The last day

So here we are. My last day at work here at State Street Corp. In an ironic twist, the monthly employee newsletter was published yesterday with my 10th year anniversary announcement included. The company is huge, so the list is real big anyway, but it was pretty funny to see that.

I move on from my role as requirements manager within our IT group here, to a new role as director of operations and technology at a much smaller capital management firm. My roots here are actually in the institutional operations space, and I was an operations manager for a private wealth management company when I left State Street for a 2 years hiatus 4 years ago. Although the new place is pretty small, only about 35 people, it is owned by a huge law firm so there is some long term financial security to fall back on. The capital management firm has been in existance for almost 20 years and has been a steady offering for the law firm in that time. The plan is now to grow the business by tapping into the large number of lawyers across the country. The law firm recently combined with another firm to make it even larger. I will also be working some outside investment managers that will enhance the current investment options for our clients.

I am looking forward to the move and a great new opportunity.

Last night my current group took me out for the last day drinkfest. We had a great time and I ended up barely making the last train out of town at 10:40. I have a lot of friends here that I will miss hanging out with, but my new office is pretty close to this one anyway, so I am sure I will see them.

No poker the last couple days for me. My wife is going out tonight but if the mother in law is at home, I am going to a home game tourney at a buddy's. Hopefully I will have something good to report there. If I can't get out, I will probably pick a tourney on Stars tonight and give that a shot. If you are out there tonight, look me up.

Actual Poker Content...No, Really!!

Not a lot, mind you, but I did play a little bit last night on Stars. I got home a little late for the WWdN so I jumped into a 1 table turbo SNG and also registered for the $10+1 Turbo MTT that started at 9:45 or so.

In the 1 table, I ended up cashing but in 3rd. Nothing much to speak of really, but I was happy to get some cash on the positive side for once lately.

After trying to do a little bit of catching up on my blog reading, yesterday I was reading 1 of about 5 posts that I had to catch up with on Iak's. He said, which I have said in the past, that cash games weren't his thing. He tried and decided he just wasn't good enough at them, and didn't want to change his game so drastically to try and get good at them.

I feel the exact same way, and have said so in the past on these here pages. I like the limited losses associated with the MTT's and feel like my game is better suited to them. That is why I wanted to give the $10 Turbo a try. I had played it a few times in the past with JJ and Hoy, back when JJ put some of his time into them, and back before Hoy was final tabling big guarantee tourneys.

Well, over 1300 peeps decided the same thing apparently. With 135 cashing, it seemed like it would take a while if I got some luck and played solid. I decided to go back to the basics and play tight tight tight. At the end of the tourney, my flops seen percentage was a hearty 8%, but it did pay off, kinda.

Out of 1317 runners, I came in 20th. I should have made a run to the final table but I made a real poor play when I was about 5th in chips with maybe 25 people left. I had just doubled up when I pushed my 45k or so stack in with big slick. The big stack at the table called me with pocket jacks. JJ was not ok for him as I hit a K and was sitting pretty with about 105K.

I sat back for an orbit or 2 when I get QJo in EP and decide to bump it up and steal the blinds. The blinds were huge, like 4k/8k or something so I bumped it up to 30k. Unfortunately the button, who had me covered went over the top on me and I had to lay it down. I had Waffles on the girly chat and he confirmed what a donk move it was, naturally, lol.

Anyway, I sat with nothing for another orbit or so, then decided it was push and pray time. I got A6o and it folded around to mid in middle position. I pushed my 50k in and some dude with about 90k called with A10o. I don't improve, Waffles calls him a donk, and IGHN in 20th.

I had a great time and it felt good to go deep for the first time in a while. I had forgotten how crushing it was to get that far, and get a whopping $60, while first paid a little over $3k, but I will keep plugging away and hopfeully will get there some time. Again, I really think these suit me a little better. I am just not a great player, and don't have the patience, time or interest to analyze like many of the much better players do. It is just a realization that I have come across, and am completely fine with. So there it is. Look for me in some of the nightly tourneys on Stars for a while.

