STeelerJosh

Tailgate 2010

2010-10-16T16:36:00.002-05:00

The leaves are turning, the air has a bite, it must be that time of year. Time for the family tailgate at a Steelers game! It is going down tomorrow and I am pretty excited. I made a new tailgating CD and I am pretty proud of it. It includes all the old standards (Here We Go Steelers, some Pittsburgh Steelers polkas, NFL FIlsm excerpts) and some new ones I found such as "Stairway to Seven", "Put a Ring on It" (All the Steelers ladies, All the Steelers ladies), and some other unique 'Burgh hits.

We have two Gold Lot passes and are expecting about 25 people, it is going to be a great time. I have high expectations for a Steelers win and it is with tempered excitement that I am looking forward to Ben's return to the team. I think he is a great quarterback and will help the team, but I am still appalled at his off the field behavior and demonstrated horrible decision making. From the motorcycle w/ no helmet to even being in a college bar, he just comes across as immature and lacking common sense. I hope that he has grown up during this forced absence and that the fans will welcome him back... becuase he earns it and proves his worth. This city is his oyster if he can overcome his ego and selfishness. Here is to hoping he has.

Regardless of the type of person Ben truly is, it is going to be one hell of a party tomorrow and I can't wait. Go Steelers!

NFL Pick 'Em

2010-10-12T08:38:00.003-05:00

I am in a pick 'em pool with a bunch of co-workers and friends at my old job. I am a game out of first with 41 correct picks so far this season. Last week was a bloodbath on the leaderboard with 4 people going 5-9. I went 8-6 and took second for the week *cringe* behind my wife who got 9 correct.

Noticing that the home team went 7-7 last week (outperforming most of the picks in our pool) I wondered how the home team strategy would have done so far this season. Answer? It would be a game ahead of first place. 43-33

Before I change my strategy, I should take note that this is largely because the home team went an impressive 12-4 in week 1. After that, it is been surprisingly close to splitting.

Week 1 - 12-4
Week 2 - 8-8
Week 3 - 8-8
Week 4 - 8-6
Week 5 - 7-7

None of this analysis can overcome the fact that my wife has picked higher than me 3 out of the 5 weeks. Luckily for me, when she misses, she misses big and we are tied in the standings. I guess that is what I get for marrying a football loving lady :-)

Time Waster

2009-04-07T08:16:00.001-05:00

But it caught on like wildfire at work. There is a little brute army running around the tech team now.

http://karkass.mybrute.com

Challenge my brute to a fight!

Why The Calls Went Our Way

2009-02-05T13:09:00.001-05:00

Sawyer offered the officials a tasty knuckle sandwich. What a great kid!

Flickr

2009-02-05T13:06:00.001-05:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

In the 'Burgh

2009-01-31T19:16:00.000-05:00

Drove into Pittsburgh today. Dropped off Sawyer at the relatives and headed down to Jerome Bettis' Grille to start getting the head straight for the game tomorrow. This will probably involve the symbolic IC Light and some of Bettis' nachos. Only one Ahrn City though, there is much better beer to be had.

I am hoping to get some good pics of the city.

Gettin' Geeked

2009-01-30T14:38:00.000-05:00

Things going through my mind:
The Big Game is almost here again.
SB XL seems like it was just yesterday.
I struggle to muster the hate for the Cardinals that comes naturally with an AFC opponent.
I think the Steelers are going to kick Arizona's ass.
I would wear this t-shirt.

Sunday Drive

2009-01-29T13:22:00.004-05:00

A buddy at work sent me this link -

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c&cbll=42.953557,-77.663247&panoid=6vAkor2kYZz3m5_1iSkMrw&cbp=12,181.53727377395012,,0,21.75107339062427&ll=42.953463,-77.663242&spn=0.027766,0.22316&t=h&z=13

I brought it up and noticed a deer in frame. This conversation ensued:

Me: that is pretty cool
Me: but also begs the question... is streetview really necessary there?

Him: did you keep driving?

Me: no
Me: oh no

Him: oh yeah

Me: I think the next click is the sad one, it is right there along side, right before impact

Me: probably realizing... "uh oh"
Me: I thought the gvan went pretty slow..
Me: must have been moving pretty good

Update: It appears that this got Digg'd or something because it is no longer available due to high demand. I still had the start of the drive up on my screen so I snapped it. Once the demand dies down, it is worth a click (unless google removes it) I should also note that I think the van stopped.. because the street view ends 50 feet or so past the impact.

Tough to argue with the logic

2009-01-28T12:49:00.003-05:00

From a friend's tumblr blog - (He is Dutch and understands football to mean something else)

So, this weekend, I will be wholeheartedly rooting for my beloved Steelers to win Super Bowl XLIII and in the process, become the undisputed Handegg Champions of the 2008 season.

Go Steelers!!

Baby It's Cold Outside...

2009-01-16T09:32:00.004-05:00

Every Christmas, that annoying pop duet (the Frank Sinatra version comes to mind as the worst offender) gets stuck in my head. SteelerSteph likes to play the "Holly" station of XM through the television to get in the mood starting around Thanksgiving and ending in the New Year. That results in the aural bombardment of my tiny ears with this tune.

With no prompting from the radio, (I was listiening to Opie and Anthony joke about the plane crash in the Hudson) I started humming it on the drive into work this morning. I could not feel my toes, this picture may explain why:

Yep. Without factoring in any wind chill, 10 minutes into my commute it was still -12. And yes, for the more observant, I have over 100k on the Honda. This month I am making my last payment on the 04 Pilot and it cracked 100k with all the Christmas driving. It has been a great vehicle and I would get another in a second if they offered a hybrid version. 21 mpg is not horrible, but it is not great either. I managed to put on all those miles despite having a motorcycle, the wife's company car, and our summer car (01 Mitsubishi Spyder Eclipse) to share the love. I get around.

Lest I complain too much about Mr. Sinatra I should consider myself lucky. Lately when it has been freezing around these parts, one of the worst songs I have ever heard will invade my brain. T-Baby's amazing hit, Its so Cold in the D.

This being my first attempt to embed a video on this blog, here is the link just in case:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aktLRiWXfqg

If you have 2 minutes of your life to completely waste check out this production and lyrical masterpiece. You will regret it and have been warned.

The Road to the SuperBowl

2009-01-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

Poor Poor Ravens.....

Peek A Boo

2008-12-29T20:56:00.000-05:00

Sawyer at his Aunt and Uncle's over the holidays.

Busted

2008-12-08T11:40:00.003-05:00

Today started out rough. Traffic was backed up on the highway so I got off and took surface streets in an attempt to get to the office by 8:30. I had made Rice Krispy treats for an office bake sale and they were supposed to be in the 4th floor conference room by that time. Supporting our Troops became a little more expensive this morning as my haste on the surface streets resulted in a citation from the Farmington Hills Police Department. Arriving even later and bummed about the extra $150 or more that this will cost me I was happy to find this Dilbert taped to my monitor:

While no one likes being compared to PHB (Pointy Haired Boss), I have a bit of a reputation for doing exactly what he did. I work on the server team at my company so my peers have elevated privileges and we should all be in the habit of locking our workstations when we leave them unattended. The penalty for failure is usually an instant message to a peer from the unsecured pc. The standard message is, "I like nekid Star Wars". It is a real conversation starter.

Although I would prefer the cash, it is nice to be noticed (and loved/loathed) enough by my team mates to have them cut out a comic that made them think of me and take the time to tape it to my (always secured) workstation. Idiot invading my perimeter be damned!

(about the ticket - the officer said he was doing me a favor by reducing my 49 in a 35 to "impeding traffic" as that carries no points. There is no fine listed on the ticket so a quick google revealed that is a relatively common thing that is good for the no points.. but carries a $20 greater fine than the real ticket. I am not sure what the points would cost, but I suppose that is a favor by the officer. I have not had a speeding ticket since I was long distance dating my future wife. Traveling between Washington, D.C. and Akron, OH resulted in two performance awards on the PA turnpike in one year. That was in 1998/1999 so I guess they have been expunged. Farmington Hill's finest said that I had no previous tickets.)

12-1 in the regular season of the office fantasy football league means nothing when you lose in the first round of the play offs. DOH. The only saving grace this weekend was the stressful victory of the Steelers over the Cowboys. I am not sure I could have taken both losses... and truthfully, if I had to chose one or the other.... I would take the Steelers victory all day. Next week is the big matchup against Baltimore. While not a must win, it is certainly a should and better win. I have a double or nothing dinner riding on it with my parents and bragging rights when I take the family home to Baltimore for Christmas. Go Steelers!

ZOMGWTFBBQ!!1!!

2008-11-16T20:06:00.002-05:00

A work buddy e-mailed me about the Steelers taking it easy on LT.. he needed the points. I sent this reply and then went to look up how close I was on the penalty difference and thought that there was something wrong with the NFL site... they still had the score as 11-10.

My e-mail:

I don't normally bitch about the officiating.. but come on!! It was like the refs had money on San Diego or something. Sooooo many no calls on SD for holding (don't think there was one all game but I saw a ton) and calling every infraction on the Steelers. The Steelers committed 12 more penalties than the Chargers? Or did the Chargers get called 12 less? Hmmmm.

At least my boys got it done this week.... I would be fuming if they had not.

They let him have a TD...what more do you want? 100 yards? Heh, not this year.

J

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXXX
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2008 6:39 PM
To: XXXXXX
Subject: Pitt

Tell pitt to ease up on ladanian....I neeed the fantasy points.......

It turns out I was incorrect about the penalties, SD was charged with 2 to Pittsburgh's 13 and I am absolutely floored about the final. I watched the game and I thought it ended 17-10. www.espn.com and www.nfl.com both have the final as 11-10. What gives? The spread was 4.5 and it seemed like the officials did everything they could to keep it in that... including taking a couple of TDs off the board. I can give them the Willie Parker TD called back for holding.. but the Polamalu one at the end of the game is pretty much ridiculous. The Steelers got the win, but it was still very frustrating to watch James Harrison get held on most plays, blatantly facemasked, and have it not called once while every infraction of the Black and Gold is flagged.

Whatever officials. I am die hard Steelers and think Football is the king of pro sports but the league is really dissapointing me this year. I think some of the responsibility lies with the commish, bitch-ass Goodell. I miss Tagliabue. I do not agree with the league "cracking" down on the hits. All of these fines that are issued after the game for plays that were legal and (correctly) not called during the game. For feck's sake, its football. Not flag football, tackle football. We all understand the business side of the game, i.e. it is bad for the business when you lose a Tom Brady for the season (but feck him and all the Pats fans too), but that is a risk that is assumed when the players suit up.

I am running out of steam and have no real intention other than venting. Summation? This season has been the most memorable in my lifetime of being a fan for bad officiating, bad leadership of the league, and frustration as a fan. Goodell and the officials GFY.

Dammit

2008-11-16T17:55:00.004-05:00

Poker Time has been filled in with WoW lately. I don't have a character high enough to do any of the new content in the Lich King release but I still get to experience the delays to logging in. Worst of both worlds :-)

Life has been nuts since this July and I have taken a hiatus from poker to a more +EV game (although it guarantees me to lose $14 each month). It is nice to have a rough week and then smash through stuff with my work friends on Tuesday nights. While the peaks are not as high... it lacks the troughs of poker. I am getting enough of the negative variance in real life right now.

On the odd trivia/bright side, I am now renting a townhouse that is sandwiched between two Detroit Lions players. The QB, Orlovsky, and the long snapper.... and I no longer have the care and maintenance of the grounds and driveway of our dream home. Silver linings and all that.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T20:42:00.001-05:00

Sawyer's First Halloween:

We went to pick out a pumpkin on the 30th

And he was a skunk!

Migrations

2008-07-11T21:26:00.000-05:00

Tonight we started our first pilot group of roughly 50 users that are transitioning from IBM's Domino Lotus Notes to Microsoft's Exchange for e-mail and calendaring. It is going well but running into the expected snags here and there. If I can figure out this last one the evening may end earlier than I expected. That would be good because we will all be back here tomorrow morning to finish up.

Sad to see Iggy out as I enjoyed watching his status via Tao of Poker updates. Well played Iggy and Pauly.

If I can get a dependable internet connection at home this weekend I expect to get some time in on the virtual felt. Wish me luck.

Internet Tilt

2008-06-30T20:58:00.001-05:00

Do you think Comcast would reimburse my $11.50 they cost my by inexplicably dropping my entire neighborhood's internet (or at least the two neighbors with unsecured wireless) in the middle of my HU match?

It was extra cool of them to allow me to connect back for a split second to see that my 2k to less than 1k lead had been whittled away to about 1200 chips for me and then drop me again after the glimpse.

A big FU to Comcast and all it's comcastic shittiness. Man that is frustrating....

Always Amusing

2008-06-28T17:23:00.003-05:00

Sometimes the chat is a good jopke

Overheard after spinedo1 hit a gutshot to cripple mikedill:

mikedill: i know you dont win at sngs

spinedo1: cuz i'm sure you play perfct every time

mikedill: when sitting next to you it could look that way

mikedill: an infant could look like a pro

mikedill
Games Played: 2,922
Avg Profit: $3
Avg Stake: $27
ROI: 10%
Total Profit: $7,396

spinedo1
Games Played: 269
Avg Profit: -$1
Avg Stake: $4
ROI: -20%
Total Profit: -$190

New Experiences

2008-05-01T08:53:00.003-05:00

At the risk of getting into Absinthetics' niche, who had a great post about childproofing your home the other day, I wanted to share my experience with traveling with a 4 month old. On the subject of Absinthetics it seems that I have been following in his footsteps with his child raising experiences. Pretty soon Sawyer will be mobile and I will be going through the same home safety exercise. It is pretty cool to read the experiences of a much better writer that is walking down the path a few steps ahead of me.

I have come to the realization that the amount of kit a person requires to travel is inversely proportional to their size. 10 days in Florida and all my big ass requires is one suitcase. 10 days in Florida for the baby requires a slightly smaller suitcase and a pack-n-play and a stroller and a car seat and a diaper bag and formula and his play mat and all other kinds of crap. All of this must be checked (to the tune of an extra $25 for the 5th piece of checked luggage for the pack-n-play) or processed by TSA. I have to admit, I was nervous about the airport security and the baby. I have flown before and witnessed parents struggle with all the gear and misbehaving kids at the security scan. They try to jam strollers that will not fit and load the entire scanning conveyor belt with kid accouterments. All this while dealing with crying or wild kids that will not listen. Throw in a liberal amount of lightweight hi speed business travelers queued behind this circus and you can see why I would not be able to relax until we were settled in at our gate.

All in all, it went much better than I expected. The stroller did not fit, and even though it was obvious to me, the TSA dude still made me try to shove it in the scanner. The biggest issue at the airport was declaring the baby formula (more than 3 oz of liquid) since it was recommended that we have the baby eating during take off and landing to help ease the pressure in his ears. The biggest hassle was lugging all of our crap. SteelerSteph had a diaper bag and pushed the stroller while I tackled the task of moving 4 suitcases and the pack-n-play. It did not work out too well as I had to piggyback the suitcases (2 and 2, the bigger ones hauling the smaller ones) and balance the pack and play on top of one pair. That sucked until the van picked us up in the parking lot and then sucked again in the airport. Freed of the checked baggage we headed to security to get scanned. That went much better than I expected but was still tough and I was glad to be through. An hour and 15 minutes to kill before the flight and Sawyer managed to have one diaper change and a big spit up on SteelerSteph. Her left shoulder smelled like sour milk baby puke so I tried to stay on her right side. :-) She takes it like a champ, I guess the pure unadulterated love helps balance out the highs and lows.

We had a layover in Orlando and arrived at Ft. Meyers at about 10:45 last night and as I am typing this I already have played in a few SNGs, drank 4 beers and enjoyed the baby inexplicably sleeping in until 12:30 this morning after getting up at 5 AM for a feeding. Vacation is good and I have a nice week ahead of me. My sister in law is getting married this weekend so we are in Sanibel Island, FL until next Friday. http://www.lesleyandchip.com/ has our itinerary. Welcome BBQ tomorrow, golf and rehearsal dinner on Saturday and Wedding on Sunday. I have a lot of drinking and eating ahead of me... so as much as I would have to liked to attend the Weekend at Mookies 2, having a buzz before 12:30 on a Thursday really softens the blow.

Time to go put in some QT with the wife and sit on the beach with her some (while drinking some more beers) and think about how lucky I am. Holla if ya hear me.

Happy Hour Doooooosh

2008-04-18T23:57:00.003-05:00

For DNasty13: Got it all in on the flop.

Told ya I would take care of that aggro monkey! :)

Fun playing with you.

The Goat Speaks for Me

2008-04-18T20:34:00.004-05:00

http://jgoat.blogspot.com/2008/04/viva-la-bbt3.html

Julius Goat fast became one of the reads I look forward to most when I fire up Bloglines. I have him categorized in the LOST section, but it is very hard to pigeonhole a talking goat so that was more a selection of convenience. If you are not up on his Table Profiles and Stupid System you owe it to yourself to browse his archives.

The Goat's latest post struck a chord. I think he nailed it on the head. I am happy to play the blogger tournaments now and then and appreciate all the people who play, set up the games, and do the really special stuff like BBT3. It is kind of weird how catty and dramatic a lot of the poker blogosphere has become lately. The name calling and other bashing is nothing new, nor is the calling out and comment wars.... but the amount of people that have allowed themselves to get caught up in the pseudo-drama seems new to me. If nothing else, it makes the morning read slightly more interesting... but overall seems pretty silly.

On a poker note, I played the first blogger event in awhile with the Mookie this week and managed a 3rd place finish for my efforts. Overall I was happy with my performance. I played very tight:

and I had two notable suckouts. One kicked off my final table run, the other ended it. I was ITM and I misread BuddyDank's hand when he limped with Kings in the highjack. I raised 3x from the BB and BD called. The flop came 8 high with one over to my pocket sixes and two diamonds. BD bet out the size of the pot and I put him on a flush draw. I jammed and he had me covered and called. I nailed the 6 on the river to cripple him and had a couple chip lead over PureProphet. It was a tough beat and BuddyDank took it well.

The last suckout occurred at my elimination. Memphis00 had been running very well and single handedly took out most of the final table. He was playing his big stack well and getting the cards he needed. He made a standard steal raise from the button and I went all in over top with my pocket 8s. He called with 35d. The flop seemed harmless enough with only one diamond. When the 4c hit on the turn I knew I was in trouble. The Ace on the river sealed my fate and I was out. I snapped a screenshot and watched the end as it only took a few more minutes for Memphis00 to make a flush on the river to eliminate Astin. I was happy with my performance and think that I could have given Memphis00 or Astin a run for 1st if those 8's stand up.

I wish Memphis00 all the luck in the TOC and might try the Mookie again next week. It was as fun as I remembered it... and maybe a little less chatty than I recall. Perhaps my expectations were too high from reading all the complaining or I never sat at the worst poker player's table. Either way, the chat seemed pretty tame and it was a lot of fun.

Confidence Booster

2008-02-19T12:10:00.000-05:00

Technically I am in greater need of an immune system booster but the win I booked this morning helped me feel better. I took off the second day of work this week due to the gunk that has taken up residence in my head and sinuses. I feel that I am starting to turn the corner today and will likely be back at the salt mines tomorrow. I am looking forward to getting back to the office because there is so much to do there.

The baby was fed, dry, and getting sleepy and SteelerSteph was headed to a doctor's appointment. My mom was on standby in case Sawyer got fussy. What to do? How about a 90 seat $3+.30 KO sitngo? Sounds like a good fit. I want to try my hand at some larger field low buy-in games but I rarely have the time to devote in case I go deep. I watch DNasty13 splash around in these things and they look like fun. I think the KO format is a bit of a hedge since you have a chance to get some or all of your buyin back even if you don't make the money. The flip side is that it decreases the final table payouts but that usually is not a problem for me.

Here were my stats for the whole game:

I played pretty tight through the whole tourney and really caught some cards at the end. Early on I doubled up with trip sevens and was never below average again. Down to the final two tables I was steadily in the top 3 and played my big stack pretty well. I would pick my spots and attack the middle and bigger stacks and leave the shorties alone unless I had great cards. On the final table bubble, during hand for hand, I really made some aggressive moves and was able to get some separation as I padded my stack. The final table bubble soon broke and 9 spots paid. One player had T260 and it was pretty sure they were going to pop the money bubble.

Money bubble popped and I set about to play smart poker. I managed 2 big resteals and kept myself in the top 2 chip spots without really risking much of my stack. Overall, the tourney played pretty fast and I was able to pick my spots. Suddenly (or at least it seemed that way) we were down to three with two of us almost even in chips and third place well behind. I had restolen once from williteverend and watched him play relatively loose but decent poker and he was getting out of line now. I knew it would only be a matter of time and I would get his chips. I did and had almost a 5 to 1 chip lead over the "happy to be in second place money because of the real donkey that busted out when he did not need to" guy that was left. I doubled him up once to 68k but made sure I kept the pressure on and soon had him back below 30k to my 240k. I felt a bit like cat playing with a mouse and ultimately got him all in with his K6 against my K10. My hand held up and I was pumped. Not a bad way to dip your toes back in the FT waters.

I collected several KOs along the way (probably 8 total) and had a blast. It is easy when you get good cards and your heavy favorite hands stand up. I think the best manipulation play of the day was when I got 99 to get it all in against my AQh on an all heart K high flop. I used the clock, the min-re-raise and all of my best online acting skills. It feels good when all the chips are in and the opponent is drawing dead on the turn.

Blah

2008-02-16T21:06:00.002-05:00

I hate being sick and not feeling 100%. I doubt that anyone likes it, but I really can't stand it. Luckily, I am pretty healthy and don't come down with gunk often but something is working the immune system right now. I felt a tickle and cough in the throat last night and today I am oscillating between being uncomfortably hot and uncomfortably cold. Did I mention the lightheadedness and watery eyes? Boo being sick. I am trying to stay away from SteelerSteph and the baby. I can't imagine what it would be like if she was out of commission. I guess you can't breastfeed when you are sick so that would really suck for Sawyer. If one of us has to be funkified, I suppose I am the best candidate right now.

I took a 2 hour nap and then some Advil Cold and Sinus washed down with a dose of Emergen-C and I am feeling better... but I can feel the presence of the funk on the peripherals of my head. Will have to see how it goes. I should be more pumped because I finally loaded some money on Full Tilt today. The juice was about 11% by the time I purchased a $100 Visa pre-paid (5.95) and then it was not accepted on BoDog or PokerStars. Poop. Tired of railing, I bit the bullet and created an ePassport account. $5 more for their piece of the pie and I had $90 on Full Tilt. It would have been $95, but the "verification" process had a pending charge of $1.69 and I was not sure what was being charged by who so I only loaded $95. I will have to figure out what to do with $5 on a prepaid Visa... save it for the next one? :-) Not if I practice proper BR management.

Wish me luck heading off this gunk and perhaps I will be making a cameo at one of the blog-aments in the near future. See you there.

Despite my distaste for all the major candidates

2008-02-14T16:41:00.001-05:00

I did vote today and I would strongly encourage my fellow blog readers to vote too.

You can do it over the internet anytime you want. Proposition 3.17

Prop 3.17 is important enough for me to blog about my support, and I know that the blogfather will be voting if he has not already.

Irish Americans, and those of us that wish we were Irish on that one day of the year so we could sing along with those awesome sounding drinking songs, have a duty to vote yes for Prop 3.17.

Amen.

What's New Pussycat?

2008-02-14T12:56:00.002-05:00

Zebus (the Cat), originally uploaded by STeelerJosh.

Feeling the urge to get a post up but nothing exciting happening on the poker front (as in no poker at all recently) so a general update will fit the bill.

Sawyer is being Sawyer and we are adjusting pretty well to his routines. SteelerSteph is headed back to work next week so that is a hurdle on the horizon that needs to be cleared, but I think we will be able to take it in stride. My mother is coming up from Baltimore this weekend to stay with us and provide excellent grandmotherly day care for the next 5 weeks. That will really help the transition back to work but will also provide some challenges of its own as we all absorb the adjustment to our lives. It has been a long time since I "lived" with mother. I can only hope that she pays my house the same respect I paid hers and does not keep a messy room, have friends over when I am not home and water down my liquor. Oops. Paybacks are a bitch I suppose.

Generally, life has been pretty general lately. Most of the poker and motorcycle riding has been accomplished vicariously through all the other great blogs out there (congrats to: GCox on all your recent success, Jordan on your Bloggerment win, Hoy on your 50/50, Chad on your FTOPS 9 performance... I watched you play for awhile but bailed at 12:30 when there were 140 some left, Surflexus on all those Mookie final tables and wins and everyone else that seems to be enjoying success lately). Everything else is baby and work centric with patches of sleep grabbed when possible.

