Iraq - Day 3

Weather forecast in Baghdad: Windy, dusty, highs in the 90s near 100.  Yuck.  The sun looked quite odd today.  It was not the usual bright yellow that is too bright to look at for more than a second.  It looked more like a dim silver dollar than the sun.  A colleague told me that I would see something bazaar just about every day.  That qualifies.

There is a stark lack of color here in camp.  There is color other than brown.  There are the cars and signs and some plants, but they are all muted with dust seemingly covering everything.

I'm getting my bearings slowly but surely.  On day 2, I can now find my way to work, to the toilet, to the shower, and to the DiFac (which is short for Dining Facility).  I have a pretty good idea how to get to the nearby PX (store) and fast food restaurants.  In case you are interested, the choices are Green Bean (like Starbucks), Pizza Hut, Subway, and one or two others.  The food in the DiFacs is good, but I'm sure that I'll be looking for a change of pace before long.

I keep hearing shooting in the distance.  I'm almost certain that this is the local firing range.  No one in the office has commented on it as yet.  They have picked up on my nick-name are are calling me Special K and not just one-on-one, but in front of the officers in this section.  I think it is meant as a compliment.  I'm taking it that way until proven different.

I'm still hoping to get my luggage tomorrow night.  There are so many things in there that I really need.  Without them I am reduced to begging for rides, escorts, and some supplies.  We work 12 hours a day, so that has not given me any time to go back to the PX to try to pick some things up.  I would really love to have a comb right now.  I'm not really sure what the effect of being without my medications for 4 days is going to be.  I'll be sure not to let it effect me too much before I take action.  I'm just hoping to get through to tomorrow night.   If the bags don't show up then, I'm not sure what I'll have to do.

I knew coming in that there would be difficulties and I'm dealing with them so far.  I got into this because I felt it was the right thing to do.  The idea of the adventure and testing myself (which I really haven't done in a while) were also factors.  Of course, I knew that I would have to do it all with a good attitude (something that does not come naturally to me).  I just hate that I'm having to remind myself of these things so often in the first 36 hours.

Initial Impressions of Iraq

This place smells and tastes like dirt. That is probably because there is dirt in the air. It wasn't bad first thing in the morning. By lunch time, visibility was down to a half mile or less. This is not a full blown sand storm. It is just a windy day in Iraq.

The area that I'm working in has lakes and canals, but the plant life only grows within 5 feet of the water in most places. If you were 10 feet away with your back to the water, you would think there was no water for miles.

Rabbits, dogs and jackals roam the area at night. I can't wait to see my first jackal.

The bunks are placed in trailers like you would see on a construction site. Each trailer has three units and each unit can hold 2 people. Each group of 4 trailers is surrounded by huge concrete walls that stand about 20 feet high. Imagine those portable concrete highway dividers at the same width and depth by 5 times higher.

The also have a bat house at the end of my row. It is about a quarter mile from my place. They encourage real bats to live there and to take care of the insects.

It is about 7:45 pm here and I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open. I felt good this morning, but the jet lag is catching up with me. I'm going to get some sleep now.

In Iraq

I made it to the camp. Everything is dusty. I mean really dusty.

That was one long flight. My bags didn't make the plane from Kuwait to Baghdad so I will be without most of my supplies until the next flight on Wednesday. That is going to make getting started just a little bit tougher. We went to the PX to get me the basics and will try to make some phone calls tomorrow to see what can be done.

I've got to get some sleep on something that is not moving. I'll add some details tomorrow. Work starts early in the morning.

What is the quickest way to kill a circus?

Man am I living close to the edge.  No, I'm not talking about Iraq yet.  I'm just talking about having a lot of things all going on at once.  I'm currently trying to juggle getting ready to go to the desert for 3 weeks, plan a high school reunion, dog-sit for my sister-in-law (actually, Dr. K is going most of the work there but this is my rant), buying new glasses (progressive = progressively worse), and contract house work, all while being a good enough husband.

