Back From Nippy Chicago

A blustery 41 degrees when I left. Ninety-nine degrees in Phoenix where I changed planes. Home in seventy-degree LA after a long sad weekend attending my cousin's wake-funeral-burial. More should be said about Mary Ann Smith's courageous ten-year fight with cancer, but it's all still too depressing right now. Nevertheless, I found time for friends and family, Chicago-style pizza,  Italian beef sandwiches and stories about who knows who and what kind of favors that translates into.
(Image: Got Weather?)

Morongo Makes Losing Fun

If you live in Southern California and must drop a few bucks—and that's all we had to drop—then I recommend Morongo. Past Banning on Interstate 10, the place shoots up from the desert floor like a leftover set from Gattaca. Located between the snowy peaks of Mt. San Jacinto and Mt. San Gorgonio, the casino sports a nice view west of the windmill farm. Yeah, they had slots and table games and video roulette, but they possessed something else I hadn't encountered in a good long while: customer service. Even the ladies cleaning up the rooms smiled and said 'good morning.' The staff was so friendly, I wondered if it weren't some kind of set-up.

Here's how far behind the gaming curve I was: last time I visited a casino, slot machines still accepted coins. Nowadays you feed your money in, lose for awhile, then  press Cash Out,  and—if there's any left—get a paper slip listing the amount. Then you insert that slip into another machine—a lucky machine—and play down what's left. The strong willed march that slip to an ATM-like machine that pays real money. Farewell to the clang-clang-clang of coins hitting a steel tray. Very 21st Century.

Anyway, my wife and I had a blast. No family reunions. No place to be. And great WiFi so we could sit in the same room, on the same bed, and surf the Web.  In addition, there was an In-And-Out Burger within a block of the place. Thus our needs were met on multiple fronts.

Now I've got animated assignments and a book to upload to Smashwords. But getting away for the first time in years was fantastic. So refreshing was the experience, that we returned home and forgot to be resentful of our noisy neighbors.