Fate of CMPPA

As most of you can guess, I am on a break from playing and running poker games. I have been spending time working and going to my lake place and fishing. That doesn't mean that poker has been totally forgotten. The CMPPA was formed last year by myself and a group of other local bar poker enthusiasts and has been semi successful so far. Membership has grown each year. From this has come the CMPPA Bar League. Something I have designed to give my bar players a chance to win bigger money by having a finals at a local Casino. We ran a 24 week season and then concluded a finals in March giving away $2800. We are currently in the second season and it is proceeding well with bar turn outs at all time highs. The problem is that I allowed one other bar to participate and charged them $600 for the 24 weeks. To this date they haven't paid and as of know the CMPPA is covering the money. It is an easy decision on what to do after this 24 weeks is up. I will continue using only my bars with the 3rd promotion and payout less money. Now what to do with other place. They have said that they will pay and I believe that at some point they will, but I hate to see this be the downfall of the CMPPA as an organization. They can't afford to loss the first $600 let alone another for this season that the bar committed to. It is a dilemma. The CMPPA could sue the bar and most likely would get all the money due. We even have a board member that is a lawyer and he constructed a letter to the bar to try and get the money, but all I think it did was piss the guy off. I am not real big on controversy so hopefully he will just pay up and the CMPPA can move or else this maybe the beginning of the end of the CMPPA. Then the next question is what if I don't go back to running or playing poker. How much do I want to be involved in an organization that I am not an active part of. Currently I have a lot of input into what happens in the group could I handle if all the decisions are made by others. There is a lot of uncertainty coming up. Well, maybe It will give me something to blog about!

Fishing Opener

Had a nice time this weekend for fishing opener. As most of you know it rained most of the day on Saturday and I am more of a fair weather fisherman so I did some of the work getting boats ready and took my wife to a few garage sales in the Alex area. Sunday was a beautiful day. I started out early and drove across the lake to a place where the crappies and sunfish usually come in first. Water temp was still low at 50 degrees, so it's a little early for crappies. I did manage to catch a few small sunfish, but at least the sun was shining! Later in the day, Debbie and I took out our new pontoon for it's first fishing trip. It doesn't go very fast, but I think we are going to like it alot. Caught a few more small sunfish and mostly hung out enjoying the sunshine. Tried a little walleye fishing but had no luck. I have Tuesday and Wednesday off and it's supposed to be nice again so maybe next trip. Maybe next time I will remember the camera for pictures.

A day to remember! May Day

May 1st, May Day used to be a day of taking baskets of candy to friends and neighbors homes. As a youngster it was a tradition that I remember well that most kids of today will never know about and now the day will have a new meaning to future generations. I don't usually like to talk of political things here, but with the news of Osama Bin Laden's death I think it ventures a discussion. After almost 10 years of grief the man behind 911 is finally brought to justice and even though it will make many feel better what does it really mean to our country. We still today on May 2nd have high unemployment rates and people still having their homes foreclosed on. Health care is still a mess and most of us still don't know when or how we will be able to retire. The future is still very much up in the air in this country and who knows if any president or congress will be able to fix it. They all seem to be more worried about keeping their jobs by blaming the others then actually fixing our country. I find it ironic that this country was founded by people that left other countries over high taxation only to start a country that now has just what they left for. Now, I am not down playing the US as there is still no where else I would rather live. All you need to do is go a third world country and you will realize how good we really have it here. The future is still very unsure for all of us. Will this death be the beginning of the end of terrorism or just bring on new attacks to our country. I guess only time will tell, for now, all you can say is great job by the military and CIA for bringing down the figure head of terrorism. Hopefully, someday, May Day will get it's meaning back as a day to give thanks for spring not as the day Bin Laden was killed.