I just watched a news report on the flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  The flooding is horrible.  I hate it for all the people who will have to struggle through this mess, but that is not why I watched it.  The reporter on the ground in CR is the "little" brother to a good friend of mine from my high school days.  Bob was about 7 when I got to know the family.  He is still stuck at that age in my mind.  I have good memories of teaching this young man to hit a baseball.  I think he hit a home run in the very next game.  Now look at him:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/flood-forces-levee-break-in-cedar-rapids/2101178807 

Actually, I would like for you to at least click on the link.  Maybe a little extra traffic will open some doors for him.  He was a great kid and I'm sure he is a fine man today.  Give him 30 seconds.

My favorite floor contractor came by to look at the work that was needed for my porch (not my Porsche - that's a different dumb joke).  What really surprised me what when he asked me if I wanted him to do it, I said yes and he got started, right then.  He was done in about an hour.  I expected him to come back in a week to get started.  Check the porch off the list.

I leave for the desert on Saturday.  I've spent a butt-load of money on new clothes, shoes, bags, powder drinks, socks, soaps, etc, etc, etc.  Most of it will be useful and everyone knows I could use some new clothes.  I guess I'm about ready.  I will have Internet access, though it may only be during my personal time.  I'll blog what I can.

People ask if I am nervous or excited about the trip.  The honest answer is both.  I really don't know what it is going to be like.  I know about the hot, gritty, dusty part.  I don't know about the food, bed, work area, expectations, and so much more than I can imagine.  The work days will be long.  12 hours per day, six days a week is the norm.  Do I have that much attention?  I hope.  Three weeks is long, but not nearly what everyone else who is there will be doing.  There will be no reason for me to complain about anything.  Will I have the patience?  We'll see.  BTW, I don't look like a bad-ass in my helmet and Kevlar vest.

Life is good and I plan to keep it that way.  I've just got to remember that the rough times are just part of it.  Without them, there can be no good times.

Brian the Red had better make plans to go to the Hofbrauhaus this October in Vegas.  Just ask Falstaff.

Answer to the title question: Go for the juggler.

Memories of Vegas

I've never seen such an enthusiastic toast among strangers.

I finished my last trip to Vegas on Sunday morning.  Happily, it was the best trip to Vegas that I've had in a while.  Sadly, it will probably be the last trip for a while.

Getting to Vegas was a series of delays that finally got me to the Imperial Palace about 2 hours later than I had planned.  First there was a mechanical delay getting out of Austin.  Next there was a delay to let the cops arrive before we pulled into the gate at LAS. I don't have any details on the cause there.  I'm sure alcohol was involved.  It always is.  Then the baggage handlers never posted our flight on the baggage carousel, so no one knew which of the 5 carousels our bags were on.   Then there was the taxi line.

But I got there, dumped my bags and headed for the poker room.  Falstaff (my buddy and roommate for the trip) got up to go do some poker writing and left me to play his stack of chips, about $120 worth.  This was a $1-2 limit mixed game and they were on the O8 round.  My very first hand rivered quad 10s.  Too bad there wasn't much of a payoff.  During the next hour, I got my full house beat by a better full house, twice.  Falstaff really sucks at that game.  I did leave him a few chips.

What made the trip so good was the smaller than usual number of bloggers.  That sounds like a negative, but it was easier to spend time with those who were there.  I usually come away feeling that I didn't really visit with anyone.  It was great to visit and/or get to know EasyCure, Zeem, Doc Chako, Stb, Pauly, and Change100 among others.  The fact that I got down early and rallied late to drop less than $100 on poker for the trip does not figure into how good a trip it was.

The best time for me was going with the gang to the Hofbrauhaus.  The bier (beer), the food, and the 'scenery' were all spectacular.  It was one of those times when I sat for a while and though about how good the good times are. 

At one point, Falstaff felt compelled to make a loud toast to boobies.  Of course our whole table joined in on that toast, as did the table in front of us, and the table behind us, and the table behind them.  It may have sent a wave through the whole joint.  Good times for sure.

