Yesterday evening I drove back to the Hard Rock, hoping for a quieter visit. My hunch paid off, as there were plenty of parking spaces on the blacktop lot and nobody on the beanfield. Listen carefully and you can hear the beans cheering. The place wasn't exactly deserted but plenty of empty seats throughout. Only 4 tables were open. Strangely, no white $1 chips on any of them.

The Grand Opening $25 chips are all gone - sold in the first hour after the doors opened. This was told to me by the Player's Club lady, a table dealer in the high limit room, and the clerk in the gift shop. So don't fault me for not looking; I never got to those places amid the opening-night crowd. I saw Sheryl Crow's guitar and John Lennon's tweed hat. Big deals!

Ate at In-N-Out in the Laval Road service plaza south of the casino. Oh, that access road into the casino . . . still not completed, so I had to backtrack and drive through downtown Mettler to the Wholesale Fuels tank yard and double back again. Not easy in the darkness. I won a little on Huff & Puff Puff, so at least the slot machines are on the level, sort of.