Wednesday, May 21, 2008
A birthday built for two
Here's some highlights from the girls birthday party, which I'm assuming you'd much rather have than a bunch of whining about how much I suck at poker.
One hand at a time
As the music from "One Day At A Time," you know, the comedy with the single mother, plumber with the porn-star mustache who probably would be sued for sexual harassment today and wild daughters, I'm thinking about two hands I played yesterday.
Both of them poorly.
#1 - In the Bodog tournament series, which has gone about as poorly as I could have hoped, I'm dealt A-K sooted. I"m fourth to act. The third to act, a guy that's been hounding me all night and doesn't strike me as a very good player, raises 3xs the big blind.
I have nearly 10,000 chips. He's probably the only guy who has more chips than me in the whole tournament (I know I'm at least third or fourth). There are 16 left. The points and the cash (at least the $11 in tournament dollars) is near. I could coast to both if I wanted. The blinds are 200/400 with a small ante.
When he raises, I think about it for a bit, and I shove.
He quickly calls me with K-K. I do not suck out, despite getting a flush and straight draw on the turn, because that never fucking happens and I go home.
Later, my suspicions were true, because he was, in a word, terrible. He had a monster stack at that point and yet managed to bleed all his chips before the top 5 and that juicy $109 in tournament dollars. He just woke up with a monster.
Still, he raised in early position, he was the chip leader, and I didn't have much to gain by putting my whole tournament on the line.
#2 - I'm playing a cash game, .25/.50, and I'm dealt K-K in middle position. A guy UTG who has a nearly full stack raises to $2. Everyone folds to me and I re-raise to $6. Everyone folds.
He thinks for a second and re-raises me to $13.
He has A-A. Every single time someone does that at that level, a small re-raise, he has A-A. Usually a re-pop pre-flop at these levels almost always mean a huge pair or, at worst, A-K. Maybe A-Q or less if he's a shorty. And a small re-pop pre-flop (I just like to say that now) means Aces. Always.
So I call to set mine. It's not that much more.
The flop comes all low cards. He pushes. I call.
He shows A-A. I do not suck out because that never fucking happens, and I lose a big pot.
Yes, both of these hands were coolers. But they were also dumb plays by me.
In both these hands, I let emotions rule the way I played them. And this is what I mean by taking it one hand at a time.
In the first hand, I knew the guy wasn't very good, and I was quite sick of him raising my big blind with his small blind every single time it got to me. I didn't call in those situations because I didn't think 8-2os were hands worth defending. I also knew that if I waited, I'd get an opportunity to burn him. I suppose a re-steal at times would have been warranted, but it's harder to do that with weak players because they will call you with something like K-9 and think they're golden.
But when any player raises you in early position, and he has you covered, and your M is awesome, that's not the time to take a huge stand and put all your chips on the line. Instead of examining that one hand for what it was, I was tired of him and I thought he was terrible, so I pushed.
Emotions, not good play, ruled my game.
In the second hand, instead of listening to myself, I simply couldn't believe that the guy had Aces over my Kings AGAIN. See, in the last two weeks, despite a decent run at the cash tables, I've run K-K into A-A four times. Four times. It has, as you can imagine, cost me a bunch of money. I haven't always been stacked, but I have more than I should have been.
I refused to listen to reason and instead just said the odds and justice or whatever would not give me K-K against A-A again.
Emotions, not good reasoning, ruled my play.
I was so pissed, I put myself to the test. I went back to the cash tables after a short break. I was determined to fight the tilt bubbling inside me.
And I won $30 back and then hit up Razz and even finished up $20 there as well.
I took my hands one individual hand at a time there. I ignored past history and just listened to what each hand was telling me.
Maybe the hard lesson Tuesday will eventually pay off.
Both of them poorly.
#1 - In the Bodog tournament series, which has gone about as poorly as I could have hoped, I'm dealt A-K sooted. I"m fourth to act. The third to act, a guy that's been hounding me all night and doesn't strike me as a very good player, raises 3xs the big blind.
I have nearly 10,000 chips. He's probably the only guy who has more chips than me in the whole tournament (I know I'm at least third or fourth). There are 16 left. The points and the cash (at least the $11 in tournament dollars) is near. I could coast to both if I wanted. The blinds are 200/400 with a small ante.
When he raises, I think about it for a bit, and I shove.
He quickly calls me with K-K. I do not suck out, despite getting a flush and straight draw on the turn, because that never fucking happens and I go home.
Later, my suspicions were true, because he was, in a word, terrible. He had a monster stack at that point and yet managed to bleed all his chips before the top 5 and that juicy $109 in tournament dollars. He just woke up with a monster.
Still, he raised in early position, he was the chip leader, and I didn't have much to gain by putting my whole tournament on the line.
#2 - I'm playing a cash game, .25/.50, and I'm dealt K-K in middle position. A guy UTG who has a nearly full stack raises to $2. Everyone folds to me and I re-raise to $6. Everyone folds.
He thinks for a second and re-raises me to $13.
He has A-A. Every single time someone does that at that level, a small re-raise, he has A-A. Usually a re-pop pre-flop at these levels almost always mean a huge pair or, at worst, A-K. Maybe A-Q or less if he's a shorty. And a small re-pop pre-flop (I just like to say that now) means Aces. Always.
So I call to set mine. It's not that much more.
The flop comes all low cards. He pushes. I call.
He shows A-A. I do not suck out because that never fucking happens, and I lose a big pot.
Yes, both of these hands were coolers. But they were also dumb plays by me.
In both these hands, I let emotions rule the way I played them. And this is what I mean by taking it one hand at a time.
In the first hand, I knew the guy wasn't very good, and I was quite sick of him raising my big blind with his small blind every single time it got to me. I didn't call in those situations because I didn't think 8-2os were hands worth defending. I also knew that if I waited, I'd get an opportunity to burn him. I suppose a re-steal at times would have been warranted, but it's harder to do that with weak players because they will call you with something like K-9 and think they're golden.
But when any player raises you in early position, and he has you covered, and your M is awesome, that's not the time to take a huge stand and put all your chips on the line. Instead of examining that one hand for what it was, I was tired of him and I thought he was terrible, so I pushed.
Emotions, not good play, ruled my game.
In the second hand, instead of listening to myself, I simply couldn't believe that the guy had Aces over my Kings AGAIN. See, in the last two weeks, despite a decent run at the cash tables, I've run K-K into A-A four times. Four times. It has, as you can imagine, cost me a bunch of money. I haven't always been stacked, but I have more than I should have been.
I refused to listen to reason and instead just said the odds and justice or whatever would not give me K-K against A-A again.
Emotions, not good reasoning, ruled my play.
I was so pissed, I put myself to the test. I went back to the cash tables after a short break. I was determined to fight the tilt bubbling inside me.
And I won $30 back and then hit up Razz and even finished up $20 there as well.
I took my hands one individual hand at a time there. I ignored past history and just listened to what each hand was telling me.
Maybe the hard lesson Tuesday will eventually pay off.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Happy Birthday Andie and Allie
One year ago today, Kate delivered twins.
My girls are 1.
We were cleaning and blowing up balloons and getting gift bags together for all the minnows who will be tromping through our house. Today we'll be picking up cake and ice cream and thawing and throwing chicken on the grill.
"All this work," Mom said, "and they won't even know it's for them."
This party is not for the girls.
It's for us.
We survived.
Here's a column I wrote for the paper I write for, the Greeley Tribune, that ran in my Tuesday slot. Or you can just skip to the picture below:
Some would have called me anal before the girls were born.
I preferred the term “organized.”
No matter what you called me, one thing was certain. I did not like the unexpected. I loathed it, in fact. I preferred to plan out my life as if it were a to-do list.
So when our ultrasound technician said to us that we were having twins, I was in immediate denial. Our technician assumed we knew, of course. Who doesn’t know they’re having twins at 21 weeks?
“Please tell me you’re kidding,” I said to her.
She wasn’t kidding.
I took the news about as well as someone who doesn’t like surprises can take it, meaning when Kate’s doctor came in to confirm the news, she was initially more concerned about me.
Once Kate, our toddler, Jayden, and I celebrated that night with a dinner that mainly consisted of me staring blankly into the menu and saying “Huh?” a lot to our waitress, our lives melted into the kind of chaos that you normally see in a “Family Circus” cartoon. You know, the ones that feature the mother in her bathroom with a boiling pot on the stove, laundry, four crying kids, the dog with a dish in his mouth, and an electrician at the door.
The twins hadn’t even arrived yet, and we had to move Jayden to the smaller bedroom, paint his room red and blue, paint the girls’ room pink, gather a whole lot of dresses and pink onesies and get another one of everything, including another swing, another crib and another stroller, this one built for two.
When they were born, we learned what the term “sacrifice” really means. I sacrificed my time in the mountains. We sacrificed friendships, some of which have never recovered. We sacrificed sleep, some special time with Jayden and, at times, our sanity.
Most of the time, we felt like single parents, constantly feeding and changing and carting a baby around.
Kate and I learned to work together, much more than the vows say you will, and yet we had two periods where we fought every day, long and hard. The problem, of course, is that there was too much work to go around.
Any infant is hard. But parents usually can take shifts for midnight feedings, diaper changes and making sure the little one doesn’t crawl off the staircase. Shifts don’t exist when you have twins.
When you’re raising infant twins, when one parent takes a break, any kind at all, the other pays for it dearly.
So now we find ourselves breathing a sigh of relief come Saturday. The twins will turn 1. Every parent I have talked to who went through what we went through has assured me that it gets easier after the first year.
I’m hopeful because the first year was not easy. In fact, it was the hardest thing Kate and I have ever done. In fact, it still is.
But it’s changed me. I’m more relaxed now. It’s not a cliché. I mean, you have to be.
When you have a day like I did three months ago, when Allie had a poop that exploded out of her diaper and went all over the kitchen floor, and Andie was doing everything in her power to play in it, and Kate was at Target, well, you learn that little surprises like that aren’t really problems. They’re funny.
