Hello, friends...

Long time, no blog, but hey, I don't get paid for this thing! Seriously, sorry to have been gone, but the vacation was...well...as you see the pic below... A BLAST! Corny, but true. The family enjoyed a wonderful time at Disney, taking in Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. We hit H-wood on Sunday, but rains forced us inside after a quick visit. That park wasn't all that great, so I don't feel like we missed much, but then again, when you don't see all of it, how do you know? I wasn't disappointed to not go back.

Of course, the Magic Kingdom is mother of all parks there, and we actually made 3 (or was it 4) separate trips to see it all. It was fun. Going between all the sub-parks (from Tomorrowland to Fantasyland to Frontierland) means it's going to be a long day, but rather than do the entire park in a day, we broke it up, and that was much better. Park during the day, hit the pool in the height of the heat, come back at night...props to Mrs. Chipstack for that idea--worked like a charm.

Animal Kingdom was a fairly cool park--although it was more zoo than park. Not much in the way of rides and coasters, but if you like animals, it was perfect to get an up close view of tigers, elephants, gorillas, or even a meerkat (seen above). We took a couple of rides through "safari-like" places, which was neat, and the other kinda cool part about Animal Kingdom is that the sub-parks are broken up into continents--there is the Asia park, Africa, etc, and all offer something unique based upon the part of the world they are from.Now, I did say Animal Kingdom was thin on rides, but it did have a doozy (as told to me by Mrs. Chipstack--I'm not a ride person). The Mount Everest coaster rolls through the above pic (although you can't see the track from this, in my opinion, very cool angle above). It was described as "steep climb up, then roll to a stop, roll backwards, get chased by a Yeti, and then drop." Sounds fun. Someone else can go ahead of me.

We saw fireworks, enjoyed parades, beat the heat with ice cream and dips in the pool, and most of all, tried our best to relax. Granted, 2 kids, one of them in a wheelchair, and a mother-in-law isn't exactly the recipe for relaxation at a theme park--or in this case 4 theme parks. Still, the smiling faces of the kids made it all worth the pain in my legs, the sunburn on my arms and ears, and the dent in the wallet.

Now, there are 2 more pics to share--it was my quest to get a really nice picture of the leader of the club....Mickey Mouse. I tried on several occasions for the perfect shot--in parades, or in shows, or anywhere that darn mouse was hanging around. I was watching one of the shows with our wheelchair-bound kiddo, and thought, "this is gonna be my best place--good sight line, good lighting, this is it." Grab the camera, set up, wait....wait....wait for the perfect moment...and SNAP IT!!!!

Damn mouse blinked! I did manage to get this one snapped off, and this ended up being the best Mickey pic I got.

All in all, a great time was had by all.

Of course, this is supposed to be a poker blog, but with no poker played, no poker to talk about. Poker After Dark continues to be in re-runs, the National Heads Up tourney began coverage on Sunday (nice), but most of all, the regular season finale for the league is this Saturday. For me to win the Player of the Year title, I have to finish no worse than 2nd, and the leader has to score 0 points. Even if it doesn't happen like I hope it will, I am pretty happy with my season overall. Couple bad mistakes hurt my chances to being the points leader coming into this one, but at least they were mistakes, and not bad beats. Sure, mistakes can get me down, but at least they are fixable, once identified. Bad beats just hurt more.

Anyway, good luck, and good cards!
~M