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More Party and Mookie's Charity Tourney

I ended up getting down to the bar for the Monday night tourney for the first time in a while. It was a raining, crappy night, so football practice was a little shorter than normal, which gave me enough time to get there before the break. I ended losing a couple races though and was out within a half hour. I had something to eat, hung out with some people for a while and then made it home a little past 10pm. What better time than to fire up Party Poker right?

I figured I would only be playing for a little bit, get my fix, then hit the sack. I ended up playing until about 12:45am because I was running pretty good. I did resist the urge to step up again, so I just had 1 table of $25 NL going. Without boring you with too many details, when I left the table, I had $95. Not a bad night.

The funniest thing was, I was beating the crap of this one guy. He hadn’t been at the table long when I decided to call down his pot sized bet on the flop with my flush draw. There was another person in so I had the implied odds working for me. I had to call it on the turn also, but hit on the river. He then paid me off on my river bet.

A couple hands later, after he had reloaded, I flopped a set of 4’s on an A high rainbow board, stacking him and his AQ. He typed something like, “feel good to be running well sir?”

I nicely replied, “For now, and I know I probably wasn’t getting the odds to call with that flush draw, sorry man.” He comes back with, “It’s hard to hate you if you are apologizing”.

For whatever reason, I hovered over his name and it said “Plymouth”. I asked him where he was from and lo and behold, he lives in my town. Of all the fishies in the sea, I am smacking around a college kid from my town. The pond is smaller than you think I guess.

Bottom line was the deck was hitting me in the face and my hands were holding up. It was a fun night, and it looks like I have another person to add to the email list when I have my home tourneys.

I don’t have much else really. We have a scrimmage tonight so updates to follow tomorrow. My meeting went fine yesterday so I am waiting to hear back from them on the possible new job.

Last thing for tonight is to pimp the tourney Mookie is having for the little boy with cancer. This kind of story breaks your heart, and it is even closer to home when you have kids at that age. I am blessed with my family and would love to do more for this. I will have to think about exactly what that may be, but in the meantime, please try to make it to this tourney. Mookie has spent a lot of time organizing it and has even offered to do some Stars/Full tilt money swaps if you don’t want to make a new deposit. Either way, check out his site for the details.

Tilty Weekend

Good Monday morning. I guess. I have about an hour before I go off to meet with HR at the possible new place. Figured I could pound something out quickly, since this place is a ghost town before 9am anyway, never mind on Monday.

My weekend was pretty interesting. I think I finally experienced true tilt. Anyone that reads this crap knows I am a low stakes player. My bankroll is pretty small and I usually play it pretty conservative with an occasional shot at a higher level that might lose me a little bit of cash, but nothing big. Yeah, this weekend was different.

For the backdrop, my bankroll on Friday was basically spread out as follows:

Absolute $85
Party $95
Stars $265
Neteller $500

The neteller money is reserved for other purchases at the moment, so my working bankroll is really the money at the 3 sites right now. On Friday night, after playing some mad Madden 07 with my son (the game does indeed rock, although a little more involved than in the past I thought), I jumped onto Stars and played some Horse. I started off at the $1/$2 tables that I was killing the night before. Oh yeah, I was also about 5 beers deep, when I started, due to the fact that I used my Munich beer stein and was fascinated by the fact that when I poured one beer in, it was only about a quarter full. They were going down fast.

Anyway, I don’t remember details but quickly went through the first $40 or so with second best hands, etc, etc. By the time I was done, after probably about 3 more beers, and a visit to the $3/$6 Omaha table for about 10 minutes with $100, my Stars balance was a lofty $101. Hmm, well, that happened quickly didn’t it.

I stayed away from poker on Saturday, going to the football weigh in with the kids, then to the Pats game (more on that later). On Sunday afternoon, my bro in law and sister in law came over for a little cookout, and after eating, we were just hanging out in the living room watching TV, as it rained outside. The laptop was fired up and I jumped into Absolute to wreak some havoc. Umm, yeah, right. I jumped into the same game that had given me that bankroll in the first place, $2/$4 Omaha, and got pwned. I was down to $17 after about an hour. I lost it in 5 minutes playing blackjack. Yeah, blackjack. Well played sir. Way to keep the tilt away, you moron.

Not having been beaten enough apparently, I went back to Stars and lost another $40, rather quickly, playing some more Horse. At that point, I shut it down. My bankroll at 4pm on Sunday was as follows:

Absolute $zippo
Party $95
Stars $60
Neteller $500

Ugh. Ugh. Yes, that is a double Ugh by me. I cooked dinner for the kids and watched Tiger almost lose, but of course come back and win again, for the 4th straight week. Once the kids were back to bed, and I had cleared my head a bit, it was time to win some of my money back. At least I hoped so.

I logged on to Party at about 8pm. I was determined to stay within my originally plans of playing $25 NL on Party so that is what I did at first. I ended up getting my stack up to about $60 against some truly terrible players. The game ended up breaking and I had to tend to a crying child while the wife was watching the Emmys. When I came back, I decided to try my luck at $50 NL, having won a buyin. I worked that up to about $80 and called it quits again. I was feeling good and hoping my luck was turning around. I decided to take another shot, this time at the $100 NL tables. I went against everyone’s advice though, and bought in short. Starting with $50, I got some nice hands and doubled up a couple times. By the time I was done, my party account was sitting at $355.

It ended up being almost like a cash transfer, with some minor heartburn in between. After finishing up on Party, I think I was down about $30 for the weekend, or about the price of the hat I bought my son at the game Saturday nice. Big sigh of relief. Now I probably go back to $25 NL on Party. Probably.

The game on Saturday night was a great time. I ended up getting 2 more tickets from my neighbor, so there was a group of 8 of us all together. We got there real early to tailgate. The kids had a great time eating and playing some football. It also didn’t hurt that the Pats absolutely crushed the Redskins. Good times. Yes, baseball is dead to me for 2006.

That’s all for me today. Have a happy Monday.

TGIF

TGIF. Really. This has been a long week and I am looking forward to my weekend. I talked to HR at the new place yesterday and I set up a meeting with them on Monday morning to discuss details of a possible change. I was hoping to get that taken care of this week, but I will have to suffer through the weekend not knowing one way or another yet. I wish I wasn’t so impatient about things like this. Anyway, I should have a much better grasp on this after that.

I played a little more Omaha on Absolute last night and after grinding for a while, I ended up leaving the table up about $6. I forgot that I have rake rebate there, so all of these big pots at $2/$4 might make me some money actually. The game broke and there wasn’t much other action on Absolute that interested me, so I switched over to Stars and dipped my toes in the pool, for the first time, at the HORSE tables. I am liking the HORSE. I sat at a $1/$2 table with $40 and after about 2 hours, walked away with $105, up $65. Not too shabby. The play was awful, as everyone has been saying. I am no expert at any of these games, but man, there were just some real donators. I would say Stud H/L was my favorite game. I was up that much after some rough suckage too, and although I know I won’t be able to sustain $30/per rates, I am hoping that I can continue to beat these players for a while at least.

The weekend looks to be pretty busy. Tonight, the wifey is having the ladies over for some jewelry party or some shit like that. All I know is they have an excuse to get together, drink, eat, and gossip. I have already been told by my 9 year old that “we” are being banished to the new room upstairs to play Gamecube. He had saved up some Christmas gift cards to Toys-R-Us and today, he bought Madden 2007. I am not much of a gamer but he is looking forward to it, so it will be fun.

We are up and out early tomorrow to go to the official weigh-in for the football team. We have to take everyone on a bus and the trip is about 45 minutes. Hopefully everyone makes weight so they can play. There is one kid on the team that will have a real tough time. There is also a kid who is 11, so he has to be even lighter than the younger kids. The other day he was 82 and a half pounds and he needs to be under 80 to play. He is a good player too, so hopefully he takes the Metamucil we gave him. Just kidding.

I will hopefully get to see my younger 2 kids for a couple hours between the weigh in and when me and my oldest leave for the Patriots game. We are leaving at 3pm for an 8pm game. Oh yeah, the kid’s first tailgate experience. Should be a lot of fun. We live about an hour away from Gillette Stadium and we want to get there when the parking lots open at 4pm. I also have to switch my tickets at Will Call for some stupid reason, so I want to get there early and avoid the lines. After I get that done, it will be burgers, dogs, shrimp, beer, and juice boxes all around. I can’t wait, even if the NFL pre-season games are pretty boring.

Sunday, at this point, is wide open thankfully. Maybe I will get some poker in Sunday night. During the day, I need to spend the day with the little guys. I basically don’t see them all week now because I leave before they are up, and don’t get home from practice until after they are fast asleep. My 3 yr old loves to “lawn mower the grass” with me. I have a ride on and he stands in front of me on the platform while I wrap one arm around him and drive with the other. I am sure we will get that in on Sunday, then hopefully something fun. A walk on the waterfront in Plymouth or on the Cape Cod canal might be in order. Grab some ice cream with the kids on the last weekend before school starts. Man, where did the summer go?

