3rd Times A Charm!

I won't bitch about work in this post, although I will say that after working the most crazy week of my life I was desperately looking forward to this weekend! For the first weekend in 2007 I didn't have to baby-sitt, fly back to MI, etc. so I was looking forward to kicking back and enjoying myself.
After reading "Bringing Down the House", I've had "the jones" to gamble for a couple weeks. I decided to toss the idea out to our NJ friends Fink and Sarah and see if they'd be interested in making a day trip with Adam and I. So yesterday morning the 4 of us headed 2 hours south to the best gambling on the East Coast...ATLANTIC CITY!
This was my 3rd visit to AC and I was geeked to try my luck on the nickel and penny slots. We started off at Cesars where I didn't have too muck luck and blew through $15.00 within an hour. Next we walked over the Tropicana for more gambling and dinner at P.F. Changs. I blew another $20.00 at the penny slots with Sarah while Adam and Fink went to put our name on the wait list for dinner. After dinner we decided to hit Wild Wild West because it was close to the Claridge where we parked. I immediately found the penny slots and was pleased to find one of my favorite games, Catch A Wave. Adam and I discovered Catch A Wave at the Finger Lakes Casino in upstate NY during a visit to his parents house. Since then I've always looked for Catch A Wave because it has great bonus rounds and I've always seemed to do pretty well.
So I sat down, put in my last and final $20.00 and started playing 20 lines, betting either 1 cent or 2 cents per line depending on my gut feeling. I wasn't having very good luck and started to bet 2 cents/line because I felt I would hit a bonus round soon. Within a couple spins I was in a bonus round, and within no time at all I had somehow gotten 20,000 credits on 1 bonus spin. I screamed over to Adam and Sarah who were playing on the machines behind/next to me. We all tried to figure out how much money 20,000 penny credits was as I immediately hit the cash out button. Out came a voucher for $220.70!!! I was estatic! The people around Sarah and I must have thought we were crazy. I mean I'm sure more than 90% of the people around us had blown through $200.00 in several hours, but I was just so excited to finally be up for the day.
I managed to blow another $20.00 hoping that maybe I could turn that $20.00 into another $200.00 but ended up walking away $165.00 richer than when I arrived. The $165.00 was really a pleasant suprise after recieving a $350.00 bill (that's what I STILL owed AFTER my insurance paid their portion) from my trip to the ER last month. Needless to say I'm pretty stoked for our trip to Vegas...45 days to go!!!!


Sarah, Matt (Fink), Adam and I in AC


Adam and I on the boadwalk in AC