Every day, like that day, holds something unexpected. Some still call me anal. I still prefer the term “organized.” My to-do lists are still there. But the day doesn’t always follow them. And I have learned that’s OK.
I have learned to not only deal with the unexpected, I have learned to embrace it.
I embrace it every day, in fact, when I crawl out of bed, pick up one of the girls and hold her high above my head, completely aware of just how lucky I am that chance found its way into my heart.
And here they are one year later, toasting their birthday. I, too, will drink to that::
My girls are 1.
We were cleaning and blowing up balloons and getting gift bags together for all the minnows who will be tromping through our house. Today we'll be picking up cake and ice cream and thawing and throwing chicken on the grill.
"All this work," Mom said, "and they won't even know it's for them."
This party is not for the girls.
It's for us.
We survived.
Here's a column I wrote for the paper I write for, the Greeley Tribune, that ran in my Tuesday slot. Or you can just skip to the picture below:
Some would have called me anal before the girls were born.
I preferred the term “organized.”
No matter what you called me, one thing was certain. I did not like the unexpected. I loathed it, in fact. I preferred to plan out my life as if it were a to-do list.
So when our ultrasound technician said to us that we were having twins, I was in immediate denial. Our technician assumed we knew, of course. Who doesn’t know they’re having twins at 21 weeks?
“Please tell me you’re kidding,” I said to her.
She wasn’t kidding.
I took the news about as well as someone who doesn’t like surprises can take it, meaning when Kate’s doctor came in to confirm the news, she was initially more concerned about me.
Once Kate, our toddler, Jayden, and I celebrated that night with a dinner that mainly consisted of me staring blankly into the menu and saying “Huh?” a lot to our waitress, our lives melted into the kind of chaos that you normally see in a “Family Circus” cartoon. You know, the ones that feature the mother in her bathroom with a boiling pot on the stove, laundry, four crying kids, the dog with a dish in his mouth, and an electrician at the door.
The twins hadn’t even arrived yet, and we had to move Jayden to the smaller bedroom, paint his room red and blue, paint the girls’ room pink, gather a whole lot of dresses and pink onesies and get another one of everything, including another swing, another crib and another stroller, this one built for two.
When they were born, we learned what the term “sacrifice” really means. I sacrificed my time in the mountains. We sacrificed friendships, some of which have never recovered. We sacrificed sleep, some special time with Jayden and, at times, our sanity.
Most of the time, we felt like single parents, constantly feeding and changing and carting a baby around.
Kate and I learned to work together, much more than the vows say you will, and yet we had two periods where we fought every day, long and hard. The problem, of course, is that there was too much work to go around.
Any infant is hard. But parents usually can take shifts for midnight feedings, diaper changes and making sure the little one doesn’t crawl off the staircase. Shifts don’t exist when you have twins.
When you’re raising infant twins, when one parent takes a break, any kind at all, the other pays for it dearly.
So now we find ourselves breathing a sigh of relief come Saturday. The twins will turn 1. Every parent I have talked to who went through what we went through has assured me that it gets easier after the first year.
I’m hopeful because the first year was not easy. In fact, it was the hardest thing Kate and I have ever done. In fact, it still is.
But it’s changed me. I’m more relaxed now. It’s not a cliché. I mean, you have to be.
When you have a day like I did three months ago, when Allie had a poop that exploded out of her diaper and went all over the kitchen floor, and Andie was doing everything in her power to play in it, and Kate was at Target, well, you learn that little surprises like that aren’t really problems. They’re funny.
Every day, like that day, holds something unexpected. Some still call me anal. I still prefer the term “organized.” My to-do lists are still there. But the day doesn’t always follow them. And I have learned that’s OK.
I have learned to not only deal with the unexpected, I have learned to embrace it.
I embrace it every day, in fact, when I crawl out of bed, pick up one of the girls and hold her high above my head, completely aware of just how lucky I am that chance found its way into my heart.
And here they are one year later, toasting their birthday. I, too, will drink to that::
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Once a mother...
Mom's in town for the next three days, and today she's watching Jayden.
It's a little blustery outside and a tad cold, though it's really not too bad. The wind lately has been awful, infecting our softball games (I've purposely pitched it right at the batter because the wind carries it away from him and back over the plate), pushing me around when I try to run and even causing some damage to fences, trees and a few rooftops.
So a bit of a breeze is fine.
I have on a short-sleeved shirt and I'm about to head out the door.
Mom looks me over.
"Don't you need a JACKET? It's COLD out there."
I smirk at her.
I am 36.
The jacket stayed in the closet.
It's a little blustery outside and a tad cold, though it's really not too bad. The wind lately has been awful, infecting our softball games (I've purposely pitched it right at the batter because the wind carries it away from him and back over the plate), pushing me around when I try to run and even causing some damage to fences, trees and a few rooftops.
So a bit of a breeze is fine.
I have on a short-sleeved shirt and I'm about to head out the door.
Mom looks me over.
"Don't you need a JACKET? It's COLD out there."
I smirk at her.
I am 36.
The jacket stayed in the closet.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Putting the Cowboys to bed
I was playing well and looking for a profitable night at the cash tables last night on Bodog when I was dealt K-K UTG.
I raised 5xs the BB to $2.50. I prefer to raise this amount because I don't want a bunch of callers ruining my top pair. You would think that this would be a red flag to other players at the table, but you'd be wrong. I get called by hands like Q-10 more often than you think.
Anyway, I did get one caller, and then the guy on the button raises to $10.
At these levels, pre-flop re-raises are rare, so they always mean something.
I chose to call because I had a player behind me yet to act. If he shoved, my thinking is I could fold, given that both of them had full stacks, as did I.
He just calls.
The flop is all unders, one suit, clubs, and the re-raiser insta-pushes.
Given that he just pushed rather than went for a bet, I put him on Q-Q. Lately I've been very successful sniffing out overbets and figuring that they usually mean my opponent has a hand but not a great hand. In other words, he doesn't have a set or a flush here, and given his re-raise, he probably had a high pocket pair. So I thought he'd value bet with A-A.
OK, so I was wrong, he did have A-A. I did have the Kc for extra outs just in case, but he of course had the Ac, and me and the third player both got stacked.
Yes, I realize:
• I was calling, not jamming myself
• It was a suited board
• The odds were not good
Maybe I'm just a donkey.
And so here is my problem. Harrington in his Vol. I cash game book says to never fold K-K. I have folded K-K before, preflop, and been right. I consider great laydowns a key reason why I'm a winning player. Recently I've lost a lot of money three times in the last two months when I've had K-K and the other guy had A-A.
Three other times that night I saw someone lose their stack pre-flop when he had K-K and the other person had A-A.
I'm starting to believe Harrington is wrong. I'm starting to believe there are times you need to lay down K-K pre-flop. All three times I had a good feeling that the other person had A-A but I refused to believe it because folding K-K pre-flop is so weak. I have saved money in the past folding K-K pre-flop.
I realize poker is situational, but what do you all think about this? And does anyone fold in my above situation?
I raised 5xs the BB to $2.50. I prefer to raise this amount because I don't want a bunch of callers ruining my top pair. You would think that this would be a red flag to other players at the table, but you'd be wrong. I get called by hands like Q-10 more often than you think.
Anyway, I did get one caller, and then the guy on the button raises to $10.
At these levels, pre-flop re-raises are rare, so they always mean something.
I chose to call because I had a player behind me yet to act. If he shoved, my thinking is I could fold, given that both of them had full stacks, as did I.
He just calls.
The flop is all unders, one suit, clubs, and the re-raiser insta-pushes.
Given that he just pushed rather than went for a bet, I put him on Q-Q. Lately I've been very successful sniffing out overbets and figuring that they usually mean my opponent has a hand but not a great hand. In other words, he doesn't have a set or a flush here, and given his re-raise, he probably had a high pocket pair. So I thought he'd value bet with A-A.
OK, so I was wrong, he did have A-A. I did have the Kc for extra outs just in case, but he of course had the Ac, and me and the third player both got stacked.
Yes, I realize:
• I was calling, not jamming myself
• It was a suited board
• The odds were not good
Maybe I'm just a donkey.
And so here is my problem. Harrington in his Vol. I cash game book says to never fold K-K. I have folded K-K before, preflop, and been right. I consider great laydowns a key reason why I'm a winning player. Recently I've lost a lot of money three times in the last two months when I've had K-K and the other guy had A-A.
Three other times that night I saw someone lose their stack pre-flop when he had K-K and the other person had A-A.
I'm starting to believe Harrington is wrong. I'm starting to believe there are times you need to lay down K-K pre-flop. All three times I had a good feeling that the other person had A-A but I refused to believe it because folding K-K pre-flop is so weak. I have saved money in the past folding K-K pre-flop.
I realize poker is situational, but what do you all think about this? And does anyone fold in my above situation?
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Samatha Fox
I used to have a thing for Samantha Fox.
I fell hard for her for at least a couple weeks - hell, maybe even a month - when I caught her video on "Friday Night Videos."
You remember that show, right? Oh you do so. Don't be coy. Back in 1983 it was the only way I could catch music videos because my parents refused to spring for cable. Cable, back then, was a luxury enjoyed by only the most spoiled of my friends. I still remember the guy who had a ColecoVision.
It was the raddest show on TV. ZZ Top and the car and those chicks! Def Leppard's "Photograph!" That three-part interview with David Lee Roth in bed when shamed and insulted Quiet Riot! And the awesome cartoon introduction and...OK I'll stop.
Problem was, it was on late, like midnight, and our house by then was usually freakin' cold because my parents also believed saving money meant turning the heat down to, I think, 45 degrees because we were asleep and therefore didn't need the warmth. So I'd use this little space heater, which would inevitably put me to sleep, probably because of all the gases it emitted to heat the room.
Fox's video for "Touch Me," one of my favorite early 80s songs, was on last, probably because it wasn't that much of a hit, and I remember watching a slit of the beginning out of my sand-soaked eyes, and when she appeared, I bolted right up.