Some football and Omaha, what a combo

Still waiting to finalize the new job situation, but it is looking good. The old boss called me yesterday and said the HR person would call me today to set up a time for me to come in and talk to her about everything. Grrr. I am so impatient. It is hard for me to concentrate on my current job knowing that I am probably leaving.

On the football front, I am having a lot of fun, learning a lot, and I and the other offensive coach are working great together. We had to make a change to one of the backs this week though. It is a tough situation really, but ultimately, it is better for the team to make the move.

Basically, the fastest kid on the team had to be moved. He was just a little too lazy in practice, and was dropping the ball all the time when we were running his plays in practice. The situation is more difficult for me because the kid comes from a real tough situation at home. I feel bad that we are moving him out of a desirable position, but we have been all over him and he didn’t seem to get it that we were serious about using someone else. At the same time, we have another kid who can play his position, who is a step slower, but works a lot harder. We were playing him on the line at guard, but actually had someone else that would be better suited at guard. To make the change would strengthen the line, and basically break us even in the backfield.

Like I said, the kid that we moved out has a tough family situation, although I don’t know any details. All I know is that he lives with his grandmother. Apparently the mother is locked up. No idea why and no idea where the father is. He is generally a good kid, kind of a punk, but nothing big. He has never played football, but just wasn’t trying hard enough.

Well, yesterday we made the change in practice. He seemed to take it ok. He was told he would focus on defense. Well, usually when we bring the offense together with the defense, the offense doesn’t get a great test because a lot of the kids playing offense, also start on defense.

Well, the test was a lot tougher yesterday. The kid we moved was killing people. We already knew when he tried, he was a devastating tackler. He can’t be blocked and hits hard, with perfect technique. We was playing middle linebacker and on the first play, came through and crushed our starting fullback on a dive play. He was making every tackle and we ended up blowing the whistle a lot faster as the practice went on, hoping not to get any of our starting offensive players hurt!

Now, I am sure he was a little bit pissed off for being switched but he didn’t act like it really. He seemed happy enough and at the end of practice, the head coach told the team how he was changing the defense to a 6-4 primarily because we have 2 killer hitters and he wants them both in the middle. He also had this kid lead the end of practice cheer. Here’s hoping he keeps that up, because if he isn’t making 15 tackles a game, he just isn’t trying. We are hoping that doesn’t happen, but we’ll see.

I played a little bit of poker last night on Pokerroom. I had a little bit of cash left and lost it all. I only had about $20 left after cashing out the rest a couple weeks ago, so this was almost an awfukkit night. I played NL for a little while but switched to limit for no particular reason other than I was board. Nothing in particular to discuss about the play honestly.

I also played a little bit of Omaha on Absolute. If you remember back a ways, I had built my free $10 up to about $85 on Absolute. I was planning on trying to play the Mookie, but jumped into this Omaha game and the next time I looked up, it was 10:04. I got into Stars just in time to see KJ get busted, ending the late registration time. Probably for the best anyway because I needed the sleep.

Anyway, the only Omaha game that seemed worth playing was the $2/$4 limit game. I sat in with $40 and lost half of it on the first 2 hands. Doh. I know I am not so great at the game, but I am learning. I managed to take down a few pots and was up to $50 when wifey was set to retire for the evening. As she walked around shutting off lights, etc, I decided I would play my last hand and then turn it. I forget my 4 cards but basically, I was open ended on the flop, had the nut straight on the turn and the betting was capped with me and 2 others in. River paired the board with a Q and even though I knew I was fucked, I called the 2 bets on the end to pay off both of the 2 fuckers that hit their full house on the river. They had 2 pair, no draws, both of them. Is that normal to bet it up like that in Omaha with 2 pair? I didn’t think so, and me slamming my fist and snapping at my wife as she said something to me, as the chips went elsewhere, showed that I thought I got boned. Down to $12 after that hand, I ended up playing the next 2 hands and taking down both pots. One of them I had Q8Q8 and flopped a Q. We capped the flop and the other dude called me down and raised me on the river. He had KK and types in, “nice 2 outer”. Now granted, I was behind before hitting my set on the flop, but why wouldn’t I at least see a flop on that hand? I finished down only $10, so that wasn’t too bad.

I have been also distracted since yesterday because my buddy went to Vegas Tuesday night. He was with me when I went at the beginning of June and tried to get me to go again this time. I REALLY wanted to go, but with football and the job and all that, I just couldn’t justify it. I am dying to get back out there and have been trying to convince the wife that we should go in the fall sometime, but it isn’t looking good now. She doesn’t trust that I would actually spend time with her out there. Come to think of it, I don’t blame her. If we can get away, I think it will be a beachy location.

Ok, that’s it. Have a good one.

More Psychosis

Thanks to everyone for the comments about the 200 posts. Glad that, for whatever reason, some people find the crap I spew out on here somewhat interesting (?). Maybe like a train wreck or something. Anyway, I appreciate it, just like the support when I started talking about Crazy Neighbor. And yes, I do have more on that.

Well, I know this is getting old fast, but oh well. My buddy called me yesterday to tell me that Crazy Neighbor called the cops on us. As they promised to do when the officer visited them last week, they called yesterday to say that they were being harassed by their neighbor across the street. That we (my son) was flipping them off. So basically they have taken it to lying to the law enforcement officials to get back at us for calling about them calling my wife a bitch. Lovely.

My son is deathly afraid of those psychos and would never have flipped them, or anyone else off. He knows he would get his butt beat, but it isn’t an issue. I know he didn’t do it. The psycho isn’t very smart though. When the officer got there, she proceeded to complain about the officer that came last week. I found out that she called the station to file a complaint against him, but was too lazy to actually follow through by going down and filling out a complaint.

My wife was very upset. We have never had anything to do with the police, other than having them over for cards. I mean, I know at least 20 of the officers in town personally, having grown up here and such. She is worried that psycho will keep calling and lying until she calls 3 times, and then will file a criminal harassment complaint. I guess that is how it works. Wifey is afraid we will have to pay a lawyer to defend ourselves, etc. I don’t buy it. Psycho also told the officer that she was afraid for her son’s safety on the bus. Luckily, my one of the coaches, with me, for my son’s baseball team was the school principal. He knows my son, his character, and us. He also knows psycho, not surprisingly from other issues. Not surprisingly, I think she is barking up the wrong tree here.

This woman is a bully who preys on weak people. She had no problem yelling at my 9 year old when we weren’t around, but whenever we have seen her at a party, she would never even looked at me. I am fighting the urge to call over there and blast them, big time, but I am going to be looking out for the husband this weekend and hopefully I can talk to him and find out what the psycho’s problem with us is. It is worth a shot anyway. Unfortunately, I am feeling so paranoid lately about them, that I feel like I need to carry a mini recorder if I do talk to them, even out in the open. I would love it if I could get a cop to stand there and hear me talk to them and ask what the problem is. I just want to tell them to leave us alone and we will do the same. We will never be friends, but I don’t need enemies either. It would just be easiest that way. Wifey is beside herself and it is all bullshit. Anyway, like I said before, I don’t really know what they can do, but I do know that we have had a number of other neighbors say they would stick up for us if need be. It is all just so bizarre.

Poker was pretty non eventful last night. I was playing 2 $25 NL tables on Party and got up to a total of about $75 combined but gave back $15 of my $25 profit on one hand. I played the hand horribly so I deserved it. I ended up playing for about 2 hours I think and basically broke even. Weeeeeee.

I got all the money paid out to the 45 SNG winners. I now need to come up with a strategy with the money I have sprinkled about. I will try to come up with something after practice tonight.

Last thing is the job. I fought the urge to call my old boss for an update this morning. I thought that the HR person was in yesterday so I should hear something today about the details of what their offer was going to be. He called me at lunchtime just to say that the HR person had just come back from vaca today, and he was meeting with her tomorrow to discuss my deal and he would call me sometime tomorrow. I at least have that to focus on, but that is also stressful. Not just the offer but if I do take it (95% sure I will), when I will start so that it doesn’t interfere with football. Then I need to figure out when wifey and I can get away for a few days, since we were supposed to go to Orlando in November to a conference I was going to speak at. I will be bailing on the conference if I take this job though, and I will be just starting, and pretty busy. All the little details are starting to piss me off to be honest. Oh well, life could be much worse.

I just picked up a couple tickets for the Pats preseason game against the Redskins on Saturday night. My buddy and I are taking the boys so it should be fun. No one wants to go to the preseason games so I got a deal. Ok, that’s it. Knock em dead out there. If you are on my street, don’t slow down if you see any psychos crossing slowly.

Update Schmorgasbord

Wow, lots to catch up on since the last time I really posted, Thursday morning, when the crazy neighbor pissed me off. In no particular order, here goes…

The 45 SNG Challenge is all over. Last night was the last night for registrations and it closed with a race to the finish. The final tally says that 1st place was Johnny Mac with 36 points, 2nd place was yours truly with 33 points, 3rd place was Gilain with 32 points, and 4th place was Tripjax with 27 points.

