Everyone that knows me knows I live the risk/rewards philosophy. I’ve always been willing to take risk in my business and personal life if I thought the reward would be worth it. I’ve been lucky enough to know many successful people and they all have a few things in common.

1. They believe in hard work

2. They are early risers and work long hours

3. they understand that you must take risks to get rewarded

4. They keep their priorities straight

This week I decided to take another risk and opportunity to improve my knowledge and experience. I decided to sell a very successful website Ridgepoker.com. If you know me, you know that this site is my baby and it was hard to part with it. I know that this change will allow me to archive my overall goals and improve the forum community. Now, I know many people that think “why change a good thing”? That is a great question, and it’s a question usually asked by people who have spent years being content with “good enough”. That is a dangerous and destructive way of thinking and not the mindset of a successful person.

In business and life you must take calculated risks to get where you want to be. You goals should be to constantly improve your position in life. You won’t get there by hoping someone hands you what you want. You must find a way to take it. One of my favorite quotes is: “The harder I work, the luckier I get”

I challenge everyone reading this to take inventory of your life and business and ask the hard questions. I’m not talking about how much money you have. I’m talking about your quality of life and getting what YOU want out of life. We all know miserable people with plenty of money. Money doesn’t make happiness. Am I happy about where I’m at in life? Can should i be doing more? What will it take? What is my reward?

Once you take stock, you will know if you are where you want to be. If you’re there, congrats, you deserve it because you worked hard. If not, it’s time to do something about it.

I’ve lived in Arkansas most of my life. I’ve traveled all over the world, but this place is by far one of the most unique areas of the world. We are in the middle of the Bible belt and there are several places called “Dry Counties” where you cannot buy or possess alcohol. So, as you can imagine there are plenty of hypocrites that live here too.

Surprisingly enough, poker is an acceptable past time for most preachers, sheriff, and just about everyone else in Arkansas. Poker in Arkansas is just as illegal as other forms of gambling as defined in our state laws, but almost every town allows poker to be played in Local VFW chapter and American Veterans buildings. Of course everyone knows someone who hosts a game at their house, but most of the time too many people know about it and they are prime targets to be robbed or raided. Home games are prime targets because most of the time they go unreported for obvious reasons.

Finding a legal poker game in Arkansas takes very little effort and offers comfort and safety. The easiest way to find a legitimate game is to find your local VFW or Amvets building and find out a schedule. They all offer weekly tournaments and juicy cash games. Since the games are not raked and therefore exempt from State and Local gambling laws. All that is required is that you buy an annual membership which is usually around $25. After you get your membership you will be able to play in all the games rake free without worrying about breaking the law. 

So, if you are itching to play some “live” poker and don’t have the time to travel to Las Vegas or Tunica, try finding out where the games in your area. In my area the local VFW chapter is in Batesville and they play poker every night except on Sunday. 

Things have gotten much better for my family and I since my last post. Our electricity came on very unexpectedly yesterday about 12pm. We are part of the small handful of houses in our county with power. We live about 1/2 from a little town in another county and they wired us into their grind. We are really thankful!

We have spent the last day or two cleaning up around our property and cleaning the house. My wife and I keep talking about how fortunate we are and how fortunate our whole town is. There was only one person that was killed here in town. It was a woman everyone knows, she was the return manager at Walmart. One of those nice ladies who never questions what you are returning items, she would just take it and give you a refund or whatever.

The other thing that I keep thinking about is how random this whole event was.We are being told now that there was actually three tornados in our county. One went through part of downtown, one went through a small community north of town called Sunnyland, and the other went just on the other side of the hill by my house. They were all F4 tornados and a little bit this way and I doubt I would be blogging right now. It was all so random and fast.

Well, it’s been two days since the tornado hit our little town. It looks like we won’t have electricity for at least a week, and maybe two. There is still a ton of clean up to do and not having power and the ability to run to town and get basic things in making life a bit of a challenge.

Tuesday night, when this all started, I was driving home from work. I left the office about 5:30 and it takes at least 45 minutes to get home. My wife called me and said to stop and get the kids some snacks and her something to drink. So, I spent a few

extra minutes in the store about 20 miles from home. After I left the store my wife called and said a Tornado was about to hit and I was driving right towards it. I wasn’t sure if I should turn around or keep going. Everything got dark quickly and I could see the storm up ahead. I didn’t know else to do but keep driving and get home to my family.

I was about 4 miles from home and I heard the tornado sirens going off and knew I was running out of time. I noticed as I went by a few houses an old man was flagging me down and I quickly stopped to see what he needed. It turned out he was having trouble getting his storm shelter door open. So, I helped him get it open and helped his wife who was using a “walker” get into the storm shelter. They kept telling me that I had no time and to get in there with them, but my family was waiting on me and I couldn’t bare the thought of them being frightened and worried. So, I told the nice old couple “thanks, but I had to get home”. I got home and it was dead silent outside. A different sound then we had gotten use to with all the thunder and lighting. My wife had all the kids in the wall with mattresses all around them.

Welcome to my blog everyone! I’m Randy and I decided to create this blog because I have a lot to say about pretty much everything. Business, Politics, Poker, and life. If you are easily offended, I suggest you click away from this site now!

Well, if you’re still here great! Like I said, I’m going to cover a little bit of everything. Please check out my blogroll, I’ve listed several sites of my friends and colleagues.. Enjoy!

I intended my first post to be a great poker strategy post or somehting of that nature, but last night we had a life changing event, so I decided to go a different direction.

For my first post on this new site I’m going to let you in on a private part of my life. My family and I are in a nice hotel tonight because last night we survived our first Arkansas tornado.. We live in Mtn. view and the twister hit about a quarter mile from my house.

We are really lucky compared to some of our neighbors. I can honestly say I’ve never seen or heard anything like it. The amount of destruction is massive in our little town.. We know of one person that has died and there are still a few people missing. I’m going to post a few pictures of our town later..