Wow.
So today it suddenly occurred to me that I could watch her video RIGHT NOW on YouTube, and the 12-year-old in me stabbed me in the liver and demanded I sneak a peek.
And I went to the video.
And I was laughing hysterically about a third of the way through.
It held up about as well as the mullet I wore my senior year in high school.
I mean, she's still a hottie...and I still like the song.....but....
Seriously, what the hell was I thinking?
Friday, May 09, 2008
Into the wild, maybe
I just finished watching "Into the Wild," and though I liked the book better, it provoked the same thoughts I had when I was reading the masterpiece by one of my heroes, Jon Krakauer.
I think everyone, ultimately, wants to be free of the shackles of this world. The quest for money, the drive for nice things, the need for comfort. Security, many times, means the cash to make us feel safe rather than love, protection or faith in who we are.
One of the big reasons I visit the peaks so many times every summer is because every trip whittles the goal down to a very basic sense of struggle and survival. You are hungry, so you eat. You are cold, so you throw on another layer. You are tired, but you push on, until you reach your goal, and then you feel so good about pushing through the elements and your own exhaustion to achieve such a simple yet worthwhile goal. I run for the very same reasons.
This is why being a parent of the youngsters I have, and to the degree that I have them, continues to challenge me more mentally than physically. There's no endgame. There's no standing on the peak. But there is plenty of exhaustion. There is frustration. There is always a struggle.
Today the plumber came and stung us with a $175 bill because Jayden yesterday dropped plastic forks down the drain and jammed up the garbage disposal. I suppose it could have been much worse. But that's not what I needed today after he had a good half-hour meltdown as thanks for taking him to see baby farm animals and then driving him to a park to see herons and egrets nesting in the trees. The meltdown was because I refused to take him to a playground.
The real reason for the meltdown, though, was not a plastic slide. It was that exhaustion gets to Jayden, too, and so does hunger. I often wonder how hard having the twins is on him. I think more than we realize since he's such a good big brother. I forget to credit him for that.
I finally got some food down him after a lot of talk and, I'm sorry to say, a little yelling. The meltdowns chip at my sanity, and I can only take so much.
Then again, after the fourth time I put him down for his much-needed nap, he looked at me and said "Iluvudaddy." He wasn't answering me. He was telling me something from his heart.
I still desire my freedom from the boundaries that life and, mostly, my kids chain to me every day. Yet I also give into them, willingly and without regret.
The tough part about being a parent is there is no summit. But that's also what makes it worth it.
I think everyone, ultimately, wants to be free of the shackles of this world. The quest for money, the drive for nice things, the need for comfort. Security, many times, means the cash to make us feel safe rather than love, protection or faith in who we are.
One of the big reasons I visit the peaks so many times every summer is because every trip whittles the goal down to a very basic sense of struggle and survival. You are hungry, so you eat. You are cold, so you throw on another layer. You are tired, but you push on, until you reach your goal, and then you feel so good about pushing through the elements and your own exhaustion to achieve such a simple yet worthwhile goal. I run for the very same reasons.
This is why being a parent of the youngsters I have, and to the degree that I have them, continues to challenge me more mentally than physically. There's no endgame. There's no standing on the peak. But there is plenty of exhaustion. There is frustration. There is always a struggle.
Today the plumber came and stung us with a $175 bill because Jayden yesterday dropped plastic forks down the drain and jammed up the garbage disposal. I suppose it could have been much worse. But that's not what I needed today after he had a good half-hour meltdown as thanks for taking him to see baby farm animals and then driving him to a park to see herons and egrets nesting in the trees. The meltdown was because I refused to take him to a playground.
The real reason for the meltdown, though, was not a plastic slide. It was that exhaustion gets to Jayden, too, and so does hunger. I often wonder how hard having the twins is on him. I think more than we realize since he's such a good big brother. I forget to credit him for that.
I finally got some food down him after a lot of talk and, I'm sorry to say, a little yelling. The meltdowns chip at my sanity, and I can only take so much.
Then again, after the fourth time I put him down for his much-needed nap, he looked at me and said "Iluvudaddy." He wasn't answering me. He was telling me something from his heart.
I still desire my freedom from the boundaries that life and, mostly, my kids chain to me every day. Yet I also give into them, willingly and without regret.
The tough part about being a parent is there is no summit. But that's also what makes it worth it.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
The internal debate
Man, I'm running hot at the cash games lat -
Internal voice: What are you doing?
What do you mean?
Internal voice: "I'm running hot?"
Um, well, this IS a poker blog. Sorta.
Internal voice: Yea, and...wait a minute. You were going to write a BRAG POST weren't you?
Um...well...
Internal voice: Are you NUTS? Write about how your full house lost to a full house at the Bodonkey! Write about how your Razz hands sucked in the Skillz. Write about how sore you are after your good half marathon race! Write about your girls' poop! Anything but a BRAG POST!
But I whine all the time! I wanna write about how good I am!
Internal voice: Fine. Can I kiss your bankroll good-bye before you post?
Look, you're really not that good, OK? Write about why you THINK you're running well but don't just brag. No one cares, and you're inviting the doom switch.
OK, three reasons why I'm running well:
1. Bodog players continue to be horrible. They call way too much, meaning Overbets work wonderfully.
2. I can put players on a hand now, and I'm not afraid to put all my money in the middle to act on them. Patterns have emerged: Paired boards are ripe for picking off bluffs or weak hands, top pairs are transparent, and not many players know how to control a pot.
3. I'm not afraid. I have a sense of calm, even if I lose a lot of money in a night, because I know, eventually, I'll win it back.
And one question:
I'm reading Harrington's cash game books, and as you can probably tell by my style, I'm a Harrington follower. But early on in his first volume, he advocates controlling the pot when you have a pair by checking the turn and betting the river, even with a draw.
I disagree. I much prefer to bet all turns to make players pay to see the river and then check the river if I still have top pair. It does leave me with a decision sometimes, but I've been able to sniff out bluffs more often than not lately.
What do you all think?
Internal voice: What are you doing?
What do you mean?
Internal voice: "I'm running hot?"
Um, well, this IS a poker blog. Sorta.
Internal voice: Yea, and...wait a minute. You were going to write a BRAG POST weren't you?
Um...well...
Internal voice: Are you NUTS? Write about how your full house lost to a full house at the Bodonkey! Write about how your Razz hands sucked in the Skillz. Write about how sore you are after your good half marathon race! Write about your girls' poop! Anything but a BRAG POST!
But I whine all the time! I wanna write about how good I am!
Internal voice: Fine. Can I kiss your bankroll good-bye before you post?
Look, you're really not that good, OK? Write about why you THINK you're running well but don't just brag. No one cares, and you're inviting the doom switch.
OK, three reasons why I'm running well:
1. Bodog players continue to be horrible. They call way too much, meaning Overbets work wonderfully.
2. I can put players on a hand now, and I'm not afraid to put all my money in the middle to act on them. Patterns have emerged: Paired boards are ripe for picking off bluffs or weak hands, top pairs are transparent, and not many players know how to control a pot.
3. I'm not afraid. I have a sense of calm, even if I lose a lot of money in a night, because I know, eventually, I'll win it back.
And one question:
I'm reading Harrington's cash game books, and as you can probably tell by my style, I'm a Harrington follower. But early on in his first volume, he advocates controlling the pot when you have a pair by checking the turn and betting the river, even with a draw.
I disagree. I much prefer to bet all turns to make players pay to see the river and then check the river if I still have top pair. It does leave me with a decision sometimes, but I've been able to sniff out bluffs more often than not lately.
What do you all think?
Sunday, May 04, 2008
A half marathon, but a full dose of effort
If you looked at a manual that gave you tips on how to run the race of your life, I seriously doubt “Get Up at 3:45 a.m., then bus out to remote field and freeze for an hour” would make the top 10.
Probably not even the top 20.
Yet there I was today, shivering in the 6 a.m. air, with a helpful breeze slathering us in chill, as we waited for the start of the Colorado half marathon. The race started at 7 a.m., but the “luxury” buses (meaning “not school buses”) took us up the Poudre Canyon at 5:45 a.m., I guess, to make sure we all got there on time.
We were the last bus to leave and we still waited an hour. It got so bad I had to slip on my Superman/Superhero/Ghey Under Armor tights and try to keep busy by walking around. I wore a hat, gloves and two tech shirts along with the tights. I wore the same outfits at times during the dead of winter, when the temperatures struggled to scrape above single-digits. Yet, in May, I was shivering like a baby penguin.
I also used the potty - a vital part of race preparation, for obvious reasons - and lingered in the port-a-potty because it felt so damn good to be out of the breeze and frosty air. It’s probably the only time I’ve ever wanted to stay in a port-a-potty after the deed was done. Again, for obvious reasons.
The race did eventually start, after all 1,200 of us became like bees in a hive and huddled together, and it took all of a mile to realize I had made a huge mistake by leaving the tights on and checking my shorts. I had stripped my top layer, the hat and gloves, and I was still a little warm.
Crap. Crap crap crap. How long is a half marathon? 13 miles?
Crap. I’m screwed.
Only I wasn’t because despite the fact that my legs felt like they belonged on a cadaver, thanks to the cold I whined about above, I was doing pretty well. My goal for this race was to run faster than an 8:30-per-mile pace, with outside hopes of hitting above 8:15. It was a lofty goal, given that it would mean hard running for one hour and 45 minutes. But I also thought it was attainable.
A good portion of the course is downhill, like the first third, and I was breezing along and feeling pretty good. I probably should start out slower, I thought, but I knew I could finish the race, so I decided to run as hard as I could and see how it went.
My iPod Shuffle, stuffed with speed metal, the occasional inspirational song (”Stronger” by Kayne West) and a cheesy ballad or two, kept me moving.