Sawyer is getting more interactive and enjoyable everyday. This is good because I really look forward to coming home from the increasingly stessful work days. The project I am managing has had some technical issues that really pushed me to the limits the past 2 weeks. I have it all sorted out now but I am pretty disappointed in Microsoft documentation. Coming from the IBM/Domino world it has not been an impressive transition in using the MS documentation for Office Communication Server 2007. The project is still on track to be delivered on time (and over budget) but it should not be this hard. I had lunch with the CIO today and alluded to some of the challenges but assured him we were still on track. That is true, and will remain true, as long as I can get this Public Internet Connectivity provisioning process on track with Microsoft. That is a seemingly simple administrative process where we register our new Instant Messaging (ghirly chat for all you ghey bloggers) servers registered and authenticated with the major IM providers: Yahoo, AOL, and MSN. I built the servers, tested the crap out of them, and federated with some other companies so I know my stuff is tight.... but I can't seem to get an traction on getting the request to turn it on with these providers up the chain and in the right places at Microsoft. Who knew that would be so hard? It is frustrating because you expect the hard parts in getting everything built and configured properly not in getting a form completed and an authentication (federation) process started. Booo administrata.

If you are a real sicko and are curious what OCS 2007 is, check out this link explaining one of the servers (an EDGE server) that has been kicking my nerd skills up and down the block the past two weeks. Happy to say that I finally got it all in line, but I was plagued with certificate and connectivity issues along the way.
Edge Server Topology

Best of luck to all you poker bloggers who are still playing poker. I will have to explore some options to get some of the bankroll back online so I can donk it off when I get .... make some time to get back up on Full Tilt. Until then, the proud papa in me wants to leave you with this:

Reason to play online poker #7: When I get pocket Aces on the button with 2 raises in front of me, I make that same face.

Big Poppa

2008-01-25T08:23:00.000-05:00

I have discovered that all the advice and maxims about parenthood that people offered to us about becoming parents does not become real until the baby does. Cards with the sentiment, "get some sleep now dad, ha ha" were plentiful but simply could not prepare me for the harsh reality of "parenting" a newborn. I use the term parenting liberally because at this stage it is probably more appropriately "care taking".

"Sleep when he sleeps" - Sage advice, yes. Damn near impossible to accomplish. If the infant eats an average of every 2-2.5 hours that is a good amount of sleep between, right? Umm yeah, not so much. Through reading of parenting and baby books (such as "Babywise") you will learn that nursing infants should eat for a good 15 to 20 minutes per breast. Do the math - 2 x 20 minutes = 40 minutes. That math works using the assumption that 20 minutes of feeding will take 20 minutes. Ooops. Often it takes 30 minutes per side to get a good 15-20 minutes of feeding. The first two weeks it was my job to annoy Sawyer while he was eating so he would stay awake and actually eat. This was accomplished by rubbing his head, tickling his feet, changing his diaper, etc. So back to the math. 40 mins feeding = 1 hr. 2-2.5 hours - 1 hr = 1-1.5 hours. Not quite. After he finishes eating he is awake for a bit. The natural inclination is to put him back in his bassinet once he is back asleep.... and then lay there listening to him to make sure he is really asleep.... and not, for some irrational fear, suffocating on his blanket. That requires getting out of bed and making a visual check. Bottom line the equation works out like this:

60 minute feeding + 5 minute awake period + 5 minute diaper/outfit change +10 minute falling back asleep allowance = 80 mins

120 - 80 or 150 - 80= 40 to 70 minutes of sleep between feedings. Don't even get me started on the times he wakes up 20 minutes after falling asleep because he has gas.

All that arithmetic was to highlight one concept that is still boggling my mind - How is SteelerSteph still functional?!?! She has not had more than 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep in almost 3 weeks but is still being a great new mother. She is not complaining (much) and has embraced the job of caring and loving little Sawyer like she was born to do it.

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I am back at work this week and it has been a mixed bag. I am more tired than I have ever been at work but I am still getting it done. We are in the midst of many high impact technology projects right now and it is pretty exciting to go to work each day knowing the impact my work is having. As a firm, we are transitioning from multiple IBM Domino (Lotus Notes) centric systems to the equivalent Microsoft solutions. For example, I am leading a project that is deploying Office Communicaton Server 2007 to replace our current Instant Message software called Sametime. It is going pretty well although slightly behind (I can pinpoint that to my two weeks away from work with the baby) and slightly over budget. This is not as much of a concern as it normally would be since we have instituted a "first to the trough" policy. I purchased an entire IBM Blade chassis, a $15k of switching hardware, and $13k of Virtualization software that I will only be using a portion of, but since I was the first to this point it is charged to my OCS budget. Planning, testing, and then deploying and troubleshooting the new software has been a welcome challenge. After I get my OCS servers ship shape I will be jumping feet first into a Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 migration. That will be a much more complex project. All of this new technology will be deployed firmwide this June. Right now it looks like it will consist of Vista on the desktop, Outlook/Exchange for Mail, OCS 2007 for Instant Messaging, Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) for collaboration, and a new Identity Management Software solution from Novell to manage all these accounts. Shaping up to be very fun (hectic, busy, crazy) spring and summer at work.

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Poker and a new baby turned out to not mix very well. I managed to deplete my $50 seeded bankroll on Full Tilt. Playing $5 and $10 SNGs with a bankroll under $100 is not advised, especially at odd hours when you are trying to comfort a fussy baby and cannot sleep. I do not have Poker Tracker installed on the new computer so I don't have much to review but I am confident it was a mixture of some bad luck, poor play, and pushing the limits to chase losses. Not sure how many diapers $50 would have purchased but it lasted at least 5 months at the low levels of Full Tilt tables and gave me some satisfaction and ultimately some frustration. Casual poker player? No doubt. It is tempting to re-load somehow so I can play in some blogger-ments but I feel like dead money in most of those due to the caliber of players.... but it is still fun and worth the price of admission.

Finally, I understand now the severe decrease in posting frequency (after becoming a dad) by one of my favorite reads, Absinthe. Wishing him luck in his live games this week.

Happy Dad

2008-01-07T11:36:00.001-05:00

Happy Dad, originally uploaded by STeelerJosh.

Sawyer Charles came early this morning. He clocked in at 6 lbs 9 oz and was 19.5 inches long. Mom and baby are doing great. He came a little earlier than expected but was still considered full term at 37 weeks. I am still trying to absorb it all and spend a good bit of my time staring at him. Kinda hard to explain, but the dads out there probably know where I am coming from.

SteelerSteph blames the Steelers-Jags game for his early arrival. That and maybe the gameday chili we had. Regardless, we are pumped that he is here and healthy! Happy Birthday Sawyer.

Boooo

2008-01-05T23:40:00.000-05:00

In addition to high blood pressure, gripes about the annual horrible post season officiating, and frustration in some of the Steeler play calling.... I am left feeling unfulfilled. I don't think they had the personnel or the play calling to go all the way again but I do think that they should have won the game tonight and I really would have liked to see them give the Pats a run.

On the piss poor officiating of the playoffs - why does it seem so horrible every year? In both games I watched today there were blatant no calls, unexplicable overturned calls, and phantom penalty calls. I don't know why the NFL does not keep regular season crews together for the playoffs.

Enough steam blown off I suppose, time to dwell on my dissapointment until the next season..... oh wait, perhaps only as long as it takes for the next generation Steeler fan to arrive in the SteelerJosh household! SteelerSteph is ready to pop and I am amazed that this game tonight did not send her into labor. Yeah, I suppose that will put it in perspective and quickly bury this loss in the archives of my brain.

Looking forward to reading what MeanGene has to say about the game.

Those Brownies

2007-11-11T22:34:00.001-05:00

They had me and SteelerSteph sweating and cursing the first half. I think that Sawyer learned his first bad word in utero as SteelerSteph dropped several F bombs. The Steelers D could not get off the field four 3rd and longs in a row....against the Browns......at home.....in a game that was for the division lead. I guess if I have to teach my son bad words that is an appropriate instance. That and if the Steelers D did the same thing against the Ravens. Other than that? Ixna on the Uckfa little Sawyer.

Not much poker this weekend. I missed the neighborhood game Friday night. SteelerSteph and I went to the movies and caught Michael Clayton. Pretty good flick, I enjoy George Clooney. After that I had some servers to reboot for work and I was pretty beat from two days of passing judgement on my fellow man. I am still surprised how much that whole experience weighed on me. Anyway, I did get some online poker in and it was a little frustrating. I finally got the roll above the amount required to get out of $2 SNG hell and I bubbled on my first shot at the $6 +.50 turbo SNG. The play there was slightly better than the $2 dollar games but I think it will be very beatable. Once I get my online roll back to the $10 games I plan on making some appearances at the blogger games again. Dead money or not, I miss the challenge and the shared donkerey. Plus, I can't let DNasty make all the noise at the blogger tables.

I will sleep better tonight that my beloved Steelers did not drop a game to the Browns and are looking good at 7-2.

Verdict!

2007-11-09T16:30:00.000-05:00

We left the jury deliberation room last night after reaching a consensus on 3 of the 4 counts. The Aggravated Stalking charge was our sticking point and with a 9-3 vote of guilt it appeared that we might be in for a long Friday. Instructed to report back at 8:30 this morning, I endured the traffic home with a heavy head. I was surprised at how much this whole process was affecting me. It is hard to describe the whole experience and everything that goes through your mind but a few of the words that came to my mind were "sobering" and "sad". The rational part of me was focused on the "facts" of the case and coming to a common sense conclusion of what the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The human side of me calculated the consequences of our actions and conclusions as jurors and there were no happy endings there. The whole case brought home the level of insulation I (and I would propose most of the bloggers I read) have from a lot of the ugliness in this world. I would venture that all of us are above the poverty level and do not have to deal with the decisions, problems, and ramifications that I was witnessing in the courtroom. The preposterousness of someone assaulting me outside of my mobile home, physically forcing me inside and then to get naked and smoke crack is not even something that I could come up with in a crazy nightmare. Who does that?!!? Who has to deal with that possibility when they wake up?

The case was as such: The defendant was charged with Home Invasion 1, Aggravated Stalking, Domestic Violence, and Resisting/Obstructing. The prosecutor put the 911 caller who notified the police about the struggle on the stand first.

He was awoken around 3:30 AM on April 5th, 2007 by the sounds of a struggle outside. He looked out his window and saw two people fighting. He thought it was two guys at first and was ready to go back to sleep but realized that it was a woman and a man so he called 911. While on the phone he witnessed the man pull the woman so hard that the porch railing she was clinging on to broke. He watched him drag her into the mobile home and the light come on and then go out. He stayed on the phone to talk to the cops in to the mobile home park and to the right lot. we read a transcript of his call and listened to a recording of it.

Next, the victim took the stand. She was led by the prosecution through telling the story of multiple contacts with the defendant (important for satisfying some of the charges but this was not obvious to us at the time). According to her, he was stealing her garbage and on April 1st, against all the rules of the Personal Protection Order in place since March 2nd, 2007 against him, she caught him looking in windows of her trailer. She opened the back door to confront him and they exchanged words. It was detailed to us that the back door was about 4 feet off the ground and there were no steps. He parked in the lot of a store close by despite the available parking in the trailer park. Then, on April 4th he called the victim to ask if she was working the next day. She was and her shift as a package handler starts at 4 AM. She has to walk to work as she has no transportation and when she was leaving at 3:30 that morning she was attacked by him outside the mobile home. In the struggle, her company ballcap was knocked off, her wallet was dropped and left outside the home. This was important since the cops found this outside on arrival and it was suspicious.

During the struggle, after the porch collapsed, the defendant bit her on the face and she thought she was bleeding (felt something running down her face) and she gave in. She gave him the keys and they went inside and then it got really weird. According to her (and not denied by the defense) he forced her to get naked and then smoke crack. She said that he smoked too. She knew the "lingo" telling us that she "hit the crack pipe twice" which makes you wonder some, but she was not on trial. Anyway, the cops got there and were banging on the door and shining flashlights in the windows. The defendant made her crawl to the bathroom and put on her clothes telling her that he was going to run out the back when the cops left. Then the phone rang. She did not answer it the first time and when it started ringing again she told him that it was work because they knew about her domestic situation and if she did not answer they would call the police. On the phone was a dispatcher for the police and she pretended it was work. She answered a few of his questions with Yes/No/Yeah answers and ended the call abruptly with the message that she was not feeling well and would not be coming in to work. With that, the cops made forced entry and the defendant hid in the closet. She ran towards the cops and they found the defendant and cuffed him. Other questions were asked during cross examination but overall her story was believable and corroborated with pictures of her bitten face, bruises, the trailer porch and the eyewitness 911 caller.

The arresting officer took the stand and gave details about the call and the subsequent chase of the defendant. Apparently (the defendant was a pretty big dude) they had trouble cuffing him behind so they cuffed him in the front and took his shoe laces. While escorting him to the patrol car he took off running and they gave chase on foot. Sporting the stereotypical cop doughnut eating very large gut I chuckled to myself thinking no way this dude caught the running guy. I was right, it was his partner that caught him when he tripped (he was running in socks now, his shoes fell off) in a parking lot across the major road near the park. The re-arrested him and kept a much tighter grip on him. Once they knew he was "arrestable" they left the personal property he had on him (he claimed he lived there) at the trailer. Among these items were his car keys. The victim testified earlier that she used these keys to find his car. It was parked down the street and in there she found and listened to a very disturbing tape. That was among the most telling and confusing evidence in the case.

The tape was accepted into evidence without objection by the defense (not sure why) and it apparently was the defendant talking to his mother. The transcript was one and a half typed single spaced pages of profanity laced rampaging by the defendant. The tape was played and it was pretty disturbing. The person raging on the tape was far different than the man sitting in front of us. At the time I was not sure why they were playing the tape but parts of it became important during deliberations and I suppose it set the reference for the character/personality of the defendant. It was a vulgar roller coaster and I was almost uncomfortable for the older ladies in the jury with me when he was dropping the "F-ing C U Next Tuesday" line.

The prosecution rested and then the defense called his mother to the stand. She did not add much and mostly talked about things before the dates in question (although this was not obvious at the time). We were sent to deliberate around 3:45 PM and finally had to leave a little after 5 PM as we were unable to reach an agreement on all of the charges. We agreed to guilty on 3 of the 4, the aggravated stalking was our sticking point. I was not looking forward to today and getting back in that room with these people.

We started back in a couple minutes after 8:30 today and it was quickly obvious that we were in the same spot as last night. 9 for, 3 against. There were 7 factors that had to be satisfied to meet the charge and two of them involved assessing if the victim was caused emotional distress and if the victim felt intimidated, harassed, etc. 2 of the jurors did not think she was distressed on the April 1st incident. This was important since the charge said there had to be 2 non continuous incidents that met the conditions. They reasoned that since she did not call the cops, she was not distressed. One gentleman did not believe her testimony when she said she was terrified. "If she was" he reasoned, "why did she open the trailer door and try to confront him?". Mentally, the night before I had rationalized with myself and was prepared to go with a Not Guilty verdict on this charge if it meant that we would not have a mistrial. This was a minor charge, the major charge was the Home Invasion 1. As it turned out, after 2 plus hours of debate it became a moot point.

The clerk came in and told us that the judge wanted us to present the 3 counts we agreed on. (and the communication while in deliberation is very weird. There can be no contact with the judge or any parties. We would buzz for a "runner" person and then we could submit a question that we wrote on paper. The reply would be written by the judge on the paper and run back to us. This was an obstacle to communication and dragged out the process as we had several clarification questions.) We were summoned back to the court room and instructed to read our verdict on the three counts. We did, were polled individually as to our answers, and then we were sent back to the room. When we announced Home Invasion 1, the guy started crying and was pretty upset. I reminded myself of the times I have made a mistake and regretted it... and that there are consequences for actions. The mother remained pretty stoic and the victim, his wife started crying too. Not sure if the tears were relief, sadness, or both. My money is on both.

Back in the room, we started deliberating again and pretty soon the clerk came in and told us the judge was coming to see us. Some postulated that we were going to get talked to about reaching a verdict but that was not the case. He advised us that he let the prosecution drop the charge that we were stuck on and that a sentencing date had been set. Since the trial was concluded, his demeanor with us changed completely. Suddenly, he was sharing his opinion with us and information that we were not allowed to know during the trail. He told us that we had reached the correct conclusions (in his opinion) and even brought in the prosecutor to give us more background that we could not have considered legally during the trial. I think that helped ease some the burden from our minds that naturally comes when you make a decision like that.

The clerk handed out a personalized and hand signed "Certificate of Appreciation" to each one of us. I found that odd. Would I frame that and hang it? Where?!? I don't think that I want to dwell on this whole experience. I understand the concept of civic duty and I am embrace it. I would gladly serve as a juror again and expect I will (just not in the next year, I am exempt for 12 months I think). That said, the human side of this whole thing is pretty depressing. I don't know how the court staff, the victim advocacy/support groups, detention facility staff deal with this ugliness all the time. It really is sad. Here is a 28 year old woman who looks like she is older than 40. She has been beaten into submission on many levels, among them physically, and she has two kids with her husband: a crack addict with sever anger management issues and an unfathomable attitude towards women. What is her future? What are the kids' futures? The father's future in prison. It is a zero sum game and outside of the prosecutor's office there were definitely no winners today.

I headed back to my milquetoast upper class neighborhood in my well running comfortable car and appreciated my position in life. I am a happily married, expecting father to be, working at a job I enjoy at a company that appreciates me, lucky person.

Jury duty helps your perspective.

They call me juror #4

2007-11-08T12:19:00.000-05:00

I was randomly selected to the first group of 30 from the juror pool and then selected to the panel of 12 once in the courtroom. The case is expected to take 1-2 days and is a criminal trial. I have to admit it is quite a sobering experience and I am curious how it will all turn out.

Jury Duty

2007-11-08T08:02:00.000-05:00

Jordan (the devil's advocate of poker bloggers) crossed my mind this morning as I sat in the Sixth Circuit Court parking lot this morning. Somehow I screwed up my calculations when I set the alarm last night and I bad beat myself out of an extra hour of sleep. Arriving 40 minutes before my scheduled juror report time left me plenty of time to lawyer watch in the parking lot. If only I could get some poker on my Blackberry....

Congrats to DNasty who apparently took down the Mookie last night. Looking forward to hearing his side as soon as I finish this jury gig. Nothing against civic duty but I am hoping this is pretty short lived. Work will be crazy the next 8-10 months and this is not a good time to have to be away from the office. I don't think that Jordan practices law outside of Zoo York but I will be looking for a lawyer sporting a Superman shirt and rocking an ipod.

Test Picture Post

2007-11-07T16:18:00.000-05:00

I took this at a Steeler game and was playing with the BW Focal point setting in Picasa 2. Testing to see if this will upload with that setting even if I don't save it. Go Steelers!!

Overheard in a WaWa Parking Lot

2007-11-02T21:58:00.001-05:00

My younger brother noted that I have been running
silent/running deep on the electronic front lately so I feel compelled to
post. I spent an enjoyable hour talking
to him on the phone last night which was a welcome distraction from the very
monotonous drive through Northern Ohio on I-80.
This post is for you “Lucky”.

SteelerSteph and I spent this past weekend in PA doing what
Pennsylvanians do best and quite often: tailgating and watching football. It started early on Saturday morning when we
drove west from Pittsburgh to Shippensburg, PA to watch her little brother play
in his final home football game.
Surprisingly, the weather cooperated and it was a great tailgating-football
watching day. My parents drove up from
Baltimore and were treated to a 56 to 10 thrashing of Lock Haven by the
Shippensburg Red Raiders. It is always a
treat to see them since I live so far away.
Pre and post game tailgating consisted of Omlettes (cooked to order by
yours truly and Chip), Fried Chicken, Pulled Pork, Hot Cider, Coffee, Beer, and
lots of snacks. My little “Fire and Ice”
portable grill/cooler combo is a great invention and served its purpose well
this trip. It was sad to have the day
with my parents end, but nice to know that we would see them soon for
Thanksgiving.

Sunday brought more of the same with the team I was rooting
for winning handily. The Cincinasti
Bungals have a special kind of hatred for the Steelers ever since the Steelers
knocked them out of the playoffs (by knocking Carson Palmer out of the game) and
went on to win the SuperBowl. Plus, the
“away” game for the Steelers in Paul Brown Stadium is usually more of a
semi-home game. The cheering is usually
equally loud for each team. SteelerNation
travels well.

Poker has been good lately too. I finally beat my neighborhood game (now only
-$15 after 4 sessions… much better than -$140).
I also took down a 13 seat $25 buy in monthly home game tournament that
is organized by DNasty. I was feeling
good about my game and called it ahead of time.
I told D that I was going to take it down and I did.

5% Poker 5% House 90% Baby

2007-09-06T16:23:00.001-05:00

5% Poker: I dropped $70 Saturday night in the "friendly" neighborhood poker game. That brings my two session average to -40. It is a mixed game that ranges from "Two Card Guts" and "Acey Duecey" up to plain ol' NL Hold 'Em. It is dealer's choice and there are always crazy games with wilds. I struggle with figuring out when my 4 of kind Kings is going to lose to the 5 of a kind 3's. The game is mostly loose with one LAG that was the big winner (+160) this week. He has the best poker skills and is very aggressive with pot bets when he senses weakness. He also hit a ton of his winning cards on the river this past game. I will work on my strategy for playing in a Loose Passive/Loose Aggressive game where the gamblers don't mind the stakes. I already know that I cannot bluff much or at all and that with all the wilds and crazy gambling games that are played I really need some luck. I suspect that I am a little too tight right now. Regardless, it is a good time and I enjoy being able to play for 5-6 hours with good people, get my beer on, and then stumble home through wet lawns and heat up some pizza rolls cuz I have the munchies at 2:30 AM.

5% House: The house is coming along with a lot of hard work. I learned the true meaning of Labor Day this weekend when I spent "Labor Day Weekend" power washing and then staining the deck, weeding and raking all the landscaping, removing rust stains from exterior surfaces of the house, getting a chip/crack in the windshield repaired before winter, mowing the acre plus and whatever other bidding the pregnant missus ordered. She did help with the weeding and it was appreciated. The deck staining was the biggest PITA as it has a ton of spindles and was really in bad shape. The previous owners of this house suck and if I ever had the chance to meet them, I would kick them. It took me 2 hours to stain one section of railing and this was less than 1/4 of the whole railing. Uh oh. The staining took basically 2 days but was very rewarding as the difference was amazing. The wood was high quality wood and it looks like a new deck now. After 3 days of "vacation" I could not wait to get back to work. My brain is in much better working shape then my painting shoulder.

90% Baby: SteelerSteph and I had our mid-pregnancy ultra-sound on Friday. This can be a pretty nerve wracking milestone of a pregnancy. During this ultrasound the doctors measure and inspect all kinds of things to make sure development is proceeding correctly. It did not hit me how complex this entire process is until this session at the hospital. They check things as simple as making sure the heart has 4 chambers and they are the correct relative sizes. How does all this crap know how to develop? It boggles my mind. It is also during this ultrasound that they can tell you the gender of your baby if you so desire. We desired and much to my surprise and pleasure I found out I will be having a baby boy!!

This took some time to get my head around. When the ultra-soundologist (I just made that title up) asked if if we really wanted to know and then typed "It's a", drew an arrow to some bit on the computer screen, and then finished on a line by itself, "Boy".... I just started laughing. I could not stop. I had imagined and prepared myself mentally for many years to be the father of a girl. I was ready for the tea parties, the hairstyles, the discussions of *gag* emotions. I was dreading the puppy love, broken hearts, and those dirty little boys that would be interested in my daughter. I KNEW what they were interested in, I was a dirty little boy myself. That would be my cosmic karma payback. Add to this the odd offspring pattern my family seems to have (a generation of all girls, a generation of all boys, and my youngest brother kicking of this generation with two girls) and I was confident I would have a daughter. In an odd way, I was looking forward to the special bond that seems to exist between fathers and daughters. I look at how my wife has a special love for her dad and thought that would be pretty cool to be the dad for a girl. I was ready.... and in an instant... I was not.

A boy? What? Are you sure?

Really?!? A boy?! Wow.

How sure are you?

A boy. I have to admit to initially being a little disappointed. I was so mentally prepared and had focused on all the "benefits" of having a girl that this was a bucket of cold water. The more I processed this new information, the more it grew on me. While I felt an odd sense of loss that I would not have a girl, the expanding awareness of my options with a boy were growing. I could rough house with him, build stuff, throw the ball around... he might like sports and if he inherits my wife's athleticism he could have a lot of success on the playing fields. This is going to be sweet, and I won't have to worry about what those dirty little boys will want to do to my daughter.... I will have to worry about my dirty little boy! :)

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The other constant thought in the back of my mind during the ultra sound was that this is probably the session in which my friend at work learned of his little girl's trisomy-18. I am sure his despair at this news was inversely proportional to my pure joy in learning that we had a healthy and properly developing baby boy. He and his wife are still in my thoughts as I progress along the path that they tread recently. At each of these types of checkpoints, I find myself mentally putting myself in his shoes. Those shoes hurt.

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Finally, because I don't want to end on a sad note, I found out Sunday of some more fantastic baby news. I can't share more than that because it is only 5 weeks... but it is good news and I am very happy for this couple.

Gotta jet and I am working on getting some $$ back online so I might see you there soon.

Motivational Posters

2007-08-30T12:34:00.000-05:00

Stumbled Upon a "Motivational Poster" Maker.

Will share some of the fun I've had with it.

Population of Suburbia (+2)

2007-08-27T13:36:00.001-05:00

I am pretty sure this is another milestone of some sort. Another pebble on the path of "living the dream"?

