Accepted and booked
I received my confirmation for the Mombasa volunteer work yesterday. I'll be arriving on the 21st of July and staying for three weeks. As soon as I saw the email I called best-flights and booked my ticket. For about $12,000 Australian I was able to get almost all my flights in business or first class. The only flights I'm responsible for booking myself are Melbourne to Sydney, Vegas to Wisconsin and back, and Mombasa to Dubai. Everything else is covered in the around the world ticket. What is 'everything else' composed of? Let's have a look at the itinerary and schedule:
April 8th: Leave Melbourne for Honolulu to visit friends (and finish out the SCOOP.)
April 15th: Leave Honolulu for Las Vegas for WPT Championship
April 26th: Leave Las Vegas for Wisconsin to visit friends and family.
May 27: Leave Wisconsin for Las Vegas for WSOP and Bellagio Cup.
July 16th: Leave Las Vegas for New York City to visit friends.
July 19th: Leave New York City for London because there's no direct flights to Mombasa.
July 21st: Leave London for Mombasa with a stop over in Nairobi for volunteer work.
August 15th: Leave Mombasa for Dubai to look around that totally insane city built by a bunch of guys with a combination of too much money and imagination.
August 18th: Leave Dubai for Hong Kong/Macau for APPT Macau (this date may have to change based on when the APPT ends up being, but it was around this time last year.)
September 1st: Leave Hong Kong/Macau for Melbourne
What I'm really thrilled about this time is that I won't have to censor the blog which I think will make for much more interesting reading. I'll be buying a new laptop in the next couple of days to take with me and I very much intend to keep up to date on the writing this time around.
Meanwhile I've been putting in enormous online volume. I'm working a solid eight hours a day five or six days a week. I haven't won a big tournament yet but I keep making final tables with large first prize pools and falling a little short. Yesterday I made four final tables and despite getting three handed in one and heads up in another failed to win either. It's hard to say whether I'm up or down since coming back online, whichever it is it's not by much.
I've managed to keep up my exercise routine during this period, though I've been advised to take one day a week off. I also don't do a double work out on Monday, which is Sunday in the states, because of all the tournament action. I just go once that day.
We've also sorted out our Vegas house for 'Team Australia'. It looks like we'll have up to 10 Aussie guys staying there at the high points, and the house we've picked out is incredibly sick though I won't link it yet just in case we don't wind up booking that one or in case someone else likes it enough to put an offer in before we do. We'll be spending over seven weeks in Vegas alone during that period, which should result in some insanely epic stories.
Until all of this happens I'll be at home working out and grinding poker nearly every day. If you're in Australia and looking to hang out I'd do it now while you still can.