Meanhappyguy's Blog

305

2012-02-08T21:43:00.000-08:00

Writing is hard. It is hard to get the motivation to write, even though I think about it a handful of times a day. Some random thing will happen and I'll think "that would be a great start to a story" or "that would make a good blog topic", but when I sit down at a computer I run through my routine of email checking, Facebook, sports highlights, news and video games. Writing is about number 12 on my to do list when I sit down at my computer.

I'd rather be playing a video game right now, but my conscience has guilted me into writing because I haven't blogged for a while now. Hmm, what to write about... I guess Jeremy Lin is the hot topic of the week. The first Chinese-Taiwanese descendant to play in the NBA, who is averaging about 25 points in his first three games with significant playing time. He also happens to be the cousin of my junior and senior year roommate, Stan Lin! Great to see Jeremy getting playing time due to the Knicks injuries and taking advantage of the opportunity he's been given.

Speaking of basketball, I attended my third ever middle school basketball game (since I've become a teacher), and of the three games I've attended I have filled in as a referee once and on Monday I filled in as the timer. Ah, public school funding! I had a blast though, and only once made a mistake in my team's favor. I blew the horn when the coach of my school's girls team was screaming for a timeout and the refs weren't listening... so play stopped when the horn blew and the refs were forced to give her a timeout, hah! It wasn't too blatant though, because my team had the ball and they were just dribbling it up the court.

I had a really good conversation with the coach of the opposing boy's team, who was doing the scoring for the girl's game while I did the clock and horn. He's been coaching and teaching for a few years and has tiny aspirations to join the high school basketball coaching scene, but says it is very competitive. Middle school is very loose with sports in public school, which is nice, but it will be interesting to see where my teaching and coaching aspirations take me!

304

2012-01-25T23:41:00.000-08:00

Well, I lost a back massage bet tonight. Fortunately it is to my beautiful girlfriend, and losing because we cleared 50% on a 172-team duplicate bridge tournament!!! We had a top hand for the first time in a few weeks, which is more due to the opponent's misplay than our superiority, but I must admit we did screw them pretty good on that third hand!

Just prior to the bridge tournament, girlfriend and I were working on a shared google-doc spreadsheet called "Bridge Cheat Sheet" which is the convention we'll be playing by, just American Standard. It is very simple right now, but I assume it will get more complex as we continue to play and run into situations that give us trouble. I was a bit worried about spending too much time during the tournament looking at the cheat sheet for what I should bid instead of playing quickly and having good etiquette, but during the tourney I only looked at the cheat sheet maybe once? The act of making the cheat sheet itself was a big help, kind of like the act of writing note cards to study for an exam helps just as much as quizzing yourself with the cards later.

We still ran into a few tough spots, but for the most part we played much better than last night (a 108/110 finish!). Only two of our hands were under 40%, which is pretty amazing considering almost all of our hands last night were under 40%! Marked improvement!! We talked about reviewing all of the hands we get under 20% on, but I may have to bump that up to 30% or 40% (in this case we only had two hands under 40%, but they were also below 20%...).

I think just continuing to play together and discussing our hands as they go will be the best way for us to improve, but if any of you bridge experts have any other suggestions, please let me know! I really enjoy the casual but involved play we are doing right now, and I am looking forward to fifty years from now and still playing this very fun and tricky card game!

303

2012-01-24T21:52:00.001-08:00

Well, my continuous writing on the blog lasted all of... three? days? I think I've learned enough during my and others' past failures to know that even though I haven't accomplished what I set out to (lots of writing on a daily basis), this doesn't mean I have to leave the blog dusty for months. My first thought was to write 607 words and combine two blog entries, but then keeping track of the numbers would get all sorts of confusing. I think I'll just start off where I left off previously and pretend that the week of snow and rain and travels southward to Corvallis were enough of a distraction to prevent me from writing. A load of baloney, but whatever!

School was cancelled most of last Tuesday, and all of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, making for a nice early mid-winter break! When I found out school would be cancelled for Thursday, I raced down to Corvallis to spend a nice 4-night weekend with the girlfriend. The drive down was a little crazy, leaving at 5pm on a very snowy Seattle. Luckily once I slowly made it down the driveway, hopping on I-5 was easy and I didn't leave the interstate until I was down in rainy Oregon.

Driving on I-5 just south of Olympia was insane. Only one lane was plowed and the rest of the interstate was like a motocross with bumps making driving with any semblance of control nearly impossible. I stayed at 20mph in the truck lane and thankfully come Centralia the rest of the freeway was plowed.

Corvallis had record flooding, which was pretty awesome to go see. The flooding on the Willamette River was so high that classes at OSU were cancelled on Friday! We went and checked out areas near the river and an entire park was under water, as the river was 13' above normal water level. I got a neat shot of a park bench near the river walk, almost completely under water:

Now to figure out how to transfer phones from my photo to the web without losing so much quality...

302

2012-01-17T13:04:00.001-08:00

Snowpacaplyse 2012 has begun in Seattle. With no snow on the ground this morning, I still got a two-hour late start at my teaching job. Nothing like some snow fear to start the calendar year off! By the time I got ready to leave, after much deliberation as to which transportation method and route to take, I donned my full bike rain gear and headed into the silent snow storm.

Snow was already sticking on the long driveway, so I walked down to the end of the driveway and up the slight hill before getting on my bicycle. It was snowing hard and I didn't see any other bikers on my two mile trip. The only sketchy part was coming to a red light and not being able to stop behind the SUV in the left turn lane, so instead of stopping I cut through the lanes of stopped cars and rolled to a stop at the light itself.

Only a handful of students showed up for the late start, which promptly turned into a two-hour early dismissal as well, and the principal came onto the intercom and told all of the students to call their parents to come get them ASAP. It was still snowing hard, about an inch in an hour out on the field.

My students decided to go to the lunch room for a quick bite before their parents picked them up, and I was left in my room with the snow falling outside. I began blasting Adele in my room, wondering what someone would say if they came into my room at that moment.

I feel like I am a fairly complicated person... I have my rock out to Adele moments. But while I was rocking out to Adele and the snow was slowing to a halt outside, I realized everyone is complicated. Everyone has their rock out to Adele moments, which I mean as doing something out of the ordinary for their persona. A tough guy has his soft side, a softie has a tough side. I like how each person is so different, and I find it intriguing that we really don't get to know each other very well as people. I bet a lot of cats know their owners better than the owner's friends do.

301

2012-01-17T00:33:00.000-08:00

So this numbering system could get confusing somewhere down the road, but it is really just a speed bump in my writing process. I like to make organized lists--I love Excel spreadsheets--but the deep down reason for the organization is laziness. Both in wanting to save myself work in the future and also procrastinating by making an unused spreadsheet instead of doing something much more pressing... grading homework, playing video games, etc.

I am late already posting this, my excuse is MLK Jr. Day and not thinking this Monday to be a typical week day, but all I did today was play about 8 hours of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I had tried the Beta of the game back in December and enjoyed playing, but wondered how the story would continue to develop. Flash forward to this month and I have friends and roommates playing the game and the pull was strong enough to get me to try the game for at least a month.

The game is pay to play, which was a bit of a hurdle in wanting to try the game out again, but more pressing was knowing that if I bought the game, I would be playing it... a lot. I have a hard time buying a game and not playing it (oops, Skyrim?), especially if I am paying a monthly fee. My thriftness dictates that if I pay $15/month for a video game, that is only like $0.02 per hour if I play it 8 hours a day! (please don't check my math, it is late.) Also, oddly enough that same logic does not apply to my monthly gym membership or monthly phone bill. I rarely go to the gym, and although I do like to use my phone, it is mostly for the mobile internet and I don't spend hours and hours on the phone just because I have unlimited minutes (at least during certain times of the day).

Also, instead of writing 300 words a week day, I'm going to try and up it by a word each day into infinity and beyond, hence the 301. Here's hoping a 302 follows tomorrow, with something more creative than a breakdown of my illogical lazy video game justifications!

I will write 300 words

2012-01-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

Found an old post after posting the bridge IMPs post, and read that I wanted to write 300 words a day. I'm not sure why I never started doing that, but for all of the times in the past month I've talked about wanting to write, I now vow to start! Three hundred words a day doesn't seem like that much... I'll say 300 words per weekday, to give myself time to catch up or skip the weekends if I'm off doing something fun.

GF asked what I'll write about, and I think mostly just what is on my mind, but if I'm feeling creative I might have some fun in fantasy land.

Today Carmen and I took the 8th graders to a trail work party as part of the 8th grade wilderness program at my school. It was really great to see the students getting dirty and working pulling out invasive vines and garbage from a ravine in the city. The kids were really proud of hauling out bbqs, trash cans, shopping carts and a hundred different beer cans and bottles.

On the bus ride to the trail work site, I closed my eyes along with the student sitting next to me and half-pretended to meditate. I decided to tell the students in close proximity what I was thinking about as my eyes were closed.

I envisioned being in a natural hot spring on a mountaintop with my gf. I think we were in Japan, on Hokkaido. At the top of this mountain, soaking in the warm 105 degree hot spring, the view is unbeatable. I can see out into the valley and I can hear the waterfall the hot spring is creating down the side of the mountain. The waterfall disappears into the fog lining the valley, and cherry blossoms poke out of the valley floor for as far as I can see.

All around the hot spring are trees unlike any I've ever seen. These trees look like giant cat-structures. And on many of the branches are snow monkeys, who have a tendency to cannonball into nearby hot spring pools.

IMPs!

2012-01-13T21:44:00.000-08:00

Ever since seeing a link to BridgeBase.com on Mojo's blog, I decided to try the site out and I am impressed! The players are much nicer than Yahoo or any other place I've played, and the details of the game are blowing up in front of my face.

GF and I are starting to play together a few times a week, and although bridge has an incredibly steep learning curve, we're having a lot of fun learning together through the ACBL Learn to Play software that I believe Mojo suggested as well.

We played our second-ever pairs tournament tonight and still have plenty of learning to do, and IMPs do a great job of blowing all of the little mistakes we make into lots of points for the other teams!

I like that the only hand we got positive IMPs on was the hand that everyone at the table passed, hah!! I did pat myself on the back for getting set in diamonds, which at the time counted as positive IMPs because it was better than letting the opponents go nuts in hearts... but it eventually ended as the -0.9 IMP hand.

WPBT 2011 Winter Trip Report

2011-12-03T18:15:00.000-08:00

In lieu of not actually being in Vegas this weekend with the rest of the poker blogging community, I decided to make a game-day decision and hit the 11am poker tourney at Tulalip on my way up to the parents' cabin to chop some wood.

I've been waiting a long time for a hot streak at a casino, mostly due to me never playing at casinos anymore... but it seems like every time I go, I'm always the one with the hard decisions and mediocre hands. The first few hours of today's tourney I got my hot streak--man do those feel good! It wasn't all luck, but that rare combination of good play, good cards, AND a little bit of luck. I wouldn't say I was a card rack, but I did get KK,QQ,TT, AKx2 and AQx2 in the first two hours and won every hand, most seeing at least a flop (so not just picking up the blinds). I knocked out five or six people before I busted, which is a record for me in a live tournament, and the most I've knocked out in any tournament in probably five years.

This morning, when the tournament started, I think I did a good job of assessing who I was up against, where the soft spots at the table were, and who to look out for. At some point in the second orbit, a lady in her 50s or 60s and a guy in his late 20s or early 30s were in a hand. The board had run out all hearts, and the guy had position and had been betting each street. It gets to the river and the lady looks like she doesn't like the river card, but leads out for the first time, which surprised me a bit, and the guy pops it 3x her bet. She re-raises all-in. Warning bells?

At this point I am fairly certain that she has hit her inside straight-flush draw on the river, and that he has the Ace of hearts. He deliberates for a minute or two before calling and being shown the 4h for the rivered straight flush. He slams his ace on the table.

He was aware of the warning bells, but not able to lay it down--not sure I would have either. Probably not. But with that read, and seeing the hands, I decided my poker sense (spider sense) was keen enough to start opening up my game and trusting my reads.

I ran over the table. It was amazing. I started growing my stack by applying as much pressure as I could to the weaker players, which worked perfectly. It gave me a chip advantage over the other good players, which had them steering clear of me. Every race I got into except one in the first two hours I was ahead, and I was pretty certain I was ahead going into the race (also, I was the one raising 80% of the time). The only time I gave someone a bad beat was AJ v. AK aipf, but by that time my stack was at 25k and his was at about 3k, and he had been the BB coming over the top of my initial raise, so I wasn't folding.

We started with 5k, I was at 30k after an hour of play and 50k during our second break, which would be my high point. Just before going to break, the dealer said, "well, you're a shoe-in for the final table." Mother fucker. Jinxed me good.

I get back from break and we're down to 3 10-person tables from 90 starters. I get in a blind vs. blind battle with the fairly amateur poker player to my right. I'm BB and he raises 3x, I call with A9c. Flop comes AAT, he checks, I bet about 1/3 pot, he calls. Diamond flush fills on the turn and he winces, checks his cards, and jams on me. It is about 11k more, which is about the size of the pot before his bet, and I call. He shows the flush and I don't fill up on the river, which cuts my stack in half to 25k. In hindsight, my biggest and really only mistake of the tournament. Both of the hands I've described have been the "oh shoot, that pesky card!" and then the person jamming. Actions speak louder than words!

Lost two more flips, one where I had 88 vs. AK and A6 aipf, would have knocked them both out and been up to 50k again, if not for the Ace on the river. And then my bust out hand a few hands after we consolidate down to the final two tables is 99 v. AK, Ace in the door and no more help.

Felt like I played really well except for the one hand, although I did get into a lot of flip situations and got lucky early, unlucky late. Wondering how optimal my play was... I know you need to race in the quick blind tournies, but not sure how much racing is necessary. Time will tell!

Headed up to the cabin afterwards, got the chainsaw going and continued adding to the wood pile for the rest of winter. Hoping to get as much wood sawed from fallen trees and chopped to dry before the rain really hits. This week was unusually dry, which made today a great day to get up to the cabin. Looking forward to more poker and wood chopping days in the near future!

November 2011

2011-11-18T21:00:00.000-08:00

I think I'm going to look back on this post and smile. I tend to go through my blog every few years and reminisce. I'm writing this from a train with spotty wifi, so hopefully I remember to save before sending...

It is Friday, November 18, 2011. That is one thing about being a teacher, I sure do remember today's date a lot more than I did before teaching. Also, I can hold my pee a lot longer than I thought. It sure does suck when I feel like peeing and there is only one minute left on lunch break and I have three more hours of teaching before my next break.

It is Friday, and I'm on a train down to Corvallis to visit gf. I've got the next week off, as I've gotten (most) of my parent-teacher conferences out of the way. GF teaches the beginning of next week, and then we're taking her car back up to Seattle for Thanksgiving with both sets of parents. Serious stuff! I'm pretty excited.

What I'm not excited about is the prognosis from my doctor. I'm typing with my left pinkie in a splint (bad jam, splint for the next 2-3 weeks), and she said I strained a tendon in my leg (hamstring) and can't play any sports for the next 8 weeks. That means no Seattle 1/2 marathon that I intended to run with gf, and would have been my first ever. My mom is volunteering at the event and I might join her. This also means no basketball, volleyball or skiing.

I'm bummed about the basketball and skiing, but I'm thinking about pretending I didn't hear the part about volleyball. I joined a rec-league "softcore" team for the first time and the level of play is so low that it would be hard to injure myself playing... and it is fun! For some reason my knee doesn't hurt jumping or cutting, but only running and walking downhill. Something to do with the pushing off or pulling up of my leg in my stride. Stupid running. I can even bike to work with no pain, but the running makes my leg feel like it is hanging on by a thread.

Back to gf, I am excited, more excited than I've been in a long time (maybe ever?) to be in this relationship, and it is nearing the three month mark. We both expressed being excited for this week, almost as excited as our first date (a 3-night backpacking trip in the Cascades!). The distance has been difficult (4hr drive apart), but with the holidays coming up, it shouldn't be too difficult for the next few months, getting to see each other quite often for longer periods of time.

The big decision on my mind, and one her and I have discussed numerous times, is that we want to live together next year, but we haven't yet decided on which location to choose. Corvallis, Seattle, or some place in between. Right now we are leaning towards Corvallis, because she has a house there already, has a perfect 15 minute bike ride to work (similar to mine in Seattle, but I'm renting with 3 other guys), and I could use the time to get a Master's in Teaching or up my teaching certification to high school. I think high school would fit me a little better than middle school. I make kids cry more than I feel comfortable with.

Today, a girl took a boy's back pack into the girl's bathroom and took whatever he had taken from her in the first place back. Another boy calls her a thief, she explains what she did and then bawls because she's been called a thief. So, I didn't directly make her cry, but I just told both of them to keep their hands out of other people's stuff while she sobbed in the corner. I think she got over it. Not as much of that in high school, I think?

I'm looking forward to a lot of things. This next week with no teaching, winter shenanigans with friends, more time with the gf, more family time, and lots and lots of video gaming now that I can't play sports!

Also, I'm starting another push up and sit up workout regime. I started at 10 push ups and 20 sit ups on day one, and now I'm up to 21 push ups and 42 sit ups. I have done them all in a row without stopping so far, and I'm wondering how many push ups and sit ups I can get to without crumpling. I think maybe 25 push ups and 50 sit ups would be a good spot to stay for a while.

Writing Redux: Update

2011-10-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

Not sure if this can be called a redux yet, if it is only one post without any likely to follow anytime soon... but ho hum.

Life is good. Really good. Girlfriend is down in Oregon, which isn't great, but the positive is that it gives me all of the time I need to focus on being the great teacher I intend to become. People keep praising me for doing such a great job teaching, but I feel very underwhelmed about my performance these first few years. I've tried my best, and I'm not sure what else I could be doing better, but there is just so much more to do.

I talked to a friend earlier this week about just being amazed at how some of my students can succeed with the hand they've been dealt. Parents who are so busy their children are neglected, or more commonly with my students--parents are involved with drugs and neglect their children. This seems to be a big factor in students that do poorly in school, and understandably so--but then there are these diamonds in the rough that are at or near the top of my classes and they get very little support at home. I'm not sure how they do it. Maybe they want to be the opposite of their parents, so they try that much harder? I don't know, but it continues to amaze me and excites me to keep their dreams going.

I'm coaching ultimate frisbee again this year at my middle school, and boy what a difference a year makes. Last year we were defeated... don't think we won a single game all year during the regular season, and I think we won one playoff game (every team got a playoff game), oh, and we also won a game by forfeit. This year, we just finished the regular season undefeated, with playoffs coming next week. The only thing I've done differently this year is institute a spirit award.

