Well my 9-5 completely botched my plans for St Patrick’s Day. Instead of going out and celebrating with my friends all night and getting pretty well shit faced, I worked a 12 hour shift from 6p-6a. Boo!
After working five straight 12 or 13 hour afternoon/midnight shifts I got up early enough on Saturday to go out and hang with some friends at the bar before I went into work. I was tired, and only about 1/3 of our crew showed up before I had to leave for work, but I still had a good time. Although, it was very weird being the only completely sober person in the bar on St Patty’s Day. A feeling I hope I never experience again.
Driving to work I was already getting texts from my friends saying how much it sucked that I had to work and that they really wanted to hang out with me that night. My responses were pretty simple and short and agreeable, but the whole time I was thinking, “I already know this….I am the one on his way to work for the night.”
It was nice to know that my friends were looking forward to me being there, but of little solace to me as I faced my favorite bar night of the year all alone at work.
At first I thought it would be an ok night because I got two drunk dials from friends by 8 o’clock. Those ended up being the only two though and my night wasn’t as interesting as I would have thought with all of my friends out drinking. At one point I got a text saying that “everyone is crazy” but not much in the way of drunken mutterings after Rob called me and sang the song from Bodyguard to me. Ironically enough, about two hours after that call I was flipping through TV stations in one of the lounges at work and saw that Bodyguard was actually on.
I briefly talked to Sarah on her way from the Brand New concert to the going away house party she was attending that night. I was very glad to hear that she thought that concert was the best one she had seen yet, even though the opening band with the lame name sucked. After a couple minutes on the phone with me she noticed exactly how many drunk drivers were out and decided it would be best to drive without the phone distracting her.
Later on, after a few texts back and forth, I got one that told me to ignore her the rest of the night because she was drinking and gets stupid when she drinks. Seemed like I might get some interesting calls or texts after all, but that was the last I heard from her for the night. Guess she was too worried about her drunk skating form to think about drunk dialing or texting anyone.
The bright side to missing out on St Patty’s Day is that after doing some rough figuring about how much I am going to make from all this crazy OT, I have been looking at the WSOP schedule for this year and found a couple events that I could put this money toward. The last couple years I’ve thought that if I stayed on my game for a couple months leading up to the WSOP and got even a little bit of luck in an event, I could be a serious contender for a bracelet. Of course that’s not possible if you don’t enter any events, but this could very well be the year I put my money where my mouth is. A lot will depend on the traveling costs associated with a week in Vegas during the WSOP, but if it’s not so much that I’d have to borrow from my bankroll to fund it, I could easily see myself there in late June.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
Museum Night, Family Day, and Opposite Week; An Update for the Last Week or So
The first full week of March was somewhat of a downer. It all started off with a Monday that saw me angry most of the day for no reason at all. By 1:00 on Friday I was singing the praises of my 9-5 to anyone that would listen because of a few conversations I was part of on Thursday and Friday. By 3:00 I was angry again.
I had plans to go out of town for St Patrick’s Day. I try to go to Chicago that weekend if possible every year to visit Cathy, and it’s been about a year since I have seen her since I wasn’t able to make it to her wedding in November. My 9-5 changed those plans for me.
It’s nice to know that my partner and I are almost irreplaceable at the 9-5, but when emergency situations arise it can be a real pain in the ass. One of these situations came up on Friday and we were required to cover the exec suite 24 hrs/day for the entire week leading up to St Patty’s Day, one of us working 6a-8p and the other working 6p-7a.
I don’t mind the long shifts, but I normally start my day at 6a, and I was tapped for the 6p shift which completely reversed my schedule for the week and got me out of work no earlier than midnight Friday night when I was supposed to be driving to Chicago that very morning. Chicago was scrapped, and other plans were soon made. I was bummed, but I was still going to spend national drinking day with a lot of my close friends.
My anger soon disappeared once I worked out our work schedule for opposite week and got to leave. I was out 30 minutes late, but happy to be gone for the weekend even though I had a ton of errands to run before my date with Sarah. Got the errands done-ish, just didn’t clean the house as much as I had hoped to before she came by.
The date was pretty awesome. We had a good dinner at Union Street where we played Stripper or EMO Slut? Never found out for sure, but I was leaning toward stripper. Normally I would have just asked the girl in question, but wasn’t so sure that would be the best way to start off our date and just let it go.