The first real challenge came at Bagel Hill, around mile 5, a steep hill, but at the bottom my running partner was there with a Gatorade mix and some much-needed encouragement. It’s funny how just a little cheering from a good friend can really lift your spirits.
I’d need it again around mile 10, when she showed up again, this time with more Gatorade. After a pretty uneventful race, I was beginning to crash. My bones hurt, my legs didn’t want to move and I had a hard time finding any kind of rhythm, despite the fact that running like a robot is more crucial than ever when you’re that tired.
She got me to the last mile, when I found another friend, an older woman who is basically a studette. She was planning to run a marathon in six days. I ran with her the last mile and pulled ahead in the last few moments.
I crossed the line in 1:49:57.
The pace was 8:24-per mile.
And stopping felt really, really good.
I finished around 245th out of 1,200. Not bad.
I went home, fixed some Tyson chicken tacos (and I managed to ignore the fact that the “Now with 10 percent more chicken!” was considered a good marketing gimmick from Tyson officials) and took a long, hot shower.
I’m sitting at the computer now, with my right leg in a pretty bad mood, something Advil hasn’t even soothed. It’s not injured. I think its feelings are hurt.
It can’t understand why I’ve sacrificed its comfort for the health of my spirit. Someday, when I know myself, I’ll explain it to him.
Probably not even the top 20.
Yet there I was today, shivering in the 6 a.m. air, with a helpful breeze slathering us in chill, as we waited for the start of the Colorado half marathon. The race started at 7 a.m., but the “luxury” buses (meaning “not school buses”) took us up the Poudre Canyon at 5:45 a.m., I guess, to make sure we all got there on time.
We were the last bus to leave and we still waited an hour. It got so bad I had to slip on my Superman/Superhero/Ghey Under Armor tights and try to keep busy by walking around. I wore a hat, gloves and two tech shirts along with the tights. I wore the same outfits at times during the dead of winter, when the temperatures struggled to scrape above single-digits. Yet, in May, I was shivering like a baby penguin.
I also used the potty - a vital part of race preparation, for obvious reasons - and lingered in the port-a-potty because it felt so damn good to be out of the breeze and frosty air. It’s probably the only time I’ve ever wanted to stay in a port-a-potty after the deed was done. Again, for obvious reasons.
The race did eventually start, after all 1,200 of us became like bees in a hive and huddled together, and it took all of a mile to realize I had made a huge mistake by leaving the tights on and checking my shorts. I had stripped my top layer, the hat and gloves, and I was still a little warm.
Crap. Crap crap crap. How long is a half marathon? 13 miles?
Crap. I’m screwed.
Only I wasn’t because despite the fact that my legs felt like they belonged on a cadaver, thanks to the cold I whined about above, I was doing pretty well. My goal for this race was to run faster than an 8:30-per-mile pace, with outside hopes of hitting above 8:15. It was a lofty goal, given that it would mean hard running for one hour and 45 minutes. But I also thought it was attainable.
A good portion of the course is downhill, like the first third, and I was breezing along and feeling pretty good. I probably should start out slower, I thought, but I knew I could finish the race, so I decided to run as hard as I could and see how it went.
My iPod Shuffle, stuffed with speed metal, the occasional inspirational song (”Stronger” by Kayne West) and a cheesy ballad or two, kept me moving.
The first real challenge came at Bagel Hill, around mile 5, a steep hill, but at the bottom my running partner was there with a Gatorade mix and some much-needed encouragement. It’s funny how just a little cheering from a good friend can really lift your spirits.
I’d need it again around mile 10, when she showed up again, this time with more Gatorade. After a pretty uneventful race, I was beginning to crash. My bones hurt, my legs didn’t want to move and I had a hard time finding any kind of rhythm, despite the fact that running like a robot is more crucial than ever when you’re that tired.
She got me to the last mile, when I found another friend, an older woman who is basically a studette. She was planning to run a marathon in six days. I ran with her the last mile and pulled ahead in the last few moments.
I crossed the line in 1:49:57.
The pace was 8:24-per mile.
And stopping felt really, really good.
I finished around 245th out of 1,200. Not bad.
I went home, fixed some Tyson chicken tacos (and I managed to ignore the fact that the “Now with 10 percent more chicken!” was considered a good marketing gimmick from Tyson officials) and took a long, hot shower.
I’m sitting at the computer now, with my right leg in a pretty bad mood, something Advil hasn’t even soothed. It’s not injured. I think its feelings are hurt.
It can’t understand why I’ve sacrificed its comfort for the health of my spirit. Someday, when I know myself, I’ll explain it to him.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
The day before
The day before a big race is always filled with butterflies.
I didn't think I'd get this way. A half marathon just might be my favorite race. Really, the pressure is off. I want a good time, something below an 8:30-per-mile pace, maybe even faster. But it's 13.1 miles. No one really asks what my time was when I tell them I finished one, save for my hardcore running buddies.
The time doesn't define the race.
Yet I've thought about it a lot today. I think that's part of the preparation. I know it's going to be tough and that eventually I'll be in a lot of pain. I also know I'm excited about it. Half marathons are fun.
Running is still new to me. It's only been three years. I rarely feel this way before a mountain, even one that's considered dangerous by some. That's so old hat.
A part of me, I guess, still wonders if I can do it. I always love to doubt myself.
I'll be up at 3:45 a.m. tomorrow to prove myself wrong.
I didn't think I'd get this way. A half marathon just might be my favorite race. Really, the pressure is off. I want a good time, something below an 8:30-per-mile pace, maybe even faster. But it's 13.1 miles. No one really asks what my time was when I tell them I finished one, save for my hardcore running buddies.
The time doesn't define the race.
Yet I've thought about it a lot today. I think that's part of the preparation. I know it's going to be tough and that eventually I'll be in a lot of pain. I also know I'm excited about it. Half marathons are fun.
Running is still new to me. It's only been three years. I rarely feel this way before a mountain, even one that's considered dangerous by some. That's so old hat.
A part of me, I guess, still wonders if I can do it. I always love to doubt myself.
I'll be up at 3:45 a.m. tomorrow to prove myself wrong.
Friday, May 02, 2008
My kid is napping, so....
A few random thoughts:
1. The wind sounds like it's blowing 853 mph outside today. If today were the half marathon, I don't know if I could finish the race.
Well, yeah, I could, but it would probably be on my hands and knees by the finish.
Plus it's about 40 degrees today. That's understandable. It's only May 2. I mean, I wouldn't expect the weather to get warm by then. Gotta be at least July before that fucking happens.
Sigh.
2. I'm reading Heartsick right now and absolutely love it. I'm finally reading books again after spending too much time playing video games. I used to love to read before I started writing for a newspaper, and there were far too many days that I'd be so burned out on writing when I got home that I didn't want anything to do with the written word. I've discovered the joy of reading again. Maybe that will help me resist the temptation to buy an X-Box 360.
Maybe.
3. Cripes, that wind is strong.
4. Should I have known that my opponent, while playing $50 NL on Bodog, called my $4 raise with 5-2 os when the 2 came on the turn on a 10-2-7 rainbow flop and he raised me $10. Was I dumb to jam with my K-K in that spot?
Other than that, the move to that level has gone well for the most part. I am a lot more aggressive than I used to be, so the variance is wilder, but that's OK, I really need to improve.
5. I'm listening to the Ante Up! podcasts while I run my 10 miles or so on Sundays or while playing and I'm really liking it. Our own Columbo is a part of it and does a great job with his hand puzzles.
And no, unlike some of my other recent posts, this was not a paid ad.
1. The wind sounds like it's blowing 853 mph outside today. If today were the half marathon, I don't know if I could finish the race.
Well, yeah, I could, but it would probably be on my hands and knees by the finish.
Plus it's about 40 degrees today. That's understandable. It's only May 2. I mean, I wouldn't expect the weather to get warm by then. Gotta be at least July before that fucking happens.
Sigh.
2. I'm reading Heartsick right now and absolutely love it. I'm finally reading books again after spending too much time playing video games. I used to love to read before I started writing for a newspaper, and there were far too many days that I'd be so burned out on writing when I got home that I didn't want anything to do with the written word. I've discovered the joy of reading again. Maybe that will help me resist the temptation to buy an X-Box 360.
Maybe.
3. Cripes, that wind is strong.
4. Should I have known that my opponent, while playing $50 NL on Bodog, called my $4 raise with 5-2 os when the 2 came on the turn on a 10-2-7 rainbow flop and he raised me $10. Was I dumb to jam with my K-K in that spot?
Other than that, the move to that level has gone well for the most part. I am a lot more aggressive than I used to be, so the variance is wilder, but that's OK, I really need to improve.
5. I'm listening to the Ante Up! podcasts while I run my 10 miles or so on Sundays or while playing and I'm really liking it. Our own Columbo is a part of it and does a great job with his hand puzzles.
And no, unlike some of my other recent posts, this was not a paid ad.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
New poker sensation?
Last night I dreamed that I was playing in a Colorado Casino and they didn't have poker tables, so we had to play in a restaurant, where the deal came by and had to pick up everyone's bet and then go back and deal the flop on an overhead projector and then had to go back and collect everyone's bet off a table while we ate.
I was with a friend but other times was alone.
I don't think I played many hands because the setup sucked.
And, get this, the game was, and I have no idea where I came up with this, "Unethical Omaha."
You were dealt, I think, 10-15 cards and you had to pick four out of them after the flop. Sort of like Crazy Pineapple Omaha style or something like that.
I probably got the name "Unethical" because there's no way everyone could be dealt like 15 cards. So who knows where they came from?
This is probably what happens when you reguarly play an hour or two of online poker every night and decide not to play last night to read a horror novel ("Heartsick," awesome so far) and so your brain has to vomit all the stored poker stuff in there that normally gets plugged up by thoughts of the hands you played that night.
I'm Bodogging tonight with the bloggers so no weird dreams tonight. Although I think I see a future for that game.
I was with a friend but other times was alone.
I don't think I played many hands because the setup sucked.