My league frisbee team won the spirit award this summer, and received new discs as a reward. Everyone on my team donated their disc to my middle school team, and instead of using them (we have about 10 discs that are already cut up from our concrete playground area next to the tiny grass field) I decided to reward them as a spirit of the game award. I decided that my team captains each game would be responsible for picking a player on the other team who we would give one disc to (and I never interfered on this decision), and then I had the ridiculously tough decision to pick a player on our team to give a new disc to. Every week this was my most difficult decision, as almost every player deserved one. We were cheering for good plays from either team, we were letting contested calls go the other way, we were helping players up no matter which jersey they wore.

The game I coached today was the last game of the regular season, and we entered 5-0, playing the second-best team in the league at 4-1. We got out to a quick start going up two points, but then as the substitutions began we lost the next three points. We traded points to 5-5, and then the opponents took half 5-6. We had a great talk at halftime about playing hesitantly because we didn't want to lose, instead of that, we needed to open up and get back to our ways of having fun. We took the next two points to get up 7-6. This lit a fire in our opponents, who won the next three points to go up 7-9. We were down two points and only had five minutes left before the horn would blow. The lineup I had out on the field wasn't our greatest by far, and they had just been quickly scored on. Some of the better players on our team were pleading with me to let them play, but I didn't think it fair to take the group on the field out after such a short point. I hadn't done so all season, and I wasn't about to now.

The kids stayed on the field and eventually won a very hard-fought point, and the seven kids I had spoken to about playing the next point RAN onto the field, because they knew we only had one minute to score the next point to tie the game. If the horn blows when the game is tied, you play a winner-take-all sudden-death point, which is just what happened.

We had to throw the disc off, which is usually seen as a disadvantage because the opponents get to be on offense first. After a few turnovers and jitters from both teams, one of our new girls got a great "D" and we worked the disc down and scored the final point to finish the regular season undefeated. For the third time this season, a player was carried off the field on the shoulders of other teammates. The season has been storybook thusfar, and I can't wait to see what next week and the playoffs bring.

From a coaching standpoint, I have no doubt that we can beat any team in the league if I play my best players. I won't just play those players though, and I need to make sure all of the players know that we will win and lose the championship as a team, not by just a few of our players.

Other than coaching, I've been playing a little Everquest on the Fippy Darkpaw progression server, and I've had my first real brush with being interested in learning guitar. GF brought her old guitar up to Seattle for me to practice on, and I really like messing around on it. I don't so much like learning the chords and the way my fingers ache.

New Camera!

2011-09-12T22:05:00.001-07:00

Thanks for the hand me down, dad!

Summer Luvin'

2011-07-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

Back in April I was excited for the approaching summer break, but was a little curious as to how I would spend two months without work or school obligations and stay somewhat productive (and not just turn into a 2009 version of Waffles). Fast forward a few months and I've now finished a summer cohort for science teachers which took up an entire month of my summer break. I've got one more month left, and I feel like I've spent more than enough time being productive--now I just get to kick back and enjoy myself with no qualms about being sloth-like.

I'm just finishing up my first full week of summer break, and here was my schedule for week 1:

Friday: Finish class at UW, lie around the house and play Fifa 2011 with housemate and a friend in town until we get called by another friend, saying he's at a mansion in Capitol Hill with his buddy and two Austrian girls in a hot tub, and that we should come over. We waffle on it for a bit, wondering why they would invite us over if they've already got themselves two Austrian girls and a mansion, but turns out there are other ladies over as well, and they want to get some gender equality going on. We're sold and stay up until 3am drinking in a hot tub that cascades down into a lap-sized pool, surrounded by girls in bikinis. A good start.

Saturday: Wake up in the p.m., go to a going away party for an ultimate friend of mine who is moving to Switzerland.

Sunday: Day of motorcycle riding up to Anacortes to visit Mount Erie and do some rock climbing.

Monday: wake up at noon, drive sister and her friend to the airport for their flight back home (she was visiting for a wedding and mom's bday). Go to trivia night and rock a few categories. Meet up with Brandon for his "acceptance to the Air Force" party at Die Bierstube, where many of his friends have already congregated and I witness about four boots passed around, Brandon starting and finishing three.

Tuesday: Sleep in, play lots of video games, then an ultimate frisbee game in the evening.

Wednesday: Sleep in, motorcycle up to parents' cabin near Darrington, begin the arduous task of killing weeds from their old garden. I have visions of grandeur of getting the garden up and running again, but the problem is my parents rarely visit the cabin anymore (due to some health concerns with pop), and whatever I plant this year will likely just die come winter. Getting it prepped for next year is a goal, though. So I spend about three hours bush-whacking my way through 8ft-tall weeds. I borrow a neighbor's weed whacker, which I promptly kill the string in about ten minutes on the tree-like weeds. I take a three-pronged hoe (without gloves) and begin hacking at the weeds, and quickly lose the three-pronged head into the dense mass of weeds. I continue to whack away at the weeds and actually knock the weeds down to shin-high using the baseball-bat like stick. It was a workout and a stress reliever, but I got some nasty blisters on my hands, which weren't helpful for...

Thursday: ...golf with Erin! I convinced her to take it easy on me this time, both due to her crushing me by 13 strokes last time, and the fact that my hands were all blistered up. We played best ball for the full 18, which I had never tried before, but was a lot of fun. Both shoot a tee shot, take the best tee shot and both shoot from there, rinse and repeat. We parred the first few holes and then tail-spinned a bit to finish the front side +9... I was hoping to shoot around even par, but somehow we managed to triple-bogey a hole when we both hit out of bounds tee shots and some poor subsequent shots on a par 3. We did better on the backside (+3?), making a few birdies and no triple bogeys, finishing with a 79 on a short par 67 course. No three putts between the two of us, thank god!

Friday #2: Packed for overnight backpacking trip to Goldmyer Hot Springs:

The picture only shows the two small pools outside of the cave, but the cave itself is amazing and goes back 25ft, where the initial flow is 117 degrees!

Made a two hour trip to the pool in Seattle with Erin to lounge in the sun before heading out backpacking with Andy and Leah. Nothing quite like lounging by the pool with a fellow teacher at 1pm on a Friday. She even snuck in a beer in a nalgene for me--a great friend.

Afterwards, I picked up Andy and Leah and we made our way out to the Goldmyer trailhead and hiked in the easy 4.5 miles (on a closed road) to the hot springs. I was content to spend the evening relaxing in an isolated hot springs in peace and quite, but two young ridiculously attractive ladies in bikinis joined Andy, Leah and I... rats. A fitting end to the first week.

Just before bed we walked out to the nearest bridge and stared up at the stars, and witnessed one of the coolest night skies I have ever seen. So many stars it was almost impossible to make out constellations, a handful of speedy shooting stars, and at one point I counted five different satellites moving across the sky simultaneously.

Witchcraft and Wizardy

2011-07-21T22:06:00.000-07:00

Not a spoiler!

Just got back from watching the final Harry Potter movie (7B?), and really enjoyed it. As I was leaving the theater, I needed to head to the grocery store to pick up some things for my final day of summer class tomorrow, so I reached into my pocket to check and make sure my ID and credit card were still in my pocket. Nope.

I was only a few steps outside of theater #7, so I went back to my seat and looked around for my cards. I found the credit card underneath the back of my seat (in the spot where all the popcorn and soda stick together). Pretty sure the credit card and ID fell out when I checked my phone after the movie, as they get caught in the nook in the back of my Droid often.

I kept searching for my driver's license, but couldn't find it anywhere--I checked the ground all around and behind my chair and the chairs around mine; I checked the row behind and in front; I checked the seats themselves and the arm rests, all this in a dark theater with the light of my cell phone, mind you. I thought maybe the ID fell out before the movie when I put my credit card and ID card back into my pocket from buying the ticket, but before I left theater #7 I made one more sweep of my chair area. And found it.

The ID card somehow fell into a small nook underneath the armrest between the seats and was held elevated above the ground. It took me another few minutes to figure out how to get the ID card out from the secret nook. I almost destroyed the driver's license with a snake fang on the spot, damn hidden whore cruxes!

One thing I really liked about the Harry Potter series is how JK Rowling's characters are all such a piece of her. I often envision myself as an old man sitting on a mountain top. Not that I have all the wisdom in the universe, but it sure would be fun to have people come to me and ask advice, and usually just shoot the question back at them and see them discover their answer on their epic journey to me or from me.

"Damn crazy kook up there on the mountain! What does he know?... oh wait, maybe I should stop blaming other people and start figuring things out for myself *gong*"

Almost all of Dumbledore's speeches are JK Rowling's voice of reason, and for some reason it carries more weight coming from a great and aged wizard than it does from a single, poor mom. Adding in faults to Dumbledore in the movie was a great touch, too.

Having only read the first book, I wasn't sure how the movie would end, but it ended exactly how I hoped.

The Big 2-9 and reflections on my first year teaching

2011-06-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

I'm getting old... tomorrow is my 29th birthday.

No, not really. I am a very young 29 in many regards, in fact, I've been finding it difficult to figure out how my life now is different than it was ten years ago. Let me count the ways my life today is similar to my life in June of 2001.

1) I'm not working.

Now: first summer break as a teacher!
Then: first summer break from college!

2) I'm single.

Now: just cut off a relationship that was going well, but something didn't seem right.
Then: still hadn't had my first girlfriend!

3) Majority of free time is spent playing video games or sports.

Now: World of Warcraft sucking up my time, I don't really want to be playing it, but I can't find anything more fun and relaxing to do. Playing in an ultimate frisbee league, going to a few tournaments this summer, and regularly biking and going to the gym when I'm bored of WoW.

Then: Played lots of Everquest in 2001, also played a lot of pickup ultimate frisbee.

---

I'm unbelievably happy with my decision to spend half of my summer taking a class at UW for new teachers, which starts Tuesday. I'm not sure what I would do with myself for two months if I had no structure. It seems silly--I'm bitching about having too much free time. Having free time is one of the reasons I broke things off with my girlfriend, and now I've got more free time than I can shake a stick at.

Seriously though, too much free time can be a curse. When you wake up day after day and lie in bed with absolutely no reason to get out of bed--it can be very depressing. I can only fool myself for so long with going to the gym or making fake money in WoW. Again--very glad to be occupied with a class for the next month.

---

My first year teaching was an overwhelming success. What is "success" in this case? Simply put, success to me as a first year teacher is surviving and wanting to continue teaching in the future. My overwhelming success is being offered a teaching contract for next year at the same school and also improving my students' math test scores better than the national average (some 4x the national average!) as a first year teacher.

I started the year as a substitute for three days, and then I was offered a long-term sub position in the same role, and later I applied for the full time position and landed it. I taught just under 180 days this year (I had three sick days and a few professional development days). I began with no lesson plans and very little idea of what to teach. After the first three days of meet and greet, the principal pointed me towards the stacks of math books from the old math teacher who left three days before the school year started. I picked the books from the beginning of the cabinet for each class and got started at the beginning of each book. Two weeks later I found out about the district-wide curriculum and was introduced to the website showing which books to use, so I had to swap out books and start over.

This year was tough because I worked so hard all year long and much of that stress was due to such a rocky beginning. Those first few weeks I need to be setting the tone for the year in terms of organization and behavior--and I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. The first semester passed by in the blink of an eye, and I used winter break to center myself and come up with a much better way to facilitate learning in my classroom. During the second semester, kids in my class had a much more enjoyable time (more hands on activities, a better climate in the classroom for learning).

I learned zillions of things this year in relation to teaching, and the two I would like to share are very positive.

1) Kids want to learn.

I really did not think about this much. I guess I thought middle school kids just want to have fun and only learn because they have to. The first semester I had more students complain about being bored and not having work to do than I had students complaining about too much work. I took this to heart and eventually instituted a challenge question in addition to the homework assignment which earned a few of my classes ice cream parties at the end of the year. I was skeptical that students would even try a challenge problem (additional work) if they wouldn't get any individual credit for it, but around half of my students did.

2) I love teaching.

I was pretty sure about this going into the beginning of the year as a substitute, but getting a classroom of my own and really experiencing a full year as a teacher (even without the beginning of the year organization in place!) makes me appreciate teachers so much more, and be just as proud to be a teacher. I literally felt excited every day to wake up in the morning and go teach. I told numerous people that out of the entire school year, maybe just one or two days felt like work.

Teaching is always unfinished, which can be depressing and soul-crushing, but I think poker has given me a good understanding that all I can do is make good decisions and the results will follow. I felt like I could have worked 24/7 this year teaching with all the work to be done, but most days I arrived 30 minutes before school and left 2-3 hours after school. Most days I left school not because my work was finished for the next day, but because I was completely drained and my mind was mush and I wasn't getting anything positive done at school. The next morning I would race to make sure everything was in place for the school day (thank god for a first period prep), and then I would catch up on grading homework and quizzes on the weekends.

This last semester I had homework club on Mondays after school, I coached ultimate frisbee practice after school Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I had staff meeting on Wednesdays. I honestly can't see myself getting away from those after-school obligations anytime in the near future, so the best way to survive next year is to cut down on the planning and in-class work by using what I learned from this year. The more time I spend this summer organizing and even just thinking about organizing my classroom for next year, the more time and energy I will save during the year. It is near impossible for a procrastinator like me to get started thinking about classroom management for next year, but I realize early September is going to get here a lot sooner than I might think.

Live Poker #2: The Fish Gets Hooked

2011-06-18T00:23:00.000-07:00

*exhale*

Been a while since I've written twice in a month, and I see a trend of more writing if this poker itch continues, so I may as well start linking again. Before I even link my own last post, I have to thank Dr. Pauly for blogging the 2011 WSOP. I appreciate the level of writing and the candidness of his writing more than any poker information he funnels to us, and I think Pauly inspires me not only to play the fun and challenging game of poker, but also to write--something I have a very hard time getting inspired to do.

Here's a link to my last post, and the first live poker recap I've had in quite a while. In short, it details my guppy-like play at $1/$3 NL, but getting lucky and getting to cash out at least a portion of what I put down to play with.

Tonight I followed the same routine of two weeks ago with a Friday evening motorcycle trek the 30 or so miles up to the casino. I enjoyed the ride, albeit an hour later than two weeks ago, and about 10 degrees cooler. This time I parked right out front in the valet parking, which is free and open to any motorcycles. I decided to play $4/$8 limit tonight instead of $1/$3 NL, but I did put my name on both lists and would have played NL if that table opened first. Luckily (?) for me, the $4/$8 spot opened first and I spent the next three hours on my only $100 buy-in.

Because I bled off all of my chips from the moment I sat down two weeks ago, I sat down tonight determined to plug the leak and play tight, solid poker. I did not put a single extra chip into the pot in the first four orbits. A little over the top on the tightness, one might say, but really I had shit. I didn't see a pair, two face cards, suited connectors, one-gappers, not even two-gappers! I folded K-8o on the button, but I thought about pulling the trigger.

The fact that none of my hands would have won anything made me feel alright about all the folding. I fall for loosening up when all of my crappy cards would be winning me mountains of blue chips if I would have played them... and then I start playing crappy cards and lose my lunch money.

I'll preface the first hand I was involved in with the fact that it is probably the single best live hand of poker I've ever played in my entire life. A footnote is that I've probably played less than 100 hours of live poker (but hey hey! I hit a royal flush once!).

First hand that I volunteered any of my precious chips... you might think a pair? A big pair? Nope. 6-4 of spades, and I limped in UTG. I think my decision to limp in a bad position was partly not having a single "playable" hand all session, and also the table seemed to be pretty easy in terms of players getting to see cheap flops. Of course the first time I limp I get a re-raiser in late position. A few people had limped in behind me before the raise, and I think 5 of us saw the flop:

Flop: Jc 7s 3h ($38 in pot)

I'm a little hazy on the specifics, but I think the SB folded preflop, which put me second to act behind the BB. Let's say for math's sake five of us saw the flop, this puts 5*$8 plus the SB's $2 in the pot, so $42 minus the rake which is $2 or $3. I think I'll just assume $4 in rake for the pot because it gets pretty big. So let's say we're at $38.

We check it around to the Smoking Hot Asian (SHA) original raiser in late position. She bets $4, I think the button and the BB call, as do I and one person folds. I've got a pretty loose draw here, but I figure $4 into a $54 pot doesn't make my call too terrible (still not great, but I'm a fish!).

Turn: 2s

Board: Jc 7s 3h 2s ($54)

I've got 64ss, so now I'm pretty committed to any bets with my flush and inside straight draw. BB checks to me and I check without thinking too much into betting because I'm honestly not very sure how I would play a re-raise. I'd have to call, but I'm not sure I'd like my position. Original raiser bets and gets the button to fold, but the BB and I call.

River: 6c

Board: Jc 7s 3h 2s 6c ($78)

I see the 6c on the river and I'm a bit dejected, but then I notice the BB wakes up and bets out at the pot. This surprised me but I didn't let it show. In the time I spent folding the first four orbits I had picked up a few tells on the older greasy Italian gentleman to my right, and he had the typical strong is weak / weak is strong attitude. His wife twenty years his younger was draped over his right shoulder, on the opposite side of him from me, and I was about 95% sure he was bluffing at the pot to try and impress her.

Now the gears start turning in my head. The 6c on the river is not the card I was looking for, but I think I might just have the Italian guy beat. I'm pretty sure the SHA across from us has both of us beat, so I decide to RAISE!!! I make it $16 and she thinks about it for a second, smiles and lays her hand down. The guy to my right insta-calls and tables... ATo. Upon the insta-call I resigned to losing the hand, but showing my sneaky play. I saw the ATo and pumped my fist while being pushed the $110 pot.

This hand was the confidence booster I needed after getting reamed two weeks ago. Even if I had lost it, I think I would have been pretty happy with my play, at least my raise on the river. Rethinking this hand now, I see plenty of holes in my play that opened much wider later in the session (gushing out all my chips), but I also think the river play is something that 'rounders' make routinely, and I count as the best play of my life (and I'm telling the truth). I'm looking forward to incorporating plays like this one more in the future. Pretty much just having a read, sticking with it and having the balls to pull the trigger--something Jordan has been preaching for the last six years or so.

A few orbits after my marvelous play *pats self on back again*, I look down at two red aces in the BB. Old guy with a Yuma, Arizona trucker hat in early position raises it up. One caller behind, and then a late position 3-better. I four bet and hope it doesn't completely give away my aces. Four of us see the flop.

