About those chips...

I never did order those labels, so they still look the same. I never tried to renegotiate the deal to let me play poker online for money (eventhough I think I've found my profit game, low blind, no-limit hold'em). And I doubt I will, what with the ridiculous Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 and all. Of course, that doesn't prohibit me, or anyone else, from playing, or even gambling, online. But it does prohibit US banks from doing money transfers to or from online gambling sites. Of course, it's not that simple, but you get the main jist. Anyway, that makes it a lot more difficult to get money to and from the poker sites I would play at.

I'm still planning on getting those labels, though.

Good night.

Again.

Where am I?! Ping-Pong match!

Well, things have been quiet in my hometown of Lake Woeb---

Whoops! Better cut that out before I get sued. Not that anyone reads this. Obviously, since I haven't posted anything in over 16 months!

Well, for those of you who know us, we've been in Peru for quite awhile. We left there in December and we've been in California since then. We'll be moving on to El Salvador at the end of the month.

Last week we went to Tahoe. I went skiing for the first time in about 14 years (and the first time on a mountain). Calvin had his first skiing lesson and we all went sledding. The dogs had the BEST time playing in the snow. Of course, it was all we could do to keep them from running off into the woods! I also went to the casino and played no-limit Texas Hold'em. I won 400 bucks! Then I went the next night and lost $200. Still, I'm up $200! That's pretty freakin' good! I'll take it.

So, in other words, we all had a pretty good time.

So, I figured, since we were having such a good time, I'd start blogging again. Here's some of the things that have happened to me (or that I made happen) over the past 16 months:

• I learned how to surf!!!! That's a pretty big one. I both made it happen and had it happen to me. I made it happen by going down to the beach to take lessons. I hadn't called the instructor or made any arrangements to meet him there. I just figured I'd go down and talk to the guy. Well, when it came down to the moment of truth, I chickened out and walked right past him! I was about to totally chicken out and go home when the guy on the beach I had talked to moments before about taking lessons from this other guy pointed me out to him. So, I was forced to explain why I came down and why I didn't just say, "Hi! I'm Gram. I wanna take surfing lessons." I'm an idiot.
• I worked at the Commisary. Very exciting. It wasn't too bad. Until the cool manager left and I ended up working for... well, I'll keep this diplomatic. No comment.
• I stopped playing poker online so much. It's not like I was playing for money, and sitting on my ass all day only chatting with people I had never actually met face to face was literally driving me insane. By Thanksgiving 2005, when I took a trip back to Chicago and St. Paul, I was crawling out of my skin.
• We did some more travelling around Peru. We went back to the Amazon for our last trip. What an amazing place! Did you know that the Amazon has dolphins? And not just one type, but two! I've only ever seen a stretch of the river that takes 2-3 hours to traverse by speedboat. If you were to look at that stretch on a map of the continent, I mean a good sized map, the kind you'd fold out on the bed, it would amount to less than an inch. Probably less than a quarter of an inch. The river itself would be 2 to 2-1/2 feet long. I've seen less than a hundredth of the river and it took me 2-3 hours to cross. That's freaking huge! Like I said, it's incredible. Check it out.

Well, that's enough for now, I think. I'll write more tomorrow. Maybe it'll be something with substance, but I doubt it.

Good night.