If I had to put one word onto the year 2005 it would have to be perception. There have been many things that have actually changed for better or worse, but I think the biggest changes have come in the way people think.

For 26 years now I have been a poker player. Except for the occasional social interaction, i.e. keeping my grandmother company while she played the slots or accepting a buddy’s $5 bet on the outcome of the Superbowl, I do not gamble at all outside of poker. Despite never having a losing year, for most of this time my mother would only speak of poker with derision, calling it things like “that awful gambling addiction”. In 2005, not once but three times or more, my mother has bragged to her friends about how many poker tournaments her son has won. I went from degenerate to a source of pride.

I am a teacher. For as long as I can remember I have shared my knowledge with anyone with a sincere desire to learn. More than 10 years ago I accepted the challenge of raising a friend’s level of poker awareness and since that day I have filled more than three notebooks with poker students. In the past the only questions I ever got about teaching poker were of the “who would want you to do that?” variety. In 2005 teaching poker has become a controversial topic. Strangers are pontificating over why I would want to educate the ignorant, and even questioning whether the teaching of poker is legal. I went from worthless to outlaw.

Not since college could anyone label me a social butterfly. I prefer participating in solo sports to team sports and although I know many people, I can count my close friends on one hand. At parties and social gatherings I would happily let my wife take center stage as she answered people’s questions about computers and shared beauty tips. Folks would ask what I enjoyed and when I mentioned poker, teaching, and martial arts they would mostly politely move on to chat with somebody else. 2005 brought me the kind of unwanted attention formerly reserved mainly for doctors. Suddenly everyone wants free poker advice. I went from wallflower to celebrity.

Previously I had been saddened by my fellow Americans’ isolationist beliefs. 2005 showed how a dictator in Iraq can mean the loss of friends and family members to war. A tsunami in asia can devastate lives half a world away. A hurricane in the southeast hurts our entire country in too many ways to list. I went from bleeding heart liberal to world citizen.

The most interesting thing to me is that I really have not changed much in 2005. I am too old and set in my ways to change anyway. I am still a family man, teacher, and poker player. I still take what little time I can offer and try to make a difference by doing charity work. I go into 2006 basically the same man I was in 2005, yet it seems I am the only one who thinks so. I wonder who I will be in 2007?

A happy and healthy 2006 to you all from one old seal.