And, get this, the game was, and I have no idea where I came up with this, "Unethical Omaha."
You were dealt, I think, 10-15 cards and you had to pick four out of them after the flop. Sort of like Crazy Pineapple Omaha style or something like that.
I probably got the name "Unethical" because there's no way everyone could be dealt like 15 cards. So who knows where they came from?
This is probably what happens when you reguarly play an hour or two of online poker every night and decide not to play last night to read a horror novel ("Heartsick," awesome so far) and so your brain has to vomit all the stored poker stuff in there that normally gets plugged up by thoughts of the hands you played that night.
I'm Bodogging tonight with the bloggers so no weird dreams tonight. Although I think I see a future for that game.
Monday, April 28, 2008
The worst part of my job
As much as I love journalism, some parts of it make me feel, well, a little compromised.
Sunday I'm the editor and reporter for the day, and there was a traffic crash over the police scanner yesterday. After a while I heard that there were two young kids in the car, both were critical, and that at least one person was dead.
I know what some of you are thinking. Sweet! Front page news! But I really, really hate going to these things. I always feel like such a vulture. Still, it is news, and so I sighed, grabbed my notebook and ran out the door to head to the scene.
I rarely do these things anymore. I have a column and mostly report on entertainment and outdoors news and features. But when you work for a 25,000-circulation newspaper, you have to be flexible.
One of these days I'm going to take a look at how these things are scarring me, but for the moment I just took notes and tried to ignore the blood. I made a note of the small baby shoe in the middle of the highway resting among the ocean of bits of shattered glass and the awful, crumpled shell of the car totally smashed to bits by the semi-truck parked alongside of the road.
"I don't see how anyone could survive that," I thought to myself.
I spotted the truck driver gathering things out of his cab and debated with myself about approaching him. Part of me wanted to give him a chance to talk. Part of me wanted a good story. Part of me also wanted to leave him the hell alone, and the last part wouldn't blame him if he punched me in the mouth after approaching him.
I wondered what to do when a FOX cameraman approached me.
"He'll probably talk," he said. "But he didn't want to go on camera."
Then he paused.
"This is what we can do," he said. "You can try to interview him, and I'll follow you about 10 feet from behind, and as long as he sees the camera, it'll be OK and we'll get him on film. It works every time."
I couldn't believe what I was wearing. The guy, a big, burly man, was so shaken by the crash, even though it was nowhere near his fault (she pulled out in front of him), that tears ran down his face and he looked like he wanted to throw up. And this guy wants to trick him?
The Tribune is in a partnership with FOX, but my glare gave him a pretty good answer.
"Yeah, I don't want to ruin the story for you," he said. "Why don't you try it first?"
TV never ceases to amaze me. I realize there are some good ones out there, but I haven't met many.
I swallowed hard and approached the man. All he could say was no. I don't think he'll hit me.
He was more than generous and answered my questions and then stopped the interview after a few minutes when he couldn't stop crying. I thanked him and had him spell his name.
Then I left and wrote the story.
I left the office feeling a bit dirty and insensitive. My high and mighty attitude toward TV disappeared as I closed my computer down for the night. Was I any better?
I'm not sure today.
Sunday I'm the editor and reporter for the day, and there was a traffic crash over the police scanner yesterday. After a while I heard that there were two young kids in the car, both were critical, and that at least one person was dead.
I know what some of you are thinking. Sweet! Front page news! But I really, really hate going to these things. I always feel like such a vulture. Still, it is news, and so I sighed, grabbed my notebook and ran out the door to head to the scene.
I rarely do these things anymore. I have a column and mostly report on entertainment and outdoors news and features. But when you work for a 25,000-circulation newspaper, you have to be flexible.
One of these days I'm going to take a look at how these things are scarring me, but for the moment I just took notes and tried to ignore the blood. I made a note of the small baby shoe in the middle of the highway resting among the ocean of bits of shattered glass and the awful, crumpled shell of the car totally smashed to bits by the semi-truck parked alongside of the road.
"I don't see how anyone could survive that," I thought to myself.
I spotted the truck driver gathering things out of his cab and debated with myself about approaching him. Part of me wanted to give him a chance to talk. Part of me wanted a good story. Part of me also wanted to leave him the hell alone, and the last part wouldn't blame him if he punched me in the mouth after approaching him.
I wondered what to do when a FOX cameraman approached me.
"He'll probably talk," he said. "But he didn't want to go on camera."
Then he paused.
"This is what we can do," he said. "You can try to interview him, and I'll follow you about 10 feet from behind, and as long as he sees the camera, it'll be OK and we'll get him on film. It works every time."
I couldn't believe what I was wearing. The guy, a big, burly man, was so shaken by the crash, even though it was nowhere near his fault (she pulled out in front of him), that tears ran down his face and he looked like he wanted to throw up. And this guy wants to trick him?
The Tribune is in a partnership with FOX, but my glare gave him a pretty good answer.
"Yeah, I don't want to ruin the story for you," he said. "Why don't you try it first?"
TV never ceases to amaze me. I realize there are some good ones out there, but I haven't met many.
I swallowed hard and approached the man. All he could say was no. I don't think he'll hit me.
He was more than generous and answered my questions and then stopped the interview after a few minutes when he couldn't stop crying. I thanked him and had him spell his name.
Then I left and wrote the story.
I left the office feeling a bit dirty and insensitive. My high and mighty attitude toward TV disappeared as I closed my computer down for the night. Was I any better?
I'm not sure today.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
How to toilet train your toddler
I glanced outside today from my bowl of chili and saw Jayden, buck naked, running around our backyard. Thank God we have a fence or I'm pretty sure the little nudist would have gotten me arrested a while ago.
When he came to the back door, he had poop on his knees, which he gleefully pointed out to Kate. I buried my nose in my chili.
Kate chased him around outside while I tried not to choke on my chili from laughing too hard. Jayden ran around and around with toddler fudge hanging outside his bottom.
Kate scooped up his messed diaper and brought him inside while I concentrated really hard on my chili and tried not to think about what my chili looked like right then.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
One Fine Day
Why do we get married to our T-shirts?
That's the question I was contemplating with my hair sticking up in 20 different directions and morning breath still sticking to the roof of my mouth. And it was 10:30 a.m. I finally had a good night's sleep under my belt.
I'm working the jazz festival this weekend in Greeley. I cover the festival because I cover entertainment, but also because I understand jazz. I played it for many years, even at the college level.
It will be fun, but it's also a lot of work, and so I took Wednesday off and got a rare day to actually get some things accomplished instead of chasing down two crawling girls who think every open cupboard is an invitation to sit through drain cleaner.
I was walking through my closet and gazed at the pile of T-shirts. I had time to do something about it.
I decided to eliminate a few more, but this one was tough. There was my Metallica T-shirt from the Monsters of Rock tour back in, I think, 1988. There was a poker shirt I got for winning a tournament among friends. There were some shirts from some good races I ran. There were a couple other black T-shirts, including one from the Galactic Cowboys (heard of them? Great metal band).
Come on baby, it's not you, it's me, I whispered as I set the T-shirts aside. Why does putting T-shirts feel like a break-up?
This time I didn't have the heart to put them completely aside. I took out a small box and set them inside there.
The rest of the day was great. I wrote a bit, got squared away with some new blog sponsors (more coming, woot), worked on my movie of the girls and played a little too much Grand Theft Auto. I also went to Hobby Lobby and got what I needed to work on my display for Kansas' national title.
Hobby Lobby draws a lot more white trash than I originally thought. It's a craft store. I'm not sure why that drew customers I'd normally see in a truck stop.
I went home and played a ton of poker. I played well in the Mookie and had a chance to be in the top 5 with 27 left but lost my one coin flip, which was absolutely shocking since I have not won a coin flip in that spot all this year. But I scooped some big pots in Bodog's cash games at the $50 NL level, a move I made a couple weeks ago, and that always helps.
I think it's hard to give up certain T-shirts because they hold too many memories of a time past.
But now the T-shirts are boxed. I have to go chase down a twin. Sometimes I long for days like Wednesday when I'm able to do what I want. But I also don't miss them anymore.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
You BetUS!
Poker Rules
As obvious as it is, it’s still worth saying that anyone who doesn’t understand poker rules will have a very difficult time playing the game. That’s because it is far more than a simple game of chance as skill and strategy go hand-in-hand in the poker world. So it’s a definite that one needs to brush up on their poker rules before starting to play. But what online poker you will need to know depends on the game variation that you choose to play. And there are many such as Texas Hold’em, Omaha HiLo, 7 Card Stud, 5 Card Stud, Caribbean Stud, and many, many more. However, the most popular by far, and the one that is most recommended to start with is Texas Hold’em.
It is not an extremely difficult game to learn but still one must know the poker rules of Texas inside and out in order to win. First off, one is dealt two cards and then must decide if they want to stay in by betting chips or fold and get out. If one stays in the hand, they get to see the flop, or three community cards that get turned over.
Continuing on with the poker game rules, when one sees the flop they must again decide whether to stay in the hand by matching bets or fold. After this round of betting, the turn card is dealt and another round of betting occurs once again. After this, the final card is dealt in the river. You can also learn more about game rules at BetUS Poker Room.
With the river dealt, the final round of betting ensues according to the poker rules and whoever can make the best hand out of five community cards and the two they hold wins the hand. The poker rules for Texas Hold’em get more intricate as one gets more involved with the game but this is just a general synopsis.
As obvious as it is, it’s still worth saying that anyone who doesn’t understand poker rules will have a very difficult time playing the game. That’s because it is far more than a simple game of chance as skill and strategy go hand-in-hand in the poker world. So it’s a definite that one needs to brush up on their poker rules before starting to play. But what online poker you will need to know depends on the game variation that you choose to play. And there are many such as Texas Hold’em, Omaha HiLo, 7 Card Stud, 5 Card Stud, Caribbean Stud, and many, many more. However, the most popular by far, and the one that is most recommended to start with is Texas Hold’em.
