"When are you going to update your blog?"

That is a comment I heard frequently in July and August, less so in September and October as Amy figured I had given up blogging completely. It's weird how often after I return from Vegas I am kind of burned out on poker and let the blog marinate for months at a time (a good five solid months in 2006, in fact).

I played little poker after I returned home, but have been firing up the online games at more regular intervals in the last month or so. I have been on a tear in the month of October that I don't want to discuss too much for fear of bringing the bragging curse upon myself. Perhaps at the end of the month if I show a tidy profit will I discuss those recent adventures on the virtual felt.

It's been an exciting and trying time since the end of June. Good news first -- we found out we are having a boy! We are naming him John Harper Kampis. He will be the fourth generation John/Johnny on my side of the family, and Harper is Amy's maiden name and just so happens to work well as a boy's name. So there that is. While that is new news on Poker Nation it's old hat for us. Shows how long it's been since I posted. In fact, we are now less than two months from Amy's due date of Dec. 15. We have the nursery painted and now I need to vacuum and steam clean the floor and get the windows fixed. Then it will be time to start putting in the furniture and decorating.





They say he looks like me, but I don't know how you can tell that from the ultrasound pics.

The sad news was that my grandmother passed away. She had battled brain cancer for more than a year and complications from that finally took her from us. I was particularly close to "Nannie" because she and Papa lived just down the road from us so I saw them nearly every day growing up. Papa died from liver cancer in 1998 and my maternal grandparents each died in 1999 and 2000. So Nannie was the only grandparent I had for nine years. She was the kindest, most generous woman you could ever hope to meet. She taught two and three-year-old Sunday School classes for decades and attended the same church for about 50 years. She will be forever missed.



In the months I slacked off from posting on this blog I let the five-year anniversary of Poker Nation pass without notice. My first post on here was Oct. 4, 2004. I enjoy reflecting back on that time and how much my life has changed in the last five years. In the fall of 2004 I was filled with hubris. I was winning consistently at the poker table and about to head up to Foxwoods for the World Poker Finals. I was considering leaving my newspaper job the next summer to go off on my own poker/freelance journey, a decision I would make in a few short months after that first post. That was originally intended as a one-year break that turned into four years, four months and counting, with grad school, marriage, and an impending baby along the way. Oh what a journey it has been. I'll reflect more on that in the coming weeks (I promise!)

I still have the people of Nicaragua in my heart, but the photos were on my now dead laptop. My tech pro cousin is in the process of transferring my hard drive to my new laptop so I hope to finally put up some trip reports soon. I talk often with my fellow church members who went on the trip, and every single one can't wait to return. Despite the heat, the hard work, the longing for home it's all worth it to see what a huge difference you can make in the lives of a few people.