Personal Information

My parents are James and Vivian Martin. I have two sisters, Judi and Jane, two nieces and two nephews. Mom and Dad grew up in Murphysboro and Jonesboro, Illinois. They met while students at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. I was born in Murphysboro, Illinois, and have a number of relatives in that area. While I was growing up, we lived in Alton, Vandalia, Cape Girardeau, and Mattoon. I graduated from High School at Mattoon Sr. High and have a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana.

My 15 Minutes of Fame

I do have one claim to fame (so far): my family lived in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, when I was in the 4th through 9th grades. I played trombone in the junior high school band, and my fellow trombone player, who sat next to me, was none other than the world famous Rush Limbaugh. Back then, he went by the name of Rusty Limbaugh. (Rush, if you see this, I love your show!!)

I am currently working for Deere & Company (John Deere) in Moline, Illinois, as an Infrastructure Analyst. I provide technical support for Deere's external network connections, including the Internet and Deere suppliers.

In my spare time, I like to visit the local river boat casinos and play live poker. Tracey introduced me to poker in 1993  where I began by playing low limit Seven Card Stud.  I now like to play Texas Hold-em (mainly 3-6 limit) and Omaha Hi-Lo Split (mostly 4-8 limit). I've been lurking on the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup, trying to take advantage of the advice offered there. Tracey and I like to play poker  in Vegas, Reno, Laughlin, St. Louis, Tunica (MS.) and Omaha.

I have won two of the bad beat Jackpots. The jackpots  are triggered when a really outstanding poker hand gets beaten unexpectedly by an even better one. In Texas Holdem, generally, both players hole cards must play. 

Distributed Computing:  

A group has formed to harness the power of spare computing cycles on the Internet. There was a contest to decode a message encrypted with RC5 64-bit encryption.   The 64 bit encryption key was found after about 4 years of combined effort.   They are now working on a 72 bit key.

Short Story

If you are interested in short stories, check out my story: Cancer

Poker Results