Darin Van Gammeren's Blog
Pre-approved!
My wife finally got notice that her LMO was approved so we should be able to get our work permits when we cross the border (barring any strange occurrences). We have a wedding to attend this weekend but then we plan to head north to hopefully get the permits and find a condo. If we find a place to l... Read More →
As if I didn’t already feel like a criminal
With the black Friday debacle the legality of my career has certainly come into question. While you can argue that internet poker is still “legal”, it certainly isn’t clear cut. Bill Rini had a nice blog a while back called “Online Poker is Illegal.” Basically it says you can argue all you... Read More →
Application Finally Submitted
The lawyers got everything straightened out and submitted my wife’s application for a labor market opinion (LMO). There’s pretty much no way we could have gotten this done without a lawyer. $3000 well spent. As I said before, this is what we need to get work permits as we enter Canada. We were t... Read More →
Christmas break and trip to NYC
Over Christmas I went back to Iowa to see my family for two weeks. I only get home once or twice a year so I like to take a long trip when I do go (it’s not like I’m that busy now anyway). It was great to hang out with my parents and brother and see some other people. I even played farmer for a ... Read More →
Waiting...
The process of getting my wife’s work permit has been going really slow. We hired a lawyer since we wanted everything to go smoothly. It didn’t take long before realizing this was a very good idea. This first step is applying for a labor market opinion (LMO) from Service Canada. There are certai... Read More →
Dodging Hurricane Rina
My wife and I went to the Excellence Playa Mujeres all-inclusive resort last week. It's a beautiful resort about 30 minutes North of Cancun. The room was 800 sq ft and pretty comparable to the room we had at the Atlantis Resort except the view wasn't as spectacular. The resort had nine restaurants... Read More →
Toronto bound eh!
My wife found out on Friday that she got a speech pathology job in Toronto. Such a huge relief. It's been over five months now that I've been wondering what our game plan was going to be. The next step is for her future employer to get a labor market opinion (LMO). Once we have that, my wife should ... Read More →
Update and Road Trip
I'm trying to get better about blogging. First, a little poker update. Since black Friday, my wife Katie and I decided to both try to move to another country so we can be together. Canada was our first choice but she's struggling to find a job there (she's a speech pathologist). Katie recently appl... Read More →
Going to EPT Madrid
Since I have plenty of time on my hands I figured I'd dust off my blog to let people know I'll be in Madrid for the EPT next week. I'm using my 2nd elite package from last year for this trip (I took the $10K for the other one). I'm not a big live or MTT player but my wife and I had such a great time... Read More →
Introduction
Hi everyone. It's exciting to be a part of the BFP team now. Just a quick blog to get started. The best way to get some background on me is to read a couple interviews I've done. Here's the first one I did a few years ago when I just went pro: http://www.pokernewsteam.com/poker-forum-news/inter... Read More →