Other highlights for me:

• Falstaff winning the Sahara 11 am tourney
• Visiting the WSOP at the Rio
• Dinner with Falstaff, Pauly and Change100 at Ferraro's

There are no events or business trips planned that will take me to Vegas in the near future and the price of airline tickets has gone through the roof.  I'm going to make a special effort to attend Brian the Red's birthday in Sin City, but that is not until October.  Until then I will have to settle for home games and whatever else I can find.

Announcement

What a day it has been. What a day is still to come. When it started, I got up and joined the army for the morning. As I write this, I am in the Austin, TX airport waiting for a plane to Vegas.

I've been working on a project for the past month for which I passed a big milestone today, so I'm going to start blogging about it. If it wasn't going to happen, there wouldn't have been much to write about. As it is, it will dominate the next month of my life. You see, my traveling database consulting job is taking me to Camp Liberty in Iraq.

That is why I spent the morning with the army. I was concluding the process of getting approval to ship-out. They don't want anyone over there that will get sick, get in the way, or just generally be more of a burden than an asset. They now feel that I won't be that burden.

The process today was really interesting. I won't say much about the specifics as I don't know how much they want to let out. Out of 300-400 people going through this process, I may have been the only civilian. I was the only one with a bright shirt (Home Depot orange in my case), or a ball cap, or facial hair. I may have stood out just a little. The funny thing is that it felt really comfortable. The instructions were clear. The questions were mostly precise and easy to answer. All of the lines were orderly and there was no breaking in line or messing around that I often see in the real world. They could use some reallocation of their resources as one line took and hour and 45 minutes to navigate while other stations were idle. Maybe standing that long was part of the test. When I left, the line had grown to probably 3 hours so it could have been worse.

Over the years, I have had many opportunities to associate with military people. In almost every case they have been polite, smart, and helpful. Today was no different. I didn't know what the hell I was doing half the time, but they understood and quickly put me on the right course. I know there are some bad apples and bad situations in our army, but more than once while standing in line, I was amazed to think that I was in the midst of the best military in the history of the world. We should all be very proud of them.

So I got through the entire process in about 4 and a half hours. This was the last step before I get cleared to go overseas. The plan is for me to leave next Saturday and return on Saturday, July 5th. I expect the three weeks will seem to be very long until I'm back. There will be many 10-14 hour work days with probably 2 or 3 days off during my stay. Maybe I'll catch the bus tour of Baghdad.

I have a ton to do to get ready to go and to get ready to tackle the technical issues that I will see. But I've still got my priorities. I'm going to meet up with the bloggers who have already started gathering in Vegas. There will much more on Iraq in the coming weeks, but the next post will probably be a Vegas trip report. Stay tuned.

I'm not in London

I'm in Texas.  Unfortunately, many of the folks on my hotmail contact list got an email explaining that I am in London and that I lost all of my money.  The bogus email asked for $2500 be sent by Western Union.

I tried to login to my hotmail account to warn my contacts, but the whole account had been hijacked.  I did get off a quick email to security and got the account disabled, so I hope the abuse will stop there.  My security contact told me that I was not the first person that this has happened to and that it was probably a brute force attack (where the criminals repeatedly guess at the password) although it could happen when using an infected shared computer which I almost never do.

In any case, I'm having to spend quite a lot of time tonight changing passwords, just in case too much information leaked.  What a pain.

Poker = Work

Last nights home game edition was a bit more work than most of the previous editions.  We had a good group.  We were missing Nate the Elder and Brian the Red, but Big Nick and CVegas Don filled in.

I spent the whole night on one buy-in.  I was never up buy more than a buy-in and only went all-in once that I can remember.  I played a ton of hands (for me), saw lots of flops and won a good many small pots.  Every decent pot won was followed by a good one lost which was followed by several small wins.  I had won so many small pots at one point, I was getting complaints about hogging the pink (25s) chips.  I managed to give them all back during my usual cold spell.