For my own story, I managed to tie up Johnny Mac with my second to last attempt. We both had one more left to play and I waited until he played his last one on Saturday night. He finished 5th for 4 points in that one. I played mine first thing on Sunday morning knowing that I needed a 5th place or better for at least a tie for first. I managed to get to the final table short stacked and tried to wait it out. When we got down to 7 left, I was the short stack, along with another guy. I felt like I had to win at least one hand to get to 5th. I was dealt AQ suited and pushed but was called by one of the larger stacks with pocket 4s. I lost the race when I failed to improve and I was out in 7th for 1 point.

That one point would be huge for me though. As I was drafting my Blogger Fantasy football team, Tripjax shot me an IM from somewhere on vacation. He had been wandering around looking for a wifi connection to finish his final 3 games in an attempt to get into the money. To make a long story short, he finished one of them in 4th place which gave him 27 points, 1 ahead of Jordan, and into 3rd place in the challenge. After I confirmed that, he was all set. I let Jordan know, on girly chat, that he was still in 4th, when he told me Gilain was playing his last one also. Gilain was really the only person that could catch any of the money spots it seemed and Jordan put a bounty on him as he played, lol. I think that may have inspired Gilain even more as he wound up finishing 3rd in his also, pushed Jordan out to the bubble, and pushed Tripjax to 4th place. If Gilain had outlasted one more person, he would have tied me for 2nd place. I would up finishing 1 point ahead of him.

All in all, it was a great challenge. There were 20 players this time, but all 4 cashing spots scored more points than the winner from the first challenge. Actually Trip scored the same amount. I hope everyone enjoyed it and congrats to Johnny Mac for going wire to wire on this thing and taking it down. Well played, sir.

As I mentioned, the Blogger Fantasy Football draft was last night. I ended up drawing the 2nd overall pick, which is a blessing and a curse. I was able to grab Larry Johnson, as Shaun Alexander went first, but didn’t get to pick again until 23rd. I think I got Marvin Harrison with that pick. I am pretty happy with my team, but I will recap it in more depth later, after I look at the other teams more closely. With a 12 team league, the teams can get somewhat thin, so hopefully I escaped ok. With LJ, Harrison, Gates, and McNabb leading the way, we’ll see. Donovan doesn’t really have much of a receiving corp to throw to. I did get Joe Horn somewhat late in the draft. I know he was a bust last year, but I am hoping that Drew Brees can get going in NO and get him back on track. I can’t recall who my 3rd WR is off the top of my head (I am on the train). I think it might have been Nate Burleson, who has moved to Seattle. I like picking WRs that have good QBs, and who are also the 2nd WR. Less double teams and such. We’ll see if that works out for me.

I did have my interview on Thursday afternoon and it went well. I won’t talk too much about the particulars yet, as I am trying to work them out now. My old boss called me on Friday morning and told me they all liked me and he just had to talk to HR today, since the person was out the end of last week. We are talking about cash and other details, but I am leaning to taking it. It is a great opportunity, but seems to be a huge mess of a situation. I think that is both bad and good. I will have a lot to do and learn, which is good, but I would be inheriting a team in shambles, which will obviously be difficult. Another part of my decision is when I will start. He is being very flexible with that and has said that my coaching is no problem. Although that may be the case, being in a new situation, I will need to focus on it, and wouldn’t feel right leaving early every day to get to practice. He has even offered to let me wait to start until the end of October, when football is all over and I may have to take him up on that. I love helping with the team, and I actually feel like they need me to help at this point. If he will let me do that, and still be able to guarantee my bonus won’t be prorated, which seems what he is saying, I may have to do it like that. Once I talk to him and HR today or tomorrow, I will know better how I am going to do this. I am currently making my list of things that I need to get in writing in my offer so I don’t forget anything. It seems like such a chore, but I think making this change could bring me to the next level in my career, as long as I do a good job. More to come as soon as I know more.

Lastly, the football situation is great. I love coaching and love working with the kids. We had our first scrimmage on Saturday, and going in, us coaches weren’t too confident. We had made a last minute change to the offense last week, and we weren’t sure how well the kids would grasp it. For those in the know (I was clueless on this 2 weeks ago, so don’t take this as me being technical or anything), we were trying to use some advanced (for this age anyway) blocking schemes where we were pulling the guard to block outside and leaving it up to the other lineman to fill those gaps by downblocking and x-blocking. Basically, we finally gave up on it when we were having trouble covering the gaps being left by the guard against our own 2nd team defense.

On Thursday night, the last practice before the scrimmage, we told the lineman they were straight up blocking on all the plays, and we had to change the wording of the plays so they didn’t get confused. They did unbelievable on Saturday. We killed the other team and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves until yesterday. After the initial luster wore off, I think we all realized that the other team was pretty bad, lol. I was talking to my son as we were in the car doing some errands. He played great and made about 3 tackles behind the line of scrimmage for losses. I asked him if he was using the 4 point stance that the coaches had taught him to fire through the line quicker. He said he was sometimes, but mostly he was just going right through the line. He said their offensive line splits were huge so once they lines up, he would just shift a foot one way or another and could basically walk through the hole untouched. Then last night, the head coach called me for my feedback and said that he had watch the game film and saw some of those same things. Although we played well, we agreed that the kids probably weren’t really tested at all. The other team couldn’t move the ball at all, and we were moving it in nice chunks. All in all, we looked good, the kids were fast and hitting hard so we can’t take everything away from them. It is just hard to get too excited about a scrimmage against a bad team.

As for my son in particular, I was very proud of the way he played. On offense, he was clearing big holes. We had one play where we had a 2nd and 2 and tried to call the play on “ready”, which is the first thing out of the QB’s mouth. He was the only kid on the line that went when he should have and the coach pointed it out to everyone, so he was happy. On defense, he was killing it. The thing with him is focus, which is the same thing with all the kids at this age. I was all over him in the pregame warmups about being a big part of the game, and paying attention on every play. He did great.

As an aside to the game (yes, of course I have an aside). The field we played at was in a big complex with 2 full fields and one half field. After our game, we stayed to watch a little bit of the younger team, which has my son's best friend on it. He is one year younger and is the QB of that team. Anyway, we are sitting there watching when my 3 year old says to mom that he has to go poopie. She turns and looks at me and says, "I can't do it". Ok, I thought, no big deal, I will take him. Umm, where is the bathroom? "You have to go in the port-o-potty". Ah, no wonder she couldn't do it. Man, those things are nasty. I bring him in and wipe off as much grime as I could muster, then nested the seat with about 4 layers of tissue paper thin toilet paper. I told him not to touch anything as I lifted him onto the pot and held onto him. I swear it was about 120 degrees in this damn thing, and the stench was unbearable. After watching him grunt and get vein popping red from pushing, he finally finished. I swear, he almost fell in twice. There is no questions, he would have been lost forever if he did. When my oldest was about the same age, I took him to a fair that he had to use the port-o-potty. It was fall was he had a vest on but it was kinda warm so I had the vest over my shoulder. I stood over him as he peed, and in my haste in standing over him, making sure he didn't touch his junk against the infected seat and bowl, I bent over just enough so the vest went right down into the shit hole. In my panic, what do I do? I pull it out of course and put it in a plastic bag for mom to wash when we get home. What the hell was I thinking. If that happened now, bye bye clothing. I swear, if he fell in, I am not even sure I would have fished him out.

I think that is all for this early Monday morning. I may try to sneak out of practice a few minutes early tonight so I can get to the bar league. The only reason is because it is the monthly championship and I am qualified because I scored points in the last one. I haven’t played on Monday nights since, but I need to try and win another one of these monthly tourneys to get back into the running to get to the state tourney. I will able to start going on Monday nights again once the season starts, since we won’t be practicing on Monday nights. I would like to score some points, if I can’t win it, so that I will at least qualify for next month’s monthly tourney again.

Have a happy Monday. By the way, this is my 200th post. How could that be?

Thursday's post a day late...

First off, thanks to everyone that left a comment on my personal tilt post from yesterday. People are really whacked out sometimes.

To finish off the story, hopefully anyway. My buddy sent someone over to talk to my wife. After he heard what she had to say, he said that he would go over and talk to them. When my wife said that the psycho daughter wasn’t at home, he said he would tell the mother to locate her and he would try and scare her a bit. The bottom line on these things is that there is nothing they can do until it happens three times. After that, a criminal harassment charge, which would go nowhere, could be filed. We have no interest in pushing anything, but we are sick of their shit.

