OK, yeah, haven't posted in a while, blah blah blah. It wouldn't be a blog post by me if it didn't begin with an acknowledgment of the fact that I never post.

I'm finally coming off this crap about the injury. I have finally, after three full months, gotten the splint off my left hand and can use it in a limited fashion. I'm told I might not ever get full bendiness back in the thumb, but frankly I'm just glad to have it operational and with intact nerves.

I guess if you read my blog, you could see for yourself that I had kind of a hard time while that was going on. Since it's a work injury, there is little recourse for me to take -- kind of messed up, but apparently the laws in this state aren't exactly friendly to workers. I'm thinking about writing an article about my experience and trying to get some local paper to print it. People should know how little protection they have under the law as workers in this state. Unless you like a 2/3rds pay disability check which doesn't account for potential lost wages in other endeavors, in which case, by all means, go lose your hand in a work accident.

Things are looking up, though. I'm about to move to a 1 BR apartment in North Raleigh. It's a nice place. And in all other areas, I'm just feeling optimistic. There are a lot of unknown factors regarding the future, but I feel quite capable of controlling those factors to the best of my ability.

I guess this isn't exactly as sustainable life skill to be proud of, but I have had the chance to play a lot of poker over the last few months, and have gotten pretty good at tournaments. This month so far I've gotten over $600, mostly from really huge multi-table tournaments with micro buy-ins. I don't spend every hour of every day on it, but when I wasn't able to type and could only use one hand, that was one of the few forms of entertainment available to me.

There are a hell of a lot of people I lost contact with this year that I miss quite a bit. Being out of it for several months at the beginning of the year combined with the fallout from that and then the injury BS, I've spent a lot of time out of touch. Want to rectify that with as many people as possible.

So.... holla.