Friday - or - the warm up day for gambling

Here is the tip of the day - if you have ever lost your phone it's panic time right?  Want to get it back?  It's easy.  Put this (or some other message) on your lock screen.

On an iPhone take a background photo - then EDIT that photo.  Click the circle with 3 dots / then MARK UP / then the circle + sign  / click TEXT but do not change the size as it will get bigger and then put this on your lock screen.

CBS tested this with ten phones. Five had the above and five were normal.  Then they placed them all around the NY.  All five of the above phones got called and were found.  The five others?  unknown.

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Meanwhile - back in Las Vegas the day starts "cool" upper 50s and sunny.  We go to the breakfast buffet at Harrahs. An "OK" buffet, nothing outstanding but it's $20 and a normal breakfast will cost $20 anyway so . . . . The weird thing it does not open until 8AM.

After Mr. Electric, Balderdash and I take a walk north towards the Stratosphere.  It's a ways and as we walk it's gets a little warm.  The day ended up to be about 80 degrees.

We pass all the local dive casinos like The Winn and The Venetian and soon are in the waste land.

Large chunks of nothing as it seems "The Strip" is moving south towards the airport and the City Center complex.   Blocks and blocks of boarded up vacant land.  In the distance we can see the Strat but it's far far away yet. MUCH farther then you think.

 The big blue building on the right is vacant and was never completed as money ran out and if you look closely you can see windows have fallen out.  Construction stopped about 6 years ago.

This photo does not convey the massive size of this building, it's HUGE! We walk and walk and I see MY first stop. Essence a legal cannabis store.

OK - if you have never been to one here is what to expect. Typically nothing fancy.  Think of The Club LeMark, or remember Lake Street Station in Madison?  An old house, a square building. Never anything SUPER fancy . . . YET. . .  I have heard Las Vegas has plans to open a 50,000 square foot cannabis super store.

Anyway - you walk in and there is a security guard and you hand your drivers license to a guy behind the window and they do something with it.  After a few minutes you are let into another room that unlike Denver is a little more fancy - almost like a bright sports book with prices and so forth and a budtender waits on you.  If you are new they explain everything and ask what you like and it's really helpful.  In LV it's all cash unlike Denver where you can use cards.

I was told I needed to get some gummy bears and I also picked up a small disposable cartridge of concentrate for a vape thingy of sativa. Cannabis has two main strains - Sativa is grown outdoors and is invigorating, mood lifting, everything seems more colorful and happy and is a good daytime strain.  Indica (Id Da Couch) is grown indoors and is a night time strain where you get STONED and is very calming and relaxing and you can watch all 12 season of Golden Girls in a row before falling asleep.  Both have their uses.

Think of Sativa and Indica in beer terms as an IPA and a Stout and then inside those two are many many different kinds and flavors that all give you different feelings.

SO - I get what I'm looking for and go to the Strat where the other two are already playing Black Jack.

We play for a while and then start our way back south walking past the vacant land.  The below photo there is maybe a quarter mile of nothing.

The only real event I remember is stopping at Treasure Island for more black jack and the three of us played for an hour and walk away with a combined $700.  I think that was the last time I won at black jack.  NO - I KNOW it was the last time I won at black jack.

Thankfully I have played over 100,000 hands of BJ when I was an online black jack bonus whore in the early 2000s.  When online casinos were just emerging they would pay you to play.  Give them $100, they will GIVE you $100 and all you have to do is play 4000 ( or some big number) hands.

Crunching the numbers playing perfect BJ after the number of hands you would lose about $30 out of the free $100.  They would ASSUME you would keep playing.  But Elweed and I would cash out and not play ONE hand extra.  We kept track of every penny and we did this about 20 times casinos.

Elweed had about the same results. 12 times we actually made MORE then what they gave us. 7 times we cashed out with about $150, a $50 profit.  Once I lost and cashed out with about $50 a once I was down to about $20 and was pissed off so I played a video poker and got a Royal Flush - BAM $2000.

ANYWAY - I know that black jack is BASICALLY a slightly worse break even game . . .in the long run.

We get back to Harrahs (or wherever, it was all becoming a blur and I had no clue where I was AND I was sober).

We walked past this break in buildings and saw this image. I think this is farther south actually but it's a cool shot.

Big ass Ferris wheel 

That afternoon more and more of the gang of 10 or 12 are flying in and we meet up at a bar where you do not pay for drinks. All you do is play video poker. I ask a few questions on how this works without ACTUALLY ASKING how it works and figure out that if you play one hand every 10 seconds, on average, you can continue to drink and ask for drinks for free.

I have two big jack and cokes and walk away with an EXTRA $1.50.

It's meet and greet time and I'm talking to a guy that fly's in from KC every week. He places bets and fly's back to KC. It's what he does for a living and he is my hero.  We start talking about systems and all things sports betting and Balderdash calls over to me calling me "Grinder" a nick name I was given by Stanford Wong and friends (not his real name) on his forum in the late 90s. ( I was actually on a card counting team at one point). 

The other guy goes "WHAT?  THIS IS THE GRINDER?" and shakes my hand again and he says "I" am HIS hero. And we talk more.

There is a story that goes back a decade and it seems they were playing my picks and winning every thing. I THINK I was 9-1 that week and there were chants at Harrahs GRINDER GRINDER GRINDER as thousands of dollars were being won.  I believe that was the last year for that Linebreaker system.

The rest of the night is rather a blur.  All I really remember was about 8PM people were starting to crash.  YEA - Las Vegas, 8PM and we are getting sleepy!  Now remember - Up at 6AM, start drinking and gambling by 10AM and it's constant for 10 hours.

As we are parting ways Balderdash says - everybody meet up at 6:50PM for the limo to Big Dogs Brew House for the Badger game that starts at 9AM. 

YEA - then things get real on Saturday - Friday was just a warm up.

OH - The Limo!