Flop: 3c 8s 8d (~$62 with rake out)

I bet, everyone calls.

Turn: 5h

Board: 3c 8s 8d 5h ($78)

I bet, Yuma guy is the only caller.

River: Kh

Board: 3c 8s 8d 5h Kh ($94)

I am deathly afraid of the King on the river, and as the card is being flipped I say to myself "No King, No Queen!!!" I rationalize that there's an equally likely chance of him having Kings, Queens or Jacks--so I bet out the river... and get raised. I begrudgingly call, knowing I'm beat but not good enough to fold in that huge of a pot. I anticipate kings, but he flips over quad 8s and rakes the $124 pot. Ouch! Beat from the flop on.

The greasy Italian guy to my right congratulates the old guy and is still needling me from betting my pair of river sixes against him. "You should stick to your pair of sixes, those aces aren't better than your pair of sixes, ha ha!" This would have caused a witty reply from me a few years ago, "Now the old guy has got your chips" or perhaps a "go fuck yourself!" Here's another thing I've learned from my time spent reading Jordan's blog: don't tip the glass. I knew I could clean out the greasy guy to my right if I let him continue to play his macho game, so I just waited out his rant--and it felt great knowing this. Unfortunately, someone else took his money before I could.

I make one more good play against the old guy from Yuma later in the session, but my play opens up and I blow my last $60 in chips chasing draws much like my play from two weeks previous. One thing I really want to correct is that when I got down to $40 I just looked for a spot to get all my money in, which is pretty much just pissing away that $40. Next time I vow to just get up and cash out my few remaining chips. The least I can do is put it into a fireworks fund for the 4th of July and blow off money in a more loud and destructive way.

It felt great to make a good play and get rewarded with a positive (albeit very short-term) result, but the fact that I left losing all the money I put on the table, and the suspicion that "the best play of my life" is a move most poker players use fifteen times a night... I can't help but rub the inside of my cheek, checking for a barb.

Live Poker Post

2011-06-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

Blogging is about #20 on my priority list right now, which is unfortunate because I like to look back at my archives from time to time, and I see plenty of month gaps where I have one or maybe not even any posts. I can deduce that those were busy times, but it is hard to remember exactly what I was doing five+ years ago. I started blogging back in 2003, and somewhere or another I have a nice archive, but anyways...

Live poker!!!

The poker bug bit me last week, what with the WSOP starting up and Pauly bringing us all the dirt, it just feels right to play some poker. The combination of an upper respiratory cold and horribad traffic to the south led me to skip out on my ultimate frisbee game Friday night and motorcycle north to Tulailip Casino.

I had jitters motorcycling north on I-5, some jitters due to not riding the motorcycle much over the last six months, and other jitters from not playing live poker since visiting the new Snoqualmie Casino with Dr. Chako a year or two ago. I got my ass handed to me that trip at $4/8 limit. That whooping, combined with a desire to play no limit, had me make up my mind that no limit holdem would be the game tonight. No matter that I had only played no limit live once before, and have a terrible loss rate at no limit online ring games.

I put my name down for the $1/$3 NL list and a spot opened up about 10 minutes later. I got to catch some of the Mariners game against Tampa Bay, which Justin Vargas ended up pitching a 4-hit shutout (M's are only a few games back, who would have thunk it?). I had more jitters as I sat down with $100 at a table where the buyin ranged from $50-200. I think sitting down with less than the max is pretty fishy, but having 33.3 big blinds seemed enough for me to get some poker playing in (not just shoving), and I felt more comfortable with $100 on the table than $200. I know I could lose that $100 on the first hand, and I planned to play for a few hours, so I told myself to play tight and the most I can lose is $4 an orbit (weeeeak).

On the first hand, I folded K8 of spades preflop, which would have won me a $300+ pot with multiple people betting and raising (two pair and a set, when my K8 of spades would have turned the nut flush). I loosened way up, although I knew the preflop fold wasn't terrible.

I was thoroughly outplayed all night long, and I played the role of fish to perfection. I rarely raised, and I chased a lot of draws. Some hit, which drew big sighs of dissatisfaction from the sharks at the table. One guy lost a few hands on the river to me, but he abused my blinds like no tomorrow, so he got back whatever he lost to me and some on top.

I lost my first buy-in re-raising the shark to my left who UTG raised to $11, as he had done a few times previous. I pushed with about $45 left, and he hesitated and called with AJo, he had about $500 behind. I had Q5o and he turned a J, which had me reload for another $100. The push with Q5o didn't do much to sway the group from thinking I was a fish (and I'm not arguing otherwise!).

Like I mentioned earlier, I had a few nice rivers. The nicest river came when I was down to my last $25 into my first (and only) rebuy. I had a weird hand like 97s, but saw a free flop in the Big Blind. I call a small flop bet with some two-card straight possibilities and a backdoor flush (see what I mean about chasing??). Turn brings one of the straight cards, giving me an OESD, but no more flush possibility. One dude bets out $20, other dude calls, and I have ~$30 so I push and they both call. My OESD ends up hitting and I take down the pot to jump back up to ~$125.

A few hands later I see T5dd on the button and call the Cut-off's (Hijack? one to my right) min-raise to $6. A blind and an early limper call as well. Flop brings me a flushdraw and pairs my T, and I call a $10 or $15 flop bet from the CO. Turn misses and I call another $15. River pairs my 5 for two-pair and I call a $25 bet from the CO. He shows AA and I rake a pretty substantial pot. Not sure why I didn't raise the river, but that's just me playing fishy.

It was odd to be fully aware of how fishy I was playing, but not changing anything about my play. I know when I lost my first buy-in I had a crazy image (pushing with Q5o, chasing all my draws, and also folding a lot to aggression when my draws didn't come in), and told myself to stop calling and start raising when I wanted to play, but I just kept calling and folding. I was extremely lucky to cash out with $152 of my $200, given my shitty play. Also, the $5 chicken alfredo needed more chicken.

Waldron Pics

2011-04-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

Caleb waiting for the hummingbirds to return:

Caleb spying on fish and/or Canada:

Views from the boat:

Spring Break!

2011-04-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

Whistler with Elly was a really fun trip. We got a day of skiing in, with sunny skies and a dusting of snow the night before--can't ask for much more in April. Sadly, it was only my fifth time up skiing this year. The midweek pass at Stevens still paid for itself, but not nearly as cost-effective as it has been the past few years of 20+ trips. Something about full-time teaching vs. substitute teaching/being a student.

I'm up on Waldron Island right now, in Caroline's amazing cabin. The cabin is on a hillside right above the Waldron dock, and we watched the sun go down for about three hours last night. Canada is visible to the west, as are plenty of seagulls, otters and hummingbirds. I assume they have plenty of bald eagles around here as well, but I haven't seen one yet. Caroline and Grace have a dog and two cats, and I've made three new animal friends, even though I was warned about one of the cats, Haley, being quite feral, she ended up sleeping at my feet.

More sunny skies today at Waldron. The trees, fishing poles and water are making me feel very inspired to write, but I still lack the motivation. I hope Tony Robbins has a cabin up here. I'm going to walk the mile or so to the school soon and help with baseball practice. So far, I've heard that there is one baseball and one mitt for the school. I'm kind of hoping they use driftwood as the baseball bat, but I will report back what I find.

March Maaadness 2011

2011-03-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

This March Madness is starting to get a little crazy. Almost done with the first weekend and the set Sweet 16, and the overall leaders on Yahoo have missed 5 or 6 picks out of 46. That's out of 5 million-plus brackets!

Everyone in my pool has Kansas going to the final game except two. BAM had Pitt winning (sorry BAM!) and Josh has BYU losing to Ohio State. Kansas is in a somewhat tight game with Illinois right now. Most of the games have come down to the wire, and I've been glued to my second monitor setup.

Was talking with an ultimate frisbee teammate of mine who tries to write 1500 words every day. I may start with a much more attainable goal of 300 words every day, just to get the volume and routine down.

Teaching is somewhat of a blur right now. I'm onto the tail end of my 1st full year teaching my own classroom, and I had my first teacher-in-service day with no students, and I decided not to go to any of the professional development meetings downtown. It was freaking amazing. The school was void of kids, and each teacher was grinning--actually able to get work done and cut through the piles of homework and things put on the back-burner.

When I get to school the first thing I do is check my work email, and then make sure I have everything in order for the day. Most times everything is planned out the night before, but not always. Once I've got the planning shored up, I move on to grading and inputting grades, which tends to become a larger and larger stack of papers as the week goes on.

Looking forward to writing more, but not making any promises! Super busy during the week, and the next few weekends will be spent outside of Seattle.

February

2011-02-26T21:48:00.000-08:00

Time flies.

Let's see, what has happened in the past month? The tennis team I've been playing on is heading to the playoffs as the #1 seed in our league. After league playoffs is sectionals, regionals and then nationals. I don't think I'll want to spend the money to make it to regionals or nationals if we get the chance, but our team is fairly stacked with players that could play higher leagues but don't technically have to. Something about that seems wrong, and winning a national championship at a level lower than we ought to be seems pointless.

Valentines Day was interesting this year. I took the girlfriend out to Anthony's, a swanky seafood restaurant on the water, only to be late due to a staff function. Instead of picking her up, we met at the restaurant. Unfortunately, when she googled the restaurant, the directions sent her to the downtown Anthony's instead of the Shilshole one I was waiting at. About an hour after I had taken a seat, and five or six visits from the friendly waitress, my gf showed up and we had a very nice meal.

I've been house sitting for the entire month, which for the most part has gone really well, except two weeks ago I had to take my parents' cat into the vet, and eventually make the decision with my parents to put Watson down. My cat is still around and kicking, but it seems very quiet here without Watson to insist on being pet, or moving the water bowl across the bathroom.

This past week I had off from teaching due to mid-winter break. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my time off. It came down to three options: 1) go somewhere warm, 2) stay here and go up skiing with my midweek pass, or 3) spend a lot of time on prepping for the next month of teaching. I ended up doing option 4) being sick. I've been sick since last Friday at about noon and just barely made it across the finish line to break. I had to cancel on a staff happy hour and crawled into bed. I've been in the house the entire break except for yesterday when I got coaxed into skiing up at Stevens. I'm pretty sure I have bronchitis, and that skiing was a terrible idea (it was 13 degrees Farenheit), but I will admit that it was great conditions and I had a blast (gf's first real time skiing).

Contemplating calling in sick on Monday and seeing the doctor. I finally have health benefits again from being out under my parents' wings (I type, as I house sit for them), bout time I chose a doctor to see.

Looking forward to March Madness! I've been watching a ton of college basketball this month, and the madness has already begun! Go... BYU?!

Sun River

2011-01-23T21:26:00.001-08:00

Great weekend down at Sun River with the Cutlery Crew. Jenna once again sliced off a healthy portion of one of her fingers, which probably should have been a trip to the hospital, but since the CC stars a registered nurse, Jenna was able to get great care and there probably wasn't a ton else for the hospital to do.

The weather was warm and sunny, not ideal conditions for a winter ski trip, but we made do with frisbee golf on the ritzy regular golf course and fitting twelve of us into a 2-person hot tub (sorry no pics... yet... of that, Waffles).

Great times, and really looking forward to a few more meet ups and a very fun 2011.

Doo be doo

2011-01-17T20:35:00.000-08:00

I'd like to start writing more, I really would, but right now I'm having a lot of fun both teaching and outside of teaching, to the point that spending time writing isn't on the top of my 'to do' list. Writing that last sentence makes me think writing should be up there, but oh well.

I don't plan on posting a ton of pictures, but a part of me misses taking photos every week and putting them on the blog. It did become a chore the second half of the year, but it was also a fun thing to do and something hopefully I can look back on and relive the good times.

Fun week ahead! Four day work week thanks to MLK Jr., a training for two of those days and a weekend ahead with great friends at Sun River!

I'd also like to get one of those old "day in the life of" posts up again soon. There have been some drastic changes since the last updated "day in the life" post!

Photo Challenge 2010 Complete!

2011-01-01T19:58:00.001-08:00

Well, I made it through 2010 posting a photo every single week! Brandon and I had a bet at the beginning of the year to post a photo every week for the entire year, and although I slipped a couple times and posted other people's pictures, I did a pretty good job of getting a photo up every week. I'll admit that at times it felt more like a chore than something fun, but it did get me out and continuing to do fun things to have a photo worthy of posting.

I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing this year. I don't like how the photo challenge meant that I spent very little time writing. These last few months have been really amazing months for me with a new teaching job and a great new girlfriend--but I haven't posted much of anything on this blog. A part of me fears posting things about myself online, especially now that I'm a teacher. Hopefully I'll think of something soon, and I'm open to suggestions.

Since Brandon and I are finished with the photo challenge, we've now got to pick photos from the other person to frame and gift exchange. He slacked off during the last half of the year, but was able to post a picture EVERY DAY until June, which was pretty amazing and gives me plenty of options to choose from. Fun challenge, hope to get something else started soon.

Photo Week 52: Snow Shoeing

2011-01-01T19:53:00.000-08:00

A few friends spent the night up in the Stevens Pass parking lot, apparently it got down to -10 degrees Farenheit. I gladly stayed in bed that night and met up with the crew Friday morning. We snow shoed up to Skyline Lake, on a blue-bird day and it was a grunt, but absolutely amazing. They spent the night up at the frozen lake, and I descended for a fun NYE with the gf.

Photo Week 51: Merry Xmas!

2010-12-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

Season's Greetings from the Methow Valley!

Photo Week 50: Motorcycling in December

2010-12-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

I hadn't been out on my motorcycle for two months until Friday afternoon. It took 10 minutes to fire up the ninja, but I putted around town for a bit and filled up on gas. Today I was treated to another beautiful day and couldn't resist getting out on the bike. The Olympic Mountains popped into view and this photo doesn't do a great job of showing the mountains, but they were amazing.

Photo Week 49: UW Volleyball

2010-12-12T22:07:00.001-08:00

Attended a great upset win over #2 ranked Nebraska on Friday night. Didn't take the above picture, but imagine a near sell-out and everyone on their feet. I did take a 6 minute video on my phone at the end of the game, but the quality is terrible and it cuts out often. UW ended up losing to Cal on Saturday night in the Elite Eight, and Cal looks pretty darn good.

Photo Week 48: Sunny Days

2010-12-06T07:54:00.000-08:00

Photo Week 47: Turkey Bowl and F the Ducks!

2010-11-28T14:01:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how many Turkey bowls this is now for me at Greenlake, probably around 12 now. First time I can remember snow on the ground--much preferable to rain and mud! Ended the day with a few interceptions, a few TD catches and a couple TD passes--all in all another fun T-Bowl!

Caught the UW-Oregon volleyball game Friday night, and the jumbo-tron operator had some fun every time UW made a good play against the Ducks. Nothing like some old school NES action to get the crowd pumped up!

Photo Week 46: Snow!

2010-11-21T14:17:00.000-08:00

Had a light dusting of snow today in Seattle. Found it funny that instead of checking weather.com for snow info, I checked Facebook for more detailed and up-to-the-minute weather posts from friends in town.

Friday night went to the Built to Spill concert at the Showbox @ Market--my favorite venue in Seattle. I've had 100 Built to Spill songs on my computer for years and never listened to them until the beginning of this week. The band is awesome! Follow the link for a good song and a great video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFIBwS0GVX0

Photo Week 45: Columbia Winery

2010-11-14T21:52:00.001-08:00

Girlfriend and I headed out to the Columbia Winery after our last ultimate frisbee game of the season. There were free tastings, free cheese, chocolate and steak to nibble on, and she also had four bottles of wine to pick up from the cellar. Not a bad start to the weekend!

Photo Week 44: Fall Colors

2010-11-08T16:21:00.000-08:00

The Fall colors are out in force.

Photo Week 43: Hanford Howl

2010-11-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

Repeat Champs!

Hawaii 4-2-0

Photo Week 42: UW Volleyball

2010-10-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

Watched a 5-set match on Friday. First match I've seen this year and the team looks pretty similar to last year.

Work is getting crazy busy, as expected. Next weekend I am skipping out of town to an awesome frisbee tournament over in the Tri-Cities. Really looking forward to the tournament, but wondering how exactly I am going to plan for the following week of work! Plus side--still not a single day of teaching has felt like work.

Photo Week 41: Cabin Adventure

2010-10-17T19:42:00.001-07:00

Spent Saturday night up at parents' cabin, got in a nice waterfall hike on the way back to Seattle today!

Photo Week 40: Happy 101010101010!

2010-10-10T22:12:00.001-07:00

10:10:10 on 10/10/10

Binary New Years! Hooot hooooot!

Photo Week 39: Moving on Up!

2010-10-03T18:21:00.000-07:00

Not to the East Side, but closer to my new job! I lucked out and nabbed a full time teaching position at a public school this year, and this weekend I moved about five minutes from the school. Here is a picture of my room:

First things unpacked? Ultimate frisbee jerseys!

Photo Week 38: Portland Yet Again

2010-09-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

This time, it was personal. We stopped briefly at Ground Kontrol, a few of us had a good talk at the Annex for an hour over two pitchers of Ruby Red, and we ended the night at the kava and hooka bar. I smoked hooka and then ran the two miles back to Andrew's house at midnight to test my lungs to make sure they still worked after smoking anything for the first time in my life.

Sunday morning we rose leisurely and eventually made our way to Hollywood Bowl for some late morning rollin'. Losers had to jump the virtual rope on the Jumpin' Jackpot video game, winner got to play Deal or No Deal. Nat won the first game of bowling and played Deal or No Deal. He ended up winning 1 ticket, picking the absolute worst case possible. Way to squander our tokens, numbnuts.

Photo Week 37: More Warrior Dash, Fun Bust Out Hand

2010-09-18T21:55:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure what to wear, so went with as much black as I could find:

All of us were AIPF, most of us with only a few more big blinds left. We had a sweat, but no cigar!

Photo Week 36: Warrior Dash!

2010-09-12T19:53:00.001-07:00

5k run, complete with a dozen or so obstacles along the way including a barbed wire mud pit and two beds of hot coals to jump over. I raced as a ninja-warrior. Friend took pictures of the event and I hope to get a few better ones to put up on this post at a later date.

We dined on turkey legs the size of our faces.

Photo Week 35: Seven Lakes Basin Hike

2010-09-07T13:04:00.001-07:00

A really amazing weekend. I highly suggest the Seven Lakes Basin for anyone who wants a hike that has it all. Wildlife, wild flowers, mountain peaks and ridges, lakes, waterfalls, glacier views, etc.

