Are slot machines hazardous to your health?

I have times when I win at the casino and times when I lose. When I go I normally just stay for about an hour then catch the next bus home. Mostly I go to give me a reason to get dressed and get out of the house. I have friends that go there as well. It is our "social hour" in a way.

Today I met a friend on the bus and we walked into the casino together. Just inside the door we saw two of our friends standing not too far from us and they didn't look happy at all. When we got to where they were they started telling us about an event at the casino that nearly floored us both. I never thought it would really happen.

I have joked about not wanting to win a jack pot saying I would probably die of a heart attack if I did. As it turns out, that is what had happened to an older gentleman today not long before we arrived. He was playing a 50 cent meltdown machine and got three meltdowns. The machine started to spin again and hit three meltdowns a few more times. He had actually hit the maximum jack pot on the machine.

It seems the excitement proved to be too much for him because he fell to the floor and died there. Even though help got to him very quickly there wasn't anything they could do for him. Our friends also said they saw a woman they assumed was his wife with a look of total shock on her face. They said they were concerned for her because all the color had left her face and she was paper white. She left with two other relatives who were there as well.

I don't know why I stayed for the hour. When I walked by the spot where the man fell I was filled with sadness for his family. There was trace amount of a kitty litter type substance on the floor that they used to clean up the bodily fluids. I have been thinking about this all evening.

Who knew that a fun day out would end so tragically for them all?

It makes you think long and hard about a lot of things you take for granted. I don't know if I will be back at the casino any time soon. It just didn't feel right being there.

Happy New Year

We all eagerly await the start of the new year with high hopes and expectations. We all hope to have learned a few of life's lessons in the year that is finished so that we can be or do better in the coming year. We forget that each day brings new lessons that must be learned with it.

I found this article about statistics on top new year's resolutions. I would have thought that the percentage of people who make resolutions would be higher. It seems that most of the people who make resolutions do break them in short order. The article goes on to say that it is better to try and fail then not to try at all.

My wish for everyone is to have a safe and happy celebration of life every day. Make each night your new year's eve. Learn something each day. Live in the moment. Mark Twain said it best when he said "Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth."

My Posts are Missing!

I have had some thinking to do about my attitudes and opinions. After talking with a friend about some of the things I wrote I came to realize that I needed to take the blogs down right away.

I will be going through each post and really thinking about what I wrote.

The questions I will ask myself are:
1. Does the post convey the message I was trying to send
2. Does the post look like I am stuck on proving I am right
3. Does the post look like I am having a pity party - poor me always the victim
4. Does the post look like I am assigning blame or fault finding
5. How would I feel if someone had written that post about me
6. Are all my reference links still working

Some of my old posts will be done over completely while others will be scrapped. I left a couple up that I thought were acceptable as written.

I would like to thank my readers for bearing with me through the reconstruction of my site.