On the football front, we lost again on Sunday. It was another close game, 7-0, and we really should have been able to pull off the win. As a first year coach, I am not sure what we are doing wrong, but it seems like we are almost going backwards. Our best game of the year was the first one really. We keep tweaking things and making changes so we will see how this week goes. We recognize a few things we have to do differently and will need to work on those things today and Saturday in practice. The most frustrating this is the kids don't seem to have the best concentration. We have been trying to switch up some of the snap counts, but the other team seems to be reacting quicker than our kids. Lack of focus or something.

I think I mentioned last week that when we got beat 21-0, I was a raving lunatic at one point. It doesn't seem to work. We aren't yellers really, but even when we do yell, it doesn't seem to correct much. My wife says we should offer up ice cream for a win. We used to say if we won a baseball game, we would take the team to "Kush Kone", the local ice cream join. It is surprising how that used to work. Since we are dealing with 9 and 10 year olds, I guess that might actually be the trick. You never know I guess.

Anyway, if anyone out there has any advice, I am all ears.

I am a serious short timer here at my job now. Only 2 more days here after today. I am really looking forward to the change and the new challenges ahead in my new role. I don't know if I talked too much about the new gig on here yet, but I will shortly. Maybe tomorrow even. I don't have a whole lot to do lately since I have already transitioned most of my projects, and my team, to the people that are taking them. They are taking me out for drinks after work tomorrow night and I am sure it will be a late one.

Ok, that's all I have. Back to a sudoku puzzle or something. Hey, go check out some of the fine bloggas on the right. I just added Tommy2Tone. He is a new guy on the scene so check him out and say hello.

Random Sunday Morning Post

Ok, so as I get ready for a big day of football, I can't believe that I forgot one thing in my post on Friday. I forgot to tell everyone that my wife, I and about 20 of our friends were going to a concert last night.

We aren't much into concerts really, and this was the first one we had been to in years actually. But since all of our friends were going, we figured we just couldn't pass up seeing...Journey and Def Leppard!

Journey actually rocked pretty well, although it was a little weird seeing some 20-30 something singing for them now. Def Leppard sucked to be honest. I was looking forward to them more than Journey, but whatever. It was a good time. We got there a few hours early and the tailgate spread was ridiculous. Luckily my wife volunteered to drive home. Good times.

Ok, one last quick thing. These are my picks for today's NFL games. I like to do a couple cheap parlays each week, as I posted last Monday.

Good luck, except for the Raven who I am going to whoop up on in Fantasy football today.

Wager Type: Parlay(5 team)
Wager Status: Pending
Risk: $10.00 (USD)
To Win Amount: $183.80 (USD)

New York Jets +5½ -110
Jacksonville Jaguars +7 -120
Chicago Bears -4½ -110
St Louis Rams +4½ -110
Philadelphia Eagles -7 -120

Wager Type: Parlay(3 team)
Wager Status: Pending
Risk: $10.00 (USD)
To Win Amount: $63.34 (USD)

Indianapolis Colts -7 +100
Chicago Bears -4½ -110
St Louis Rams +4½ -110

I know, I am betting against myself, but I like the Bears and Rams the best this week for some reason. Not sure about that Indy game.

Man, I am slacking lately...

So, another week of craptastic posting by me. Great timing too, with the blogfather pimping me and all. I have just been too busy, distracted, disinterested, etc. to put anything good together. I know, cry me a river, but don’t expect too much from this one either.

