Spilling the Beans (Juicy Mega-post)

My loyal readership (my mom) called me out for pulling a Schaefer (i.e. not posting for a while). The reason I have not posted since Feb. 18 is not due to lack of action in my life, in fact, quite the opposite. In honor of my poker playing brothers Cayne and Doc. Chako, I shall begin with bullet points. Since Feb. 18, I have:

--Started a relationship
--Fallen for someone else
--Hiked to Scenic Hot Springs (with a college friend I have not seen in five years)
--Played hookie and gone powder-day skiing
--Lost 4" of my hair
--Hosted a teaching cohort poker night
--Ended a relationship

All while taking six classes and teaching two days a week. Not much time to blog, and I've got a huge project due Tuesday that I should be starting now.

Let's begin at the top. This post roughly details how Erin and I met. It was spontaneous and magical, in a way. I had no expectations of anything happening when I invited her over to watch Survivor, heck, I was pretty sure she was still in a relationship. She wasn't, and I felt like a gift had just been dropped in my lap, and I went for it. Turns out she had a small crush on me, and fireworks ensued.

Then something weird happened. I've never been in a situation or relationship where when we are together, everything is nearly perfect, but when other people are around I can't stand her, or when we aren't together, I don't spend time thinking about her. She is almost my dream girl when it is just the two of us, but when other people are around, she reminds me way too much of Stacey. The personality traits that I like, are the same ones that I can't stand. Erin is opinionated and wears her heart on her sleeve, but she tends to piss a lot of people off. When we aren't together, I think of reasons why we aren't going to last, and why I should try and break the relationship off.

To spice things up, two days after Erin and I first hook up, I rode my motorcycle down to Georgetown to play pickup ultimate. I run into Wynne and Lora from the Tacoma team, who I haven't seen in months. Wynne is playing on Riot now, and another Riot woman, Surge, is there. We get to talking, and it turns out Surge was one of two people that rode up to Stevens with Michelle the day I first met Michelle skiing with Jeremy and Sam. I invited her to go skiing the next weekend and she turned me down. This was before Erin, and I was pretty sure Michelle wasn't interested. Talking with Surge and Wynne, apparently I was wrong.

Surge says, "Oh! You're the guy that could keep up skiing with Michelle, she was talking all about you on the drive home!"

This, two days after Erin and I hook up. God damn it. Wynne and Surge ask if I'm in a relationship, and I say, "Does two days count?" Wynne and Surge now are on a mission to hook Michelle and I up. Two hours after pickup that Saturday, I get a text from Michelle, wanting to know if I want to go skiing on President's Day. The day of skiing was an unexpectedly good day, and I actually got up to the mountain before Michelle left from Seattle. I found some good snow and let Michelle know that it was worth the drive. As soon as I texted her, I headed in for lunch and hammered out a homework assignment on my laptop, knowing we'd ski hard all afternoon. Productive and fun ski day, who'da thunk it?

So I'm seeing Erin, and loving the time we spend together, but when we're not together I'm thinking about Michelle. Other people in the teaching cohort are starting to gossip about Erin and I, and it is getting a bit weird. I'm not willing to jump into a relationship with Erin 100%, because of where my head is at when we're not together, and my indecision only stirs the rumor mill in the cohort, making things more awkward.

Last weekend, I get a bit of a reprieve from my whorish ways. Jenna and Andy, newlyweds from Beaver, WA, come over to the city. Shannon also comes up from Tacoma, and I have not seen her since graduation day, five years ago. Shannon, Jenna and I were dorm friends from the first semester of college. We went on December trips to Whistler, and a spring break ski trip to Colorado. It was great to see them again, and we played cards (we played a ton of cards in college) Friday night. Saturday, we hiked to Scenic Hot Springs, a hot springs that is private and apparently not open to the public. The hot springs actually has its own blog, and the latest blog entry at the time was that the hot springs are "running cold." That isn't what you want to hear when you've never been to the springs before, and will be spending the majority of your day driving and hiking to the springs.

We missed the forest service road our first drive by, and really had no clue how to get to the hot springs. Shannon had the brilliant idea of taking a digital photo of the google map before we left, so if we got lost we could always check the map on the camera. We checked the map a few times and knew a clear-cut for the big power lines were south of us, and that we needed to cross that clear-cut, so we started tromping through the snowy forest. Absolutely no trail to follow. We eventually find the road and footprints in the snow to follow up to the hot springs.

The hike was difficult. It was steep, and the trail was a combination of ice and powder. If you stuck to the footprints, you'd be on ice, but if you didn't use the foot prints, you'd have to hike up in a foot of powder, which makes hiking uphill a grunt. We were rewarded, though:



I snapped this photo on the way out. Jenna, Andy and Shannon are standing next to the hot springs, which is tucked into the snowy hillside. The hillside overlooks the Stevens Pass basin, and is really an incredible spot. When we got to the hot springs, there was a couple already there, who turned out to be two of the hot springs' caretakers. Randi and Matt were incredibly nice people, and they gave us the lowdown on the hot springs rules, and how as long as people are respectful of the hot springs (i.e. follow the rules and pack their garbage out), they are welcome.

We make it back to Seattle and pretty much just crash. I think we went out to the Duchess for dinner, but we ended up hitting the post UW basketball crowd of dooshes. Eventually they left, and we got to play some shuffleboard, which Andy and I dominated. We walked home, Shannon left for Tacoma, and Jenna, Andy and I watched "The World is Not Enough" on whatever station plays Bond movies all the time (TBS?). Andy and Jenna left the next morning after walking up to a cafe for breakfast. It turns out that Shannon is pretty big into rock climbing and mountaineering with her boyfriend, and they have a ton of random gear (including two spear-fishing poles?!), so hopefully I can get up rock climbing with them this spring and summer.

Reprieve from soap-opera life aside, Michelle invited me to go skiing Thursday. The problem with skiing on Thursdays is that I am supposed to teach a class of 4th graders on Thursdays. But... but!! the snow report says a foot of powder. What do you do? What DO you do? I chose to ski. I concocted a ridiculous scheme to get out of school Thursday, which included scratching my back non-stop through our Wednesday teacher after-school meeting. Steve was sitting right beside me, and eventually says, "Chris, you're scratching like crazy, you alright?" Thanks for picking up on the bait, fishy! "Oh yeah, I'm fine, just itches like crazy." At 7pm I give Steve a call on his cell phone and say, "Steve, it turns out that itch is a big rash! I haven't had a rash since I was 12 and had an allergic reaction to penecillin. The rash has spread up the side of my neck and I'm going to see the doctor tomorrow at 10am."

Funny how the little white lies spin completely out of control for me. Then, of course, it snows 2-4 inches in Seattle and school gets put on a two-hours late schedule, and I probably could have just skipped without repercussion, anyways. I feel bad about lying, and while Michelle and I were riding the chairlift, I wonder out loud how long it will take until I tell Steve about my rash story. I think once I've been teaching for a few years I'll have to track him down and let him know.

Skiing Thursday was unbelievable. Michelle and I got to the mountain right as it opened, and there were a dozen cars before us in the B lot. I usually park in the F lot. We had a foot of fresh powder all day long, and I had numerous turns in snow up to my knees. We hit the mountain hard in the morning, starting on Double Diamond, hitting the back side, Schim's Meadows, and the cliffs off 7th Heaven. We popped in for lunch, spent, and drank a beer and ate a slice of pizza. After a leisurely 45 minute lunch, we head back out and decide to do some hiking in the back country.

We take our skis off and start hiking the ridge on the back side. We pass a guy in his 40s on the ridge, who catches back up to us at the ski area boundary. Michelle asks where he is headed, and he says there is a really good section of trees just outside the ski boundary, but warns us that we have to cut over after about 1k vertical feet, or else we'll have a long hike back to the ski lift. After hiking the ridge for five minutes, a long hike at the bottom of the run is not what we're looking to do, so we ask if we can follow him. He obliges and introduces himself, his name is "Wolf."

The glades section is perfect. Untouched powder, trees 10ft apart--I couldn't have asked for a better run. The three of us end up doing the hike and tree run a second time before Wolf and us part ways. Michelle and I do a non-hiking run on the backside, then drop into Tye Bowl from the backside for the second time on the day. I had never dropped in from the backside before, and you have two options: a skinny, steep chute, or an easier tree section out to the right. In the morning, we did the easy way, but for the last run of the day, I decided to try the chute. There are a few rocks sticking up here and there, but it looks doable.

I jump-turn into the chute, and on my entry I clip the side of the chute with my ski tip and lose a ski. I tumble uncontrollably down the 50ft chute, losing both of my skis. When I come to a stop, one ski is with me, and the other is about half-way up the chute. Looking back up the chute I see that I've just tumbled over rocks and a little 3-5ft cliff. I didn't feel a thing on the way down, all I could think is, "shit! shit! shit! I have no health insurance!" When I came to a stop and still had control over my limbs, I was happy. Stupid and happy. Michelle was able to ski around the easy way and knock my ski down to me from the middle of the chute.

Before heading back to Seattle, we had another beer and some curly fries to complete an amazing day of skiing. We drive back to Seattle and even though she didn't bring a suit, we decide to hot tub at my place to make the ski day perfect. As we're drinking our beers and soaking in the hot tub, she lets me in on a little secret. Her family has owned the Denver Broncos for the past 20 years. !!! The first thing that pops into my head is the Simpsons episode where Hank Scorpio buys the Denver Broncos for Homer, and Homer groans as the players out on his front lawn bumble and stumble around. Apparently Michelle's grandfather founded Regent Oil, one of Canada's biggest oil companies, then bought the Broncos and when he passed away, the shares were split between his sons. Michelle's dad just sold his shares of the franchise to her uncle, who is apparently not the nicest guy in the world (and he's the guy that fired Mike Shannahan on New Years Eve, which was seen as a good, but kinda ruthless move).

An hour after Michelle leaves, Erin comes over and we hop in the hot tub. I've got one dream girl as a friend (Michelle), and I'm with another person who is a dream to be around, but I just don't see us working out long term. I'm confused to high hell. Saturday I head over to Andrew's parents house for my semi-annual hair cut. We talk a bit about the whole situation and Karen's advice is to be as truthful as possible. I agree, especially after the little white lie snowballed into a flesh-eating rash to get me out skiing on Thursday. When the haircut is done, there is enough hair on the floor to create a wig, so we take a picture that will be sent down to my dad in Arizona, who may or may not have a dime-sized bald spot.

Last night, I have a few people from the teaching cohort over for poker, including Erin. We have a really fun time. Erin gets knocked out first, and storms off, hating poker. I get knocked out second when I think I have the nuts with a flush on a paired board... Erin and I play some Wii tennis and baseball. I own her at both, and she is not happy. We go out back on the porch and talk, and she wants me to let her win at games. I tell her I'm not going to, because letting her win by playing down to her seems more insulting to me.

