I lost 55 dollars thanks to Bobby Knight

My Grandma is a pretty cool lady. The bulk of my friends know and love her. She is a fun lady with lots of advice, which she will tell you to take with a grain of salt. Prime example, when I met up with her for my birthday this year she offered me $100 to get up on the table and dance. I don't think she realized how much I am my father's daughter. I am still waiting for her to divvy up.

I went out with her this past Saturday to Rising Star Casino. She had free tickets to see Bobby Knight and I had nothing else planned. I'm not going to lie and say that I am an IU fan. I am not. When it comes to college basketball the only team I am a fan of is the team that is playing against Duke. Duke just rubs me the wrong way.

That said, I was still interested in what he had to say. In the general sense I am interested in what anyone has to say. If I could get a job where all I had to do was listen to people talk about themselves I'd take it in a heartbeat. Everyone's life is a story. Whether or not I agree with what they have done, believe, or want out of life isn't important. There is something to be learned from everyone. Even if the only lesson is, don't feed outside cats because they might one day take over your house and whole existence. That is still a good lesson to know.

We got to the casino at around 5:30 pm. Again, I am my fathers daughter and by that point I was starving. Growing up my family ate dinner with the blue hairs. Originally it was because it is easier to find a table at that time and cheaper. Now it is because our bodies have adapted to it.

We ate at the casino's buffet, which when my Grandma originally mentioned it made me laugh. All I could think of was this scene from Vegas vacation. Then again it seemed like the right move, seeing as how casino and buffet are synonymous in some way.

I was actually very surprised. The buffet's theme was seafood. I wasn't daring enough to try the lukewarm sushi they had there but I did try the crab legs. I've never had crab legs before. In truth I am terrified of crabs. They look like mean aliens. They didn't taste amazing. They weren't to die for. It was, however, strangely gratifying to crush and eat the limbs of something that would normally make me scream and run in the other direction. They also had prime rib at the seafood buffet. Which either means it came from a manatee (a sea cow) or someone's confused about land and water. Still, my usual objection to buffets aside it was good.

After that was when we made our first round to the slot machines. There were some signs I should have listened to before I started playing. Sign number one, I did not bring money with me. I had to go to the ATM, which charged me $3. Sign number two, before I started playing, the person at the slot machine next to me put in a $100 bill. That made me cringe. In the 5 seconds it took for the person to do that I thought of 1,000 cooler things to do with that $100. Sign number three,  I won $8 on my first spin and thought, "Maybe I should stop now."

I am normally very much a scrooge with my money. For the past three months I have been thinking about buying a new lens for my telescope. The ones I've been looking at run around $30-$40. I've been doing research and digging around to make sure I would get the best ones for the right price for three months. Keep in mind this is my normal mentality. I coupon for crying out loud.

Yet Casino Laura seems to be much different than Normal Run of the Mill Every Day Laura. In one hour I managed to gamble away $20. At the time I thought nothing of it. Had that been the whole story of my gambling night, it really wouldn't bother me. What I did get was about $20 worth of entertainment at the time.

An hour into my run with gambling, we headed to the casino's entertainment hall. It was festival seating. We actually managed to get pretty good seats. The pictures don't make it look that way. The lighting messed with the picture on my normally okay camera phone.

Not so great picture

I really didn't know what to expect. If you had asked me about Bobby Knight before this night all I could tell you was he coached at Indiana University and threw chairs. When he came out on stage, he reminded me of a foul mouthed Mr. Rogers. I don't know if that was because of the sweater he was wearing or the moral of the stories he was telling.

The message he preached was focus on the negative to bring about positive results. The thought behind that is to focus on all of the negative things that could happen. If you do that and prevent them from happening  in theory only good things will come your way. It is a very good message. Especially in sports.

It was actually a message that I already knew, and just needed a reminder. Growing up my Dad coached me in a lot of the sports that I played. My family is very competitive. We worked our butts off and had fun doing it. Honestly, I miss those days of being able to get out on the court. Not to sound stuck up or mean, but there is nothing like that feeling you get when you know you outplayed your opponent.

In grade school I was a very good volleyball player. When I served the ball I could place it anywhere I wanted to on the court. My serve was considerably fast and hard for my opponents not to shank. I am normally a modest person, but this is a fact. By grade school standards, I was good. My Dad though was that constant reminder of no matter how good you are, you can always be better and you can always get worse.

Most teams when they made a good play would celebrate. They would have some kind of cheer for before they got out on the court. They would have some prepared rhyme to say when they made good plays. They would chant stuff at you when you messed up.

Any team that I was on with my Dad as the coach, that was not allowed. We prayed before each game and said somethings to pep ourselves up, but nothing overtly saying "We are amazing". The most celebrating on the court we were allowed to do was to high fives between plays. His motto was, "Pretend like you have been there before." Five points up or ten points down. You focus on what you can do better, and don't get overly excited. How much more intimidating are you if you don't jump up and down and scream for joy when you managed to score a difficult point? How much easier is it for you when you take the game one point at a time and don't focus on how many points you are down?

I make my Dad sound like a hard ass. He wasn't. He gave us our props when they were due. However, he didn't sing them to high heaven. It would be more along the lines of, "That was great guys. Now let's focus on staying on our toes before each play. A lot of you had flat feet out there." Whether he intended this or not, I learned from him that it is better to stay in the moment than focus on the past. Yes, that could have been a good play. I could have just recently made the worst play of the game. Either way that doesn't matter. If you don't put more focus on what is going on in the game now, you aren't playing at your best. Come to think of it, that is a pretty good motto for life.

Bobby Knight spoke about all of that. He used more colorful language than I did. But still in general that was his message. It is strange to think that I would put my Dad's way of coaching in line with Bobby Knight. My Dad isn't a yeller. There are a few times I can remember him disagreeing with an official, but not yelling at them. Maybe that had to do with the fact that at that age most of our officials were high school students. Either way he would never throw a chair.

The talk went on for maybe two hours. He shared a lot of stories and answered questions. He drilled into people's heads that they should buy his book. In the end I did enjoy his talk. I could have done without some of the potty mouthing. Then again that seems to be who he is.

My Grandma and I left after the speech. As we got on the road she said, "Let's take a detour to Hollywood Casino." It was late. In the back of my mind a little voice was screaming, "NOOOO!" It was a little voice though and very easy to ignore.

Walking in I had to sign up for a players card. The whole time in the back of my mind I was thinking, "What the heck am I doing?" Again, that voice was in the back of my mind. Probably locked in the broom closet.

I sat down next to my Grandma, and the next thing I knew I blew $35 without even thinking about it. No, I wasn't drinking. I had a drink earlier but nothing that would impair my judgement. It was just that easy to let that money slip. On the machine they don't show the $20 you put in as $20. They display it as 80 credits. It is a lot easier to bet 8 credits than it is to bet $2. We left shortly after that.

That was 5 days ago and I keep kicking myself for it. I lost $55 and don't have anything to show for it. With Casino Laura safely locked away

and Normal Laura back all I can think of is, "I could have bought one heck of a lens for my telescope with that money." I actually told my Dad about it. He even said that was not like me at all and at least I know better for next time. Taking my Dad and Bobby Knight's advice into play, I am going to focus on all of the negative things in the future when it comes to going to the casino. That way it will only bring about the positive result of my money staying where it belongs, in my pocket.