprised to see that my net loss for 2015 was less than $100. I expected it to be a low three-figure sum. I guess I've won more often than I remember.

Before heading off to the Nevada Caucuses, I walked to the Wigwam Restaurant/Casino, and after having breakfast, redeemed my $10 free play with purchase of a meal coupon. I also had a coupon good for a $10 bonus free play on any $10 jackpot. I told the attendant to just stay with me at the machine and wagered the $10 free play on a single hand of blackjack, which I won. That turned the initial $10 free play into $20 real money. She then paid off the $10 free play, and I carefully wagered that. When I'd burned through the free play, I had $32 cash, which I redeemed. That not only paid for breakfast today, but also a few weeks ago when I did not win anything from the free play. Not a bad use of "house money."

Feeling pretty chipper, I walked home and drove off to do my civic duty at the Nevada Caucus.

Today was the day for catching up on all of the shopping that we did not do during the holidays or when I was down in the Bay Area.

( All About Town )

It is our hope that we don't need to leave Fernley again until next weekend at the earliest, especially with another series of winter storms heading our way.

The periodic light snow showers continued on and off last night and tapered off this afternoon, with almost nothing sticking. I did not have the day off today, so I finished up some small projects that were due by year-end, and kept the fireplace burning. It has been pretty cold, not getting above freezing, and with a projected low of -14°C tonight.

I did get out for a bit this morning, though. I had a coupon from the Wigwam restaurant and casino, just a couple of blocks away from the house, and I went out in the snow this morning, had breakfast over there, and claimed my $10 worth of free slot play, which I managed to turn into $6 of spending cash before returning home to get back to Day Jobbe. Lisa and I went to the Black Bear Diner/Nugget Casino last night and did approximately the same thing, with $5 to the good. (The $11 winnings was spent on some small grocery shopping this afternoon.)

( So How Was the Duck Soup? )

Because of the weather and other factors, we have elected to not go out anywhere for New Year's celebrations, not even the local casinos that are planning fireworks at midnight and such. It's a quiet night at our (relatively) warm home to finish out 2015 for us. Tomorrow we have various chores to do, and we probably will go buy another half-cord of firewood, because I've been burning a lot of it to keep the home fire burning.

Today Lisa and I went over to Carson City to the Nevada State Museum (to which we have free admission due to our membership in the Friends of the Nevada State Railroad Museum) and looked through a couple of the galleries we skipped last time. In particular, we spent a couple of hours in the geology section, which was fascinating and went through the series of events that explains why a high desert plateau about 4000 feet above sea level is a major source of diatomaceous earth, the source of which is ancient microscopic sea life. (Answer: much of what is now Nevada was part of a shallow ocean hundreds of millions of years ago.)

I got tired fairly quickly and Lisa's sleep schedule is very dislocated these days, so around 1 PM we went home via Reno, stopping for lunch at the Manhattan Deli. (Lisa's slot machine winnings counteracted my keno losses with $3 extra to boot.) Then we made our major grocery run to Winco before rushing home before Lisa collapsed from fatigue. She's been slowly working her way around the clock the past few weeks, so today she was up at about 3 AM. She does hope to last tomorrow until sundown and moonrise so we can watch the eclipse.

I had a promotional offer from Cost Plus World Market we wanted to use before it expired at the end of the year, so we went into Reno after I got done with Day Jobbe this afternoon. We also made one last try to get some of the good Strauss Creamery eggnog from Whole Foods Market, but that failed. We then went to the Atlantis, where their NYE Buffet was bustling, but the wait wasn't too awful long for a group of 2. (The big groups had to wait much longer.) I'm afraid the special buffet is wasted somewhat on us — among other things, we don't drink, so the included champagne was useless. I was a bit amused at the people who built huge mountains of crab legs on their plates. "Do they not know they're allowed to come back for seconds?" I speculated.

travelswithkuma had his Keno Bear hat on tonight, and the $10 ticket won $20 and therefore paid for the tip to the keno runner and the waitress.

Instead of staying in Reno for NYE festivities, we decided to go home early. We didn't even go grocery shopping, being too tired for it. We're home now and 2015 in the Pacific Time Zone can arrive without our help.

Sunday afternoon, Lisa hitched the utility trailer to the Big Orange Van and pulled the trailer with a pallet of Douglas fir alongside the fence so we could unload it. We filled the wood box back up, then put the overage onto a pallet alongside the wood box and covered it with plastic in case we do get some rain.

The wooden sides of the utility trailer consist of eight-foot-long 2x10s, and they are worn out. While in Mehama, Lisa had managed to replace some of the 2x10s, but the upper ones are failing quickly. After lunch, we drove the trailer over to Lowe's, intending to buy some pressure-treated 2x10s. The ones Lisa did in Oregon she treated herself with wood preservative, but it was so much hassle that we wanted to go ahead and buy pre-treated wood and be done with it. Except that Lowe's doesn't sell pressure-treated wood in that size, only 2x8 and 2x12. So rather than buy untreated boards, we balked entirely. (If it turns out we can't find 2x10s that we want, we might have to buy untreated 2x10s and paint them. In this climate, the anti-rot wood-preservative treatment is less important than it was in Oregon.)

After putting the utility trailer and Big Orange Van away, we drove (in my van, which is more comfortable) over to Big R in Fallon, where we bought nine more paving stones, which should complete the project to cover the dirt area between the sidewalk and the wood box so that we don't have to walk in the dirt (or sometimes mud) when getting wood for the fire.

On the way home, Lisa suggested we stop for dinner at Fernley's newest restaurant: Denny's. A Denny's opened in the new Terrible's Truck Stop-Casino that opened a few months ago near the old Truck Inn. (The Truck Inn closed before we moved to Fernley and was demolished. All that's left is its distinctive sign visible from the freeway.) We had a coupon good for a dinner discount, so we went, and also checked out our town's newest casino.

They have one of the multi-player blackjack machines that I'd only seen in Las Vegas before. After signing up for their slot club (not that we'll likely ever gamble enough to make it worthwhile), Lisa sat down to play. We played the first few hands using basic strategy and lost them all. Lisa then decided to play things her way. She was dealt a hard 17 versus a dealer 6. She doubled down. I wailed, "What! No!" The double-down card came: a 2! She won the hand and ended up breaking even on blackjack and cashing out. My head spun. Or maybe it was just the fatigue catching up with me as we headed home after a generally productive day.