From there we hit the Detroit Institute of Arts to see the Ansel Adams exhibit. It was effing spectacular. I could have stayed and looked at many of the photos for hours on end, but we ended up leaving after an hour or so because the museum was closing. Or so they thought. We still had some time before the movie started, so I decided that we’d try and find the long way to the theatre and go through the museum. Security didn’t like that and re-routed us about halfway through our journey.
The movie we saw is called The Bridge. I had read a little about it beforehand, and knew that I would see a couple people jump to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge, but wasn’t quite expecting what I ended up seeing. I had no idea that there would be family interviews and a personalization of many of the suicides. Putting names and families to the jumpers made it a lot harder to watch.
From the depressing movie we headed back to my house and hooked up her Gamecube to play some Mario Kart. I haven’t had a Nintendo system since my NES, and had only played Mario Kart once before so I was told I was going to have my ass handed to me. But like I told her, if it’s a racing game she never really stood a chance against me.
I won the first 6 races, and then we split the next six. 12 was enough for us since we both had long days before our date, and we went to bed. Not much sleep to be had that night. We both had visions from the movie playing in our dreams. Add to that the slight, bittersweet discomfort of sharing your bed with someone else for the first time, and the both of us tossed and turned til the sun came up.
Saturday was a poker day as I played in the level two WSOP freeroll that afternoon and hit some cash games after playing many heads-up SNGs. After an astounding 8 game win streak, I ended up losing 3 out of 5 to BJ and decided that HU SNGs were BS and made a lot more money in a 2-4 limit game than I had lost to my eurodonk friend.
Sunday’s weather was awesome and made me look like a genius for scheduling a family BBQ that day more than a week beforehand when it was still snowing a lot around here. I think the real genius of it was getting my cousin and her husband to host and cook all the food that I brought.
Large family dinners are rare for me nowadays and it was a great feeling to have a bunch of us eating at the same table. Even with Denise’s dogs flipping out because they had been locked in the basement, and Guinness flipping over chairs once he saw/heard that I had discovered Denise had a cat. Guinness once went through a window at my house just to chase a cat, he doesn’t like them and I don’t like having to tackle a 115 lb Rottweiler that is hell bent on killing a cat just as we are all sitting down to eat.
The highlight of the evening though was definitely getting to hang out with my nephew Desmond. The kid is so effing cute that it’s hard not to just pick him up and hug him, but making sure that he was cool with Guinness being around kept me occupied enough.
I had plans to go out of town for St Patrick’s Day. I try to go to Chicago that weekend if possible every year to visit Cathy, and it’s been about a year since I have seen her since I wasn’t able to make it to her wedding in November. My 9-5 changed those plans for me.
It’s nice to know that my partner and I are almost irreplaceable at the 9-5, but when emergency situations arise it can be a real pain in the ass. One of these situations came up on Friday and we were required to cover the exec suite 24 hrs/day for the entire week leading up to St Patty’s Day, one of us working 6a-8p and the other working 6p-7a.
I don’t mind the long shifts, but I normally start my day at 6a, and I was tapped for the 6p shift which completely reversed my schedule for the week and got me out of work no earlier than midnight Friday night when I was supposed to be driving to Chicago that very morning. Chicago was scrapped, and other plans were soon made. I was bummed, but I was still going to spend national drinking day with a lot of my close friends.
My anger soon disappeared once I worked out our work schedule for opposite week and got to leave. I was out 30 minutes late, but happy to be gone for the weekend even though I had a ton of errands to run before my date with Sarah. Got the errands done-ish, just didn’t clean the house as much as I had hoped to before she came by.
The date was pretty awesome. We had a good dinner at Union Street where we played Stripper or EMO Slut? Never found out for sure, but I was leaning toward stripper. Normally I would have just asked the girl in question, but wasn’t so sure that would be the best way to start off our date and just let it go.
From there we hit the Detroit Institute of Arts to see the Ansel Adams exhibit. It was effing spectacular. I could have stayed and looked at many of the photos for hours on end, but we ended up leaving after an hour or so because the museum was closing. Or so they thought. We still had some time before the movie started, so I decided that we’d try and find the long way to the theatre and go through the museum. Security didn’t like that and re-routed us about halfway through our journey.