After poker, we play some drinking games, including 21, liar's dice, and asshole. I almost win my poker buy-in back by winning the $1 liar's dice game. Easy money with kindergarten teachers, they don't know math!

Eventually everyone but Erin leaves, and we head to bed. We talk, and completely open up about our relationship. She sheds tears about not being able to open up to me, and I talk about the weird and confusing struggle I'm having. I tell her that I really like the time we spend together, but for some reason when we're not together I think of reasons why we're not going to work out, and that seems weird to me. I feel like I should be head-over-heels for her, but I'm not. I tell her I can't give her 100% of myself, because I honestly don't know what I want. I don't want her to be in limbo, because being in limbo is worse than breaking up.

She likes me and hates me at the same time for being honest. We both think this is a conversation most couples have months or years down the road, and we're having it on our third week together.

And here I am, 12:30pm on Sunday. Still confused, but happy that I have told the truth and gotten things off my chest. Paper time, then another group of friends over for hot tubbing and Catan.

Whew.

The Post to End All Posts.

I've got to preface this post by saying I started writing this post at noon, while I was at work, through my email. I can't post from work, and I had plenty of things buzzing around in my head, so I started to write. I also suffered through The Wife's entire post about shoes. Why did I keep reading? I have no clue, but it was an inspiration for me to create this behemoth of a post. I dare anyone to read all the way through. I really doubt anyone will, because I bounce from World of Warcraft, to poker, to friends to bitching about poker, to a LIVE (then) REPORT at the Kat-less Donkament, to bitching about my play. It is truly a treat to read, I'm sure. There is so much rambling you won't possibly want to continue on, but that might just be where you surprise me. Good luck, god speed, and grab a pint of beer or a glass of wine and...

Hold onto your freaking hats. This is the big one.

I visited Tyler and Renee last night after work to check out their new Honda Fit. A new car is pretty exciting for anyone, but what makes it crazy for me is that Tyler was the one friend I had who wasn't chomping at the bit to get his driver's license when he turned 16. He didn't get his learner's permit until, well... last week! And he's driving around a new car. There is something awfully dangerous/risky about that to me. But, he and Renee are going to start a family, and having a vehicle (along with two drivers) is something that they understandably want to have.

It turned out to be a WoW raid night for Tyler, and his guild is trying the new final dungeon of the game. It was neat to spectate, but as you can probably imagine, it got boring after watching them wipe on the same boss a few times. The boss fight was pretty awesome though. I haven't done too much raiding in my MMORPG life, but the little I did in EQ, we pretty much had 40-50 people that all zerged a big dragon and tried to do as much damage and as much healing as possible and pray to God that we lived and the dragon died. On certain dragons or giants we had a little bit more strategy, but it basically boiled down to: kill the big thing, grab the loot.

The boss Tyler's guild was fighting last night, the first boss of the final dungeon, was... hmm... nuts. It is a huge water elemental. Think Neptune, the God of the Sea, but in water elemental form instead of human form. Or how about Ariel's dad from The Little Mermaid, but again, in water form. Big dude, big trident--you get the picture.

Or, if not:



Things have changed a bit since I last raided...



...and instead of just having one general strategy for each boss and giving it a minor tweak (hmm, fire boss, lets wear our fire resistance gear instead of water resistance gear--novel idea!), the bosses nowadays are insane. They poop out little guys every now and then, maybe there are four different bosses you have to fight at one time--it is just much more complex... and of course there is the 25-person cap as well. No more just finding everyone capable and storming in and slaying the dragon. Strategy and having capable players is the name of the game now. The unique thing about this water elemental boss is that he throws his spear every minute of the fight. When I heard that, I thought, 'cool, throws his spear, does some damage, good times.'

Sadly, no. Not good times. His spear sticks into whichever random person he throws it at, eventually killing them unless another person close by pulls it out of the unlucky impaled fool.

While the guild is running around trying to figure out who's been stuck with the spear, the boss puts up an invulnerable water shield which heals him quickly. How do you break the shield? Guesses? That's right, throwing the spear back at him. So whoever pulls out the spear from their friend, has to quickly throw it at the boss and break his shield. To add even more complexity, whenever the spear breaks his water bubble, it does a HUGE amount of damage to anyone near the bubble. The fight looks like a lot of fun, but it would be about as aggravating as Hoy's work situation. One teeny-tiny mistake by any of the 25 raiders and they wipe and start over again.

I knew what I was getting into before they began wiping on the boss, so I loaded up Full Tilt on Renee's computer and fired up two single-table SNG's, in attempt to fix my post-bubble blunders from the day before. Quite the opposite of the day before's huge chip leads and early exits, the two games I played last night played out in a much more familiar fashion. In both games, I hovered around the starting stack until we lost a few people, playing tight, but not really getting any cards. No suckouts, just solid play and snapping off a few continuation bets that seemed fishy.

I was the short stack heading into 5 handed play in one, and in the other I was one of two chip leaders, at around 4k. The day before, I made the mistake of trying to run over the table. I got trapped and decimated. This time, I decided to pick spots that were advantageous to me, as opposed to trying to force the issue. It worked out well, and I ended up getting heads up in both SNGs. In one, I held an 11k-2.5k lead, and in the other I had a similar deficit to overcome. I finished second in the one I was behind, pushing 99 into JJ preflop. In the heads up game I was ahead in, my opponent scratched and clawed his way nearly back to even, but both times he got close, I pulled off HUGE bluffs to regain a big chip lead. He was playing aggressive, but wasn't willing to go to war without the best hand. Heads up, I was playing passively, with sporadic surges of aggressiveness. I think this gave my bets a little more pop to them, because my opponent "knew" that he could fold, keep up the aggression and win those chips back. I didn't go all-in every hand, and folded plenty often, so when my tight, passive image helped me steal the big hands.

I think the general rule for a lot of us bloggers is to ramp up the aggression as the field dwindles, especially in SNGs. But I'm starting to realize that as my knowledge of tournament and SNG structure increases, if I keep a tight and somewhat passive image, my steals and re-steals gain more respect. In a meta-sense, I think the tight, aggressive approach is the way to go in tournament poker, but I like mixing it up and playing one level higher. They think I'm playing passively, and I am, but I know they are thinking this. I have far from mastered playing this way (oh, so far, as you will read soon...), but by playing passively for a few orbits, an intelligent player will have to change his game to take advantage of my passiveness. If that player's normal game isn't that aggressive, when I start to push back, they aren't really sure what to do.

I'll stop there, lest this turn into some sort of poker strategy post. That isn't what I'm all about. I don't want you guys getting any better than you already are, especially you damn Seattle bloggers. You know who you are. Steal my money once, shame on you. Steal my money twice? Never! Is Cayne going to throw another home game, or do you think we can throw together a little surprise or non-surprise welcome home Seattle blogger game for Dr. Chako at his place, using his liqour and his food? Ah, what a welcome home!

After finishing 1st and 2nd in my two SNG's last night, glad I shored up my leaky short-handed SNG problem, I bounced from Tyler's house and headed home. The cats needed feeding, and I needed to get some math homework under my belt. When it comes to math homework, I've got a very good attitude about getting it done, I'm just terrible at following through. When I left Tyler's house, I thought, 'I'm going to go home, sit down at the table and work on math for an hour!' What do I do? Get home, feed the cats, check the internets, eat, watch Survivor, and THEN do 30 minutes of math between Survivor and a WSOP rerun. I planned to get back to the math, like the good student I pretend to be, but I got side-tracked by Jessica being online at the same time as me for the first time since I found her on Facebook two weeks ago.

She's got some nice pictures up on facebook:



I've brought my prop-bet degeneracy to renewed friendship already. Seeing how she is coming down to Seattle next month to visit her co-ed sister for spring break, it makes perfect sense to get a few games of scrabble in, to win some free booze off of her. Our first game of scrabble was for a pitcher of beer, which I won handily. She claims that she didn't know the different color tiles mean different point values. I find it hard to believe that anyone doesn't know that there are triple letter, double word scores and the like, but she is kicking my ass in the second game with this knowledge, so... shit. We're playing winner gets to decide the next game, but she sneakily started up a second game of scrabble before the first was over. I didn't buckle though, and since we were online at the same time yesterday, I requested her presence at the Naval Command table.

It was getting late, so I brought the laptop upstairs and got under the covers for some long-distance, platonic, electronic--snuggling.

Yes, Naval Command.



You may remember it better as Battleship, but we all know that would be copy-right infringement, and Yahoo would never do that! She said she hadn't played Battleship since she was 9. I think she was trying to rattle me. And rattle me she did. This game was for a bottle of wine (no re-occurring theme, just a coincidence...), and she hopped out to an early lead, sinking my battleship and one of my 3-length ships. I literally missed my first 15 shots, and in my mind I was already trying to figure out which bottle of wine to steal from my parents' wine cellar, I mean.. which bottle of wine to purchase at the store with my hard-earned money.

But I came ROARING back. We were tied at three ships remaining, then tied at two ships left, and slowly but surely we were both down to our final vessels. Each of us only had our little two-slot boat left. The hardest boat to find. I was criss-crossing the entire map, and at one point while she was off making toast, I counted that there were only six more possible spots for her boat to be. The map was completely blasted to smithereens. And then...

BOOM! Found it! She never did find my sneaky little boat, although she did completely surround it with misses (which I think is probably just as hard to do, so kudos to you, Jessica, kudos).

I've got a pitcher of beer and a bottle of wine coming my way the next time we meet (to be shared, of course), and now I've got to think of a game that she might stand a chance at. I'm having a hard time, chinese checkers, maybe? Or.. ooo! Mastermind! If I can find that, oh... it is on.

The last three hours at work, I couldn't get the song from this video out of my head:



There is a magazine sitting on the table in the break room with Uma Thurman on the cover, and Emily Haines from Metric (and the video), I think is a dead ringer for Uma.

I had to make up four hours at work because of not feeling well on Monday, and I was in an inner-struggle between staying and working really late tonight, or working until about 6pm and making up an hour on Monday. I chose the latter, and a big reason why is because I wanted to play in Kat's Donkament... even though most of the crew is partying hard at Eh-Vegas in Toronto as I type this. Kat, Irongirl, CK, Al, BamBam, Astin--oh, it has got to be an amazing time.

But, I had a problem. I stayed at work too long. I hadn't pre-registered, and I was going to have to rush home in order to register by 6pm. As I was leaving the office (and they were expecting me to stay until 6pm...), I saw that the freeway was standing completely still. Roger, I'll have to take the side streets. Which takes longer, but I might be able to make it.

I was making good time, too. I ran a yellow light on 85th, that would have had me stopped for a good five minutes if I had missed it--and I was zooming... until...

The dreaded four-way stop of doom. Oh. My. God, the line was backed up all the way to the freeway--I'm talking a line of 50 cars, two deep, waiting for a four-way stop, without a light. I resigned myself to an unplanned evening at home, with nothing to do. Until!!!

