Hope everyone is having a nice Memorial Day, I am, my first day off this month! Of course, there are a couple of swords hanging over my head for work tomorrow and I'm wondering how I'll pull off my tasks for Wednesday so I guess another pull on my local brew is in order.

Learned a couple of things lately that just fit in nicely with my interests in the hobby and thought I'd pass them on. Really enjoy it when folks share their knowlege here on the board and just get bewildered when a few seem to resent the lessons. In my line of work, listening when someone is telling you something will probably keep you from getting blowed up and when I pay attention here on the board, my enjoyment of the hobby is enhanced.

First off I learned some geography of which I was ignorant. Shoot, I live out west here and the other side of the Rockies is kind of blurry on my radar. For instance, like Hillary, I'm not too sure where Syracuse or Buffalo are located in NY since I'm from somewhere else. I've been lost in KY. a couple of times but my co-driver has gotten us moving to more familiar ground.

Did you know that Newport and Covington, Kentucky are just across the river from Cincinnati? Well duh! right? Actually, for me that lends a lot of background to a lot of different things. Like where was the population that was patronising the joints in Kentucky and why there was a place like the Arrowhead Inn in Cincinnati. Turns out to a hotbed region for illegal gaming, nifty chips and interesting people and lore.

I'm actually reading "Cincinnati Kid" by Jessup and that fills in some background nicely. In the book, The Big Game takes place in St. Louis btw and some of the gangsters from Covington attend the proceedings. None of this is really important but all these kind of things just make the whole picture more clear, don't you think?

Next up, I learned a fact about the Nevada mold. Must have been one of those things everyone knew but me but I'll pass it along anyway.

I acquired a Lucky Nevada Club chip in Nevada mold at last year's convention that had me flummoxed. We'd just had various discussions about fixed and newly manufactured chips and I had this chip with an unbelievably shiney mold appearence. Asked the gurus and authors for opinons and it passed everyones's eye, no problem. Finally, months later, I found out why this Nevada mold beauty is so twinkely!

Doug Saito tells us in his vasty informative and entertaining Chip Chat that Bud Jones manufactured Nevada mold chips with the same clay that was used when he partnered with Bill Christy while making brilliant H&C chips! Doh! So simple that Those That Know probably felt everyone knew something so elemental! Wow! Cool! Makes my little green Nevada mold shine even brighter now.

Is it a big world? Sure seems like the little things make a lot of difference sometimes. Take care today.