Fri Mar 16
Again, a good deal of sleep as I got up at 9. That's 12 hours in the last 2 days - more than the total in some previous 4 day trips. Similar to yesterday, I thought it was one day later than it truly was. It was Friday, not Saturday - a full day of basketball and gambling with no activities.
After running and placing early bets before tip, I joined Don at the tiles table; good to see him playing tiles in the morning and having a least one white man presence at the tiles early every morning. Curt the tiles dealer was forcing me to call out the dealer's hand and have me figure out if I won or not - that's too hard with the Oreos still in my system from the night before.
At about 11 or so, the group decided to head downtown for the day. Everyone except Don and Brian joined in the trip. Ira was with us in one taxi with me and Mike; Layup, Wiz and Leland drove in the other car.
We meet at the Nugget, see our annual partner in Dick (who we never saw again after the first 20 minutes), and head to a completely empty downtown scene. It was weird to see the main area of the downtown casinos before noon in pure sunlight. It looked like a suburban shopping plaza on a tuesday mid-day.
Ira decides to jump start the fun in the group by getting us all a slushie - a flavored frozen alcoholic drink in a yard-long test tube. There are reports that some of the drinks may have had extra Everclear in them. (Noooo!)
We are holding our yard tubes walking around the barren downtime trying to find an empty craps table - and we find one at the fabulous "Las Vegas Club" casino. We walk up to the empty half table - the six of us in order (Ira, me, Mike, Wiz, Leland and Layup) plop our money down. The dealer on our side was at least - at least!- 80 years old. He valiantly tried to stay with us as we threw our money on the table and starting making bets, but couldn't. Once we got our chips, it was taking him about 2 minutes between throws to take care of the place bets, come bets, and keeping the hardways straight. The boxman, of course, knew that this (we?) was a disaster to happen, so after the required 20 minutes, he was quickly told to work at the other craps table in the casino - and we never saw him again.
We played craps for a good 2 hours, storing our tubes below the table (how none of us spilled a drink, I'll never know), with a moderate loss for all of us (I'm estimating). Some memories:
- Layup and Wiz having a contest to see who could finish the drink first; Mike and I wanted no part of that, so we created our own "B" flight competition for finishing the drink;
- At random times, Ira was convinced that a 9 was going to be rolled; he suggested to me that we should hop the 9. He put $5 on the 4-5 hop. I asked him "What about the 3-6?"
He said "No one rolls the 3-6".
So that started a mini competition betweenus the whole trip; every time a 4-5 was rolled, I paid him $5; when a 3-6 came up, I received $5. I always got out to an early lead each craps session, but as the session wore on, the 3-6's disappeared and so did my red chips.
- Great adventures in line setting; the Price is Right was on the TV near the craps table - the annoucner told us that the "Showcase Showdown" was coming up!
So I offered the table the over/under on the winning score - 90.5 was the line.
All the suckers (Layup, Wiz, Ira) took the under.....and when the second spinner spun a 95, I was the richer one.
(Looking back, a better line would have been 87.5. I may have to write into Wizard of odds for this one).
- I had Norfolk State +21.5 over Missouri; the game was on another TV while we were rolling. We caught glances of the game in the 1st half, when it was close; as the game wore on, and Norfolk stayed close, we were more and more interested. A new chant was made in support of the Spartans:
"We don't drink.....We don't smoke....Norfolk!"
Yes, it was funny after 3/4 of the yard was gone.
After we were done with craps, it was time for lunch - and what better food than sliders and fried twinkies! I have to say, the fried twinkie was better than the Fried Oreos of the night before. The complete meal for $1.98!
The alcohol caught up to me, and I don't exactly remember how I got back to the Mirage; Mike, Ira and I took a taxi while Layup, Leland and Wiz split away from us. I asked Mike about the taxi trip and he said that I was asking about Ira's connection to Wiz. It may have come out as "So, Ira, how do you know Wiz? Did you hire that ass, or did he become an ass after working for a while?"
The afternoon/evening was spent playing UTH with Don and Mike; those sessions are a little foggy, but I do remember the Cheshire-cat like smile on Don's face at first base. Neither Mike nor I could catch many cards, but Don stayed there, smiling, with his cheerleading chant, racking up the green chips.
More to come on Friday later, including the craps session with our future leaders of the government, an Air Jordan resting on my chips, and Estelle Getty making an appearance......