I whipped out my... cell phone, and called Tyler and Renee. I had five minutes to make it home to register, and it wasn't going to happen, but I remembered that I had just installed it on Renee's computer the night before. It was a bit of a long shot, but they were home, and not using the computer, so she was so very kind enough to register me in, with one minute to spare after a very confusing list of directions and instructions on how to find and register for the tournament.

Click the tournaments tab, then private. OK, now what? Now you've got to sort the tournaments by date, or hmm, maybe status? You're looking for a $1 + $1 tournament, with probably around 15-20 people. The info should mention donkament or poker kat. Hmm, I don't see it. (Crap!) No wait, there it is. How do I know this is the right one? Open the lobby, maybe you can list off some names already registered. How do I do that? OK, got it. Um... swimmom, hozyahoo, surfwalman? (Hooooo boy!!!) That's the one! Register me, please! It is asking for a password. (double-crap!) Try donkament, no wait, donkarama. Can you spell that? D O N K A R A M A. Alright, it worked. Yay! Yay! Hey, the tournament just started! Woooot!

Thanks again Renee, you rock. Five minutes later, I make it home and greet the table with a big HELLOOOOO. Dontknow, who I got down to heads up with a few weeks ago, was directly to my left, and to his left was Gadzooks, a very fun and witty blogger I met while donking off all my money at the MGM Grand mixed games. I'm sure my money is always welcome in any of her home games, much like with any of the Seattle area bloggers I met a couple of weekends ago. Again, I'm hoping this isn't a trend. People being friendly to you in the poker world isn't usually a good thing...

And then, I decided to start blogging the damn thing. I knew I had this post going from work, so what the hell, why not make it a ginormous post that no one will ever read? Hey!! Sounds good to me!!!

---

Nothing Going my way, Cayne at 16k.

A7 nearly back-to-back to chip up to 10k with 3 minutes left in the rebuy--perfect.

Stealing from tight people, paradise. All is right, AJ holding up, hammers flying. folded to my bb every time, steals a plenty.

---

OK, OK, it was some pretty terrible "live-blogging," so I'll try and add some meat to it. We started the tourney with 17 or 18 runners, perfect for two tables of blonkament action. I noticed some familiar faces, including Gadzooks64 and Dontknow to my left, and it looked like a circus on the other table with Hoyazo, Sirfwalgman, pushmonkey72 and a couple other cats.

The stars were aligned, the moon was fresh off a vernal equinox, and blogger hands were hitting like Bobby Brown. For the entire first hour, I didn't see a hammer lose, and I didn't see JackAce fall. Not once. It might have happened, and I struck it from my memory, but it was just amazing. JackAce against Hoy's Kings? Sorry Hoy! Hammer against Aces and KQh? Boom, flopped two pair for the hammer bros.

For almost the entire first hour, I never got my starting stack above 5k chips, and fell victim to the JackAce and hammer, but I was loving it. That is why I wrote "Cayne at 16k," because damnit, I had chip envy. That all changed with about three minutes left in the rebuy period. I had to get some chips, along with a few other short stacks at my table, and I ended up going to war with As7c. I think I was actually the favorite, over Q9o and 76o, and even more surprisingly, my hand held up. That popped me to 6k with a couple minutes left. Less than an orbit later, I've got two all-ins in front of me, each with their starting 2k stacks, looking to get lucky. I'm more than ready to fold, but I look down to see...

God damnit... As7c again. I pretty much have to call, don't I? The hand that just won me all those chips? It won't fail me now, will it?? Boom, pretty much double-up again, and I'm sitting pretty with 10k chips at the end of rebuy. That is how it is done!

After the rebuy period, I was in quite possibly the best table situation I have ever been in. I had Dontknow and Gadzooks to my left, both with larger stacks than me, and both playing very tight. Then I had three short stacks to my right, who didn't want to go home. The short stacks did a good job of stealing blinds, but they really only went after Gadzooks and Dontknow's blinds. It was amazing. It literally had me thinking of paradise in the form of poker nirvana. Much like my heads up match against Dontknow, I felt like I had virtually no risk, and I was steadily chipping up my stack. 11k... 12k... 15k... 18k, and then sadly we got to the final table. And here was the motley crew:

Seat 1, Jmathewson_III
Seat 2, BloodyP
Seat 3, Mrboatdrinks
Seat 4, Dino_burger
Seat 5: HERO
Seat 6: Pushmoney72
Seat 7: DontKnow
Seat 8: GadZOOKS64
Seat 9: ElSnarfGrande

Mr. Boat drinker got knocked out on the first hand of final tabledom, by I think Gadzooks in a race.

PushMonkey's TT fell to BloodP's AQs all-in pre flop with a god-awful Q on the river.

DontKnow fell in 7th place in a battle of the blinds. My T7 from the SB hit the 764 flop, and I check-called a pot-sized bet. The turn brought another 7, and I check-raised DK all-in and he called off with A6, drawing dead.

Chip stacks:
1) BloodyP: 48k
2) HERO 32k
3) gadZOOKs 20k
4) JMath 16k
5) Snarf 6k
6) Dino 3k

And we stayed at six. For a very... loonngg... ... ... time... short stacks won every showdown, but for the most part, we just never saw a flop. As one of the larger stacks, I really should have been more aggressive, but I was getting shit for cards and waiting for people to knock each other out. Dino made a massive comeback, and was the bane of my existance. He stole my blind, and I just didn't have the balls to pop him back with air. He started min-raising my blind and I'll call that every time, in position, but I didn't hit a single flop, and only bluffed him off the flop once. I was finally ready to make a stand, when I flopped top pair on a king-high board. I knew he would keep betting at the pot, so I called his flop bet hoping to get him all-in on the turn... and then the turn came the mother-fucking Ace of spades. The perfect scare card to bet at, and I had no information on whether or not he had an ace, because he had bet the whole way. His stack wasn't large, so he pushed all-in and I was still in 2nd place, so I folded for a better spot.

It was so frustrating being healthy on chips for the last hour of play, because I never had an easy decision, and I always fell back on "well, I'm still healthy if I fold here. And fold I did. It was fucking pathetic. I went from the table captain to the table chump. The hand that appitimized it was another blind v. blind battle with Dino:

A9 in the BB, folded around to dino in the SB--been stealing my blinds all night.

Call the minraise.

Flop is A76 rainbow.

He bets 3k into a 4+k pot, I call, intending to trap.

Js on the turn, 6k bet into 10k pot, called--knowing he'll bet the river, regardless.

River is Ks, filling the flush and straight draws. Son of a bitch. Worst card in the deck for me. All of the crap he might have been semi-bluffing with just may have hit.

Dino goes all-in, I let time run out and fold--finally decide to fold because folding still leaves me as 2nd highest stack. Weak. Dino claims to have had TT, doubt it.

I really... REALLY wanted to call on the river, but I was playing so greedily, and with such a desire to take his entire stack, that I was blind to how poorly I played this hand. This type of fancy play crap I am terrible at, and I think it is best served in cash games. In tournaments you are trying to preserve your stack, and by letting all those weaker hands catch up, I simply played this hand terribly.

That hand spelled the beginning of my demise, and instead of realizing how poorly I played the hand at the time, I was steaming with the injustice of it all. How dare he catch up, how dare that ace fall on the turn in the prior hand. Gah!! I knew I was steaming, so I paid less attention to poker, and more attention to the entertaining TV shows.

Price is Right is on TV... at night... with Drew Carey as the host. Something is terribly wrong. Bob Barker is supposed to be there, this isn't right! Hey! What was that? Was that a contestant-row bid of 3201?! When the next highest bid was 3200?? You dog! I'm hooked! Plinko!!!!!! WWOOOOO!!!

First throw: ZERO
2nd: 500
3rd: 1000
4th: ZERO
5th: 100

Booo...

What else is on? 1v100, eh? Bob Saget? There is a lot of shouting, that is annoying. Oh, I guess she just walked away with $250,000... I see... go on...

1v mob of 100, ok.

alright, so the contestant has to get the right answer, if he does, then you find out how many of the 100 got the answer wrong. 2 people thought Dolly Parton's theme-park is called Magic Mountains... lolz

Poker update: still at 6:
1) BloodyP: 42k
2) HERO: 32k
3) Dino: 18k
4) ZOOKS: 18k
5) JMath: 13k
6) Snarf: 2k

LOL, must watch Amnesia, the show that is coming up next. Pilot episode, asking questions about contestants lives. "What is the name of the club you almost burned down?" nice!

Back to price is right. 1v100 is just a glorified Millionaire, or am I missing something?

God Damn, it has been almost an hour since we last knocked someone out. The shorties keep winning the races. Zooks just ended up with a boat with KJs over 44 aipf. Gooo horse! Speaking of horse, we made an MS-Paint ... wait, this just in...

CHIP LEAD!!

back to regularly scheduled program

...Zooks and I made an MS-Paint bet when we had just entered the non-rebuy period. We picked horses, I chose her and Dontknow, and she chose me and Cayne. The bet is an MS-Paint illustration on the loser's blog, of the winner of the bet in all his or her glory. Zooks didn't quite understand the bet, but more to that later.

Woots, JMath out in 6th, my 44 out-raced his AK, up to 45k.

*here is where A-9 god-awful hand with Dino happened*

WOOOP WOOOP WOOOP Double showcase winner! $1million, OMG!

That had to be staged. His freaking bet was $83,844 and the ACTUAL RETAIL PRICE was $84,685. Of course, the girl's bet was only $1,000 off, to add to the drama. I'm not buying it.

Amnesia is starting, and I like it. I wouldn't be able to answer half of the questions, nor would I want all my dirty little secrets to be aired to millions of people.

I continue to fold, and get crap for hands. I really dislike it when people complain about "not getting good cards" in poker, because really, it shouldn't matter. And I can see how that might be a big downfall to my weak/passive theory from earlier. I NEED good cards, or a good flop in order to beat someone. The whole game is trapping someone. Getting them to think that they can bet at you and you WILL fold. I had a trap baited for Dino for about the last 45 minutes, and it was so frustrating to not be able to spring the trap.

Dino eventually gave all his chips to Zooks, but by that time my stack had dwindled so far to put me as the short stack. I got so short that I had to push soon, and I just wasn't getting anything to push with. I got down to about 6k in chips and found A8, with a BloodyP raise in front of me, and had to go with it. He flipped 77 and we were racing. Ace on the flop, 8 on the turn, and the fucking devil-incarnate 7 on the river.

To make the sting that much better, I bubbled, with no one to blame but myself. Oh how it hurt. I played so God-DAMNED bad that last hour. What the hell was I doing watching TV and folding, oy vey.

I suck so much at poker. I couldn't help but compile some stats of my last 50 hands of the tournament:

Folds: 45 losses
Wins:

2: folded to me in the BB
1: limp then check-down win on the river
1: Won the blinds with Jacks preflop
2: win the pot preflop by raising in the SB on Gadzooks' blind

I didn't win a single pot bigger than two BB's, and I didn't force anyone else to showdown that entire time. It was fucking pathetic, I was a punching bag.

