Day 15
Thursday December 28, 2006

I can’t believe it but today it’s over. I’ve already been here for 2 weeks. Today’s Flight isn’t until almost 5pm so I’ve got some time to run around and do a few things before ending this trip. After I packed and got out of the room I went to VIP services. I finally got to meet my host after about 2 years of missing him by a day or 2. He took care of all the charges on the room (as he should have) and we talked about an upcoming trip in the spring.

I still had a $25 food coupon so I met Rich and Dawn and we had lunch at the coffee shop. I tried the chicken fried steak again and it wasn’t as good as it usually is. The service was good though and everything else was fine. My meal wasn’t bad, just not as good as usual.

When we were done with lunch Rich and I both had free bet coupons. We played them at blackjack. I had a 16 against a dealer 10 and busted out with a 10. I was sure glad it wasn’t my money I just lost!

We left the casino and said our good byes and I unloaded all of my unused coupons on them as I had quite the bag of stuff I never used this year.

My next stop was to the bank to make a nice deposit since the casinos were so generous to me this trip. I still had some time before having to go to the airport and the bank I used wasn’t too far from the Pinball Hall of Fame so I stopped in for one last round of games and had fun like I always do here.

It was now time to head to the airport. I dropped the car off at Alamo and had no issues. Being that I had made an exchange I was expecting the worst but I was surprised that everything went so well. I jumped onto the shuttle and was back at the airport in no time. I wasn’t sure what kind of crowds there were going to be so I did get there early. Check in took all of a minute and there was no one in line at the Continental counter. I was informed that due to the winds my flight was delayed 1 hour.

Security was empty too and it took about 1 minute to get through before I was on my way to the terminal. I did have 1 issue with an agent at the check point before security though. There were 3 agents to check ID and boarding passes. I went to one old guy on the left that wasn’t paying attention. He was staring off into space. I put my ID and boarding pass in front of him and he tells me the line is over there pointing to the other 2 agents. I told him there are 3 of you and I didn’t know who to go to. I also told him if he wasn’t open then he shouldn’t be there. This old bastard was a miserable eff. How effing lazy are you to bitch that I should have gone to one of the other 2 agents?

Tonight’s flight like the flight out is on Continental. My flight is 1069 scheduled to depart at 4:55pm non stop into Newark arriving at 12:40am. This flight was scheduled to take just under 5 hours. Again I’m hoping we get home faster! We left almost exactly 1 hour late. I was in a row with one other person on the aisle and we had the middle seat open so it was nice to have that extra space. This flight was bumpy in the beginning because of the winds but smoothed out. I actually watched the movie on board today Talladega Nights. It was pretty stupid but passed the time.

The meal tonight was a pre packaged chicken sandwich, a small salad and a mini Twix bar.

After we arrived in Newark and I made my customary pit stop it was off to baggage claim. I was hoping we didn’t have a repeat of baggage claim from my last trip. Things were better this trip and I had my luggage in about 10 minutes.

I headed up to the monorail to get over to the Avis lot. When we got on the monorail we were informed at terminal A this was going to be shut down. We than had to lug all of our stuff down to the ground level and board busses to get to where we were going.

I was again renting a car here to drive back up to Newburgh. The rate here was $72 for a full sized car. When I got to the office I saw my name on the scoreboard and went out to the car they had reserved for me. It was a Chevy Impala with 23,900 miles on it. I gave it a quick look and loaded my things into and got on my way. Finally after being in Newark for almost 2 hours I was on my way home.

About ½ way home I pulled into the drive thru of a McDonalds. Not exactly what I wanted to eat but at 3am there isn’t much of an option.

He ride home was pretty uneventful being it was now about 2:45am. I rolled into my driveway at exactly 4am and the 9th Annual Christmas/Birthday trip came to an end.

Total win/loss for the day $0
Total comps for the day $25

Final Thoughts

• Getting complimentary airfare form Harrah*s was really cool
• The Cal is decent and I was glad to add it to my list of hotels
• Alamo had the best price on rental cars this trip
• Binion’s looks nothing like it’s former self these days with new carpet and hardwood floors
• The Great Gift Wrap up was a nice added perk at Caesars
• The Pinball Hall of Fame still ranks high on my favorites list
• The gift card promo at Binion’s was fun to play because I won on top of getting the gift
• The Gas Card promotion at South Point was a great promo
• Green Valley Ranch is one of the nicer hotels I’ve stayed in
• I didn’t do very good in my VP tournament at GVR
• I can’t believe it snowed here on 12-19
• Penny slots can be fun but only for entertainment, not winning money
• Circus – Circus might not be a great place but I get treated really good here for my play
• Short hotel stays suck
• Craps is really fun when you win, but really sucks when you lose
• I can’t believe how good craps was to me this trip
• Terrible’s runs some good promos and will get more of my play in the future
• This is the first trip since it opened that I didn’t get out to the Cannery
• According to my host at the hard Rock I had 41 hours in at the tables over my 6 days
• I played 51,000 hands of video poker and hit 2 royals
• I missed not going to the diamond lounges this trip
• I went 13 of 14 days this trip without a loss & combined with the last trip 23 of 24
• The weather wasn’t very good this trip (it was warmer back home in NY)
• This trip brings my Las Vegas record to 20-11-1
• This was my largest winning trip ever
• This is the first time since 1998 that I actually won on my birthday
• My next trip will be in spring of 2007