My week has been pretty busy with football mostly. If we are going to win any games this year, we have to make some changes. We are moving our biggest running back up to play the line. We thought he might feel like we were punishing him or something, but luckily, he was excited and said whatever it takes to win. In practice he has been killing people so hopefully we get the new back up to speed fast enough. The new back was playing the wingback spot before, so he wasn’t getting the ball more than 2 or 3 times each game. Now as the fullback, ideally we would be getting him the ball close to 10 times. The problem in practice, has been him getting his hands right to take the hand off. He keeps getting them backwards where his inside arm in on the bottom rather than on the top. The offensive coach is petrified that we will put the ball on the ground this weekend, which we haven’t done at all in the first 3 games. We are actually due for a fumble honestly, but hopefully it won’t happen this weekend. Anyone out there know a good drill to teach this kid the right way to take the ball? We have been drilling it into his head since the beginning of the season, but we are failing apparently. If he can’t get it in practice tomorrow, we may have to just run his plays on one side of the line and tell him which hand to put on top every time the ball is coming to him. That would obviously limit us and not be ideal, but we may have to go that way.

I “worked” from home yesterday. I had a short doc’s appointment in the morning so rather than go into Boston, I just logged in from home. Being a short-timer anyway, I am not so motivated to get much done these days and yesterday was no different. I ended up going on a little hunt for a new TV for the new room that I finished over the summer. I had an old 19” up there that my mother had given to me when she moved. It was pretty crappy but the kids were just playing Gamecube on it anyway. One of the things I am thinking of getting with my PokerSavvy points is Xbox 360 as a Christmas present for the kids. Obviously we can’t play Xbox on that crappy old TV, right? I ended up picking up a 32” Samsung LCD. The thing is sweet and perfect size for the room. The only problem right now is my cable company. My wife went down to get an HD cable box yesterday and they said they didn’t have any. They were waiting for some to come in and they would put us on the list (?!). I found out later that night that the list must have a bunch of people on it because there is a guy we know who has been waiting for 3 weeks and he is number 32 on the list. WTF?

I already have one HD box for the TV in my living room. The funny thing is, that TV isn’t HD, but my wife can’t live without the DVR. She uses the pause button every night if she is watching TV. I don’t think I can get away with moving that box upstairs, but I am bummed that I won’t be able to watch the Sunday night football game in HD this week. Especially since she will be watching Desperate Housewives. I guess I just need to wait it out. No wonder Adelphia was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Speaking of PokerSavvy, there are a few people out there that have been nice enough to use my referral link to sign up, but I see they have not finished the Mansion promo yet. What’s the deal people? If you have any questions on it, let me know, because that is the easiest $90 you will every make with an online poker promotion, guaranteed. The other promos are ok too, but that Mansion one is the main reason to sign up in my opinion.

On the poker front, I haven’t played much at all this week. Mostly because I am tapped out. Yup, I needed to reload. I had cashed out a few times and then had a bad stretch at Nine.com and Party, getting swallowed up by the fish. I had a token on FT that I used on Wednesday night in the $20K, but unfortunately when out quickly when I got all my chips in on a Q 10 2 rainbow flop holding AQ. The caller had KQ and caught runner runner straight with 9, J to send me packing. Ugly…just.plain.ugly.

I decided to put a small deposit into Stars and play some SNGs yesterday. I actually played a double shootout satellite to one of the WCOOP events but went out 3rd at my table of 6. I then played a 4 person heads up SNG and lost that one too. Don was nice enough to swap some cash with me on FT so I could hit up the Dadi Horse event last night. I had a good time playing and started out doing pretty well. I ended up losing a couple hands to Trauma that really cut into my stack and made me take some chances when I probably shouldn’t have. Unfortunately the blinds were getting up and I had to take a shot at a hand and pray. No such luck. The one hand that really killed me in this event was a 7 Stud hand that I had against Trauma. The blinds were at 60/120 and I was dealt pocket 10s with a 7 door card. I had trips on 4th street and called or bet each street but Trauma kept improving, or so it seemed. All of his 4 showing cards were hearts and connected to the point where I figured I had to be beat with either a flush or a straight. Since I didn’t make my boat, I laid down the hand to his bet on the end. He said that he whiffed on everything but his 2 pair, but couldn’t just check which makes total sense. I obviously don’t play enough Stud, but is that an automatic call every time in Stud? After thinking about it, it almost seems like it is, but not sure. I had invested a lot of my stack in the hand, but felt like I was chasing after 5th and 6th to be honest. What do you say? I went downhill fast from there. Again, it was a lot of fun though. Congrats to Jordan, Jason and Gary for another tourney well done.

