Sorry it took a while for me to get this blog up. 

First off, the farm was fantastic.  Gonzalo has quite the stable of both
racehorses and ‘creole ponies’ as they call them.  We rode horses one day which was pretty entertaining.  I grew up on a ranch so I am used to being around horses but Mike and Jean-Claude (jcmoussex) had not.
The look on Mike’s face when his horse started galloping was priceless. 

On the trip to  the farm were two different people I met who were equally interesting.  The first was Gonzalo’s equine nutritionist, Steve,  who lives in Kentucky.  Ironically enough, I came to find out that a close family friend, Tad Tipton is his veterinarian and Tad’s girlfriend works for Steve.  Small world..  The second, a businessman from Japan who owns, breeds, and races horses with Gonzalo, also accompanied us on the trip to the farm along with his veterinarian.  They had never been around poker and when they saw us playing you could tell they quickly became enthralled by the concept of ‘gambling with a skill advantage’ as they called it.  Anyway, after watching Mike play for quite a while, the businessman was so into poker that he invited us to Japan in late May (after Sara’s graduation).  Well apparently he was more serious than we thought as before we left the farm he gave us all the information we would need and asked us where in Japan we’d like to go so that he could set our whole trip up for us!  Not sure if we’ll go or not but it was flattering to be offered such an opportunity.

We got back from the farm on Friday in time for the last day of Carnaval which is the Champions Parade.  What they do is invite back the best 5 or 6 schools from the first weekend of Carnaval to parade again; this time completely for fun.  Michael and I had the chance to wear the costumes and go out with the school and dance but we were really enjoying all the new people we had met and decided to just watch.  It is pretty unbelievable how many happy people and beautiful women there are here. 

Anyway, went hangliding yesterday.  I’ll get a pic up soon.  Wasn’t quite as intense as skydiving but there’s still something about running off the edge of a cliff that gets your blood flowing a little bit.

 As far as poker goes the last few days have been pretty frustrating.  While I have made a profit, I feel I should have won a lot more.  It gets frustrating being up over $20,000 each of the last three days in a row only to scratch out a small profit.  However, that’s poker and I’ve had it go the other way for me as well so I can’t complain especially when you’re still in the black.

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/1814/rio085tr0.jpg - Gonzalo’s jet

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/9775/rio087ag9.jpg - guest house and the pool at the farm.

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7179/rio103ye1.jpg - Mike, Jean-Claude and myself riding horses with the farm house in the background.

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/7425/rio117tk8.jpg - Champions parade… last day of Carnaval

 http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/4246/rio027od3.jpg - David Gaetta Concert.  Outside of the U.S., ‘house music’ is HUGE and David Gaetta is one of the most popular of them.  The concert was unbelievable.  We were lucky enough to be nearly front row as there were people everywhere for this concert. 

 Today is our 11th day in Rio and we had planned on leaving in four days on the 10th.  Well, sorry Chris and Kyle, I don’t think that is going to be happening.  Right now, the time frame is to be back by around the 18th or so.  I don’t want to bore you guys too much with details of the previous ten days of our trip but maybe I’ll eventually make a separate post with all of the details (I know Mrs. Martin and my mom will enjoy this part anyway).

Let me just say that the two day carnaval celebration I could not do justice with words.  Here are a few links to pics we have taken so far:

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4093/rio043fr8.jpg  this is Mike, Frederick (H@llingol), and Myself at Carnaval

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2599/rio013yb5.jpg Mike teeing off during our round of golf.. beautiful course

Eventually I’ll figure out how to imbed them.    Anyway, we are headed by jet to Gonzalo’s farm in the south of Brazil today for a one day trip so I really should get some sleep as we’re leaving in around 5 hours.

I want to end this post talking about the best part about Brazil: Mike and I have been so fortunate to meet the most fascinating people.  From the ‘Rupert Murdoch’ of Brazil (owns the biggest tv station here),  to the random people you meet on the street, and especially to anyone in Gonzalo’s extended family (some of the most accepting, friendly, and generous people I’ve ever met), I feel there are more genuinely nice people here than any big city in the world I’ve been.

Nick

Posted Feb 5th (not sure why it says otherwise) 

Hello Everyone,

My name is Nick but I’m sure some of you know me better as my online name ahh_snap.  I live in Omaha, Nebraska with Mike Martin (Martine23), Chris Lee (Genius28), and Kyle Schroeder (Ka$ino)

This is the first time I’ve ever blogged and actually used to think it was kind of dumb but now I realize it is the easiest way to keep friends and family up to date on what is going on in my life.  Just to forwarn all of you reading that I’m making this blog more for my family and friends and not for poker entertainment reading.  It will be much more about what’s going on in my life outside of poker and very little to do with poker strategy, poker hands, or general poker talk.

I’ve been in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil for the past week and a half. First off let me preface this trip by explaining I am traveling with my roommate Mike visiting a good friend of mine who’s name is Gonzalo that lives in Rio De Janeiro.  He is a successful businessman in the shipping industry and we became friends through our mutual interest in poker.  I met him in Las Vegas and also took a trip with him to the Tennis US Open as well as to a racehorse breeders’ auction in Lexington, Kentucky.

 Anyway I flew to Rio January 27th arriving at around 9am.  The flight in was long and filled with Brazilian high schoolers that made it impossible to sleep but I didn’t mind as they were an interesting group the entire flight.  I noticed Brazilian people are much more expressive with affection and seemed to be a lot of ’PDA’ going around in the plane!  As I was going through customs I realized I had lost my wallet which it A. fell out of my pocket or B. I got pickpocketed.  Either way I’m an idiot for losing it.  Things of importance lost:  driver’s license, debit card (don’t own a credit card), $700 cash, and my birth certificate. Oops.  At that point I had $7 to my name and my passport.  Great start……. However anyone that knows me understands this is a pretty typical occurance in my life so I’m pretty experienced dealing with doing self inflicted stupid things.

Anyway, we get to Gonzalo’s place that is right on the beach in Impanema (a part of Rio) with a magnificent view.  As we are going to eat Gonzalo gives me the keys to his new BMW Z4 convertible and says that Mike and I will be driving it for the rest of our stay.  I think to myself, “life is good”.  That evening we went to a rehearsal for Carnival called ‘Samba’ for a ’school’ Gonzalo sponsors.  Carnival is a competition of around 10 schools that have approx. 5000 people in them anywhere from age 5 to age 75.  This was an incredible experience.  The dancing, the beating of the drums, and happy faces all around made this a surreal moment.  They then took us directly to the front of the ‘gym (for lack of better word)’ up onto the side of the stage so we were front row.  Words can’t really describe how amazing this was.

Everything starts late in Rio.  For example the rehearsal got started around 11pm and we left there around 1:30am to go to a Fat Boy Slim Concert with Gonzalo’s niece Ana Paola and her friends (who are fantastic by the way).  By the time we arrived there and purchased tickets it was around 2:30 and he still hadn’t come on stage yet…  Crazy! Anyway Fat Boy Slim was pretty amazing the way he got the crowd going non stop.  We had a fun time and the girls that showed us around were wonderful.  Side note: Mike got headbutted by some random guy.  I thought it was funny.. Mike did not.

 I’m getting ready to go out for the evening and only got through 1 day of the 10 day trip so far. I’ll try and summarize the rest of the trip without it getting quite so boring or long winded in the future.        

Nick