Dear Reader,


I'm back from my little Turkish interlude. Well, actually I've been back for about a week now, trying to catch up with emails and what-not. Oh the pain, memories of building sand castles, poolside reading, and terrific food and Turkish techno muzak are but fleeting memories. There is nothing like a nice summer holiday to put things into perspective. It's good to turn off the world for a couple of weeks.

Introspectively yours,

Bryan

a brief interlude

Since many of you have been wondering how my trip was away from Casinomeisterland, I'll briefly fill you in. At first, I was a bit apprehensive since Turkey is 99% Moslem and shares a border with Iraq and Syria. I thought that I would be putting my family and myself into harm's way by visiting there, but how wrong I was. Even though Turkey may be a prominently Moslem country, it is strictly secular and very progressive.

We had booked 12 days at the last minute at a very nice seaside hotel in Side, which is about 40ks East of Antalya on the Southeastern coast. It's an ancient town with ruins of a colosseum, and an old walled city. Some of the ruins dating back to the Biblical era.

But I'm not going to go into how fantastic the food was, or how unbelievably friendly the people were (especially to children. They love children. Strangers will pick your kids up hold them in the air, or tussle their hair as they walk by.), or how inexpensive everything seemed to be. I'll go into some of the things I kicked around in my head while I was away.

Vacations should be more than lying around a pool, beach, feeding yourself something unusual, and reprimanding tired whiney kids who can't seem to get enough ice cream. Time off from work ought to be more than a drone stage of your life. It should be a cerebral breather; a time to pump some unmitigated oxygen into your brain, dwelling on things you can take back home with you.

Besides the mind blowing "If the universe is infinite, with an infinite amount of stars, why is the night sky so dark?" *answer at the end of this newsletter. I dwelled a bit on Casinomeister and with what I've been doing with it for the past few years. I'm happy that it really is serving a purpose for online gamblers; I've found my niche. But is this it? Is this my purpose in life, to be the "Casinomeister"? When my kids are old enough to be asked in school, "What does your father do?" I can imagine their beguiled faces answering meekly, "He's the Casinomeister." Or even worse, "he has a website on the Internet." The teacher and everyone would probably think "Yeah, right. Porno website for sure." Already people in my little village raise their eyebrows when I make an attempt to explain what I do, so I normally drop it and move on to the next neutral topic.

But when I think about it, it does make sense. I don't have a history as a Vegas junkie, card shark, hoot 'n hollerin' slots freak. Gambling never really blew my skirt up, but educating people did. My background is of an educator and trainer. Those of you who know me know of my military background. I trained soldiers on how to survive in combat, how to deal with harsh conditions. How to make bombs, booby traps, shoot things, and how to take prisoners. And when these soldiers girlfriends dumped them, or their wives split, I was there to pound down a few beers with them. The troops appreciated me because they knew I was on their side.

Leaving the Army, I continued teaching, but on a different level; now it was Freshman English and Humanities. I overfilled their minds with ideas on how to think critically and creatively, how to tell the difference between verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, and how to write. It felt good to be teaching on a different level, in different circumstances, but I couldn't drop them for push-ups, which bummed me out at times. But my students were very responsive. Most of them could relate with me on a semi-personal level; they understood that I was on their side. That I was there to convey what I know to them.

And then the Casinomeister man cometh. Again, in a teaching role--at least that is what I am trying to do; teach people how to be effective players as well as effective casino operator, and I think it's working. At least to the ones (players and operators) who open their eyes and ears and listen. It's a two-way street.

There is a lot of evil out there. There are scammy casinos, as well as fraudulent players. In fact, I was notified this week of a group of players based out of Washington State that have been in cohorts scamming a few well known casinos. Oh for shame, as if they didn't know that they would get caught. Oh, I digress.

In a nutshell, I am happy where Casinomeister is. I think that it's doing what it's supposed to do; to inform. And I'll be even happier with it after the relaunch. Oh, anticipation!

So this is some of the stuff that I was dwelling on while sunning myself on the beach, and hearing my two year old son freak because he didn't have any ice cream. It was nice to get away and forget about most of the world. It's really hard for me to do so since I am a one man band. I want to thank you dear reader for making this possible. Without players needing reputable casinos, and casinos needing legit players, there would be no Casinomeister. I would be teaching other people about other things. Who knows what.

And don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to tout how great Casinomeister or I am. I simply took the time to place things into perspective as I hope this newsletter will inspire or motivate you to do the same.