Have a great weekend all. Hopefully I will have some good football news to report on Monday.

Football and Poker Weekend

First off, I want to thank Iggy for pimping me today. Much appreciated sir.

Ended up playing the homegame on Friday night. We ended up with 9 players, including my wife. That turned out interesting as we ended up bickering most of the night because I was being an a-hole know it all that couldn't win a freakin hand. I would make some dumbass comment about a hand and she would get defensive. It was kind of embarrassing actually.

In the end, I did sniff the cash (top 2) in any of the three games while she split the second game. Well played, maam. We also made up, so it's all good >:)

My online game was mostly just a couple mini-step SNGs on Party. I was running over the table, mostly from having the deck hit me in the face repeatedly in a level 1. I had a 2-1 lead when we got heads up. Then lost. In 2 hands. Yup, if you are new here, I suck.

In the first hands heads up I have AQ. The villain raises 3xBB and I reraise. He pushed and I call his AK. We are now even stacks and I am dealt pocket 5s. I bump it, he reraises and I push. Into his pocket Aces. I am done in second, for a free replay of level 1. Ugh. The level 1 are the hardest to get out of, since you do have to win it. I should just buy in directly to the second level, since from there on, you have to finish in the top 2 to advance.

Anyone out there still not signed up at PokerSavvy? If you haven't signed up and taken advantage of the Mansion promo, you must not like fast cash. Be sure to clock on this link and sign up. Then follow the directions for the Mansion promotion to get the easiest $90 cash possible. Remember, PokerSavvy give you points that can be converted into cold hard cash. The Mansion example is the easiest. Download it through PokerSavvy. Deposit $50 at Mansion. Get cards dealt at the table so that the rake on the hands adds up to $10. Yeah, $10! That will take most of you about 15-20 minutes tops. You can also wager $50 worth in the casino to clear the promo. Once that is done, you get 900 Savvy points. You can then convert that to $90 inot your Neteller or Paypal account, or stick around and collect points using their other promotions. They give away ipods, gift cards etc. Check it out. Ok, end shameless plugging now.

Sunday was football day. We had our big game in Franklin and got smacked around. They had a good, big team and really pushed us all around the field. It was frustrating. Hopefully we can get the kids to keep improving and have some fun for the rest of the season. It is unlikely that we will finish in the top 2 in our division now, so no National playoffs for us. If we can finish over .500, we will still qualify for our league playoffs, so it is something to strive for now.

On the pro football front, I starting doing a little big of wagering at betus.com. On Saturday afternoon, I was sitting around after mowing the lawn and I grabbed the mail. I had a mailer from betus.com so I logged on. I had planned on doing some small time NFL wagering, just to keep it interesting anyway. I created my account, then started to make my deposit, while watching the BC-BYU game on TV. I swear, no longer than 5 minutes after I had created my account, my phone rang and some dude from betus.com was on the line asking me about a deposit. WTF?

Anyway, I made my small deposit of $100 and played 2 bets. One was a $10, 4 team teasers, which Detroit blew up for me. I figured with the defensive effort they had against Seattle, I would be safe with them covering (with the extra points) against the Bears O. Wrong.

The second bet was a $10 parlay with either 3 or 4 games. I can't remember exactly. I know I had the Giants and New Orleans, but can't remember the rest. Anyway, it was good for a $66 payday, whatever it was.

My fantasy football record this week is still hanging in the balance. I actually don't have a clue how I did in the blogger league, so I will need to check in with KJ later today and see. I need Heath Miller to pull a Marcus Robinson for me tonight and not catch a pass. If he doesn't do much of anyway, I will get high points in one of my leagues. If he does even a little, I will lose, with the second highest points for the week. I hate when that happens.

