Let's get started.

Well I finally decided to go ahead and start writing on this blog since I took the time to set the whole thing up months ago I should use it. Plus I'm on vacation from work this week so it seems like the best time to start.
The direction of this blog will probably be all over the place due to my strange mind and habits. I think I will write about things that pop into my head and things that are important to me.
First off I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma but would spend 3 months a year out in the Bay Area of California with my father's family so I could call both places home. I was a pretty good football player and a two way starter before a broken leg killed all that. 2 operations and a steel plate with 12 screws has left me able to tell when it is going to rain or a cold front is coming in.
I went to college in Dallas at a small university in Richardson called UTD and have a degree in English Lit of all things! If one sees spelling errors on this blog I never said my degree was in English Grammer. I was going to teach but due to the low pay and the fact that my mother got ill, I decided to move back to Oklahoma to live and learned I would have to have another some 40 more hours of education in order to teach here. That killed the deal.
In my life I have worked at a number of jobs such as House Painter, OSBI dispatcher, hotel clerk, janitor, bank guard, police dispatcher, inventory clerk, security manager for office building and radio station, and finally my present job of 15 years in the oil and gas field. Oh, I really don't work in the oil and gas part but in the security console operations side of it.
In '96 I went to Las Vegas for the first time and feel in love within the first hour of being there and it has lasted all the way to present time. At first I played only blackjack and studied the game, learned to count cards and really was pretty good at grinding away small profits most trips. Since I make 3 to 4 trips a year to Las Vegas winning small amounts like 3 or 4 hundred dollars a trip wouldn't even pay for the airfare, rooms and food so I would end up in the hole.
I then turned to dice and baccarat as my games of choice. Even though the winning sessions could be huge with these games during a lucky run the winning sessions would sometimes be hard in coming. It was then in 2006 that I came across the game of Video Poker.
I started out by buying all of the software and books on it and joined all of the forums etc., and my results were much better than past trips plus the comps where much better too. Problem was that I was really just breaking even on the whole thing and wanted more. I kept looking for a new and better approach to the game than the way the masses play it but using what they call "the longterm strategy". Finally in 2008 I came across a pro player from Arizona who had a radical and new approach to the game. He even trained me for free and we would email and talk over the phone many times as I was learning this new and much better approach to the game.
My results on my trips started to show real progress. In 2008 during 3 trips I won 2K, 800 and 600 on my 3 trips. In 2009 the free room offers started showing up as well and during 4 trips in 2009 my rooms were all totally free which really helps in the bottom line. With only having to win enough to pay for airfare most of my trips were winners. The results last year were 1200, 800, 1600 and finally 20 bucks! Yes that is right during my trip last November I only came home with a 20 dollar profit.
The problem I'm running into is the need to play at a higher denomination in order to have this whole thing turn into a money making kind of thing. I only have had 1 trip so far this year where I won 400 bucks in April and stayed for free 2 nights at the Luxor and 2 nights a The M.
Changing gears a little bit. On the world stage my views tend to lean to the right on most things. I vote independent and really do think that our country is headed in a very wrong direction right now that could prove to be our undoing unless something radical happens come the November elections.

Well there is my opening blog. I'm glad I finally got it done and now maybe I will take off and start blogging. As you can very well see with the above comments my mind does tend to go off in different directions at times and will probably do so again in the future. It should be fun.