Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

I just read about a new, up and coming, casino game called 7-14-21. More information can be found on the Wizard Of Odds web site. There is also a online game if you have Adobe Shockwave Flash installed. The idea of the game is you get 6 cards and you have to build 3 hands of 2 cards each. There are no rules in how you build your hand. What you ideally end up with is a hand that totals 21, a hand that totals 14, and a hand that totals 7. Aces count 1 or 11 in any hand. If your hands don't bust (each one individually) they play against the dealer's hands - your 7 hand against the dealer's 7 hand, your 14 against their 14, and your 21 against their 21. It looks like there is no way to write down a strategy. But here's what I figured out: If you can make all three hands total 7, 14, and 21, then obviously do that. If you can make two of the three hands match the values (a 7 and a 21, for example), then do that, no matter what the third hand ends up with. If you ...

One of the things I enjoy doing at the end of every year is to look back at some stats. Today I decided to count up how many different airports I've been to since starting my current job in early 2007. That covers nearly 5 years worth of travel. It turns out that I've been to 56 different airports: ABE (Allentown, PA); ABQ (Albuquerque, NM); ATL (Atlanta, GA); BMI (Bloomington, IL); BNA (Nashville, TN); BOS (Boston, MA); BUF (Buffalo, NY); BWI (Baltimore, MD); CID (Cedar Rapids, IA); CLE (Cleveland, OH); CLT (Charlotte, NC); CMH (Columbus, OH); CSG (Columbus, GA); CUN (Cancun, Mexico); DCA (Washington, DC - Reagan); DEN (Denver, CO); DFW (Dallas, TX); DTW (Detroit, MI); EVV (Evansville, IN); EWR (Newark, NJ); GRR (Grand Rapids, MI); HPN (White Plains, NY); IAD (Washington, DC - Dulles); IND (Indianapolis, IN); LAS (Las Vegas, NV); LAX (Los Angeles, CA); LGA (New York, NY - LaGuardia); MCI (Kansas City, MO); MDW (Chicago, IL - Midway); MEX (Mexico City, Mexico); MGM (Montgomery...

I normally don't stock-pile miles -- I use them for free flights for vacation and stuff. For example, I used 50,000 miles to send my wife and her friend Jenny out to Washington, DC, earlier this year. Since I tend to use miles, I don't think I've ever reached the 100K mile level in my account until today: I could be wrong - I might have gotten there on other airlines in previous years, but I don't think so. I looked back at my records going back to 2008 and I don't see a time when I had 100,000 miles in the bank on any airline. The most I saw was nearly 70,000 miles on United before we moved to Bloomington (and I stopped flying United because they don't fly into BMI).

Following up on my previous travel updates , I officially got both my AA Platinum status and Hilton Diamond status for 2012. I'm in the middle of my last trip of the year right now. This is my 29th Hilton stay for the year (I needed 28), and after my trip out here I now have 60 American segments (I needed 60) and will end up with 62 segments after the return trip. That was cutting it WAY too close for the year - hopefully next year I can do it with a little more room to spare.

My wife bought me a Kindle Fire for my birthday. I have been busy loading it up with books, magazine subscriptions, and apps. I haven't bought any movies yet or put any songs on it yet. But I thought I'd write down what app my apps were, just in case I need this list sometime in the future. Here are the apps I've installed so far: All Recipes Dinner Spinner American Airlines Andoku Sudoku 2 Free Angry Birds Free Audible Calculator Ultimate Lite CalenGoo Craps ESPN ScoreCenter Fandango Movies Golf Digest Magazine Jewels MapQuest Notepad Read It Later Pro Real Blackjack SI Magazine Solitaire The Weather Channel TIME Magazine TripIt Urbanspoon