Photo Week 34: Denny Creek

2010-08-27T23:05:00.000-07:00

Hiked a little ways up the Denny Creek trail today with a few friends. We only made it about two miles in, but did get to this fun little creek which used to be a river. We climbed up the rocky ex-river a few thousand feet before realizing the trail didn't go the way we were heading. We climbed up the side of a waterfall and saw kids trying to slide down the smooth wet rock on their keesters, which looked a bit painful.

Photo Week 33: Image Lake

2010-08-21T21:18:00.001-07:00

Photo Week 32: Image Lake Precursor

2010-08-11T00:43:00.001-07:00

Heading to Image Lake with pops amidst a five night backpacking adventure! Hope to duplicate or surpass this photo!

True Character Quiz

2010-08-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

This thought just popped into my head:

How would your exes describe you?

Dating exes or marriage exes, either works. It seems hard to paint a pretty picture, doesn't it? This seems to get at the core of who you are, not just in the good times, but also the bad.

I think some of my different exes probably have very different impressions of me, maybe because I was too young, immature and inexperienced when I met them. My more recent exes I'm curious about, but my best guess is that they think:

I'm smart and have the occasional witty funny line.
I play too many video games.
I'm not the best at romance (been a long time since I bought anyone flowers!).
I like cats.
I can be confusing and am often confused.
I over-think things.

Photo Week 31: Bill's Beer Coasters

2010-08-07T18:27:00.001-07:00

Bill, pictured above, is on my ultimate frisbee team and also a part of the newbie bridge night group. A large portion of Bill's job working for the city of Seattle is to inform residents on how they can keep Seattle clean and also improve the health of the city. He did some brainstorming and realized a cheap (and fun!) way to reach a lot of people would be to advertise on beer coasters. He got a grant to print 30,000 beer coasters, and the grand kick off was last Thursday. For $10 I got the same T-shirt Bill is wearing in the above picture, a beer, and a beer coaster. Pretty sweet deal!

I believe he printed out four different beer coasters, but I nabbed the above one because it is my favorite. If you can't make it out in the picture, the dog is saying/thinking: "I poop. You pick up. Any questions?" Below the picture, the factoid reads, "Rain washes bacteria from pet waste into storm drains, streams and ultimately into Puget Sound. Use a bag to pick up dog poop and put it in the trash."

Great idea! But I am a bit wary of beer coaster advertising if corporations in certain lines of work get in on the action. I don't want to see any male enhancement ads on my beer coaster thankyouverymuch.

Relationshit Interlude

2010-08-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

This photo challenge has morphed my blog from writing to pictures, which I'm not entirely sure I like or dislike. On the one hand, most of these pictures instantly remind me of so many aspects of that particular week or trip. On the other hand, one purpose for this blog is to practice my writing and to become a better writer, and I'm not sure pictures are going to accomplish these goals.

Not being sure of things has been a common theme over the years for me, and this week was no different. I've had an amazing time with Caitie over the past six or seven weeks, we've done a ton of awesome things together and made a bunch of friends. We share more similarities than any of my past girlfriends. We met playing frisbee, we've been on a few hikes, we like to read the same books, listen to similar music, share the same humor... it was easy.

But something was missing. I'm not really sure what to call it, I guess a "spark" is the closest I have come. There wasn't much of a spark in the relationship for me, and it started to nag at me. Here I am, with a cute, smart, funny and athletic woman... the woman I thought would be perfect for me... and she wasn't. She's probably perfect for the rest of the guys in the world, but for some reason I'm missing something, and I don't really know what that thing is.

Being so comfortable with someone seems to sap the excitement out of a relationship for me. Having this happen less than two months into the relationship scared me enough to think getting out now is the best idea. Eerily similar to one of my first girlfriends, but opposite roles. We hadn't had a single fight, then one night she says she doesn't think it is going to work out. I was not angry that she didn't like me (she did), or angry because I really liked her, I think I was angry because it came out of nowhere and I really had no control. I was sad that she didn't think it would work, especially when I thought it did. I still like Caitie, but I figure being truthful about my feelings is the best option, because I really do not want to hurt her any more than I already have, later down the line.

It hurts now. I haven't been able to think straight. I don't like seeing people hurt, especially not when I'm the one inflicting the pain. I don't regret anything, I'm glad we spent the time together that we did, and I'm glad I was able to tell her how I felt this afternoon. I think I made the right decision, however much it sucks for now, but I'm not really sure.

Photo Week 30: Sea Kayaking!

2010-08-01T15:44:00.000-07:00

Sea kayaking in the San Juans. Trespassing.

Photo Week 29: Floating the Snoqualmie River

2010-07-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

The picture above doesn't do today justice. First, the picture is of some river in Texas I found on the internets. Second, there were zillions of scantily clad ladies in inner tubes, buckets of beer, two rope swings going down the river, and two huge trees people would walk out on to and jump or flip into the river. I swung on one rope swing and climbed out all the way to the end of one of the big trees. It was freaking awesome.

I dropped my camera in Goat Lake last week. Thankfully, another guy dove in and got the camera, saving the pictures I had already taken, but as of Friday, the camera isn't able to take pictures. I'm leaning towards a fancy phone that has the specs of my old camera as a replacement. This time with insurance! The purchase can't happen for a few weeks due to shipping bottlenecks and also the fact that I'll be out camping the next three weeks on various hikes where I would not want to bring a fancy phone.

Photo Week 28: Goat Lake

2010-07-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a really fun weekend hike with Caitie and friends. The lake is gorgeous, the weather was great, and the bugs weren't bad. The only downside to the hike was I felt a cold coming on hiking up to the lake, which meant muscle soreness magnified. I slept that off Saturday afternoon, but then drank too much wine, tequila and moonshine Saturday night, leading to a miserable Sunday morning of hungoverdness.

Photo Week 27: Tennis

2010-07-11T17:18:00.001-07:00

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous since summer started (July 5th, for those not living in the Pacific Northwest). Golf and Tennis season is in full swing!

photo week 26: Potlatch!!!

2010-07-04T21:30:00.001-07:00

The blindfolded gentleman has to guess if the ass is a man or woman's. Most players left their shorts on, but not everyone!

Photo Week 25: Coast Trip 2010

2010-06-28T16:02:00.000-07:00

Hit the big 2-8 while out at the coast this year. Another amazing trip with great friends, and we got lucky on the weather this year!

Marathon Match Comparisons

2010-06-24T16:08:00.001-07:00

Attempting to compare the length of Mahut and Isner's marathon tennis match to other sports. I'll be making some questionable assumptions*, but they are fair enough, and necessary for comparing two different sports.

Mahut and Isner's 68-70 fifth set match is akin to...

... a college basketball game going to 20 overtimes. (7 overtimes is the record)
... a major league baseball game going to 32 innings. (25 innings is the record)
... a NFL game going to 10 overtimes. (2 overtimes is the record)
... a golf match going to 45 extra holes. (11 extra holes is the record)

*Assuming an average tennis set has 10 games (6-4 sounds average-ish), and the ratio of the games played in the first five sets (50) to the remaining extra games played (128) means that the overtime is basically 2.5 times the regular time.

Photo Week 24: Snowy Spider Meadows

2010-06-20T22:44:00.000-07:00

Photo Week 23: World Cup!

2010-06-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

The major, putting plans in motion. 6am. Seattle.

Photo Week 22: Career Change?

2010-06-06T20:20:00.000-07:00

It was two or three years ago when I made off like a bandit in Jordan's Chess tournament. At the time I considered myself a professional chess player, because it was 100% of my income. Silly, but true.

My Dad and I played a round of golf last Saturday afternoon at the Greenlake par 3 course. It was raining and only seven scores under 32 had been made all week (and the top ten got prizes). I ended up shooting a one-over 28 to make it to 4th on the leaderboard. I had to pay a dollar to enter my name on the tourney list, and I kind of felt like that was the last I would see of dollar #9100856655...

Imagine the shock on my face when I found this postcard in the mail from the Greenlake Golf Course this Thursday, informing me of my two free greens fees and entrance into the end of the year tournament!

Night Cap

2010-05-31T22:44:00.001-07:00

Played the Daily Dollar this evening after a rainy morning of ultimate and a sunny afternoon BBQ.

I saw Aposec72 at one of my tables, his QQ got busted by TT AIPF, then he got 2-outted again to bust from the tourney a few hours in. My player note on him going into the tourney was "folds a lot and then gets bad-beat with good hands." Spot on!

I saw SmBoatDrinks at a later table, and that name is super familiar, but I can't remember if he is a blogger or where I know that name from. Anyone?

(edit: after a quick search I found his blog and linked it)

Ended up running fairly deep in the tourney to end a very nice Memorial Day Weekend. Golf, ultimate, friends, drinks, poker, and a new lady friend?! TBC...

Photo Week 21: Rocky Golf

2010-05-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

Played a round at Nile Country Club this afternoon. $23 for a "twilight" start at 3pm with Erin, Breanna and Jared. My round was as rocky as this docky, with lots of triple bogeys and a quintuple bogey (hit my 8ft putt to save 9!). I sunk a handful of 8-10ft putts today, but couldn't hit my driver or irons for nothin'.

The degenerate gambler in me won a beer bet with Jared, and a "who sets up the next round" with Erin. Both bets were up and down bets, where are balls were an equal distance from the hole and I bet the other person I could get it in the hole in less strokes. They both choked.

I only play at Full Tilt!

2010-05-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

Play Online Poker with poker's top bloggers

Brought to you by online poker room Full Tilt Poker

I still play online poker, but only freerolls and micro events. BBT is too rich for my blood, unless it is a $4k freeroll!!!

Live Poker

2010-05-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

I have no idea when the last time I played casino poker was. It might have been with Dr. Ferrari at Snoqualmie Casino back in August last year. In fact, after a bit of searching, it was!

Matt wasn't the only Seattle blogger to spend time in a local casino this week, but I ventured up to Tulalip instead of Snoqualmie this time. My trip back in August was probably the worst luck/skill I've ever experienced playing casino poker. I would run 2nd nuts into nuts and flop nut flush draws in huge pots never to hit. I burnt through my buy-in in 45 minutes and quit. I think I won the blinds once with QQ and that was the only hand I won that session.

I've been hankering for some live poker for a while now, and decided that Saturday was the day to play because I had plans later in the evening, but nothing to do during the day. Tulalip is the closest casino to where I'm at now, and I've had pretty good experiences there in the past, so I checked out their website to see what tournaments and other goodies the casino offers. Turns out the bad beat jackpot for Hold'em cash tables is the biggest in state history at $250,000. In the past, I've seen it in the $10k-$20k range. Holy shit! Both cards have to play, and quads have to be beaten to win the big jackpot.

I arrived at the casino and put my name on the 4/8 limit list at noon, and we started a new table about an hour later. The table was abuzz with talk of the huge jackpot, and it definitely affected the table play. Any pocket pair and any suited connector I was playing, and I'm sure everyone else was, too. This led to me bleeding plenty of chips for the first hour. I hovered around my starting stack for the second hour, then bled some more chips at the beginning of my third hour. My stack dwindled from $200 to about $75 or so, before I went on a ridiculous heater.

A new dealer moved to our table at the 3.5 hour mark of my session. I was dealt two pocket pairs on my first two hands. I saw flops with both, the turn with one, but folded... only to hit on the river both times. I was dealt J8o a few hands later and folded preflop, which would have quaded up. I kept a fairly good poker face and didn't let anyone else know I missed out on $100-$200 in the past few hands, but I decided to start playing any two cards the dealer dealt me, and I won literally every hand but two for the rest of that dealer's down. I flopped three sets and got paid off every time. I turned and rivered straights and flushes like they were going out of style. I finished up for the session and took off.

The experience was awkward for me. I've obviously been at tables where individuals go on heaters and it just seems ridiculous. Theoretically and probability speaking, one hand does not affect the next, and I felt silly calling and betting with hands I normally wouldn't, just because my previous hands had been winners that I missed out on. It shouldn't happen that way, but my hot streak just kept on rolling, and I was finally the person at the table people were rolling their eyes at and I was nearly tilting the table over with my mound of chips.

The jackpot didn't hit. And over my four hours there were only maybe three boards where the bad beat jackpot was a possibility (where quads over quads were possible, or quads and straight flushes/royals).

Photo Week 20: Playing Hookie

2010-05-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

Wednesday I took advantage of Wayne G.C.'s stellar $14 deal again. I got incredibly lucky with the weather, as there were DARK clouds within sight for my entire round, but I was in the sun for the majority of the round. As soon as I finished the 18th hole, the rain started and didn't stop until after dinner. The round was a lot of fun, and I treated it as another practice round, playing best-ball style. This time I shot even par--a nine-stroke drop from three weeks ago playing the same style. Next step is to actually keep a real score, forcing myself to hit balls from the rough and count all my putts (that is going to suck).

Almost felt a little guilty being out there playing on a Wednesday at noon.

Almost.

Figuring Stuff Out

2010-05-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

Being almost 28 and single, a lot of my time is spent thinking about relationships. My three close friends, friends since 1st grade, are all married. Two of them have young children, and I can't help but feel jealous of where they are at in their lives. They each have an amazing woman in their life to share their experiences with, and two have a clear purpose.

I'm jealous of my friends because they are in a position I wish I was in. I wish I had found a woman to share my life with by now. I wish I had a clear purpose, whether that be a child, the likelihood of a child, a spouse, or even a steady career. Right now I am single, without kids, substitute teaching, with very little keeping me in one place other than the gigantic fact that this is where I want to be.

I have younger friends who are traveling the world, and I wonder why I'm not doing the same. Italy, Alaska, Central and South America, Singapore--I would love to go to all of those places, and with a substitute teaching schedule I can go, so why not? One part of me realizes that I have already "gotten out" in my earlier 20s. I moved up and down the West Coast, living in Sacramento, Portland, Nevada City and Zephyr Cove on the shores of Lake Tahoe. I had an amazing time living in different places, and experiencing (slightly) different cultures than the one I grew up in. Eventually, I came to the realization that although moving around was fun, I really wasn't accomplishing anything, and I was ready to. I also missed my friends and family. My friends were settling down and starting families, and my parents weren't getting any younger. I wanted to spend my time with the people in my life I cared about.

So here I am in Seattle nearly three years later. I have my teaching cert, but my teaching career isn't off the tarmac yet. Friends are popping out babies, but I haven't found anyone to join that brigade yet. I'm in the odd late-20s stage where I'm not interested in short-term relationships, but also weirded out by thinking about marriage on the first few dates. I notice wedding rings now--maybe the first sign of "getting old".

This rambling on and on about life and relationships has pretty much been clogging up my head since January, but something clicked last week, which is still being absorbed into my thick skull. I met an old couple-friend of mine from Tacoma last week. Their wedding was my first ever wedding, back in 2005, and I hadn't seen them since. I looked them up on Facebook a few weeks ago (an interesting story in and of itself), and we watched Survivor together last Thursday night. It was a great night, and it was as if our friendship hadn't skipped a beat. They purchased a house in Seattle, and also have a 2yr old baby now. I was happy for them at the same time as being a bit depressed in my single, childless, non-house-owning persona.

And then I realized...

Dave would kill to be where I'm at right now. Marc, Andrew, Tyler... any of those guy friends of mine who are married and have kids or have purchased a house together with their spouse... they would all kill to have my life. Maybe just for a day, or maybe a week, but having the pressure of a wife, a kid, and a house all squarely on your shoulders, 24/7, that is a draining pressure. Seeing me rolling in on my motorcycle, having just spent the afternoon killing time riding around North Seattle, stopping at a dive bar for a burger and a pint. That is something I can do any day of the week. I don't think Dave has had the time to "kill time" for the last four years, what with house remodels and a new child.

It really just comes down to the old "Grass is Greener" adage. I would love to have a wife and a kid right now. My friends would love the freedom and carefree life I have. When I finally realized this, leaving Dave and Jenny's last week, a smile crept across my face as I put my motorcycle helmet on. I know sooner or later I'll find the right woman to spend the rest of my life with, we'll buy a house and hopefully have a child or two. That is what I want, but it doesn't have to be right now. I always thought 30 would be a good time to start settling down, so I'm nowhere near panic mode. Dad had me when he was 40! Plenty of time!

Until then, I need to live it up. This doesn't mean spend all my money traveling, but it does mean that I need to realize and utilize the freedom and carefreeness of my current lifestyle, because I know it won't last much longer.

I need to visit Alaska soon.

I need to get out hiking and camping as much as possible.

I need to plan ahead and take classes during the summer if I am not teaching, to work towards my masters and possibly a high-school teaching cert.

These three things are absolutely and easily attainable for me right now. If I had a wife and kid, imagine how much more difficult any of these would be. I could go to Alaska Air right now and buy a plane ticket for tomorrow if I wanted to. I'm not going to, because I have a fun weekend of camping already planned with friends! Not a bad life I lead right now, not bad at all, and I'm not sure why I've been having trouble seeing that these past few months.

Photo Week 19: Tall Chief Golf Course

2010-05-16T17:56:00.000-07:00

Could not have asked for better weather on Saturday for golf with Erin. We ventured out to the Tall Chief Golf Course, near Snoqualmie, because of the $16 for 12 holes greens fee (we ended up playing 12 more holes for $4 after our first 12!). This course is one of the first 18-hole courses I played growing up, but in the last 15 years the owners apparently had to sell off six holes to keep the golf course going. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from a 12-hole golf course, but from what I remembered about the course, it seemed like a pretty nice one--especially for the price. Sure, there were a few muddy spots (the ball is white...):

And a few of the greens had rough patches in them, which reminded me of lava or water in video game putt-putt. But for the most part, the course was kept up decently. Erin and I each grabbed a beer after a lackluster (re: terrible) first nine holes, and finished them by the end of the next hole. We broke for lunch after 12 holes and had hot dogs and some more beer, and decided that we needed redemption for our shitty first 12 holes. I shot a 73 and she shot a 69 on the front 12. Respectable scores for 18 holes... not 12!

We tipsily walked back up to the 1st tee box after lunch and she hammered a drive down the right side of the fairway, getting ooohs and aaaahs from onlookers. I stepped up to the tee and topped my first ball into the tall grass below, then teed up a second ball and did the exact same. Damn. I salvaged a six on the first hole this time around, and she parred it.

Our second round (or back 12?) was amazing. One of us shot bogey or better on every hole except for the 10th, and we both double-bogeyed that one (she three-putted and I hit two trees). We rarely duffed shots, we were both consistently hitting our drivers 200+ yards, and all felt right in the world. A complete 180 from the first 12.