My buddy said that if he was the one to go, it would be a conflict of interest, and I am glad he knew that. The cop that went over there basically concurred that they were both crazy. While he was in talking to the psycho, the mini psycho came home anyway, so need to go find her. Not sure if the big psycho called her or what. Apparently she denied saying anything, of course, but said, there were “issues” in the past. Whatever. She also said, “the only reason you are here is because her brother is a Plymouth cop”. Lovely arrogant people. That isn’t true of course, it is my buddy, not her brother that is cop, although it is probably true that they wouldn’t have sent anyone if it wasn’t us. She also said since we called the cops on them, then they will call the cops on us for anything we do. That is a funny one because, not only does half of the police force play poker at my house, but I don’t do anything to warrant a call anyway.

So now, no idea if this will just go away or inflame the situation. Honestly, there is no situation. It is just baffling. My wife is now afraid something is going to happen. Slashed tires or something. We really don’t know what these fools are capable of. One thing I do know is that they have a bunch of complaints about harassment like this in their past. Luckily, they don’t have anything related to vandalism or anything more serious. We’ll see. It really pisses me off we even had to call honestly. We could have very easily never talked to these people, but they chose to push it. They have a son who, for 2 years just after high school, used to drive a little piece of shit sports car. The thing was loud as hell and he was always driving too fast. We never said a word.

After the cop left yesterday, my wife was outside weeding and the psycho came backing out of her driveway, which put her right next to my wife. Since the kids were out there with her, she naturally looked up to see where they were and psycho sat there for like 5 second just staring at her with a shit eating grin on her face. Creepy. Then after she got back from wherever she went, her and the mini psycho camped out at the end of the driveway chatting and reading a magazine. You would have to see the driveway, but there is just no reason for them to be there. My wife just went about her business. She mowed the lawn like a good wife should (lol, just kidding, she really did though. What? It’s a rideon.).

Hopefully it is all done now, but not likely.

I did get in some poker last night after getting home from practice. I played the mookie and finished almost the same as last week. I had some nice starting hands like JJ and QQ that I raised up, got called, overcards would hit the flop, and I would have to fold to a solid bet, or raise of my continuation bet. I ended up going out when someone called my 4xbb raise, at 15/30 blinds, then calling my push on the flop. I had pocket 4s and was going for the stop and go with the short stack. I didn’t really have enough to get the fold equity with a preflop push I don’t think. Anyway, he called my push with bottom pair, with 96o. Nice call preflop sir. It was his “favorite hand”.

I couldn’t resist jumping into a 45 SNG at around 11pm or so. I had 2 left to play and Jordan had just moved past me into 2nd place. *NOTE: I couldn’t finish my post yesterday so finishing it Friday morning.* Well, I couldn’t have that, so I went ahead and finished 2nd. The most memorable hand, as Johnny Mac will tell you, was when it was down to about 14 or so left and my stack was in the pitiful stage. The blinds were at 400/800 and I was the BB and dealt Q4s. The guy that was UTG min raised, then 2 others called before it got to me. I only had 740 left after my BB. Basically, it was a no brainer with any 2 cards I thought, so I called. I ended up hitting a runner runner flush to quad up and send me on my way.

By getting 2nd, that put me in a tie with Johnny Mac in the challenge. Unfortunately, he does have 2 games in hand on me. He has 3 left, while I only have 1. Also, there are a bunch of others still in the hunt, as long as they can get their games in by this Sunday, which is the last day of the challenge. Good luck to everyone on that.

Holy Shit, I am so pissed off...

This has nothing to do with poker, but I am on personal tilt right now, big time.

We have a psycho bitch neighbor across the street. Her and her husband have 3 adult children and then an 8 year old. Basically, we have had nothing to do with these people since they moved in. Two of the adult children live at home still and are basically no good. The 8 yr old has trouble keeping any friends, basically because the mother is a psycho. From what we hear, she has pissed almost everyone off at one point or another and the kid basically has only the next door neighbor to play with. For whatever reason, those neighbors tolerate her, but we know them also, and they are cool.

She and our old next door neighbor had an issue at one point, due to the kids. The short story is, they basically can’t stand each other. Our old neighbor moved, but lives close by still and stops by our house often. My oldest and her kid are best friends.

A couple weeks ago, my son went over to play with the son of the neighbor of the psycho. After a little while, psycho calls her son, who had come over to play with the other kids, over to her and talks to him for minute. She then proceeds to berate my son for calling someone names. My son was pretty intimidated and basically went home crying. Now, I believe my son when he says that he didn’t do anything. He is the first to tell me when he does something wrong, but said he didn’t even say anything to anyone.

I was ready to go over and raise hell but the more we thought about it, the more we thought it made more sense to just ignore them and stay away.

Last week, my son was just getting ready to play with the same kid again and psycho came out and asked the other kid if he wanted to come over and swim in their pool. It was just to spite my son. He said no, that he was playing with my son. Basically, I think that kid is the only friend her son has, and she is threatened when that kid plays with anyone else.

Last night, my wife tells me, as we are lying in bed, that she forgot to tell me what happened yesterday. She said our old neighbor came by and was in the driveway. My wife went out to talk to her at the end of the driveway for a minute or so. As soon as she left, my wife got the mail, then heard someone yell, “yeah, you better go back in your house, because I am scary!” ??!!!!!????

She said she turned back to see who it was, but no one was there, so she just started walking, with my youngest mind you, and she said she said it twice more. Now, the psycho’s front door is way back off the street. I am talking easily 200 feet. My wife said she didn’t know if it was the daughter or the psycho who said it, but it was definitely someone saying it from the screen door. I mean, talk about bizarre shit. The daughter was a possibility since, in the past, she had flipped off my wife as she drove by, unprovoked of course.

So I am lying there, steaming, but still thinking maybe the comments were directed to the old neighbor, who had just driven off.

Well, my wife just called me and said she was gonna lose it. She took all of the kids on a bike ride in the neighborhood. My oldest 2 were up ahead of her a little ways, but she was riding down the street with my youngest when the psycho’s daughter drove by and yelled, Bitch!

Now, you have to know my wife to understand how crazy this all is. I mean, she is the nicest person to everyone, and she has no enemies in the neighborhood at all. It is completely unprovoked and very unsettling. She just called my buddy, who is a cop in town, and they are sending someone over to talk to my wife about what happened. I mean, this is pretty clear cut harassment, but I mean, what the fuck?

Why don’t people get a life? Why are some people so pathetic? I just had to get this out there, because I am getting ready to go to my interview, and I am all fired up now. More to come, I am sure. Unbelievable.

PokerSavvy Rocks On...

Thanks to anyone that signed up for PokerSavvy using my link. I ended up gathering some points, as people completed promotions, and was able to score a few necessities this weekend with those points. If you have not already done so, sign up and take advantage of the Mansion promo, which is still running. I detailed it out a while back, and if you didn’t have the time then, take advantage now. You won’t be disappointed (and neither will I).

I decided I had better finally get into the Poker Tracker game, if I am going to make a real effort at cash games. I picked it up this weekend with my points, along with a $100 gift certificate to Party Poker and a $25 iTunes gift cards.

Last night I installed Poker Tracker and redeemed the gift card. I played for a couple hours at a $25 NL table and would up being down $5 on the night. Nothing too memorable other than paying off the same guy twice when I had 2 pair and he caught a straight, then when I had caught a straight that made his flush. I chipped back at it a bit though and ended where I did. I played too late, but I am getting my feet wet.

I configured Tracker to pick up stats from Absolute, Pokerroom, Party, and Stars. I have a little bit at each of these right now. I did end up requesting a cash out of Poker.com last night. Seems like Mookie seconded the idea of taking it out, based on the low traffic. That little nugget goes back into the neteller heap for future tuition payments for my cash game classes.

I need to set some sort of goal, but I am not sure where to start really. I just placed my order for a painting with the first lady, so my ultimate goal would be to win enough to pay for it, but I don’t want to rush things too much. I need to get a good understanding of Tracker and how I can benefit from it before I go crazy. I know nothing about what any of the stats really mean at this point, so I have a lot of reading to do at other’s sites. Suggestions are welcome as always.

Speaking of the painting, I am looking forward to it. Check out Kristin’s blog for examples of her work. We don’t really have any paintings in the house yet, so this will be special.

I doubt I will get much play in tonight. I need to actually get some sleep tonight so I am fresh in the afternoon when I meet with my old boss and others for the opportunity that has come up. Did I really just say I need to be “fresh”? Well, whatever, you know what I mean. Today I am working on 4 hours of sleep and I don’t want to look like a zombie when I meet with the president of the company tomorrow. It will be best to avoid the electronic crack machine altogether tonight.

I have been slacking a little in keep the leaderboard up to date for the 45 SNG Challenge. I think it is because there are so few entries coming in each day at this point. There are a few people that still have a lot of games to play and only have until Sunday to get them finished, so I expect to start getting a lot more entries over the next few days. It should be a fight to the finish as Johnny Mac finished up and tries to hold off the rest of the field for the win. We are paying out the top 4 spots and it is pretty much still up in the air as to who will cash. Lots of scoring in the money in this challenge so the finish should be exciting.

That’s it for me. More football tonight as we try and get the kids ready for the first scrimmage on Saturday.