The movie we saw is called The Bridge. I had read a little about it beforehand, and knew that I would see a couple people jump to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge, but wasn’t quite expecting what I ended up seeing. I had no idea that there would be family interviews and a personalization of many of the suicides. Putting names and families to the jumpers made it a lot harder to watch.
From the depressing movie we headed back to my house and hooked up her Gamecube to play some Mario Kart. I haven’t had a Nintendo system since my NES, and had only played Mario Kart once before so I was told I was going to have my ass handed to me. But like I told her, if it’s a racing game she never really stood a chance against me.
I won the first 6 races, and then we split the next six. 12 was enough for us since we both had long days before our date, and we went to bed. Not much sleep to be had that night. We both had visions from the movie playing in our dreams. Add to that the slight, bittersweet discomfort of sharing your bed with someone else for the first time, and the both of us tossed and turned til the sun came up.
Saturday was a poker day as I played in the level two WSOP freeroll that afternoon and hit some cash games after playing many heads-up SNGs. After an astounding 8 game win streak, I ended up losing 3 out of 5 to BJ and decided that HU SNGs were BS and made a lot more money in a 2-4 limit game than I had lost to my eurodonk friend.
Sunday’s weather was awesome and made me look like a genius for scheduling a family BBQ that day more than a week beforehand when it was still snowing a lot around here. I think the real genius of it was getting my cousin and her husband to host and cook all the food that I brought.
Large family dinners are rare for me nowadays and it was a great feeling to have a bunch of us eating at the same table. Even with Denise’s dogs flipping out because they had been locked in the basement, and Guinness flipping over chairs once he saw/heard that I had discovered Denise had a cat. Guinness once went through a window at my house just to chase a cat, he doesn’t like them and I don’t like having to tackle a 115 lb Rottweiler that is hell bent on killing a cat just as we are all sitting down to eat.
The highlight of the evening though was definitely getting to hang out with my nephew Desmond. The kid is so effing cute that it’s hard not to just pick him up and hug him, but making sure that he was cool with Guinness being around kept me occupied enough.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
To Blog, Or Not To Blog
One of the reasons I became a member at Suicide Girls was Wil Wheaton. When I heard he was writing over there I decided to sign up so I didn't miss any of his content, and he seemed a perfect fit for the job. What's that? You don't need to be a member to read his stuff? Only if you want to look at the naked women? OK, not important. In my mind he has always been one of the top bloggers out there on the internets. He’s in my top three along with Iggy and Pauly, and unfortunately I’ve been failing to read any of them with regularity recently.
About the time Iggy started his gig over at Poker Works is when I started to read a lot more new (to me) poker blogs. With Poker Works blocked at my 9-5 I could no longer lose my productivity to the Iggy ubers, and the Tao was blocked well before that. In my search for new weekday content, I lost track of my favorite pokerbloggeractor.
The last couple weeks I have been hitting Wil’s blog here and there when I had the time, then yesterday I saw this great post that he put up about not being motivated to post anything for about a week even though he knew he could easily come up with some great stuff.
For the past few months I’ve felt pretty much the same way. I had fully intended to post on a regular basis follwing my most recent Vegas trip, because that right there would undoubtedly give me a ton of stuff to write about. That trip was in December. This is only my 10th post since I returned from Vegas. Almost three full months. Definitely not often enough.
In this time I’ve struggled with myself about this a little bit. Justifying the lack of posts on one hand, while reasoning out why I should post more on the other hand. But why? Why should I feel any pressure at all to post on my blog at any time unless I truly feel like it. When I really want to get something up there, the excuses will fall to the wayside and I will.
And since I mentioned Iggy’s Poker Works gig, I should also mention that he is back home now at Guinness and Poker. No ubers up last I checked, but I’m assuming that will change real soon.
About the time Iggy started his gig over at Poker Works is when I started to read a lot more new (to me) poker blogs. With Poker Works blocked at my 9-5 I could no longer lose my productivity to the Iggy ubers, and the Tao was blocked well before that. In my search for new weekday content, I lost track of my favorite pokerbloggeractor.
The last couple weeks I have been hitting Wil’s blog here and there when I had the time, then yesterday I saw this great post that he put up about not being motivated to post anything for about a week even though he knew he could easily come up with some great stuff.