I tallied up our scores on the drive back to Seattle and she ended up shooting 10 strokes better on the final 12, for a 69+59=128. I shot 18 strokes better for a 73+55=128. Dead even. There were two reasons for me being anywhere close to her score. The first is that the ladies tees and mens tees were always about five yards apart (go gender equality!), and I birdied the 9th hole on the second go around, chipping it within a foot, and I actually parred that same hole on the first go, pitching the ball from about 40 yards away within a foot--my two best shots of the day.

Looking forward to more golf!

Trail Work: Dungeness River

2010-05-10T19:52:00.001-07:00

This weekend was my first time volunteering on a hiking trail. I've been using hiking trails in Washington since I was probably 2 or 3 years old, and I figure it is time to start giving back. The idea to volunteer last weekend came about at the end of March, when I spent 12 hours sitting on my ass, playing WoW and watching March Madness one lazy Saturday. At the end of that Saturday where I accomplished next to nothing, I signed up for this overnight trail work day in the beginning of May. I didn't realize it was Mother's Day weekend until a week prior... sorry Mom!

I woke up at 4:00am on Saturday morning, and was out of the house by 4:30am. I drove down around Tacoma, up through Gig Harbor and the trail head is just south of Sequim. I arrived at 8:00am for the 8:30am departure, which turned into a 9:00am departure when a few of the other volunteers arrived late due to a website time discrepancy. The view from the forest service road leading to the Dungeness Trail is amazing:

We had about a dozen people for the first day, and I was the youngest. There was a couple in probably their early 30s, and everyone else was 40+, most over 50 and retired. There was one other newbie, a 40-something mom who came out by herself for Mother's Day, to the bewilderment of her teenage boys. "You want to go out, sleep in the cold, with no bathroom, and work on trails for Mother's Day?!"

I wasn't really sure what to expect, this being my first time doing trail work. We each grabbed two tools from a nice arsenal:

The hike in to our work site was just over a mile, and I made the mistake of not wearing my work gloves--my hands were FREEZING by the time we got to the work site. I should have known better when I saw all of the frost on cars parked at the parking lot overnight. The crew leader had checked out the site on Tuesday and said the parking lot had snow all around the edges (which had melted away by the time we got there Saturday morning).

We spent about 30-45 minutes scoping out the washed out trail and options for a new trail. There were actually several different routes we could go, and the shared leadership was a really cool thing to be a part of. Some of the very experienced trail workers asked my opinion, and I had no idea, but said what I thought looked like a good route and then we would discuss the pros and cons of the different routes (and of course go with their expert opinion--but it was fun to at least talk about the different routes). We settled on a route that went way high up on the hill, mostly to avoid another wash out in the next few years. This meant more work, but work that will last longer.

My first problem to work on happened to be a patch of Devil's Club in the wettest part of our work site. I dove in and enacted vengeance on Devil's Club for all of the stings I've gotten over the years up at the cabin. Damn you Devil's Club!!

We broke for lunch, and in the afternoon I spent some of my time finishing the Devil's Club spot, then moved to working on clearing out the end of the trail of roots and rocks--filling in holes with rocks we dig out and generally leveling the trail as we go.

I was pooped when we got back to the parking lot and camp site. I took a picture of my boots from my work in the trenches, and then fell asleep in my tent as soon as my head hit my sweatshirt-converted pillow.

My nap ended in time for dinner, which was hamburgers provided by the crew leader. She also provided breakfast and two trail pass parking passes, which I can turn in for a year-long Northwest Forest Pass (hello hiking this summer!). We sat around the campfire for a few hours after dinner, telling stories and playing the game "What am I?" Kind of like 20 questions. We spent about 45 minutes trying to guess this one guy's "What Am I?" and eventually knew that he was a children's toy and that children play with his head and open up his head and there is more fun stuff inside...

Mr. Potatohead.

I slept like a rock. I really should have spent some time looking up at the stars, but I was running on about five hours of sleep and grubbing or moving rocks all day.

Sunday we decided to leave the muddy Devil's Club section of the trail alone, because the mud is up to your shins and it isn't going to dry out anytime soon. We did dig a trench, to flow water into one lane, which will hopefully drain out the section of water so volunteers can make the intended trail in the next trail work party. Instead of playing in the Devil's Club, we had some fun projects involving huge trees that had fallen in our new route.

Don brought a 6ft saw on Sunday, and I'll quickly describe the process. We scout the entire tree, which means climbing up the hillside a hundred feet to see if anything will happen if we cut where we are planning on cutting, and doing the same below our cutting spot. Sometimes the trees will fly up after cutting through it with a saw, depending on where other trees are applying pressure to the downed tree. This tree is relatively safe, because it is wedged between a few trees, and the base of it has already been cut for the old route, so not much pressure is being applied by the massive root section.

First step in the cutting process is to ax in a starting spot for the saw.

Two people then saw back and forth until the saw is fully into the tree by a few inches. Then someone hammers in wedges to the top of the cut, to make sure the saw can get out of the cut. When the wedges were placed into this first big tree we cut, I was told to get up on the saw and work with the other newbie to finish the cut. There is a dangerous side and a safe side to each tree cut, and I got the dangerous side. The footing was bad, and when the saw broke through, the tree would be coming my way. We struggled a bit to get started, but then we had a really good flow going and made quick work of the tree until the crew leader told us to stop and have Wayne finish off the cut from one side (which involves taking a handle off the saw and just letting him cut if from his side.

Four saw cuts from Wayne and the tree trunk fell to the ground, and a branch none of us saw whapped down right where I would have tried to escape to... I got lucky there! Everyone else was surprised by how close of a call that was, as usually the call to swap to a one-person saw is done much earlier, for safety reasons. Once the tree dropped, we had to make another cut. I got to sit out the first half again, but we swapped sides for the second half and I got to cut from the safe side, and also finish off the cut by one-manning the 6ft saw. They told me when I "hear the tree talking to me, get the saw out and go!" I heard the tree crack numerous times and got the saw out and got out of there, but nothing moved. They said they would have made fun of me if we were loggers, but since we're all just volunteers, they liked my cautiousness.

Eventually I one-manned through the entire tree and it just sat there. The wedges at the top, and the force from the lower part of the tree apparently held it up, so we had to kick it to the side to get it to thump down.

Lunch on Sunday was great. We completely lucked out on the weather this weekend, with just a slight drizzle on our way back to camp Saturday afternoon. The sun at lunch also attracted a butterfly, which seemed very comfortable both on me and my bagel:

After lunch we took a brief walk up the trial another 1000ft and came to a big land slide. I used the landslide to skid down to the river. I spotted a tree crossing the river and I thought it would be amazing to have a picture taken up there, but I'd never try to cross it.

Then on our way back Don gave it a shot, so I raced back to the beach spot to snap a photo, unknown to him!

Ballsy!

We spent the rest of the day cutting and moving more big trees, and finishing up tidying up the trail for hikers and horses. Our last project of the day had the entire team working together to push, pull, and man levers to get a big tree out of the middle of the trail and up over another downed tree.

Overall, an amazing weekend, and I look forward to volunteering again in the future on trails. It really is a lot of work, and we only worked on about 300ft of a 6 mile trail. Great weather for the weekend, great people, and we stopped early enough on Sunday that I even made it back to Seattle in time for dinner with Mom!

Photo Week 18: Volunteer Trail Work

2010-05-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

I was out the door and on my way by 4:30am on Saturday, to the Olympics Mountain Range for my first ever volunteer trail work party. I'll have a much more in-depth post up tomorrow, but for now I'm exhausted and just need to get this photo up for the week so I don't have to pay Brandon $5.

The trip was amazing, in every aspect. Especially the butterfly aspect:

Photo Week 17: Fore!

2010-05-02T18:30:00.001-07:00

Saturday saw me and a few friends outside playing 18 holes of golf on a windy and sporadically wet Seattle May Day.

For the past week, I've been looking forward to golfing with this group. All I knew about the other three players is that Jared hasn't played much golf and did not have his own set of clubs... here's how the lineup turned out:

Jared: Beginner. No clubs, had to borrow my dad's old set of clubs.

Your hero: Beginner-intermediate. I've played forever, but usually only a few times a year. I'm a duffer. Sub-100 and I'm happy.

Erin: Her birthday was last week, and I saw that she "likes" golf on her Facebook, so that is what got this foursome started.

Breanna: One of Jared's new girlfriends? ???

So, that's my lineup going in, not really sure what to expect, but knowing that I'll have a fun day with Jared and the ladies.

It turns out Erin's dad is the golf pro at the country club in the town in Montana she grew up in. Her form is perfect, and probably can shoot in the 80s if she played more. Breanna played competitive golf growing up and says she had a 10 handicap when she was 16. Holy Jesus girls with good golf strokes are hot, I don't know what it is, but wow.

The ladies weren't playing great, as it was their first round of the season, but it was also easy to tell that they knew what they were doing and are way, way better at golf than yours truly. They set up their putts and put a little ball marker down, which is way more professional than anything I do on the golf course.

I filled up my golf bag with eight PBRs, and Jared stuffed his bag with a 6-pack of tall boys. Here is the score card:

This is the first time... maybe ever, that I didn't keep score. We were having a great time, and Breanna said it was the first time she has ever drank on a golf course--she had always taken golf so seriously growing up, and I guess she hasn't played a ton of golf since she turned 21 (and I have no idea how long ago that was). I set a skins-handicap system in place: if you won a hole outright, you had to drink a beer. Breanna started out hot, but the beer didn't loosen up her game like it did mine!

Erin and her friend Sarah left us after the front nine (Sarah just tagged along, as she surprised Erin with a visit for the weekend). The backside was pretty chill, and my favorite hole was the 11th. Big fairway to drive the ball down, and of course I drive it into the 10th fairway with my natural slice. My second shot I hit my 4-iron about 180 yards between two trees and around a third, landing presumably close to or on the green. I have trouble finding my ball, and finally find it about 20 yards from the pin... on the cart path. I decide to play it from the cart path instead of kicking it off, and the good karma got rewarded with a chip-in birdie!

JJ Hand Revealed

2010-04-29T15:52:00.000-07:00

One hand from the tourney stands out, and it happened with about 125 people left.

Blinds are 10k/20k, with an ante of... let's say 1k. I've got 375,000, and one of the chip leaders is at our table with around 700,000.

I find JJ UTG+1 and raise it 70,000 or 3.5BB.

Folds to big stack, who calls in MP.

Folds around to the BB who pushes for 170,000 total.

I clicked for more time...

What do you do here? What hand ranges do you put MP and the BB on?

---

Dr. Chako: I push in over the top and hope the big stack folds. Great odds.

Shrike: Peanut butter and JAAAAM!

Waffles: I think the SB is stealing the dead money. Perfect spot to jam.

Schaubs: Golf is fun.

---

I'm glad you guys took time to comment, or else this wouldn't be nearly as fun to say: you're all wrong! ah HAHAHA! Well, maybe not wrong, but you wouldn't have liked the results.

When the big stack flat-called my raise I was okay with that, thinking maybe he is just trying to push me off my hand since we both have big stacks. When the SB pushes over the top I am pretty sure I have the SB beat with the range of hands he can have, I mean, he can have AA-QQ here, but there are a lot of other marginal hands we can put him on because of the money already in the pot and him getting low on chips.

So, I think I have the SB beat, but now I click for more time and revisit the MP flat-call... and it starts to scare me. I try to put him on a hand, and that scares me even more. Why is he flat-calling me in middle position? AA or KK immediately pop into my head. The only two hands that really make sense for him to have, because I hadn't seen a flat call from MP in the last two hours of the tournament... he wants someone else to call or push over the top.

I am pretty sure MP has aces or kings, but I still wonder if I can fold in this spot. I let the time bank get down, and eventually, reluctantly fold. MP snap-calls with aces. SB has AKo. The aces hold up.

As the hand finished, I was extremely happy with my play. I was almost giddy that I called the guy's hand and was able to fold the best hand I'd seen in an hour. Looking back at the hand and analyzing it, I am still pretty happy with my play, especially realizing there is a difference between flat-calling from MP and flat-calling from late position. I do think my fold is on the weakish side, and a push really isn't a terrible play here on my part. I guess the thing I am most proud of is deducing a read out of the betting, and sticking to that read.

To finish off this hand, I wonder what percentage of the time MP has an inferior hand and folds to my push. What do you think? More than 50% of the time he folds, or less? And if he folds greater than 50% of the time, does that make pushing the right play? If he folds less than 50% of the time, does that make folding the right play? Is there a right play?!?!

Golf and Poker (hand analysis at end)

2010-04-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

I'm on both golf and poker kicks as of late. I've got a tee time Saturday at one of the nicest public golf courses in Seattle with a few friends from college who I've never played with, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm not very good at golf, but much like poker, I have some ability, just no consistency or willpower to stick with it and become "good".

Today I didn't take any substitute assignments and spent the middle of the day out on a golf course by my house. The forecast called for 50 degrees and a 50% chance of rain, but I ended up having sun and what felt like 60 degrees from hole 5 on to the end. I was solo, with nobody in front of me, so I decided to try something a little different and play a solo "best ball" style round. I played today for practice, not for a score, so if I felt like I could hit a better shot I'd drop another ball and give it a whack. In some instances this meant hitting four tee shots, but with no one else around it was all gravy. Today's round really was exactly what I was looking for, with lots of practice and even hitting the dreaded driver a few times!

My sexy score (pre-mulligans) was 8 over for the entire round, and a cool one-under on the backside. I started off really slow, and think I should be able to shoot around par on the front side, too, if I hit close to my best shot each time. I parred a few of the par 3's without taking any mulligans, but only birdied one hole WITH mulligans, which seems a bit sad. The birdie hole was the second hardest hole on the course, a dog leg left with a creek about 150 yards out at the dog leg. I hit a straight drive (amazing for me!) which curled a tad left and cleared the creek, leaving me about 120 yards to the pin. I landed a 9-iron about 10ft from the pin and sunk my longest putt of the day for bird!

I tried to count mulligans, but I'm not sure how exactly to count them fairly. Fair and mulligans don't really go together, do they? If I hit a second ball and use the second ball, I count a mulligan stroke. If I hit a second ball, but use the first ball, I did not count a mulligan. If I hit a second and third and fourth ball, and use the fourth ball, I only count one mulligan stroke. By this system, it seems like each mulligan stroke should really count for more than one stroke to adjust accurately, especially when I hit the first two balls into the water and take the third shot, and only count it as one mulligan stroke (which would normally have me shooting 5 or 6 instead of... 2). But when I putt, if I have a six-foot putt and miss it, but make the same putt on my second try, it makes sense to count that mulligan as just one extra shot (because even I can make the remaining 1-foot putt from my original shot).

I had 26 mulligans, which balloons my score up to a much more recognizable score around 100. And that is each mulligan at one stroke, if I push each mulligan up to 1.5 strokes, I didn't have as good a round as I thought! The round did feel good today, and just the confidence of making shots was great for me today, even if it took me three or four attempts.

---

On the poker front, I played in a $1 tournament last night on Full Tilt and six hours later I finished in 64th out of 8,656, good for $11. It is a lot of fun having hundreds of thousands of chips to play with, especially when you start with 3,000! I hit a 9-hi straight flush within the first orbit of the night, got paid, then knocked the same guy out a few orbits later with AA. Now that I think about it, I don't think I gave any bad beats (outside of knocking out shorties) all night, and only took a few myself, which is odd for a $1 tournament.

One hand from the tourney stands out, and it happened with about 125 people left.

Blinds are 10k/20k, with an ante of... let's say 1k. I've got 375,000, and one of the chip leaders is at our table with around 700,000.

I find JJ UTG+1 and raise it 70,000 or 3.5BB.

Folds to big stack, who calls in MP.

Folds around to the BB who pushes for 170,000 total.

I clicked for more time...

What do you do here? What hand ranges do you put MP and the BB on? Outcome tomorrow!

Rush Poker Round Two

2010-04-26T18:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a strictly poker post up here in months, and with all the BBT5 hub-bub going around, I've had a jonesing for some card slinging. I found out this afternoon some micro-er Rush tables have been put into play on Full Tilt, and the absence of smaller buy-in Rush tables was a big reason I stopped playing Rush Poker when it began in January/February earlier this year (the stakes were too high for my crippled bankroll). Now the microest of NL Rush tables have nice and comforting 0.02/0.05 blinds.

I sat down with the max buy-in, which comprised 40% of my bankroll and 100BB. Welcome back, bankroll management!!!... I played 102 hands, which probably took 20-30 minutes, and ran my $5 up to $12.14 with pretty decent play and also above average starting hands. I got JJ four times in those 102 hands, only losing once to AJ aipf for $2. I made a hero call with JJ later in the session for all my chips on a Q8754 no flush board. I started the hand with $7 and the villain had me covered, and put me all in for my remaining $3.50 on the river. I called his pot-sized bet on the turn, not believing he had a queen. I'm not sure why I didn't believe him, I guess a pot-sized bet on a non-scary board doesn't make sense now that I think about it. He pushes on the river and my decision to call was based on my turn read, not thinking he has a Q, and trying to stick to my read. If he has a six for a rivered straight, I'm screwed. I felt 75-80% right about calling, so I did and was shown air.

I sat out after the 102 hands obviously happy with my result and promptly started a new poker spreadsheet. Ah... life in the black. I jotted down some notes about my play, such as stealing based on stack size, and re-stealing on position and stack size. I figure the players with larger stacks are likely to be more aggressive than players with smaller stacks, and when it gets folded around to a big stack in late position, they raise about 75% of the time, which makes them a good target to resteal from. I also realize my tiny bankroll won't be able to handle the inevitable swings of Rush Poker, not to mention playing with 40% of my bankroll on the table.

I hopped back in with the minimum $2 buy-in, which is still 40BB and plenty to play with, in my opinion. For the last five years I've always been a fan of buying in for the maximum to maximize my profit, but from a bankroll perspective I think the smaller buy-in should deflect some of the risk of going broke. I also reasoned that with my small stack, players might respect my raises more, if they are thinking along the same lines as me--that bigger stacks are the more aggressive ones. I played another 100 hands and caught some pretty good cards and doubled up with 66 flopping a set and rivering sixes over aces, with the villain having trip aces. Ended up another $3, which is almost the same as my 150% increase from the last buy in. During this second set of 100 hands I also started making a "player note" whenever anyone 3-bet my raise. This never ended up happening more than once this session, but it makes sense to see who is doing this just in case I tangle with them in the future--and to see if they consistently have big stacks, so I can emulate them!