It is not an extremely difficult game to learn but still one must know the poker rules of Texas inside and out in order to win. First off, one is dealt two cards and then must decide if they want to stay in by betting chips or fold and get out. If one stays in the hand, they get to see the flop, or three community cards that get turned over.
Continuing on with the poker game rules, when one sees the flop they must again decide whether to stay in the hand by matching bets or fold. After this round of betting, the turn card is dealt and another round of betting occurs once again. After this, the final card is dealt in the river. You can also learn more about game rules at BetUS Poker Room.
With the river dealt, the final round of betting ensues according to the poker rules and whoever can make the best hand out of five community cards and the two they hold wins the hand. The poker rules for Texas Hold’em get more intricate as one gets more involved with the game but this is just a general synopsis.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Does 6 a.m. suck?
A younger co-worker, after hearing me long for the day when I could sleep in, you know, past 7:30 a.m., looked at me and said, "Nothing good happens at 6 a.m."
I'm inclined to agree with him.
Allie and Andie are still getting up. Last night it was twice, once at midnight and once at 5 a.m., for feedings.
I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so sos os so so so sos so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so burned out on getting up in the middle of the night. I can't remember the last time I felt refreshed when I got up in the morning. Even when I go to bed early, which is rare, given my owl-like body clock, I never get a good night sleep because we're getting up two or three times a night.
They're almost a year old. Really, when does it stop?
I'm beginning to think this is more common than I would like to believe. I hear all the time from husbands who say their children slept through the night at six weeks. I don't think so. I think that's when they stopped getting up. We have twins, so neither of us have a choice.
I'm not sure why we were "blessed" with such early birds, but there you go.
And so at the bright-and-early time of 5:45 a.m., Andie, who seems to be getting a few fangs and doesnt' seem to like that very much, was up and wanting some food. Kate was obliging while I had two pillows over my head until guilt got the better of me and I went into the twins' room to get Allie.
Andie, kind soul that she is, got Allie up three times last night thanks to voicing her displeasure over getting canines so eventually she can eat a cheeseburger instead of gulping $25-a-can formula like a hobo and a bottle of Jack. I approached her crib, and she stirred, looked at me, then plopped her head back down.
I know, honey. I agree.
Getting up got the better of her, too, and so she stirred, rumbled around and finally sat up so I could pick her up.
She looked right at me, smiled and said, "Da da."
I looked at the clock.
6 a.m.
And it was at that time that I disagreed with my co-worker.
I'm inclined to agree with him.
Allie and Andie are still getting up. Last night it was twice, once at midnight and once at 5 a.m., for feedings.
I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so sos os so so so sos so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so burned out on getting up in the middle of the night. I can't remember the last time I felt refreshed when I got up in the morning. Even when I go to bed early, which is rare, given my owl-like body clock, I never get a good night sleep because we're getting up two or three times a night.
They're almost a year old. Really, when does it stop?
I'm beginning to think this is more common than I would like to believe. I hear all the time from husbands who say their children slept through the night at six weeks. I don't think so. I think that's when they stopped getting up. We have twins, so neither of us have a choice.
I'm not sure why we were "blessed" with such early birds, but there you go.
And so at the bright-and-early time of 5:45 a.m., Andie, who seems to be getting a few fangs and doesnt' seem to like that very much, was up and wanting some food. Kate was obliging while I had two pillows over my head until guilt got the better of me and I went into the twins' room to get Allie.
Andie, kind soul that she is, got Allie up three times last night thanks to voicing her displeasure over getting canines so eventually she can eat a cheeseburger instead of gulping $25-a-can formula like a hobo and a bottle of Jack. I approached her crib, and she stirred, looked at me, then plopped her head back down.
I know, honey. I agree.
Getting up got the better of her, too, and so she stirred, rumbled around and finally sat up so I could pick her up.
She looked right at me, smiled and said, "Da da."
I looked at the clock.
6 a.m.
And it was at that time that I disagreed with my co-worker.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Dogging it without a game plan
I'm a planner, which is a nice way of saying I'm anal.
I think that's what Type-A really means. It measures your analness. I'm anal with an A.
I make to-do lists every day, make them out for the weekend and feel lost without a gameplan for the day.
And I think that's why I totally bombed out in the Bodog Bodonkey last night.
I finally had some good luck in that godforsaken tourney. I built a decent stack in the first hour, mostly with steals, bluffs and a decent hand or two. Then in the second hour I flopped a set and got top two-pair in another hand and suddenly I was sitting pretty with almost 9K in chips.
I was the big stack at my table and, with the blinds going up up up, with 24 left, I could taste the sweet sweet nectar of points for the WSOP freeroll at the end of the series.
And that's when things started to fall apart.
Kansas was blowing out UNC by 28 points when things got tough for a long while, and I remember what Seth Davis said at halftime: "Playing with a big lead is not easy."
It's always a problem for me because I'm not used to it, given my style of play. I'm always floating around the middle or even a shortie. So when I do have a big stack, I'm always thinking I should be bullying people with it, only I'm honestly not very good at that because I haven't had a lot of practice. Honestly when some of the masters do it, it never looks that hard, and yet it's a lot harder than it looks. Playing with a lead is not only not easy, it's really hard.
I lost a fourth of my stack on a steal attempt and continuation bet that was check-raised. I called a raise from a tight player with K-K, hoping to stack him on the flop or at least get more chips as my re-raises, given my continually tight image, usually only draws folds. An A hit the flop and I had to fold to a c-bet, as I didn't want to lose too many chips. A steal attempt worked, and then I check-raised a loose/aggressive player on the flop with air, and when he insta-called I folded on the turn.
At that point I stil had an average starting stack, around 5K in chips, and I could still probably fold to the points, but I look down at A-K, and when a fairly aggressive player raises in EP, I jam.
My thinking is I could win a really nice pot, my image was still fairly tight (maybe), and he only had me covered by 300 chips, so this is a really significant call for him. My fold equity, in other words, was fairly high, and if he calls, I've still got A-K.
After a long time, he called with Q-Q (hard to fault him there, he probably figured I would have just re-raised with Aces and Kings, and he was right), I lost the coin flip (shocking) and IGHN.
If this were the Mookie, I probably wouldn't have given that a second thought. If I win that pot, I'm the chip leader and in a great position to cash or even win it. But this was the Bodog, and I think my fairly random plays were the result of not really knowing what my goal was.
Is it to win or the get into the points? I'm not that far down on the leaderboard, and in fact getting some points probably would put me close to a money spot if not in one for the WSOP freeroll. But if I win I'm definitely there.
See why I'm confused?
I didn't have any sort of a goal.
When I do play, I've had them in the past, even if I didn't really know it. I've gotten more aggressive in the Mookie because the starting chip stacks are cut in half now and the need to chip up is greater and yet I don't make loose calls. That's a good game plan. When the stacks were 3,000, I'd take it easier and yet also make looser calls with speculation hands. That's another good game plan.
I've had no plan when I've played the Bodog.
That will change next week. I'll have a gameplan every time I play a tournament from now on. I am a planner, after all, and without a plan, I'm lost
And if I get chips once again next week, you'll see me creeping up the leaderboard instead of donking them away and extending Blinder's lead.
P.S. I'm playing in the Le Cheese Challenge Thursday. Thanks to rakebrain.com for inviting me. It's an honor!
I think that's what Type-A really means. It measures your analness. I'm anal with an A.
I make to-do lists every day, make them out for the weekend and feel lost without a gameplan for the day.
And I think that's why I totally bombed out in the Bodog Bodonkey last night.
I finally had some good luck in that godforsaken tourney. I built a decent stack in the first hour, mostly with steals, bluffs and a decent hand or two. Then in the second hour I flopped a set and got top two-pair in another hand and suddenly I was sitting pretty with almost 9K in chips.
I was the big stack at my table and, with the blinds going up up up, with 24 left, I could taste the sweet sweet nectar of points for the WSOP freeroll at the end of the series.
And that's when things started to fall apart.
Kansas was blowing out UNC by 28 points when things got tough for a long while, and I remember what Seth Davis said at halftime: "Playing with a big lead is not easy."
It's always a problem for me because I'm not used to it, given my style of play. I'm always floating around the middle or even a shortie. So when I do have a big stack, I'm always thinking I should be bullying people with it, only I'm honestly not very good at that because I haven't had a lot of practice. Honestly when some of the masters do it, it never looks that hard, and yet it's a lot harder than it looks. Playing with a lead is not only not easy, it's really hard.
I lost a fourth of my stack on a steal attempt and continuation bet that was check-raised. I called a raise from a tight player with K-K, hoping to stack him on the flop or at least get more chips as my re-raises, given my continually tight image, usually only draws folds. An A hit the flop and I had to fold to a c-bet, as I didn't want to lose too many chips. A steal attempt worked, and then I check-raised a loose/aggressive player on the flop with air, and when he insta-called I folded on the turn.
At that point I stil had an average starting stack, around 5K in chips, and I could still probably fold to the points, but I look down at A-K, and when a fairly aggressive player raises in EP, I jam.
My thinking is I could win a really nice pot, my image was still fairly tight (maybe), and he only had me covered by 300 chips, so this is a really significant call for him. My fold equity, in other words, was fairly high, and if he calls, I've still got A-K.
After a long time, he called with Q-Q (hard to fault him there, he probably figured I would have just re-raised with Aces and Kings, and he was right), I lost the coin flip (shocking) and IGHN.
If this were the Mookie, I probably wouldn't have given that a second thought. If I win that pot, I'm the chip leader and in a great position to cash or even win it. But this was the Bodog, and I think my fairly random plays were the result of not really knowing what my goal was.
Is it to win or the get into the points? I'm not that far down on the leaderboard, and in fact getting some points probably would put me close to a money spot if not in one for the WSOP freeroll. But if I win I'm definitely there.
See why I'm confused?
I didn't have any sort of a goal.