I blew it on Saturday

Yup, I blew it. The tourney went just like I expected. Well, the turnout did at least. There were only 31 people there. I only needed to get in the top 16 to move on to the state tourney and I blew it.

My tourney really came down to 1 hand. I was card dead through the first 2 levels and played maybe 2 or 3 hands, including blinds. In the middle of the third level, with blinds at 50/100, I am in the BB with J 10o. The flop come 8 10 J giving me top 2 pair. Being first to act of 3 players, I underbet the pot, wanting to keep people in. That was my first mistake. The MP limper calls my bet as does the button limper. The turn is an A. I bet out 200, still looking weak and the MP raises to 500. The button folds and I call. I completely misplayed this already, but at this point, I figure he hit his A. I check the turn and he bets 1000. Not a huge bet, and for whatever reason at the time, I still think I have this, but I just call. He shows me his obvious straight and I am crippled with 1400 left as we go to break. I am the BB after the break at 100/200 blinds.

I am surprised at how poorly I played that hand. I should have known I was bet at the turn. I had never played with the guy before, but he seems solid enough. He wasn't involved in very many hands to that point, so he had to have something strong to start with. Even if he didn't have the straight, he could have beaten me with so many other possiblities at that point. He could have had 2 higher pair or a set. I rushed and paid the price.

At the break, only 2 people had gone out and I was in push and pray mode. I continued to get horrible cards. After the blinds passed me, I stole once from early position with K5s, then the blinds hit me again. My patience paid off briefly as I got bullets on my next BB and was called by some dude who was in all kinds of pots with A4. I double up to 2800.

On the next hand, I got AQ and bumped it to 300 and was called by a MP tight weak player (who ended up winning it, grr). The flop came K high rainbow and he bet out 500 and I had to lay it down. From there, I basically got blinded out as the blinds went to 200/400 and I had watched a couple orbits of horrendous cards with no steal opportunities. At least none I was willing to take the chance on, hoping people would start to drop. I raised to 800 at on point with A10 into an unraised pot and was reraised all in by the TAG on my left. I would have had to call off my whole stack, except for 200 in chips. I went in the tank and folded it face up after about 2 minutes. She showed AK.

Anyway, I feel like I definitely blew it with that one hand. It is going to be real tough to qualify for the second semi annual this year because I just can't get there enough. Even if I can get there, and get to a final table, it all boils down to the cards, as I have whined about the structure of these bar tourneys over and over.

As for online poker, I did play some last night. I am making an effort to start playing some cash games. I have been twisting and turning, and basically stagnant in my bankroll for some time now. With my points from Pokersavvy, I finally ordered Poker Tracker this weekend, as well as a $100 Party gift card. I am going diving into the fish tank at Party, starting with the $25 NL tables. I know that is not enough of a bankroll for that, but I have other money to supplement it when necessary in neteller already.

Since I finished my Poker.com promotion, I had about $75 left there. I played a little bit of limit and was down to about $65 when I decided to make the switch. The traffice there is pretty light, so I ended up taking a roller coaster ride at the only $100 NL table that was going. It started with only 6 people but filled up after a while. Again, I realize this was not the best idea, but I sat down with $50 and played for a while. I was down as low as $35 at one point but played pretty solid I thought. I ended up clearing $10 of bonus, which I didn't know they released to you in increments, and finished at the table with $100. I now have $120 there and am thinking of just pulling it out now and being thankful I am up. Any suggestions on that? I am just thinking that because the traffic is so light, I am just looking for trouble. I do have a bunch of bonus to still clear there, but I don't want to chase a bonus that might just kill that small bankroll I have anyway.

Ok, here was my favorite hand of the night, for obvious reasons. Notice my turn bet, as I am still getting used to the software and checked off a box by mistake. Luckily, it didn't matter. I probably made more because of it.

pajasen Posted Small Blind $0.50
jones45299 Posted Big Blind $1.00
Dealing Cards
You Were Dealt (Ah, Ac)
shanelee67 Raised to $4.00
thedrover Folds
CoonTatters Folds
drewspop Raised to $7.00
johnboy594x Folds
pokerclown Folds
kerneLIUS Calls $7.00
pajasen Folds
jones45299 Folds
shanelee67 Calls $3.00
-------------------------------------------------
Dealing Flop (Jd,3s,6c)
shanelee67 Checks
drewspop Bets $12.50
kerneLIUS Calls $12.50
shanelee67 Calls $12.50
-------------------------------------------------
Dealing Turn (7c)
shanelee67 Checks
drewspop Bets $1.00
kerneLIUS Calls $1.00
shanelee67 Calls $1.00
-------------------------------------------------
Dealing River (4s)
shanelee67 Checks
drewspop All In for $13.91
kerneLIUS Folds
shanelee67 Calls $13.91
-------------------------------------------------
drewspop has (Ah, Ac)
shanelee67 has (Kh, Kd)
-------------------------------------------------
drewspop Wins $87.82 from pot 1 with : Pair of Aces



Ok, that's it for me. Have a happy Monday.

Some Housecleaning Items

Since my brief poker night sucked last night, going out quickly in 2 45 SNGs, I figured I would go in a different direction today. Some random items that I have mentioned before that need some updates. Oh yeah, I know you were wondering so…

The job discussion got moved to next week. The main person I need to talk to was out this week so next Wednesday afternoon, I will be meeting with 4 people in the afternoon. I must be living right because I found out that my current boss is working out of NY that day so I won’t even have to use some lame excuse for leaving early.

My triathlon training has severely stalled for a number or reason. The most obvious is the fact that I get up at 5am to get to work on time now and then I get home at 8:30pm each night. Another good reason for my slackishness is that I got rejected. Actually, we all did. Myself, my wife and my sister. We sent our entries in too late apparently because they filled it up. What the hell is this world coming to when 850 people are so damn committed to swimming in frigid water and killing themselves on their bikes and runs that they actually sign up well in advance? Anyway, I am really sick of being a lump of shit so I am looking at one on September 24th now instead. I figure if I look long enough, it might fill up too. Anyway, the reason I haven’t signed up yet is because we are going to a concert the night before and I wonder what shape I will be in. Oh yeah, Journey and Def Leppard baby! There are about 20 of us ready to return to our high school days for a night. I haven’t been to a concert in a while but it will be a blast.

The kid’s feet are doing much better. If you have sore feet, “Are you gellin’?” He was loafing around practice yesterday but it didn’t have anything to do with his feet. He had a friend sleep over the night before and they, of course, were up all night. He got run over in a tackling drill by a little, powerful back, but picked it up a little bit after that. We’ll see how today’s practice goes.

What else? I guess that is it for the updates on things I have mentioned before. My middle son, who is 5, is going to be a water boy for the football team. It is pretty funny because he is a tough little dude already, and by the time he is 7, he is going to be just like Bobby Boo-Shay.

Speaking of football, I am putting the over/under on 3 of how many kids quit because they don’t like to hit. I am not a Neanderthal who thinks these kids should be doing the Ray Lewis or anything but we have a couple kids that are deathly afraid of contact. I had to switch up the lines a couple times, and softly threaten others, because of some of our weaker players. It was almost laughable watching these 2 in particular who we had to keep matching up because anyone else on the team would kill them. I swear they looked like they were dancing a slow dance at the 7th grade prom or something. This was every time they went through the tackling drill. Obviously, we can’t shelter them forever because the others teams will end up hurting them. Yesterday, we ended up having some of the middle talent kids against some of the lower talent kids and had 2 or 3 in tears at one point or another. Ugh.

Ok, some actual poker content here. Well kinda at least. I haven’t been able to play in the bar league lately because of football. That won’t change until at least September, based on what nights we practice during the season. I did, however, win a monthly tourney a couple months back that qualified me for the semi-annual tourney. The top 16 finishers in that one are invited to the state finals early next year. That was how I got to the nationals last year (sorry for the uber-ghey self link, but check out that pic;). Well, the semi-annual is tomorrow and I was toying with skipping it. Mostly because I feel like I haven’t seen my youngest 2 all week, and it is being held about an hour away from my house. Only 1 of my buddies has also qualified. On Wednesday night, I want out to the APL site and looked at the invite list. There are only 46 people on the list, and I know of a few that aren’t going for sure. I doubt I will be playing nearly as much as I have in the past for the rest of this year, so this might very well be the last chance I will have to qualify for the state tourney. The clincher though, is the fact that there is actually a $1,000 prize pool added to the tourney, courtesy of Doyle’s Room. Doyle’s is a big sponsor now and they are pay out the top 20 spots with online cash to DR. 1st gets $250 and on down from there. I can’t pass up a $1K freeroll with good conscience. I will just make it up to the kiddies on Sunday. Oh, and since I am already going to that, one of other guys that comes to my tourney’s is having one of his own tomorrow night that it looks like I will be going to.

Wish me some luck and have a great weekend.

