As a teacher, my take home salary is less than $60k/year.  My wife makes considerably more than that as a risk analyst at a hospital.  I work harder, with more hours, and just as much stress.  Sure I make a difference in kid's lives and help them do more than they thought they could, but you can't pay bills with a sense of self worth and warm fuzzies.

For the last 1 1/2 years, I've been supplimenting my income with poker.  After teaching physics for years mental arithmetic is simple for me.  As a teacher, picking up on nonverbal signals is also second nature.  I can usually tell when somebody is being dishonest (ie. bluffing).  These things give me a tremendous advantage playing poker.

I played in regular quasi-legal games twice a week while living in Texas.  Poker is legal in Texas as long as nobody but the players have a financial interest in the game.  Wednesdays I played in a $100 buy in game and Saturdays I hosted a $200 buy in game.  We usually had 8-10 people in the game and players would rotate in and out.  I also would vacation at least three times a year in Vegas to satisfy my poker itch and due to the fact my wife's family lives in Vegas.  She'd socialize with her mother and sister.  I'd camp out at the tables.

Whenever I visited Vegas, I was the unstoppable poker annihilator.  I literally won every time I sat at the table.  Sometimes just a little like $40.  Sometimes a few hundred.  I'd play at a no limit table where the buy ins were between $100-200, just like I was used to in Texas.  I would play just as well, but the players in Vegas don't know me.

After living in Vegas for a year, I had several thousand in a separate bank account so I didn't have to worry about gambling with mortgage or grocery money.  I'd take a few hundred out every now and then to buy something frivolous (like a gift for my wife, a box of cigars, or a bag of California medical marijuana).  With about $9,000 socked away, I started playing at a table where the buy ins were about $700-1,000. 

I seemed like I was playing against the same people all of the time.  Play was tough.  Winning money was a grind.  Every night was action packed and I was always on the brink of disaster.  These assholes played poker EVERY fucking day and had been doing so since God was a child.  I tried to limit my fivolity but still hovered around $8,000-10,000.

Recently, I've been seeing new faces.  The tourists are coming back.  Now it's a feeding frenzy to see which regular players can sponge the most cash off of the fish.  The cash is fucking rolling in now.  Tonight I played cards for less than three hours and won $3,000.  I'm back to being the unstoppable poker annihilator.  It's just past midway in the month and I've already officially made more cash playing cards than teaching.

This boads well for the economy as a whole, gentlefolk.  I realize that unemployment is still alarmingly high, but I'm seeing a lot more people going on vacation.  Hotels are starting to fill up again.  Restaurants are filling up as well.  Nevada has over a $900,000,000 deficit right now.  We're already in the shitter this year.  If I wasn't a science teacher, I'd be worried about being laid off.  I'm optimistic though.  I've seen the signs.  The writing on the wall is finally positive again.