Today I went down to our local Caesar's, ostensibly to have a pint of Newcastle, but I knew I'd also do at least a little gambling.

Well I did have my Newcastle, and I also did quite a lot of people watching while I was at it. There are some real freaks in Southern Indiana, and I'm grateful that I'm not one of them.

I'm not, right?

After my beer I went into the casino and, after much searching, finally found a blackjack table with an empty seat. I got $100 worth of chips, vowing that once that was gone I'd be done for the day.

I then proceeded to win forty of the next fifty hands I played. At $10 per hand, and with some blackjacks thrown in, I more than quadrupled my money in about an hour.

I like blackjack, and I certainly like winning, but it can be a very hectic and confusing game sometimes. Yes, I'll admit it. I get confused when I have a 12 or a 13 showing and the dealer's showing crap. I also get confused with an ace sometimes.

So anyway, despite my winning, I was becoming a little overwhelmed with all of the nonstop decisions that had to be made, so I picked up my chips and went to another favorite game - pai gow poker.

It's a relaxing game that usually only requires one or two decisions per minute. There are also a lot more pushes than there are in blackjack, so even if I don't win a hand I have a 66% chance of at least not losing anything.

After about an hour of pai gow poker, the place started getting even more crowded, so I cashed in.

I left with my original $100, plus $513 of the casino's money that I will use to help finance my upcoming trip to Maine.

What was really cool about winning some money, aside of course from it being money was that it was the first time I'd won at our local Caesar's in several years. I normally have pretty good luck in Las Vegas, but the local casino has not been friendly to me since 2001 when I pretty much lived off my winnings for two months.

Oh, yeah. I saw a couple of my sister Dina's friends while I was there. I waved at them and the girl just sheepishly waved back. She had no clue who I was at first, but after a while they came over to my pai gow table and said hello.