Gambling is a method of getting nothing for something.

I had a few errands to run in the late afternoon and had just enough time to run by the Hard Rock Casino before heading off for the evening kayaking. Normally I am not one to gamble with anything but my sanity or life, especially not money, but I figured I'd give to a go. I had seen an ad in the newspaper that had everyone signing up for their free 'Player's Club' would get $100 in gambling credit certificates. I don't have a problem spending other people's money, so I went to sign up and got the promotional certificates.

After about 20 minutes of playing, I was able to walk out with ~$55 in cash. The key was to cash out every time anything was won, so I had a large stack of small denomination tickets but a few that were worth 4-6 dollars. I find walking into places like that quite depressing . The sad part are the people that just sit there staring at the screen pushing a button. It is like the old rat experiments where they are trained to preform a task and sometimes get enough of a reward in pellets (food for the rats, credits for the gamblers) to encourage them to keep going. I've always thought that gambling is just a state tax on people who are bad at math. The disgusting part is just the acrid smoke that blankets the place. Even for the short time I was there I feel that I now have to go burn my clothes in a backyard pyre. My roommate was lucky enough to walk out with just over $100 so I made her buy dinner after we were finished kayaking.

Since it had been a while, we decided to do a little more paddling in preparation for the everglades trip in a couple of weeks. We met at 'Rick's On The River' at 7 and were in the water in short order for the usual paddle around Harbour Island past the downtown area. It was a leisurely 3 hour paddle and good exercise and a good way to spend the evening.