Day off for a Relay

So yesterday I didn't play poker but, I spent 12 hours in a gym with thousands of other people to help raise money for the fight against cancer.  Relay for life really put a new perspective on things in my mind and honestly it relates to poker as well. 

First off I would like to talk about why I was there though.  My roommate Mike is a cancer survivor and a real inspiration.  He fought hard early in his life to beat this and he shows how much he appreciates life everyday through hard work and being completely involved in events such as this.  So we had about a team of 20 close friends take part in this event where we had to have at least one member of the team walk around the track all 12 hours of the event.  While this was happening they had events such as a dodgeball tournament, a knockout tournament, scavenger hunts, fear factor, hot dog eating contests, and much more.  As a group we got involved as much as we could and took down both the dodgeball and scavenger hunt competitions.  We also had a member of our team do fear factor where he had to eat the most foul thing I have ever seen.  He didn't come out on top so he finished 4 more cups of this drink to gain us some extra points in the competition.  We didn't end up coming out on top overall but, it was a great experience I will never forget.

Now the way it relates to poker is the fact that to start the gym was filled with people.  It was almost shoulder to shoulder when walking around the track and it shows how many people actually care for the same thing.  But, by the end of the night there was about 1/4 the people remaining and those last few just show that there are those that will go above and beyond to achieve their goals.  Some had either gone home to sleep or in my roommates mike's case he had gotten sick but, as a team we stuck it out and accomplished what we had come there for.  We raised a lot of money for this organization and I honestly can't wait until next year.  It just shows that with a little hard work, the right attitude even when the going is tough, and a lot of will power anything can be achieved.