Dig it: I'll be wasting five days of my life in Las Vegas from the 2nd through the 6th of April, playing poker for as long as the big wad of cash that I'm taking with me lasts. Depending on the breaks, that's anywhere from two minutes (if I do something utterly moronic) to the entire five days.

What’s the point? That from Monday through Friday I’ll be spending every waking minute at a poker table, so if you need to get a hold of me or to get a quick response to an e-mail, good luck with that.

The trip, by the way, is going to be sweet because some of my poker buddies are also going to be making the trip (maybe even my big bro, but that's still up in the air), and we always have a great time. The last time that one of my poker buddies met up with me in Las Vegas, we ended up making lots of new friends and raking in tons of cash, so I'm hoping for a repeat of that experience.

Since this is the first trip of the year (with at least three more trips planned for the summer [Gambling addiction? Doubtful, but maybe. My dad, according to one of my sisters, sure thinks so.]), the log of those five days (yes, i keep a log; i'm nerdy that way) will make up the entire YTD Total. At the end of this trip, then, I'll either feel like a loser (sort of my default setting) or like a winner. I'm not going to lie, that'd be nice.