It just feels so white bread and stereotypical to me and I am not sure why. I bought a piece of lawn care equipment this weekend. Big deal. Why does part of me feel like a sell out?

Perhaps it is because this just so fits into my own image of "Suburbia" and all the negative connotation that concept carries.

I can just picture some jackhole riding around on his golf course looking front lawn and thinking how great his 2.3 kids, white picket fence life is going. I just don't see that as me, besides, white picket fence was too expensive and we went with the Invisible Fence.

All kidding aside, I am excited about finally owning a riding lawn mower even with my hang ups about the yellow and green branding. Stat wise, I paid $50 more for a mower that has a 2 inch bigger turning radius, a 4 inch smaller cutting deck, and a .4 gallon smaller tank. Maybe that is why I am troubled by this purchase. There is no doubt that I need a riding mower to cut the acre we now own. There is not doubt that I calculated the break even point. (without accounting for my time.. I make too much an hour in my mind for it EVER to be cost effective for me to spend time mowing the lawn) If I assume 26 weeks of paying a lawn service per year (April through September) my break even point is 52 weeks. Add in fuel and maintenance and I am at about 57 weeks, or two years and one month of mowing until it is cheaper to own vs. "rent". I did not account for the extra time out of my life it will take nor did I factor in the sense of a job well done and the fun of riding around on stuff. Lets call that a wash.

You may be asking why I spent more for the mower that did pound for pound did less than the Deere. Easy answer: SteelerSteph. She did not like the color of the Husqvarna. It was orange. The Cleveland Browns are orange and brown. Therefore is would be a loser (like the Browns). It was a no-brainer for her. She also liked the idea of a John Deere and said that she wanted to sing "the John Deere song" while I was out mowing. I don't know that particular tune but I can picture her singing it with relish as she contentedly watches me through the window - riding around on my not quite golf course looking front lawn and thinking how great my almost 1 kid, Invisible Fence life is going.

Coming Soon: I got it home, backed it off the $19.99 for 75 minute Lowe's rental truck, and attempted to start it after splashing a gallon of fuel into the tank. Nothing. Not even a click or an attempt to start. I almost read the manual, but decided to attach it to the trickle charger and let the battery charge for a night. Curious what tonight will hold. The drama: To crack the owners manual or not?

What I would have posted about

2007-08-22T22:00:00.001-05:00

Since I am so frustrated with Comcast and their crap service and customer service I did not post about the live play I had Friday night. It was a good time. I played at DNasty's brother's house in a 12 person 6 max NL Hold'em tournament. It was fun to play 6 max as I got to be a little more aggressive. For some reason, the tournament management software calculated that 4 spots should pay and the difference between 4th and 3rd was $10. I busted out third after (in hindsight) I tried to bluff the calling station that had managed to chip up at the right time. He went on to win. I liked my play (my story made sense) but the story is not worth anything when the other player can't read. That was my mistake. I represented a K and he was just playing his own hand. I left with $25 more than I bought in with and felt good about my overall play. Laid down some decent hands when I figured I was behind and made some good moves with what was probably not the best hand. Saw AA and KK once the whole night and a few middle pairs.

Lastly, I think I might have to change the blog name to include babies since they are taking over my life before they really take over my life. The wife and I went on a bit of a baby shopping spree this weekend. When the dust settled, we are now the proud owners of a "Travel System"... a fancy name for a stroller that also has a car seat for an infant, a crib, and a pack and play. Assembling the crib was not too bad and the stroller is fun to push around. Funny... women spend the first 9 months carrying the baby around and then the guys seem to take over. I can't explain why, but I am looking forward to pushing a stroller around. I just enjoy it.

Parting image: Steely McBeam violating Comcast with that dumb foam beam he carries around. Sideways.

Comcast Suxors

2007-08-22T21:46:00.001-05:00

It has been nothing but issues since I was forced to start using their high speed service. I have no choice as they are the only high speed service available in the new house. (outside of overpriced and slower satellite broadband)

I am posting this while "borrowing" a neighbor's unsecured wireless network. God bless the non technical using technical products.

To put this into perspective, I hate Comcast 13x as much as I hate Steely McBeam. Yeah, I know that is a lot but I have never had problems with other broadband ISPs like I have had with my short and torturous tenure with Comcast. Aaaargh. I want to scream.

Fack Comcast in the icehole. (gotta keep this safe for work)

For the Record

2007-08-17T10:04:00.001-05:00

I just caught wind that the masses were waiting for me to weigh in on the new Official Steelers Mascot, Steely McBeam.

Officially, all I can say is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

WTF was the Steelers marketing team thinking?

1. The resemblance to ex Steelers Coach Bill Cowher is laughable. I am sure that new head coach Mike Tomlin really appreciates having the "Ghost of Coached Super Bowls Past" frolicking and performing silly antics on the sideline of each game under his new tenure.
2. The Steelers were a pretty popular team last time I checked. They have a nationwide network of fans, do they really need a mascot?
3. How about some cheerleaders?
4. Apparently they did not learn from previous mistakes. The Steelers had a mascot in the 80's that thankfully was retired the same year Dr. Suess ate green eggs and ham in the afterlife. Steeler Stevie, Michael Landon, and Theodore Geisel... RIP.

I am excited for the new season and the new head coach. I will be happy with a playoff appearance and expect a much better performance from Roethlisberger this year. It would be hard to be worse than last year when he was still plagued by after affects of his helmet-less Super Dave Osborne impression into that lady's windshield.... and the rumors of Cowher's "retirement", etc, etc.

Side Note: My name was memorialized for eternity this morning on the P&M Technology Team Fantasy Football trophy this morning. The ceremony was lightly attended but still special. In my acceptance speech (which I delivered in my mind...to myself) I mentioned that I was glad that my team name was not as offensive as it usually is. DonkeyPunch, Drop The Chalupa, and Team Shocker are not next to my name plate on the trophy. Last year I named my team after the sweetheart deal that I got on the Ravens defense. Snatched from the grasp of the league manager because he only had $1 left to bid on a D, I won the championship last year with "2 Dollar Defense" in large part because of my 2 buck D. They scored a shit ton of touchdowns and really were the difference in several of my games. Perhaps the Steelers D... and the silly new mascot will be my $2 difference this year.

Baby Rain

2007-08-15T15:00:00.000-05:00

Perhaps this is the same syndrome as what I call "New Car Syndrome". You might know the phenomenon by another moniker but it works the same: You purchase, or are close to purchasing a new car, and then you notice them everywhere. They were probably there all along, but now your awareness has been expanded to recognize them and they just seem to be all over the place. A maroon one, one with a sunroof... "that one has aftermarket rims".... you know what I am talking about.

Apparently, my awareness now registers babies and new fathers because they are all around me at work. A teammate of mine became a first time father yesterday and another is attached to his phone as his wife was due Sunday and if she does not go into labor by next Monday they will induce. Another person on our tech team is pregnant with twins and is a month further along than my wife. It is raining babies here.

Before I get rained on, I guess I should get as much poker in as I can. I am excited to get the part of my brain that regulates poker some exercise. I know that I will be rusty, but I am still anticipating the challenge of some live poker this Friday. The tournament structure will a 6 max so I am expecting some increased aggressiveness. The group of guys are pretty skilled and I would put myself in the middle of the pack skill wise. I would be pretty impressed with myself if I took it down. It is Friday night at 8 and will be a long drive home so no drinking. That should help.

A very large project that went horribly awry at work has finally completed and my life will be returning to normal. This is a good thing as teh job has been teh suck for the past month. I am very ready to move on. (Note to any work friend readers.... ready to move onto other things, not other companies!)

I wonder...

2007-08-09T10:06:00.001-05:00

.....if there are any similarities between storing and restarting a blog and storing and restarting a motorcycle?

I have not put any Stabil into this blog nor have I hooked up the battery to a tender. I wonder if it will still fire up for me on the first try?

Let's give it a test, start with something strong.

"I just bought an awesome house in Michigan"

Anything?

How about this....

"I am going to be a father this January!"

Ahh, there it goes!

It is scary, but true. After several years of effort and with the assistance of modern medicine, SteelerSteph is 16 weeks pregnant. We don't know the gender yet, but plan to find out when she goes in for her ultrasound that is given between 18-20 weeks. I am a little apprehensive about this milestone of the pregnancy as this is the ultrasound where they really look at the organ development and other progress indicators on the baby. A friend at work recently had to go through the unthinkable anguish of burying his newborn that was diagnosed with trisomy-18 during the milestone ultrasound Steph and I are scheduling.

That was a tough one. They decided to carry the baby to term and she was "born to heaven" last month. I have never been to a funeral where the casket only required one pallbearer and hope to not repeat that experience again. There is something that goes completely against the grain of human nature when you bury a baby. The image of the toy sized white casket will be in my brain for a good while to come. I can't even attempt to imagine the sorrow and questioning that my friend and his wife are going through. Scary.

I hope to be posting with some regularity again. Life has been an absolute whirlwind and I have not played much/any poker since the move to Michigan. Some live events (neighborhood game, DNasty tournament) but nothing online. Since the demise of Neteller, I have not tried to load any more money online. I cleared out the online bankroll in December and saved $300 of it as a nest egg for the bankroll. It has hovered around there from the limited live action I have seen since then. The motorcycle riding has been curbed to riding to and from work and that is not very exciting or any sort of impetus to blog. Basically, I lost my original mojo for this blog and I am looking for some new things to inspire me. Hopefully I will be able to work some poker back into here too.

Take care out there. Very bummed that I missed Okie Vegas 2 but really enjoyed the recaps. If I can get some bucks on FT, I hope to make a Mookie in the near future.

Crazy E-mail Day

2007-02-21T13:36:00.000-05:00

I survived the DST update at work (so far) and life is getting back to some semblance of normalcy. There is a good bit of follow up required and minor issues to stay on top of, but on the whole I would call the patch and update effort a good success.

In between tracking down the final few rogue calendar entries that refused to update this past Friday night, I checked my gmail and had two "phunny" e-mails. Most Phishing e-mails are pretty easy to spot and understand the angle that is being shot. The first one I got (on my work account actually) is the standard type:

Dear Telus member,

You are receiving this email with regards to your personal account.

Please read carefully before continuing as some vital information is being updated.

Your account is showing to be incomplete due to a data failure in our systems and you MUST provide us with a correct information within 48 hours of receiving this email.

Failure to comply will result in account termination.
To update your account provide us with the following datas:

1. Maiden name:

2. Primary and secondary email address:

3. Account Password:

Ensure the informations are correct carefully before submitting it, mistakes can terminate your account.

Thank you for your support.
Account Supervisor Team

The grammatical and spelling errors usually are a pretty good tip that something is not right. If you are a major company and you are sending a communication to all your consumers, don't you think that it would go through at least one or two reviews and someone would catch the "informations are correct" and the "provide us with a correct information"? Secondly, a close look at the Sent From "Support@telus.net" and the Reply To "Please respond to uwanettt@yahoo.com" fields are another big red Stop sign. Finally, how many times are people warned that, "XYZ will never ask you for your password and blah blah blah"?

I guess there are enough complete and total morons on this planet that these horrible phishing e-mails are +EV for the creators.

The second one I received, and the motivator for this post, was a little more interesting. I am curious what the angle is here. Driving traffic to a site for ads? Hosting malicious code and driving my browser to it so I can be infected? It does not ask for any info... but it caught my attention in the Inbox:

From: Beat me (wagyxehon96125@gmail.com)
Subject: Beat me in poker and I 'll pay for your trip to vegas
Body:
Hey Bud ,
I heard on the boards you are a preety good Poker Player.
well, I can beat you ass in any type of poker and mostly texas holdem any given day.
Come visit me in my favorite poker room, get a decent bonus and the best of all,
If u beat me in the game I will pay for your Trip to VEGAS!!!
look for user 'playpokerwithme'

See you Tonight on http://www.geocities.com/mexulufa73227

Since I am at work and I don't understand the "trick" here, I did not visit the geocities site on the link. I would not advise anyone else to either. I am curious if other people got this e-mail, perhaps my address was scraped from this site?

In addition to all the unanswered questions above, the most lingering and perhaps most important is - Could wagyxehon96125@gmail.com beat me ass in mostly texas holdem?

Hell's ZIP Code is 48169

2007-02-05T16:59:00.001-05:00

A co-worker read teh blog today and IM'd me to correct my apparent mistake -

"your blog is off.. it's not Bullshit Cold... it's "Sofa King Cold"

I let him know that I was reserving that for the next level of chilliness, the kind where Hell starts getting icicles. You can't pull anything past these wily Michiganders. He immediately replied,

"there is plenty of ice in hell"

I may not be able to see that 23s coming to crack my Aces, but I saw this one a frozen mile away - "let me guess, there is a Hell, MI?"

Masterful user of the inter-tubes that he is, he simply replied with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Michigan

Quickly followed by where he would prefer to live in Michigan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax%2C_Michigan

And concluded with the proof that it is so cold here that all people do is think about sex: (SFW) http://www.getoffonbigbeaver.com/

I am sad to admit that while I have yet to get off on the big beaver, the lovely SteelerSteph has. Drunken College exploration you ask? Hardly. There is apparently a very nice mall at exit 69 on I-75. Since I try to avoid malls like a part time job, the chances of me hitting the big beaver while getting off on 69 are slim. I wonder what the degree of correlation between the double entendre suggested here and the act of going to the mall with my wife is.

I suspect it is high.

We've Gone Plaid!!

2007-02-05T10:02:00.001-05:00

I figured Michigan might be a little colder than Ohio as it is an hour or two North of where I used to live. I was right.

I never knew that the outside temperature display in my Honda could display negative numbers. I learned this morning that it can.

There is a term for this, I think what I am experiencing is known as "Bullshit Cold". Yup, we have gone past plaid cold, beyond ludicrous cold directly into Bullshit Cold. Rick Moranis would be freezing his little nerdy head off if he were in Detroit right now.

When the Pilot reluctantly cranked to life this morning, the outside temp gauge was displaying -4. With the accompanying brisk wind I am sure the windchill had us in the negative 20s. It hurt to breathe in.

All of this cold bs naturally leads to some self introspection. "Wtf am I doing in this?" "This is bs, who would live here?" and thoughts along those lines.

The icing on the proverbial cake was DNasty pinging me from Florida this morning asking if it was cold enough for me here. While I was glad to see he dodged the weather disaster that struck on Friday (Hurricane? Tornado?) I also have to laugh at him. His dumbass is excited to move back here!! I am excited too. Misery loves company, especially company that likes to play some live poker!!

Hurry h-h-h-home D-D-D-Dnasty (not a stutter, just chattering teeth from the negative degrees) but don't slip on all the snow and goddamn ice around here. If you fall, you might get stuck. You know, like that stupid kid in a Christmas Story. I triple dog dare you to move back here from Florida. :)

$2 MTT fun

2007-01-21T13:55:00.000-05:00

I played in a $2 + .25 today on FT and it was amazing. 457 runners, 176 left at the first break!?!?

The blinds were 50/100 at the break, I cannot fathom why they insisted on impaling themselves on each other. Consistently.

I was a few hundy above average at the break and never really saw great cards. Two biggest pots were 56s where my OESFD missed but my bluff won (second hand of mtt) and a key double up against a maniac when I had 88 about 45 mins in.

81 spots pay, so my goal was to simply make the money and then start taking some more chances. That got a little tougher with 137 left when the SB caught a flush and cost me about T1600. My read that my middle pair was good on the flop, his K5c was flushing on the river and I paid him off on the Q high board. Tighten up or get looser to accumulate and make a real run? That was the question. I thought that I had enough chips (T3900) with 100/200 blinds that I could still wait for some premium hands and spots. Let's see if that works. One double up with the right donkey (and there are still some left around) and I am sitting pretty.

One small problem, the homebrew is starting to kick in a little. I am trying to drink enough so that I have 28 empty bottles for my next batch which I will be bottling next weekend. Tough job, I know. I have a lot of the high octane stuff on hand right now (10.5% abv) so two a day is a tall order.

92o in the BB. Doubt I get to see it for free. Surprise! I did, but the QJ6 did not help me at all. Fold to the raiser.

A9s in the SB and I flop OESD. It fills on the turn and I check it heads up. River pairs the board and my 600 bet is called. The hand holds up and I get some ammo.

AQo very next hand and it is folded around to me on button. Bet 700, SB goes all in for 250 more and BB folds. Hmm, have to call here. He flips AK and I am in trouble, especially when the K flops. NH sir, I give back my gains.

T3740 when the blinds hit 120/240 25 ante. 109 left, money starts at 81. First hand for me at this level is 1010. Win the blinds and antes. T4275 and I promptly get moved for the first time in the MTT.

First hand on the new table is KJo in the BB. I raise pot on the SB limp and he ejects. Cool. AQd is next hand and the early pot bet looks fishy. Apparently I was smelling myself because I jammed on him and his AKc hit a flush. T720 and the beep of life support can barely be heard over the gasps of this fish. I really considered folding that, should have trusted my fishy intution.

In an amazing run, the cards start coming and who am I to deny them? AJ two hands later and I turn my T650 into T2450. Then, one hand after that, my 99 gets all the chips in the middle PF and I am up against KJ. I hit a 9 on the flop and he is out. T4430. That was quite a fast and wild little ride. Let's check the tourney info. 61/95. I am in the BB for the old price when the blinds go up, that never hurts.

I am roughly 13x BB and I get AA in LP and one limper in front. I raise pot, folds around to him and he jams. Easy call, plus I have him covered by 1200 and he shows 88. The flop gives him 4 more outs with a gutshot and it does not materialize. T7290. Wheeee this is fun with good cards.

Stats look like this with 92 left:

Statistics for 111 Hands
Street Saw Saw/Total
Flop 19 17%
Turn 15 14%
River 13 12%
Showdown 8 7%

Street Won Won/Saw Won/Total
Pre-flop 4 4% 4%
Flop 2 11% 2%
Turn 0 0% 0%
River 3 23% 3%
Showdown 5 63% 5%

Random Thought while playing - I saw Freedom Writers last night and I had to admit I was moved some by it. It was not my choice of movie, but I was glad I saw it. It inspired me enough to call and thank the teachers in my life, my mother and my brother's wife. It was certainly a variation on the Dangerous Minds theme with hot white teacher doing right by the minority class, but I found it much more adept at tugging the heart strings. There were several points where the painful lump in my throat rose and I was not too far from crying. Not sure why that was, I guess I could identify with the characters and the respect themes. Last time a movie did something like that to me was Legends of the Fall. I know even admitting seeing both of these movies might put me "under suspicion" but I have to admit that I cried during the mustard gas scene in Legends of the Fall. Something about a movie with three brothers and the military made it very easy for me to put myself in the shoes of the characters. (I have two younger brothers and I served as an Armor Crewman from 93-96) The scene where Brad Pitt watches his younger brother get mustard gassed and then tangled and stuck in concertina wire and then chewed up by machine gun fire got to me. For some reason I could see that as myself and my younger brother Jared.

As I typed that, we lost 9 more and the bubble is ready to burst. 83 left and I am falling behind average. 5790 with 8300 avg stack. Hand for Hand begins and I fold A10o to a raise in EP. I get 88 in MP. Decision time. I decide to go in a blaze (the bubble popped and the difference between 80th and 64th is $0) I jam and get one caller with J8. Cool! I dodge his three outs and very dubious call (he only has 4300 left now and I have T12300) and I am back in the saddle.
Two hands later, AJo in the BB. I dislike this hand. Two raises in front make it an easy fold.
Blinds escalate to 250/500 with 50 ante and I am sitting 22/69 with 11k. I get a support call from work and now I am really multi-tasking. Auto-folding and the large blinds/antes are taking their toll. T9900 and no cards and still on the phone.

300/600 75 Ante. 8700, still on phone and no cards. This is an issue with the firm's CIO so it will take the time that it will take.

500/1000 100 ante. I go out 31st while I am still on the phone when my A7 splits the pot with A3 and then I get A7 the very next hand. I interpret this as a sign from the poker gods and that justice will be served so I go all in PF just like last time and get called by AJ this time. Fickle poker gods! 31/457 and I am not too unhappy with that. I think I could have gone farther if I had not spent 40 plus minutes on the phone troubleshooting a local mail replica issue with the CIO during a very crucial phase of the mtt, but that is how it goes. I am rewarded with a massive 3 dollars in profit and the feeling that my game is not in bad of shape as it sometimes feels.

For the Record: This Sucks

2007-01-09T16:12:00.000-05:00

From the "Goddamn Politicians Creating More Work for Me" file, allow me to present you this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005

For the unaware (which I assume are many), Mr. Bush and our bicameral legislature decided it would be cool to extend our Daylight Savings Time by 4 weeks starting in 2007 (in addition to a lot of other junk in the act, but that is the specific change that has me riled up). 3 weeks at the front end and 1 week at the back end.

Hey, the kids get an extra "hour of light" on Halloween!! What's the big deal?

Allow me to enlighten you.

Once I get beyond the fact that I never got Daylight Savings Time (DST) in the first place - I prefer the analogy of cutting of 12 inches off of the bottom of your bedsheet, sewing that 12 inches onto the top of the sheet, and then calling it longer - this is going to create a lot of extra work for IT departments throughout the world and possible frustration for many corporate and home users.

Microsoft has released Operating System patches for its servers (unless you are on a Windows 2k server... good luck with that) and for Windows XP clients with the new rules for DST. Ok, cool. That addresses that.

Now, what about all the stuff that runs on top of the operating system. Like say, perhaps, my beloved Lotus Notes. That inherits its DST rules from the OS. Ok, that sounds good too. Patch my OS, Notes will inherit the new rules. Call it a day and crack a cold one. Not so fast.

This thread on the Domino forums sums it up nicely: (C&S is Calendar and Scheduling and DWA is Domino Web Access, a method that users can get access to their mail file from their home computer)

I have a client where the C&S system is about the most critical thing in the environment. Especially for executives.

So here is the best case scenario. On December 12th when it shipped you applied the MS Windows patches to all of your workstations and servers as well as the appropriate APAR's to your servers. As soon as you did that all meetings previously scheduled for the three weeks in question now appear one hour later than they should except on your Blackberries which aren't patched because the patch isn't available. Now you start creating more meetings for that time period which are stored and appear correctly except on Blackberries where they will appear an hour earlier than they should.

This is the BEST scenario. It falls apart very quickly if you take a while to get the Windows patches out or if you can't patch EVERYONE fairly close to each other from a time perspective.

Oh by the way if users are using DWA from home their machines probably aren't patched so they will potentially be scheduling bad entries right up to the deadline.

BTW, the worst thing that will happen is that ALL your meetings occurring in the US and Canada will be screwed up for three weeks.

Good Luck!!!

Rob

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd6forum.nsf/DateAllThreadedweb/f1029f0dcf860b4d8525725a0072f792?OpenDocument

Another poster posted his plan, it is very similar to mine right now:

I think you are right Rob..Everyone who works on large enterprise should freek out. This change will impact every individual's calendar. Here is our plan

1. Complete the OS patch across all Laptops, Desktops, PDAs, Servers, LPARs etc by end of January

2. While this patch is being loaded, work with IBM and start testing Agents to fix Calendar entries that have been scheduled before OS Patch. Testing should include running agents on Rooms & Resource Database

3. Apart from R&R, we also have external application which we use to reserve Conf Rooms with VTC. Hence will have to patch application

4. Once all clients are patched, final step would be to run the agents. Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping agents work as expected and don't kill the servers :)

5. We use lot of application databases that use Calendar functions. We have to modify IBM agents to run against all our application databases.

6. Setup a swat team for March 11 to perform some testing. Not to mention, Keep IBM support person on standby

-----------------------------------------------------------------

There is also an effort underway to patch Sametime Meeting Servers, as all meetings will move 1 hour ahead like Notes meetings.

Notes Admin who is not worried about this change, should read the problem between the lines, else will see Admin Assistants standing next to him on 12th March :)

I am a little ahead of the last guy and I am attending a call with IBM tomorrow night at 9PM (might miss the Mookie) that I hope will shed some more light on this situation as far as the "tools" they will have for us administrators to ease the burden and pain for our staff. I am hoping for an agent that we will be able to run centrally that will adjust the affected entries in each calendar and also in the Resource (conference rooms, projectors, etc.) Reservations databases. As it stands right now, it will be a piece of code that each user will have to run on their own computer. I know anyone of you that read this blog with any regularity would fall firmly into the "user" category. No offense, but if I have the choice of leaving something important up to you or doing it myself... I will take the latter everytime.

To sum it up, this could be viewed as a mini-Y2K. The ramifications are not as dire, but it is an external change that will affect computer systems and may have some unknown consequences. At a minimum, I am expecting some disgruntled staff that go to the conference room they had reserved only to find it already in use or people showing up for meetings an hour after they start... basically, a lot of corporate fun.

For the non nerds out there (I expect DNasty to be the only one that made it this far... and that is iffy) enjoy your blissful ignorance of the IT stress that is going on in the background because of the wonderful Energy Policy Act of 2005 and that extra hour of daylight on Halloween.

Trick or Treat.

For DNasty

2007-01-07T23:48:00.000-05:00

JJ vs AK is how it went down.

I can honestly say that "Vegas" took all my money.