Ok, I think that is all I have for today. Playing at the bar tonight for the first time in a while, so hopefully I will start to get my head back into the game soon.

Been getting beat down whenever I play poker lately. It is a combination of my play and some variance I guess. I won a token the other night after I busted out of the Mookie. I am probably going to try and play one of the guarantees sometime this weekend to use it.

I have been playing mostly $25 SH NL on Party. I had been doing ok and made a couple withdrawals to do some promos here and there. I posted about getting beat down on Nine.com. I think playing the SH NL cash games have definitely affected my tourney game because you have to be so aggressive in the SH games. When I am in the tourneys, I need to tone it down a bit and be more patient. I also need to learn how to read my Poker Tracker stats so I know how I am doing overall. I have just been too lazy to read the guide so far. I also tried the monthly casino bonus on William Hill and lost my money this month. It is only a $40 match bonus, so it is not the end of the world, but indicative of how I have been running lately.

I posted that stupid KK hand last night, just because. I haven’t been posting much pokery goodness, especially hand histories, so that was a treat to be enjoyed by all.

Tonight I am having a home game, so hopefully a little live action will be good for me. My wife actually pushed me to pull it together. I have just been so busy with football; I haven’t taken the time to get it going. I have 9 so far for tonight so it will be a good time at least.

We have practice in the morning and then our big game on Sunday. I forget if I posted about the game coming up or not, but this team is a good one. They are 2-0, and their team won the National Championship last year. Yeah, the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP at this level. Luckily, that team moved up to the next level this year, but I am sure there are some holdovers from that team that we will be dealing with. If our team plays the way we can, but have yet to show, we will give them a good game. Even though it is only the 3rd game of the season, there are only 8 games, and to make the playoffs, you have to finish in the top 2 in the division. It is a big game indeed.

Speaking of football, check these out…

Football Pic 1
Football Pic 2
Football Pic 3
Football Pic 4 (Hit someone!)
Football Pic 5

I can just link to them because they have them protected from being copied. Great shots though. Number 98 in your program is my boy.

The blogger fantasy league this week has me up against the commish. It should be a good game. I just hope LJ can get his game going. Not a good thing that his QB is out and Willie Roaf retired yesterday. We’ll see how it goes. Good luck in the game KJ.

This sucks...

***** Hand History for Game 5172057895 *****
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, September 14, 20:37:54 ET 2006
Table Table 107997 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: wakuz_42 ( $28 )
Seat 2: perfume44 ( $45.84 )
Seat 3: spoiler1981 ( $35.37 )
Seat 4: nosaj103 ( $35.65 )
Seat 6: yasher4l ( $53.30 )
Seat 5: drewspop ( $18.70 )
spoiler1981 posts small blind [$0.10].
nosaj103 posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to drewspop [ Ks Kc ]
drewspop raises [$1].
yasher4l folds.
wakuz_42 calls [$1].
perfume44 calls [$1].
spoiler1981 calls [$0.90].
nosaj103 calls [$0.75].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5s, 2s, 6h ]
spoiler1981 checks.
nosaj103 bets [$4.65].
drewspop is all-In.
wakuz_42 folds.
perfume44 folds.
spoiler1981 folds.
nosaj103 calls [$13.05].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4d ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
nosaj103 shows [ 5h, 8h ] a straight, four to eight.
drewspop doesn't show [ Ks, Kc ] a pair of kings.
nosaj103 wins $38.40 from the main pot with a straight, four to eight.

Pimpin' ain't easy...

...well, unless it is for Kristin's paintings, Mookie's tourney, and PokerSavvy!

Ok, first up, check this out. First, the picture I sent to her...



and then the painting...



Come on now, is that great or what? She even made my butt a little smaller, wOOt! If you want a surprise Christmas gift, get your orders in now. I can't wait to get it.