Took a break, and then played one last round of 100 hands, and lost a buy-in. QQ < KK aipf, he opened, I re-raised, he pushed and I didn't like calling, but figured there are enough other hands he could have that make folding QQ there not smart, but I wasn't shocked to see KK or AA. Ended up getting QQ again after buying back in for $2, and getting it all in the middle against AK on a 234 flop and fading 10 outs twice. Ended up down $1 after this last set of 100 hands.

I've got a bankroll of 400BB now, which makes me feel a little more comfortable playing at the lowest stakes... sigh... but we'll see what happens. I remember having a good first night at Rush Poker last time around, then dying a horrible death in the week that followed. I'm going to try and keep the buy-ins small for now, and if the bankroll increases, I'll stay at this blind level, and just increase my buy-in. So far I've been happy that me getting felted was only a $2 loss instead of a $5 loss, but I'm not scaredy cat enough to be blind to the fact that my QQ > AK hand would have made me more money (but ultimately they cancel each other out no matter what buy-in I start with).

I'll be interested to see what other tidbits of knowledge I come across playing Rush Poker, and I'm intrigued to whether or not other people pay much attention to stack sizes, and what information big, medium, and small stack sizes give other players. Are you more or less likely to call a raise from a big stack? Are you more or less likely to steal from a small stack in the blinds?

Photo Week 16: Theft and Garbage Strike

2010-04-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

I got my car radio stolen last week. I reported it to the police, mostly just to let them know where and when it happened, in hopes to prevent future thefts. The fact that I drive a Honda Accord that is older than 2000 is the prime reason I got broken into. A student of mine who used to be a car thief, says you can just shave off the bottom of a Honda Accord key, stick it in the lock and jiggle it until the door unlocks. Greeeat. I don't think I'm going to invest in another radio, if that is the case! Bastards stole my $20 racquetball racket, too.

The Waste Management garbage and recycling workers went on strike this week. This is a photo of day 2 of the strike, earlier this week, I'll probably take another photo next week, and for however long the strike goes on, to see if we can get some good garbage accumulation up here north of Seattle. Some part of me hopes that people see just how much garbage they make, and maybe, just maybe, tone down their consumption. Not gonna happen, but one can hope.

Photo Week 15: New Frisbee Game

2010-04-18T22:37:00.001-07:00

Well, not really a new frisbee game, but new to me. Stick four poles in the ground, place a plastic cup on top of each one, then throw frisbees at them in teams of two. Everyone has to have a beverage in hand, because as defenders you have a chance to catch the cup as it flies off the pole when struck, to save a point. Cups on the ground are one point each, and a clean throw through the two sticks (in the air) without knocking over either cup is a two-pointer.

Photo Week 14: Cabin Trip

2010-04-11T21:26:00.001-07:00

This weekend was going to be a creative writing retreat up at my parents' cabin, but not many people could make the commitment, so it was only Josh and I up at the cabin this weekend. We went for a hike to Boulder Falls this morning, followed by ice cream at the country store ("two scoops" = six scoops), and a round of frisbee golf at the new course in Arlington. I had no idea a frisbee golf course popped up there until yesterday, when we were tossing the disc out at the ball field and kept seeing people tossing discs in the distance, so we investigated.

I still got a bit of writing in Saturday night, since Josh wasn't feeling well and hit the hay early. There was some private stuff that I've written about before, but the only thing that really came out of the writing was that I found the smell of the cabin to be a mix between an old folk's home and a campfire.

Photo Week 13: Pow and Improv

2010-04-04T09:06:00.001-07:00

This week was pretty fun! I couldn't find work either Monday or Tuesday, which is the first time all year I haven't been able to find work on back-to-back days. I was a little bummed about not finding work Tuesday, until I checked the Stevens Pass website and found that it had snowed 16" in the last 24 hours. I made a bee-line up to the mountain and enjoyed the best snow all year.

The Tuesday skiing was surpassed Saturday, with another 16" in the past 24 hours! Kristy and I went up yesterday and tried to take advantage of likely the last good snow fall of the season. The skiing was great, but we arrived at the mountain 30 seconds too late and had to park in the "Yodelin" parking lot two miles away, and have a shuttle take us up to the mountain. This is the first time I've ever parked in the Yodelin parking lot, and the experience wasn't all that bad. Riding on the bus reminded me a lot of middle school and riding up to Snoqualmie on Friday evenings:

After skiing on Saturday, I attended my first-ever Jet City Improv show. I've never attended an improv show before, and I wasn't really sure what to expect. I've seen "Whose Line is it Anyways?" and did not expect that caliber of comedic genius, and I was not even sure if this improv would be set up in a similar fashion. It turns out that the setup is very similar to "Whose Line?" and the comedians are ridiculously funny. We went to celebrate my friend Jenny's 25th birthday, so of course she got called on stage to give advice on how the scenes should play out:

I can definitely see myself going back and supporting comedic improv in the future, I had an absolute blast. I shouted out a few ideas, and my housemate, Eddie, had a great suggestion when the MC wanted something very unhygienic, Eddie shouted out, "Alanis Morissette!"

Juicy

2010-03-31T22:01:00.000-07:00

This is a smorgasboard post of ideas that have crept into my mind recently.

I had a short conversation with a quasi-acquaintance of mine the other week down in Portland. She says that she doesn't find many things sexy. I countered with the fact that I find many, many things sexy. I don't think I mentioned it at the time, but I find her sexy:

Very sexy. Even with the MS-paint sunglasses.

I'm not sure why she doesn't find many things sexy. Maybe it is because she is sexy and her standards are higher. Maybe she is so busy with life, work and graduate school that she focuses her time and energy on those things instead of being sexied out all the time like me. Anyways, the conversation started when she saw an olde' style growler of beer, which she thought to be sexy.

I just got out of the shower and the idea of touching on some more of the "sexy" aspects of my life in this blog popped into my head. Schaubs had a really interesting post up the other week where he got pretty personal, and I really enjoyed reading. He's mentioned the same on my blog before, "blah blah mundane blah blah, oh hey! there's the good stuff, glad I kept reading!" or thereabouts. Now, Schaubs and I have never met, but we're blog-friends and I value his input and agree with him when he says that the more juicy (or sexy) aspects of this here blog are its strong points. The day-to-day rambling or chronology of what I've done just isn't really exciting to read, or to write.

That said, here goes some unsexy rambling on becoming old! (joy)

I'm not sure if this is normal, but I have a part of me that kind of wishes I was an old man. I wouldn't give up my youth for anything, but I'm kind of excited to eventually move into old age and have gained experience and wisdom along the way. Ideally, I will be in a position where I can pass that knowledge on to the next generations in a positive way. The struggle would be finding a medium to pass the knowledge on, where the younger generations would understand and be interested in what I have to say. I'm thinking after I retire from teaching, and contacting more people than my possible future grandchildren.

"The Simpsons" does a great job of portraying the dread a lot of families have when it comes to taking care of their elderly grandparents. I always loved visiting gran and grandma, primarily for the fact that they lived in Florida and California, respectively. We would put our time in with them, and then we would go to Disneyland or go roller-blading in the sun, or go to the beach. It is kind of sad to think I enjoyed the time away from them more than the time with them, for the most part, but what can I say, I was a kid.

I don't want to be the old man who yells at kids to shape up from his porch. I want (even though it isn't going to happen) to be the Johnny Cash or George Carlin who uses a relevant medium to get through to younger generations. There are popular elderly people on Youtube, who have used that medium to share their knowledge with the world, and I think keeping up to date on the technology world would be a great way to communicate. Writing is another medium that could work, and I would love to improve my writing to the point that I could weave a story together with a point of wisdom I am trying to impress upon the next generations.

And speaking of sexy... does anyone find a woman in a baseball hat and a long-sleeve baseball shirt (the ones with navy-blue arms and a white torso) not sexy? Assuming a good height to weight ratio, that shit is sexy every time.

Softball garb, or a girl in sweat pants. Check please.

Photo Week 12: Weak 12

2010-03-28T09:53:00.001-07:00

I snapped a few photos last night to make sure my 11-week streak stays alive. Josh, Flew, Derek and I ran the pool table at The Parkway for an hour. I started out hot, cutting in a ball that might have been my nicest pool shot ever. The cut was at such an angle that the cue ball ricocheted around the table twice as the object ball slowly made its way across the felt and into the side pocket.

I was down in T-town for my alma mater's first ever hosted ultimate frisbee tournament. They needed an 8th team to join and the Tacoma crew slapped together a team at the last minute. We beat UPS-A, then lost to Western 10-13 (collapsing after we were tied at 10's), and then we walloped UPS-B.

Portland March Madness Trip Report (Longish)

2010-03-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

This is my account of last week's extended weekend down in Portland for the first round of March Madness 2010.

Thursday:

The first evening started out at the Gentlemen's Club where we discussed Wittgenstein over a game of backgammon... okay, Flan and I were drinking tall boys of PBR's in his bed watching basketball... okay, okay, they weren't tall boys. We played it tame Thursday night, in anticipation of a weekend to remember.

Friday:

Flan woke up at an ungodly hour to go into work. 4am? 5am? I slept. BAM texts me saying he is 40 miles out at 9am, so I hop out of bed and MAX downtown to find a pub. Beautiful day, so I wander around for a few miles, eventually slipping into Schmizza. The server says they aren't open for another 30 minutes, and do I want a beer? I am confused, but order two 23oz beers and some pizza tots.

BAM arrives!

I pay up my first of many lost prop bets on the weekend--he made it before the end of the first round of NCAA games. He adds the dollar to his stack of 99 ones. He lost the dollar back by the end of the game, which I added into my wad of 60 ones. Flan calls and we plan to meet up in an hour at Buffalo Wild Wings. With an hour left, BAM and I check out the drink specials at Schimzza and see 2pm-6pm Happy Hour specials on "$5 Schlong Island Iced Tea". BAM butters up the server and she hooks us up, since it is still before noon. BAM and I stumble out 30mins later.

Flan's co-worker can't make it, so we change plans and meet at the MVP Sports Bar slash Thai restaurant. Two hour wait on food when we arrive, so we start drinking a pitcher of Bud Light and a pitcher of Coors Light. 30 minutes later the entire restaurant has cleared out and BAM is spitting game on the MVP server, who sits down with us for a few minutes to watch the basketball games. I'm pretty sure we had some prop bets at this place, but I can't remember... possibly betting on what the score will be when the next white guy scores. A couple pitchers later...

What the hell did we do after that? Oh yeah, we MAX'd to NE Portland, then walked 2.5 miles to meet up with Jesse for... drinks. I know it is 2.5 miles because I won a dollar off of Flan, who thought it was only a mile. Someone with a fancy phone looked that shit up. We made a pit-stop at Irving Park on our walk for restrooms and I swooped in on 3 people tossing a disc. Got my throws in, then we finished the death march to the Tin Shed.

I spilled my first Gin & Tonic all over the place, which led to the first of several "will MHG spill another drink at this table?" bets on the weekend. After my 3rd (2nd?) G&T I craved a burrito from the Mexican restaurant just down the street, so I bounced. Just down the street ended up being another 2 mile road trip of stumbles and tunnel vision. I made it back in one piece and put the burrito in my mouth on the bench outside the Tin Shed.

We walked... gah... another 1/2 mile to another bar for... more drinks. It was sunny and I was happy. We heard stories of Flan tandem-bicycling with Jesse's friend Brad, and Flan bailing out on Brad, which led Brad to hit a tree. Yeah, that's about all I comprehended.

Then Flan and I got a ride from Jesse to Flan's indoor soccer game in SE Portland. BAM and I had a sidebet on Flan's goalkeeping ability. I had under 2 goals against, BAM took the over. Two minutes into the game BAM won the bet, but I quickly texted BAM to "Let it Ride!" with his winnings on the outcome of the game. Flan's team stormed back and won 8-4. I had a beer and a bucket of popcorn while rooting on the friendly sasquatch.

Ryan, Klink, Nat Arrive!!!

BAM heads back to the house to meet up with the new arrivals. Flan says "Fuck that, let's go drink to celebrate the soccer win!" I gasp. But shrug my shoulders and follow. Flan The Wise leads me on a walk to a bar a few blocks away and as we saddle up to the bar, the bartender says, "33.4 seconds left on $1 PBR Tall Boys." Flan doesn't miss a beat: "Four PBR's!" I take two. We celebrate. Apparently the deal only stands as long as the Blazers are playing.

We make it home on a ride from one of Flan's teammates. Even the two mile ride is eventful. We stop at a light and see this skinny indie guy punching these two muscular bald guys in the face. I try and piece together what is going on. A bike is on its side in the street. Scruffy Indie guy is going apeshit on two huge bald guys. Eventually a fourth guy comes in and tries to get the Indie guy to stop hitting the bald guys in the face. He succeeds... temporarily. The bald guys get back in their car, and then the crazy Indie guy runs up and kicks the driver's side window... shattering it... with the driver sitting in the seat. Shiiiiit. The driver gets out. The Indie guy finally realizes "Oh shit." and runs to his bike, picks it up and tries to peddle the fuck out of Dodge. Unfortunately, the 4th observer guy grabs the back tire and as the Indie guy is peddling and looking over his shoulder, he realizes the bald guy is walking up to him, and he isn't going anywhere. I expect blows, but the bald guy starts a conversation. The second the bald guy points to his car and looks over at it, the Indie guy cheeses it, and runs down the block and around the corner.

We, along with four other cars that are watching the show, end up leaving without any heroic action.

Flan and I make it back to the house and celebrate our safe arrival with UFO Pizza and a game of Munchkin and more PBR. Klink kicks all our asses and takes our money at Munchkin. We head downstairs for some shufflepuck for $$'s. I think Nat and I beat BAM and Flan, but I could be mistaken. We all pass out on the couches watching Vince Vaughn telling us that we're so money we don't even know it.

Jonno Arrives!

Saturday!

Oh God, Saturday.

Another beautiful day in Portland, but this time we don't get moving until 11:30 or so. BAM tries to get a bet in on waking up Jonno for breakfast, but nobody will take it. The six of us (minus Jonno) roll into NW Portland for breakfast. The wait for breakfast is 90 minutes, so we kick the soccer ball around in the street for 90 minutes until our 6-top is ready. I heroically nut Flan with the ball, then he cheap-shots me back while I am taking photos.

The wait is worth it, and our breakfast is delicious. Mine consists of a chocolate shake, a tall boy of PBR, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a cup of tomato soup. BAM and Flan make an over/under bet on how many times to guy at the bar will check out Klink on her way back from the bathroom. I think BAM wins with over 3. This restaurant's slogan: "You eat here because we let you" and this restaurant has panties with their slogan for sale.

We walk around the Pearl District for an hour in the sun. Klink checks out the architecture while the five guys try to find things to bet on. How long it will take the girl longboarding to fall? Can Nat climb that tree? How many strides does it take MHG to cross a street? My favorite bet of Pearl District had to be the Dandelion Racing we did in the little park stream. Ryan, Nat and I dropped dandelions into a little winding stream at the same point, and although Ryan's mammoth dandelion started out hot, much like the red hydroplane racer at M's games, he caught a snag and my green hydroplane did a spin move off of him and won the race for a cool $2 profit. Nat's sunk, or something.

We walked around for a bit, then found a sports bar to watch some more basketball and drink more beer. This bar is where the side bets really starts picking up. The table next to us has March Madness crazies as well, and I take one of their guys' money repeatedly on prop bets. First bet he set the over/under of the total score of the game we were watching at 145, I take the over and win the bet with 6 minutes remaining in the game. Second bet was who would take the half in the Northern Iowa vs. Kansas game, UNI was up five with five minutes to go and he picked Kansas. Ship it! Third bet I was feeling bad for the guy, so he picked Kansas to win the game, and I took UNI. $3! Hahaha.

The six of us get about ten games of Asshole in while watching basketball and drinking. We watch UW beat down New Mexico, and have some quality bets on the game and side action. Nat and I have a secret side bet on who will eat the last curly fry from the basket. He picks BAM and I take Flan. Our $1's are on the table, and others at the table keep asking what our bet is, but we can't say. Flan deduces that the bet involves him and BAM, so he promptly bets a dollar on himself, BAM obliges. Ryan tries to get action on the side action, but Klink keeps her dollar. Flan starts doing all sorts of things to try and win the bet, he gets close with dipping a curly fry in ketchup and eating it, but he can't figure it out. The curly-fry bet ends up being terrible, because nobody is eating the fries. Nat and I get sick over eating the entire basket (and which I blame for my "Stinky" nickname). We finally get the basket down to one fry and we stick the basket in the direct middle of the table and say "ONE LEFT" Flan grabs it, shoves it in his mouth, and wins him and me crisp George Washingtons!

Jenn and Eli Arrive!!!

Jenn, Eli and Jonno meet us at the sports bar and I get a side bet in with Jenn at some point, but I forget what for. We are seated at different tables, and I win $1 off Flan for picking Jenn to be the first one to look over at our table. Flan had Eli. We agreed not to influence their looking over at our table, and it took a good 15 minutes for Jenn to finally look over and win me my Flan dollar. I remember BAM winning a lot of big side bets, but I don't remember what they were... little help?

Klink lost some of her Munchkin money to me. First with a bet on when the current basketball game will go to commercial break. I set the over/under at 11:45 left in the game. She takes over. A guy drives to the basket at 11:50 and I don't like my chances. The ref's whistle blows at 11:47 on his way to the hoop, getting fouled. She's won the bet... but wait! The clock keeps ticking! It doesn't stop ticking until 11:44, three seconds after the whistle, and the game goes to commercial break, and I win the bet!!! Whoop! Bad beat for Klink, but if you want that dollar back you can always... go fuck yourself! hah! She wins the dollar back shortly thereafter calling "Over" on a 10-point end game spread in the UW/NM game. She offers an additional bet on a 20-point spread, which I initially turn down, but then accept. UW is up 21 with 15 seconds left and New Mexico drains a seemingly inconsequential 3-ball to ship me my blood money back. Bad beat #2 for Klink!

At some point I reach for my winning bet and spill my beer onto Ryan's quick-dry shorts. BAM collects side-bet spillage bet from Flan.