But, as much as it sucked to end the night that way, Gadzooks put up her MS Paint image, and that got me smiling again :)



It has been twelve hours since I started this post, and it is about time to wrap it up. No picture from me this time Zooks, I thought about it, and decided that you've got to earn it by winning the bet--not by winning the god damn poker tournament! Congrats :)

Discovery: 2007, A Year in Review

There are plenty of different words I could use to describe my 2007, but I think the one that best sums it up is discovery. I lived in Nevada City, CA with Kristina in January and February. I lived in Zephyr Cove, NV from March to August, and worked part-time in South Lake Tahoe, CA. Then I moved back to my hometown, Seattle, WA, and coached for the first time as a JV tennis coach at my old high school, from September to late October. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up the "ski bum" lifestyle for much longer (even though I only skied twice), which was a big factor in my move back to Seattle.

My big goal going into 2007 was to give myself enough free time to ignite some spark under my feet, and figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Working and making a lot of money was at the bottom of my list this year, and I think by having a lot of time to myself this year, I was finally able to figure out what I want to do, instead of what I thought other people would like, or what would make other people happy.

I don't think I will do a great job of explaining all of the changes that have occurred in me over the past year, but I can safely say that I've changed quite a bit. It might not be noticeable, but I've realized a lot of things about myself, and I'm much more comfortable in my own skin now than I have ever been. I can look back on different periods of my life and laugh at how immature, shy, posh, angry, or just downright mean I was. I wouldn't do much differently, knowing what I knew at the time, but seeing the changes over the years and the growth as a person I've undergone has been a fun experience. In 2008, I hope to continue to grow, both as a maturing adult, a student, and a teacher.

2007 brought me many great memories, and I'll start from the beginning:

January-February 2007:

2007 started out with a bang. In fact, 2007 really started back in October of 2006 for me, because that is when Stacey and I broke up, and I started thinking about a possible move down to the Tahoe/Grass Valley area. Once Stacey and I parted ways after going out for about 2 1/2 years, I really wanted to live in Tahoe, but I just couldn't afford it. I checked Craigslist a few times and the cheapest deal I could find was $500 renting out a single room in a crappy house with complete strangers. Given that option or living in Seattle with friends and family close by, Seattle seemed like the best option.

I almost resigned to staying up in Seattle and possibly moving in with Marc and Sarah or Tyler and Renee, if they would have me. Kristina then suggested that I could stay with her in Nevada City for either an extended amount of time, or until I found a place in Tahoe, and at a much cheaper rent... score! Stacey and I drove down a couple days before New Years, a trip we had planned before we broke up, and we split on good terms, so it made sense to make the trip again--especially since I was driving down anyways.

During the entirety of January and February, I think I only posted four different times on my blog. During January I didn't have internet at Kristina's house, and during February I wasn't all that excited to blog. I was in an amazing place--a cabin out in the woods, with all the free time in the world. With Kristina, who is a gorgeous, intelligent, ultimate frisbee playing dream girl--in a house she owned and grew up in that has a broken solar panel roof, a solarium with a hot tub, and five acres for her dog and three cats to frolic in.

Nearly every day Kristina and I would take Raffle and Hope out for a walk. Some days it was just down to the ditch, other days we took a drive and walked one of the thousand trails with the dogs. One Sunday morning we woke up at 7am and jogged with the dogs down at "the ditch" in the 27 degree weather. THAT was an experience!

During the end of my two-month stay in Nevada City, we finally got a big snow storm. We spent an entire day shoveling out her 300-yard driveway, to try and get her Yaris up the hill for the following school week.

Nevada City was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but I just couldn't see myself staying in Nevada City and finding anything worthwhile to do job-wise with my resume at the time. In mid-February, as my funds were starting to dwindle, I started another Craigslist search in the Tahoe area. The third ad I came across was two 20-year old ladies looking for a few more people to share a house with in Zephyr Cove. I got in contact with one of the girl's named Kristara, and told her I'd be in Tahoe that Tuesday.

DTran invited me to Squaw Valley that weekend for Google's annual ski trip. Google takes over the mountain during a Monday and Tuesday in February, and just goes nuts. Free hi-speed wireless that they set up in the hotel (In a room which usually runs $200/night). DTran and I played Vanguard from our Queen-sized beds, then hopped on the ski slopes, then partied it up at one of the Google Parties (which are pretty sweet).

The next day we went over to South Lake Tahoe to gamble it up, and meet Kristara. I was so timid that after playing phone tag with Kristara, I actually left a message saying, "Oh, if we don't meet up it is alright." I didn't really want to leave Nevada City, but the idea of living in Tahoe with two 20-year old ladies and having a crazy summer seemed too good to at least check out. Kristara called me back and said, "Are you sure you don't want to just meet up and check the place out?" I eventually buckled (as David and I were getting killed at the tables and needed a break).

We met up with Kristara in Zephyr Cove, a place I had actually been to a couple times before. Scott and Jess got married there, and although I wasn't present for the wedding, Stacey and I had visited a few times when we lived in Sacramento. The house I met Kristara at was amazing. I was expecting a run-of-the-mill condo or something, but this house was on its own private road, had a very unique feel to it, and was a five-minute walk from a sandy beach. I didn't even know Lake Tahoe had sandy beaches. I couldn't pass this up.

After checking out the cabin with Kristara, DTran and I decided to hit the poker tables once more, since the amazing cabin put me on a pretty big high. We made a bet to see who could make more money at the table that afternoon, and the loser had to pay for gas. David made $80 and I made $50. We were hitting hands and playing much better overall than in the morning.

March-April

Andrew was the only friend of mine (besides David, who lived in California already) that came and visited me while I was down in the Tahoe area. It worked out that he visited me my last few days in Nevada City, then helped me move to Zephyr Cove, Nevada. He got to witness the amazing house with the hot tub in the solarium, he got to experience plenty of snow at Squaw Valley and Kirkwood, and he got to party it up with my new house mates for a few nights. Those two ski trips ended up being my only ski days living in Tahoe. Somewhat a waste, but it was just a terrible ski season for Tahoe in general.

The day after Andrew left, I started my job search. I had actually interviewed already up in North Tahoe, but that was before my move and I wasn't entirely certain what my housing situation would be like. I went through a staffing agency in South Tahoe, and they found me a job at Tahoe Fracture by the end of the week. It was only a part-time job, but that left me a few options. I could just have the one part-time job and enjoy myself. I could get a night job working at a casino or elsewhere. Or I could try out the poker playing thing for real.

I entertained the idea of playing more live poker, but after checking out the scene, it didn't look like a great option. The city doubles or triples in size on the weekends, and I was usually playing then anyways. During the week, all of the sharks are just feeding on each other, which I wanted no part of. There were plenty of young guns with the idea in their head that they would ski during the day and play poker for a living at night. I wasn't that foolish.

I seriously considered getting another job, but then I crunched some numbers and found that since I was living so cheaply, I could come out of Tahoe just about break-even with the one part-time job. Most of the fun I had in Tahoe wasn't all that expensive. I did a lot of hiking and just having fun at home. Kristara, Jen and Gina were very good at making friends and having people over for drinking and beer pong, and they usually got the guys to buy the beer. I wasn't interested in trying to start up anything romantically with any of my house mates, so the parties were all fun and no awkwardness for me, which I'd suggest for anyone in the same situation.

During March and April, I made at least one trip down to Sacramento to visit old frisbee friends. Once I saw that it cost $50 in gas, I was very hesitant to make many more trips. I felt torn though, because I knew I would most likely being moving back to Seattle after Tahoe, and I didn't know how much longer I would be in the area. I wanted to get out and explore Tahoe, and go see my friends in Sacramento, but on my tight budget it just wasn't sitting well with me.

May

To solve my gas money issue, I decided to use some of my grandma's inheritance money on a 2007 Kawasaki Ninja 250R. I did my research, and looked on Craigslist, but the recent models were selling for $2,000 on Craigslist, whereas the brand new 2007 models from the dealer were only $3,000. The price has since gone up, and after doing some calculations, I figure that I will actually save money by buying the motorcycle. It gets 70MPG, as opposed to the 18MPG of my Exploder, and its resell value is through the roof.

In my personal favorite post of the year, which just so happened to be a "7 things" post, rolled into the declaration of my motorcycle purchase, I tell the story of my motorcycle purchase and the hysterics that follow. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, and it was awesome.

June-July

With June came the blogger Summer Classic in Vegas. Easily one of the top five highlights of my summer. The amazingly epic motorcycle ride for 400 miles from snow on the ground in Tahoe to 100 degree weather in Vegas. All in one day, while under the weather, and on a 250cc bike. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I like, but I wouldn't give up the experience for anything in the world.

Meeting up with Brandon again was nice. He's a great guy, and he got to see a few familiar blogger brethren my first night in Vegas when we went out for some bowling action. Brandon played the role of high-roller and nice-guy well, buying us all a round--even though he didn't actually bowl.

I was under the impression the blogger tournament would be between $20-$50. Not something I'd pony up for every day, but not enough to make me sit out on a fun experience. It ended up being $85, but I was a few minutes late and didn't want to miss my chance, so I said goodbye to the $85... or so I thought! I ended up finishing 4th, and after some crafty final table deals where everyone at the final table got at least their buy-in back, I walked away with $225! Making that the second largest cash for me--ever!

I made my way back to Tahoe, and the rest of June sort of just flew on by. The weather started to warm up, the parties started occurring more frequently. I got out hiking and playing frisbee or basketball as often as I could with my new mode of transportation.

The last week of June, just before I left for Seattle, the Tahoe fire happened. I have a few pictures and videos up on my blog that I'll remember for a long time to come. A group of eight of us were up at Angora Lake, lounging, drinking, and thinking about swimming. The weather was crappy, and incredibly windy, so we decided to head back home. On our way down, we see a huge plume of smoke right in front of us, and we can see the smoke billowing upwards. People race past us up the hill to go find their loved ones, and we try to get out of the place as quickly as possible. The fire was heading North, and the only way out for us was on a skinny road along the ridge just north of the fire. We knew with the 30mph winds and the incline of the hill, we had minutes--not hours--to get out or be trapped.

We got out safe, as did everyone else, which I still find amazing. If we had been higher up on the mountain, or weren't as lucky as we were to already be leaving at the time the fire started up, I don't know what we would have done. The fire would have already been at the ridge, and I guess we would have had to just hope that the fire department would hold the ridge and let us by.

One of my co-workers lost her house, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as she was going through a messy divorce. Picture this: you're an operator for the Fracture Clinic, your ex-husband is a drunken douche-bag and calls every other day yelling into the phone, "Bitch! I hate you! Why do you have to..." blah, blah, blah. She had to answer the phone--it was her job--and she had no way of screening the calls, it was hell. On top of the verbal abuse, he was planning on selling the house and not giving her a dime. The fire engulfed the house, and have of the insurance check is hers to help take care of her two teenage boys.

