• Triple-Diamond 1¢ game: 7,200 coins = $72
• Wheel of Fortune 25¢ game: 1,000 coins = $250 on the damn bonus spin.

Down to my last $20, I decided to hang out at the 1¢ slots, betting a measly 18¢ a pop. Over the next hour or so, the slots whittled down my 2,000 coins to a pathetic 200 coins. This was not without its ups-and-downs, though. At first, I kept telling myself that I would quit when I got down to $15. This actually took a while since the machine would intermittently give me 50-80 coins back. But when I hit $15, I decided to keep going, telling myself that I would stop at $10. Again, it was this slow game of attrition. At $5, I moved over to another machine. The slow trickle of coins lost continued. I found myself mulling over the miserable failures and disappointments in my life.

At this point, I decided, what the hell, might as well get it over with, and bet the maximum 180 coins.

This rocketed me back up to $20. From then on I went for broke and kept throwing down $1.80 per spin. I was getting tired and I just wanted to go up to my room and put my head down for sec. Down to my last two spins, the machine decides to spit out 7,200 coins. Not bad for a 1¢ machine.

I cashed in my $72 and decided to go back to the Wheel of Fortune machines. On the third spin or so, I hit the bonus spin, but I was only able to get a measly 25 coins. Eventually, I ended up putting another $20 in, only to lose it. But instead of quitting, I moved over to another machine in the same bank. On the third spin, I hit the bonus spin. 1,000 coins. Yeeah!

Exhausted and exhilarated, I headed back upstairs. But I’m too awake to actually go to sleep, so I decided I would blog.

Vegas has always been a weird place for me. My parents love this place, and I’ve probably been here almost every year of my life, up until 2002. I didn’t come back again until August 2006.

I’ve found that trips to Vegas tend to presage big changes in my life. So I always get a little paranoid and anxious.

I wouldn’t say that I’m happy, not by a long shot. But I’m in an emotional state where there is a lot of inertia. I still get lonely sometimes. Actually, a lot. But the torture of trying to overcome that inertia seems to outweigh the discomfort of being alone. I make do.

In the end, there are a lot of more basic things I need to sort out in my life anyway. Besides charting my destiny once I finish residency, I really need to work on how I live life. I have come to the reluctant realization that the way I live my life is completely unsustainable. I need to learn discipline. Some sort of flow and balance. The other thing is that my health is completely shot out to hell. I need to start exercising. If only to get my HDL back into normal range.

Unsurprisingly, inertia is probably literally one of the most fundamental phenomenon in nature. The current thinking in physics right now is that, just as there are electromagnetic fields and gravity fields, there is a field called the Higgs field, generated by a particle that has never been observed called the Higgs boson, sometimes referred to as the God particle. There are some huge experiments attempting to find it. Not only will it explain why there is a difference in mass between the particles that mediate the four fundamental forces of nature, it will explain why mass exists at all. In Peter Higg’s theory, the reason why we need to exert energy to move things is because the Higgs field is resisting the acceleration. Somehow, we have come back to a theory where the aether (slightly reformulated, and modernized) may exist.

Don’t underestimate the power of inertia! It takes a ginormous amount of energy to start moving things around. Before you try and start a revolution, stop and think if you really want these things to move. And if you decide after lots of careful consideration that, yes, it’s a good idea, don’t stop until you’ve expended way more energy than you can possibly imagine. That’s how hard it is to make a change in destiny.

But it’s not impossible.