I

will see how the weather goes about going up north either tomorrow or Saturday. If all else fails, I will buy a plane ticket to Portland for Tuesday's job fair.

I don't really gamble all that much, but recently I throw in $20 or $40 to see how well I do. If I do lousy, I simply quit. If I do well, I also walk away. The best machines without a doubt are the Wheel of Fortune $1 machines. Three weeks ago, as I wrote previously, I hit a total of $450 on a Wheel of Fortune quarter machine at the Eldorado and spending less than $25 of my own money. Two or three days ago, I went to the Silver Legacy, which is next to the Eldorado, and won $160 on the $1 machines spending only about $20 of my own money.

Today I ate lunch over at Toucan Charlie's at the Atlantis on South Virginia Street. Usually the Atlantis is tight as hell with its slot machines. I never do all that well there. I might win $20 or so. Once I won $80 there, but that's about as good as I ever did. After I ate, I went to the Megabucks machine, which has a progressive of over $19 million. I put $40 in it, but after I spent $24 and getting nothing, I figured to hell with it. I left that machine and went over to one of my beloved Wheel of Fortune $1 machines. I put my $16 dollar ticket in, spun the wheels, and the first thing that came up was the "spin" icon, which meant I got to spin the big wheel. I spun it, and wouldn't you know it, I hit $1,000! That's the most I have ever hit on the slot machines. I cashed that ticket out and played another $20, won a spin for $30, and ended up playing that money off. So I wound up with around $960 to the good.

I guess I won't badmouth that casino again.