Why would I be concerned about messing around the exact location of the planets for a time to gamble? Just a whim, but it never hurts to stack the deck whenever possible.
I was looking for a window that “as good as it gets” for the time being. Communications are in turmoil because the Mercury situation is what it is.
The invitation was to wander up to the Mescalero Apache “Inn of the Mountain Gods” casino in Ruidoso. Sounded all right, I guess, a nice afternoon in the mountains, a brief respite from the desert heat? I wasn’t much into the idea tossing away hard-earned money, so I portioned out a little bit of precious cash, set it aside, and picked the best time to hit the casino.
“Dude, no dude, I swear, the slots are a lot looser in Ruidoso. You know those flaming 7 machines with 4 reels? I hit it for $400 on Saturday.”
I was watching the clock, thinking about the phase of the moon versus the phase of the sun, and all those astrology goodies.
“Can we eat something besides Mexican food?”
In Tularosa, NM, there’s an old fashioned drive-in. It’s called the Al-O-Mar Drive-in and Diner.. Two burgers, covered with Hatch Green Chiles, fries, drinks. Less than ten bucks. Very, very good. It’s like stepping back in time. There was even a smoking section, more folks there. Just felt right, a step off the tourist trail, into a land that’s little different, and the rhythm, is more in tune with the way the sun rises and sets, or so it felt like.
From there, we meandered up the road, laboring into the higher elevations. The old casino and inn is closed for remodeling, so we went to the temporary one, a few miles closer to Ruidoso. Wandered in, wandered about and since I have a very real connection to Roswell, NM, I wound up playing a nickel video slot called “Area 51.” $20 became $400. “All jackpots paid by attendants.” $409 to be precise.
I have two roulette theories, and I’ve done a little computer modeling to see how the theory works. Looks good mathematically, so I figured I’d give it try. I watched while another guy pulled in over 2 grand, but his system was too wild for me to figure out. I did see 17 hit 3 times in a row (I was outside on that, so I broke even), and a half dozen spins later, 17 hit again. With my chip on it. I hit the “35 to 1” spots twice, and I wound up with an extra ten dollars more than I started with. 17 hit one more time, that guy was raking in the dollars, shouting, “Praise the lord,” and I cashed out- still up. Better yet, I was still up with the casino’s money.
Casinos and gambling are filled with pitfalls, and the very theme preys on basic human instincts like greed. So I tucked half that money back into my pocket, considered that I’d gotten a lucky break and broken even, and even advanced.
Quit while you’re ahead, right?
That luck from the roulette table followed me, as I wandered in an amongst the slots, the bells ringing, the buzzers buzzing, and the music chips playing sound bites, Moon rolling along in those early degrees of Sagittarius, I was still feeling lucky.
Game theory is pretty simple, each slot machine is designed to relieve the player of as much available cash as possible while promising a big return for that investment of one penny, two pennies, a nickel, dime, quarter, dollar and so forth. I found one game that seemed promising, just a quarter machine, but I was playing and willing to let the it ride for a little while, besides, I’d just seen that one guy clean up at the roulette wheel….
Jackpot. Yes, a big one. One so big that the machine said “IRS Lock-up.” Took half an hour to get paid, and I haven’t seen that many hundred dollar bills in one place, in my hands, in a long, long, long time. Apparently, I did make a bit of a scene, and I was shaking when I had to sign the IRS form. However, letting them pay most of the win to the government? I don’t have to worry about that next April.
I divided the cash up in my mind, tithing, and mentally arranging piles of money, so when I got it, I put some more back into my pocket and with the rest. We played all night long. Which was amusing because I could finally step up to a dollar machine, slip a c-note in, give it a few spins and not worry about losing the money – it was all the casino’s money to start with, from that second jackpot.
Plus, I had more luck yet, as long there was a Sagittarius Moon, right? All in all, when we walked out at 11 that night, I’d been there, more or less, for 11 hours, and I was up from what I walked in with by eleven hundred dollars. Just a little over a grand. Worked for me.
“Kramer, you drive, I’ve been drinking”
Good thing I live like a monk, no? Besides, I seriously doubt that Aries was impaired from a whole two drinks. In 11 hours.
Coming back through Alamogordo, there’s a place to turn off to go to the freeway, a longer but more scenic route, or there’s the back road, straight into El Paso.
“Should I turn here?” I asked, peering at the signage, seeing a little “El Paso” arrow tacked onto the bottom of one sign.
“No. Yes. NO! YES!”
So I put on the turn signal, and took a right, bypassing the right hand turn lane, but executing a perfectly legal turn. Red lights. Cops. Had my luck just run out?
When the highway Patrolman realized I wasn’t drunk, just another misguided Texan, he let us go. Some days, it pays to live like a monk. As I exclaimed, when I motored off, “Our luck has just run out.”
I was very careful all the way back to El Paso in the late evening dark.
Virgo Time – perfect timing.
Monday dawned clear and warm. Sort of precludes any “dark and stormy” night kind of an introduction. Now, according to my various source – three different astrology programs, I was looking at “Virgo” as having started around 6 or 8 PM Sunday night.
The variance was due, in as much as anything, to the simple problem that I keep al my machines (phone, computer, &c.) on Central Time even though El Paso and New Mexico are Mountain Time. So figure Virgo started sometime Sunday evening, which lent a “new sign” feeling to the evening. Then, by careful examination of astrology charts, I’d figured I’d wind up at one of the casinos, and right at the beginning of Virgo, then Monday, around noon, the Moon slipped on into Sagittarius, that would be about as good as it gets.