I will be playing the Mookie tonight. I have been pretty detached from the blogger events and even reading everyones blogs lately. Just been too busy with football practice and games, fantasy football, new job, etc. I am looking forward to mixing it up tonight and having some fun.

I will also be playing in the PokerSavvy freeroll on Poker.com tonight. Those guys do a great job and the rewards you can earn from their points are great. I have said it a million times and I will say it again, you have to sign up and do the Mansion promo if nothing else. Especially since if you sign up through my link, with drewspop as your referral, I get that much closer to an Xbox 360 through their points store. Let's go, hook me up, then tell your friends so they can start earning you some points too!

Fantasy Football season starts slow...

Well, I did manage to edge out Waffles this week in the blogger league, but lost all three of my other leagues. Not a good start at all. One of my teams is really weak. Not to make excuses but I wasn't at the draft and my partner butchered it. Big time. I am already pushing the panic button on that league and it is the most expensive one I am in. Kinda sucks.

I forgot to mention that yesterday I went over to Fenway park to give blood. Since September 11th, they have done an annual drive on the anniversary. I went the first year and it was a cluster. I think they had like 8 beds and it took about 4 hours to get through. Yesterday, I didn't really care if it took that long, since my notice has been given (haha), but it was much more efficient. They had about 60 beds and I was done in an hour. It was cool because they do it up in the closed in private suite area overlooking the park. They also had a ridiculous amount of food that they gave to everyone donating. I skipped the Fenway frank but did have some Legal Seafoods clam chowder and some chicken fingers.

We had our family dinner out last night for my great aunt's b-day. It was fun and great to see a bunch of the family. I have an oddball uncle that lives down in Florida and he was up and made it, so it was nice to see him. I also found out my cousin's next fight is going to be the day after Thanksgiving at either Mohegan Sun in Connecticut or at a place in Boston. I am looking forward to seeing that.

Check out the new ad for PokerSavvy on the right. They are running their monthly blogger only freeroll tomorrow night. If you aren't already signed up for PokerSavvy, what are you waiting for? I mean really? Do you not like rewards and $$$ or something? Click on the words PokerSavvy (since that is my referral link ;) and get that Mansion promo taken care of for the easilest $90 you will ever earn. If you have any questions, leave me a comment and I will get back to you.

I doubt I will get to play any poker tonight as we have open house for my oldest at school. Good luck to everyone out there.

First win...

Hope everyone had a good weekend. You gotta love the first weekend of the NFL season. Unfortunately (or fortunately based on their play), I didn’t get to see one snap of the Patriots game yesterday. I was too busy at our Pop Warner game getting our first win. It was a close game, much closer than it should have been, but we ended up pulling it out in the end.

My son had a pretty good game, and ended up coming up with a fumble recovery. He was pretty happy and came out of the pack with the ball held over his head. At least that what my wife tells me. All I knew was that we had stopped them on fourth down and were taking the ball over anyway. I was busy yelling at the offense to get out there and getting ready to call in the first play.

I did hear them announce his name on the PA, but I thought it was just for the tackle. Anyway, it is on the film, so when I get a chance to take a look at it, I will get to enjoy it.

As a team, we are still struggling to get the ball outside. We have to get better blocking from our backs and if we do, we will get real good. If we don’t, it is going to be a long season. I never knew how much went into football. It really does take 11 working together to get the job done.

On a similar note, glad to see the Patriots get rid of Deion Branch for a 1st rounder. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I loved him on the team but his greediness spoiled it. I understand the short life span of an NFL player, but it doesn’t seem that he has proven himself to be one of the best receivers in the league. At least not on par with the Owens, Moss, Chad Johnson, and Steve Smith’s in my opinion. I know he was Super Bowl MVP, but there are plenty of those from the past that were not stars. They will find a way to get the job done in the system, just like they have in the past.

