Another Chapter In My Life Closes.......

*edit* This post was started on 6/28 and finished on 7/8. Referenced to specific days will therefore be somewhat confusing.*end edit*

It has been WAY too long since I posted. For the one or two of you who actually read this drivel, I apologize...........
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I have been pondering what a blog should be. I regularly read a bunch of poker blogs and have concluded that I like the ones that explore the human side of the game and dislike the ones with card by card and bet by bet analysis. I KNOW that the study of the game is the only way to improve, but halfway through a hand history I drift off.......... And, for me at least, a detour from poker is welcome at times. When you spend your working hours delivering cards to the poker masses and a fair amount of your free time playing cards, there are sporatic times that poker is the last thing you want to read about.
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I am now into my 38th day of slot machine sobriety. As a matter of full disclosure, I still play free/bonus play, but I don't put any of my own money into the machines. Cheating? Perhaps. But a good test for me. Once the free play $$ is gone, so am I. Eventually the free play offers will dry up and blow away.........so be it.
Today as I was taking advantage of $45 worth of free play at the Casuarina Casino I happened to glance sideways and caught a glimpse of a young woman breast feeding her infant child. I was NOT staring by any stretch of the imagination. She seemed embarrased.... I wanted to tell her that it was LV for chrissakes. No need to be modest.... and besides that it struck me, as it always does, as a tender moment of bonding.........regardless of the fact that it took place in the middle of a casino. Now the time I dealt to the bra-less woman in a fish-net top with her nipples poking out through the fish-net is another matter entirely.
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In a proverbial nutshell, this is my life:
Kid Stuff
Graduate High School
Graduate College
15 years in the real world.......Distribution Management. Hated It. At least I hated the last 5 years of that endeavor.
Chuck it all and move to LV with no job prospects.
Entertain pipe dream of not working for 1 year.
Reevaluate delusion and start poker dealing school (estimated completion--6 weeks)
Get a call from Gene asking if I was ready to start dealing. (after 6 days/2 hrs per day of class)
Tell him HELL NO.
He tells me to go to HR the next day and start work.
Baptism by Fire.

For the last 19 months I have been on the Extra Board. Essentially part time work. Mainy 4 days a week, but sometimes 5 and sometimes 3. At the Palms, as long as you average 24 hours per week you get benefits. I don't know of many/any other casinos who offer this benefit to their part-timers. I have jokingly told many people that I was semi-retired. As of today I came out of semi-retirement and joined the 5 day a week crowd.
There were many benefits to being "extra". I had great days off (I was off Thurs, Fri and Sat). It was extremely painless to switch days or get days off. So WHY did I decide to go full time?
Well, to be honest, the specter of a poker slow-down scared me. I tend to see the glass as half-full even when the glass overfloweth. Most others don't share my SHORT TERM view, but I don't see the poker explosion as being in it's infancy. I truly hope that I am WRONG, but who knows. Working 4 days a week allowed me a decent living. Five days will certainly give me more disposable income, but a three day work week (predicated on a poker slow down) was not a pleasant thought. In any case, as of 1PM on Friday I have a full time shift with Wednesday and Thursday off. This will trespass on the Saturday night Pan/Poker/Big 2 game, but I will try to EO on those days and the worst case scenario is that I get to the game around 9:30PM.
Speaking of Big 2, I had one of my worst ever runs in that game last night. I lost 160 units and I only threw the deck across the room once. No small miracle. Today I funded my Superior Poker account. That site has to be one of the most unusual. They spread various poker games as well as Pan, Big 2, Guts and Chinese Poker. As I type, there are only about 2,000 active players on the whole site. I guess there is not much demand for Big 2 tables. I played Big 2 for about an hour and won 100 units. You don't need a crystal ball to know that I will spend many many hours there.
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I recently flew to Maryland for a family reunion and for my only nephew's 4th birthday party. The way I have it figured, there is exactly one person in the world who idolizes me, my nephew. I thoroughly enjoyed the time at home away from the bright lights/big city of LV. I have lived in several places, but none of them has really been home. For me, at least, you CAN go home again......at least for a week or so at a time.