I drove up to Reno under the thick blanket of smoke covering the sky from Tahoe to Reno. Only after taking off on the plane did we get out of the smoke from that and various other fires, it was insane. Originally, I had planned on riding the motorcycle up to Seattle for the last week of June, to show it off to my buddies and enjoy some time along the coast, but after my 400-mile trip to Vegas, the 2000-mile trip to Seattle and back seemed moronic. 250cc bikes just aren't meant for the long highway treks.

The 3rd annual Coast Trip was another big success, as was about my 7th or 8th Potlatch in a row. Potlatch was amazing this year, because the team I originally planned on playing with, had dissolved without my knowledge, and as I walked around the fields, I saw two friends who used to live in Sacramento and now live up in Nanaimo, Canada. Their team had a few injuries and they picked me up and let me play the rest of the tourney! The team consisted of a core of Nanaimo pickup players, a handful of Australians and a few scattered Northwesterners--it was an amazing team to be a part of, and just another reason why I love ultimate.

I made it back down to Tahoe for the 4th of July, and the 4th of July scene at Zephyr Beach is intense. The beach I walked down to at the end of March and took pictures of icicles on ropes just above the water--with not another person on the beach--was now completely and utterly packed. Standing room only. There must have been thousands of people on the beach. The majority were drunk by noon.

On July 7th, 2007, aka "777" DTran and friends came to visit for some poker action. We had a blast all weekend, we played poker on Saturday night (777), swam in the lake a few times, and tossed the frisbee and football for a good chunk of time. We even got in some drinking games. It was one of my favorite weekends all summer. The fact that I hit my first Royal Flush ever didn't hurt. Get this. My first Royal Flush comes in a casino, on 7/7/7, for a jackpot of $550. And the best part was that it was a suckout on the river. The other guy flopped a flush, I turned a broadway straight, and rivered the Kd for the Royal w/Cheese. Remarkably, one of DTran's friends hit a straight flush less than an hour later for $200 and change, also on 7/7/7--definitely the luckiest day of the millennium for me!

The rest of July was taken up by plenty of hiking and motorcycle riding, and there are plenty of pictures in the archives.

August

August marked the last few weeks of my stay in Tahoe. I enjoyed my time in Tahoe immensely, but I was also ready to get out and start on something more permanent than playing and enjoying myself. The two big things I looked forward to since my Seattle trip at the end of June and beginning of July was my week long hike with my Dad and the Conways, and the motorcycle ride up to Seattle. The fact that my Dad would be driving the Explorer and we'd be caravaning the entire way up to Seattle made the trip 100x more bearable. It was nice to be able to stop and not feel rushed, and my Dad was the perfect person to do the trip with.

The week-long hike is unforgettable. We camped at over 10,000ft elevation, and I swam at about 9,800ft elevation, in a lake coming straight out of a glacier. It was refreshing the first time, then Dad wanted a picture, so I jumped in again and it got cold in a hurry.

It was great to spend a week with my Dad and the Conways out in the Ansel Adams Wilderness. The views were amazing, and the weather was perfect. One think I got to experience for the first time, since most of my hikes are day-hikes, is that on the longer multi-day hikes, nearly every human encounter is meaningful, whether it be a good excuse for a pit-stop or a good way to find out about camping sites ahead on the trail.

A lot of the time hiking I was lost in my own thoughts. When I wasn't chatting with the Conways or Dad, I was often thinking of what my life will be like in the next year, two years, or five years. It kept me very entertained, because the options are nearly limitless. I've finally decided I want to teach, but where I want to teach and what grade (or what subject), I wasn't sure at the time. The big step into choosing a career comes easier for some than for others. For me, it has been one big merry-go-round. I'm thinking about jumping off and starting on the path to become a teacher, but I keep hesitating and holding on just in case it might not be the right thing for me. Since the trip, I've hopped off the merry-go-round, and I like the direction I'm heading--but I'm still not 100% sure it is the right path for me. I honestly think I'll love it, and enjoy it for years to come, but that little voice in the back of my head says, "What about your business degree? Why not get an MBA?" So far, I've been pretty good at convincing myself to stick with teaching, but when the going gets tough, I know it will only get more difficult to stick to the plan.

The end of August marked the long ride back to Seattle. Riding from Tahoe to Seattle on a 250cc just wasn't meant to be done. After my long ride to Vegas, I realized long trips weren't for me. Being hunched over on a bike for multiple days straight simply just isn't enjoyable. I'm only a foot from the highway, going 70mph, but there are still times where I get a bit tired. Not "falling asleep at the wheel" tired, but I just realize I'm not 100% focusing on riding, which is dangerous.

Many times on the trip home I'd pop up out of my hunch and just look around and try to take it all in. I don't envision myself ever riding a motorcycle from Tahoe to Seattle again, and definitely not through Eastern Oregon, so I tried to burn the images of long, stretched out plains and mountain ranges into my brain.

The second-most most awe-inspiring sight on the ride home was in the very northern section of Nevada. There is a road my Dad wanted to take, and he described it as "30 miles of absolute solitude." He was dead on. We made the turn onto the highway and there was a gradual descent, but the highway was perfectly straight, and you could see into the distance for what seemed like 20 miles--and not a single care in either direction. You can drive from Seattle to San Francisco and always be within sight of another vehicle. Twenty miles of no other vehicles was pretty cool. I gazed around, taking it all in, then zoomed by my Dad and got the bike up to 100mph, then decelerating back down in the oncoming lane and letting my Dad pass me. I was grinning the whole time, and when he passed me, he was too.

I found it funny that after two days on the road, passing through places I had never been and seeing many sights I had never experienced--the most amazing sight of the 1100-mile journey was our approach to the Cascade Mountains on I-90. I have made the drive a handful of times before, but almost always at night. In the daytime, the mountain wall is a sight to behold. Jagged and treacherous, the Cascades loom large. From Seattle, they don't look as intimidating as they do from the East. I just had to wonder what those initial explorers though when they saw the Cascades for the first time.

Once we got over the pass, the descent down from Snoqualmie Pass brought back memories of Ski-Attle, a middle-school ski program I did every Friday in January and February. We'd bus up to Snoqualmie after school and stay until 10pm. The night skiing was fun, and the social aspect even more fun, but I'll always remember the bus ride home. All of the kids, including myself, were just beat. A full day of school, followed by six hours of skiing--the entire bus was asleep. It was neat to look around and see everyone dozing away in dreamland. When we got back to Seattle, we'd all stumble out from the bus in a daze, and our parents would drive us home. It was one of the first "clubs" I was in that didn't involve parental supervision, and after lessons and dinner a coed group of us would ride a chair lift up the mountain, click off our skis and hike up into the woods and have snowball fights with people we had crushes on, but were way to shy to every admit.

And then you hit the bridges.

My favorite drive in Seattle is coming into the city across the 520 bridge. You can see downtown just above Capitol Hill. Husky Stadium is just north of the bridge on the west side, and Bill Gates' house is just south on the east side of the bridge. Way south, on a clear day, you can see Mt. Rainier looming large, guarding the Puget Sound. On a very clear day, you can see Mt. Baker way off in the distance to the North. They are the only two snow-capped mountains around in the summer. Both were out when Dad and I rode across the bridge that afternoon.

September-December

September started out with a flurry of activity for me. By luck, I was browsing the Seattle Public School's website and found that Roosevelt High, my old alma mater, was in need of a JV Tennis Coach for the Fall. I rode by the school and it turned out the old JV coach was now the Varsity Coach, and told me the job was mine if I wanted it. Never mind the fact that I had never coached before. Living in a place where I know people is foreign to me. The last three years in Sacramento, Portland and Tahoe I could guarantee that if I went out shopping or to a sporting event, I wouldn't recognize a soul, nor would anyone recognize me. My first week back in Seattle I had half a dozen such encounters--one netting me a part time job as Assistant Tennis Coach at my old high school.

Coaching was an absolute blast, and something I can see myself doing for a long time to come. The idea of teaching during the day and coaching a sport in the evening is very appealing to me. When I was growing up, I looked forward to sports like lots of people look forward to their birthdays, or the holidays. Knowing I had a tennis match in the afternoon was enough to keep me attentive in class during the day. I didn't look forward to math class, but once math class was over, I would be that much closer to the tennis match. Coaching kids who genuinely wanted to be there is one of the easiest, and most enjoyable things I have ever done. I can see how that might differ from teaching.

The end of September brought about the beginning of my 3-month courses at North Seattle Community College. I had a Geography course at 11am, followed by a Math class at 12pm everyday. The Geography course was the only one offered I was qualified to take, and I needed a Geography course to get into the UW-Bothell Teaching Certification program in the Spring. The math class at noon made sense, because I had to be there everyday anyways. It ended up fitting perfectly into my coaching schedule, it is just a pity I only made $1200 over those three months. It wouldn't have been doable if I wasn't living at home and living rent-free, which I feel somewhat guilty for, but at the same time I realize that in the short-term I am OK with it, and in the long-term it makes the most sense.

My life over the last few months has been pretty boring, really. I've had a couple of fun ultimate tournaments and met some fun ultimate people, but the majority of my time has been spent either going to class, coaching, or living extremely thriftily in my parent's basement.

It is going to be interesting how I remember this portion of my life in the future. In some ways, I can see it being a waste of time--I have friends the same age who are married and will have their first child next year--and here I am living in my parent's basement. Quite the contrast. In other ways, I really enjoy the decisions I've made. I've gotten out of Seattle and explored at least a little bit, which I can't say for some of my friends. I have plenty of time to find a better half and settle down, and I'm in no big rush. I always envisioned myself settling down when I am around 30, and it is still a definite possibility. If everything goes well, I'll have my Teaching Certification before my 27th birthday, and have a few more years in my twenties to sort out everything I need to before settling into a more routine lifestyle.

I don't really know if 2008 will be more or less memorable than 2007. It is a tall task. Living in Nevada City and Tahoe will be things I'll never forget. Buying a motorcycle when I had no clue how to ride one, then figuring things out as I went along will always be with me as well. I want to work hard in 2008 and progress along the teaching path, and while I'm working hard I know I'll have less opportunity to get out and do the fun things I did this year--but in the end I'll have a lot more to show for my accomplishments of 2008 than 2007. I didn't accomplish much this year, but I discovered a whole lot about myself. I am excited for 2008 and the challenges it will bring, and being excited about life brings me much more happiness than any alternative.

2007, you were great.

Monster Sunday Post With Many Titles

Sunny Sunday #2, Ride Around The Lake #2, The Best of Independence, Best Time With Stacey, Stop and Smell the Roses, Giant Picture Dump, Ride to Fallen Leaf Lake, Three Porter Post--all could be appropriate titles for this post.

What a great day.

Through the years, I've found out that some of the most memorable days are the ones where nothing was planned--no expectations of great fun were made for the day--but through dumb luck or just getting out and DOING something, the day turns out to be memorable for years to come. I had one of those days today.