On the poker front, I played a little over the weekend and basically got my ass handed to me. I felt like I played ok for the most part and got boned repeated. This was at nine.com where I was clearing a promo through PokerSavvy. I finished it but lost more the bonus was worth in the process. The session that cost me the most was against some douchebag who was horrendous but would play every hand for a raise and pushed repeatedly. I would wait and get a great hand like KK and bet huge preflop only to have him call, then an A would hit. I ended up folding one time in that situation, then on the next hand, I had JJ and the same thing happened on the flop, after my big preflop raise. I ended up saying fuggit and pushing with the A high flop and he called with like bottom pair and I doubled. Unfortunately, I got a little too emotional trying to bust this dude and it backfired on me, as I ended up losing to his terrible cards with some bad luck. I just couldn’t leave and ended up dropping about $50-$60 of my $100 deposit at that one session. I just finished the bonus last night and then took a final bad beat junk kicking to lose the last $25 I had. God how I love chasing bonuses like that. It was my own fault though.

I am still toiling away at Party and doing ok there. I will have to get back to that this week. I ended up passing on a homegame that I was supposed to play at on Saturday night. I said I would play and then the brother in law called and asked if we could go out. As luck would have it, the mother in law said she would watch the kids so there was no way I could go play and leave my wife at home with nothing to do. We had a great time out, actually, from the little that I remember anyway ;)

I have to miss practice tonight because it is my great aunt’s 80th birthday. She was my grandmother’s twin and being 9/11, it has taken on some added significance. It was their 75th birthday when the sad day happened, and my grandmother has since passed. It will be a nice dinner out with the family. Prayers to anyone affected by the tragedy.

The Mookie charity tourney and the new gig

I played in the Tanner Evers Charity tourney last night on FT, organized by Mookie. Great job as always by Mookie, drawing a huge, generous crowd of 66 runners. I had a great starting table with Hoy, Smokkee, Mookie himself, Love Elf, Drizz, Gary, Cmitch, and I know I am forgetting at least 1. A great group, for sure.

I played like garbage and the lack of blogger events lately was pretty apparent. Smokkee did me in when he thought I was on a steal on the button when it was folded around to me. I had pocket 10's and raised to 350 with the blinds at 50/100. I was basically lazy and pushed pot when it got to me. Smokkee thought I had crap and after saying so, smooth called me after some thought. The flop came a dangerous QAx and Smokkee led out with a bet that basically put me all in. I was 50/50 on whether he was just bullying me in hopes I missed, or he actually hit the flop. I decided sleep was a good idea and call/pushed (like 100 extra) and saw his Q9o take me down. Oh well, it was for a good cause. Smokkee is now the bounty winner and needs to get me his knockout pool team for this week by tomorrow. Congrats again to Mookie for a successful fund raiser.

The new gig ended up panning out. My last day here is September 29th and I think I am going to take a week off between jobs. I am really excited about the move, and although it will be a lot of work, it should pay off down the road even more than it has already. I did get a good deal too, I think, so happiness all around.

Football rolls on. I have to put a few new plays into the playbook today. I personally think we already have enough plays, we just have to execute them better, but the others want to add. Being the rookie, I keep my mouth shut, but hopefully 3 days of practice is enough to get them to sink in.

That's it for now.

Tanner Evers Tourney Tonight

I will be playing in the tourney that Mookie set up as a benefit on Full Tilt tonight. A lot of people are putting up bounties, so I decided to join them.

As my bounty, I will pay for your entry into a knockout pool for the NFL season. It is a $20 knockout pool in which you pick a different team each week to win their game, no spread included. I am also already in the pool. If you are the person to knock me out tonight, shoot me an email and I will give you all the details and the person you need to get your pick to. The pick for week 1 is due by noon on Thursday.

I had my 4th and final fantasy football draft last night. This is the league that I have been in the longest, over 10 years. I ended up with the 6th pick and took Steven Jackson. I also ended up with Randy Moss, Reggie Wayne, Darrell Jackson, Dante Culpepper, Rueben Droughns, Chris Cooley and backups. Not a terrible team in a 12 team fantasy league.

