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...
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