Again, a good deal of sleep as I got up at 9. That's 12 hours in the last 2 days - more than the total in some previous 4 day trips. Similar to yesterday, I thought it was one day later than it truly was. It was Friday, not Saturday - a full day of basketball and gambling with no activities.
After running and placing early bets before tip, I joined Don at the tiles table; good to see him playing tiles in the morning and having a least one white man presence at the tiles early every morning. Curt the tiles dealer was forcing me to call out the dealer's hand and have me figure out if I won or not - that's too hard with the Oreos still in my system from the night before.
At about 11 or so, the group decided to head downtown for the day. Everyone except Don and Brian joined in the trip. Ira was with us in one taxi with me and Mike; Layup, Wiz and Leland drove in the other car.
We meet at the Nugget, see our annual partner in Dick (who we never saw again after the first 20 minutes), and head to a completely empty downtown scene. It was weird to see the main area of the downtown casinos before noon in pure sunlight. It looked like a suburban shopping plaza on a tuesday mid-day.
Ira decides to jump start the fun in the group by getting us all a slushie - a flavored frozen alcoholic drink in a yard-long test tube. There are reports that some of the drinks may have had extra Everclear in them. (Noooo!)
We are holding our yard tubes walking around the barren downtime trying to find an empty craps table - and we find one at the fabulous "Las Vegas Club" casino. We walk up to the empty half table - the six of us in order (Ira, me, Mike, Wiz, Leland and Layup) plop our money down. The dealer on our side was at least - at least!- 80 years old. He valiantly tried to stay with us as we threw our money on the table and starting making bets, but couldn't. Once we got our chips, it was taking him about 2 minutes between throws to take care of the place bets, come bets, and keeping the hardways straight. The boxman, of course, knew that this (we?) was a disaster to happen, so after the required 20 minutes, he was quickly told to work at the other craps table in the casino - and we never saw him again.
We played craps for a good 2 hours, storing our tubes below the table (how none of us spilled a drink, I'll never know), with a moderate loss for all of us (I'm estimating). Some memories:
- Layup and Wiz having a contest to see who could finish the drink first; Mike and I wanted no part of that, so we created our own "B" flight competition for finishing the drink;
- At random times, Ira was convinced that a 9 was going to be rolled; he suggested to me that we should hop the 9. He put $5 on the 4-5 hop. I asked him "What about the 3-6?"
He said "No one rolls the 3-6".
So that started a mini competition betweenus the whole trip; every time a 4-5 was rolled, I paid him $5; when a 3-6 came up, I received $5. I always got out to an early lead each craps session, but as the session wore on, the 3-6's disappeared and so did my red chips.
- Great adventures in line setting; the Price is Right was on the TV near the craps table - the annoucner told us that the "Showcase Showdown" was coming up!
So I offered the table the over/under on the winning score - 90.5 was the line.
All the suckers (Layup, Wiz, Ira) took the under.....and when the second spinner spun a 95, I was the richer one.
(Looking back, a better line would have been 87.5. I may have to write into Wizard of odds for this one).
- I had Norfolk State +21.5 over Missouri; the game was on another TV while we were rolling. We caught glances of the game in the 1st half, when it was close; as the game wore on, and Norfolk stayed close, we were more and more interested. A new chant was made in support of the Spartans:
"We don't drink.....We don't smoke....Norfolk!"
Yes, it was funny after 3/4 of the yard was gone.
After we were done with craps, it was time for lunch - and what better food than sliders and fried twinkies! I have to say, the fried twinkie was better than the Fried Oreos of the night before. The complete meal for $1.98!
The alcohol caught up to me, and I don't exactly remember how I got back to the Mirage; Mike, Ira and I took a taxi while Layup, Leland and Wiz split away from us. I asked Mike about the taxi trip and he said that I was asking about Ira's connection to Wiz. It may have come out as "So, Ira, how do you know Wiz? Did you hire that ass, or did he become an ass after working for a while?"
The afternoon/evening was spent playing UTH with Don and Mike; those sessions are a little foggy, but I do remember the Cheshire-cat like smile on Don's face at first base. Neither Mike nor I could catch many cards, but Don stayed there, smiling, with his cheerleading chant, racking up the green chips.
More to come on Friday later, including the craps session with our future leaders of the government, an Air Jordan resting on my chips, and Estelle Getty making an appearance......
1 comment:
My favorite part of this post is that I actually wasn't there on Friday. Spent the afternoon at the gym. Glad to see that the Everclear had the desired effect!
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