nick got banned by shaundeeb iirc? waffled imo

For the record, I do not live at home anymore and don't think I ever will. Hopefully, I will be able to afford to go home to see my brother who will be on leave from Iraq in a couple of weeks. Ashton and Ryan know my brother is in Iraq and they would probably make fun of that if they could. However, yes, I did live at home for less than a year the last time and lived at home one other time for around a year. I got heavily invested in a business and didn't have a lot of money. I also wanted to move closer to home (family reasons) but it is a very small area and there were hardly any jobs (especially ones that I qualified for) so it was a difficult situation. I have lived on my own for almost 16 years since turning 18 (I am 36 so 16 out of 18 years) including years in undergraduate and graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as an accountant, and as a financial analyst. However, too many small business/entrepreneurial ventures have not gone my way. I am an entrepreneur and always will be to a certain extent (pretty common trait amongst poker players) and I am trying to use poker to save so I can have a business that is my own and is well funded. Otherwise, I will probably go back to school and get my PhD.

Life is long and things happen. Of course, all of this is not important but when dealing with children (Ashton and Ryan) who know little about the world and are working feverishly to protect Mr. Rainey, it becomes an issue. These guys barely know me (only a couple of weeks) but they want to protect their funding, housing, meal ticket, training (they need poker training for sure-I will spare them on this but more importantly, they need life training), etc. Why don't you put this time into helping Nick track down the evidence that these payments were made? Do something more constructive for a change. This is not a random gossip thread or topic. This is very serious and you guys keep showing up with little kid stuff that belongs on the playground. Your comments and antics do not reflect well on yourselves, Mr. Rainey, or the Rainman Poker Program. Don't you want to make sure that $6-7K or so got or gets to a children's hospital or are you really that self-centered and immature?

Anyways, back to business, I am going to contact the Hospital about the $206.76 donation and see if it was ever made in April because I never heard back from Nick and I emailed him back for clarification within a couple of minutes after receiving his emails.

Lizard, that explanation wasn't necessary. I haven't lived w/my parents since I was 18 (7 yrs ago), but couldn't give less of a **** about who lives w/their parents. Life, the economy, or any of a million other factors can dictate that it may not be smartest to spend liquid income on an apartment.

I think most here understand what your purpose is in this thread (hopefully no ulterior motives ) & aren't too concerned about personal attacks made on you. We just want to see if this $$ did make it thru to the hospital, and if not figure out a way to come up with it ourselves.

Agreed, I was really upset with Nick when I first got out of his house and program (kicked in after a day or so). However, I settled down again and was talking to a former Rainman coach and he was telling me about about a bunch of things that he saw and I couldn't believe it and the idea that maybe this money didn't get to where it was supposed to including over $5K from myself came crashing down on me. I thought it had to have gotten there but I then decided to ask Nick for evidence and he blew me off for awhile and then finally he responded but gave no concrete answers or evidence so I decided to ask the question on here. I just want the truth and I hope he made the contributions already. Once this is resolved, I am done with Nick and wish him no ill will.

Hey Ray Baker I hadn't even posted in this thread until you brought me up, and I haven't defended anyone but myself so keep my name out of your *****n mouth

I believe I said this...

Go away, man, stop the harassment. Defend Nick to your heart's content but leave me out of it and I will leave you out of it. Anyways, everyone knows who you represent (yourself and your selfish interests)...

Nick Rainey-like insults ITT.

Lizard king ignore the haters, haters stop hatin. Both of you are derailing the thread, if either would stop the thread would no longer be derailed. No one really cares what Rainey's sheep think of you anyhow, or your rebuttals. Basicly, I doubt anyone gives a **** about the whole sidetrack and it makes everyone who participates look bad.

If he did just keep that money that's really ****ing weak. I guess I got what a deserved for being such a sheep fanboy. I think Nate might have donated some of his own money as well.

This is from 5/30 btw, say an april 1st donation he made has nothing to do with the money I sent him.

I agree. Sometimes it just hurts when people who acted like friends (or very similar) a few days ago and now treat you like a disease and make up stories about you in such a public place. I won't respond to their antics anymore. Thanks for bringing me back to reality.

I was waiting to hear back from Children's Hospital & Research Center in Oakland from a message I left several hours ago but I figured I would give them another try. I just got done talking to Ms. Veronica Estropia at the Hospital and she said a donation of $206.76 never came in April and she did not see one in the range of $5,400-$6,000 either in April (I was looking for the estimated $5,466.81 raised on April 4th). She looked at all donations including anonymous and she could find nothing under Nick or Nicholas Rainey or "Poker" anything (except the Poker Palace (or the like) in Hayward, California). Further, she said they provide receipts to all donors (including anonymous donors) and assuming that Nick made the payments, he should be able to call them up and get a receipt or find his transaction(s) if he does not have the details because they have a variety of ways to look them up.