In fact, this weekend was just a great weekend all-around. I am doing what I set out to do in Tahoe finally, due in part to getting the ninja, and also the sunny weather. Any weekend where I'm out of the house more than I'm in, is almost always going to be a successful weekend in my eyes. When that includes a bike ride to a hot springs and a waterfall, and a bike ride around the lake with multiple stops, the weekend is a definite success!

This morning came sooner than anticipated, as I stayed up until 2am mostly due to the raging party going on. I didn't partake, and I wasn't really miffed by the fact there was a raging party going on, I just wasn't in the mood to get wasted. Whatever day it was last week, I think Wednesday night, when I had a few too many drinks, has me on beer-pong tilt. No more drinking lots of cheap beer for a while for me! About halfway through the party last night, Jen came and knocked on my door and asked if I had either drank or hid my Porters. I told her I hid them, and she said, "Good, because I was about to lay down the law if people had stolen your beers!" That was nice of her! I don't mean to be the dick that hides his stuff from his house mates, but when there is a party almost every night, I know that those Porters will be gone by morning unless I hide them.

So Ichi and I barricaded ourselves in my room until morning, then Ichi woke me up scratching at the door at about 8:20am. It was cool though, because I sort of wanted to get up early and make it to frisbee at 10am. I woke up, let Ichi outside, then took a nice, long shower. I meant to shower last night after my ride to Markleeville and 3mi round trip hike, but I didn't shower, and then the party started and the bathroom was in constant use. I didn't want to be aiding and abetting a puke or other bodily fluid episode in our house, so I stayed grimy. I told myself it was practice for my 4-night hike in the Sierras with my Dad in a few months!

I got all the grime off, then figured out what calls I needed to make from the fields before pickup began. I keep forgetting to get my insurance updated with the motorcycle, so that was the top priority. Secondary was to call the bike shop and see if I could schedule my 500 mile maintenance check up.

With some great advice from my Uncle John, I got Nikki started up before 10am for the first time. The problem I was having had to do with having the choke open and the throttle going. I guess I'm supposed to close the throttle when the choke is open to start things out. I was giving the bike too much gas, which killed it. I'm not sure if that is "flooding" it, but to my surprise this morning, not giving it gas made it start up. The true test will be tomorrow, at 7:30am.

Made it to Kahle for frisbee before anyone else showed up, and I gave Progressive a call to add the bike to my insurance. Surprisingly, my insurance ended on April 5th! They failed to notify me of this until I tried adding my bike to the insurance, and the lady said, "Hmm, I don't see that you have any active insurance plans with us."

WHAT?! So apparently I've been riding around for the last six weeks with no car insurance. That could have been very, very bad. The weird thing is that they sent a piece of mail on April 19th to my old address in Nevada City, which got to me--but the notification about my insurance ending I never received. So they had my correct address, but one piece of mail got to me and the other didn't. The lady I talked with on the phone said that since I changed states (from Oregon to CA), the insurance doesn't automatically renew. Would have been nice if I was told that earlier, but ah well. I let loose a miniature shit storm, but I was more interested in getting both the Exploder and Ninja insured.

As researched, the Ninja ended up being super-cheap to insure, at just over a dollar a day. The insurance I have just safeguards me from wrecking other people's stuff, or if an uninsured motorist crashes into my bike, but I'm not too worried about screwing my own stuff up. If that happens, it's my own damn fault, and I'll have to pay for it or figure out a way to fix it.

The insurance call ended up taking a good 30mins, and about halfway through Dirk and his German Shepard "Gellert" showed up. Gellert is a cool dog. He's being trained for Search and Rescue, and is one of those dogs with an Energizer battery strapped to his back. He does not stop running. We tossed the disc for a good hour (sadly, no one else showed up), and Gellert would race from person to person as we tossed the disc. He only showed signs of fatigue after Dirk and I were sitting down getting ready to leave.

Turns out Dirk has a free membership to Kahle Community Center through his work, so we hit the gym for a bit after getting bored tossing the disc. I wasn't in a big workout mood, and only lifted for about 10 minutes before investigating the basketball court--turned indoor soccer arena! A guy had put up little foot-high padded walls in an oval around the basketball court, making an indoor soccer field. Made me wish I was on an indoor soccer team. I played one round of IM indoor soccer at UPS and we got absolutely schooled--but I had a blast. I'm no good at soccer--terrible, in fact, but it is probably the one sport I am most interested in for the worldly aspect. I ended up spending a good 20 minutes hacking around a soccer ball, trying to kick it into the basketball hoop... with no success.

Cracks open Porter#2

After Kahle, I came back home for lunch and ran into Jen and George walking down to the beach on my way up the hill. Not really a blog-worthy run in, but just now as I went to go get my second Porter, I saw them out in the living room. They are burned to a crisp. Sunny and cloudy off and on all day--best time to get the WORST sunburns. Their faces really look like they might blister. Ouch!

I realized I hadn't called the Kawasaki dealership about the 500mi checkup, and I wanted to go for a ride, but I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go. I wanted to avoid the big hill down to Carson if at all possible, then I remembered that I still hadn't replaced my iPod earphones that Stacey cruelly broke while borrowing my iPod. Hah, jk, I pretty much ruined them, then she used my iPod and they finally snapped :) So, I headed to the Radioshack down in SLT. I found some cheapo ear phones. The reason being to listen to music while riding the ninja, I only have one of the ear pieces in while riding--and I can barely hear the music over the street noise, but it is nice to have something to listen to while I'm stuck behind a string of cars. Motorcycling with no music is a little bit like driving a car with no music--kind of odd--so I'm glad to have the tunes going.

I remembered to call the Kawasaki dealership after the purchase at Radioshack, and they are closed on Sundays, so I'll have to give them a buzz tomorrow or Tuesday.

I didn't have any plans for the rest of the day, so I decided to head up to Emerald Bay to test out the ear phones. I nodded my head to some Blackalicious while zooming up the road to the Bay. On the way, I decided to hang a left onto Fallen Leaf Road, which leads to Fallen Leaf Lake. It looked a lot like a road Stacey and I took a few years back for a day hike. The road was a bit bumpier on a bike than I remembered, but it was a good experience to see how Nikki handled the rougher road. And she did great!

Lots of cars along the road, and lots of hairpin turns, so it was good riding practice for me. I didn't have to worry about anyone on my ass, because when it comes to slow speeds and sharp turns, Nikki trumps all else! I passed a side-road that went off to the left that looked eerily familiar, but I stayed on Fallen Leaf Road. After a couple of miles, it came to the gorgeous (and relatively large) lake, and wound around the southern edge of the lake. The road was pretty cool, because there were houses up on the hill, then little docks on the lake-side of the road. There wasn't enough room for houses on the lake-side of the road, because the road was placed so close to the lake. Sucks for the home-owners, but great for me, because I had an amazing view of the lake for the entire time I roamed around the lake!

I crossed a bridge, and that is when it finally hit me that this WAS the place Stacey and I hiked down to on a day-hike. When I realized where I was, I just had to go the extra half-mile or so to the docks Stacey and I jumped into Fallen Leaf Lake at:



Not an amazing spot or anything, but I can honestly say that at the time she I jumped in the lake, then sunbathed on that further of the two floating docks--that just might have been the high-point in our relationship. For me, it'd be a toss-up between then, and our move to Portland. The Saturday we drove up to Tahoe from Sacramento marked the day after our week break from each other. What set off the week break was me being a very stupid me.

Stacey was living at the downtown house with Jeff, Joe and Amanda. There was a party going on, and I think Stacey was in her room (not sure if I had moved in yet--I don't think so) possibly steaming about something stupid Amanda was doing. Stacey also wasn't happy with me at the time (possibly because I just wanted to have fun and didn't want to deal with any drama--it has been a while, so I could be way off here). We had all been drinking a bit, not enough to go crazy or anything, but enough to turn the "good judgment" lever to OFF in my head. I'm not really sure what the conversation was, but I remember saying something along the lines of, "Oh boy, you don't want to tell Stacey anything, because she'll just use it against you later in a fight." Again, I'm pretty sure this quote isn't 100% correct, but that isn't terribly important. What was important, was Stacey standing in the doorway with steam rising from her head and eyes like the evil Bilbo Baggins when he wants his ring back from Frodo. She was not happy. She said something along the lines of "Thanks, that was nice." Then slammed the door to her room and locked it.

Oooooops. No point in making excuses, but in all honesty, the stupid remark was really just made out of spite for her being mad at me (and I'm sure it tied into the conversation somehow). At this point in our relationship, I still didn't understand why the hell she would get mad at me for apparently no reason--when in fact she was just angry with someone else. I didn't see the "I'm mad at Jane Doe, thus I am mad at everyone, including Chris" connection. I saw that as "I'm mad at Chris, and Chris has no clue why" and at the time, my silly logic would tell me "I shouldn't be treated like this, screw this, if she wants to be pissed at me, let her be pissed!"

Ah, learning!

Of course, once I am in that state of mind, taking jabs at her isn't far away. Of course, looking back, and looking at the situation from Stacey's perspective--it probably goes something like this: "Stacey pissed at Jane Doe//Stacey wants to stew by herself for a bit before talking about it//Chris figures something is wrong//Stacey doesn't want to talk about it//Chris leaves//Stacey wants to talk about it now//Chris is mad because he think Stacey is mad at him and won't tell him why//Chris says something stupid//Stacey is now mad at Chris"

I was terrible at alleviating any stress for Stacey during our first six months or so. The only serious relationship I had before Stacey was with Sara, who, completely unlike Stacey, didn't show her emotions. I had absolutely no clue how to deal with emotions. (dramatization) Before Stacey, if I ran over a dog, I'd think "Stupid slow dog," (/dramatization) I rarely ever cried (which hasn't changed much), and I generally was a very emotionless person. After Stacey, I realize that there is a place for emotion, and sort of like love, I feel like although both love and emotion can bring some very heavy bouts of depression, they are both worth it. When Ichi passes away, I will shed a tear. I'm not sure if I've ever cried for a cat's passing since I was a young kid. I didn't shed a tear when Tyke passed away, who was the first cat I'd known from birth to death, but while I was with Stacey I mistakenly found a picture my dad had sent me of Tyke, and I just bawled. It was sad, she was an amazing cat and I grew up with her. From the chest rubbing that made her shake her head like Ray Charles to her senility once Watson came around--she had a personality, and now that personality is gone.

Anywho, back to the stupid comment and Stacey locking herself in her room. I knocked for a while, said I was sorry. I wanted to talk about it. She (for obvious reasons) didn't. I can't recall what my line of thinking was, but it basically centered around "I must get in that room." So, what do you do when you want to get into a room and aren't big enough to bust down the door? That's right, you pick the lock. I attempted to pick the lock with a paper-clip, and was failing miserably. At this point, if I was Stacey, I might have kicked me out of the house and dumped me right there on the spot, in front of everyone at the party. She might not have been able to hear the door rattling because of the loud music.