I had a wonderful knack for running my big hands into someone else's monsters.  T got me twice with a straight over my 2-pair and a boat over my top straight.  The knife got me once with an over pair of KK to my top pair/top kicker.  The highlight of my night was taking a nice pot with a biggish river bet on a shammer (72 suited) bluff.  During the entire HE session, I saw big slick once and pocket 9s once.  The rest of the hands I played were crap like weak As, unsuited connectors, one gappers and low painted cards. 

Things didn't get any better in O8 where I relied on the board hitting my hand hard instead of getting good starting hands.  I had maybe two decent starting o8 hands in the 1.5 hours that we played.  I caught a nut straight with no low to scoop one of the first hands.  Around midnight I flopped a boat that improved on the turn.  With the boat I got 40 in against Don, but he folded his trips to my all-in bet on the river. Later on, I pushed with a pair of Ks and got called by Falstaff and Big Nick.  I avoided all of their many draws and lows to triple up.

The cards that I drew make it sound like I must have been a big loser, but I actually ended up ahead on the night.  I finished with 35 more points than where I started.  It sure was a lot of work for 35.

Conversation Topics:

• Cystoscopy
• Jim's trip to Great Britain
• $800 to get to Vegas - Not going
• Monkey Joe's (Mojohito)
• 9 gallons of blood per night
• $5 and a chicken
• Falstaff writing for PokerNews
• Trip to Vegas this week (me and Falstaff and little Nick)

More Digital Photography Goodness

During my recent trip to Paris, I took the following picture of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci:

This looks pretty crappy with the yellow color from the lights and a few reflections. This happens sometimes when you can't take your time or bring lots of you own equipment. The low light and the crowds made getting even a sharp picture a small feat.

But all is not lost. Open the picture in Photoshop, adjust the levels and color and edit the spots out and you get this:

Now that is more like it.

Earthquake Photography

Situation: You are the photographer at a wedding when the whole world starts to shake violently. What would the photographs look like? You just have to see it:

http://www.xanga.com/lelandwong/657607591/photographing-a-wedding-and-then-an-earthquake.html

Unbelievable.

Sponsors

In other related news, readers may have noticed some new sponsors to this here blog. If you need anything from Amazon and you'd like to do me a favor, go to Amazon via the link on the right (doesn't matter what item is in the ad). Go check out the other new sponsors in related items as well. They are all really great folks (with one exception).

Thanks.

Superusers and Silence: How UltimateBet let players get cheated for millions

Check out this very important story. I know some folk who still play on UB or Absolute Poker, at least until they read this story.

Most poker sites are fair and understand that they must to protect their reputations. Apparently, UB and AP do not.

I guess that's it for that sponsor. :)

Vegas Hit and Run Wrap-up

This is a few days late for a trip report, but it sometimes takes a few days to get my strength back. I was in Vegas a total of 34 hours. I did what I could to get the most out of that time.

We had no trouble getting done in Tucson and got to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport a couple hours early. Being in a rush, I managed to forget my new sunglasses (in the visor), my favorite poker shirt (in the trunk), and to get some money I had lent. I got my colleague, DR, to come back for the glasses that I realized were missing. I didn't find out about the shirt and cash until later. To DR's credit, she got both of the remaining items in the mail to me the next day.

My first-class flight to Vegas was OK. The only negative was the bumpy ride kept the flight attendants seated which means I did not get an in-flight cocktail. I know, this should be plenty of space for your sympathy: _. The plane hit the ground, I hit a cab and was at the TI in no time at all. I took time to get a shower and change of clothes while Brian the Red and Andres the Bold finished their dinner.

I missed AtB on his way to the room for an early bed time, but Brian and I headed for the Venetian Poker Room for a simi-late session of NLE. I think I won about $50 or so before calling it a morning.

After the sun came up, the three of us hit the Starbuck's before cruising back to the Venetian for their noon tourney. I think I lost about $140 while waiting for the tourney to start. That would be the start to a long day of losing poker.