I just sent Nick a message to his two primary email addresses asking him to respond immediately to my post above on his blog. To be honest with you, I thought (and was hoping) that I was going to get slowrolled by Nick with his evidence and now I am more concerned about this subject than ever. I would think Nick would keep the receipts for tax purposes, too because why would he want to pay taxes on a deductible donation? I don't think he is that charitable to pay extra taxes (most people aren't). Otherwise, if it is deductible for us (which I don't think it is), he should have the records we need to deduct it or even just to verify to us that the Hospital received the money. Any way you slice it or dice it, he should have the records for himself or us or whoever so he should get them (the Hospital made it sound like it was real easy). Anyways, I hope to see something said publicly by him on this subject soon.

Lol at the people from his house attacking others because they criticise Nick...

By the way, Nick's blog can be found here...

http://rainmanpoker.net/blog/

Veronica made it sound like all Nick would need to do is call the Hospital and he would be able to clear this up quickly because they can look up the transaction in many different ways. If you made the donation(s), make the call, Nick, and get us the information, and if you didn't make them, please do so now...

can someone give me a cliffs on this abortion of a thread

cliffs:
nick gives people money to play poker stars 11 dollar quarter million gtd.
people send him money if they cash, others send money just because they want to.
he is supposed to donate the money to a hospital.
he never donates it.
lizardking hates nick.

lol, "hates" is a little strong but I am not a fan-let's put it that way.

no, pretty sure you hate him

Well, sorry to disappoint. I don't personally know anyone that I hate. Really, that's the truth. I get mad in the short-term but it never materializes into a long-term hatred and that is the way I look at hate-a permanent or semi-permanent type of condition.

Nick's response (per usual-talking mainly not about the subject)-not what I was hoping for. I was hoping to get some resolution or evidence...
"Ray the emails I send you are private and not for the public. Not sure why you think it is ok to take my emails and post them all over the internet.

I worked hard to give you a lot of chances and you still do not seem to appreciate that. It hurts me when you make comments like the house is a Nazi youth camp, you know it is nothing like that. You have plenty of money why do you claim I put you on the street? You could have checked into a nice hotel on the strip you did not have to drive all the way home.

Will no longer respond to your messages and can care less what people on the internet think. You know I do what I say.

Nick"

Nick, I think it is perfectly acceptable to post your messages considering the situation with the length of time that has passed since many of these "donations" were given to you, the amount of money involved, number of people affected, the sheer and utter lack of information, and your previously reported donation information that cannot be verified by the Hospital. Thanks.

I guess this might be the end of my posts for a little while (unless Nick changes his mind). I am going to explore other venues for getting this solved. I think I have done all I can do here and I have tried to be as reasonable with Nick as possible and if he would have said, I need a week or two to go through my paperwork, I would have said fine. However, he just seems to refuse any and all requests for real concrete information and none of his previous information on donations has been able to be verified with the Hospital. I will update when I have some news.

You can contact Nick here if you would like to give your opinion on the subject (and his email address is out there, too)...

http://rainmanpoker.net/?page_id=12

Hint: Try Nick's blog or FoxyShazam's blog for his email address.

http://foxy-shazam.blogspot.com/

Lizardking, I appreciate what you're doing here, but the frequency you've been posting has been pretty absurd. And if you want to post emails ITT pertaining to the charity wo permisssion. I think that's ok. But posting that last email you did isnt cool imo. It has nothing to do with this situation and seems to only be about the personal feud you two are having. I realize the amount of money you gave him makes mine pennies in comparison, so I guess I cant really see where youre coming from.

Not trying to be harsh and I would like to be kept up to date on this issue, as I gave him my own money. Maybe just try to only post meaningful updates.

I know what you are saying but I guess I did not explain myself well enough before. I am done posting. I don't see the point in posting here anymore. I have outlined everything. Nothing is going to get done here from what I can tell so I will be moving onto other venues. I simply wanted to give Nick a chance to speak uncensored and that is why I posted his whole email. I did not want to be accused of editing down his email to my liking (and I wanted to because I don't agree with much of it). However, I mainly wanted to get across the following to everyone (direct from Nick)...

"Will no longer respond to your messages and can care less what people on the internet think."

This makes it clear that he will not be working with me to resolve this issue and could care less about what anyone thinks on 2+2 or our justified concerns. Therefore, if anyone is wondering why I am done with him and trying to get information from him, he made it clear he doesn't want to talk to me and doesn't care about resolving this issue in general. I am done with him, too. No problem.

this ^

IMO your are wayyyyy to emotional about whatever happened between you and Nick. I refuse to read through all of your post because they are more emotionally driven than fact driven IMO.

You have a point - you are on to something etc.....but stick to the facts. You are derailing your own valid point IMO.

Best of luck to ya


Edit: best of luck to ya TheLizardKing