Comps and Other Stuff

Casinos in the area are providing pretty enticing free play offers to get folks to come back.  Atlantis is no exception - and I'm a sucker for free play.  There are also regular events and while living here means I don't need to participate in an event to secure a hotel room, there are some that I still participate in regularly.  The monthly prize giveaway at Atlantis is one of them.  Last month, I won some additional free play in the monthly drawing - worth going.  I stayed at the hotel two nights for the monthly drawing event last month - but I'm going tonight and tomorrow night from home this time - too much play time when I'm there for 48 hours and I also just really prefer sleeping in my own bed.

Especially now that my bed is only 25 minutes from Atlantis!

They are also scheduling slot tournaments again but so far, I'm not participating in those.  The timing of checking in and the scheduled play slot you get means I'd be hanging out at the casino for a good chunk of two days - and I definitely could do that if I wanted to.  Lately I'm happiest timing my casino jaunts around the free play events, participating in the monthly drawing and letting those activities be my casino time.

It seems to be working - I hit a hand pay last week - not a huge one but still a good bump in the fun money numbers - so I've played a bit more the past week or so.  There was (is - may still be there - will find out later today) a row of some of my favorite machines with a Major >$4K and a Grand >$20K - so I've been playing a bit to see if I can hit one of those.  It's a long shot but...worth trying.

We have a call scheduled with our financial advisor and I'm always running numbers before these calls in case he says 'you need to lower your monthly draw'.  I doubt he will ever say that - truly, ever - but...I still run the numbers to be prepared - to know what we could adjust if we needed to.  I'll be Social Security eligible in under two years and we will have one car paid off in February and will likely double down on paying down the other car.  Still have life insurance (both of us) though technically, we could do without that as well.

There's always something we could modify.  While feeling reasonably confident we'll never have to.

Nightly storms roll in providing some rain, thunder and lightening. Sort of like monsoons in Arizona. It's nice to have the heat taken down a notch and watching the storms roll in has become a 'fun' part of the summer days.  The cats get in on the excitement, too.  Head for the windows and watch the rain as closely as they can.

Every storm reminds us we need gutters.  Gutter installation requires the landscaping to be done 'cuz the landscaper is going to pull the drains where they need to meet the gutters so...it's always one thing requires something else. 

Someday, the house will be 'done'. Right now, there's a whole lot of 'work in process'. 

We've had multiple incidents of the smoke alarms going off - one was this past Sunday when it literally said 'FIRE' and shrieked the siren for about 15 seconds.  It was the day J. was having his vertigo issues - so I jumped out of bed, went out into the hall, went to his room - he had heard it but didn't get out of bed.  After about 15 seconds, it stopped.  Scared me silly. 

He informed me there have been two other small 'shrieks' but not enough to trigger all the alarms in the house (which is what happened Sunday).  We have contacted the contractor's Superintendent because we are pretty sure it's an electrical issue.  We've also noticed the lights flicker every time the AC turns on.  Hopefully, that will be looked at ASAP because it is really scary in the middle of the night. 

Time to get moving - J. just left for a walk and when he gets home, he's heading out to run some errands before the finance call.  I'll be heading to Atlantis around 3 today and stay until the 9:30PM drawing names have been called.  Wish me luck!!  Thanks in advance for the luck!