Football practice was relatively boring last night. After we ran the kids, we got the line in one group and the backs in another group. I helped teach the backs the formations we are going to run out of, and we went over some of the play wording for when they will be in motion. Finally, we went through 3 of the 29 plays we currently have in our playbook. I doubt we will end up using all of them, but at least we have started to get them used to everything.

Last night was a strange poker binge night. I decided to play a 45 SNG and started that about a half hour before the Mookie. I crapped out somewhere in the middle. Never got anything going at all in that one.

I lasted all of 7 minutes in the Mookie, and was second out, only to GCox, who at least ran QQ into AA. I had no such excuse. I got mixed up in a multi-way pot from the blinds with a couple suited rags. I think I called a min raise or something with multiple other callers. Of course the flop came out with 2 of my suit and Grupper lead out with with a small enough bet that I was priced in. I called and then it got min raised again after me by Hacker, then Grupper min raised back. I have to call 2 min bets, fold or push. Didn't even think about calling because of the action. I figured I had a good chance of having 2 come along for the ride if I pushed, clearly giving me great odds for my money. Being early, I decided to just go for it and push it in, knowing I was behind at least 1, probably both. If I hit my flush, I am in great shape, if not, I got play something else. Hacker folded but Grupper called with AA. My flush never came and IGHN in 44th (maybe?) of 45.

Since it was only 10:07pm at the time, I figured I couldn't be done for the night. I had given up going and playing live at the bar, which also started at 10pm, so I was going to play something else. I jumped into a $6 18 SNG turbo. I finished third when some dude decided, with 4th place all-in, and I bet on the J high flop, that I must be bluffing the dry side pot. Umm, not so much. After he called my bet, I checked it down with him until the river, when he also pushed. I had to call off another third of my stack, but the board wasn't scary other than the fact that the river had paired the board, but only with bottom pair. He wouldn't have stuck around with that on the flop bet would he? Umm, yeah, he did. I paid him off and didn't catch a hand after that. Any advice on that one? After my flop bet is called, should I have kept at it. I guess I should have, but with the guy all-in, I didn't. In hindsight, since I already made a play at the pot on the flop, I should have played it like I would any other hand, which I didn't.

I was still feeling like playing some (what addiction?) so I jumped into another $6 18 SNG. Finished around 10th. Nothing too memorable. At this point, it is midnight. I have to get up at 5am to get my new, early train, so I obviously go to bed. Right? Umm, wrong. Being the clear degenerate that I am, I am still looking for a quick fix to get me up for the night. Hmmm, so many choice. I pick...a 4 person Heads Up thingy. Never done that before, but what the hey, I say. $10 per person, winner take all.

The first dude I played, was so maddeningly slow, and lucky, I thought I was going to have an aneurysm. He didn't say a word, took forever to make his moves, and kept hitting his money card on the river after calling bets. I tried being aggressive and it worked sometimes. Finally I figured out that he would put out a min bet if he had anything because he knew I would raise. Anyway, it took a while but I finally got a 3-1 lead in chips when I was dealt...the suited Hammah. Oh yeah, he was the SB and raised pre-flop. I smooth called with my monster and the flop came Q 8 3 rainbow. He pushes, right into my monster. I naturally call as he flips over A10o. Obviously, that was no match for The Hammer and the turn brought my 7. The river was a blank, and we were finally done with the first match.

The other guy had been waiting for about 15 minutes and was just the opposite of the first guy. He still didn't say a word, but was fast to act on every street. I love playing it quick like that. We went back and forth for about 15 minutes and he started to piss me off when he called a couple pre-flop raises with crap and hit. Then when I had monsters, he would fold to the same raise. I might have even been guilty of saying a harsh word or 2 like, "oh, so now you found that Fold button?". Anyway, I got lucky with some nice cards and built up a stack. I sucked out on the last hand to take it down and finish up about $30 for the night after all was said and done.

The fact that I didn't get to bed until 1:30am, then had kids in and out of my room for the next few hours probably contributed to me taking the middle train this morning. Yeah, missed that first one. Oh well.

That's about all the rambling I have for today. Remember, blogger fantasy football. Oh yeah, and make sure you check out the latest items up for auction For Peyton.

Blogger Fantasy Football and other stuff

Welcome to my newly minted Football coaches blog. Just kidding, but no poker for me last night. By the time I got home from practice, ate dinner, and got access to the laptop, it was too late to play anything. I didn’t even update the 45 SNG Challenge scoreboard yet today, and won’t be able to until tonight because I can’t get at hotmail from work. For those of you interested, I think Jordan scored some points and that was all I saw come through that would change anything in the points.

Practice kicked ass last night. There were a few kids there that had all of us coaches shaking our heads and grinning from ear to ear. One kid, playing his first year of football was super fast in the workouts last week. We weren’t sure how he would react to getting hit though. Ummm…the kid is a killer. He loves to hit and can take it too. He can’t be blocked and if we can block anyone for him, he will be in the end zone. He is a smart kid too so learning the plays shouldn’t be a problem.

I have said before how big my son is, and also slow. He has to use his size to get the job done and have that outweigh the quickness. For the first few drills last night, he just happened to get match up against some kids that couldn’t touch him. Kids that might not end up sticking around. At one point during a drill where we had a kid running the ball through a hole with one offensive and one defensive lineman, I told one of the other coaches to mix it up a little. He ended up getting my son against one of the best, toughest kids on the team. I was psyched when he stood the kid up, shook him and crushed the running back. He was all fired up for the rest of the practice too. It looks like his foot problems are working out ok. He said they were still a little sore, but was able to do everything yesterday. My wife picked up about 5 different shoe inserts so I think he is going to do fine with that.

I found some software online that lets me put our playbook in and make it look more professional than the chicken scratch pages that we had originally. The offensive coordinator loved it and we looked at making some changes that I ended up putting in this morning. We need to start teaching the kids the plays tonight because we have exactly 8 practices before our first scrimmage on August 19th.

Speaking of football, we need more fantasy football owners for the blogger league. For a mere $10, you can own your very own fantasy football franchise. Our draft is set for August 18th online. We have 4 spots open right now, so get on over to KJ’s blog and leave a comment with your intention to get in the game. Come on, you know you want to!

I am holding out hope that I will make the Mookie tonight. I miss playing it and I just have to get over the fact that I may not be able to get much sleep on Wednesday nights. Easy enough.

Last thing today is that I may have a line on a new gig. My old boss from my last job, who also has moved on and is in the area called me last week. He just started at a new private wealth management company as the COO and wants to bring me in as his operations guy. I am supposed to meet with a few people tomorrow, so wish me luck. I still have a lot of information to gather before I would move on it, but it would be a big resume builder for me and a welcome change actually. It also seems to happen that way, once you have decided you can live with your current situation, something comes up to think about. We’ll see if it is meant to be or not. I already told him about my Bill Belichickian efforts and he’s down, so who knows.

Motion and Power and Pull, Oh My!

We had a 3 hour coach’s practice last night where we talked about each kid’s strengths and weaknesses. Who we thought would be an attitude problem, who we thought would be getting the minimum number of plays each game, and who we thought would be starting. We also talked about the offensive plays and the defensive schemes. I have a whole lot to learn about football. It’s pretty cool. I just hope I can get it all sunk in before I have to start explaining it to the 9, 10 and 11 year olds.

Today we start practicing in full pads for the first time so it should be exciting. My kid got the gel inserts for his cleats so he should be dancing around again out there hopefully. We’ll see.

I finally got home around 9pm or so last night. I had some dinner but couldn’t get into the Hoy. I had to get to bed because these mornings are coming way to quickly these days. While I was eating and winding down though, I jumped onto Absolute to mess around with my newly amassed fortune ($64). I sat down at one of their freshly minted Razz tables with a whole $5. It was a 25c/50c table. I must say, I suck at that game. I mean I suck badly. I made it a point to apologize and call myself a donkey every time I sucked out on the last card (river or 7th street?). Anyway, after about 45 minutes, while wifey finished watching Mr and Mrs Smith, I left the table with $27. I made at least 5 people who knew what they were actually doing leave the table in disgust and shame. It was actually quite enjoyable. It reminded me a little bit of my old learning days of limit HE when I used to chase my bankroll into dust. At least I know I ain’t so good now. I will need to stay away from that table. Now that I am all the way up to $87 in my Absolute account, I can try some other things I guess.

Ok, I need to get back to work. I have playbooks to copy and such. Last thing is that it didn’t take long for Johnny Mac to retake the lead in the 45 SNG Challenge. Apparently he didn’t like me taking the mantle, so on the first day that he fell out of the lead, he went out and took down the only one he tried. Well played, sir.

Kid Update

Well, the good news is that the doc did some x-rays and didn't find anything structurally wrong. The bad news is, not sure about the source of the pain. He said they get it all the time and it could be from the cleats. Those damn things weren't cheap either man.

Anyway, he'll be gellin' for the next couple days. At least I won't be coaching a team without my kid on it. If it keeps up, we will have to see a podiatrist I guess.