This tourney is $150 to enter (a little steep), but they use 30 minute levels and start with deep stacks of 7500 in chips. I didn't do very well finishing somewhere in the 4th level. I did manage to bluff a certain WSOP final table pro (TB from the Moneymaker final table) off of two hands for pretty good pots. My undoing was taking AK to war against 88. That hand crippled me. The knock-out blow was when my 88 ran into QQ preflop. We both flopped sets, but that made no difference. I played well and still feel good about that. Brian the Red lasted a good bit longer than I and Andres the Bold took 7th place for just under $1k. Way to go, Andres. He was even good enough to buy us dinner.

Once out, I headed to some of the newer poker tables on the strip, namely at Bill's Casino and O'shea's Casino. Both properties are part of the Caesar's empire now. They have plans to connect all of the tables in the system to some mega-beat jackpots, but for now, they are playing $1 NL Holdem (just one blind) and $1-5 spread limit with high rakes and a jackpot drop. I did awful in both places and dropped another $200 before the tourney at the Venetian ended.

I got back to find out that Andres was still playing, so I sat at another $1-2 NL table and continued to bleed chips and cash. I think I got down another $100+ before I decided to take my lumps like a man, half-lit. I ordered a Southern Comfort straight up and texted Falstaff for the number of the best professional drinker I know. Al did not let me down.

My game turned around at that point. I started with a flopped boat holding A2 in the big blind. The flop was A22. I bet $10 and the very friendly gent to my left raised to $25. I re-raised to $50. He re-raised and I said something like, "well, it looks like it's all going in anyway - I'm all in." He called and his Q2 was no good. I hit a few other good hand and got up from that table with about a $240 profit.

After dinner, my next stop was the TI Poker Room where my session went real late and I made back about $150 more before I had to get to the room to get packed. That part went quicker than I planned. I still had about an hour before I had to catch a cab, so it was back to the Venetian for one more quick try.

The table that I drew was super aggressive. I hit a few more hands, and lost a few to make my last $30 of the trip. All in all, I lost about $160 in Vegas which is great since I was down over $400 at one point.

I made the early morning (Saturday now) flight in plenty of time, got a truly horrible seat neighbor, but got home just the same. I'll be home this week for some Dr. appointments, getting ready for a big upcoming trip, and catching up before heading to TX and Vegas(again, this time for the blogger gathering) next week. Then the big trip will be upon me. More on that later.

Have a good week...

It's Vegas Time Again

This will be a quick hit and run.

I've been in Tucson this week running a technical workshop for part of the government. The class has gone smoothly even though I think half the class got mentally lost on day 2. They are still sitting there listening which is what really matters.

I've had a colleague along for this trip which almost always makes the trip more fun. It gives me someone to have dinner and conversation with at the end of the day instead of room service and TV.

But that all changes today. I should finish the workshop by 3 pm, drive to Phoenix and hop a quick flight to Vegas where I will meet up with 2 friends who are already in the air. I'll have tonight and tomorrow in Sin City for much pokerage. I'll head home on Saturday morning. I've already got my first class upgrade out of Phoenix, so I should be pretty well buzzed when I hit the strip.

I plan to be back in Vegas for a longer stay in a couple week for the Blogger Summer Bash. I guess this will be a warm-up. There may or may not be an update on this blog tomorrow. The update will be more likely if I'm winning. :)

The Grape Lady

"That will be three bags of grapes, two bags at $3.49 and one bag free."

That was the result of a recent trip to the grocery store with Dr. K. She is rapidly becoming the grape lady of Charlotte.

Readers here know that Dr. K returned to work this year. She really loves her job and her coworkers. Everyday, she like to share snacks with the office during breaks. Dr. K supplies grapes.

On the way home last week, she asked me to stop with her at our local grocery store. I knew what was on her mind as this same grape issue had played out twice in the past two weeks, though at a different location of the same store.