Joe and Sean's friend (petite Asian who I can't remember her name for the life of me) saw me trying to pick the lock, and said, "need some help?" She ended up picking the lock for me, and I went into the room and laid down on the floor next to the bed. Stacey and I had a pretty interesting conversation after that! The conclusion we (she?) came to is that we should spend a week apart--no contact, and at the end of that week, see if we want to keep the relationship going or not.

That week took forever. I remember just being consumed with thoughts of Stacey from my dreams, to waking up, to all day at work, to going to bed. I wanted to make everything right, and I realized how much better my life was with Stacey in it. I really wanted to talk with her, but also wanted to respect her week--but I wanted to show her someway how much I was thinking of her. I think maybe Wednesday while she was at work I went to Home Depot and picked up a bathtub plug and a faucet handle for the bathroom sink--both things she didn't have and wanted. I didn't leave a note or anything. I didn't want extra credit, I just wanted to show that I was thinking about her.

On Thursday or Friday, I got a note from Stacey--I forget how long it was, and how much detail the note got into, but it basically said, "I planned a weekend, be ready to leave early on Saturday." So now, I might be confusing this fight with another, but I do remember not really being sure where we were at relationship-wise when we drove off on Saturday. I have a very selective memory, and most of the thoughts that got recollected today were from the actual hike, so forgive me if I butchered the part leading up to the hike, Stacey (or feel free to clue me in if you remember better?).

Porter #3

Stacey drove us towards Tahoe, and I remember feeling a bit awkward at the start of the trip, but we eventually got to talking about how much I hurt her by saying what I said. I was one of the few people she trusted, and by me saying, "Oh, you don't want to tell Stacey any secrets, she'll stab you in the back!" The trust started to vanish. She drove us to the Fallen Leaf Road, and we did, in fact, take that left that I thought looked familiar today. I think we did a mile or so hike up to Aloha Lake, smiling, talking, and feeding chipmunks. It was beautiful, and we were getting a lot off our chest. What we liked about our relationship; what we didn't. Why we should keep the relationship going; why we shouldn't.

I'm pretty sure Stacey had another hike planned out, but we saw a lake maybe 800 feet below us that looked really nice, and we saw a trail that led down to it--so we took it. We talked some more on the way down, and although there were a lot of things we needed to work on, it seemed like we both were willing to work for our relationship, because we both felt much better together than apart--evidenced by the week apart. I'm not when exactly we decided to keep the relationship going, but I want to say it was right around the point we crossed the bridge. I remember taking a few pictures there, and I'm pretty sure we were smiling.

By then, the narrow dirt trail we had been descending turned into a paved road with cars all over the place. And houses. I don't think either of us really expected houses on this lake out in the middle of nowhere (but we didn't come from the direction everyone else came from). We walked down a street that said "private" and saw an immaculate tennis court on the right, and a beach below on the lake, with plenty of "private" signs, and pine trees shading most of the picnic benches. We walked down onto the beach, but didn't really think that would be a good place to swim, so we walked further down the street along the lake. One of us saw the little floating docks, and egged the other to go down and jump in. Shortly thereafter, we were both in the lake, and it seemed like everything was going to work out. The feeling was quite amazing. We took a few pictures on the dock, each of us had a myspace or livejournal icon from that spot for a while.

A very memorable spot, without even realizing where I was until the bridge :) I took another picture of the ninja and the lake, just to the right of the dock area:



After strolling down mental memory lane, I buzzed away and decided to make loop number two around the lake. I have yet to get a picture of my favorite spot on the lake (or my second favorite), but after passing by both spots, I'm not sure it is possible to capture either spot going clockwise around the lake. Next time I'll go counter-clockwise, and be sure to stop at the two spots--and hike if necessary to get the shots.

That is another thing I learned today while on my trip around the lake. STOP. I want to abide by this motto all summer: if there is something I think might be worth stopping for, stop and check it out. It won't hurt to spend a few minutes to check it out, and it might develop into something amazing--like the Fallen Leaf Lake trip.

After zooming through Emerald Bay, I tried to adhere to my STOP motto, and stopped along the lake to snap a few pictures at lake-level:



OK, not every stop is equal! But still, even if all I get is one crappy photo of my bike, a tree, a lake, and some guard rails--that is better than nothing!

My next stop came after actually passing through most of Tahoe City, then remembering my motto, turning around and parking to check out the town. It is way too easy for me to get stubborn and think, "Gotta get home and upload these photos and write about Fallen Leaf Lake before I forget!" But, I did stop, and I saw a happy hour sign outside the River Grill. I didn't really know what to expect. The highway was groomed nicely and watered around the area, so I thought it might be a little too haughty-taughty for my tastes (and wallet)--and it was--but the happy hour special was amazing! Half-off appetizers, and $3.50 huge margaritas.

Now, let me tell you... I have been craving a margarita for literally MONTHS. Once I saw "Margar..." on the happy hour special on the menu outside, I just walked in. I was hungry, but didn't really care about the food prices once I saw the margarita on the menu. The 1/2 price appetizer menu reminded me of the Greenlake Bar and Grill happy hour special that Tyler and I always hit--I think they have a very similar happy hour deal. At the River Grill though, the happy hour special is only good if you sit at the bar. Kind of quirky, but it was kind of neat to have everyone sitting up at the bar--mostly all strangers to one another.

In case you can't figure it out, I haven't done much bar-hopping, or sitting at the bar for that matter. I'm usually with a few people at a booth. But I couldn't have had a better time. The two guys next to me were Harley owners from Tuscon, AZ, up here on a road trip. The bartender and waitress were joking around, and there was a baseball game and a soccer game on the two TVs (yay soccer!). I ended up ordering Smoked Salmon on Focaccia bread, for $6. It was amazing. Smoked salmon was another craving I've had for what seems like at least a year. I swapped stories with the two Harley guys for about 30minutes before I polished off the margarita and the smoked salmon, then headed out.

I walked around a bit to clear my head from the strong margarita, and snapped a few pictures:

1) River Grill, and a car which apparently has a forcefield of some sort
2) Zoomed out Tahoe Dam and little shack
3) Shack, NW corner of Lake Tahoe







The sun was going down, and it was probably around 7pm when I left Tahoe City, but I made a couple more stops on my way back to Zephyr Cove to shoot some photos of my bike and the lake: (sorry in advance if you have a slow connection, or hate pictures)









And to top off a great weekend, I'm sitting in bed with my laptop, a Black Butte Porter, and an Ichi cuddled at my feet. Finishing up this monster of a post and watching Hoy try to take down the FTOPS Main Event. Top prize is $336,000! I'll even do a little time table for my fellow poker blogger in hopes that it boosts his luck in the tourney:

9:00pm -- 79,215 chips; 83rd out of 264 remaining
9:01pm -- 108,415; 51 out of 251 (it's working!!)
9:20pm -- 115,565; 54 out of 201
9:35pm -- 98,665; 80 out of 163 (at the seven and a half hour mark--seventh break!)
9:50pm -- 121,915; 69 out of 142
10:10pm -- 97,455; 78 out of 114 (SHOWED THE HAMMER BLUFF!!!)
10:19pm -- OUT! aw nuts. 101st place out of 3,798 for a cool $1,899--not bad for a night of poker! 88 no good vs. QcJc Q spiked on the turn.

Weekend Update (marathon 4-hour post!)

Lots of things to update: sports, ankle, poker, Stacey, blogging...

This weekend started out a lot of fun. Got off work on Friday early and remembered to use up the rest of my $10 iTunes gift card from my sister. I had my eyez set on "All Eyez On Me" the two-disc compilation by Tupac.


I don't have enough good rap, and what's better than some of Tupac's best? I smoked a blunt and listened to the rhymes of Tupac while catching the first game of the Red Sox/Yankees series (OK, I don't smoke, but it just sounded right). Now, I'm not the biggest fan of watching baseball on TV (or in person, for that matter), but watching the Red Sox and Yankees play is always a good show. Their rivalry is right up there with any rivalry in sports. I root for the Red Sox primarily because I can't stand the Yankees. When you have an unlimited budget, and it seems like half of your team is going to the Hall of Fame, where is the challenge?! Now, the Red Sox aren't much better, I'm pretty sure they are the 2nd biggest spending team--but the only reason for that is because they are trying to compete with the Yankees.

The Yankees had the game in the bag and Alex Rodriguez had hit two more homeruns to add to his amazing April. The Yanks had their Hall of Fame closer, Mariano Rivera, in to close the game out, when the craziness started to happen. Boston scored five or six runs in the bottom of the 8th inning to come from behind and win the game. Feeling good about the game, I decided to go hot tub down in South Lake, then head to the casinos to play poker.

The hot tub was empty, and I soaked in the tub while contemplating writing and life. I keep having ideas for characters to base a story around, but whenever I start writing I get all caught up on the background--which doesn't make for very entertaining writing. I'll have to work on just diving in and writing the entertaining parts, then weaving in the history as I go. While contemplating life, I decided that I'm pretty sure I want to move back to Seattle come November or so. It could be earlier than that, it could be later, but I don't really want to miss out on friends and their lives anymore. Knowing that I'll be leaving Tahoe then also impresses on me how important it will be to soak up all of Tahoe while I can. That means lots of hiking, lots of swimming, and hopefully lots more pictures :)

I started to prune in the hot tub, so it was time to move on to the casino. The obvious problem being, 'how do I change out of my swim trunks?' I ended up parking in a dark and gloomy corner of the casino parking structure, where things much worse than getting naked had been going on. I looked around and didn't see any movement, so I wriggled and squirmed out of my trunks (which is much harder in a car seat than I thought it would be), and into my strategically placed shorts and warm-ups. I got out of the car, pretending like nothing sinister had occurred, and of course the first thing I see is two people in a mini-van right behind my car staring at me. I quickly break eye-contact and head to the poker room.

I check in for $3/$6 limit (in my comfort zone, money-wise) and get a seat right away, which was unexpected. After a quick scan around the table, I actually recognized one of the guys at the table, which surprised me. He is one of the better basketball players I play with on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays. It was pretty comical, because he sat there with about three buttons undone on his shirt, showing off his possibly waxed chest. He also had a lady caked in makeup on his left arm. If I didn't know he lived in town, I would have presumed they were on an anniversary trip to South Lake... or maybe that he was entertaining a hooker (hope he doesn't read this!). I smiled to myself and pretended not to know them.

Other people at the table included two wiley-looking old asian guys, a college dude, two ladies who were pretty solid players, and a middle-aged guy to my right from Cameron Park, who I chatted it up with. I told him about the Grass Valley music fest I was going to this summer to see Ani Difranco. As soon as I said "Grass Valley music fest" his eyes lit up.

"Do whatever you can to see Tommy Emmanuel."

My new friend was coo-coo for Tommy Emmanuel. I've never heard of him, but apparently he is the best guitarist in the entire world, according to Mr. Cameron Park.

