a junket

We got back home to Minneapolis yesterday, where suddenly people are wearing sweatshirts and jackets. (Fall couldn't wait until after Labor Day? [tomorrow?])

While I was at the coffeeshop this morning, I was thinking about this trip down South. We took advantage of that free gambling-junket offer mainly to travel through four states, but what about the gambling part of the trip? Well, believe me, we are only occasional and low-end casino gamblers, but I had a vague awareness that there were such things as gambling junkets and yet didn't know what to expect.

Most of the people on the casino charter plane from Minnesota (about 120 people) had done these trips before, so for them it was Old Home Week seeing each other again. All very nice ordinary people and none of them obviously wild-eyed ravenous gamblers, so I'm not sure exactly what drives these invitations. The casinos obviously know what they're doing, though, and are good at the red-carpet treatment. Since we don't get out of control in the casinos themselves, I'd do one of these trips again if we get the offer, which we probably will. I'm hoping for an offer to Biloxi, down there on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We could have some good driving trips out of there!

Until then -- no more casino thoughts for a while. Or road trips.

the magnolia state

Ah, Mississippi.... Of the 50 states, it's the one that is usually last in education, in income levels, and a lot of the other good stuff... But today we explore it a tiny bit at least, then will wander over into Arkansas a little and then up to Memphis for dinner....

john grisham's neck o' the woods

The early John Grisham novels seemed to always take place in steamy Mississippi and/or across the Tennessee border in Memphis. Grisham novels might have mostly been a '90s thing -- his newer books are kind of lazy and I might be done reading Grisham forever -- but it used to be that readers eagerly anticipated those once-a-year legal-intrigue books.

Anyway, we are on our way to Mississippi for three nights, not because of John Grisham but in spite of him (he never made it sound very appealing), and we wouldn't be going at all except that it's a free airfare, free hotel trip paid by a Mirage-related casino that has been deluded into thinking that we'll gamble enough to make it worth their while. Since we were just in Las Vegas last week, gambling is (mostly) out of our system for a while, so instead we're renting a car while we're down there to drive into the backwoods of Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and maybe Alabama, at the same time hoping not to get killed by rednecks. Wish us luck!
*****
My favorite John Grisham books: The Firm, The Chamber, and A Time To Kill.

the hard-core gambler

We were in Las Vegas in late April, first time there in several years, and had a great time. Vegas is such another world! Soon after we got back, we met our friends Tim and Judie for Happy Hour and talked about the trip, which somehow, thanks probably to the Happy Hour drinks, led to Jerry and Tim deciding that, Hey, we should all go to Vegas! Tim had only been to Vegas on business and Judie had never been to Vegas, so ,before that evening was over, we had reservations for a trip in August. We leave this Sunday for three nights.

(Meanwhile I was thinking, do we really want to go to Las Vegas twice in one year? and who goes there in August?)

Soon after that, I started getting email offers for free stays and other free stuff at certain Vegas casino hotels -- the Aria (the newest), New York New York, etc. I had done some playing in April -- and I'm talking quarter slot machines -- and had only done as much as I had because I kept winning enough to just keep playing, but it apparently had all added up to enough to make me look like a serious gambler to these places. I'm not.

Recently, though, I got an offer that was even more tempting. Free air fare for two persons and three nights at a MGM-related casino in Tunica, Mississippi (Did you even know that Mississippi had casinos?). September 1 to 4.

I say to Jerry: "We can't go on gambling trips two weeks in a row!" Jerry, on the other hand, would go on any trip anytime anywhere.

The clincher, after much soul-searching, was that Missisippi is one of the seven states that I haven't been in yet, and it's very close to three other states that I haven't been in yet (Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama). So we might rent a car there, go on the road (hoping to not get lynched somewhere in backwoods Mississippi), potentially knock off four states on my list, and avoid casino-burnout at the same time.

But I'm also thinking -- If somehow these people are considering me some sort of high-roller, then the gambling industry is in deep trouble indeed!

summer sports update (mostly)

Even though it's hard to think about football yet, mid-August in Minnesota this year, like last year, means wondering, "Hey, Is Brett Favre going to play for the Vikings this year or is he retired?" I think that most Vikings fans would care a lot less than they do, and in some ways it would be good to be done with these annual guessing games, except that the other Vikings quarterbacks suck. Most everybody is feeling over-Favred by the news media, here and across the world, and I'm thinking that this season won't be as much as fun as last season was, Favre or no Favre, but ya never know. I sorta hope he plays, even if he is a total media hog.

Meanwhile, on the other side of downtown, baseball continues, and the Twins are back in first place. They're three games ahead of the Chicago White Sox, and the White Sox arrive in town tomorrow for three games. The new Twins stadium is an enormous hit, and most games are near-sellouts. The stadium crowds are generating tremendously good energy for the city, at least as long as we have a winning team.

Out there on the East Coast, my other home team, the Philadelphia Phillies, have been doing better, are creeping up in the standings against Atlanta, and might yet make it to the baseball playoffs. Go, Phils!

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33 years ago today, Elvis died. I got a reminder email about that this morning from my cousin Beverly, who has been the ultimate Elvis fan since the very beginning. She's still in mourning.

(Brett and Elvis. Two good guys that came out of Mississippi, of all places.)

seeing a purple #4

How about some football drama in the month of May? Well, in this case, it's just sort of a mini-drama for Minnesota Vikings fans as suddenly there is Brett Favre talk back in the air. Tonight, as I write this, Vikings coach Brad Childress is in Mississippi (Mississippi??) visiting Brett Favre, presumably to talk Favre into coming out of retirement AGAIN to come quarterback the Vikings to the Super Bowl (ha!).

Most Vikings fans here, of course, have been hating Brett Favre for about 18 years as he led the much-despised Green Bay Packers to a lot of success. So how to turn around and potentially have to cheer him on??..

I say, let's do it! The Vikings were so listless last year that they could hardly sell out their one local playoff game. Favre might at least bring out some fans to boo him. Let's fill those stands again, dudes. Come on, Brett... What's the worst that can happen to an old guy like you?.. -- a career-ending injury?? You won't be missing out on much more career! Would you rather be sitting on your front porch in Mississippi smoking a corn pipe?!

Who knows?.. Maybe we could learn to love the guy!