Someone Who Admires a Really Good Deal
There is no particular news hook to what I’m going to tell you, but still, I find Terri Siegler interesting, and that’s good enough for me.
Siegler wants to take some of the gamble out of gambling.
She sees people getting on planes to Las Vegas and she wonders: Why don’t they spend a little money and learn something about the gaming arts rather than be sheep at shearing time?
She’s 44 and from Chicago. She was a croupier on the Carnival Cruise Lines and later the Cable Beach Casino (now the Crystal Palace) in Nassau, Bahamas.
She dealt blackjack to Sean Connery, Julio Iglesias, Julian Lennon, Zsa Zsa Gabor and the entire band of pop star Sade. She shot craps with rocker Huey Lewis.
She got tired of island life and returned to Chicago. She came to San Diego in 1989 to manage a Sluggo’s outlet in Hillcrest for fellow Chicagoan Norm Lebovitz, but it didn’t work out.
Now she lives in Mission Hills and works at the Viejas Indian Reservation Casino in Alpine dealing California 21 (“Dealer hits 16, stands on all 17s . . . Double down on two card, 10 or 11 only . . . split any pair, etc.”)
She admires a good dealer like others admire a fine wine: “I love to watch a good craps dealer who has good hand movements. It just mesmerizes me. It’s an art.”
There’s just something about the gaming life that enthralls her. She admits it:
“It’s my personality. It’s kind of loud. I’m kind of loud. It’s fast, with lots of action, lots of movement. I love it.”
Her heart, though, is in teaching. She teaches through the Learning Annex and her own Casino Strategies.
It a labor of love (although she does charge a few quid). She says that, in four hours, she can have people proficient at craps, three hours for blackjack.
“I’m a Leo, so I’m a bit of a ham,” she says. “I just took a Dale Carnegie course on public speaking. That was one of the high points of my life.”
She notes that even in the best of games, the odds heavily favor the house, so it behooves you to know the angles.
“You can’t go in and plop down your money and figure to win regularly,” she says. “They didn’t build all those big casinos in Las Vegas with money from winners.”
They Saw it Coming
More of the same.
Diane Mae Newman Gregerson, the Oceanside prophetess, isn’t the only local seer to call the presidential election correctly.
There’s also astrologer Peter Stern, who made his Bush-will-be-defeated prediction in the Phoenix Phyre Bookstore in Leucadia last January.
Besides politics, he dabbles in even more risky ventures: He does stock and real estate predictions.
Attorney Michael Aguirre announces Tuesday that he’s a candidate to replace Bob Filner on the San Diego City Council.
Social activist Andrea Skorepa is also in the race. Both Aguirre and Skorepa have been previous losers.
Eric Heath reports a bumper sticker from Oceanside: “Drive Carefully: 90% of People Are Caused by Accidents.”
Chris O’Hara of San Diego checks in with one from Mission Valley: “Inhale to the Chief.”
The next hot ballot initiative may involve the Cleveland National Forest.
Petition passers are seeking signatures for a measure that would block development in the privately owned parts of the forest.
“Sightings,” the Fox TV show about strange phenomena, is interested in the case of Michael Orrell, the San Diego drywaller and UFO spotter.
Taking Aim at Attorneys
Some joker is faxing to San Diego offices a document purporting/alleging/suggesting to be a bill submitted to the Texas Legislature allowing anyone with an armadillo hunting license to also hunt attorneys “for recreational and sporting purposes.”
Among the provisions:
“It is unlawful to hunt attorneys within 100 yards of BMW, Porsche or Mercedes dealerships except on Wednesday afternoons.”
And: “If an attorney gains elective office, it is not necessary to have a license to hunt, trap or possess same.”
And: “It is unlawful for a hunter to wear a disguise as a reporter, accident victim, physician, chiropractor or tax accountant for the purpose of hunting attorneys.”