F-ing hooks, I mostly hate 'em. 3.33 an hour - far from a living wage.

Thanks for sweating me D

Nothing to Read Here

2007-01-05T18:47:00.000-05:00

Keep it moving folks.

I seem to have misplaced my muse but feel compelled to make a post to the blog. Recipe for less than mediocrity? I think so.

How about a quick catch up for any family and friends that read this. The holidays were great and I enjoyed spending time with both families (in-laws and out-laws). The chance to spend time with family and friends certainly trumps any material gifts and there were quite a few material gifts given. How about a quick top 3? I was most excited to give my wife her Garmin 330c GPS. The more cynical out there might question my motivation (to get my GPS back) but that was just a nice byproduct of this thoughtful gift.

For the non techies and the late adopters out there, a GPS equals piece of mind and carefree driving. This was driven home to me recently on an out of state trip without one. It sucked. I had to pay attention to where I was, wonder if I had gone too far or not far enough before I stressed out looking for my next turn. I also had no idea how close I was to making my 5 PM arrival deadline. A GPS mitigates all of that bs. It lets you know exactly how far you are from your next turn, offers a surprisingly accurate estimate of your arrival time, and prevents arguments with your spouse who swore that she needed it more than you and then was at home when you called home to see if she was really using it (she wasn't). It is hard to express the freedom to someone that has not used one in a new city or foreign country, I think Detroit qualifies as both, and just how cool it is. I got a sweet deal (~$320 delivered to my front door, www.pricegrabber.com) and had a bow on it for our drive to Columbus. SteelerSteph was excited when she finally saw it and the detour function came in handy when I-70 came to screeching halt. We had to make the kennel before they closed at 6:30 and the detour button took us off the highway at the first available exit and put us back on a few miles down the road. Smoooove.

All that stuff I just said, ditto it for the exact same model my father received from my mother and me. He was geeked too and for some reason that still escapes me was proud that he navigated back to the house with it one day by doing the exact opposite of "bitchin' Betty's" instructions. "Off Route, Re-Calculating.....Turn Left in 500 feet" I suspect that he had to eventually give in to her coaching. I love my dad.

Personally, I got some good geek gifts from the Mrs. (4 GB iPod Nano, Scala 500 Bluetooth Headset). I purchased the Nike + kit post Christmas and will be seeking motivation to TripJax myself using the Nike website and the little shoe fob and reciever. A buddy at work has it and showed me his running progress over the past four months. Pretty cool. Football season as I know it is over so there is little excuse for chicken wings, pizza, and Sundays that I don't leave the couch. I am mourning a post season with no Steelers presence and the departure of Coach Cowher. Hard to imagine the team without him but the NFL goes on.

Poker has been extremely lackluster lately (none live and online is biting my ball bag big time). Perhaps this is highly correlated to my misplaced muse. Hmmm. Poker stinks, I have not ridden since the middle of November..... might as well delete this blog!

Does anyone else feel funny or like an impostor offering poker advice when you are a losing player? I do! 2006 was a good year, but a disastrous December found me ending the year down a few bucks online. I know that I have personally grown as a player and if I kept track of live play I would be decently ahead for the year, but I still feel that I am not one that anyone should take an opinion from. I know that I am 10x the player I was at the start, but this run of poor decisions and bad cards has me questioning my "poker skills". I am looking forward to the triumphant return of DNasty to Detroit and playing more live games to re-stoking the flame and helping me continue to improve. I think we both feel that the other has something that we could learn from as we struggle to find our own game. Hurry back D, my bankroll needs your discipline and patience!!

How long has it been since I have blogged? My hands hurt from typing all this! This is the first weekend in a long time that I will not be moving/unpacking/working/travelling/visiting in what feels like forever so don't be surprised if there are more posts to this dusty corner of cyberspace. Right now my agenda includes brewing my next batch of homebrew (a Fat Tire Amber Ale clone), attending the motorcycle show down the road from here, and spending some time with SteelerSteph. Will get some poker in if the mood strikes and some motorcycling if the weather permits. Yay me!!

Anyone else on top of this?

2006-11-10T16:27:00.000-05:00

Not Jordan's beloved Razz - BG's novel.

I did not realize how much I was enjoying my daily dose until it went dormant yesterday and I spent a second every 15 minutes today seeing if your name went bold in Bloglines. Wow, that is some great stuff. I would buy it.

Keep it up BG, I am not sure if I want "Lane" to deviate from his plan because of Sarah but that is kinda how life goes, huh? Excellent balance of knowns and unknowns and you have effectively, efficiently, and wonderfully brought me along in this story so far. I have always enjoyed your voice (and ScurvyDog's too) and would read pretty much anything you two decide to post. The fact that the post is a great story is icing. Pure cake and icing.

Good luck with the loftier 3k words a day goal. I am probably making this plea on behalf of more than just myself. Even if this does not make the NaNoWriMo goal please finish the story. I have this fear of wondering the fate and rest of "Lane's" back story for the rest of my life.

Catching Up

2006-11-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

Did anyone notice the dust collecting on this chunk of cyberspace?

I have been busy staying busy. Work, poker, brewing, laundry, being a
single father (to my pets)... blogging has not been a priority. What could be more
important? Well, let me tell you.

SteelerSteph gets back late this Friday from her 3+ week training in North
Carolina. Despite her absence (being careful not to discount how much I
missed her) I have not been bored! Somewhat unexpectedly to me, my days
have revolved around our beagle, Copper. He gets up when I do at 6:45 and
does his business outside. By the time I leave the apartment for work, he
is soundly back in his doggy dreams under the comforter on our bed. I
don't know what he does until noon when I come home at lunch to let him
out, but I suspect it is the same thing he is doing when I leave. I can
almost surprise him when I come home and he has to stretch and shake off
the sleep. Weather permitting, we take a short walk and I head back to the
office. Routine is repeated when I get home around 6 PM and he is my
shadow until he reluctantly gets into his crate around 11.

Knowing he is cooped up all day in the apartment really makes his patented
"hound dog" look haunt me. If I have to leave during a weeknight to get
food or something, I really feel guilty. I suspect I am giving him
feelings he may not really posses, but regardless, it is really cramping my
style! I had planned on hitting the casino for some live poker while Steph
was out of town, but put that off for my homie. Ditto for going out to
catch a movie (I want to see Borat). The weekends are all about my canine
buddy as we cruise PetSmart together and he accompanies me on trips to the
grocery store. If he would just figure out that I come back everytime I
leave him in the car to run in someplace, he could maybe lose the frantic
howling routine as I walk away from the car. It can startle people because
it sounds like our government is trying to extract information from him at
Guantanamo. Torture indeed.

I did manage to put aside my doggy guilt this past Saturday and attended a
brewing demonstration by a local brew club at a store in Macomb, MI. I did
not know what to expect and I was very surprised at what a good time I had.
The guys brewing were are very friendly and willing to share their
expertise and their handiwork. It was hard to keep an empty cup and I had
to be careful; that homebrew can be powerful stuff. After enjoying the
free beer and food, I took the opportunity to purchase my ingredients for
the next batch. I also picked up a $2.95 adapter that is worth 10x that.
It allows me to hook up my wort chiller to my kitchen sink since I no
longer have access to an outdoor hose. I brewed once before I had this
little machined piece of convenience and I had to hold the hose to the
faucet head for at least 20 minutes. What a pain in the ass. Not this
past Sunday though! Armed with some tips on when to add ingredients, I had
my cleanest brew yet. It went flawlessly and I am hoping the product turns
out as good as the process was. No boilovers, much less mess to clean up,
I am ready to do it again as soon as my fermenters are clear. It was also
my first time using Dry Malt Extract (DME) so I am curious to see how this
batch tastes. It should not make a difference, but all my other batches of
HoneyWheat used liquid malt extract.

My bankroll on Full Tilt is like a tire with a very very slow leak. I
loaded $100 on there and have been playing mostly $5 and $6 SNGs with some
grinding thrown in .50/1.00 Limit. The play there is much different than
Party. I would dare say "better"... or at least more "patient". So many
of the single table SNGs go to break, it is nuts. 5-6 levels in and we are
still 6-8 handed? Not uncommon. Compared to Party, the low level SNGs seem
to be much tighter. This has been different and I think I have adapted my
game correctly. I play more suited connectors in position and try to limp
into more pots in the early stages. I have been seeing good results mixed
with some spectacular bad beats. I am looking to string together a few 1st
and 2nds so I can get some momentum with this seed money. Wish me luck.

Finally, I feel comfortable saying that we have sold our house in Ohio.
After an exciting back and forth negotiation, we accepted an offer. Originally, they wanted to close on the 15th of December but we got a call last week to see if it could be moved up to November 15th. Umm, sure! I had to jump through my own rectum to get all the arrangements in place on such short notice but that was well worth the extra 2k + closing a month earlier will save us. Curious what you could have moved into in the sprawling metropolis of Medina, OH? Here is what you missed. The movers are coming this Monday and I will be there Monday and Tuesday to make sure everything gets packed and loaded and then sent up here to MI. It will be delivered Thursday of Friday hopefully sooner rather than later because SteelerSteph and I are driving to Florida for a wedding that weekend. A high roller like me driving to Florida? I know, craziness. When we made the arrangements, the financial burden of the house and apartment was still looming large and into the foreseeable future. I am not excited about the drive, but with free gas (company car) and a free hotel that we had in Orlando, it was almost a no brainer. Driving to Kentucky Friday after work, dropping off Copper, and then heading the rest of the way Saturday. Attend wedding on Sunday and then do it all again in reverse. Yeah, I know... some guys have all the fun.

The net result of these wedding shenanigans is that I will miss a lot of cool stuff. Ohio State vs. Michigan. Yup. Steelers vs. Browns. Check. DADIX. Roger. The icing is that I am not that fond of the friend that is getting married for the second time. She is a childhood friend of Stephanie so I am doing the good husband thing and keeping my mouth shut. It would be nice if I could catch DNasty while I am down there, but I doubt there will be time.

Edit - I drafted this in an e-mail two days ago and since then I have been doing pretty well on the SNG's the seed money is up over $150 now even with the failed shot I took at a 90 person MTT with a $10 + 1 buy in. I finished 33 and was never really a factor after a horrendous beat took me well below average right after the first break. Maybe I will try a larger field game like that again, I felt like I could take it down. I hope this run continues now that I posted about it.

One of the words in this post was on my SATs

2006-10-17T13:58:00.000-05:00

Just dropped SteelerSteph off at the Detroit Metro Airport for a three and half week training in Raliegh, NC and I am feeling a little melancholy. It did not help that I was living in a sitcom this morning; I could practically hear the studio audience laughing. It quickly went from bad to worse when I got to work and reached its nadir as I drove away from the airport worrying about Stephanie lugging all her crap through the airport. “Will they hassle her for what I know is overweight baggage?” “Did she have too much carry-on? – who knows what the rules are these days?” “I hope she gets there ok”

I drove her unfamiliar mini-van away from the unfamiliar airport being careful not to hit anything, an exercise that increased in complexity because it was raining. What a recipe for a shitty day!

So what was the sitcom this morning? Glad you asked. I stayed up late last night since the bed and our bedroom was taken over by clothes in various stages of packing. I watched the Cardinals implode in the most spectacular fashion and finally got to bed around 1 AM. I knew that I had to be in the office by 7:30 this morning for an appointment with a director on my team. I don’t know what happened to the alarm set for 6 AM, but I do know that I went from dead sleep to full panic in about 2 seconds when Stepanie asked, “Don’t you have to be in to work early?” Sleepy Josh, “Yeah….what time is it?..... 7:29!?!?!?! Ohhh shit!”

I went into the bathroom and immediately stubbed my toe on a scale that was not there the day before. “Goddamnit, that hurt!!” Relieved the bladder and I turned on the water in the shower to get it hot and got ready to jump in. Standing outside the shower, I pull the little plunger thing up on the tub faucet and “WHAT THE FU-K?!?!?!” I was instantly confused, wet, and cold. Somehow the shower head was facing directly out at me and I quickly realized this was not going to be a good day. Water under control, dripping wet and pissed I asked Steph if she had done anything to the shower. “Nope”. Whatever, I gotta get going.

15 minutes later I am out the door and into school bus hell. I call the director I am supposed to be meeting with right then and get the info I need to get started for when I finally will make it into the office. The stalled Ford Taurus blocking the right lane of the two lane road was a perfect touch to the morning.

Director taken care of, I get back to my own desk to find out that our collaboration software is slowly grinding to a halt. Our instant messaging screen sharing meetings won’t work, our Quickplace rooms won’t authenticate and our webserver is not displaying the proper awareness that shows if the names listed on a page are in the office and logged in. Quicker than I can say, “Fan-Frickin-Tastic” I am neck deep in troubleshooting and have to bring down all the collaboration software for the firm during business hours. I am sure that even the non geek out there can appreciate that this is not a good thing.

11:30 and I finally got everything back online and 100% functional and I ran out the door to speed to the apartment and got Stephanie to the airport 2 hours before departure. I guess the silver lining in all this is that I was so busy and stressed this morning that I did not have any time to feel bad for myself (like I do now) and worry about the next month (like I am now). Somehow, writing about it here provides a level of catharsis and I feel a little better already.

Tomorrow will be a better day (how can it not, I have the bi-monthly office bowling league!!) and the dog, cat, and myself will start to work out our new routines. In all of this, I feel the worst for the dog. Steph has been home from work with him for the past 6 months. The little bastard is spoiled and he is pretty emotional for an animal. I am planning on making a trip home to the apartment everyday at lunch to let him out for a quick walk, but that will not make up all the time he spent at Steph’s side. I am slightly worried he might stroke out when she finally comes home. I am sure that at a minimum bladder control will be lost.

Soooooo. Bachelorhood until November 10^th. What to do? I guess I hope that I don’t lose my whole bankroll on FT because of all the extra playing time I will have! I am going to set a rule that requires at least 30 mins of exercise before I fire up the virtual tables. It is always easier to exercise without SteelerSteph for some reason. Good chance to drop a few of the pounds that have attached themselves over the past few months. I should get the opportunity for some live play in the local casiono(s) and have high hopes for good results there. Watch some football, drink some beer, play some poker. It will be novel and new at first, but I am sure that by the time Steph gets back I will really be missing her.

Look me up at FullTilt, SteelerJosh.

Nadir was the word that somehow came to mind from the SATs. I am pretty sure it is a nerd word for the lowest point on something and the polar opposite of apogee. Insert nerd laugh here -->

Live Poker Fun

2006-10-15T12:06:00.000-05:00

I miss playing live poker. I forgot how much fun it can be to drink some beers, talk some smack, and rake some pots with friends. The stakes are low enough that it can probably be classified as pure fun, but if you get a little luck (as I did) you can make a nice profit. We played 3 five dollar SNGs with second place getting their buy in back and first taking the rest. With 7 players this created a $25 profit for taking it down. I hope they invite me back :)

If my buddy Aaron is reading this, I know he will say, "I told you so" but I had some serious luck. I was winning my races with AK and even got quad 6's one hand. It was a good night.

Game 1. Jim V was a card rack and was playing some good power poker with his big stack. The biggest hand of the game was one that was so rigged it belonged online. QQ vs J9 vs K10 on a QJ9 flop. Fireworks and Jim tripled up with his flopped straight. Jim and I got heads up and he had a decent chip advantage. I got it all in PF with A4 vs his 78 and he caught his straight on the river to take it down and I got my money back for finishing second.

Game 2. I took this one down without any real memorable hands. It seemed to go pretty fast and at the end it was me and Mike B. Time ran out and I won it on total chip count. Mike played solidly and it would have been an interesting HU match if time would have allowed it.

Game 3. I took this one down also with some solid play and a nice dose of luck. The first one out of the game was DFed when he could not get away from his pocket KK on an all heart flop. Three way, there was a pot sized raise (300) from EP, a call and Derek showed me his hand. None of the Ks had a heart on them and he was in a tough spot. Personally, I would have made an easy fold here but I did not advise him as such because I am a believer in one player to a hand. He made the interesting move of shoving all in and the EP raiser (Jim V.) folded (which surprised me) and then Matt agonized a long time over making a call. This was the first or second hand of the tourney so DFed's all in meant Matt would be all in. As it turned out, Matt had a baby flush and made the tough call. DFed missed the runner runner he would have needed to stay alive and was the first one out. He would be unhappy to know that Kings held up two or more three times this game. Oh well. Sixes would prove fickle too as BHoj got Jim V. all in with 66 vs Jim's 44 and the 4 on the flop sent Hoj packing. A hand or two later I hit quads with my pocket 6's and sent Matt home. It came down to Jim and me heads up and I had a huge chiplead and the game was called.

Final Results:
Game 1: Jim V., Josh S.
Game 2: Josh S., Mike B.
Game 3: Josh S., Jim V.

A good time and I am looking forward to the next time we can get together. I introduced them all to the Hammer and it was being played a good bit! I did not get it once the whole night, but there were a ton of 7s and 2s on the boards. I think it was played at least 6 times and picked up a few pots. There are some good players in the bunch and I am looking forward to being put to the test by them. Hopefully you can make it next time Bean!!

Full Tilting

2006-10-11T08:35:00.000-05:00

Tempted by Full Tilt’s new reload bonus and claims that they will be around for awhile, I reloaded on there what I withdrew from Party. The past two nights have been a mixed bag. Two tabling 1-2 Limit saw me lose 10 BB over 200 hands. Same old, same old, dodge a river card here, catch a river card there and the results would have been much better. Biggest loser of the night was my AK vs. AQ. One of those nights.

Last night was much better. While chatting with DNasty and watching his beloved Tigers put on a pitching clinic, I played in my first SNG on FT. It was the tightest $10 SNG, hell any level SNG, I have ever participated in. 45+ minutes in we still had 6 of the original 9 participants. Over an hour in, I busted on the bubble when I ran my AJ into the BB’s AA. The A on the flop all but sealed my deal. I did drop the hammer twice and advised the table (both times) of what I thought was the best damn hand in poker. The table was so tight, it did not seem to get me any extra action on my big hands….but it made an impression. When the pocket rockets sent me packing, the comment was something about the best damn hand in poker. J Amateurs!

Dissatisfied with my bubble, I fired up some 1-2 Limit and hung around my buy in. I lost with the Hilton Hoes twice and could never get any traction. Curious about the waters the next level up, I found a seat in a 2-4 game. It was a much better game and a few hands in, I noticed a familiar name to my left. change100. Hmmm, could it be “the change100”? That would be pretty cool and a first for me. I have never accidentally run into another blogger at the tables. If I did, I did not know it. I have certainly enjoyed playing with them on purpose in SNGs, MTTs, and blogger events but have never bumped into one accidentally in a ring game. I didn’t really know the protocol or etiquette for a situation like this so I just blundered ahead and asked in the chat box. “Change, shot in the dark here – are you a blogger?” Yup, it was her. “That is pretty cool”, I thought and then proceeded to check raise her after I limped in the SB with KQs. K36 flop and a K on the turn. The turn was checked around and I checked the river hoping for a bet (I was really out of position, but confident I had the best hand). Change100 obliged me and was not happy with my check raise. After expressing her displeasure in the chat box “aaarrgh” and making the crying call with 36 she let me know we were no longer friends J It was nice the couple hands it lasted. I felt a little bad check raising a blogger, but I would not expect anyone to play me soft and would not do that to someone either. When I recalled her perfect week with football picks (meaning she picked against my Steelers) I did not feel so bad about catching that 3rd King on the turn. 36 was her hand and the number of Jerome Bettis. Jerome was an awesome Steeler. Coincidence? I think not.

It was getting really late so I played a few more orbits and wished her luck. I wonder if I will start bumping into more bloggers as the pool of sites we can play on is shrinking. That would be a double edged sword. Cool to run into them, but most of them are pretty solid players so that is one less fish to fleece.

On the good news front, we have an end in sight to our home for sale in Ohio. We had a very low ball offer come in (it was so tempting to counter offer “at least kiss me first”) making a lot of demands. 20k below list. 3k towards their closing costs. All the appliances, we pay for their home warranty, and they want to close 60 days from now. Wow! It is a buyer’s market for sure, but that is a little outrageous. We countered with agreeing to all the concessions but only knocking 5k off our list. They responded by coming up 5k. Hmmm, this is not really getting us anywhere. Long story short, we sent an official counter offer last night for 10k off list and meeting all their demands and our agent expects it to be accepted. We shall see. However it shakes down, if we can sell this house life will be much better for the Steeler household. Maintaining two properties in two different states is neither a fun nor cheap experience. I hope this deal goes through.

Bloody Nose

2006-09-29T11:01:00.000-05:00

Poker punched me in the face the past two sessions. Normally this is nothing to blog about, but it was poor timing as I had just moved up in limits. I am comfortable at the limit (it is still just chips meaning I am not playing scared) but the beats are a little bigger to the bank roll and I am throwing in the towel and moving back down. I'll be back bitches.

I won't be back this weekend though because I am enroute to the house in Ohio that is still for sale. Motivated by watching home improvement and house flipping shows, we are headed in to paint the two rooms we never painted when we lived there and to install some blinds upstairs. A thorough cleaning is also in order as we have not been there since the beginning of September. I am not fazed by the work ahead this weekend, I enjoy getting projects done, but there is no Internet or tv at the house now. All I will have for outside contact is my trusty little BlackBerry (which I am blogging from right now). No football, no poker, just a partially empty house. The bright side is that I plan on exercising the ST1100 if the weather permits. I also plan on picking up some brew supplies for the next batch of honeywheat I will be brewing. Oh yeah, we might even sell the house as we have a buyer coming through tonight and we are apparently on their short list. Wish us some luck because I am convinced that is what it will take to sell this place in the current market.

No Steeler football this weekend so I will not be missing much during the drive back to MI on Sunday. After last weeks game I am not sure I would be missing anything even if they were playing!

DoubleAs busted out of the ArUBa tournament but is still having a good time. Next time Scott.

Have a great weekend out there.

Meh

2006-09-25T16:07:00.001-05:00

Poker was Meh this weekend with a little Blah thrown in for good measure. I guess the good thing is that I avoided tilt for the most part, and did not go chasing despite the hits that kept on coming. My stats in PT were in line (17 to 22 VP$IP) with all the other winning sessions and I played my good hands aggressively and got action on them. The cards just did not fall my way. There was one read that I made and did not act upon…. I just had to see! That bothered me to the tune of a $9.00 loss so it was not catastrophic by any means, just plain old dumb.

The trend I noticed was the same old one I read about quite often on other blogs. Get stuck early and spend the rest of the session fighting back. Three of the four big sessions saw me not making it back. I dropped a buy in and a half twice on the $25 NL tables and only one session saw me up that same amount. I also hit a rough patch on the ½ Limit tables and was proud of making some decent laydowns. Not sure I would be able to get away from KK, 1010, and AK in limit in the past. I dropped some of the gains I had made on replacing my 2% of DoubleAs in Aruba, but I am still headed in the right direction overall. It feels good.

Speaking of DoubleAs, I am anxiously waiting for some updates from Mean Gene and the UltimateBet Blog from Aruba. I was disappointed to see that their blog did not offer an RSS feed, so I will have to check that one from home. I have a good feeling about DoubleAs in this tourney and I am more excited about it than I otherwise would be because I have some money on it. I figure it is like me playing the tourney for a $125 buy in but with a much better version of me playing and I get to stay in Detroit, not sunny Aruba. So, win-win, right? Umm, yeah. I have been to Aruba once and would jump on the opportunity to get back there. I spent an 8 day honeymoon there at the Divi Divi resort and it was awesome. I did the whole tourist/newlywed thing with SNUBA diving, horseback riding on the beach, booze cruises, etc. and the weather and ocean was fantastic. Looking at the pictures on Mean Gene’s blog took me back there instantly.

I am sure that Gene will be glad that he was out of town and missed the debacle of a football game between the Steelers and the Bengals. It was almost like the Steelers wanted the Bengals to win. It was a very frustrating experience to watch all the turnover mistakes. Muffed punts that the Bengals recover and score with. Fumbles that the Bengals recovered. Interceptions in the end zone that really swing momentum. Dropped TD passes. Ugh, I can feel my blood pressure rising. I hope that game was not a harbinger of things to come. I know we can’t win them all, but the offense and special teams might being trying to prove that they can lose them all. The contest last week with Jacksonville was a good game against a good opponent. This week it was a bad game with an average opponent and the Steelers made way too many mistakes. The score should not have been as close as it was. Booooo Bengals and Steelers. Hooray Beer!!

Excited

2006-09-14T12:30:00.000-05:00

Sadly, it has come to this. I am really excited because DirecTV finally came to the apartment and was able to hook up the dish and restore our service. The service includes the NFL Sunday Ticket and TIVO.

This 16 day hiatus from TIVO has helped me realize something about myself.

I love TIVO. If you have never had it, you would not understand. If you have had it and never lost it, you too would not understand.

I managed to live 29 years without you and I know now that I took you for granted while I had you the last year. I am sorry TIVO, I will not do it again. I will appreciate every commercial you let me speed through with your happy "Be-doop, Be-DOop, Be-DOOP" chirp. I will praise you for allowing me to watch LOST when I want to watch it, not when the network says I have to. What, I am busy during High Stakes Poker on GSN? I know you have my back. There was a show with something Pittsburgh Steelers related and I was not aware it was on? You have me covered there too lil' buddy. You know that staying up to watch Lucky Louie would make me tired and cranky the next day so you assure me I can rest easy and watch it on Monday when I get home from work. In short, you are the man TIVO. Keep on doing what you do I promise to keep you happy by recording our favorite shows (sometimes two at a time!) and even finally allowing you to offer some of your zany suggestions.

