I Finally Caved...

On Friday I finally decided to join Party Poker. I sat down at a .5/1 table for about 30 minutes and made an easy $10. I must thank Iggy for reassuring me that Party is where the fun is at. I'm looking forward to a long and beautiful payday with Party. Maybe I will see some of the fellow bloggers on the tables soon.

Makes Me Hate Poker

Nights like tonight make me despise playing poker. Eleven of us for the night...I finished sixth and it is only because I mucked and mucked and mucked until I couldn't muck any longer. I'm not blaming tonight on the cards...I try to never blame the cards because I know it isn't the cards. I can play anything I want, but for some reason tonight I was too timid. Tonight, my seat assignment sucked. I was playing in front of the one guy I hate to be seated to the right of. I hate betting into him because no matter what he has he will try to buy the pot and go over me. So not having the best starting hands to begin with, makes it that much harder to go back over the top. At some point I am going to have to become a more aggressive player. I am playing too tight with this group of guys and I need to try something new.

I need to go back and reread some of my books and take better notes about my play. I know I promised to give an analysis of tonight's game, but honestly, there isn't any reason too. I didn't play that many pots and if I won a pot, I didn't get any action.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Poker on ESPN.com

I found this article on my favorite website, ESPN.com --
When the bank bluffs.

I think this is the second part of a long running series, but I will have to check it out later. Funny stuff...best part...

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It is interesting to note that the Horseshoe is able check the balance in my checking account, while the bank that actually "owns" the account cannot. When I mentioned this to my wife, she snorted and said, "Don't be naïve. It's in the interests of the Horseshoe to get as much cash into your hands as they can. The bank doesn't care if you get access to your own money, because it does them no good." Well, duh.

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Sweet...only two days left this week and one is a poker night! I'm taking a pen and paper to this game to jot down some notes, etc. I will do my best to give a full report on my play tomorrow night.


UPDATE
This only the second of his new column. His first week can be found here.

Sad, Sad Day

This article from the New York Times goes to show how effed up a paper it truly is. I can't stand the liberal media as it is, but this paper is ridiculous. Video Appears to Show Beheading of American Civilian

Video appears to show beheading??? If you haven't seen it, follow this link to Iggy (who posted a non-poker blog -- showing how important this truly is) and you can view it too. I don't really know why anyone wants to watch it, but I did and was disgusted.

Now, I don't agree with the abuse our soldiers have dished out to Iraqi prisoners, but at the same time, I am not stupid naïve enough to believe this is the first time this has happened. I can't for the life of me figure out who thought it would be a good idea to take photos? In some way, by our soldiers torturing those prisoners, puts us on the same level as extremists. Difference being, we are seeing photos of people put in positions (although we haven't seen all the photos) and then these fucks go and do this?! Sometimes I wish we weren't trying to protect the world and be PC about everything. Just drop a damn bomb on them and let those that survive somehow rebuild the damn thing.

I apologize for the brashness of this post. You can blame it on the New York Times -- the new birdcage liner.

I've Been In Hiding

I know that absolutely no one visits this site any longer, not that anyone ever saw it to begin with, but I have been doing a lot of reading, running, and work around the house lately. I haven't even thought about this blog for quite some time.

The Flying Pig Marathon is officially over. I decided that it was more important to run with my wife and make sure she did well and didn't reinjure her foot than to set some personal record. I hope the following link works for our time, but if not, we finished the marathon in 4:41:43. I know there has to be some way to post photos on this thing, but I do not know how. So, here is a link to me reaching out to Julie and encouraging her that the race was almost over. I know I look like a goon, but hey, I was finally finishing running for almost 5 hours. I am extremely proud of Julie and myself of this accomplishment, but accept no sympathy for the pain we were in since it was all self-inflicted. I do not know if I will run another marathon because of the injury I received to my knee a couple weeks before the race. I probably should not have tried to run the race since the pain began before mile 1 was complete and was consistent throughout the race, but hey, I wasn't going to pour four months down the drain.

I have stayed up to date with the Poker blogs out there while I have been on this hiatus. Some great stuff out there. Iggy is the man with his "uber blogs" and "guinness filled rants." I would love to have the conviction Iggy has shown with his posting and dedication to keeping the poker bloggers of the world up to speed. I would love to play in this Sunday's Poker Blogger Tournament on Pacific Poker -- especially for only a $20 buy-in -- but not sure if I will be awake at 9:00 pm after what is planned for my weekend.

My sister-in-law is graduating from college Saturday and moving the same day. My wife's best friend is also moving that same day. My good friend is graduating Law School on Saturday with a huge party that night. Finally, a good friend of mine who has had a helping hand in the jobs that have meant the most to me, is moving away to take another job. Needless to say, his going away party is that night. So, Saturday will be a long day and I will probably be in bed by 8:00 on Sunday night.

Finally, one of the last reasons why I haven't been doing anything lately with this blog is that I have been helping out my family after the most frightening event in our lives. My father recently had a heart attack, luckily a minor one, but needed quadruple bypass surgery. This was unexpected and our family took it quite hard. The surgery lasted between 5 & 6.5 hours, but everything went smoothly. He was out of the hospital in one week and began resting at home. I am proud that my mother never left his side and they will go on to celebrate their 39th year of marriage later in 2004. I have been going home on weekends to try to help out around the house where I could and do the projects that they had originally started.

I will post regularly as I will soon be getting a new computer for my house. I am looking at getting a laptop that will do the basic stuff that I use it for and install wireless Internet in the house to take it anywhere I want in the house.

Take care and it is nice to be back.