The grapes in this particular store are bagged and stacked on a produce display. The sign on the display clearly shows that the grapes are $3.49. Dr. K looks close and does not see what she is looking for, so instead of buying two bags, she decides to get three.

We pick up a few more items and head for the checkout. As the casher is about to cash us out, Dr. K asks, "How much were the grapes?" I think, "Here we go!"

The casher scans the register tape and responds "The grapes are three forty-nine A POUND."

Now it's on.

"No...", says Dr. K, "those grapes are $3.49 a bag."

"Manager to register 3!"

Actually, we had to walk over to the Customer Service Desk to talk to the very nice manager. He explained to us that the "/lb" label is really small and hard to see. He is trying really hard to not embarrass us for our mistake.

Dr. K says "OK, show us."

So we head back to the grape display. The manager looks at the price sign. Then he looks again. Then he cocks his head to the side and looks some more. The he stands up and says "Those grapes are $3.49."

We go back to the front and he starts to ring up three bags of grapes at $3.49 when I notice that there is a store policy sign right out on the desk. The last policy says something like if an item scans for a higher price than what is marked, then you get one of those items for free.

I point this out (not wanting to leave any chips on the table, of course) and he rings it up, two bags of grapes for $3.49 a bag.

Grocery stores of Charlotte - Beware of the grape lady.

The Four Ss of Jewelry

Special K, don't you mean the four Cs of diamonds? No. If you are asking that, you don't know Dr. K.

As a reminder, the four Cs of Diamonds are Color, Cut, and Clarity and Carat weight. They are important, but the 4 Ss can be applied to any jewelry purchase and is a can't miss strategy.

Dr. K's 4 Ss of Jewelry are Sparkly, Shiny, Substantial (as in size), and 'Spensive. It is the road to what every woman wants.

When I went to Europe recently, my wife repeatedly reminded my that she wanted something special and it was to abide by the four Ss of Jewelry. She ended up with a heart-shaped pendant that I found at a gift shop near The Louvre. I think she is willing to let me practice some more.

Middle Child

I'm a middle child. I have an older brother and a younger brother. A recent study found that middle of three children tend to exibit the following characteristics:

Has neither rights of oldest nor privileges of youngest.
Feels life is unfair.
Feels unloved, left out, "squeezed."
Feels doesn't have place in family.
Becomes discouraged and "problem child"


Well all I can say about that is that is pretty damn close, but I've grown since then (as if anyone cared).

(Just Kidding) :)

Poker this past week and Bodog

Look out. Here comes an actual poker post.

It was an up and down week at the poker tables. I've already written about the trip to the Desert Diamond where I made $90 and my minus 20 chips at the Falstaff home game. I attended a tournament at a new location on Sunday afternoon and evening. I knew a little over half the players from said home game and the others looked to be pretty basic tight players.

As is my winning formula for tournaments, I played tight in the early going. I played just enough to tread water. I had about the starting chip amount when we moved to the final table. Then, when we got down to the last 6 players or so, I changed gears to getting good cards and winning monster pots. When I write my poker book, No Shit Poker, this will be a key point. Winning the tourney did require a major suck-out when I ran my QQ into KK and caught a Q on the river. It was brutal. That makes up for one of the ten or so times it's happened to me.

I lost a big pot to the knife when my 2 pair was counterfeited on the river (suck-out count back to even on the night) but got all those chips back and crippled Jim when my AQ hit a Q on the flop and the Knife's Q-low kicker didn't improve. Me and "TheMan" got heads up and took 20 or 30 hands to decide it. I don't remember the final hand exactly, but it was a lot like the hand with the knife. I think my KQ hit a K on the flop and TheMan's K10 didn't catch up. That was good for a 120 chip profit.

I proceeded to give 40 chips back at the cash game before calling it a night. If chips were dollars, that would give me a $150 profit for the week. I can live with that.