Happy Monday

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. I did. The weather here was beautiful, sunny without any humidity. It was great. We had football practice Friday and Saturday but we are skipping today so we can have a full 5 days in pads this week. We will be practicing from Tuesday through Saturday again. The team looks pretty good. Like I said before, I don’t know as much as I should about football but the head coach is really excited about how the kids are picking up the blocking schemes and the backs look pretty fast and sure handed so we will see. I am going to be working on the offensive side with another guy and the coaches are meeting tonight to review the kids and get me up to speed on the plays, etc. There is a lot more to learn coaching football I am finding. That is fine with me because I love doing it.

One thing is a concern though. My son has been complaining about pain in his feet. Even during baseball, after a game, he would have really sore feet, even struggling to walk around normally. He would limp around but be back at it the next day. I just chalked it up to growing pains or something. I know I used to have some soreness in my achilles when I was younger so I thought that he might have the same thing or something. He didn’t complain too much about it though, so I just ignored it for the most part.

Since football practices have started, he has been complaining more about it and was almost in tears on Friday night at the end of practice while we were running them. He finished but was clearly in pain. I told him to sit if he had to but he finished. I was talking to one of the other coaches about it and he said that a kid on his baseball team was having problems like that too. He was also a kid that was big for his age and it turned out that the growth plates in his feet weren’t keeping up with the rest of his body or something and it turned out that the kids actually had a fractured foot. Now sufficiently shaken, my wife is bringing him to doctors today to get it checked out. My son told me last night that it felt good all day yesterday, but I know he wasn’t just playing it up during practice. I know he is hurting so hopefully it will turn out to be something minor.

Saturday afternoon my wife and I were able to get out by ourselves for a few hours for our anniversary. We just hung out on the outside deck of a restaurant on the waterfront and it was great. Much drink and a late lunch was had before we had to go to my cousin’s 30th birthday party. We were there for about 3 and a half hours and the time flew. You know you found the right person when you can spend all that time chatting and the time flies by. After 12 years we apparently still have it.

Sufficiently lubed up, we had a great time on at the party too. By the time we got home that night, we were both about comatose so all in all, a great day.

Yesterday was pretty lazy as I got a little bit of yard work done and played some poker while the kids ran around like crazy in the yard. My wife was stuck at my sister’s wedding shower for most of the day.

I actually started my day off playing some poker on Poker.com. As part of a Pokersavvy promotion, I had deposited some cash there last week and had to collect some raked hands to get my Savvy points. I ended up getting up pretty early so I logged on as the kids were chilling in front of the TV and cranked up a $1/$2 limit table. I finished the promotion in a couple hours on just the one table. I was up a nice amount but then took a couple kicks to the groin. I finished down about $40 but cleared the bonus which gives me 750 Savvy points, which is basically the equivalent of $75 toward Target, iTunes or Party gift cards. Not too bad I guess.

After doing a few things around the yard, and getting sick of pulling weeds, I fired up the laptop again, this time out on the back deck and remembered that I had $10 from Absolute that they had given me about a month ago. I logged in and it was still there so I figured I would play with that a bit. I have wanted to play a little more Omaha so I looked and found only 1 game going at the time. It was a $1/$2 limit table. I think I must have had the awfukkits as I sat down at the shorthanded game. It was a 10 seated (or 9?) but there were only 4 others at the time. I got as high as $28 before I started losing some pots. I was down to $6 and it was looking like my $10 was going to bye bye. Then I hit a rush. I can’t remember much about the hands but it doesn’t really matter. Basically, I got up to $67, lost one small pot and logged off with $64 in my account. Not a bad ROI huh?

I pulled myself away to cook dinner for the kiddies and I also had to drive my sister to Boston to catch a train back to NYC. When I got home, wifey was off to another gathering so, after getting my run in (oh yeah, did 11 miles on the bike on Saturday too) and the kids to bed, it was back at it. I played a little bit of pot limit Omaha on Poker.com to try and grab a few bucks back. I did win a few, but know that I don’t know the game well enough to risk too much there. I was talking to Drizz and he said that people can have initial success and then think it is easy. I know it can be brutal so I didn’t want to be like those peeps and lose the rest of what I have there. I decided I needed to jump into a 45 SNG toward the challenge. At the same time, I fired up a $20 180 SNG. I finished in the middle of the pack in the 180, as I never really got anything going. In the 45 though, I got some nice cards and finished in 3rd to temporarily take the lead in the challenge. I had a somewhat early hand when I got pocket K’s and got someone to follow me to the river. There was a flush on the board and an outside possibility that a straight could have been made. I checked the river and he pushed, which would have crippled me if I lost. I thought about it and his betting (actually calling) hadn’t made sense for the flush or straight so I made the call. He had bottom pair! My overpair took it down and I was off to the races. Those $1 45 SNGs can be crazy. I went to the final table second in chips and didn’t end up with too many good cards. We got to 3 hands and I was the small stack. I pushed with pocket 3’s against the big stack. He called with A10o and he didn’t get either so I…oh wait. I got counterfeited on the river which 2 pairs on the board so his ace kicker took it. Boooo. I hate going out like that, but who doesn’t right?

Anyway, it was a productive poker day. After seeing Tripjax and Drizz both book 45 SNG wins over the weekend, I needed those points. It is going to be race to the finish in the challenge. There are a lot of game s to be played by many of the participants still and the points just keep piling up.

That’s it for me.

TGIF

First off, thanks to everyone that stopped by and to everyone that left a comment on yesterday’s meandering post. Again, I wasn’t expecting that to be what I wrote about yesterday, but I am glad it evolved from a “whiney, poor me” post, to a “I appreciate what I have” post.

The word of encouragement and understanding are great to read and I would expect nothing else from this community. Especially from jjok who hit me up on the yahoo girly chat last night (paraphrased a bit prolly):

jjok: WHAA WHAA, I am out of shape
jjok: WHAA WHAA, I hate my job
jjok: WHAA WHAA, I can’t play poker
jjok: But I have time for 2 45 SNGs tonight

What can you say with friends like that eh?

So yes, I do have a little bit of poker content today. Once we got home from practice last night, I decided to knock out another 45 SNG for the challenge. We are all still chasing Johnny Mac, although he jumped out to the early lead and has faltered lately, given everyone a chance to catch him. So far, not luck.

I was hoping that one SNG would be enough to get me a few more points and hit the sack. Unfortunately, I went out 11th. I was short stacked throughout this one, but managed to double up and pick up some more chips with pocket Qs. When we were down to 11 left, I was in 7th place and without huge risks, I probably could have made one of the last cash positions. Instead, I decided to make a move against a big stack who had been calling down everything. With 5 left at our table, including one who was sitting out, I raised it up 4xBB with KQ. Big stack calls my raise and the flop comes A K x. Big stack leads out with 1K into the pot of about 2K. I was on the girly chat with Pres Dave and told him I thought he probably had a bare Ace but rather than lay it down, or push, I called, Nice play dumbass. I only had 2800 or so left anyway, so I didn’t think he would lay it down if I did push, but since I thought I was beat, I should have waiting for a better spot. The blinds were still only at 100/200 with 25 antes so with a stack of 2800 I still had plenty of time. Instead, I called off the rest of my stack on the turn and IGHN when he shows down his A10. Just plain stupid.

Now all frothed up, I jumped into a $6 turbo. Nothing too memorable other than chasing a flush draw early in a big pot and great odds. Unfortunately, I did hit and my stack was cut in half quickly. I hung on until 18th I think and pushed with A5 and was called by Q10. He hit his 10, I typed “lame call” into the chat box, like a little donkey bitch, and I was done.

By this time, it was 11:30 or so and I knew I had to sleep but rather than give it up, I hit up a PL Omaha table. I managed to win back what I had paid out in the SNGs in about 15 minutes and finally turned off the electric crack machine.

In bed by midnight, up at 5am. The boss is out of the office today, so being the sneaky bastard that I am, I did my run this morning and am on my normal train in to work, probably for the last time in a long time. It was nice to get my run in this morning because it is really hard to get it in after practice. It is just too late by the time I get home. I did get my run up to the 3.5 miles that the run will be in the sprint tri this morning, for the first time since I got back at it. Yeah, a whole week back at it. Anyway, I was slow but I finished it up. Tomorrow I am going to do the 10 miles on the bike and then on Sunday, I am going to try and do the bike and at least half of the run back to back. What I really need to do is get in a pool, so I may end up doing that if I can find the time.

Yesterday was my first practice as one of the coaches. It was kinda weird, since I don’t know a lot about football when it comes down to it. The gaps and all that are something that you don’t know unless you have played before. Anyway, it was good because we ended up teaching the gaps to all the kids yesterday. I am a quick learner, haha.