Tonight's football practice has been cut short due to a curfew being imposed by our town's board of health. There is a real scare around here about Eastern Equine Encephalitis, which is being spread by mosquitos. Dam bugs have actually killed 2 people so far with the disease, so the first frost can't come fast enough now.

Good luck to everyone in the tourney tonight and good luck taking me out.

Finally another post...

Wow. I can’t believe it has been a full week since my last post. It is a busy time around here I guess. I haven’t been playing much lately, and the time I do I has been spent with football and work issues.

For a quick rundown of the last week, here we go. My last post was about the Mansion Steelers promotion. Thanks for the feedback all. I decided to not bother for a number of reasons. The biggest one, I think, is my natural paranoia on things that seem to good to be true. Good luck to all that did it and I hope the Steelers come through for you.

Kristin finished the painting I was having done for my wife. It looks great. I can’t wait until it dries and I get it. It will be a great addition to our dining room.

Football has been really busy. We had a bad scrimmage last week and the rest of the week we tried to get the team ready. We played our first game yesterday and lost by a point. We should have been able to beat that team, but didn’t get it done. It was a frustrating game on the road. We started off with the ball and went 4 and out. On the first play for the other team, they scored a 60 yard rushing TD. It was like we got hit in the head with a shovel. On the next kickoff, it hit one of our up men and they recovered. We were proud of the kids though, for settling down and coming back. We missed 2 extra points while they missed one and it cost us the game. We even got the ball on turnovers twice in the last 5 minutes but couldn’t turn it into any points. I was kind of embarrassed with the way I acted at the end of the game to be honest. We were on the road and the refs seemed to make some terrible calls against us. At the end of the first half, we called timeout and the ref said we didn’t call it in time and the half ended. Then with about a minute left, our QB said he got out of bounds but they kept the clock going saying he didn’t get out. Then, we had our QB spike the ball to kill the clock to get one more play off at the end and he again said we didn’t spike it fast enough and the game was over. We questioned it and he just smiled at us as the chain guys from the local team walked past them in the middle of the field. I was all fired up and ended up saying something like, yeah, go shake their hands. It wasn’t terrible, but I need to make sure I don’t do anything like that in front of the kids. We had our chances to win the game and didn’t. Even if we had another play at the end, we were still about 30 yards out, so getting it in the endzone was a very remote possibility. Unfortunately, we had to use up our timeouts when we had 4th downs a little earlier and just didn’t get it done. All in all, the kids did great and hopefully we will get them up for next week’s game.

I actually spent 2 hours going over game tape last night with the other coaches. We picked up who was missing their blocks and what we need to work on, so hopefully we can improve quickly enough to get a W this weekend.

On the poker front, I have been grinding away a little on Party. I took a hit over the weekend when I dropped about $100. I was down to about $300 so I cashed out $150 and am toiling away at the $25 tables still. I am going to use the cash out money to do a promo or 2 through Pokersavvy. I am going to try and see if I can get the Xbox 360 through them that we want to get for the kids for Christmas. It is a lot of points but if people keep signing up through me, I might be able to get it. Feel free to sign up, especially if you haven’t done the regular Mansion promo yet. $90 of easy money is just waiting to be had. Let me know if you have any questions on that one, but if you haven’t done it yet, you must just not like money.

I am working from home today because it is my middle son’s first day on the school bus for Kindergarten. My wife and I went with him on the bus on Friday so he could meet the teacher and the busdriver. He can’t wait to start today. Pretty funny.

Lastly, still waiting on finalizing the job thing. I was all ready to book a short trip for wifey and I in October, but without knowing exactly what I am doing yet, I just couldn’t book it. I really thought everything would be detailed by last week but no dice. I am hoping to hear something today. At least that is what the old boss told me on Friday.