One thing I may do with the profit is invest it in a trip to the WSOP. Bodog is running an online poker tournament that could lead to a cheap trip to the WSOP main event. Seats start at $1.50 (that's my speed), but you can buy in at higher levels up to $250+20 for a semifinal seat. Somebody's going to win it. It might as well be me. I think I'm ready for some unbelievably rapid wealth.

Chao

Off the road and back to the keyboard

I've been on the road again. This time I haven't felt much like writing, so I didn't. So there.

I had a good customer visit to Tucson this week. There was not much remarkable about the trip. Everything went well. I had a colleague along which always makes the trip more fun. She will be taking over this account in about 2 or 3 weeks, so this was introductions for the customer and her. I think that part went pretty well.

We did drop by the local casino on Tuesday night. The colleague dropped about $85 in the slot machines. I left with a $90 profit at the poker table. The most interesting part was the structure of the game. Arizona does not allow no-limit hold em, so the game was $2-100 spread limit, which played just like $1-2 NL.

I took the red-eye back on Wednesday night to be in CLT for a special occasion. I'll have more to say about that in another post.

Last night was poker at the Casa de Falstaff. The night started slow, but my luck started running better when Nate the Elder showed up. He had many second best hands to me, usually involving 75-100 chips in the pot. I think I got close to 4 times my starting stake at one point. Then the cards dried up. Actually, they were never really that good all night. I caught trips once and a straight once. Those were the best hands in hold em. Omaha was even worse. I couldn't buy the card I needed and Falstaff couldn't miss.

The hand that would save my night was just stupid lucky, but it happened and kept my losses reasonable. I limped with 2h4d9s7s or something closely resembling that. Pretty much everybody limps on every hand in this game. The flop brought a 6s, a red 10 and the As i think. A 5 chip bet was made and I called. The turn brought the 10s giving me a 9 high flush and a good shot at the low. I moved all in for my last 24 chips. Falstaff is pained, but he folds (of all the people on earth, he only folds to me he says later). The knife calls as does NtE. The river is a beautiful red 3, giving me the nut low. After the betting completes, the knife shows his A3 for what would have been a better low. I show my nut low (A2346) and my 7s9s flush high. Falstaff screams a profanity as he had folded a low full house. So I did a little better than tripled up to get me back near even on the night.

Falstaff (aka The Omaha Card Rack) was the winner of the night netting 240 points on the night.

My next post will be about Chapin Hall, Meckenburg County's new DSS facility. It is more exciting than it sounds, I promise.

The Last 10 Days

No, not the LAST 10 days, just the few that proceeded today.  This is just a catch up post.

Things have been good since I returned from Norfolk.  I've been catching up at work, writing a little training, cleaning the inbox, reading blogs - the usual stuff.  I am getting ready for 3 trips to the west coast that will be followed by a 3 week international trip.  All of that will happen in the next 6 weeks.  It's like the adventure is just taking a little break or just reloading.

How about a random picture.  Dr. K and I attended our nephew's T-ball game this past weekend.

I don't have any kids.  This one isn't even related to me, but I caught this slide at home plate and thought is was just cute as hell.  Next time, when there is a play at the plate, he'll be ready.

We did play some poker at BG's on Friday night.  I lost the tournament.  I got an early lead when I sucked out on Skoon's flopped flush by rivering one of the four cards that turned my 2-pair into a boat.  A couple more hands were all I could win.  I took a small profit in the cash game that went until midnight.  The game broke, we raced off the remaining quarters and I won the final point that put me dead even for the night.  We broke in a couple of new players.  They weren't new to the game, just new to our game.  Welcome Brian and Dale.

This weekend the Dr. and I will attend a Cinco de Mayo party.  The party is actually on Dos de Mayo, but we are not Spanish so who cares.  The margaritas won't taste any better 3 days later.  Saturday is poker with Falstaff and Sunday I fly to Phoenix and drive to Tucson for 3 days in the fun and sun customer's air conditioned building.

OK, one more really cute T-Ball picture before I go.

That's got to make you smile, unless you are like me and that brings back bad memories.  Nah, I still smile. 

Later.