Traffic wasn’t too bad heading to Newark since it was mid-week and a bit early for rush hour. I stopped at Wendy’s and picked up a snack for lunch and a little extra to take on the flight. As always I stopped at my usual gassing point just outside of the Meadowlands and made the rest of the trek to Newark Airport. I only had to put in a few bucks worth because of the fuel adjustment. I probably could have gotten away with putting none in but it wasn’t worth the risk.

Dropping off the car in Newark was a breeze except the agent noted my gas was low. I had to explain to him it was supposed to be low because it went out low. Here’s where it gets interesting. He completes his check in and I get my receipt and it’s about $20 lower than I was expecting it to be. There was no major breakdown on this slip so I have no idea what happened. After getting home I checked my e-mail and saw that he marked my tank as full when I dropped off and they gave me credit for the gas of over $19! SWEET! Dropping off here has always been pretty good. It’s picking up that’s usually the problem. After an uneventful drop off it was up to the monorail and over to Terminal A. Today’s flight is on USAir. I’m not a big fan of this airline anymore. Back when they were still separate from America West I loved America West. Since the merger though, this airline isn’t as good as it used to be. The reason for taking them this trip was price. I used some old banked frequent flyer miles and with the 911 tax and the new rip off processing fee this flight cost me $35.

Check in went very quickly but USAir charges $15 for your first checked bag. I think this trend the airlines are taking is pitiful. I think they should just raise their fares by a few dollars to offset their costs and not nickel and dime their passengers. In a few minutes I was on my way to security. Here it was the same old crap I always deal with. Now with airlines charging for taking luggage more people are doing carry on bags and it’s making security lines even longer and slower than they used to be.

I had plenty of time before my flight so I got a snack for the flight because the USAir doesn’t give you anything these days unless you pay extra for it. Christ almighty I wish they would just raise fares a few bucks and let me have my luggage and a meal for “free”. More bean counters that think effing their customers is a better way to make money than by treating them with respect and modest price hikes.

I’m on flight #35 scheduled to depart at 4:59pm. We pushed back on time but there was a ton of air traffic and lots of planes waiting to take off and we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes. I don’t know why but there are always people on flights that think they are exceptions to the rule. There are two people I’d like to recognize on this flight (among the stand non rule following passengers). The guy sitting next to me that felt he was allowed to talk on his cell phone after we pushed back from the gate and send text messages as well as the guy behind me. The other one is the dumb lady that felt, while we were taxiing on the runway during our delay felt it was ok to get up and walk around the cabin.

Since this is a frequent flyer ticket I wasn’t able to get a non-stop so I’ll be connecting on Phoenix. We’re scheduled to arrive there at 7:16pm. The movie on the flight was Incredible Hulk. Since I worked all day and have been up since 4:30am, I tried to sleep for a good part of the flight and to read some of the book that Dee lent me. I was able to get a few winks in. Now USAir has stopped giving food away a long time ago except for a small bag of peanuts or pretzels but more recently they stopped doing that AND stopped giving out free drinks. Now they hawk soft drinks and water for $2 and alcoholic drinks for $7. This along with food ranging from $5 - $7. On this flight they hawked and hawked and hawked and by the time they got ½ way through the plane, they were out of food. Now explain to me how the airline expects to make any money by selling food and then running out ½ way through the cabin. This is unacceptable and another reason why the airlines are among the worst run businesses in the world.

We were late getting into Phoenix because of our delay. The flight attendant came on the PA and asked that those people that didn’t have connections please wait in their seats. This was so those that did have connections could exit and hopefully still make their connection. I’d like to personally thank all of the prick scumbags that feel they are too good or in too much of a hurry to go wait for luggage for ignoring that request. May you all miss your next flight because someone did the same to all of you!

I haven’t been to Sky Harbor in a long time and I only had a 43 minute layover. Being late made my connection tight. Of course my connection gate was clear on the other side of the terminal. I made my connection with no issues and boarded the next flight but was the last one to board and almost didn’t make it. That would have really sucked.

This is flight #232 and departs at 7:59pm and arrived in Las Vegas at 9:09pm. This flight was uneventful and no frills and we landed in Las Vegas early.

After getting off the plane I made the customary stop at the can before making my way to baggage claim. It took about 10 minutes to get my bag and I was off to the rental car shuttle. This is one thing that they seem to be doing a pretty good job running. In just a few minutes we were at the renal car facility and I headed up to the Dollar level. I had a full size car booked. Originally when I was looking at rates for this leg of the trip the rates were VERY high, in the $45 per day range. They eventually came down and I locked in at $22.97 per day. As I always do I check rates often and got lucky about 2 weeks ago scoring the same car for just $13.53 per day for the 2 day rental. This place wasn’t well organized. They had no full sized cards available and I was told by the lot attendant to give him five minutes and I’d have a car. Up rolled an electric blue Dodge Charger that brand new with only 2 miles on it! While I just hit the jackpot my only thought was, why don’t I ever get the brand new car when I’m renting for 2 weeks!! I was off to security and then on my way to Bally’s.

When I got to Bally’s I used the valet. I hate the self parking garage here because it’s 2 miles from the hotel. When I got to Bally’s the diamond check in was closed so I checked in at the regular area. I’m staying here for the next 2 nights although I have booked the room offer they sent me for 3 nights as I’m not sure what time of day we will be heading out to LA and the offer was good for 3 nights anyway. It also comes with $400 cash to help with travel expenses! There wasn’t much of a line here and check in went quick except for some reason I always get stuck behind the people that don’t know the procedure of checking into a hotel and slow everything down. I was given room 1706 with a view of Paris. This room has 1 king bed, wall unit, work desk, nightstands and sitting chair. The bathroom is small but good enough for me being alone. When Dee is with me I prefer a larger bathroom when possible so we have room to maneuver.

Speaking of Dee, even though she’s not with me this trip, we’ve been communicating through text messages and I’ve been updating her on the trip.

Since I’m in Vegas I wanted to go out for a while. My first stop was over to Paris to see if Ned the dealer was around and he was. The first thing he asked me is, “Where’s Dee?” For those that might not know, Ned was a craps dealer at Fiesta Henderson years ago and I always got along with him. I decided to go over to Bill’s and grab a hot dog using the coupon from the AGC. This is always a great value and even without the coupon isn’t a bad deal. I decided to take it easy tonight and just wanted to play some penny slots for fun. My first game was Gold Fish. It’s one of my favorite penny slots. I was doing ok on this one and hit a bonus round and for the first time ever got the actual Goldfish bonus. In this bonus you get 10 free spins and if you win anything, a bubble pops with a multiplier from 2X – 10X. I was getting some nice hits and then on one of my free spins I hit the Fish Food Bonus. I did really well on this one and hit it for over 3,000 coins. To my surprise after I finished the bonus I still got a bubble and it was for 10X so this was worth over 30,000 coins. I finished that bonus round with 45,520 coins. That’s equal to $455 playing penny slots! I was impressed to say the least.

I cashed out of that machine and went to a Super Jackpot Party. I hit a few bonus rounds on there and the highlight was hitting one spin for over 12,000 coins. I played a bit longer and moved to the new ebay slots. I couldn’t hit a thing on these and didn’t even get a bonus round.

I left Bill’s after a few hours of play and walked out with $300 in winnings and went back to Paris. I found Ned at a BJ table. I don’t normally play BJ but Ned had a good table of people and I jumped in. The game was choppy and I didn’t get many double down or split chances but did pull a few blackjacks. After about 2 hours of play I cashed out ahead $100 and called it a night.

Total win/loss for the day $400
Total comps for the day $142