When I do play, I've had them in the past, even if I didn't really know it. I've gotten more aggressive in the Mookie because the starting chip stacks are cut in half now and the need to chip up is greater and yet I don't make loose calls. That's a good game plan. When the stacks were 3,000, I'd take it easier and yet also make looser calls with speculation hands. That's another good game plan.
I've had no plan when I've played the Bodog.
That will change next week. I'll have a gameplan every time I play a tournament from now on. I am a planner, after all, and without a plan, I'm lost
And if I get chips once again next week, you'll see me creeping up the leaderboard instead of donking them away and extending Blinder's lead.
P.S. I'm playing in the Le Cheese Challenge Thursday. Thanks to rakebrain.com for inviting me. It's an honor!
Saturday, April 12, 2008
A trip to the Butterfly Pavilion
There's a very cool place in the Denver area that's basically an insect zoo called the Butterfly Pavilion. We went there with Jayden and the twins Friday. Despite some people thinking that WE were on display - twins always draw a crowd - we had a great time.
The best part was the butterfly garden, a place that somehow simulates the habitat for dozens of butterfly species. You walk along the path and the butterflies fly around you.
Then they let the little kids catch them and pull their wings off.
(Actually, that's not what happens).
The best part was the butterfly garden, a place that somehow simulates the habitat for dozens of butterfly species. You walk along the path and the butterflies fly around you.
Then they let the little kids catch them and pull their wings off.
(Actually, that's not what happens).
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
What I learned from Kansas' run
There's an amazing similarity to poker and the NCAA tournament. Trust me. I was thinking about these things to prevent me from going into cardiac arrest while my Jayhawks pulled it off.
Here are some lessons that many of you know in poker and how Kansas pulled off its run:
1. You have to get lucky - Kansas' collapse against UNC, after holding a 28-point lead in the first half, was almost complete when Danny Green's three pointer with seven minutes to go stopped halfway down the basket, shook, rattled-and-rolled up and out. If he makes that shot, UNC is within two, their fans are going nuts, and there's a good chance they overwhelm us and we lose. Instead, we rebounded, Sasha Kahn hit an alley-oop dunk, we found new life and blew UNC away.
2. A win and a loss in a tournament or session usually comes down to one play - In our epic battle against Cinderella Davidson, their final shot fading away bounced off the backboard, and we won. In our game against Memphis, Chalmers' three-point shot, fading away, found the bottom of the net, we tied the game and won in overtime.
Chalmer's had a much better shot, but if either of those plays go any differently, I"m saying "Wait Until Next Year" and in the case of Davidson, it's possible Bill Self is wearing OSU colors.
3. You have to survive suckouts to keep playing and not let them rattle you - As the shot clock expired with only a few minutes left in the game, Derrick Rose hits a hail-mary, desperation shot that banked off the backboard. It was pure luck. And yet the shot was later, correctly, changed to a two, and a few minutes later we began to come back. The shot could have killed us. It didn't.
Last night I suffered three brutal suckouts in the Mookie, and yet I took fifth. You have to take the suckouts and move on.
4. Be aggressive, be be aggressive - Kansas was a remarkable team when we were confident and aggressive - see the first half of the UNC game for proof. Always play aggressively and with confidence.
5. Don't play scared - Conversely, Kansas barely beat Davidson because we were tentative, scared, really, and we almost blew the 28-point lead against UNC for the same reason. The Davidson game was almost painful to watch because that was not Kansas out there. Don't ever play scared.
6. Remain cool and collected, no matter what the situation - This may surprise people, but I wasn't surprised when Chalmers hit that shot to send the game into overtime. I screamed my voice off, but I wasn't surprised. He's done that throughout his career at Kansas. He's the coolest customer on the court. You should be the same way at the poker table, even if you're heads up for a nice score.
7. Tough times are good for you - Davidson's game was one of the most gut-wretching I've ever watched, even more than the title game. Texas also gave us a game for the ages in the Big 12 title game. Those games, that adversity, were good for us. I said to my friend before the game, "If we keep it close, Memphis will crack at the end." That team hadn't faced any adversity in the tournament or, really, the whole year. Sure enough, Memphis cracked.
8. A leak is a leak, no matter how you think it's not - Kansas' problems with turnovers and its inconsistency in hitting three-pointers almost cost us the game against Memphis. Memphis denied all year that its free throws were a problem, even when they clearly were, and they cost them the game.
9. Sometimes a player just gets hot, but if you ride it out, you can still win - Who doesn't hate it when a true donkey keeps hitting his cards over and over? Davidson's Curry, the player of the tournament, went on a tear during a stretch in the first half, and that was expected. Memphis' Rose went on a tear in the second half, and that was expected. Yet Curry missed key shots down the stretch, and Rose missed that crucial free throw at the end of the game, allowing us to tie the game with a three-pointer. I've never seen those get-lucky donkeys leave with their huge stack. Eventually everyone cools off.
10. Captialize on your opponents' mistakes - What was lost in the "Memphis choked" comments was the fact that Kansas hit a two, stole the ball on the inbounds and hit a three, made every single free throw and then buried a three-pointer basically at the buzzer to tie the game. Yes, Memphis made mistakes, but Kansas took advantage of them.
11. Have fun - We were at our best when we were having fun. It's a game, after all, and it's supposed to be fun. Poker is much more fun when you're having fun.
Here are some lessons that many of you know in poker and how Kansas pulled off its run:
1. You have to get lucky - Kansas' collapse against UNC, after holding a 28-point lead in the first half, was almost complete when Danny Green's three pointer with seven minutes to go stopped halfway down the basket, shook, rattled-and-rolled up and out. If he makes that shot, UNC is within two, their fans are going nuts, and there's a good chance they overwhelm us and we lose. Instead, we rebounded, Sasha Kahn hit an alley-oop dunk, we found new life and blew UNC away.
2. A win and a loss in a tournament or session usually comes down to one play - In our epic battle against Cinderella Davidson, their final shot fading away bounced off the backboard, and we won. In our game against Memphis, Chalmers' three-point shot, fading away, found the bottom of the net, we tied the game and won in overtime.
Chalmer's had a much better shot, but if either of those plays go any differently, I"m saying "Wait Until Next Year" and in the case of Davidson, it's possible Bill Self is wearing OSU colors.
3. You have to survive suckouts to keep playing and not let them rattle you - As the shot clock expired with only a few minutes left in the game, Derrick Rose hits a hail-mary, desperation shot that banked off the backboard. It was pure luck. And yet the shot was later, correctly, changed to a two, and a few minutes later we began to come back. The shot could have killed us. It didn't.
Last night I suffered three brutal suckouts in the Mookie, and yet I took fifth. You have to take the suckouts and move on.
4. Be aggressive, be be aggressive - Kansas was a remarkable team when we were confident and aggressive - see the first half of the UNC game for proof. Always play aggressively and with confidence.
5. Don't play scared - Conversely, Kansas barely beat Davidson because we were tentative, scared, really, and we almost blew the 28-point lead against UNC for the same reason. The Davidson game was almost painful to watch because that was not Kansas out there. Don't ever play scared.
6. Remain cool and collected, no matter what the situation - This may surprise people, but I wasn't surprised when Chalmers hit that shot to send the game into overtime. I screamed my voice off, but I wasn't surprised. He's done that throughout his career at Kansas. He's the coolest customer on the court. You should be the same way at the poker table, even if you're heads up for a nice score.
7. Tough times are good for you - Davidson's game was one of the most gut-wretching I've ever watched, even more than the title game. Texas also gave us a game for the ages in the Big 12 title game. Those games, that adversity, were good for us. I said to my friend before the game, "If we keep it close, Memphis will crack at the end." That team hadn't faced any adversity in the tournament or, really, the whole year. Sure enough, Memphis cracked.
8. A leak is a leak, no matter how you think it's not - Kansas' problems with turnovers and its inconsistency in hitting three-pointers almost cost us the game against Memphis. Memphis denied all year that its free throws were a problem, even when they clearly were, and they cost them the game.
9. Sometimes a player just gets hot, but if you ride it out, you can still win - Who doesn't hate it when a true donkey keeps hitting his cards over and over? Davidson's Curry, the player of the tournament, went on a tear during a stretch in the first half, and that was expected. Memphis' Rose went on a tear in the second half, and that was expected. Yet Curry missed key shots down the stretch, and Rose missed that crucial free throw at the end of the game, allowing us to tie the game with a three-pointer. I've never seen those get-lucky donkeys leave with their huge stack. Eventually everyone cools off.
10. Captialize on your opponents' mistakes - What was lost in the "Memphis choked" comments was the fact that Kansas hit a two, stole the ball on the inbounds and hit a three, made every single free throw and then buried a three-pointer basically at the buzzer to tie the game. Yes, Memphis made mistakes, but Kansas took advantage of them.
11. Have fun - We were at our best when we were having fun. It's a game, after all, and it's supposed to be fun. Poker is much more fun when you're having fun.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Rock Chalk Jayhawk
It's barely 6 a.m., and I'm downstairs as Allie decided to cover the 5-6 a.m. shift for her sister and is crawling around on the floor.
Normally I'd be pretty grumpy right about now.
Not today, and probably not for a while.
There are so few times when you are truly, 100 percent rewarded for being a fan of a team. Let's face it. Disappointment lurks at the end of every season, and if there's not disappointment, there's either disgust (my Kansas City Chiefs were a perfect example) or heartbreak (my Colorado Rockies).
Even when you've had a great season, as the Rockies did last year, there's the end, when they were swept by the Red Sox (and rightly so, the Sox were better) and with that end comes a bitter pill.
But Monday, and now Tuesday morning, and Wednesday, and the rest of the year, there is only joy, and that's so rare in sports, it's makes you wonder sometimes why you're a fan.
Why would I give so much of my spirit and, hell, let's face it, my soul, to Kansas? There was a lot of great memories and elation, to be sure, but every season ended in disappointment, and not just disappointment, really, but heartbreak, the kind inspired by one-outers on the river.
"Why do you do this to yourself?" Kate would ask me.
