Usually when I am giving my story it is about how I am an alcoholic (in recovery). It feels a bit strange telling my story in a different context. Anywho:

I was born in Geneva, Ohio which is a small town on Lake Erie. I don't remember any of that of course. We moved to a suburb of Cleveland called Medina. It was a decent town. Good math and science programs. I didn't like reading back then besides maybe The Great Gatsby and of course comic books. I loved soccer and then I loved lacrosse. Besides being captain of my lacrosse team senior year I don't feel like I really fit in all that well in high school.

I went to Ohio State University because that is just what seemed like the right thing to do. I remember wanting to go to UC Berkley. I have always had a bit of a hippie streak in me but I really was pretty clueless at 18. I wanted to major in philosophy but didn't have the courage so I majored in business. I met a handful of great people in the dorms at Morrill Tower. We had a blast. 1040s what's up? Business was pretty boring and I took this history class that I really like so of course decided that is what I wanted to do. It ended up being I just wanted to chill and hang out and play poker so that is what I ended up doing. History came easy to me so I just went with it.

I got pretty good at poker over the course of college and was thinking about doing it full time. I think I was playing 1/2 or even up to 2/4 at the time (No Limit Texas Hold em) but was killing it. Again I wasn't courageous enough to go against what "they" were saying. "They" being the others. I took a job at a golf course for the fall and was pretty much on tilt. I put an end to that and just focused on poker and in the summer of 2007 I flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina to live with 3 guys I had only known on the internet. That was another turning point for me with poker. I did very well until 2009 and got to travel all over the world and do a lot of fun stuff. Spent summers in Vegas, lived in a castle in Malta, and got to meet a lot of awesome people.

2009 I was making more money than I was ever making playing Pot Limit Omaha but I got too greedy and lost my bankroll. I was playing 25/50 with an ante with the likes of Phil Galfond, Tom Dwan, and other sicko internet pros.

2010 and 2011 I still had money in the bank and was slowly letting that money disappear getting high and sleeping on friend's couches. I remember the pinnacle of this time was playing Metal Gear Solid IV super baked and going to get sushi. That was my life then. I was telling everyone I was still playing poker. I think also around this time I started reading a lot of Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Sartre, and starting to hit the gym really hard. That was doing wonders. I thought I had everything figured out.

2012 my brother got married and I gave a great best man speech. I think it might have gotten me my next job to be honest. I had a new life selling materials to the steel industry. I moved out to Reading, PA which was alright. I did really well there and got promoted to a really tough region of Northwest Indiana. All those big mills up on the lake. I loved it. I was playing with the big boys. I was drinking with the big boys too. Well, us big boys were doing big business. Working hard and playing hard. Until I crashed and the excesses caught up to me. I was in withdrawal, sobered up, and then back to drinking within a month. Little did I know I had bipolar I with psychosis. I was psychotic for damn near 4 months. Take the drink away and I was suicidal ended up in the psych ward. That was 2014. The next 3 years or so was just living in recovery. Being broke virtually all of the time from job to job trying to figure out what I want to do. I met some fantastic people though who I miss since moving to Charleston. I have always been a bit of a wanderer.

I am a wanderer and a lover of wisdom. I think that is what brought me here. I forgot I even had an account here until my recent obsession with cryptocurrency. I love message boards. I was watching a JRE with Andreas Antonopolis and he was describing this site and I went "oh shit! I forgot about that site and I think I have some currency there!" But, I have been looking for other communities to take part in and this one is intriguing to me so I will try it out. This is how my brain wanted to tell my story at this point in time. Thank you for reading if you read this far.

Happy New Year everyone!