In the "Other News that Dugglebogy does not care About" department, I am proud to brag that my "children" went 2-0 this weekend. I started off my season in both leauges with a win, although one took a tackle for a 9 yard loss of Washington's althletic TE, Chris Coooley. I scraped by with a .5 point win there. Consider me a fan of the Vikings D for week one (although Mean Gene and I both know who really defines Defense and is starts with a Pitts and ends with a burgh). Bragging will continue as my wins do.

No poker yet this week, but I have been enjoying a modicum of success at the micro-limit NL Hold Em on Party. Two months of positive results at the $25 Max Buy in NL has me feeling that this focus shift from Limit to NL is what I was looking for. I plan to keep grinding away and taking a shot at the next level as I feel comfortable.

I missed the Mookie last night, but plan on being there next week... that is always fun.

Koney Island

2006-09-09T12:28:00.000-05:00

Can anyone tell me why there are approx 125 of these per square mile in MI and why or what I would eat there?

I am quite curious, but too afraid to actually venture in one. If it is a greasy spoon type place, give me a Waffle House and I am all set.

1st full week in MI and I have been to the B&M casino zero times. Money is pretty tight right now with a mortgage and rent. I am looking forward to getting some live action in now that I am only 30 mins from the downtown Detroit casinos but it will have to wait for a windfall like a big score online or selling our house.

Enough Already

2006-09-05T22:43:00.000-05:00

I need to get some tv service or something else to do in Michigan. For Fook's sake, poker is really pissing me off right now and I seem to be in a flat spin. This is particularly frustrating after a great August that saw me making steady gains throughout the month. With no DirecTV service yet (screw you installers) I am spending a lot of free time mashing buttons and getting the shock. No banana. Stupid monkey, when will I learn?

Baahh Humbug.

Unpacked (Almost)

2006-09-04T19:17:00.000-05:00

Had some time for poker today and it was not nice to me. I think I played well, but I could not win a HU SNG if my life depended on it and my one MTT was 1 hour and 26 mins for nothing. My JJ could not win the race against the maniac that hit a three outer on the river earlier against me to stay in. Funny how that catches up more often than not. The guy that should have been on the rail survives his all in with me and then proceeds to knock me out later in the tourney.

One thing I enjoyed in this MTT, and I have to thank Hoyazo for, was playing my pocket pairs. I utilized his treatise on playing middle pairs and raised them 3x BB regardless of position and it went well for me. A great example is when I had pocket 8's late in the tourney and raised to 3600 UTG +1. In the past I might have limped with these hoping to hit a flop but this time my raise won the blinds and the antes. I raised all my PP 3x and almost any hand I was playing and this really helped to disguise my monsters and my hammers. Looking at my stats in the disappointing final table money miss, I think I might have played a little too tight. I was hot early on and was chip leader most of the first hour. I checked my stats after the break and I was only 14% VPIP according to Party which means I was closer to 10%. Pretty tight. This is good, as I have been working on that, but that is probably why I finished out side of the money.

Actually, poker has pretty much sucked since the move, but what else am I going to do? I have no tv service yet (not until the 14th..don't ask, but DirecTV can bite my ass) and you can only arrange so much crap. After dropping half a G at Ikea, at least I have a place to keep all my clothes and I have lights in each room. Pretty much, moving into an apartment after living in a house.... sucks. On the bright side I am now 14.4 miles from the office and there is a ton of shit nearby the new homestead. I got my haircut, purchased groceries, had pizza delivered, and found some nice dog walking less than a mile from the Steelerhome. Curious how I will feel when it is winter here.

Ironic that DNasty is in MI this week but we will not see each other. He is in the woods have man sex with his brother or something. They call it "camping up north" but I think I know the real deal. I might have to re-develop my passion for sleeping and eating without walls and roof but 3 years stationed at the National Training Center and sleeping under the stars for 2 weeks out of every month kinda killed that desire. It did develop a knack for knowing how to shit outside and which MRE's were the best, but not so much a desire to rough it. Anyway, I hope DNasty is smart and uses protection...

from mosquitoes.

Before I go iron something for my first day in my new office, let me worry publicly about Big Ben and his appendectomy that will cause him to miss the opener. I am not a Batch hater (which is against the grain in my new locale), there is something about Ben that just wins games. Charlie might get it done, but I have less faith/hope that the defending Super Bowl Champs will start the season with a win. I wonder what this is doing to the line at Mansion.

Have a good week all and make HighonPoker's Poker.

Break from the Move

2006-08-31T19:17:00.000-05:00

For my Cleveland Office Fantasy Football Draft. I had to drive into the office... check that... FLY into the office because I got stuck in IKEA with the wife and parents-in-law. Wow. That place is not designed for an easy or timely escape... but I digress.

Running late, I hauled as much ass as I could in Detroit traffic and got to the office (and my only means of connecting to the net right now) and started off my draft right with Shaun Alexander in the third pick. Surprised he was there.

My favorite quote of the night was, "That Wali Lundy pick has me rattled!" (after Mr. Lundy went with the first pick of the 10th Round)

My team shook out like this:

QB: Daunte Culpepper
Jake Plummer

RB: Shaun Alexander
Julius Jones
Deshaun Foster
Jerious Norwood
Dominic Rhodes

WR: Terrell Owens
Andre Johnson
Rod Smith
Nate Burleson

TE: Todd Heap

K: Matt Stover

D: Baltimore Ravens

I like how they look on paper, hopefully there are no injuries (or suspensions T.O.!!) to my big starters and I really like my Norwood pick late in the draft. Fast Willie might lose to him in a footrace... that kid is FAST!

Back to the boxes and the unpacking in the new apartment. In case you have not experienced this, it really sucks moving from a house to an apartment. It really feels like you are taking a step back in life. Not to sound snobby, but the second refrigerator that we kept in the garage is nicer and bigger than the only one in the apartment's kitchen now. At least there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Barring a complete crash of the Northeast Ohio housing market, we will be back among the homeowning class in 12 months.

I am getting high speed cable hooked up tomorrow in the apartment. See you all then.

M Day

2006-08-30T07:42:00.000-05:00

Move Day.

Michigan Day.

Off to the land of Thrice Confirmed Huge Junk. Wheeee.

Maybe this is the same scientific phenomenon that occurs when you buy a new car and then notice that every third car you pass is the same one..... but there seem to be several other bloggers going through the move process and they all seem to express the same feelings I have... only better than I can.

Scurvy Dog
Mean Gene
DuggleBogey
Poker Poison

I have not tried it, but I understand Mean Gene completely when he says, "It is very difficult to successfully throw away a garbage can." I also identified with his Bittersweet post. Well put.

I am moving today and will not have cable in the new place until Friday so I will have to get my blog fixes via Bloglines and the BlackBerry. Good luck to all at the Mookie and WWDN. Miss my chips.

In summation: Moving is teh Suck.

No Hammer, No Glory

2006-08-23T21:49:00.000-05:00

Let this be a lesson. From teh Mookie:

PokerStars Game #6028848228: Tournament #30401788, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2006/08/23 - 22:28:43 (ET)Table '30401788 1' 9-max
Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: HighOnPokr (2075 in chips)
Seat 2: smokkee (3078 in chips)
Seat 4: Iakaris (1900 in chips)
Seat 5: aquaverse (565 in chips)
Seat 6: hoyazo (1750 in chips)
Seat 7: STeelerJosh (3292 in chips)
Seat 8: willwonka (1160 in chips)
Seat 9: bthecloser69 (1805 in chips) I
akaris: posts small blind 15
aquaverse: posts big blind 30

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to STeelerJosh [2h 7d] <---The Real Deal, 72o

STeelerJosh: folds embarrassedly
Iakaris: raises 210 to 300
aquaverse: raises 265 to 565 and is all-in
Iakaris: calls 265

*** FLOP *** [8d 6d 7c]s
*** TURN *** [8d 6d 7c] [2s]
*** RIVER *** [8d 6d 7c 2s] [3h]

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Iakaris: shows [Kd Kc] (a pair of Kings)
aquaverse: shows [Qc Qd] (a pair of Queens)

smokkee said, "the hammer woulda took it"

So true it hurts smokkee.... so true.

Michigan Vanity Plates

2006-08-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

As you may have guessed by my avatar, blogname, face paint, etc. I am a pretty big Steelers fan. For that past two years I have had customized plates on my car and I will be losing them when I move to Michigan. I mistakenly thought that it would be easier to get custom plates with Steeler references in MI. I was wrong. I can't even get my current Ohio plate up there!

With DNasty's help today, we came up with the following available plate ideas:

ST33L3R
STLRJSH
STLRPRD
COWRPWR
STLRFN1
BLKGLD1
STLCURT
STLRN8N

I think my favorite two are COWRPWR and STLRN8N. I am leaning towards the latter since I am not sure how long Cowher will maintain his coaching job. There seem to be some rumors around the lack of a contract renewal with an organization that has traditionally renewed coaching contracts with two years left on them. Personally, I hope Bill stays but I would respect a decision to not renew if it was on his part. If he was forced by the Rooneys to leave (unlikley, but possible I guess) I would think the Steelers organization would be making a mistake.

Whew, I have to be careful... I can get on my soapbox pretty quickly on anything Steelers related (don't even ask me about #22 Staley) Anyway, if you think you are pretty creative and want to give it a shot, try your idea on the link below and leave me a comment.

http://sosntsl01.sos.state.mi.us/plates/papstep2.asp?plateTYPE=STANDARD&plateID=blue

My New Name is "Chedda Bob"

2006-08-22T15:19:00.000-05:00

Detroit News is the Craziest

In some odd twist of the cosmic controllers of DirecTV I am receiving Detroit local channels on my television now. This came to my attention when I got home from work last night at 7:58 PM with the intention of telling Tivo to grab the new season of Prison Break (outside of my Sunday night HBO tv manifesto, Prison Break and Lost are required viewing) at 8 PM. My best efforts were thwarted because I no longer had a channel 8. WTF? All my local channel numbers were weird. I finally found Fox on channel 2 and pressed record. Previously, my channels stopped at 3.

I had a sneaking suspicion that the call to DirecTV for the upcoming move may have caused this funny state of affairs. Funny you ask? Yes, hilarious. If you have not had the pleasure of staying in a Detroit are hotel and enjoying the Channel 4 News, you are missing a lot. The news is ridiculous. I think that the local news always finds the worst stories to cover, shootings, robberies, rapes, etc, but apparently D Town is really rough! One bad thing just does not happen to a person in the D, but multiples! “In other news tonight, a Wayne County woman was hit by a car, her unconscious body was mugged, and then she was shot and killed in a drive by. In Macomb County tonight a young boy was caught stealing a car, raped an old lady, and held up a local convenience store.”

So, SteelerSteph and I watched the news with a small amount of building apprehension about the upcoming move and I don’t think I reassured her much when I explained that we were moving to Oakland County and that county was not mentioned in any of the great news stories. We are excited about the move and Steph’s new job with *Edit by Bobby Bracelet*, a large pharmaceutical company. (Can you get in trouble for your husband’s blog?) We have started packing the unsold house and I am about to find out what fun the logistics will be of living in one state and maintaining a property for sale in another. Open to any advice of anyone that has done this before…. ScurvyDog, Duggles?

I guess my solace will be that no matter how rough it gets driving back to Ohio to mow the lawn or staring at the bank account when I am paying a mortgage and rent…. I will be able to enjoy the goodness that is Local Channel 4 News at 11 and the cheer they will bring. I just hope I don’t get carjacked/shot/thrown into Lake Erie and make the news…..

On the poker front, I am really starting to like my shift to low stakes NL on Party. I am developing the cash NL skills that I lacked and making slow but steady additions to the bankroll. It has been interesting to see how I develop in this area, I know that I could grow faster with more aggression, but right now I am happy with my results and decisions. Other than the Mookie, I am pretty much sticking to Party these days so if you are on there, look for STeelerJosh on the baby NL tables.

Nervous for SteelerSteph

2006-08-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

Nervous for SteelerSteph

She set off for Novi, MI this morning at an ungodly hour (“O Dark Thirty” is what we called it in the Army) and last I talked to her she was close to her destination at 8 AM.  While the more dramatic might call it destination unknown, I would not fault them.  She was traveling to meet a group of her potential new co-workers at a Panera Bread in Livonia, MI and then off to meet with the division VP and her potential new boss.  That is a lot of unknown to deal with in one morning.  Job interviewing is a stressful proposition, I am sure she did not sleep well/much last night and I am sending her all my good thoughts today.  She really deserves a break and has jumped through all of the hoops required for this new job.  She has not given the new employer any reason not to hire her…. But you just never know with these things.  Good luck Steph, I am feeling good things.

Was SteelerJosh playing the role of good husband last night and helping her prep for this last interview?  Of course not!  He was at a Dave Matthews Band concert with a buddy from work.  I would feel a little more guilt if Steph was not the reason I was there.  I have been a DMB fan since their inception circa 1990 and I had a $100 Ticketmaster gift certificate lying around.  She found a local Ticketmaster outlet and turned the 2 year old gift certificate into tickets to see Dave at Blossom Music Center.  I thought that this was a pretty cool thing to do as I would not have done it myself.  She could not make it with me (because of the whole interview thing today) but I asked a buddy at work and it was on.

Dave brings back many fond memories for me.  When I got out of the Army in 1996 and went back home for a few years, I did a lot of partying with my brothers and their friends.  It seemed that Dave’s albums, “Recently” and “Under The Table and Dreaming” were always playing.  My brother can play a mean air guitar to DMB’s cover of “All Along the Watchtower”.  Hand that kid a fire poker and watch him get busy on the coffee table.  Anyway, watching all the stoners, long hairs, hippie chicks, frat boys, and other monkeys getting their head right for a Dave show took me right back to that place and time last night.  I miss them… the times and the friends.

The only cloud I could see outside of my silver lining last night was that I am getting old!  Mingling with drunk and stoned underage crowd clarified the age difference.  I am on the cusp of really standing out in a DMB crowd as an old guy.  Booo getting old.

Well, think good thoughts for SteelerSteph and her big interview.  I will be sure to post the results…. as long as they are good!

Maybe if I bitch about it here

2006-07-23T16:18:00.000-05:00

It will stop.

Probably not, but I am tired today of the bad beats and bubble finishes. Twice today I have lost a HU match with trips flopped and my opponent has the case 4th card and a higher kicker.

I have been knocked out on the bubble in both 10 person SNGs I played and once was to a 4 card flush when I got it all in pre flop waaaaay ahead. Goddamnit (that is for Karen).

On the good side of life, my first batch of beer is maturing well. I am 4 bottles into it and each one is getting better. I think that by next weekend they will be prime for the drinking. I drank 2 today and they are getting quite tasty. 10.5 alcohol by volume in a 22 oz bottle will do ya like my man Larry the Cable Guy says, "Get 'R Done".

I am in another 10 person SNG as I type this because I am a real glutton for punishment. I decided to bump up the stakes to $22, maybe that will make a difference.

We held our first open house today and had one family through... but they came through twice! I hope that bodes well as another family saw the house by appointment today and it was there second time through as well. They brought the kids with them today and they really like the house. I hope someone makes an offer soon because I really need to sell this thing so I can get to Southfield. SteelerSteph has a 4th interview with Glaxo Smith Kline in Michigan on the 3rd of August with a tentative start date of August 21st. Despite the fact that this will really put us in a pinch, I am hoping she gets the position because GSK seems like a really good company to work for and she deserves a break. The past 5 months have been rough on her and she has been a real trooper. Wish us well, we could use all the good karma we have saved up.

In case you were wondering, my Raspberry Wheat is in the primary fermenter bubbling away and I am pretty excited to see what becomes of it. The boil last weekend went well and I think it will be ready to transfer to the secondary fermenter some time this week. After that, one more week and she will be ready for bottling. Mmmmm Beeeer.

As I am typing this I have outlasted 5 of my starting companions in the $22 SNG, I will wait to publish this until this is over. I am sure you are all holding your breath :-)

KK in the BB...... and I doubled up. T4290, next hand the guy I doubled through pushes all in on tilt and I call with K10 on the button and he flips K6. Nice.
I got KK again (2nd in 3 hands) and no callers. Just get the blinds, T6755. Just like that, I am ITM.

2nd in chips and 1st and 3rd are duking it out.

AJs in the SB, I shove and 1st calls with 99. I lose the race, but get second place for my first cash in a 10 person SNG today. Cool.

Wish I was in Vegas

2006-07-10T06:30:00.000-05:00

Wish I was in Vegas…

Because I am reading all these blogs about the blogger hijinks and the WSOP going on out there. But life is not too bad here. I had a poker-less weekend (save one HU match on Party that I managed to drop, I hate slowplayed quads that give me an Aces full of nines Full House)

I did get some traveling, boating, and golfing in while SteelerSteph was hawking the homestead to potential buyers. We thought we had a very promising buyer, a perfect one according to our realtor: “Out of town buyer that has to relocate in a specific time frame”.

Family of three from St. Louis that was in town for two days to find and purchase a house and needed to move within 5 weeks. BINGO! That would be perfect for us and we thought our house would be perfect for them. They visited our house twice during their two day trip (once each day) and Steph was told that we were on the short list. She is in sales and practiced a little of her craft when she pointed out the flat driveway (Feature) and that it was great for a basketball hoop (Benefit), the favorite sport of their 16 year old son. She also mentioned that the neighborhood had a lot of children (it does) and that there was a cute 16 year old girl down the street (another Feature/Benefit I guess!). We found out Saturday that our house came in 2nd place and an offer had been made on another property. “If that offer falls through for some reason, we would be next blah, blah, blah”. That was a little disappointing, but not devastating.

On the subject of preparing a house for showing, I think SteelerSteph outdoes herself. How do I know? I told her that if I came into our house and saw how perfect it was and those damn little notes that she leaves in strategic places I would urinate in the refrigerator or a hamper to express my displeasure at the perfectness. For example, we have a two story family room with a wall of windows. Since we watch tv in that room and it is westward facing, we get sun in there in the afternoon and it can produce some glare on the television. This is not acceptable, especially with many of the Steelers games being broadcast at 1 PM. We installed room darkening blinds and the top level are powered and can be adjusted with a remote control. She puts a folded card next to the remote sitting on the coffee table - “Remote Controlled Blinds – Keeps House Cool in Summer” in very pretty girly writing. Gag. Walking in to the kitchen, you are confronted by a dish of “Treasures”, some type of chocolate, and another card with sentiments of welcome, enjoy the house, and thanks. See what I mean? Encountering cute little cards like that combined with the immaculate house would create an intense desire in me to upper deck one of the seller’s immaculate toilets. But, I suppose I am not the target audience. That would be the true decision maker when it comes to domiciles, the woman. There is a built in workbench in the garage and a full basement to keep the guy occupied while his wife samples the chocolates and reads the cards. He might even play with the blinds because they have a remote, which lends a touch of masculinity to it, right?

While our house was coming in second, I was here http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/14993088.htm . I was not there at 1:30 AM when the fire started, but was there the next day to witness that aftermath and watch some of the recovery operations. Some of those houseboats are huge and they are docked very close together. I was really surprised that there were only 4 affected by the fire. They credit the quick acting people that were in other docked houseboats that cut the lines and pushed other houseboats out of the docks. Craziness. We were on a pontoon boat and a jetski and had a great time on the lake. My sister in law lives in Richmond, KY and we came to spend the weekend with her and go out on the lake. On Sunday, I got 18 holes in at The Bull. http://www.kentucky-golfer.com/Bull/Index.htm . There were 6 golfers so we played a two team 3 person scramble. I was happy to contribute a natural birdie on a par 5, but it was overshadowed by an eagle on a par 4. All in all, a very nice course with a lot of blind shots, well defended greens, and challenging terrain.

Hope to get some poker in this week, but it is shaping up to be another busy one. I am still interviewing for my replacement at work and that has been an experience in itself. Here is an interview tip: Don’t make sexual moaning noises and pretend to spank a computer while saying “Bad Computer, Bad Computer”. The wonders never cease.

Family Reunion Poker

2006-07-04T11:21:00.000-05:00

I am posting this from my Blackberry and it likes to skip the letter "t" when I type fast so please pardon any missing "t"'s. I posted my NWA rant from this device also and it was missing a few.

I attended my wife's annual family reunion in Brockway, PA this weekend. It is always a good time and it got better in the past two years because of poker. The host/organization duties rotate each year and last year it was our turn to run it. Each year there is a golf scramble on the Saturday before the reunion Sunday. We decided to host a poker tournament after the golf outing. About 28 entrants for the $10 entry fee and we offered $5 re-buys during the first hour (with all re-buys going towards the reunion fund). It was a great success and the reward for good work was, yup, you guessed it, more work! Even though we were not hosting the reunion this year, we were asked to run the tournament again this year. I was bummed at first because I could not play last year since I was running it. Helping decide play rules, handling re-buys, balancing tables, and keeping things moving was too much to do while playing. SteelerSteph knew that I really wanted to play so she volunteered to run it this year. (Thanks Steph in case you ever read this blog).

26 entries in the 2006 Reunion WSOP created a first prize of $130, an amount I am proud to say I brought home! It was interesting as the mix of players was eclectic at best. There was a group of 10 or so avid players, 10 players that were social players and a handful of just for fun players. It seemed that almost everyone at my starting table wanted to see the flop no matter how much it was raised PF. I am kind of glad I did not get many premium starting hands because it helped me avoid the inevitable bad beats. I limped with suited connectors a lot and got paid when they connected. My one premium hand (KK) was doomed on an xAx flop. I raised 3x BB (600) and had three callers. I continuation bet the flop with another 600 and I knew my one caller had an A. I checked the turn and the river (she checked too) and was not too surprised when she flipped AK. The play was very passive until the final table with min bets all the way with full houses and flushes not uncommon.

I made the final table with a smaller chipstack and was able to double up twice through the chip leader. My first double up happened when I limped with 68h on the button. The flop came all hearts and I jammed on the gutshot straight flush draw figuring my flush was good anyway. The chip leader had already put in a 2k bet but I was confident he did not have the flush already, I knew him and it was a semi-bluff. He thought for a minute and then called. He said he knew I had the flush so I am not sure why he called. He had outs with his Ah but they did not come and I was now in the top 3 with chips. A few hands later I finished him off when my QJ flopped two pair. I jammed again and he quickly called. The speed of the call concerned me, did he get a set? But his PF action of limping did not make me think pocket pair. He normally would bet that. With a flop of QJ7, he flipped his Q7 and was all in. I felt a little bad because of my aggressive final table play, I don't think I could have gotten away from a flopped two pair heads up either. Just bad luck. No sevens came and I was the new dominant chip leader with 7 to go. 7,6,5 got it all in one one hand and then there was 4 of us left. I took out fourth on a hand I can't remember and then took out my father-in-law 3rd with my 33 v his AQo. He turned a Q and was crushed by my rivered 3. Whew, good job John, I got lucky on that coinflip. The final hand of the tourney was my AK v Holly's A9. The favored hand stood up and I won my first family reunion WSOP. I knew I could outplay most of them and had final table expectations but did not think I would take it down.

The next day we got a small cash game going with $5 buy in and .05/.10 blinds. I did well in that also cashing out more than 5 times my buy in. I am either on a little rush, or I am seeing some fruits of my poker labors. The play was pretty bad so I am leaning towards a 70/30 split. 70% experience and 30% dumb ass luck.

Happy Fourth of July to all and condolences to DNasty. I think Ben moved to the Bulls because he heard STeelerJosh was moving to the D and there is only room for one Ben in my heart.... The stupid no helmet wearing QB Super Bowl winning one. I appreciate Wallace's style and think he would make a fine Steeler Linebacker. Good luck in Chi-town other Ben.

No Internet poker out here in the sticks (dial up only) but I will see you all on the virtual felt again soon. I am headed back home tomorrow and cannot wait. My homebrew is ready to be bottelled and in 3 short weeks I will be enjoying some fine honey wheat "HammerBrau" or whatever the hell I decide to call it. Suggestions welcome. The next batch I am planning will be a much lighter raspberry ale. This high test stuff (10.5 alcohol) takes too long to ferment.

A little Poker

2006-06-27T18:50:00.000-05:00

And a lot of other stuff....

First off, I have not posted in awhile because I have not played much poker. I managed to get some in the past few days and it has rekindled the poker flame. I have not had many hands that make me think, but this one I think I did the right thing, it just did not go my way. Any thoughts? Did I over play my AK? The guy was loose relative to the table, but not a true maniac. I did not put him on KK or AA due to the limp from the unraised SB, I think I would make the same play again.

