It was my wife's fault! (sort of)

In the late 80's, we would visit Las Vegas once every few years. During our visits,
my brother-in-law,Kevin, would grab a $1 chip from every casino in which we stopped.
If he wasn't on the trip with us, he would ask me to grab some chips for him.
I did this quite a few times throughout the Nineties. After a while, I started looking a little
closer at these little clay round things.

Hmmm, I've always enjoyed collecting baseball cards. I also enjoyed visiting casinos.

Why not start picking up chips for ME, as well as for Kevin?

That was the beginning of my chip collecting. I started with picking up a chip from any casino I visited.
Soon, I began to hunt down Halloween and Christmas chips. (Along with any other Graphically Pleasing Chip...)
Kevin pointed out theChipBoard to me and I began lurking. After a while, I thought I would try purchasing a chip
from someone on the Board. I selected a few house chips that Chuck Smorse had for sale.
What a pleasant surprise!!
The chips were in my mailbox within two days of my initial correspondence with Chuck.
No way had he received my check for payment, yet he still sent my chips. Talk about trustworthy.
If that is the way club members treated each other, this was a club for me.

I mentioned this to my wife, Debbie. Clearly, she knows what to buy her husband for his birthday because
she surprised me with a membership to the club in September, 2004.