This week is basically running drills. In Pop Warner, you have to get the kids 10 hours of conditioning before you can put the pads on and start the hitting. With the practice on Wednesday being cancelled because of the heat, we are practicing Saturday morning now. The plan is to get my son to the barber for his Mohawk (oh yeah, all the cool football kids get one every year), then to practice from 9-11, some yard work in the early afternoon, then my wife and I are getting out for a later lunch/early dinner. It is our 12th anniversary tomorrow. Man, how time flies. Unfortunately, it is also my cousin’s 30th birthday and we are going to a party for him on a boat tomorrow night, so that is why we are getting out a little early. The town I live in is a great place to live during the summer, as long as you don’t mind the tourist looking for the Plymouth Pebble, or the Pilgrims. Being a poker player, how could I mind being surrounded by tourist right? Anyway, we are going to hit up one of the many nice restaurants on the Plymouth Harbor for a few drinks and some grub. I am looking forward to it.

That’s it for me. I am going to try and continue to write up my posts on the train in the morning so work doesn’t get in the way. There is nothing but doom and gloom in the newspaper anyway. Good luck at the tables this weekend. If you see me on the girly chat on yahoo, hit me up and drag me to a table.

Blah blah blah

Let me apologize in advance for this drivel that you may choose to continue reading. I am writing this after I have finished the post, since I didn’t really realize this was the direction I would be taking today. I guess that is the beauty of a ghey online journal. A random soul dump every once in a while. Ok, on to the drivel…

I have been playing very little poker lately. Not sure exactly why but it mostly revolves around time and trying to get my life in order in other areas that are distracting me. I have a feeling that I won’t be playing nearly as much over the next few months for a number of reasons.

First off, I need to get in shape and lose a few lbs. Just before our little vacation to NH I stepped on the scale for the first time in a while. I haven’t been feeling great and knew I had put on a couple pounds since my pants and shorts were a little snug. Anyway, to make a long story short, I need to lose about 15 pounds so I can start feeling a little better and recapture some energy. Staying up until 1am playing cards isn’t going to cut it if I need to be up early every morning.

I was getting up at about 6am for work each day. That has now been moved back to 5am. The reason is because I need to get to work a little earlier in the morning because I am leaving every day at 4pm so I can coach my son’s football team. I am actually pretty clueless when it comes to the details of football so I have a lot to learn. I have been a huge fan since I was a kid, but I never played the game. Last year, my son played his first year and he had to learn everything about gaps, leverage, angle of attack, etc. from the coaches. He had a great group of coaches and he improved steadily throughout the year. I did notice though, that a lot of times, he would make the same mistakes in drills and there weren’t enough coaches to watch everything and correct the mistakes. They had 5 or 6 coaches at every practice, but at that young of an age, they need a lot of personal attention to learn the details of the game.

This year, a couple of the coaches he had last year stayed down at the youngest level, while my son had to move up because of his age and weight. His head coach from last year is still his coach, but they only have 2 other coaches. The head coach, who I had coached baseball with in the past, asked me if I could join him, but working in Boston, with an hour and a half commute, I couldn’t commit. After going to the first practice, I noticed they needed more sets of eyes to help them. I talked to my boss about it, and he was fine with me coming in a little earlier to leave earlier each day, as long as I took care of things if they came up late in the day. With that, I am now on a new commuting schedule, but really happy that I will be helping out with the team. I am at every practice anyway, and privately criticize the way some of the drills are run. Now I can put in the work and try to help the kids as I think we should. It should be a lot of fun.

With the football thing, we practice every night from 5:30-7:30 or 8:00. Once September comes, and school starts, that cuts down to 3 nights a week. The problem I am going to have now is trying to keep up with my running, biking and swimming to prep for this damn sprint triathlon that I am registered for. I did have the bike tuned up and put new street slicks on. I have ridden the route I planned out a couple times and my running is steadily increasing, but I still haven’t gotten to swim. That is going to be the toughest part for me in the sprint too, so I need to find time to get that going. I am glad I registered though, because my sister is pushing me to train since she is doing it also. Like I said before, I need to lose some poundage anyway and this will surely do the trick.

All of this is contributing to me not being able to play as much poker. It is also causing me to post a lot less because of the limited time I have lately, and the infrequence of poker content. I am pretty sure that no one wants to read about football practice or my wimpy run each day.

I still haven’t written up my NH trip from last weekend because work has really been busy and because of everything else. I came across the Shitter Spitter again yesterday and realized I needed to get a post up.

Work is another issue I am dealing with. When I talked to my boss about coaching, he said he was fine with it, but he also needed to see some more energy from me. I am sure he had been trying to find the right time to say that to me and I gave him the perfect opportunity. My boss is a good guy and a straight shooter. I didn’t need to give him the opportunity, because if it was a real problem, he would have already sat me down. Still though, I couldn’t agree more with him and told him so.

My work problem is that I came to this company for an opportunity to move into some sort of client service role. My current role is to manage the requirements and analysis team for our online information delivery product for institutional clients. It is a role that I mostly interact with internal business and development folks. I have a team of analysts that I assign work to so that we can document business requirements and then they work with the developers to make them understand what needs to be built. Basically, I feel like my strength is more geared to working with people, so that has been my goal. To transition to that type of role.

Well, nothing has really come along that has fit internally. I do want to stay at this company because they have basically bribed me to stay with some great restricted stock awards that I don’t want to walk away from. I have been just plain lazy in my current job because of this. I don’t love it and have had it in my head that what I want is a client service role. I have pretty much neglected my current job because I have been thinking I would be moving on soon anyway. The problem is that I think if I do find something, I may not like that as much as I think. I like to get out of the office and interact with people. I like to travel and visit new places. What I don’t like is missing my kids’ activities. Like I said, I was at every practice last year for football. Every night for 2-3 hours. I love it and I love to see how they improve and learn. After giving it a lot more thought over the last few days, I think I need to get my head out of my ass and focus on the role that I am in now. My boss and I get along great and he has positioned me as a senior part of his team. Our development team is about 200 people and I have a key role. He also knows my future goals of client service and thinks that my current role will evolve into that somewhat anyway. I need to be patient, and get re-energized in this job, that allows me great flexibility to be there with my family regularly, and pays me plenty of dough. Overall, the team is a mess after many reorgs and that bothers plenty of people, but when you really look at it, it ain’t so bad.

My reading and posting will definitely suffer, but I am hoping that my contentment will be much greater. Over the last few months, I would say I have probably spend at least half of my day either posting, reading bloglines, checking sitemeter, or checking for comments. It has been pretty insane actually and I need to focus on the value that I can bring to this role that I am in, build a strong team, and enjoy the flexibility I have in it.

Ok, a little poker, er, gambling content. I got an email from William Hill Casinos yesterday about their August recurring bonus. WH was one of the casinos that I did some blackjack bonus whoring at last month. They have a monthly $40 bonus. All you have to do is deposit $40 and they give you $40 to play with immediately. You need to clear the bonus by placing $800 worth of bets. I think I finished it off in about 2 hours while I watched the Sox game (the injuries are taking their toll, but we are hanging in there) and was actually up another $20 from blackjack winnings. I finished it up just before the Mookie was ready to kick off and cashed out my $100 total. Not a bad $30/hour rate.

I was already to just into the Mookie but as I was debating it, since I needed to get up so early, the wifey had a twinkle in her eye and I decided to pass on the Mookie and get to bed instead; for once. Again, gotta make sure I am appreciating what I have all around. Hope everyone had a great time at the Mookie and I will be checking out his post about the winner when I do get into the office.

I need to get a few more 45 SNGs in pretty soon too. There are currently 3 people above me on the leader board, so I have some work to do. Hopefully I can get one in tonight.

Ok, well that was pretty pointless for you to read I am sure. Feel free to let me have it in the comments and tell me to stick to the poker talk. I can take it. I have thick skin. Go check out some of the great WSOP coverage from CC, Pauly, and go congratulate CMitch on his nice little run in the ME. Later.

Ugh 382...

382. That is the number of unread posts I have in my Bloglines account. That is a lot of catching up. It is going to take a while.

I had a great little break up in the White Mountains of NH that I hope to write up later tonight. I am busy as all hell at work and right after work, I am heading over to my son's football practice. Pop Warner practice starts today. It is about 95 degrees with plenty of humidity mixed in. Gotta love the starts of football season.

We got back from NH on Sunday and played in a golf tourney yesterday. Had a great time in the tourney and even scored a couple raffle prizes. A Deion Branch autographed Patriots football for my son, and a big ass Bass Ale cooler for my poker room. The thing is huge. It is literally about 3 and a half feet tall and squared, just big enough to fit a quarter or half barrell in. It is completely sealed and has a drain plug in the bottom. I could seriously fit a kid in there. It also has wheels on one side and a handle so you can pull it along. Looks like I am part of the band or something. Anyway, great addition to the room so that is cool.

Being back at work sucks and as I checked the blackberry this morning as I was leaving the house, I realized that I had an 8am staff meeting. I was late by about 45 minutes. Ah, the joys of living away from the city.

Ok, that is all I can fit in right now. Gotta get back to work. I will just leave you with one final thought. Is David Ortiz the man or what?