$25 NL Texas Hold'em -

Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: ultimate8s ( $29.25 )
Seat 3: Victoria85 ( $25.50 )
Seat 7: lwrestler105 ( $15.76 )
Seat 8: STeelerJosh ( $22.40 )
Seat 9: GoldOreMarty ( $4.15 )
Seat 5: baysia ( $15.95 )
Seat 6: alivesey ( $23.05 )
Seat 10: Pascwaly3 ( $28.25 )
Seat 2: mickssid ( $14.75 )
lwrestler105 posts small blind [$0.10].
STeelerJosh posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to STeelerJosh [ Ac Ks ]
Pascwaly3 folds.
ultimate8s folds.
mickssid folds.
Victoria85 folds.
baysia folds.
alivesey folds.
lwrestler105 calls [$0.15].
STeelerJosh raises [$0.50].
ifold220 has joined the table.
lwrestler105 raises [$2].
STeelerJosh raises [$5].
lwrestler105 is all-In [$13.51]
STeelerJosh calls [$10.01].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, Jd, Ah ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ts ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
STeelerJosh shows [ Ac, Ks ] a pair of aces.
lwrestler105 shows [ Jh, Jc ] three of a kind, jacks.
lwrestler105 wins $29.97 from the main pot with three of a kind, jacks.

I managed to fight back and only be down $9 for the game, but I really thought I was ahead in this hand.

On the non poker front, I am busy boy. I have accepted a promotion at work that will require a move to Detroit. I am excited and scared by the prospect of a new postition in a new place. I have been performing the same role for my company for the past 6 years, so it was getting to a breaking point... I think I made the right decision. We have listed our house and SteelerSteph is interviewing in MI already. Wish us luck. The housing market is not that great in Northeast Ohio right now, but it is even worse in Metro Detroit. The upside of the move? (besides a fresh challenge) is that DNasty might be my neighbor next year. Come on back to the big D, D. Eminem, Kid Rock, and I miss you. 313, what?

This summer is shaping up to be a full one. Pack a house into a 2 bedroom apartment for at least 6 months. Find the missus a job. Learn my new role, and centralize a 16 server mail system geographically distributed in 15 remote offices into one functional 4 server centralized model. Wheeeee! In between all that, I will keep trying to get better at poker.

So, any advice on Poker, Lotus Notes, Selling a House, Keeping a Marriage, Relocating to Michigan, Shopping for an Apartment, and sadly, storing a bike is welcome here. Storing a bike you ask? Well, yeah... it seems that a lot of apartment complexes in Metro Detroit do not allow any motorcycles on property. Thanks to all in the "Loud Pipes save Lives" school of thought, you kind of ruined it for all of us. No matter that my ST sounds like a sewing machine in a fog bank, it is "a bike" and therefore machina non grata. I have to decide if I want to store for awhile or outright sell and repurchase when I become a homeowner again.

Wish me luck in my new role, and in finding my replacement which is proving much tougher than anticipated. Here is an interviewing tip. When asked what your favorite team is in an interview environment (as a seugeway into talk about what makes a successful team and teamwork) do not give "Pantera" as an answer. If you do make that mistake, do not make it worse by advising the interviewer that you memorialized the late lead singer, "Dimebag" Daryl by naming your firstborn after him. This is an accounting firm here people, play the game! Say the 1979 or 2006 Steelers (bonus points from me) or make up some crap about a high school team. Pantera, Lotus Notes, and accountants. Google that.

Lastly, I can't help but admit a little guilt for letting this blog languish since ummmm December. I was (am) a losing player this year (damn you -EV Blackjack) and it took its toll on my budget, desire for the game, and inspiration for the blog. I am back now with an online pittance for a bankroll and back on Party since they have allowed me to remove (or at least hide) their BJ icon. The going can be tough there, but I am enjoying working on my NL cash game chops and the SNGs are so juicy there.

I won't make the Mookie tomorrow, my firm is having its annual conference and I will be getting crunked with a few hundred of my closest friends from Chicago, Columbus, Grand Rapids, Elgin, Cleveland, and Kalamazoo in a hotel. The conference, mercifully, does not start until 10 the following day so the night before of open tabs is always an event.

I am not normally a pimp, although my pimp hand is strong. If you have a few minutes and enjoy what I think is one of the most unique voices in a blog, check out TenMile over at http://sippinwhiskeyandpoker.blogspot.com/ He is on my blogroll, and I need to update my links on the right. I particularly enjoyed his recent story about an Alaskan pilot of a single engined craft. Seems odd when I type it out here, but trust me; TenMile can spin a story like few else. Aces to you TenMile.

1-800-I Won't Fly NWA Again

2006-06-12T04:38:00.000-05:00

0430 CST and I am still in OKC. After the strangest incident trying to get out of here last night and my worst travel adventure yet, I have sworn off of Northwestern Airlines. Fuck'em and their appalling lack of customer service. They were the cheapest way in and out of here....guess I got what I paid for.

What was it? Never found out for sure, but my plane to Memphis was quarantined 10 yards from the gate. I happened to look out the window about 45 minutes before I was supposed to head out and saw a scene right out of "Outbreak" on the tarmac. Dudes in silver suits and self containted breathing apparatus were all around the plane and this whole hing was surrounded by a phalanx of flashing lights. Marked cars, unmmarked cars, HAZMAT fire trucks, ambulance....if you had a light bar on your car, this was apparently the place to be.

All the gate attendant could tell us was there was a suspicious substance and the plane was quarantined. "Odd" methinks, especially when we are told this will result in a 20 minute delay. I have almost a 2 hour layover in Memphis so that is ok....but I am wondering if I really want to be on that particular plane.

Eventually we are told that we will need to rebook our connections because they are erring on the side of safety. Fine with me, I avoid the line at the desk of what turned out to be the only NWA employee left in he airport and call the 1800 number they posted on the board to reschedule flights. It turns out that it is impossible to have me in Cleveland hat night, the best they can do is get me to Detroit or Columbus. That will not really work, so the agent on the phone suggests I could do the 0600 flight (the TripJax special) out the next morning and I will be in Cleveland by 1113. This sounds like the best overall option as it was not garaunteed that I could make my connections in Minn/St.Paul or Detroit or Memphis if I could get ou of here that night. I ask about accomodations at the airport (don't want to inconvenience GCox with another 0400 jaunt to Will Rogers) and he advises me to see the gate attendant. Back in line I go. I am in touch with SteelerSteph throughout this process and the frustration I am feeling is cushoined by the fact that I could be worse, I could be one of the 50 poor bastards stuck sitting on the quarantined plane breathing in this suspicious substance and sweating their asses off. The engines were not turning on the plane, I don't imagine the AC is running. I finally get to the front of the line and ask about a hotel voucher. I am very surprised to hear that I am on my own. Unless a flight is delayed for mechanical reasons, if NWA can get me to my destination within 24 hours, I am on my own. I protest, "but you cannot get me to Cleveland until tommorrow, I have to sleep somewhere!". "Policy sir, you are allowed to sleep in the airport"

It is not this lady's fault so no use arguing with her and there are 15 more people behind me so I just ask about my checked bag to make sure that we can reunite. "Yes sir, baggage claim 6". Ok. In retrospect, the conspiracy theorists and I suspect that this baggage claim 6 was a ruse to get me out of the presence of what was apparently the only Northwestern employee in the whole friggin airport. I pass through TSA and head down to baggage claim. I am not happy with NWA right now and my plan is to make my case with the ticket agent or the highest ranking NWA employee I can find. Is it worth the $50 hotel voucher for them to lose a customer for life? I suspected not. I arrive at the baggage claim 6 and stare at the single lonely bag making the circuit. Not my bag. Ha! The NWA luggage office is locked and closed while its neighbors United, Continental, etc are doing a booming business. Ha Ha!

I eventually decide this is a lost cause and go to the ticket desk to see what I can make happen. The answer is not much when it is not staffed and the check in is all self service now. 5 pm on a Sunday and it appears that the only NWA employee is protected from me by TSA. With only a boarding pass for the 6 am flight the next morning, I don' like my chances of getting back to her. I pick up a piece of the NWA propaganda titled "Customer Guide: Customers First Program" because I need a good laugh and I still have the stupid hope that if I could just explain this situation to a rational person, I can get it taken care of. I find the number for the ombudsman Lynn Pahl, "Director - Customer Care and Sales Support". I call and get a recording telling me they are closed on weekends and to call back between 0730 and 1630 on a weekday. I guess customers do not require care on a weekend. Way to go NWA.

Admitting defeat at this point, I weigh my options. I can get a cab to a hotel and save my receipts and try to fight the good fight later this week. I can call Gary and see if I can crash at his house for one more night. I ultimately opt for the latter since I would be pissed with him if the roles were reversed and he did not call me when he was stuck at the airport less than 20 mins from my house. I would not be excited about the 0400 wakeup the next morning would require, but that is a minor annoyance. Gary picked me up, we got some pizza to take back to the house and I got to enjoy some unexpected OK hospitality for another 10 hours.

Thanks again GCox for hosting us and taking me to the airport, twice. A hearty "FU" to NWA and its "Customer Care".

I hope my checked bag is waiting for me in Cleveland. We will see.

Casa De Cox

2006-06-07T23:06:00.000-05:00

I guess I should have paid some more attention to my plane ticket because I was very surprised to have a 3 hour layover in Minnasoooota this morning. The plane ride from the Twin Cities to OKC more than compensated for the three boring hours. I ended up sitting in the middle of a posse of good ‘ol boys. Most were on the way home from a fishing trip in Alaska and my favorite was an oil driller that had been in Kuwait that very morning. Besides being entertained with stories for the 2 and a half hour flight, I learned some handy things. Besides GCox, does anyone know what a noodler does?

After meeting up with Gary and Trip (they were easy to identify, how many other people walk through the airport holding “The Hammer”), we decided to grab a bite to eat and get down to the business of being here. Poker! My first experience in a OK Casino was a good one. We all sat in the lowest limit game the Chickasaw Nation spread (3/6) and I was happy that I was not at the same table as Trip and Gary (sharks). I came right into the BB and peeled the cards up to see AQo. Cool. I checked from the BB and was pleased to see a Q high rainbow flop. Bet it out and had two callers. Bet on the turn and scooped the pot without a showdown. This was one of the few hands that did not go to a showdown. The second hand I looked down to 4d7d and completed $2 from the SB. I was happy to see an all diamond flop and was pretty sure I was good by the turn when a heart came and it was checked around. I called the raise by the button along with two others. The river was another blank and I bet out this time since I thought the button would probably check it down. Two folds, he calls and his trips lose to my flopped flush. I then did something that I am not proud of. I folded my third hand…. The Hammer on the Button. I know, wimp move but these people were playing any two and were not fazed by any preflop raises. The rest of the night was interesting, I was up and down, but usually within 2-3 BB of my 100 buy in. I went on a little rush at the end with a set on the flop that turned into quads on the river. One or two hands later I flopped a straight with my KQ in the BB. The fun of this table was you could nut peddle all day long and you would have people along for the ride. I cashed out up half a buy in (151 actually, perhaps an indicator of where this week is headed) and happy with my play. I made a good lay down when the river counterfeited my flopped two pair with a second 10 and put the fourth diamond on the table. The nice lady with the oxygen tank showed me the Ad and I was pretty sure she had one just like it behind the one she flashed me. The only play I would have done differently was when I made the mistake of thinking I was HU and there was another player still in the pot. I had a read on my oxygen tank lady and knew she would fold. She did, but the guy that was still in called me to the river where his Q9 beat my QJ on a board with 3 overs to his 9. You like that action, but Gary was right when he said you cannot get people off a hand around here.

I racked up and headed to Gary's crib. After meeting the kids, the animals, and the missus, we cracked some Keystone Light. Surprising huh? Low Limit Poker - No Limit Beer and all that. The hospitality is Southern finest and Gary had some gifts for us for coming down here! I am looking forward to reading Positively Fifth Street and passing it on to the next blogger. Thanks Gary. Time for the Mookie.

I just busted out 12th in the Mookie. Happy with my play, it went off the tracks on a misread. I raised AQo in EP and the BB doubled my bet. I called and started to put him on a hand. The flop came Q high with two hearts and I hoyed him announcing to Gary that I was sure I was ahead. I was not. GWScott made the easy call with his set of Jacks. Ouch. It was probably my best Mookie yet but I obviously have some work to do on my game. It feels stronger and I feel better.... but not there yet. I think a few days of hanging and playing with some other bloggers might help. Fun stuff and I won the Okie Vegas last longer bet that I just made up. Wheeeee!

Enjoy reading this while you are working tomorrow and I am living the good life with Trip and GCox in Okie Vegas tomorrow!

Chumming the Water

2006-05-27T00:45:00.000-05:00

The Sharks will be out in force!!

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

Hoyazo Inspired Me

2006-05-27T00:06:00.000-05:00

I guess this falls under the concept that "It's the thought that counts" because it was certainly not about the cheddar. I took down a $1 PokerStars 45 person MTT tonight. I tried the MTT because I wanted to have some of the fun that Hoyazo does when Hoy makes it look so easy....

I pulled the patented Hoy a few times and also employed the reverse with success. After the first big pot I took down, I never left the top 3. Moderated aggression fo shiz. Thanks for the inspiration Hoyazo, it netted me $13 and a boost of confidence!

*edit* stupid Blogger, giving up on uploading the screen grab of this impressive victory, you will just have to imagine my name at the top :)

Hoyazo = En Fuego

2006-05-26T15:58:00.000-05:00

I have not posted in .... let me see.... carry the 1.... Um.......forever. Between work and cruise I took last week, poker and blogging has not been a priority. Things are looking up in that area as my work "busy season" comes to an end today.

Bloglines made it easy to catch up on my reading after a week OCONUS (Outside the CONtinental US for you civilian types) and my favorite blog to catch up was hands down Hoyazo's Hammer Player's Poker Blog. I really enjoy his screenshots (one of his recent posts must be some kind of record) and his "strategery" towards the game. He gives enough insight into the game and his style, but does not give away the whole thing.... just a taste. Anyway, the trademarked Hoyazo and Reverse Hoyazo included, it is very fun to read the exploits of a blogger that is really coming into stride with his game and dare I say it, running hot right now. If you have not been there yet, make sure you stop by and congratulate Hoyazo on his takedown of the Party 40k Gauranteed. Well played and even better chronicled, sir.

In the OTHER department I have some adminstrata to take care of.

Big Thanks to Jordan, the Devil's Advocate. He produced on his bounty for the DADI and I am now the proud owner of a sweet pair COPAQ card decks. Thank you for running your 1010 into my JJ.

I am getting pumped up for Okie Vegas, although it has been pushed to the back burner of my mind the past month. Work and life gets into the way of cool things like this.

I used the bulk of my online bankroll to finance the drinking, gambling, and excursions on my 7 day cruise last week. Back to the cellar for me, but that is where I still belong so it may helpful as I will not be able to give into the temptations to frolic in the levels above my BR. The winnings (think positive) of my Okie Vegas trip will be the seeds of the new improved STeelerJosh BR. Tally Ho!

Lastly, there is a potential for a big change at work on the horizon. Can't get into details here, but it would be a big change for SteelerSteph and me and something that I am looking forward to. Will post the details on here for any family and friends that stop by once I can.

Trying to find an easy way to update my Blog links

2006-04-27T16:57:00.000-05:00

By using all the links I setup in Bloglines!

Let me see what this does:

http://rpc.bloglines.com/blogroll?html=1&id=STeelerJosh

Okie Vegas

2006-04-17T11:30:00.000-05:00

Gary C’s Okie Vegas

Crunching some numbers to see the most economical way to get to and from the upcoming blogger get together and had some interesting results. I have several options, driving, riding, flying and hitching.

Since hitching is inherently dangerous, I can rule that out…but it is technically an option I guess. I tried that once while in the Army stationed in California. I was trying to get back to Barstow, CA after letting my boys take my car home from the Cowboy bar were I was successful in scoring a cowgirl. I ended up doing a lot of walking and ended up going Greyhound after a disastrous first and only attempt at hitching. The first car that stopped offered to take me to the next town if we could play the Vito and the Security Guard game. (If you missed the Sopranos last night, you missed a good episode) I would have been playing the role of Security Guard in this gentleman’s offer. Ironically, when he first explained what was required to get me to the next town, I thought he was offering me a lollipop filled with a bubble gum center.

For the record: I declined. I know DNasty would be asking. I found the bus station in the town and waited for the next bus. Was it worth it? Not really, but it made for an interesting life experience. I think SteelerSteph may have heard this story, or at least some form of it… but I am glad she does not read this blog!

That leaves me my two 4 wheeled options, my two wheeled option, and finally a plane. I had initially ruled out the plane because the ticket prices seemed too high. Min $250, but upon further reflection, I think that price will be hard to beat.

It is about 1,059 miles from my house to Oklahoma City. 1,059/46 mpg = 23.02 gallons of gas for my ST1100. Gas is about 2.90 a gallon right now and I expect it to go up this summer, but I will stick with 2.90 for the calculations. 23.02*2.90*2(round trip) = $133.51 in gas. I was toying with the idea of doing an IronButt ride down (1,000 miles in 24 hours) but would need to get a hotel room on the way back, and possibly on the way there if I am getting too tired to ride safely. $80 hotel room with the possibility of needing one for two nights. I would estimate that I would be 85% successful on making the full distance so lets say hotel costs would be $92. Motorcycle cost would be $225 plus one hell of a sore ass and two extra days off of work. That $250 flight is looking a lot more attractive.

For grins, if I were to drive my Honda Pilot down there (my choice because it has XM radio) I would be looking at 50.43 gallons of gas setting me back $292.50 in fuel costs alone.

The more I cogitated about this trip, the more obvious the right choice became. I could take less days off from work (I get plenty, but it is always nice to have a cushion), have an easier time sitting down to play poker, and spend less time traveling if I flew.

So, Gary, what time can you pick me up at Will Rogers World Airport?

StayinSafe

2006-04-12T17:05:00.000-05:00

I had some disturbing news this week. I was checking my e-mail on Monday and caught a quick line in one of the messages that Larry Grodsky had been in a motorcycle accident in Texas and been killed. I did not know him personally, but I enjoyed his articles in Rider magazine each month and he was a well known rider coach. I imagined that I would take one of his courses in the future and he seemed like he would be a cool guy to hang it with. He was a Pittsburgher - so we probably had two passions in common.

I wanted to corroborate this news but could find nothing on Google besides a death notice for a Lawrence Grodsky, 55 of Squirrel Hill on April 8th. Hmm, that seems to fit but I wanted to know more about what happened. This was Mr. Safety, what possibly could have happened?

I finally found some posts on the BMW Georgia board and they seemed to be in the same position as me. Saddened, shocked, and curious.

http://bmwsporttouring.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/666991/page/0/fpart/all/vc/1

I finally had a chance to follow up on this some more today and found the Rider magazine write up on Larry.

http://www.riderreport.com//output.cfm?id=1087183

I would imagine that there will be more info coming out on the exact circumstances. I have discovered that most riders have a slightly morbid curiosity of how accidents happen and the results. I think it is a combination of innate curiosity, a desire to learn from other's mistakes, and to try train ourselves by going over how we would react in a certain situation. There are inherent increased risks in choosing to ride a motorcycle, but we all try to minimize these. We also rationalize them to a degree since you could die doing a million other "safe" things. The joy and pleasure that riding brings seems to outweigh the potential risks.

When someone who is considered to be one of the bests is killed doing what he does best, it is pause for thought. Several thoughts hit your brain at once: "At least he died doing what he loved." "Wow, if it can happen to Larry, it surely can happen to me." "That sucks." "He will be missed." "What a shame." All this went through my head and more, but I still rode to Columbus from Cleveland on Monday and Tuesday this week. I may have kept a closer eye out for deer, but what can you do if one decides to leap at that exact horrible moment.

Bottom line? This saddening little nugget of information will remain a placeholder in the back of my brain. I will be a little sad this week and in the future when I think of it. I will continue to ride and be the safest rider I can be. Like poker, there is always the challenge of bettering yourself and learning something new. There is risk and reward, choice and consequence. They both also bring me a lot of excitement and pleasure when done well.

Enjoy your play and Ride Safe.

Autocross Report

2006-04-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

I pulled off of I-70 and followed the GPS’ directions to Cooper Stadium and immediately saw a bunch of tricked out imports and good old American horsepower parked together. This must be the place, where else would this mix of “Buy American”, Burn some rice, and whatever the hell a Subaru is get along?

The mix of cars was quite eclectic. There were about 25 drivers in cars ranging from a new Corvette (it appeared to come with a blond female passenger seat ornament), to home built racecars and even a handful of go-karts. The go-karts were running when I got there, they apparently get an hour of track time while the rest of the cars are on a lunch break. Those little things can move!

I found Zsolt pretty quickly and snapped a pic of his Civic. He is in the stock class, the only improvement he has made to his car is upgraded Pirelli rubber. The home made race car in the background was in the second group or drivers so I did not get to see that thing go, but Zsolt told me they are very fast.
Since I arrived before the second hour of runs by the real cars, I got to witness the “tuning” before the runs. The more serious racers were busy checking and adjusting air pressure in their tires while the WRX with its hood open below appeared to by dialing in some different suspension settings along with adjusting air pressure. A small sample of the cars is also visible in this picture. The Subaru WRXs seem to be pretty popular, I am guessing the turbo combined with an all wheel drive system makes them pretty competitive.

I watched a few runs by Zsolt before I decided to acquiesce and ride with him on a few. It was quite an experience. He tried to prep me by explaining this would not be a like a video game, but to me it was quite reminiscent of Gran Turismo (Playstation 2 driving/racing simulator). I am not sure how he kept track of which way to go around the cones that defined the course on the parking lot, but that was his job. Mine was to worry about him flipping the car over! The course consisted of a pretty short straightaway with a long slalom and at least 5 very sharp corners. Here is a shot of Zsolt’s car in the last turn. Not sure if he is three wheeling there, but he was definitely sliding and screeching some rubber.

I rode four runs with Zsolt and they were all pretty exciting. He was averaging 37 seconds a run and really attacking the course. I might have left a permanent dent in his passenger seat floor where I was pressing my imaginary brake pedal through the floor as we approached the turn right after the longest straight of the track. He really followed through on the brake late and hard theory. There was an expensive aroma of burning rubber that made its way into the cabin that may have mingled with some burnt clutch.

“I love the smell of burnt Pirelli’s in the afternoon. Smells like…..like victory”

My hat is off to Zsolt; he is a pretty good driver and is really passionate about his hobby/sport. I can only imagine what he could do if he had his hands on my favorite car that I saw race, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. That thing took off like a scalded cat and you could hear the turbo from across the track. A chirp at all four corners and it was moving into turn one with a quickness. It was sweet.
The ride home was nice, I was able to get off the highway and explore some backroads. I was tempted to stop and take a picture here and there, but it was too much fun to ride! If it does not snow this weekend, I will be riding to Baltimore, MD. I cannot wait for summer.

Motorcycle Goot, Bankroll not so Goot

2006-04-04T22:03:00.000-05:00

I got some riding in this weekend which was awesome and some SNGs and ring games that were pretty bad. All in all, a good weekend! (The bike can really compensate! - no wiener jokes please)

I will not bore you with the poker beats (save the first one which was magnificent... my AA vs 73s) but the net result was a buy in at 3/6 LHE and $200 in SNGs. Ouch, a big dent, but not on the canvas yet. The usual, a few amazing river catches by my opponents and my good reads became big losses. I didn't tilt and spread the love around several sites (under the pretense that maybe my variance would be on the plus side on UB if it was on the downside on Full Tilt...it could work!) So, why was the weekend not a complete "bust"? Because it was warm enough to RIDE!

I rode almost everyday to work last week and had to use my Gerbing heated jacket liner and gloves only one day. On Saturday, I had a nice day planned. SteelerSteph was in the 'Burgh with her family so it was me, the dog, the cat, and the bike. I had a breakfast ride planned to Mansfield, OH and told a friend that I would then head on down to Columbus, OH to watch him participate in his Autocross racing. It was the first "Test & Tune" of the season and he was pretty excited. This guy lives for racing... getting up at 1AM to watch Formula One racing in Europe on the Speed channel, reading books like, "The Secrets of Speed: 2"... you get the idea. He is an interesting dude, a computer programmer here on a work visa for the past 6 years. He hails from Hungary and I can always count on him to offer a unique perspective on things. Although I have travelled outside of America a good bit in my life, when talking to Zsolt I have found that I still maintain a solidly Amer-centric point of view on most things. I try to keep up on my current events, it is a habit from my days in military intelligence. When talking about events or policies it is usually an enjoyable mental challenge to understand my friend's point of view. He is quite worldly and has had some pretty interesting life experiences.

The ride down to Mansfield was not an interesting life experience. I had been up late the night before (takes some time to lose half your roll) and even after I shut down the computer, I could not sleep so I cleared some of the list in my TIVO. I probably got to bed around 3 and had to be on the road by 0830. I begrudgingly got out of bed around 7:45 and got ready for the day.
1. Let Copper (the dog) out to pee. He is going to be alone for a good 8 hours today. Sorry buddy, the pavement is calling.
2. Check the weather. Sweet, no rain predicted. In the high thirties right now, migh hit 51 today.
3. Take care of hygene and make sure I get some Steelers gear on. My name is the same on the ST1100 boards, gotta make it easy to recognize STeelerJosh!
4. Lock up and hit the road. I gotta make some time up since I am leaving later than I hoped. No back road fun for me on the way down, gotta "slab" it.