For the past few months I’ve felt pretty much the same way. I had fully intended to post on a regular basis follwing my most recent Vegas trip, because that right there would undoubtedly give me a ton of stuff to write about. That trip was in December. This is only my 10th post since I returned from Vegas. Almost three full months. Definitely not often enough.
In this time I’ve struggled with myself about this a little bit. Justifying the lack of posts on one hand, while reasoning out why I should post more on the other hand. But why? Why should I feel any pressure at all to post on my blog at any time unless I truly feel like it. When I really want to get something up there, the excuses will fall to the wayside and I will.
And since I mentioned Iggy’s Poker Works gig, I should also mention that he is back home now at Guinness and Poker. No ubers up last I checked, but I’m assuming that will change real soon.
Monday, March 05, 2007
My Morning of Anger
Have you ever woken up angry? On the proverbial wrong side of the bed? This isn't something that happens to me all that much, but when it does there there is a discernible reason for it. Like I went to bed angry about something, or have been under a lot of stress about something for a few days. But today was not one of those cases. Today was a complete mystery to me.
I had a very good weekend. Actually got a good amount of sleep for once. Wasn't steaming from any poker games. Was properly tucked in before bed. Hell, if anything I should have been happy when I woke up. This was not the case.
This general sense of aggressive anger coursed through my body the whole time I was getting ready for work, and increased exponentially on my ride in. All 12 minutes of my commute.
First I was cursing the dumb ass in the Escalade who got right in front of me from the middle lane while I was speeding up and merging into the right lane. Of course the right lane was no longer of any use to him as soon as I signaled to pass him on the left, so he cut me off again.
A couple other drivers pissed me off a little more after that, but as I pulled into the structure at work I started to calm down a little. But not nearly enough. On my way in I made sure to have my iPod on and visible to all so I could avoid any contact before I got to my desk to scarf down a big breakfast, since food always comforts me. A couple people tried saying good morning, but I just kinda grunted back and brought my head up slightly and quickly in a universal "what's up"gesture.
When I get to work, I have two options for breakfast. There's the smart healthy choice, which I generally choose every day except for Wednesday when my greasy, unhealthy, wonderfully delicious choice is one of the breakfast specials at the restaurant in my building. Today I went for the grease. Then followed that with the healthy breakfast....and followed that with a granola bar and a buttload of water.
Still not happy.
I leer and nod my way through the morning, and the anger doesn't subside....but it doesn't get any worse either. As I'm sitting at my desk wondering what in the hell is wrong with me, I get a few text messages from my sheet midget about what's going on at her job. Twice I end up laughing out loud, one of those times some water found it's way out of my nose and onto my keyboard. Not a pretty sight, or a great feeling immediately, but it ended up turning my attitude around for the morning. From there I slowly rose from the depths of my anger and ended the day on a good note when I got some more food at work. For free no less.
Since then it's been pretty smooth sailing as I am about to chow down on my free work food for dinner, and I just set the ground work for a website that I've discussed with a few friends a couple times over the last couple months. Nothing big for me, but it could really help out a few of my friends in the long run.
At least my day will end on a high note. Hopefully I can avoid a repeat of my pissed off morning come tomorrow.
I had a very good weekend. Actually got a good amount of sleep for once. Wasn't steaming from any poker games. Was properly tucked in before bed. Hell, if anything I should have been happy when I woke up. This was not the case.
This general sense of aggressive anger coursed through my body the whole time I was getting ready for work, and increased exponentially on my ride in. All 12 minutes of my commute.
First I was cursing the dumb ass in the Escalade who got right in front of me from the middle lane while I was speeding up and merging into the right lane. Of course the right lane was no longer of any use to him as soon as I signaled to pass him on the left, so he cut me off again.
A couple other drivers pissed me off a little more after that, but as I pulled into the structure at work I started to calm down a little. But not nearly enough. On my way in I made sure to have my iPod on and visible to all so I could avoid any contact before I got to my desk to scarf down a big breakfast, since food always comforts me. A couple people tried saying good morning, but I just kinda grunted back and brought my head up slightly and quickly in a universal "what's up"gesture.