"He makes Eric Clapton and Santana look like beginners."

This, of course, perked my interest. I am intrigued, but he isn't playing on the same night Ani is, so chances are I probably won't stick around (and pay for) another night of music.

The actual poker was pretty uneventful, I got pretty lucky and didn't have many difficult decisions. I had pretty bad cards all night long, but that was fine with me because I just folded until the good cards came. I ended up winning a few big pots, and finished up $86 for the three hours or so I played. Surprisingly, the basketball buddy and his wife went busto within the 2nd hour. I had made a mental note to stay out of any pots with them, because I just assumed they'd be sharks. In their defense, they did get pretty unlucky with a few hands, and that is all it takes to crap out at $3/$6.

I came back to the house at about 12:30am or so to a house full of strangers. But they were friendly, drunk and high strangers, so all was good. When lots of people come over we have to re-arrange the furniture in the living room so everyone can fit in and see each other. This means blocking any route to the kitchen, and I was craving some food, so I hopped over the end of a couch and was treated to a very happy site in the kitchen. Cans upon cans of Coors Light (Silver Bullet!) covered both counter tops. If I hadn't had such a fun and profitable time at the casino, I would have been bummed that I missed such a fun time.

I thought (as did my roommates) that they would have a little drink here, then head out to the other people's house. But Kristara apparently started up Asshole, and was the first president, and was a mean bitch--so she got her comeuppance and everyone got trashed, lol. That would have been a site to see :) I finished some left-over pizza and people decided it was time to buck up and go home. I'm not sure if any of them was in a good state to drive home, but I was in bed and asleep by the time they made it out the door.

Saturday morning was fun, woke up around 11:30am and decided that basketball at noon sounded fun. Grabbed my ankle-brace out of my sports box and wrapped my ankle up good. It didn't feel too hot, but I could always just work out a bit if running on the ankle didn't feel good. Skipped breakfast because I didn't want to run after breakfast like I did on Thursday. No warm-up for my ankle, because when I got to the gym I was the 10th person to show up, so a game started up.

I saw the guy from poker the night before and we had a fun little talk about it. He said he and his wife only play once a month or so. It was nice to finally have a conversation with him (still don't know his name), because we tend to play against each other a lot, and we had gotten into a little argument on Thursday about a crappy call by him (or so I say!). He's a nice guy though, and I made a point to be on his team today.

I'd say my ankle was at about 10%, but we won the first game somehow as I hobbled up and down the court. I was actually skipping most of the time when I changed direction, because I had to use my right foot.

We lost the 2nd game and I was ready to stop playing basketball for the day, but by that time 8 more people had shown up, so we had two games going--and by losing on the "winners" court, we had another game on the "losers" court. So instead of abandoning my team, I played another game... and lit it up! We played a team that didn't have very good defense, and in a game to 11 by 1's and 2's, I made four 2's to score 8 points. I couldn't really do anything but shoot threes, because I could hardly move, so I'm glad they left me open!

Winning that game put us on the winners court again, and my ankle was screaming at me to stop, but I played again because I'm an idiot. We got beat pretty bad, because this team played defense, and I couldn't really play defense. Back down to the losers court for game #4, against the team I lit up. This time they decided to guard me, and we got whooped. My ankle praised Jesus, and I went upstairs to work out a bit. After working out I came back down to the basketball courts and watched as my team (minus me, plus Mike, a cagey veteran) won their game on the losers court, then ended up beating the reigning champs on the winners court. That felt good, because I didn't want them stuck on the losers court all day because I couldn't play any defense! I'll probably take it easy on my ankle this week, because of the Sacramento Hat Tourney next weekend. Can't miss that, so I'll have to miss some bball this week, dems the breaks!

After bball on Saturday I was CRAVING a French Dip. Not sure why, other than I hadn't had one in a long time, and that I skipped breakfast. I hit Sam's Place for the first time in a month, and the food was grubbin' as usual. When I got there, there was a breaking news special about the Blue Angels. One of the planes crashed at an air show in.. Brunswick? I think? That'd be a pretty horrific site to see.

(this clip isn't the crash video, just a random clip of them flying over Lake Washington)



I grew up with the Blue Angles flying around Seattle every summer. They'd do warm-up runs all around the city, flying right over all the houses, inbetween the buildings in downtown Seattle--it was pretty nutty to see. Then we'd watch the show and see the four planes flying literally within feet of each other. I always thought it was extremely dangerous, but at the same time, watching them do it year after year it seemed like they were pretty much invulnerable (and untouchable, because as a color-blind kid, I knew that was something I'd never be able to do). Not invincible anymore :(

One of the other TV's just so happened to be showing game 2 of the Red Sox/Yankees series, so I watched a few innings while I chowed down the dip and spicey (and I mean spicey!) fries. Big Papi hit a two-run shot to put the Red Sox up by 4, so I was content when I left in the middle of the 5th inning (and they held on to win).

I headed back home and thought I might get some Vanguard in with the gang, but it wasn't to be. Played some spades and listened to the Tupac CD again--that CD is where it's at. Had a pretty nutty spades game where me and my partner were at 359 (9 bags) and our opponents were at 473 or so. I was first to act and went double-nill (no passing), because it was really our only hope. I was surprised to see a hand that just might work... although even if we got my double-nill, my partner would have to bid his cover hand perfectly and get no bags, or else the opponents would win. My partner bid 4 and we pulled it off perfectly. No way we should have won that game, but we did!

I didn't have any plans, and was feeling lucky, so I headed back to the casino for the evening. I got a seat right away again, and only recognized one guy at my table--one of the old asian guys from the night before. He ended up leaving about 30 minutes in. The rest of the table was hilarious though. This is what the table looked like:

Seat 1: 23yr old guy who I chatted with all night, lost his first buy-in and went to the ATM and came back saying defiantly, "I'm not going to that damn machine again tonight!" He also was there because he and his roommates were vastly different, much like me. He said, "Well, it is either poker, where I have fun and might win some money, or sitting at home with my roommates who just do shrooms and watch SNL on Saturdays." He used a line I had been waiting to use for some time now--in response to "good players don't (play 7-2 offsuit, cold-call three bets on draws, yada yada)"--"good poker players don't play $3/$6 either!" Which got a hoot from the table. He also had a broken ankle. Mine is just sprained, but eerie similarities!

Seat 2: 30-something husband of Seat 9, good poker player and also a really funny guy. The lady in Seat 8 couldn't stand the guy because she thought he could "look into her soul." He called her down with crap two times and she folded, cursed under her breath, then went on a smoke break both times. He hit quad nines in a big pot where I folded a pair of Kings with a Q kicker on the turn to his aggression. The jackpot was about $150 for his quad nines. About five hands later he hit quad 8's, which only got him the $30 pot, because jackpots were only for quad 9's or better--I didn't feel too sorry for him though.

Seat 3: 40yr old guy with a golf hat. Wasn't very good at poker, but was a jester. He'd show his cards every time and could hardly believe his bad luck when he was behind the whole way. He and I chopped a huge pot in a hand that I live-straddled and woke up with AK, which was his hand too.

Seat 4: 50yr old hilarious black guy. He did pretty well, and had more than his fair share of big hands. Had a cackling laugh, which I usually can't stand, but he was laughing at himself more than at anyone else, so it was alright. He was joking around with me and seats 1, 2 and 3 all night.

Seat 5: 50yr old skinny Italian guy with a hairy chest and an unbuttoned shirt. Not great at poker and pretty quiet all night.

Seat 6: 40yr old guy. First time at a casino, and got a run of cards. Eventually the lady in Seat 9 said, "you never bluff, do you?" which of course got him to bluff in the next hand, like clockwork, lol. He had some pretty funny lines, I remember laughing, but I can't remember any specifics.

Seat 7: 60yr old guy who nothing could possibly go right for. He'd have AK and flop AK, only to lose to a set on the river. He eventually would just look at me across the table and shake his head as he got beat again and again. Apparently he thought I understood his hardship? I did, and I'd be a shoulder to cry on as long as he kept calling when he was beat!

Seat 8: 60yr old lady who had a temper and liked Camel cigarettes. This lady was funny without trying to be. The guy in seat 2 would call her with nothing and she'd fold and go into a tirade, then leave. A few minutes later she'd come back and assure us all that she was in complete control of her emotions, until she lost another hand, then she'd storm off again. We didn't specifically make fun of her, but she was the cause of a lot of the table laughter.

Seat 9: 30-something wife of Seat 2. She was originally from Germany, and she unknowingly hit a straight-flush for a $240 jackpot. It was a pretty ridiculous hand. I had AK in the BB, the flop was T-J-Q, all clubs. She bet out first to act, I called the bet, Seat 2 re-raised, Seat 4 re-re-raised, and Seat 7 re-re-re- raised. She called all the bets, and I insta-folded my now ugly flopped straight. The 8 of clubs peeled off on the turn, and there was a crazy amount of betting again. When all the dust (and the 3 of diamonds on the river) settled, she had the 9 of clubs for the straight-flush, I had the flopped straight, Seat 2 flopped a set of Q's and was hoping to boat up, but folded on the river; Seat 4 had the A of clubs; Seat 7 flopped a K-hi flush (and stared at me after the hand, looking for some hint of understanding, I suppose). Talk about a juicy flop!

Seat 10: your hero!

I ended up drinking seven Sierra Nevadas through the night, and didn't leave until 2:30am. I finished down about $70, and continued my break-even poker playing. A bit frustrating to keep breaking even on weekend treks, but I have a blast, and I'm not losing money, so hey hey!

Got back home and took a fun trip down memory lane by checking out my old livejournal. There are some pretty funny comment conversations back there with Stacey, Tessa, Kristle and other friends. Which got me wondering what Tessa, Brien and Kristle are up to nowadays. I read through some of Tessa's recent posts on her new blog... she's still got it! She continues to write a very entertaining blog updated almost daily, and makes me wish I had kept on blogging (and also motivates me to blog now!).



I wasn't able to find out much about Kristle and Brien. A few entries down in my livejournal were at a really fun and exciting time in my life, when I was just about to move down to Sacramento with Kristle. Kristle, Brien and I had a great time the last few months of college together... then Sacramento (and Japan for B) happened, and I think the bad situation in Sacramento put a hold to whatever friendship we had. Since I'll be moving back to Seattle in November most likely, I spent some time wondering last night what all these old, possible friends are up to now. Anyone know what happened to these two?? Last I heard they were living in South Seattle?

Ended up hitting the hay around 3:30am and woke up this afternoon at 3:30pm... nice! Waking up tomorrow for work is going to suck, ah well.

Had a nice chat with Stacey today about lots of things, including her new relationship with Ben. Not a huge shocker there, and I'm sure they'll have a lot of fun together. Her plan was to stay single for a while, but guys tend to have other plans when it comes to smoking hot, bass-playing ladies :)



Holy crap, 3-hour blog entry! I think I can extend it with a few pictures... time to search!