Here is the bike: ready to hit the road.
I packed some shoes (I wear riding boots and they are not comfortable for a lot of standing around or walkingd), a camera, some bottle water, and some extra warm stuff in case the forecast was wrong. I set off at an illegal pace down I-71 that only increased until I finally rolled off the interstate. No cops, no problems!

I got the Cracker Barrel 5 minutes ahead of schedule and over half of the gang was already there (long distance riders like breakfast). The attendees had ridden in from as far South as Tenessee and Kentucky and as far North as Michigan. Ohio was well represented with riders coming in from all over the state. The parking lot looked like this when I got there with eventually 17 bikes cooling their engines while their owners caught up.

While most of the riders were on Honda ST's (1100's and the newer 1300's) there were two Gold Wings, a V-Strom, a BMW, an R-6 (don't know how that guy rode a sport bike all the way up from Kentucky) and a few others. All the guys are good guys. I caught up with many that I had not seen since last summer and met some new faces. It's true, "you meet the nicest people on a Honda..."

Breakfast eventually ended and headed further South with a 4 bike caravan. Uncle Phil was headed back to Tenesee and Jason and his brother Daniel (the R-6 rider) back to Kentucky. While it is neat to be in a pack sometimes, I prefer solo or pair riding to large group riding. The foursome was nice and we took turns leading until I peeled off in Columbus. The GPS took me right to Cooper Stadium and I was not really sure what to expect when I got there.

Getting late so I guess this will have to be a two parter. My first Autocross report is up next. Since I am in a motorcycling mood, here are two pictures from a great ride last year.

This is was on SkyLine Drive in Virgina. A slow but enjoyable ride through a great state park. There are lots of curves and you can get into a nice rythym. The scenery is spectacular

This was my GPS on a quick break on a ride in West Virgina. Damn that is a beautiful sight to behold. I like my women curvy and my roads curvier!

HUC3 Was Not To Be

2006-03-23T21:47:00.000-05:00

I have heard that some people hate hand histories.  If you want a short recap, here it is:

My first match lasted one hand.  I flopped top two pair and got it all in by the turn and faded the magic K that would have sent me packing.

My second match I got it all in with 1010 vs AQ and had a monster chip lead.  I then got it all in pre-flop with AKs vs Q9s (same suit) and was ready to claim victory.  It was not to be.

Dave was back in the game and it was time to play poker again.  Final hand left a mark, my junk is swollen like a pair of grapefruits and are a ugly purple yellowish mess of bruises.  Get it all in on the turn with my K10 (2 pair) vs 55.  You can guess what came on the river and caused the discoloration of said junk.  2 outers hurt my feelings.

Here are the three pivotal hands of the HUC3 round 1 match.  I am happy with my play and reads, Lady Luck just chose to desert me at the key times.

1st Hand of the HUC3

Full Tilt Poker Game #518895988: HUC#3-Donkeys (3384403), Table 2 - 10/20 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:00:30 ET - 2006/03/23
STeelerJosh posts the small blind of 10
iam23skidoo posts the big blind of 20
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to STeelerJosh [Jh 8s]
STeelerJosh calls 10
iam23skidoo checks
*** FLOP *** [Jd 8h 7s]
iam23skidoo bets 20
STeelerJosh raises to 40
iam23skidoo raises to 140
STeelerJosh raises to 240
iam23skidoo calls 100
*** TURN *** [Jd 8h 7s] [2d]
iam23skidoo bets 150
STeelerJosh raises to 970
iam23skidoo raises to 1,240, and is all in
STeelerJosh calls 270, and is all in
iam23skidoo shows [Js Ks]
STeelerJosh shows [Jh 8s]
*** RIVER *** [Jd 8h 7s 2d] [Td]
iam23skidoo shows a pair of Jacks
STeelerJosh shows two pair, Jacks and Eights
STeelerJosh wins the pot (3,000) with two pair, Jacks and Eights
iam23skidoo stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,000 | Rake 0
Board: [Jd 8h 7s 2d Td]
Seat 1: iam23skidoo (big blind) showed [Js Ks] and lost with a pair of Jacks
Seat 2: STeelerJosh (small blind) showed [Jh 8s] and won (3,000) with two pair, Jacks and Eights

Last Hand of the HUC3
Full Tilt Poker Game #518965920: HUC#3-Donkeys (3384403), Table 1 - 40/80 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:31:45 ET - 2006/03/23
Seat 1: STeelerJosh (2,375)
Seat 2: presidentdave (3,625)
STeelerJosh posts the small blind of 40
presidentdave posts the big blind of 80
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to STeelerJosh [Ts Kd]
STeelerJosh raises to 160
presidentdave raises to 480
STeelerJosh calls 320
*** FLOP *** [8d Jd Th]
presidentdave bets 960
STeelerJosh calls 960
*** TURN *** [8d Jd Th] [Kc]
presidentdave bets 2,185, and is all in
STeelerJosh calls 935, and is all in
presidentdave shows [5h 5s]
STeelerJosh shows [Ts Kd]
Uncalled bet of 1,250 returned to presidentdave
*** RIVER *** [8d Jd Th Kc] [5d]
presidentdave shows three of a kind, Fives
STeelerJosh shows two pair, Kings and Tens
presidentdave wins the pot (4,750) with three of a kind, Fives
STeelerJosh: ohh
presidentdave: ouch
STeelerJosh stands up
presidentdave stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4,750 | Rake 0
Board: [8d Jd Th Kc 5d]
Seat 1: STeelerJosh (small blind) showed [Ts Kd] and lost with two pair, Kings and Tens
Seat 2: presidentdave (big blind) showed [5h 5s] and won (4,750) with three of a kind, Fives

Pivotal Hand of the HUC –
Dave’s first demonstration of his superior suckout powers
Full Tilt Poker Game #518940267: HUC#3-Donkeys (3384403), Table 1 - 25/50 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:20:03 ET - 2006/03/23
Seat 1: STeelerJosh (5,535)
Seat 2: presidentdave (465)
STeelerJosh posts the small blind of 25
presidentdave posts the big blind of 50
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to STeelerJosh [Ad Kd]
STeelerJosh raises to 100
presidentdave raises to 465, and is all in
STeelerJosh: Q high last hand
STeelerJosh calls 365
presidentdave shows [Qd 9d]
STeelerJosh shows [Ad Kd]
*** FLOP *** [Qs 2h Kc]
*** TURN *** [Qs 2h Kc] [9c]
presidentdave: nh
*** RIVER *** [Qs 2h Kc 9c] [4d]
presidentdave shows two pair, Queens and Nines
STeelerJosh shows a pair of Kings
presidentdave wins the pot (930) with two pair, Queens and Nines
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 930 | Rake 0
Board: [Qs 2h Kc 9c 4d]
Seat 1: STeelerJosh (small blind) showed [Ad Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 2: presidentdave (big blind) showed [Qd 9d] and won (930) with two pair, Queens and Nines

Geek Milestone

2006-03-23T11:30:00.000-05:00

It is official, I have achieved another geek notch in the belt of certifications. I passed the last required test to become an IBM Certified System Administrator 6/6.5 today. Soon I will have another fancy certificate to hang on my wall next to the existing Microsoft Certified System Engineer in NT 4.0, and the IBM Certified Associate System Administrator. Throw in a sprinkling of Dell hardware and Microsoft Office Specialist certificates and you have one nerdtastic wall decorated.

Nerd "I love me walls" aside, I am pretty proud of this one. There were not as many tests to pass as the MCSE, but there were enough of them. Add in the fact that many geeks consider Domino and Lotus admins to be practitioners of some strange black art and the cert gains some points. I don't think it will have any salary impact at work, but it will give some credibility and would aid in finding future employment (not that I am looking, my company is a great place to work (as evidenced by 8 consecutive years on the Fortune 100 Magazine list of 100 Best Places to Work)), but employers seem to like third party certifications in the tech industry. Bottom line is you have to be able to produce so paper tiger MCSEs and Lotus Admins will usually be caught pretty quickly.

I am hoping to parlay the excitement of passing the last test today into a win in the HUC3 tonight. I am fighting off some kind of bug and not at 100% right now, but hope is alive and well. I was able to register on Full Tilt and get some practice in on the site last night (by practice I mean getting used to the interface and losing some HU matches) and capped it off by winning a 4 person HU Shootout. The first match was tough, the second one was cruise control. Look out Donkey room, thanks Veneno, SteelerJosh, MCSE, IBMCSA, MCDLT, FBI,CIA is here to play!

This blogger is:

Eveno with Veneno

2006-03-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

Poker was goot this weekend. Played two SNGs and won one.

Played several HU matches and won all of those.

Played some Limit and had my hands stand up. Refreshing.

It is amazing how fun poker is when the cards are going your way. Even being the first person out of a $20 SNG did not faze me. (Note, I broke my own rule which led to this early demise. K7h in the BB and I get to see it for free. Flop comes 275 rainbow and I check it. 4 way action and it is checked all the way around. K on the turn with only two cards of any suit. I decide to pot it and get one caller. No warning bells here, I put him on a K with a decent kicker. River is a not a threat and I pot once more wanting to end it there. Opponent doubles my bet. Hmmm. Perhaps that should be a warning but aggressor Josh decides that my two top pair will handle this bidness and I shove myself (and him) all in. He makes the call and shows 22 for a nice set. I cannot remember the last time I was first out. This was also in the first two levels of a SNG and where I broke my rule. I think it is a well tested strategy to play only super cards the first three levels or so and then start playing some poker once the herd has thinned. I don't know what I was thinking, but I really did not expect him to turn over a set. I cannot see myself playing it that way, but the net result was that it worked out for him. He got a monkey to push all in with the second best hand.

While it was not my biggest win in money this weekend, the win against Veneno HU was a sweet victory. Once again, the deck seemed to favor me and I made some good reads on her. It was easy to call her aggressive play with Ax on a Q high board when I had pocket cowboys and she kept potting until she was all in. I would not exactly call it a trap, (she did have outs) but I knew she did not connect with the flop and my Kings were good. That win brought us to dead even with each other and minus $2 each to the house in rake. That ol house is a tough competitor and not easy to beat! As usual, a HU match against a blogger is much more interesting and mentally fun than the average comp at the $10 and $20 HU levels I favor. Thanks for the workout Veneno.

Lastly, I am pretty sure that anyone who keeps tabs on this blog is already aware of the HUC3, but just in case check this out:

Heads Up Challenge 3 - Where luck beats skill 2 out of 3.

I am looking to avenge my dismal performance in HUC2. Bring it on...

Poker Poisoned

2006-03-12T18:49:00.000-05:00

I finally got a chance to better my record against the HU Queen, YoSoyVeneno. It was a fun first two matches, I was getting killed by the deck. My favorite hand was a flopped OESD with the hammer that hit on the turn. I potted and V called. Nice. I guess I should have stopped at two matches in a row because I pressed my luck in the third and she retains her winning percentage against me. Good stuff Veneno. Looking forward to being your antidote in HUC3….

I played a SNG on Stars after my matches with V and won. Nice $51.50 profit… it almost covered my buy in I lost earlier in the day on $1/$2 short handed limit. Do you ever feel like you will just not win on a certain site? For example, I am playing my same game on UB and Stars right now. I cannot lose on UB in ring play and cannot win in ring play on PS. Go figure. I am doing well on the Single and Multi SNGs on Stars, enough to finance the losing play on ring. I know it will come around so I just keep playing and trying to gut through it. I am not looking at the stats on the PokerStars ring games too closely (I should) but the numbers at the end of the session do not look out of wack. It is still fun and I am not chasing losses so I will press ahead. At least it is fun to watch the other players sometimes. Sometimes I am marveled, and I think that SirF summed it up when he said, “luckbox > skill”. In the short term, I am in complete agreement. My skills are weak and my luck weaker on PS right now. That won’t get you far….

So why am I doing well on SNGs and flailing in ring? I think it might have to be the larger “luck” factor in Limit. I theorize that I would be doing better in No Limit right now because I could potentially push the chasers out that catch the magic river card. This theory is consistent with the success I am seeing in the NL SNGs. So why mess with limit? Cause I am wimp. I don’t think I have the game/bankroll/fortitude for NL right now. I do well in the SNGs cause I can sit and wait for the blinds to escalate and then start to play some poker. Win one race (either from in front or back) and then get in the money. Fun and profitable. The dynamics of the steady blinds in NL are a much different animal and I am not sure I know the animal well enough to avoid getting bit (mauled).

That said, I think that ultimately that is where I need to take my game. My plan is to assess the bankroll and life demands at the end of March and take it to the mean streets of No Limit. I will have to make sure I play well within my bankroll as I cut my teeth, but I think I have gotten enough out of limit… there is not much more room to grow there and not much game to be played at the lower levels. Wait for good hands and push. Where is the progress as a player in that?

If you were there

2006-03-06T18:30:00.000-05:00

If you were there

This would make sense:

“10:11 – Mookie calls my 450 raise with the Mook and Mooks out on me.”
-live blogging excerpt from the blog yet to be renamed.

Mookie was fun to play with and was getting some good cards. I think Waffles commented at one point, “Luckbox always beats skill”. That was quite a poignant remark as I had battled a luckbox on Stars earlier in the day and come out on the very short end of the stick. It was impressive, I kept telling myself to keep playing tight and aggressive and those little electronic chips will come back to me…. and they probably will in the long run or if I had the fortitude to keep playing, but I did not. It was tough going, every hand was getting cracked by the same two alpacas. Same old song you read about on the other blogs, 83o, 46s, etc cracking my pocket AA, AK etc. It was just weird to experience. At least I have the bankroll and was playing at the correct level to take it in stride. I know that I want those players, but I need to learn to give them more credit when they check raise me on the river…. But my brain takes over and tells me, “SteelerJosh, your set of A’s is good dude! No way he called all the way to the river with only one heart on the flop. Re-Raise him or just at least call” and I do one or the other and marvel at my chips sliding away.

After spending some of my Sunday morning reading http://obituarium.blogspot.com/ I am getting a little concerned about finding the right balance. It is moving, real stuff and I feel for Joe. Besides a scary dose of how it can go to shite so quickly, I take from his writing a warning to make sure I don’t fall into the same hole. I need to make sure I find the right balance with my hobbies and my wife. The balance has been shifted in her favor for a few months as I was frustrated with my poker results and started to drift away some. Now that I am back in it and having a blast with my other bloggers, I know I need to be careful and not discount or take my time with SteelerSteph for granted. It is by no means guaranteed, no matter how sunny it seems today. All the best to you Joe. You really sound like you have your head straight and you appear to have a great support network. Even though I don’t know him, I too feel for especially for AJ. That has got to be tough.

So, armed with Joe’s advice and my newfound ~~luckbox~~ skillz, I am looking forward to playing with more of you this week and my try my hand at a yosoyveneno HU match again. She gave me the free ticket to deposit $5 or $10 into her account anytime I want. Maybe it will go down that like Veneno… maybe.

TiltFest (aka, What should I call SirFWALGMAN's blog?)

2006-03-05T22:50:00.000-05:00

Tonight was a tournament I was looking forward to all week, the Sir Old Farts Tiltfest. It was a great time, I started out of the gate hot!

I looked at AKo in the first hand and got it all in pre flop against DuggleBogey's 72s. I was sweating, but in hindsight I probably had nothing to worry about because it was suited. Those imposter hammers will hurt you. I figured it would be my one and only shot at being atop the leaderboard of a star studded event like this. Lotta talent.

As the game went on, I just sat and waited for hands..... but that got boring and this was a fun bunch so I decided to loosen up. I made some marginal calls and pushes, but I was here to gambool! Oddly enough (ok not really that odd), my favorite hand was a big suckout. I had been flooshed on twice and was getting frustrated. I forget how we got it all in, but it was me, the birthday boy, and Trauma (who flooshed on my earlier for a nice chunk). Menage trois, SteelerJosh style! A8s v JJ v AQ 8 on the flop, A on the river and I was tripled up into the lead again.

Apparently, I have also "earned" the right to rename Sir F's blog for a week. I woke up with JJ in the BB and he pushed all in from EP. JJ held up against 1010 and I did feel bad for taking him out... but took some strange solace in the fact that it was legit. He was having a rollercoaster of a game and and one point was big stackin' but STB and Mookie kept him in check.

Ran into AA twice when in the blinds or button and I had a pair. Not the recipe for success. 77 and 88 crashed into AA, the latter being my exit in 6th. Mookie was the benefactor, I really did not expect him to wake up with that. He probably popped a rod when I pushed all in on his reraise. In hindsight, I could have folded, I was 2nd or 3rd in chips, but I really did not put him on a hand. He played back at me twice earlier and folded to me once so I thought it could go my way. The A on the flop made him virtually suckout proof.

This was my first blogger tourney and it was all that I expected. I witnessed the Hammer take out AK. I sucked out. I got sucked out on. We laughed, we cried and it was fun. Thanks for getting older SirF and giving us an excuse to sling chips together.

Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that I won the last longer bet (that I just made up) with the GCox mafia. They are a fun and talented bunch, I am truly surprised that I was the last one. You all owe me a beer in Okie Vegas this June.

When Hammers Collide

2006-03-05T20:42:00.000-05:00

When Hammers Collide…

http://sirfwalgman.blogspot.com/2006/03/when-hammers-collide.html

As a purist, I think that the offsuit should have won all the chips. I guess that is why I am not running a poker site…

Thanks for the laugh Waffle.

Afraid to Post?

2006-02-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

I have been slowly sinking back into the poker "addiction"...Specifically the playing half. (I never stopped reading all the blogs!)

I have been hesitant to post because I do not have any strategy to share and no big results. I have been playing well since I started to focus on the games again. No big hits, but a lot of steady chipping up at short handed 1/2. Mostly playing on PokerStars and PokerRoom, although I cashed out $100 of profit last night and loaded it back on UB (still have some bonus to clear there). Very happy with my results and tempted to post about them recently as I keep reading the similar experiences that Gary, Jordan, ScurvyDog, and TripJax. Seems like the balance of variance has been tilting our way a little and we are all improving as players.

Enter tonight. American Idol is back on which is fantastic for me. Not a fan of Simon and the game, but it guarantees 3-4 hours of weeknight poker uninterrupted! That show is like a wife pacifier, put it on and she is transfixed. Once I am able to block out the constantly ringing phone (grandma, her mom, her dad, her brother... they all call to constantly compare notes) I can settle into some quality poker time. Tonight I decided to play a la TripJax style and brought my laptop into the living room. I was feeling that I would like to take a shot at a small MTT and knew the PokerStars had just what I wanted. I found an almost full 45 person and registered for my $11. Let the games begin.

I played well and was happy with my results (see below). I had a big suckout go both ways (no complaints) and I managed to survive the first one without it setting me on tilt. With horrible singing on t.v. (maybe it was good, I am no judge) I made my way to the first break in the middle of the pack. I was bounced to a few tables and before I knew it I was in the final 20 and still in good position. I was playing very tight and until the first suckout I was 100% for showdowns. Segue to final table. I am in the top 3 in chips and I need 2 to fall out before the money (7 spots payed). I am still running well not taking stupid risks and feeling pretty good. Mandisa steps on stage to sing and I hope she will not eat my mojo, there are 3-4 left and I am second in chips. She gets praise from the judges and I get heads up with almost a 2-1 chip advantage. Sweet... I am good at HU.

I guess I rationalize it with only a $40 difference, but I doubled up the guy within the first 5 hands(QJs v K9o) and then I jammed on a four card flush hoping to take it down right there...or make my draw. Called down with a K high (he had 3 cards to the flush) and my J8s does not catch the last club. Next time. I would probably play the same way going forward as aggression is important when HU and he woke up with some good cards, and made some very gutsy/gambling calls. Good game overall, no complaints.

So, I am pretty pumped. I have not done well in MTT before and this was a good start. I think that my game has matured to a point where these become a viable option for me. I will continue with the short handed limit, some HU, and throw in some low buy in MTT to keep working on that skill.

Since I enjoy seeing good results on other blogs, thought I would post my hard earned second place here to share!

I'll take it.

Let the Hating Begin

2006-02-06T10:50:00.000-05:00

The talking heads on TV this morning are getting their .02 in. A few readers are commenting. I understand some of their points. I am admittedly biased as a huge fan of the Steelers. I think that they have been contenders for this since 2001 and blew a big opportunity in the AFC Championship game against the Pats. Still nursing a grudge over that one.

The point? I can understand the "bitterness". I agree that the officiating has been horrid throughout the playoffs. Simply put, the Steelers have been on both sides of the line. They have benefitted and been harmed by poor or incorrect officiating. That is not in their control. That is a problem the league needs to address to keep from disenfranchising the fans. I have posted about that before.

What did the Steelers control? Their destiny. Last night's game was not their best showing. Their wins against the Colts (1 seed) and Broncos (2 seed) were much more impressive. They executed better and were much more dominating. Does that tarnish last night? Not in my opinion. The NFL championship is one game, but it takes 2-3 games to get there. The Steelers beat the top 3 seeded teams in the AFC in each of their respective houses. Impressive. They earned the right to play in the Super Bowl and played well enough to get the victory. I wish they would have been sharper, but I am super excited that they got the ring for the Bus.

I won't be able to change any opinions about Steelers, most people have strong feelings one way or the other about them. I will be able to enjoy the extra four weeks of Black and Gold fun and excitement that they gave us. I am very happy for Jerome Bettis to be able to retire after winning the elusive big game. He is beloved in Pittsburgh and is a great ambassador of the game. Hate Joey Porter-fine. Hate the officials-sure. Respect the Bus-most definitely. He is a class act and a role model of a citizen/athlete/businessman. Much love for you Bussie.

Love it or hate it, the Steelers are Super Bowl XL champions. It was not game I had hoped it would be, but someone had to win it. I am glad it was Pittsburgh.

HERE WE GO STEELERS!!!

Super Bowl XL

2006-02-05T17:47:00.000-05:00

1743: I am starting to get a little nervous.... have been watching the "pre-game" show since noon today. Played some cards, drank some Miller Lite, and munched on munchies. Lets go Steelers.

We just reviewed the Seahawks schedule and it was pretty unimpressive. I know that they have the NFL MVP, but they are NFC and thereby soft. I really don't think they have played any type of team that will help to prepare them for the defense they will face today. The Steelers are tough, fast, athletic and on a mission. Lookout.

I predicted a 24-2o Steelers victory over the Seahawks in December and I am sticking to my prediction. I think that The Bus will get a short yardage TD, Big Ben will get another one on a bootleg goal line play action to the Bus and Heath Miller will catch one. Jeff Reed will add 3 from a FG and there you go. 24

1756: They just showed the crowd and it looks like a home game. Terrible Towels are a swinging!!!

1757: Why does John Madden dye his eyebrows? They really look funny.

1808: Franco Harris is the man. Terrible Towel was a nice touch.

1810: The Bus ran out. The Team ran out. I got chills.

1901: Not the beginning I imagined, but not as bad as it could be. Wake up call for the Steelers?

1946: Despite a family controversy (my wife was with me on the call, but the father in law and brother in law were skeptical), I think it was clearly a TD. If it were Hasselbeck, I would have called it a TD for him too. Whew, this is not a pretty game.

1955: Halftime. The game is close as expected, but the Steelers are playing messier than I expected. I am glad the Steelers have the lead and are getting the ball to start the half. They have been making excellent half time adjustments throughout the playoffs, I think that will continue.

On the commercial front, I don't think they have lived up to the expectations. Some funny ones, but nothing that I will be talking about at work tomorrow. I did like that the guy finally gave into the monkeys, but nothing else is too memorable. Time to eat more at halftime.

2044: The baby Clydesdale commercial was a hit with the girls eliciting several "ahhhhs". Fast Willie Parker's run had the same affect on the men. Damn that kid is quick. He brings a real suddeness to the game. JB is coaching him on the sideline right now. I really hope they bring it home for Jerome.

2117: 14 point swings suck. Hand me another Lite. C'mon Steelers. C'mon Ben. That pick is haunting us.

2121: I like Casey Hampton. Let's hear it for the Big Boys.

2122: I like Ike.

2123: Add on 15 suckas. Still can't believe Ike Taylor caught one. He has been dropping the cans of corn all season. What do they say? "If he could catch he would be a receiver."

2128: HOLY SHIT!!!

2128: I jumped up too fast...light headed. I like Randle El too. Damn, that guy has got a cannon on the run. That is the second time he has done that this season. Laser pass on the run. Here We Go STEELERS. 21-10.

2133: Hmmm. Hasselbeck is fumble monkey. I am not sure how this one will turn out. Could be ballgame. He was touched but not while he was down, curious what the call will be.

2136: Little luck for the Seahawks. Can't complain too much, we have had some luck today too.

2139: Tick, Tick, Tick. Sack. 6:32 left.

2146: Big First Down. The Steelers always remind me of college ball. They have some wacky plays. 3:51 left.

2200: 34 seconds left. 11 points. Still nervous.

2201: Porter was right. Stevens is soft.

2202: 3 seconds. Cowher is wet.

2207: It is setting in. Kinda sad that this was probably the last time we will see the Bus running and jumping up like a huge bobble head doll after picking up a crucial first down. Hall of Fame bound, I think this game sealed the deal for him and Coach Cowher.