When I get to work, I have two options for breakfast. There's the smart healthy choice, which I generally choose every day except for Wednesday when my greasy, unhealthy, wonderfully delicious choice is one of the breakfast specials at the restaurant in my building. Today I went for the grease. Then followed that with the healthy breakfast....and followed that with a granola bar and a buttload of water.
Still not happy.
I leer and nod my way through the morning, and the anger doesn't subside....but it doesn't get any worse either. As I'm sitting at my desk wondering what in the hell is wrong with me, I get a few text messages from my sheet midget about what's going on at her job. Twice I end up laughing out loud, one of those times some water found it's way out of my nose and onto my keyboard. Not a pretty sight, or a great feeling immediately, but it ended up turning my attitude around for the morning. From there I slowly rose from the depths of my anger and ended the day on a good note when I got some more food at work. For free no less.
Since then it's been pretty smooth sailing as I am about to chow down on my free work food for dinner, and I just set the ground work for a website that I've discussed with a few friends a couple times over the last couple months. Nothing big for me, but it could really help out a few of my friends in the long run.
At least my day will end on a high note. Hopefully I can avoid a repeat of my pissed off morning come tomorrow.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
We Were on a Break
The last few days I have played a total of 37 hands. One heads up SNG. I actually won after getting my money in ahead. That was quite a change from Tuesday. Varience toyed with me all afternoon. I take pride in being someone who doesn't go on tilt while playing poker, but Tuesday was an exception to the rule.
Normally if I think I am going to tilt I can get up from the table or computer and just stop playing, but the other day the play was so bad and the suckouts so crazy that I knew I could still win even if I was tilting a little. Or so I thought.
I just got angrier and angrier as I got my money in good and lost time after time, but I continued to play because the games were juicy. I knew I was in trouble when I went off on someone for a play. I never do that. It's usually only 'nh' or something similar because I want the players who are playing badly to feel comfortable and stick around. I usually go out of my way to defend people who play like shit when others call them out because I don't want the guy handing me money to be chased away.
Once I tore up the donkey who told said I was a terrible player and he left, I realized how bad I was tilting....but continued to play. I don't know why now. But I pressed on.
Had I dropped my buy in, I would have left but because I was basically breaking even I stuck around. I lost a total of $12 the whole afternoon while I saw the sickest single day of cards in my entire poker life. In that regard I was lucky.
So enough of my bad beat day story. Last night I went to my first Flogging Molly concert. I've tried to see them a couple of times in the past, but ended up being out of town just about every time they came to Detroit. Awesome. That's about all I can say. We had a great time, spent a lot of money on beer, and had a drink with Dave and Bridget after the show when they strolled into the Town Pump and hung out at the table next to us.
I'm normally not the "Hey, take a picture with me" type, but I had to get one with them. I even made sure to post it on myspace before I passed out last night. I'm such a dork.
Not sure yet where tonight is going to take me, but I can guarantee I won't be drinking after all the beer I had last night.
Normally if I think I am going to tilt I can get up from the table or computer and just stop playing, but the other day the play was so bad and the suckouts so crazy that I knew I could still win even if I was tilting a little. Or so I thought.
I just got angrier and angrier as I got my money in good and lost time after time, but I continued to play because the games were juicy. I knew I was in trouble when I went off on someone for a play. I never do that. It's usually only 'nh' or something similar because I want the players who are playing badly to feel comfortable and stick around. I usually go out of my way to defend people who play like shit when others call them out because I don't want the guy handing me money to be chased away.
Once I tore up the donkey who told said I was a terrible player and he left, I realized how bad I was tilting....but continued to play. I don't know why now. But I pressed on.
Had I dropped my buy in, I would have left but because I was basically breaking even I stuck around. I lost a total of $12 the whole afternoon while I saw the sickest single day of cards in my entire poker life. In that regard I was lucky.
So enough of my bad beat day story. Last night I went to my first Flogging Molly concert. I've tried to see them a couple of times in the past, but ended up being out of town just about every time they came to Detroit. Awesome. That's about all I can say. We had a great time, spent a lot of money on beer, and had a drink with Dave and Bridget after the show when they strolled into the Town Pump and hung out at the table next to us.
I'm normally not the "Hey, take a picture with me" type, but I had to get one with them. I even made sure to post it on myspace before I passed out last night. I'm such a dork.
Not sure yet where tonight is going to take me, but I can guarantee I won't be drinking after all the beer I had last night.
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