After UW wins, we bounce from the bar and go to a penthouse party at Flan's work friend's new place. Drink more PBR. The place is great, and the condo complex is out of this world. We bring our drinks up to the penthouse and get a bird's eye view of the city while watching more basketball. We get kicked out by a group that reserved the room 30 minutes later. Boo. We head back to our vehicles. One car goes to the Kava and Hooka bar, the other two head back to Flan's place to change and wash up. We all find our way to the "Pied Cow" Kava and Hooka bar.

We share two or three bowls of Kava, share a few candelabras of Hooka, and play Mafia for money. The only mafioso to pull off a victory is Jenn, but we all suspect foul play when she tips Flan (the game master that round) $2. I lose a 10-push up bet somewhere in there. Eli "goes to the bathroom" at the restaurant at some point and returns with a 12-pack of PBR. Time stands still at the Pied Cow, and we leave around 9pm after enough laughs to fill an episode of Full House.

Pre-arranged ping-pong plans fall through and we scoot down to Ground Kontrol and Voodoo Doughnuts. Voodoo's slogan: "The Magic is in the Hole" also panties for sale. I win $1 off of BAM at NBA Jam with Reggie "Mr. Clutch" Miller draining a shot at the buzzer. Dr. Mario, Frogger, Q-bert, Tron and pinball fun is had. We roll back to Flan's and Nat destroys at Liar's dice while we attempt to finish off all of the booze in the house.

Sunday:

We don't succeed, because I find a very dented PBR in the morning and crack it open, and start watching bball. Flan is off ski-racing on Mt. Hood so I continue to hide my new empty cans of PBR around his house where he will run into them. In the shower, on the bed post, etc. At about 2pm, after watching basketball and serenading Nat and Klink on Flan's bed with Counting Crows, Blues Traveler and Bone Thugz, I pack up and ride back North to Seattle on my motorcycle in a slight drizzle.

The End.

Photo Week 11: Portland March Madness

2010-03-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

This photo pretty much tells the story of my weekend in Portland. We waited for 90 minutes on Saturday morning to get into a breakfast joint in NW Portland, then I ordered a chocolate shake, a PBR tall boy and a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup. It. Was. Good.

Memorable Car Rides

2010-03-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

I was listening to a random Death Cab for Cutie song at lunch today, and it just so happened that the LA plan I was teaching for the day dealt with sensory imagery in writing. The song, I think "Passenger Seat", is just filled with sensory imagery. The song touches on quite a few of the senses, but sight caught my eyes/ears most often while listening to the song and visioning myself in the place the song takes me.

Where the song took me wasn't expected.

It took me back to California, January 2007. I wrote a post touching on what was happening in my life at the time. The Death Cab song reminded me specifically of the car ride back from Sonoma with Kristina. I think during that ride home, after wine tasting and Guitar Hero'ing (for my first time), I drove her Yaris back home through wine country at dusk, and we kissed for the first time. Kissing Kristina had been something I wanted to do for quite a while, but living together I didn't want to create any weird tension in the house. She ended up solving the problem.

I remember having a great time all day long with Kristina, from the ultimate frisbee in the morning, to using towel-wipes and deodorant between frisbee and the birthday party instead of showering, to the party itself. I remember being completely happy being designated driver the 150 miles home, so she could enjoy herself with her friends. I remember having a stupid Charlie Brown smile on my face and rosy cheeks when she leaned in and kissed me, while we were driving home, talking about the beautiful scenery and our amazing day.

That drive home through wine country was one of my most memorable car rides, so I tried to remember a few more.

When Stacey and I first started dating, she was living in Sacramento, and I was finishing up school in Tacoma. We met every month between when we started dating in February and my graduation in May. I had spring break in March, and we helped her brother move to Portland in April (I think). I distinctly remember a drive from Tacoma to Portland we took where my speed varied from 40mph to 90mph due to a distractorous shotgun passenger.

Other memorable, less riskae, car rides include:

Driving in the family van to Sun Mountain in Central Washington. The trip only takes four hours, but that seemed like eternity from 9-14. I remember one trip my cassette player batteries ran out, and I was listening to some female artist, and as the batteries started to die, her voice got slower and lower until it sounded like the possessed chick from Stigmata. It scared the hell out of me. A different trip to Sun Mountain had me reading one of my first fantasy novels, and I was listening to No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom" CD on loop. Whenever I hear songs from that CD, I always think about the drive to Sun Mountain and the fantasy book where everything has a "true" name, and magic exists if you know the object's true name.

Driving to and from Santa Cruz my senior year in high school with Jonno and Andrew. I had two friends that were freshmen at Santa Cruz, and Jonno had a friend at UC Davis. Andrew got a $295 speeding ticket on our way down, so he ate plain Cheerio's the rest of the trip. We slept at the UC Davis athletic fields the first night, and felt the wrath of the sprinkler system. We spent a night or two in the Santa Cruz dorms, and hung out at the boardwalk. I collapsed a tent on Jonno on our way back to Seattle, because I was in a hurry to ask out a girl and have the house to myself... only to find the house canvased when I got back to Seattle, because I forgot about the painters.

Photo Week 10: Powder Day and PLU BBQ

2010-03-14T21:57:00.001-07:00

Had the best ski day of the season on Friday. It had snowed 11" in the last 24 hours, and Ryan and I were getting snowed on pretty hard up on the mountain. The snow was really wet, which meant a good workout for our legs to push through all of the wet snow. We drank PBR tall boys on the slow chairlift on the backside, and it was snowing so hard we were completely white and the rims of the beer cans had a half-inch of snow on them during the 8-min ride up the mountain.

Saturday and Sunday I spent down in Tacoma, attending my third or fourth PLU BBQ ultimate frisbee tournament. This is a college ultimate tournament, with a few elite high school teams and also a few alumni teams. I've played with a Tacoma pickup team in the past, and the best we've done is losing in the semi-finals. This year my old college, UPS, finally had enough alumni players to make a team. We ended up going 7-0 and winning the entire tournament! I think there were a few teams better than us, but we won all of the big points and got lucky in a few key spots to take down the entire tournament. I got completely wrecked in our first game on Sunday, going up for a disc in the end zone and getting hit on the way up by one guy, then getting my feet taken out from under me by a second guy, and falling four feet onto my back, and then getting landed on by a third guy. I got the wind knocked out of me by landing on my back... that has never happened before, only from landing on my chest. Our team was using a "Judge Dredd" theme...

Theft

2010-03-10T21:47:00.000-08:00

I was a P.E. teacher today in a middle school, where the sport of the day was dodge ball. I got to hit middle schoolers in their groins and I also got to fill out a police report--an eventful day! The police report had to do with my iPod and all of the money in my wallet being stolen from the teacher's office in the locker room. I'll try to recap what happened, but I find it a weird coincidence that I am also reading "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky. I'm not far into the book, but he gets incredibly deep into so many aspects of crime--the good, the bad, the why, the how--that my mind is still racing with all of the implications from the theft today.

My story starts just finishing up lunch in the teacher's office located adjacent to the boy's locker room. The bell rings for 4th period to start, and I put my things away while the first few boys get into the locker room. There are two open doors between the teacher's office and the locker room, and as I'm putting my iPod into my jacket pocket, I wonder if it is a good idea to do this in view of a few students, but I figure it'll be alright. The other male gym teacher and I usher out all but a few stragglers from the locker room and start taking roll.

Fifty minutes later, class has gone just fine, until I notice after all of the students have left the locker room for their next classes, that the pocket to my jacket is unzipped. Fuck. I check the pocket and my keys are there, but my iPod is gone. I check my other pocket with my wallet, and everything is there except for the cash (which I guessed to be $10-$40). My season's pass to Stevens is still in the upper pocket. There are four new dum-dums on the chair my jacket was hanging on, a parting gift from the thief? Funny.

I immediately go tell the other gym teachers, and they can't believe it. The older teacher says he thinks he knows who was in the locker room--the two Hispanic kids who asked for ice and then disappeared. I remember them heading into the locker room, but I also remember a few stragglers coming out late from the start of the period, and I really don't think the Hispanic kids had anything to do with it. The older gym teacher and I walk to the main office (5th period is luckily the prep period for gym) and on the way just happen to run into the on-duty police officer for the school. I explain to him what has happened and we go find the two Hispanic kids who are in the lunch room (this school staggers lunches for 4th and 5th period, depending on the grade). The older teacher immediately has the two Hispanic kids come with him and the officer to the officer's room to discuss what happened. They deny any involvement, and I feel awkward, but I am also pissed for having my stuff stolen. I continue asking around in the lunchroom, knowing that most likely the thief is in the room, and I'm trying to pick up on anyone acting differently, even though I have no idea who most of the kids are, or if they were even in one of the gym classes (I only worked with half of the students in 5th period gym). Realizing walking around the lunch room asking for my stolen iPod wasn't a good use of my time, I made my way to the officer's room.

The older gym teacher had left, and it was just the officer and the two kids in his office, and the officer was interrogating the two students about what happened and why they were in the locker room. They said they were getting ice for one of them who sprained his ankle, and that they didn't know anything about the stolen iPod. The officer thought he caught them, and said, "What stolen iPod? I never told you what was stolen" But the two kids said the older teacher and I had told them in the lunch room, which of course I had, and felt stupid about now, making it harder for the officer to do his job.

Again, I felt uncomfortable having these two kids being interrogated by the officer, because I knew their story checked out, and they really did not seem like the type of kids to do this. But the officer didn't share my view, and he kept asking the two students repeating questions. I got more uncomfortable, until the officer eventually said he knew that the two students had more to tell that they weren't telling. The students finally said that they saw two other boys in the teacher's office when they went to the locker room looking for ice. They named the two boys after more prodding, and the officer radio'd for someone else (another officer?) to go grab those two kids.

K came in first, and the officer asked him if he knew anything about a theft in gym class. He denied knowing anything. The officer had the two Hispanic kids tell their story again, this time with K in the room. K again denied any involvement. The officer said, "I've been doing this for a long time, K, and I know when someone is lying, or not giving me the entire story. What happened?" K eventually said the other kid had given him the iPod, and he had slipped it into his friend A's purse at lunch. The officer called for the girl to be brought down to his office.

A arrived next, and she had her purse with her. The officer asked her if she had an iPod, and she said that K had given her one at lunch, but she didn't know whose it was. The officer took the iPod from her, and handed it to me (and it was mine, same style, same music, same distinct dent in the corner). The officer continued to question K and A, and letting them know the severity of their actions, being accomplices, etc.

Eventually the boy who K accused of giving him my iPod showed up. S completely denied everything, and the officer again had the two Hispanic boys tell their story, and then had K tell his side of the story. S continued to deny everything. K said he only received the iPod from S, and that K had no idea where any money was. The officer put a lot of pressure on S to fess up to the theft, including expulsion from school and criminal charges. This is when he had all of us except S fill out incident reports of what happened. I went back to the gym to fill mine out, to make sure no credit cards or anything else was taken. When I arrive back in the officer's room, all of the students but K and S had been allowed to go. S was in tears, and had admitted to taking my money and iPod. S and I go back to the gym and he gets me my cash from his gym locker.

There are so many frustrating and weird things about this experience.

First, I feel partly to blame, because not only did I allow for a student to see me putting an iPod away, but the other gym teacher and I left the teacher's office open. I feel like the opportunity to steal my iPod was way too tempting to pass up for this kid. I know it isn't my fault, but still, as an educator I value prevention, and I did very little prevention in this instance, and it ends in a kid getting expelled from school.

When I first found out my iPod had been stolen, I thought there might be a 5% chance of getting it back. We jumped from two kids we knew were in the locker room, to a kid who had been handed the iPod and stashed it in another student's purse, to the actual thief. There is no way we go from A to B to C without truth-telling from A and B. The pressure applied by the officer seemed very surgical, and he had a very keen sense for when the students were withholding information, it was very interesting to observe. I also feel very lucky to have my iPod and money back.

It turns out that the kid who originally stole my iPod already has a record of theft (at age 12). Not terribly surprising, but I wonder what will come of this. It seems like this incident could be a good thing for this child if it shows him that there are consequences for his actions. If he does this when he is 18, the outcome will be a lot worse, so maybe there is time for him to change before he becomes an adult. I think the statistics are against that change for him, but I hope at least some good comes out of this, because when I left the school I felt, besides great work on the cop's part, nothing good came out of this whole ordeal.

The kid who stole my iPod and I had a few minutes of walking to the gym and back together, and another few minutes in the officer's office together alone, and I had no idea what to say, so I didn't say anything. I felt sorry for the kid. One part of me wanted to ask him why he did it, but I knew I wouldn't be happy with the response however he answered. I wonder what will go through this kid's mind tonight. Will he wonder what he can do better next time to not get caught? I wonder if his parents are going to beat his ass. All could have been prevented by me just locking the teacher's door like I do at nearly every other school. Sigh. But if it didn't happen today, the kid probably would have stolen from someone else, and maybe he wouldn't have gotten caught.

Photo Week 9: Softball and BBQ

2010-03-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

It hit 60 degrees on Saturday, and the pickup softball season has begun! Last year, this guy saw a slew of people on Craigslist looking for softball teams to play on, and decided to start a pickup game where everyone was welcome to play. It was a huge success, and one day last summer we fielded four entire teams and had a round-robin tournament on two fields. I'm not sure if the game will keep going through the rainy season, but I'm sure we'll try and find fields on sunny days like yesterday. Yesterday I was up to bat with two outs and the bases loaded... and had my best hit of the day, deep to left-center, but right to the left-center fielder, damn 4 outfielders in softball!

Since it was such a nice day yesterday, I threw together an impromptu BBQ, since it is my last weekend house-sitting at my parents' in Seattle. Marc, Tyler and their families came down and it was perfect. A big reason I made the move back to Seattle is to spend time with my family and friends, and to be a part of my friends' children's lives as they grow up.

Crazy Girl or Dream Girl?

2010-03-06T17:35:00.001-08:00

Last we left our hero, he had sworn off crazy dream girl as being crazy. He was confident in his solitude and smiled to himself that it was she who would be missing out, and not the other way around. But she has returned.

Chapter Two:

An apology letter arrived in his mailbox, with crazy dream girl apologizing for her silent treatment the past few weeks, citing that she didn't know what to do in that awkward situation. Knowing that the thing with her and my teammate had ended the week before, I was willing to give her another shot...

We talked earlier in the week about getting together, and settled on Wednesday for a walk around Greenlake. We would both already be in Seattle around 3pm, and the weather forecast looked nice. I hustle down to Seattle from subbing in Everett, texting her at 2:30pm, letting her know I should be in Seattle by 3pm and asking her where we should meet up. She gets back to me at 3:30pm, saying that she worked from home today and that her meeting had been rescheduled for next week. This pissed me off a bit, because she could have let me know earlier in the day so I didn't rush down to Seattle right after school. I end up spending the rest of the afternoon and evening rock climbing, playing racquetball and ultimate frisbee--so the night wasn't a waste, it just wasn't exactly where I wanted to be spending my time. As I'm rock climbing, she and I text back and forth about plans for Thursday night. She wants me to come out there, and I say sure, but she has to cook something up. She counters that I need to bring the wine.

Thursday rolls around, and I'm excited for the evening. I sub in Seattle and have a great day, kind of giddy for the evening and full of positive energy. I wait around in Seattle, waiting for her to get off work. She sends me a text around 6pm, saying that she is tired from work and wants to know if we can go out for dinner instead of her cooking. I had boughten a nice bottle of wine, and was looking forward to sharing it and having some nice, home-cooked food--but instead I drive over to her area and don't mention the wine.

I have some fun with her on my arrival. The only other time we had met up in that area, she suggested parking in a specific location, where she said there are always spots available. I decide to park in another location and see if I can surprise her. She bombards me with texts while I find parking, so I know she has already parked and is waiting for me to arrive before heading into the restaurant. I know the unique car she drives, so it is easy to spot. She wants to know where I am, and I joke about starting a scavenger hunt. Eventually she texts, "I want to look out of my car and see you." And I text, "Look left."

Dinner is great, conversation is great. We talk about all sorts of things. Life, work, relationships, the future--all that good stuff. The waitress brings us the bill and crazy dream girl says, "Oh, I guess she doesn't think we want another drink." We head over to the dive bar across the street and grab a pitcher of cheap beer and stake out the pool table. Two guys are playing, and I challenge the two of them to play her and I. One guy ends up leaving, and crazy dream girl recruits a young lady from the bar to play with the other guy against us.

I catch fire, knocking in four of our striped balls before accidentally knocking in two of their solids... oops... on my first time to the table. Next shot of ours, she also knocks in one of their balls, so she can't mock me too much after that. We end up winning when their guy knocks in the 8-ball out of turn when they've still got five balls on the table to our none. Crazy dream girl and I play a game afterwards, with driver to the cabin this weekend on the line. I'm cruising to victory when she starts distracting me from the pool game with kisses. She tells me I'm a pretty good kisser. I quickly get disinterested in the pool game and we call it a draw. An hour later 11:00pm rolls around, and we decide to call it a night, both having to work the next day, but plan on either going up to the cabin or getting out on a hike this weekend. I walk her back to her car and we say goodnight. When I get home I have three texts from her, saying she is trying to stay awake until I get home. I let her know I'm home, and she sends a picture-message of her and her dog cuddled in bed--cute and sexy.

Friday I sub back up in Everett, and I'm on cloud nine all day. It is a class I have subbed for many times before, and I get a really good breakthrough with two difficult boys that rarely ever do work. We are working on problems together, and it takes a lot of effort from me to focus most of my attention on these two kids, but also keep the rest of the class working, but I feel like my energy reserves are limitless, even on just 5 hours of sleep. Crazy dream girl and I didn't have any set plans yet, but we had talked about heading up to the cabin Friday afternoon/evening, and if we did that I wanted as early a start as possible. I let her know when I get done teaching, around 2:30pm. She gets back to me at 3:30pm, saying that she is going out to happy hour with her new VP and boss (she just got a promotion at work), and that she will let me know when she's done. I take this to mean she wants to hang out tonight.

6pm rolls around, and I get a call from Will, asking if I am heading to a birthday party down in Tacoma, and if he and his girlfriend can get a ride. I tell him the Tacoma party is my Plan B, and I'm pretty sure I'll be busy, but I tell him I will give him a call at 7pm and let him know if my plans have fallen through. I text crazy dream girl at 6:30pm and tell her I would like to hang out, but if she's got other plans I'm going down to Tacoma at 7pm. She gets back to me quickly, saying that she has just left happy hour and is heading home. I take this to mean that we'll be hanging out soon, so I text Will back, saying I won't be able to give him a ride. She texts me, letting me know when she gets home, but that is all she says. I give her 15 minutes, then wonder what is up for the evening. She says that she is tired, and thinks she's going to just stay in for the rest of the night.