Now I am getting greedy, but this makes me wonder if the Steelers can string a few together. I think Randle El should have been MVP, but Ward is deserving too. The mantra of the Steelers each season used to be "One for the Thumb". Now what are we going to say?

Pre Game Rituals

2006-02-04T14:22:00.000-05:00

Beyond drinking beer and getting nervous I don't know if I have too many. Usually, on a Sunday I get up and get my gear on:

Steelers socks: Check
Steelers T-shirt: Check
Terrible Towel: Check
Steelers G String: Just Kidding
Steelers Jersey: Check
Steelers Hat: Check
Hurtin' Helmet: Check

In addition to the traditional "Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet, & Watch" checklist, that is all a guy needs on Sunday morning. Then, properly attired, I get nervous.

Oddly enough, I am not nervous this weekend. I was nervous through the tough run in the playoffs, but the Super Bowl..... dare I say it...... seems anti-climatic. I am pretty sure the Steelers will handle business. I am oddly detached and calm. This is in stark contrast to the maniacs I am enjoying Super Bowl weekend with.

THE IN-LAWS

My brother in law has decorated his apartment, it is impressive. One entire wall of the living room has been covered by Steelers pictures and newspaper pictures clippings. It is very "Serial Killer Stalker-esque". You know the look, the detectives arrive on the scene after the regular cops and get called into the room - "Johnson, I think you better take a look at this". I hope no Steelers are murdered this weekend, Eric would be a prime suspect.

If you are looking for a song to get stuck in your head, try this.

You can download the song here: http://www.flidop.com/flidop/Music/184/MrDevious-Puhlahmahlu.mp3

It really gets stuck in your head. You can't walk around Pittsburgh with out hearing someone mutter, "Puh-lah-mah-lu".

I got some poker in last night. Played very well on a .10/.25 NL table on Poker Stars. I was feeling good about my games and my reads. No big pots either way and I was hanging around even for quite awhile. I was slowly losing chips (max buy-in is $25) but kept clawing back to around $23. Then, the maniac sat to my left. Raised before every flop and caught cards to bust most that looked him up. The table of 9 went to a table of three in about an orbit. I played one pot with him. I was on the button with K5o and raised it to .75 to get the blinds. They both called. Flop comes 57x and I bet $1.50 continuation bet. Maniac calls. Turn is a 9, I fire again $2. He makes it $4 and I have to think. I fold because I am pretty sure that I will need to get it all in to win and he probably has me beat anyway. During this hand, the last person leaves and it is me and maniac heads up. I would prefer this because I consider HU a strength of mine.

Lets see what we can do about getting some of those chips back. I fold the first hand and then pick up KQh in the SB and figure this is a good hand to test this fool. I raise it to a $1.00, he calls. Flop is two hearts, A high (not a heart though). I bet $2.00 and he calls. Hmmm, I don't think this guy would have just called with his A two times. I think I am ok here. The turn is another heart. Jackpot! How can I keep him on this hook. I have about $16 left and I want to double up through this donkey. I am a little afraid of the Ah, but I don't think he has it. I bet $5, not pot committing myself (not that I think he would notice that) and he jams all-in over top of me. Sweet, I don't know what he has, but I think he has me on the A. The river is a blank and he flips 48h for the second best flush. My K high flush is good and $40 slides towards me. He types "nh" and I just smile.... and close the table.

I was happy with my play. I had about 80 hands and was playing pretty loose (33% Saw flop according to the PS stats, but that counted the hands I saw in the BB for free.. which were quite a few before maniac). I wasn't afraid to release a hand and that is a positive change for me. What I learned from the session is that patience may be rewarded, you really need to pick your spots. I used to have trouble surviving a NL session, but I think I may focus on them more. Limit can be tough, especially at the suckout prone lower levels I play at.

GO STEELERS!

If you have ever used tools, you will identify....

2006-02-03T20:30:00.000-05:00

No Poker Content - but some chuckles if you have ever worked on an engine or in a shop...

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouch...."

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads (also see Vice Grips).

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand (also see Pliers).

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new disk brake pads, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off a hydraulic jack handle.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters from the 2X4 you just used.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbors to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog crap off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps off in bolt holes you couldn't use anyway.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the tensile strength on everything you forgot to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN ½ x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large pry-bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, it's main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal- burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last over-tightened 58 years ago by someone , and neatly rounds off their heads.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50¢ part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts.

DAMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "DAMMIT" at the top of your lungs. It is also the next tool that you will need.

EXPLETIVE: A handy balm, usually applied verbally in hindsight, which somehow eases those pains and indignities following our every deficiency in foresight

Work on your Foundation

2006-01-28T12:55:00.000-05:00

Work on your foundation.

This is my new concept for building my game. Makes sense. If I have a better foundation, I have set myself up for the future. I have thought about what I am doing, my results, and where I want to be 6 months from now. I have experienced disappointing results lately and have seen this displeasure spoken of in other blogs. In my mind, it came back to this: If I cannot consistently beat the lower stakes games, what the hell am I doing in the higher stakes?!? Putting aside my old enemy variance, I should be able to consistently beat the low stakes Limit Hold Em games before I move into 2/4 or 3/6.

Why? I am bankroll “sensitive” right now. Simply put, I am tired of it shrinking!! How do I remedy this? My thought right now is play the lower limits to keep improving my game and rebuild my confidence. The swings will be much softer relative to my bankroll (~$200 right now). Case in point was the other night when I managed to get some hands in. I fired up PP and sat down at the lowest limit available (.50/1 I think) and I played well. I was never down more than a few bucks and ended the session up a little over 2 dollars. More importantly, I felt good about my game, reads, laydowns, lookups, aggressiveness, and positional play. That was more important to me than ending up 2 bucks. We all want to end our sessions up, but that is not always plausible.

Once you have had a taste of the action at a higher level, I think it is tougher to self impose yourself to the lower levels. You feel that the good decisions you make should be worth more (as they are at a higher level) but if you are not capable (yet) of making good decisions consistently, then I feel you are better served working on that at the lower levels. You must harden yourself to the annoying suckouts that seem to occur with greater frequency at limit, especially low limit, and be glad that you are playing with such speculative players. You should be able to get their money.

It is easier to write this than it is to employ this. I may change my mind in a month, but for now I will not play above the .50/1 on PP or .25/,50 if I transfer my bankroll to another site. (Pokerstars is looking promising right now).

Lotusphere 2006

2006-01-22T22:01:00.000-05:00

No poker (although there was some hold 'em going on at the kick off party... but it was just for fun) but great weather and an interesting conference ahead of me.

I attended my first Lotusphere session, a jumpstart session for the Domino Administrator for Lotus 7. It was pretty informative and it seems like I will get a lot out of my time here. My attitude was also buoyed by the third road win by my Steelers!! I tried to warn Chipper, I suspect he did not heed my prediction. Sorry dude, but the Steelers are going all the way this year. I watched the game in the ESPN sports bar at the Boardwalk in Disney with 100 of my close Steeler fan friends, there was a lot of cheering and high fives. Way to go Cowher and Pittsburgh, the first 6 seed in NFL history to make the Super Bowl, and the second team to win three road games to make it to the big one. Personally, I think they are unstoppable. It was all downhill after the Colts (IMHO).

I have been playing some poker recently and things seem to be the status quo. I have not posted about poker because it has not been a priority or a joy in my life like it has in the past. It has been more vexing than pleasurable and I have had precious little free time in the past month. Add that all up, throw in husband duties and a wife and you have a recipe for little poker and less blogging. Sorry for the lack of new content if anyone checks this piece of the web out with any frequency. I have to admit I was a little surprised when HighOnPoker was so startled to see me railbirding in the DADI Omalympics and told me he was ready to remove my link because he thought I was done posting! Not a big deal, and I can't argue with his logic, but this blog is not dead yet.

It has been interesting to read some of the same feelings I have experienced with poker in GCox's and other blogs. He has been having a rough time and I can totally empathize. I wish I could assure him it will turn around, and I believe it will, but I cannot speak from experience. It seems to be a paradox: I was a winning bad player and a losing better player?!?! But so it is, perhaps it is a stage or plateau that I must breakthrough and learn from. The end result will be a better player and a better understanding of the game (or so I tell myself).

What have I learned? I could easily start with Donkeys Always Draw, but that is not an entirely correct statement and it is probably copyrighted by TripJax and Jordan. The truth is, donkeys don't always draw and budding poker players don't draw enough. How bout dem apples? I have learned that I need to loosen up my game depending on the table conditions. That makes sense right? I probably even read that in one of the many poker books I have consumed in the past year. Easy to say, harder to do correctly and profitably. I think my game has progressed from maniac, to tight passive (with flashes of aggressiveness), to a more well rounded neutral aggressive. It is still a work in progress.

I read these fantastic strategy posts and concepts in other blogs and I don't fell qualified to offer any of that in my blog. Who wants to read about strategies that seem to cost BB/hr? Perhaps that will come, but right now I can offer some company to the struggling players out there and some understanding. If I stick with it (and I will), the insightful strategy posts will come.

Good luck to all of you out there struggling to develop your own game and continued luck to those of you who have found it. Your mission is keep on developing and share some breadcrumbs of wisdom that are still following the path you have traveled.

Hopefully I will get a little free time this week to play, but the schedule is looking packed from 7:00 AM to 9 or 10 each night. Wish you all were here, the weather is fantastic and the scenery at The Swan in Disney is a welcome change of pace from the frozen gray Cleveland landscape. I can see why DNasty moved here!

Here We Go Steelers!

2006-01-15T19:09:00.000-05:00

Warning, no poker content.

Rant

What a game.... and what horrible officiating. It has been pretty poor during the entire playoffs, but today took the cake. I have never seen a game officiated so poorly with incorrect and missed calls playing such important roles!! The saddest part? The Steelers or the Colts might get a letter next week apologizing about the incorrect call, but what solace is that?

Why are officials blowing whistles on possible interceptions when that is the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do? If there is even a chance it was intercepted, they are directed to allow the play to complete so they can make the correct ruling, not end any chance of the play being reviewed or correctly called. That interception was close and a tough call in my admittedly biased opinion, but it was stillborn...never given its proper chance.

Riddle me this... A defender touches a offensive lineman in his stance, a whistle blows and another lineman stands up. The officials basically call "do-over". When did the playground accepted call of "do over" become NFL policy? There should have been a flag on that play. Either the Steelers had a false start or the Colts were guilty of encroachment. No such animal as a "do over" in the NFL unless there are offsetting penalties.

I am not even going to get started on the pass interference no call early in the game against a deep Randle El. I might be to biased on that one, but it looked like interference to me. I must have been seeing things today, because I also a sack in the endzone that would have been ruled a safety by any other officiating crew in the world. (Pop Warner officials included)

Finally, and perhaps the most outrageous blown call, is the overturned interception by Polamalu that would have for all intents and purposes ended the game. That was pure unadulterated bullshit. If I believed online poker was rigged, I guess I could make the logic leap that perhaps the officials were "gotten to" by someone who wanted to influence the game. However, I don't think online poker is rigged and I really don't think that the game was "fixed". I do think that those officials should be reviewed and their future in the NFL should be seriously considered. I also think that the NFL needs to have a more open policy about their review process for officials and their calls. I know they are only human, and they will make mistakes.... but that many in a game of such importance is simply unacceptable to the players, the league and the fans.

If the Steelers had not managed to hold on and win, I suppose I could be called a sore loser. They did manage to avoid the ass pillaging the officials seemed intent on handing them so that must make me a sore winner. So be it.

I felt that both teams came out and played great football. The Steelers caught the Colts off guard with their aggressive play calling and unusually high percentage of passing plays in the first half. The Steelers D played as good a game as you can ask of them and found ways to pressure Manning. Kudos to the D and the Dick the D Coordinator. Coach Dungy was classy in his loss and I felt bad that he had to lose something else precious to him this year. (stark contrast when compared with his whining primadonna QB that called out his O Line in the post game press conference. Good luck with that next year Manning. Both of you are little primadonna bitches in STeelerJosh's book and you both got your just desserts in the playoffs)

The Steelers dominated the Colts on the field and on the stat sheet....despite being apparently being outnumbered on the field with 11 Colts and several officials playing against the 11 Steelers.
/Rant

I will be in Orlando Florida next weekend for Lotusphere and will be looking for a place to catch the AFC championship game at 3 PM on Sunday. Anyone know any good bars near The Swan in Disney? Here We Go Steelers!!

--------------------------------------------------

Poker news. I won $50 playing with 7 friends last weekend by playing 3 $10 SNGs. I got it all in heads up with a favorite hand of mine, "Bah Fight" (heavy Boston accent required). KJs vs 89s. Both hearts, both all in pre flop. I am excited but the 6 on the flop opened the door and runner runner gives the villain a 10 high straight and I take $20 instead of $60. I won the last game for a nice $50 profit overall. I have another live game this Friday night. Online, I was holding my own, but went on a slight tear tonight by losing three heads up matches and two six person SNGs. Net for the night? -60 and over half of my bankroll. At least the Steelers won.

Poker Doldrums

2005-12-12T18:00:00.000-05:00

Not much to update. I am still struggling. I have found some good play at Poker Stars and I am still figuring out all the types of games they offer. They seem to have some interesting Sit N Go formats… from 180 people mini tournaments to 4 person SNG shootouts. I have tried two SNGs there. The first one was a 45 person SNG that I played well in. I thought I was going to money, maybe even win… but I went out 10th. 7 spots payed. Oops.

I also played in the 4 person shootout and took a bad beat exit in the first stage. 0 for 2 in the tournaments there, but not discouraged.

I only loaded $50 on the site and lost just over half of that in my 2 tournament tries. I am sad to admit that I lost the other half on limit hold ‘em. I would prefer to chalk this up to variance as my stats in PokerTracker are the best they have ever been. My VP$IP was around 15 (just under I think) and the other stats (aggression and showdown) looked great also. At one point, my Showdown win % was above 80. It has since come back down, but is still over 50. I was really trying to nut peddle and play position hard. I think the biggest problem I had was not getting the nuts to peddle (I went 73 hands before I had a pocket pair) and I played AK too aggressively. I had it 5 times and only won with it once. I don’t think I was getting too many cards. Down to my last 10, I fired up a NL table and got rid of it. Not my intention, but definitely the result. Should I embrace my inner fish?

To recap on my previous post about questioning myself and my game, I am a net loser for the year. I am a better player, but a losing player. This bothers and perplexes me as it seems paradoxical. Am I good fish? If I have improved, why am I now losing? If I was a loose aggressive luck box before, why am I not a tight aggressive luck box now? You know those times where there is a ridiculously hot seat in a ring game or single table SNG? The seat is playing just about any 2 and winning every race? You get KK and try to push them out the hand. They call and the flop comes with a straight draw possibility. You groan, know you are ahead, and jam hoping that they will fold or risk most of their stack on a gut shot. They call and river the magic bullet. We (blogger community) see it all the time and sometimes even get that seat. Not me, not lately. I am playing the game to the best of my instincts and knowledge, and still coming up short: battling with players that are playing way too many hands, yet are winning more showdowns than they lose. I guess that is what makes this game great; you can win with pure luck.

I have learned to accept this and tell myself, “In the long run, they will lose all of their money playing that way. Stay tight and keep working on your reads”. I have even seen empirical proof of this. Players I have tagged as fish on UB at the higher levels (2/4, 3/6) are invariably logged in playing at the play money tables within a week or two. I feel a small sense of satisfaction that their evil suckout strategy ways have caught up with them, but I am just a losing session or two away from joining them. Who is laughing now?

I have loaded two minimum transactions onto Party Poker and Poker Stars in the last three weeks. As of Thursday, I have nothing to show for them. The Party $55 buy in I dedicated to $10 SNGs. I placed second in one, lost the rest. The Poker Stars $50 buy in I decided to see what I could do in low limit (.50/1) HE and see what SNG’s they had. I liked the taste I had there and think that I may load some more money on there and dedicate it to low buy in SNGs and tourneys. Overall, I am feeling kind of turned off by poker. When I get free time and I am faced with the choice of poker/SOCOM3/going to the gym, lately, SOCOM 3 has been winning. I just feel like I have “more control” in that silly game and I do not have control on the virtual felt (at least not lately). Not self control, but control over my fate in general. I think a high finish in a MTT would be a great shot for the bankroll and the poker state of mind. I think I will be taking some cracks at these games. Jordan, Dnasty, Chipper, DoubleAs... most of the other blogs I read have all had at least one of these wins. GCox, do you have any big MTT finishes? I don't, but I plan to keep on trying.

On second thought, perhaps I would be best served by choosing the gym! We shall see about that…

Some Geeky Holiday Gift Ideas

2005-12-08T13:00:00.000-05:00

Some Geeky Holiday Gift Ideas

I already got the big Christmas gift from my wife (can’t use it yet, but I know what it is), but that does not keep me from perusing the e-stores. Here are some of the more interesting gifts I have seen.

1. A USB Powered Coffee Warmer

From usbgeek.com, this little guy plugs into a USB port on your laptop and keeps your drinks warm while you are cracking Aces using the WiFi at your local Starbucks. As if… USBgeek.com is a great site for all you other cubicle monkeys out there. Get your USB Dancing Santa or singing Christmas tree on. Get yours here.

2. A Water Powered Clock

This clock seems pretty cool, it generates its own power from water. It needs no batteries, no plugs, just a fluid with electrolytes (coffee, soda, beer) While GCox25 might think this contraption a waste of perfectly good and slightly dented Keystone Lite, I thought it was pretty neat. According to the site, “We've had ours running for weeks so far and the water levels have barely descended and we haven't had to refill it at all”. Cool. Check it out here.

3. A Keychain TV-Off Remote

I can think of some fun to be had with this one: Office meetings using the Videoconference equipment, Sports Bars during a pivotal moment in a Browns game, schools, in-laws during the holidays… the possibilities are limited only by your devious little brain. Let the tomfoolery begin!

4. A Modern Swiss Army Knife

It boggles my mind to think of what McGuyver could have accomplished with this little beauty. A knife, scissors, file… and 1 GB of storage? Don’t get me started. Want one?

5. A Duct Tape Wallet

Not sure why I thought of my brothers when I saw this, but I did. They are big fans and users of duct tape engineering techniques. Imagine the jealousy if only one of them was to pull this out and buy lunch for the other. Jared, get it before Stefan does.

Step Away from the Computer with your Hands in the Air

2005-12-07T13:30:00.000-05:00

I have not played much poker lately and therefore have not been posting much any content at all.

I am in a waiting period.

First of all, I am waiting for my $150 of seed money to load back into Neteller. I refuse to give them my 8% or whatever they charge for “Insta-Cash”. I loaded it on payday last week, so it should be up there now.

Secondly, I need to reassess myself and my poker goals. I don’t really know what has been going on with me lately. I think that I want to play at levels beyond my bankroll and I fear that a certain sense of entitlement is plaguing me at the tables. Perhaps because I read about poker a lot (blogs, books, etc.) and I know how much more I know now compared to how much I knew when I started… I think that it should automatically make me a winning player. There is the rub. I know that I am a better player than I used to be, and I am a more knowledgeable and aware player, but it has not translated into a constantly winning player.

There are many reasons for this and I feel that I need to explore them and understand them better so I can get past them.

Here is a perfect example. I decided to dedicate my last $50 on PP to $10 SNGs two weekends ago. I am down to that measly $50 because of my previously posted self destruct on PP BJ. (On a side note, I wish I could uninstall that little icon because I am not sure I can always resist the temptation) Anyway, I was resisting the temptation successfully because I had a goal. I played very well in the first SNG and came in second. I was happy with my play and almost took first. This set the tone for me (I thought). I bubbled on the second SNG with a play that I would make again. Got it all in PF with QQ against a very loose player in the BB. Unfortunately, he had AA and neither hand improved. Oh well, in the long run a +EV play I think.

Then, it started going bad for me. I watch all these players playing so loosely and winning! I don’t know if that caused me to play more speculative hands or if the cards just missed me, but I would put some money in a pot with a good starting hand when I was in position and then have to abandon when the flop missed me completely or I was shown a lot of aggression. The very last SNG I played is a good example of what I think one of my problems consists of. Down to my last $10 SNG buy in, I knew I had to make it count. I folded for three orbits and then saw what I thought was an opportunity to steal. I was in LP (1 seat before the button) and it was folded to me. I had KQs (yes, I know, a temptress of a hand that will fail you in the long run) but I felt I had a few things going for me. I had not played a single pot yet. My image was very tight. I was in position. I decided to raise 4x the BB (25/50 at this point). My $200 bet was called by the BB. Not great because I was looking just to steal the blinds, but not panic yet because he just called. I can eliminate a few hands I think. The flop comes rainbow rags with an 8 high. I bet 2/3 pot quickly. I think that this is a good amount because it is probably what I would bet with AA or KK. It is enough to make a chaser think twice and not so much that it appears to be a bluff or a scared bet trying to protect AK. He calls. I do not like that. Unless I catch runner runner heart or a K and then a Q, I think that I am behind in this pot. Did he make a set? Is he slow playing Aces or a high pocket pair? I guess I will find out. The turn is another blank and not a heart. There is a straight draw out there now, but I don’t think that is what I am up against. I fire another bet and leave myself about $100 in chips. Maybe that is a sign of weakness, but I want to see what he will do. He calls again. I know I am beat, but curious why he did not re-raise me. The river is not a K or a Q and I check, ready to fold to any bet. Strangely, he checks too! He shows AQo and takes down the pot. I don’t respond in the chat, but that really pisses me off!! WTF? This is the guy I want to be playing with that will pay me off with my pocket pair and even my AK. The only outs he had on that board were As and Qs and he called ¾ of his stack. Horrible play by my standards, but he is the one with all my chips…. When I think about this hand critically I know that he could not have had a read on me. I had not played a single hand in the first 30 hands. If anything, my image was super tight. I don’t know how he could not have put me on a monster. In a weird way, I would have been happier if he had flipped AA or KK, or even 78 for a pair on the flop. It is beyond me why he did not fold. I guess I could have pushed all in on the turn or the river, but from my perspective that is –EV since my read is that I have run into a hand that has me beat and the other player was pot committed at that point. $135 more for a 1+K pot… ok.

So, can I avoid this situation? Obvious answer yes. Should I have tried for a steal there? I think yes, I would try it again in the future. I know that KQ is kind of a suckers hand, but in this case I think the conditions warranted playing it as I did. If I flipped positions with this guy, I see myself folding the unimproved AQ on the turn or putting me to the test with it…. But just calling to the river with it, I think that is the worst way to play it.

Looking at that situation, I really expected that other player to fold to my show of strength. Maybe he was too inexperienced? Multi Tabling and did not notice I was playing uber tight? I don’t know but I guess if I can figure it out, I will win more. What is the answer here?

Besides expecting other players to recognize what I am doing/projecting, I think I have an issue of playing games outside of my bankroll. I have never ventured above 5/10, and only dabbled there… but I think now that I need to focus much more on building a bankroll slowly. I know that I can play, and win, at higher levels, but 1 donkey move or crying call can really cripple my bankroll. I need to go back to the limit challenge bankroll and set limits for myself. I need to not worry that I just played poker for 2 hours and all I have to show for it is 5 bucks… I should instead look at it as I played for 2 hours and have +25 BB and I am making 12.5 BB an hour. Maybe that will help.

Lastly, as DoubleAs described it (I think it was him), I need to find my ATM. A game or level, or match up that I can consistently win. I may have found it with the UB HU SNG’s, but there is still too much volatility (and the temptation to play $50 or $100 matches!!) to play many of those at my current bankroll.

This is a rambling post, and I will probably go back to reread this later tonight and maybe reorganize it, but I am very open to all of your thoughts. From reading other blogs, I know that we all go through periods of self doubt, introspection, and bankroll flameouts. I guess it is the ones that try to learn from the cycles that benefit the most. I want to benefit.

10 Reasons Thanksgiving > Christmas

2005-11-22T16:20:00.000-05:00

10 Reasons Thanksgiving is the Best Holiday

10.  Grandma’s Stuffing
9.  No gifts to wrap
8.  Eat and then fall asleep watching football
7.  Wake up and eat again
6.  Catching up with family
5.  Sleeping in on Friday while the women get up early to shop
4.  Calvert Hall plays Loyola in the “Turkey Bowl”
3.  I can eat a “slice” of Cranberry Sauce faster than you can
2.  Leftovers

And the number one reason I love Thanksgiving

1.  I don’t have to enter the hellhole that they call a mall during the holidays

While I certainly don’t condone terrorism or the slaughter of innocents, I can almost rationalize it when I have to go into a mall or toy store around Christmas.  You can’t park.  You get stuck behind the slowest people.  They bump into you.  You can’t get a salesperson’s attention.  Those bell ringing Salvation Army people at the exit of every store.  Christmas tunes that are stuck in your head from store Muzak.  (Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laaaaa)  Old People.  Young People.  Adolescent People.  Rude People.  Nice People.  Humanity in general.  Checkout lines.  The litany of offenses that I think should be punishable by execution on the spot is almost endless.

Whew, I feel a little bit better after venting about that.  I am sure this feeling of inner peace will last .05 seconds into my first Christmas shopping trip.  See why I love Thanksgiving?

Best Wishes to all of you and your families this week.  I hope your team wins, your turkey is cooked to perfection, and your family is together and healthy.