Pins On Strings

Good afternoon everyone.  There is no reason why I should be writing this right now, and my best explanation is that I get to procrastinate from finishing my unpacking (and let's not lie to ourselves, that's not happening anytime soon anyway)...  You see, tomorrow I am scheduled to have my cable and internet hooked up, and I can type SO MUCH FASTER on my desktop keyboard than I can on this phone.  So yeah, we'll go with procrastinating.  Speaking of procrastinating, you'll be happy to know that after having been in a big Tupperware-like plastic container for the last 33 months, my desktop does still work, and while having no connection to the internet, I've been using it to play solataire and free cell to avoid unpacking...  :D  For you curious types, I've been using a tablet and wifi at my last two residences, and thus the desktop was packed away...

After some late night unpacking and time killing Thursday night, I woke up to a couple of very pleasant surprises on Friday.  This photo was in the very first status that appeared on my facebook Friday morning..

And this photo was in the very next status...

My eyes shot to my calendar after seeing the second picture, when I realized that these two superstars missed sharing the anniversary of my college graduation by one day.  Bianca and Alexia are a couple of San Marcos "kids" (remember, I'm 100 years old, so they're kids...) who graduated from my alma mater on Friday, both earning their degrees while working their way through school.  What a great way to wake up on Friday, and then I found this photo later on...

Now while Nicole and Taylor aren't from San Marcos (they're from San Antonio and New Braunfels, respectively, but nobody's perfect), these two cool kids both received their MBA's over the weekend after working their way through school.  Congratulations to all four of these superstars on becoming Bobcat Alumni!  I'm really proud of y'all...

And then there's this guy...

TWENTY-EIGHT years ago yesterday, I received my B.B.A. from what was then Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University).  If you've followed my blog or known me for any length of time, you know that my degree has allowed me to pursue several very interesting and fulfilling job opportunities.  Before this football season begins, I'll be taking sports bets in a state that had never had legal sports betting prior to this summer.  Anyway, I got to celebrate my 28th anniversary last night by eating pizza and bowling with some of my new coworkers.  And for those of you who are jealous of my glamorous lifestyle (driving across the country nonstop, playing solataire, eating pizza, bowling, etc...), know that I will be back at work FULL-TIME starting on Tuesday...  :)  Back to the bowling.  First, I'm disappointed to say that I only bowled a 245 (that would be a 100, followed by a 145)...  First time that I bowled in about twenty months, so sue me.  Second, Brandi, one of the cool kids from here in Mississippi, won the first game that we played.  This blog is the only concrete record of her victory, and if it comes up at work, I'll be like, "Brandi?  Win?  I don't think she even showed up.  Did anyone see her???"  Nice game Brandi...  ;)  Third, and this was interesting, the pins at the bowling alley are attached to strings.  Like I said, I'm 100 years old, but I've never seen this before.  So on the alleys that I'm used to, you knock down some pins (theoretically Nick) :) , this machine comes down and sweeps them away, and then the standing ones are reset.  Here at Big Play in Biloxi, the pins all dance on their strings like marionette puppets, but the pins were reset to the right spot everytime.  Pins on strings...  :)

Okay, that's enough for now, but I'll definitely have more for you soon.  The desktop keyboard simplifies things tremendously, so I really have no excuses...  Have a great week and I'll see you soon! 

Welcome To Mississippi

Good morning/afternoon everyone, depending on which part of the country/world you're in.  I'll probably end up posting this at about noon central time, give or take.  So, it's been a while (over two months), and a lot has happened.  My only internet access at the moment is on my phone, so forgive me if any of the formatting on this entry ends up looking out of whack when you read it...

When I last left you, the World Series of Poker was about to begin, and I was getting ready to play a lot of poker, which I did for about a month.  I met my friend Brian for breakfast on the morning of the Casino Employee's Event at the Hash House at the Rio, and then I proceeded to rail several friends who were playing in the event for hours that day.  For the next month, I played A LOT of poker (mostly at the Flamingo), but that's not all that was happening...

New Jersey won their Supreme Court case, which means that individual states now have the right to determine whether or not to offer sports betting to their residents.  Mississippi was one of the early states out of the gate, and one of my then-supervisors expressed interest in managing a sportsbook here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  Nothing was happening immediately because sportsbooks still had to be set up in Mississippi's casinos, sportsbook managers (and then staffs) had to be hired, etc, etc..., so after initially doing some research on Mississippi (and moving back closer to Texas), I resumed my poker-playing summer.  Then, once my friend Rob (now sportsbook manager) was hired in Mississippi, I expressed my interest in a possible transfer from Las Vegas, and began doing a lot more serious research about moving to the Magnolia State.  At this point, my friend needed to move his family south, find a place to live, begin working at our new casino, etc, so interviewing for a job was still several weeks out...

NOTE:  In my defense, this is why I haven't written a blog entry in more than two months, because I didn't know what was going to be happening in my world.  Long story short, I was offered the opportunity to transfer, and very soon I'll be taking bets at Harrah's Gulf Coast.  Of course this meant moving from Las Vegas to Biloxi, Mississippi.  On Monday morning, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. Vegas time to finish packing and cleaning my apartment.  At a little after 9:00 a.m., I was able to load everything I was moving to Biloxi in LESS THAN AN HOUR thanks to a HUGE ASSIST from my "pit crew."  My brother, his wife, my nephew, and my friend Geoff had me packed up and leaving Las Vegas by 10:00 a.m. 

Before you judge me for what I'm about to type, know that I had slept for 14 of the 28 hours before waking up at 4:30 a.m...  My plan was to drive from Las Vegas to Biloxi nonstop.  For those of you who have followed my previous exploits, you know that this goal was within my reach.  Soooo, I left Las Vegas at about 10:00 a.m. PST (noon CST), and I arrived safely in Biloxi at 5:30 p.m. CST, about 29 1/2 hours later, having been awake for about 35 straight hours.  I don't know if I should tell y'all about the part where I unnecessarily added more than an hour to my drive by taking a wrong turn into New Orleans, and then having to come back north through Slidell, Louisiana before reaching Biloxi.  Nah, I'll leave that out...  :)  Thanks again to all of you facebook friends who shared my journey with me and supported me with yoour 'likes' and your witty comments.  For those of you not linked to me on facebook, I drive with my phone off, but update my status/location when I stop every 2-3 hours to get gas/food/use the restroom, etc... 

Yes, for my clever friends that like making witty comments about food, there has been some dining involved on this adventure.  :)  The first three photos are from the buffet at our Harrah's Gulf Coast property, where I stayed for the first three nights after arriving in town, and the last is from Sal & Mookie's, a very popular pizza joint (45-minute wait last night) here in Biloxi.  My friend Nick (who also transferred here from Las Vegas) treated me to the pizza last night. 

That's all I'm gonna write for now, because I could go on for hours, but I've got PLENTY of unpacking to do.  However, there will be much more to talk about in the future, for sure.  This little blog did go over 130,000 pageviews today, and in case you haven't noticed, she's been renamed, again...  ;)  Have a great week, and I'll see you soon...