In exactly 3 weeks I'll be leaving for Las Vegas. It wasn't my plan. And I love that. In fact it's a plan that's been brewing for about 10 years. Let me take you back 10 years to where it all began.

I had graduated high school and attended University for a year when the new Casino in Halifax had just opened. Up until this point I hadn't thought much about gambling or casinos. It was a novel place to go and watch all the people and maybe put a few quarters in a slot machine. Right away I knew slots weren't my game. No thought involved. No challenge, just pay..lose..pay..lose..pay..win..pay..lose... you get the point. It reminds me of those videos you see in pysch class with the dog training, pavlovs dog I think it was?

That summer, we'll say summer of '94, not sure but it was close to that. My best friend BAJ and I decided to master the game of Blackjack! We would go many weekends with about $100 and play Blackjack. We did this instead of going to the pubs every weekend which up until this point was the standard Halifax entertainment for the 21 y/o degenerate. It was an interesting run that summer. Neither of us lost too much money and we felt that there was potential in this game for making a few bucks.

For whatever reason, I never ended up playing much more Blackjack after that summer. BAJ on the otherhand is still plugging away and had gone through some pretty big swings before leveling out his game to a fairly consistant level. Even though I only returned to bj several times in the next 10 years, the seed of gambling had been planted. It would be almost 10 years until I discover poker.

BAJ is a character. My best man. A free thinker. And most notably a good person. He believes in living life. There are many sides to him. One that stands out immediatly to most people is the storyteller. BAJ has a little less shame than most people. This lends itself to some very entertaining stories about the odd situations he tends to find himself in. When BAJ and I get together, we feed off each others appetite for adventure. We've gotten ourselves into some sticky situations in the past and have always managed to come out relativly unscathed, but with some great stories! ;) I'll drop a few of these on you in the lead up to the Vegas trip.