This rattles me, because again I think she could have been much more clear earlier, instead of having me wait for five hours. In hindsight, maybe she was wanting to hang out and then changed her mind when she got home and felt tired, I don't know. I tell her it wasn't cool to keep me in the dark. I call Will back and see if he and his lady still want to go down to Tacoma, he says sure, and the three of us head down shortly thereafter. On the drive down, she texts me and says sorry, and that it wasn't her intention to leave me in the dark, but she couldn't turn down happy hour with her new VP and boss. I tell her I understand and would have done the same thing. I'm not mad that she had happy hour, I'm mad at the lack of communication--but I don't know if I ever get that point across. Again, a fun night, but not my first pick of who I want to be spending my time with.

I wake up Saturday and send her a text, wondering if she wants to BBQ tonight. A few hours later she gets back to me and says that I was pretty harsh last night. I apologize, although feel a little bit like a bitch, because I feel like my point is valid. A few hours later I text her again asking her if she wants to come over and BBQ. No response. Haven't heard from her since. Been here before.

The little romantic angel on my shoulder says "Fight for her!" but the little rational angel says "Don't be her bitch! She's treating you like shit!"

It really just comes down to communication, and I think I did a crappy job of both communicating and reading too much into what she was saying. I want to talk about it with her, but now she is ignoring me, and I'm not going to bother trying to call her if she has ignored me for the past few days. For a communications major, she kind of sucks at communicating. The second time being ignored isn't as bad as the first time, because I knew what I was getting into the second time around. If a fun night of pecking and pool is the only thing to come out of this second go around, I'm fine with that, but it isn't what I want.

I'm sad/mad because I want to be spending time with her and I'm not. I'm not sure she understands that, or if she cares. She's got the power to make me feel like a billion bucks, but also to feel terrible. I'm not sure if that is a good thing, or me just being a silly boy. Working on Friday was amazing though, and I had a huge smile on my face pretty much all day.

Vancouver: 2/28/2010

2010-03-01T16:31:00.000-08:00

The most amazing sporting event I've ever witnessed. Sums up my Sunday. I woke up Saturday morning with the bright idea of heading up to Vancouver either Saturday night or Sunday morning. I sent Schaubs an email, seeing if he was going to a pub to watch the game to meet up and he responded within the hour saying that he had family plans, but I had a place to stay if I came up Saturday night. Having never met him, that is a pretty cool and generous offering. Must be something in the water up in Canada, because everyone I met up there was nice. I ended up not needing the place to stay, because I got invited to a home game in Seattle Saturday night.

I left Seattle at 7:30am, trying to get up to Vancouver to find parking and a spot at a bar as quickly as possible for the 12:00pm game. I arrived in the city at 10am and spent about 30 minutes trying to find a free parking spot, which I miraculously came across less than a mile from downtown Vancouver.

10:30am was too late. Pubs had HUGE lines outside, and were already at or near capacity. Here is a photo of The Lennox Pub at 10:30am...

Just down the street from there is a wine and liquor store, again... 10:30am:

After walking around the city, looking for a pub and really just soaking up all the atmosphere, I find what looks like the best bet. I really want to experience the Olympic feel and excitement, and the only guarantee I have is the pre-game festivities. If USA wins the game the streets will be somber after the game. If Canada wins it will be unforgettable. So I root for Canada... actually, I also root for USA, the underdog. It is a win either way, really, and I'm just happy the two teams are playing in the finals.

I don't know the name of the pub (which sounds silly, and I didn't get any pictures of its name, which seems weird to me), but the line was only about 30 people deep, and I still had an hour before the game got started. Also, I could watch the game from the line if I didn't get inside in time, because they had TVs pointed out towards the patio. After waiting about 30 minutes, and watching the group of Canadians on the patio heckle any USA flag-wielders who walked by, the bald guy below showed up draped in a USA flag.

Every single other USA supporter laughed and shrugged off the Canadian hecklers, but this guy had a cowbell and balls of steel. He leaned over the railing of the patio and wrang his cowbell in their faces, shouting "USA! USA! USA!" for a good minute or two. I was scared for the guy's safety, but the Canadians didn't do anything. Bald guy called their bluff! It was all in good fun. About ten minutes before the game starts, the floor manager of the pub comes out and greets the crazy American guy, asks if he is alone, he says yes, and then the manager lets him skip the line and get in--I thought that was awesome, even if I got cut. As the Canadian national anthem is being played just before the start of game, the bouncer lets in everyone waiting in line.

The pub is completely packed, they have to be over capacity. There are no aisles for the waitresses to move through the crowd. Luckily, most of the pub is already drunk, so getting up to the bar for a pint is easy. The game itself is a blur. It is a great game, and I am starting to understand all of the intricacies of hockey, enough to appreciate the sport and the high level that this particular game is being played. The entire bar screams whenever Canada does anything good, so that helps me learn quickly. If Canada is a man down and they clear the puck, the entire bar shouts. If the camera pans to William Shatner or Michael J. Fox, the bar goes CRAZY.

The guys next to me are loving their spot. They have spoons and are clanging these hanging kegs every time something goes Canada's way. The entire game the pub is at a high energy, especially with Canada up 2-0. USA Scores to make the game 2-1. I'll be completely honest--before the game even started, I had a gut feeling that the game would go to a shootout. Even when the USA was down 2-1 with only a few minutes remaining, I did not think the game was over. The pub, on the other hand, started celebrating with about 10 minutes left to play on the clock, and the level of jubilation at any little thing Team Canada did positive was just insane. After every positive thing, it sounded like the team had won gold by the volume of the cheers. The first time I thought the USA might not make it to a shootout was when I snapped this shot:

The quality is terrible, but the photo sets the scene. 1:17 left to play in the 3rd period. 2-1 Canada. USA has an empty net. I have seen this tactic used quite often at the end of close hockey games, and although I'm sure it works occasionally, I have never actually seen the tactic work out for the empty net team. I think 90% of the time a team pulls its goalie, the empty net gets scored on. Here is when I thought Canada had the game in the bag.

And then the incredible happened. USA scored, and the entire pub fell silent. Oh. My. God.

Most patrons in the pub were feigning optimism during the 15-minute break between the end of regulation and the start of Overtime. "We've got this!" "Yeah." Without near the enthusiasm that they were spending on friggin' icing calls against USA five minutes earlier. People weren't sure how many overtimes there were, and if a shootout would happen after the overtimes or not. Most people thought the momentum would carry USA to victory.

And then Canada won.

And then the pub went ape-shit.

It was amazing.

I celebrated with the guys around me, then rushed outside to experience the streets as soon as possible. Shrike does a good job of describing the experience out on the streets on his blog, and I will try to do the scene justice, but I doubt I can put that experience properly into words. I was out on the streets way before Shrike, because he was actually at the game, so I got to see a lot of the build up, and also experienced the complete sardine-feel outside The Lennox Pub an hour after the game.

Easily the most happy people with smiles on their faces I have ever seen. The most high-fives I have ever seen. Strangers were high-fiving strangers, police were high-fiving strangers, I even saw a person high-five a bus-driver through the bus-driver's open window while he was stopped at a light. On the drive home I saw a car going 40mph on the bridge with a passenger high-fiving pedestrians... ouch! Easily the most car-honking I've ever heard.

My camera ran out of battery at the end of these photos, so I didn't get to capture the really good sardine experience, but here's an example of how many people there were. I took out my cell phone to snap some 20x10 photos in the middle of the bedlam. I held the phone above me and snapped a few pictures. It was so crowded I couldn't lower my arm and put the phone back into my pocket.

Photo Week 8: Self-photo

2010-02-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

This is mostly an insurance post, just in case I don't make it back in time tomorrow with pictures from Vancouver for the weekly photo challenge I've got going with Schaefer. It seems like he's abandoned his blog posting, which could be grounds for money being shipped my way... but he's kept up posting a photo a day on his Facebook, so I think I'll let it slide. On the other hand, my bankrolls on Full Tilt and Pokerstars *are* both getting dangerously low...

The Contemplative, Defecating Me

2010-02-25T19:08:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder what people in cars beside you are thinking? Ever wonder how much sheer brain power is happening within a mile of you? It kind of makes me think of The Matrix and how robots use energy from test-tube humans. A thought just popped into my head regarding which me is the real me. I know I'm a mix of all the mes... the happy ultimate frisbee playing and teaching me, the incredibly intelligent poker playing me, the idiotic drinking game me, the contemplative defecating me, the adventurous me, etc.

But there is something about being alone and by myself, usually when driving, running/biking, or falling asleep, that feels like the real me. I'm not influenced by anyone else, I don't have to put on a front, or try to entertain. I don't have to smile (a spooky side note, I was waiting for a light to change a few months ago and this woman in her 50s or 60s walked across the crosswalk with this incredibly large smile on her face, but the smile was so forced it was scary. I have no idea what possessed that woman to smile as she was walking down the street by herself, but I had this gut reaction that her smile was covering up something unhappy). When I'm in these "real me" situations, my brain is always going a mile a minute. I'm thinking about situations I'm in and all the different outcomes, which outcome I want, and how I might be able to get that by taking certain actions.

I wonder if the lady next to me in her SUV is just reciting her grocery list over and over again in her head, or if she, too, is tackling complex problems in her head.

Photo Week 7: Sunny Seattle Weekend

2010-02-21T21:30:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite days of the year is the first nice day of Spring. In Seattle, and I'm sure in other places around the globe that don't get much nice weather, the first nice day of Spring EVERYONE gets outside to bask in the sun's rays. It isn't quite Spring yet, but this weekend the thermometer nearly hit 60 degrees, and for February that is not normal.

At 6pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I was out on my parents' back porch watching the sun go down. Their view is amazing now that two or three 80-100ft trees got cut down last year, looking out at the Olympic mountains and downtown Seattle. The fact that I can be in a hot tub and sipping wine while watching the sun set is all the more reason to be out on the back porch.

Here are a few pics from the weekend. First, I'm shadow-feeding my cat. Second and third are a few pictures from Golden Gardens this afternoon before setting off on a moto ride with Jrad.

Photo Week 6: Ultimate Returns

2010-02-14T15:13:00.000-08:00

I've started playing ultimate again more regularly the past few weeks. Last Saturday and Sunday, and then again this Saturday and Sunday. There are a few fun tournaments coming up this Spring, and I hope to be both in shape and also get my throws back to normal.

Any Survivor Fans?

2010-02-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

Survivor on CBS is the only TV show (besides sports) I try to catch each week. I usually stick around to watch The Office and 30 Rock, but mostly because they are on right after Survivor.

Any of you bloggers also Survivor fans? Anyone want to get some bets in on the new season starting Thursday?

Here are a few bets I'm thinking of:

~~1) Will the winner be a villain or a hero? Push~~
2) Will the winner be a male or female? MHG: Male, Schaubs: Female
~~3) Which blonde will last the longest? Push~~ FAIL
~~4) Will the youngest make it to the merge? (Amanda) Push~~
~~5) Will the oldest make it to the merge? (Randy) Push~~
~~6) Who will be voted out first? Push~~
7) Will a male or female be voted out first? MHG Wins! (Female)
~~8) Who will win the most individual immunities? MHG: JT, Sch: Colby Push~~
9) What will the ratio of men to women be at the merge? MHG: 3:2, Sch: 50/50
10) What will the ratio of heroes to villains be at the merge? MHG: 2:1, Sch: 50/50
11) How many will leave the show without being voted off? MHG: zero, Sch: 1
12) Tiebreaker: Overall winner (or last longer) MHG: JT, Sch: Stephanie

Got anymore bets to add?

$5 into the pool, winner take all. One point for each correct answer, most points wins. Tiebreaker is pick one player and whichever player lasts longer is the winner?

The Notebook

2010-02-08T23:07:00.000-08:00

I finally saw The Notebook tonight. I've posted this YouTube link before a year or two ago on this blog, but after actually seeing the movie, this quick video is even more powerful.

Great movie on a lonely Monday night. I especially enjoyed the scenes where the couple contemplated their future, and that theme seemed to take up quite a bit of time in the movie. There are so many questions when two people fall in love, wondering if it will all work out. How do you truly know if someone loves you? Watching The Notebook makes me want to write a waiting to happen love story, because that is where I'm at right now. I've loved, I've liked for primarily physical reasons, I've stayed when the love was gone, and I've lost. Right now I'm searching and waiting. I could meet her anywhere.

It would be fun to write a story about where I'm at, and I'm sure where many other men and women find themselves as well. Wanting love, lusting for love, knowing it will happen sooner or later, but the longer we wait, the more impatient we become. It is sad to think about two people across the hall from each other, both looking for love, but neither wanting to take the first step. It is funny to think back to the times I've taken the first step and failed miserably. There is a pretty cute barista a friend of mine has the hots for, and I really hope one day he'll go up to her while she's working and ask her out to coffee... then smack his head and say "Stupid!" ala Chris Farley. I think that could get him a date.

In updated news, crazy dream girl is definitely crazy. She showed up to the super bowl party with her new boyfriend, which was a bit awkward, seeing how the last time we talked she was kissing me... then cut off communication. I tried to ignore her, but ended up being civil and joking it up with the two of them. After halftime, crazy dream girl came and sat down on the arm of the couch next to me and said she was sorry. Then she said her and her new boyfriend weren't dating, and that she would really like to get away with me sometime soon... so the guy she was calling "baby" all afternoon and kissing... she didn't consider herself dating... ??? I told her it would be fun to get outdoors, but that she is fucking psycho and although I'm sure the sex would be great, no thanks crazy bitch!

Photo Week 5: Purple Toe

2010-02-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

A) A poor toenail polish job
B) Got stomped on playing basketball
C) Won a kick-the-can game
D) Start of ski season (I love my boots)

Photo Week 4: Stevens and Golden Gardens

2010-01-30T19:18:00.001-08:00

Had a pretty crazy week where my head was in the clouds. I wrote a lot without publishing any of it, which is probably for the best. Getting out was a great distraction this week. I went up to Stevens Pass on Tuesday on a solo trek and was treated to a great view once atop Southern Cross. I hiked into the back country and found some quality snow, and also strapped on my snowboard for the first time this year and rode a few groomers before packing up and heading back to town.

Today, my dad and I visited Golden Gardens with the intention of snapping some photos. It was a typical grey day in Seattle, and I wasn't really sure what we would be taking pictures of. The ducks were out, so were the seagulls, and we even had a bald eagle visitor (and I don't mean my dad). I was just using a little point and shoot camera, but caught this pretty cool site of a seagull stretching out its wings.

Dilemma

2010-01-27T00:22:00.001-08:00

If you have a friend who is happy, very happy, and you have information that will make them unhappy, possibly very unhappy with you, do you tell them?

Weekend Happiness Graph

2010-01-24T19:44:00.000-08:00

Maybe not a direct correlation, but close.

Today Was A Good Day

2010-01-23T23:27:00.001-08:00

Woke up with absolutely no expectations and no plans for the day.

Went to sleep having kissed the girl of my dreams.

Photo Week 3: Liking this Challenge

2010-01-23T22:35:00.001-08:00

First picture comes from my MLK Jr. Day motorcycle ride. The day was gorgeous, and I couldn't have been happier to be out on the road.

I took Friday off and skied up at Stevens Pass with Ryan. We arrived at 8:30am, which is a record for me. We did a killer loop from 7th Heaven down to the Tye Mill chair, down the backside to the Southern Cross chair and down Big Chief Bowl and back to 7th Heaven. We did the loop three times and left around noon. On our last loop we randomly decided to hike up Cowboy Ridge, which is above 7th Heaven, and a hike neither of us had done before. We followed the ridge line past a few avalanche bombing posts used by ski patrol, and eventually found a way down inbounds and about 1k elevation of powder. Gonna hit that again!

Two Poems, and a brief history

2010-01-17T22:51:00.000-08:00

Blogging has covered a lot of different areas for me in the past seven years.

I have blogged to...
...try and make people laugh.
...journal and look back on later.
...practice my writing.
...socialize.
...have a creative outlet.

I have a slew of different blogs, most dormant for over a year. My range of blogs is one reason I keep my profile private. A private profile is a pain, because it really cuts down on the social aspect of blogging. The benefit is I don't have to worry about my education readers coming here and reading about lesbians in hot tubs and poker degeneracy, or reading any of my super cool WoW fan fiction.

One of my favorite side blogs is Fun With Words. It hadn't seen a post in a few months, and the posts usually come late at night. Looking at the stats... six posts in 2009, two posts in 2008, four in 2007... yeah, not the most active blog out there. The stuff I wrote in 2009 kind of ventured off track a bit, but I really enjoy the earlier posts. Here is one from December 2007:

Poop Poem

I go poop in the morning
when I awake,
kinda like a doggie,
going poop near a lake.
When I go poop
and have moist logs,
I tend to create,
real big clogs.
That's when I ask myself,
What have I ate?

Now, not even George Carlin would want to have to follow that poem. The bar is pretty high right now. So to disappoint, I will copy my most recent poem that I wrote tonight:

Spark

Stumble into love
Love like blue flames

Embers still hot,
But the fire is out
With no fire, no life

Cold and dark,
Until a spark appears
Out of nowhere
To light a new fire

I feel like this is a pretty good description of my relationships. Usually the spark represents a different relationship, but the spark can also re-ignite (and has) an existing relationship. In the past month I've met a handful of women who I think are quite amazing people. They are fun to hang out with, smart, sexy and nice. Without any action on their part, they've made it clear to me that it is just a matter of time until I find my match.

Photo Week 2: No $5 for Schaefer!

2010-01-17T11:10:00.001-08:00

Imported from Colorado, USA.

Weather

2010-01-10T15:53:00.001-08:00

The weather in Seattle this weekend was ridiculously nice. In fact, it was 10 degrees warmer here than in Miami this weekend! Got to love El Nino~ Of course the downside is my seasons pass at Stevens isn't getting much of a workout. The upside is I got to get out on the motorcycle today and zoom around the Everett area, waving to plenty of other motorcyclists out for a January ride.

I have a hankering to jet off to Hawaii for midwinter or spring break this year. I haven't been to a warm, sandy beach in a decade. I'm due!

I ain't no Mooner

2010-01-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! Bloggers can register for to play for free in the WBCOOP, if you don’t have a PokerStars account you can get your Poker Download here.

Registration code: 805279

I will gladly whore myself out for mobnies. I chose the big patch to up my chances in the main event, especially with all the side action from the SBCII.