It was hard to answer her, except there was this: I graduated from Kansas, where basketball is really a religion, not a sport, and the team gave me the best memories of my school career as a member of the basketball band, traveling to the tournaments, leaving Allen Field House with my ears ringing, being treated like rock stars on campus, the only time band members ever sniffed cool.
You can't just set that aside when you graduate. If anything, it gets stronger because you always want to relive those magical years of college, when you were young and optimistic and ready to take on the world.
So I sit here, reading all the stories, and this, ultimately, is the reason you are a fan, is because if you are loyal, and you stick with your team through all the years, eventually, chances are you will get to experience a moment like this one.
I experienced it in 1985 with the Kansas City Royals, and I've never forgotten that team. The Royals, for the most part, have been a joke since then, a bad punchline, a symbol of the inequity of baseball's payrolls. Yet I'll always look at them as champions, and I'll always worship George Brett.
It is a drug, the ultimate high, and yet it lasts for not only months but possibly years. I didn't quite know what to feel when the final seconds of overtime ticked away. Something like this soaks in, over time, as you see the parades and everyone talks about your team and you can wear your Kansas gear over and over and strangers will point to you and say, "Hey, nice season."
I'm also glad that Kansas and Memphis delivered a classic. I watched the game with one of my best friends, who grew up in Kansas, over at a house he was sitting, alone, just the two of us. It gave me the freedom to scream. And he said to me, "Wouldn't it be sweet to win on a shot at the buzzer?"
I thought he was nuts. We'd already survived Davidson, and games like that shorten your life span. But he's right. Not only playing but winning a classic, a game that people will talk about for years, is the best feeling you'll never get.
OK, OK, this isn't the birth of my twins or Jayden. This isn't the day Kate said yes. This isn't the day I graduated from college. This isn't even the day I finished all the 14ers in Colorado.
It's just the best day I've ever had as a devoted fan. There are very few times you get to feel this in life.
I'm gonna savior every second.
There's a reason why our fight song is titled "I'm a Jayhawk." You are not just a fan. You just are.
I'm a Jay, Jay, Jay Jay Jayhawk, and today, I couldn't be prouder to say it.
Normally I'd be pretty grumpy right about now.
Not today, and probably not for a while.
There are so few times when you are truly, 100 percent rewarded for being a fan of a team. Let's face it. Disappointment lurks at the end of every season, and if there's not disappointment, there's either disgust (my Kansas City Chiefs were a perfect example) or heartbreak (my Colorado Rockies).
Even when you've had a great season, as the Rockies did last year, there's the end, when they were swept by the Red Sox (and rightly so, the Sox were better) and with that end comes a bitter pill.
But Monday, and now Tuesday morning, and Wednesday, and the rest of the year, there is only joy, and that's so rare in sports, it's makes you wonder sometimes why you're a fan.
Why would I give so much of my spirit and, hell, let's face it, my soul, to Kansas? There was a lot of great memories and elation, to be sure, but every season ended in disappointment, and not just disappointment, really, but heartbreak, the kind inspired by one-outers on the river.
"Why do you do this to yourself?" Kate would ask me.
It was hard to answer her, except there was this: I graduated from Kansas, where basketball is really a religion, not a sport, and the team gave me the best memories of my school career as a member of the basketball band, traveling to the tournaments, leaving Allen Field House with my ears ringing, being treated like rock stars on campus, the only time band members ever sniffed cool.
You can't just set that aside when you graduate. If anything, it gets stronger because you always want to relive those magical years of college, when you were young and optimistic and ready to take on the world.
So I sit here, reading all the stories, and this, ultimately, is the reason you are a fan, is because if you are loyal, and you stick with your team through all the years, eventually, chances are you will get to experience a moment like this one.
I experienced it in 1985 with the Kansas City Royals, and I've never forgotten that team. The Royals, for the most part, have been a joke since then, a bad punchline, a symbol of the inequity of baseball's payrolls. Yet I'll always look at them as champions, and I'll always worship George Brett.
It is a drug, the ultimate high, and yet it lasts for not only months but possibly years. I didn't quite know what to feel when the final seconds of overtime ticked away. Something like this soaks in, over time, as you see the parades and everyone talks about your team and you can wear your Kansas gear over and over and strangers will point to you and say, "Hey, nice season."
I'm also glad that Kansas and Memphis delivered a classic. I watched the game with one of my best friends, who grew up in Kansas, over at a house he was sitting, alone, just the two of us. It gave me the freedom to scream. And he said to me, "Wouldn't it be sweet to win on a shot at the buzzer?"
I thought he was nuts. We'd already survived Davidson, and games like that shorten your life span. But he's right. Not only playing but winning a classic, a game that people will talk about for years, is the best feeling you'll never get.
OK, OK, this isn't the birth of my twins or Jayden. This isn't the day Kate said yes. This isn't the day I graduated from college. This isn't even the day I finished all the 14ers in Colorado.
It's just the best day I've ever had as a devoted fan. There are very few times you get to feel this in life.
I'm gonna savior every second.
There's a reason why our fight song is titled "I'm a Jayhawk." You are not just a fan. You just are.
I'm a Jay, Jay, Jay Jay Jayhawk, and today, I couldn't be prouder to say it.
Monday, April 07, 2008
A pause on the path of a long, winding road
By the time you read this, I'll probably either be happier than a junebug on a peach tree, as we Kansas natives say, or on my fourth hankie and possibly tilting off a few bucks at the virtual poker tables.
I am writing this Sunday night, 24 hours before possibly the biggest game of my life as a Kansas graduate and die-hard fan.
I will post it just as I leave work and prepare for the game against Memphis.
I want nothing more than the game to just get here.
Except, wait a minute.
Andie pulled herself up on the high chair for the first time Saturday. She's not walking yet, but she's getting there. She might make it by her first birthday, which, amazingly, is less than two months away.
Allie is watching Andie and pulling herself up and trying it herself. That's how things work in their relationship. She lets Andie be the daring one, try it out, see if it's feasible, and then when Andie only bonks her head on our hardwood floors and survives, Allie gives it a try. It won't be long now before they're walking.
I remember when Jayden was pulling himself up on the couch and starting to make tentative steps, one shuffle, then a step, along to the fireplace. Now he's steaming through Taco Bell and trying to push open a door that weighs three times as much as he does. And he's succeeding.
I just recently posted about how damn hard it is at times with Jayden, who has ratcheted up the whiny pitch in his voice the last few days, and the girls, and there are times I just want to get to the next step.
I just want the ball to tip off.
But my life already seems to be at warp speed now anyway, as if I was running one of my 5Ks (well, sort of), and I caught myself when I was just wishing for the game to get here already.
You remember what Christmas Eve was like, right?
Remember the presents?
Or the anticipation?
What was more fun?
I don't remember what I got for Christmas, except for the one year we got an Atari 2600, and we spent three days straight playing it, even my parents.
But I remember the night before, sitting in the room, watching the clock melt from 3:02 to 3:03 a.m. while reading "The Great Brain."
I don't remember what was so important the other day that I'd rather be somewhere else other than playing peek-a-boo with my girls. I feel that way all the time, especially after the tough days that sparked the post.
Yet I remember Allie's giggles from my tickles the other day.
I remember the losses from past seasons — and Kansas has had more than our share in the tournament, believe me — but the pain from those losses are buried beneath many good memories of the seasons gone by.
I feel lucky to be a Jayhawk.
I feel lucky to be a father of twins and a toddler.
Every season is a long, winding hike down life's path. At times you just want to get to next checkpoint. At times you forget to enjoy the trail along the way.
I am trying to enjoy today's trail before we play for the national championship. The anticipation is painful. It is also wonderful.
Sure, I want them to win. I want that more than anything else today.
But when the buzzer sounds, and the elation or the pain swells up inside, I'll try to tell myself that emotions are temporary.
Memories are forever.
That's why I posted this now.
So I can look at it after the game.
And before I get up at 3 a.m. to feed one of the twins.
I am writing this Sunday night, 24 hours before possibly the biggest game of my life as a Kansas graduate and die-hard fan.
I will post it just as I leave work and prepare for the game against Memphis.
I want nothing more than the game to just get here.
Except, wait a minute.
Andie pulled herself up on the high chair for the first time Saturday. She's not walking yet, but she's getting there. She might make it by her first birthday, which, amazingly, is less than two months away.
Allie is watching Andie and pulling herself up and trying it herself. That's how things work in their relationship. She lets Andie be the daring one, try it out, see if it's feasible, and then when Andie only bonks her head on our hardwood floors and survives, Allie gives it a try. It won't be long now before they're walking.
I remember when Jayden was pulling himself up on the couch and starting to make tentative steps, one shuffle, then a step, along to the fireplace. Now he's steaming through Taco Bell and trying to push open a door that weighs three times as much as he does. And he's succeeding.
I just recently posted about how damn hard it is at times with Jayden, who has ratcheted up the whiny pitch in his voice the last few days, and the girls, and there are times I just want to get to the next step.
I just want the ball to tip off.
But my life already seems to be at warp speed now anyway, as if I was running one of my 5Ks (well, sort of), and I caught myself when I was just wishing for the game to get here already.
You remember what Christmas Eve was like, right?
Remember the presents?
Or the anticipation?
What was more fun?
I don't remember what I got for Christmas, except for the one year we got an Atari 2600, and we spent three days straight playing it, even my parents.
But I remember the night before, sitting in the room, watching the clock melt from 3:02 to 3:03 a.m. while reading "The Great Brain."
I don't remember what was so important the other day that I'd rather be somewhere else other than playing peek-a-boo with my girls. I feel that way all the time, especially after the tough days that sparked the post.
Yet I remember Allie's giggles from my tickles the other day.
I remember the losses from past seasons — and Kansas has had more than our share in the tournament, believe me — but the pain from those losses are buried beneath many good memories of the seasons gone by.
I feel lucky to be a Jayhawk.
I feel lucky to be a father of twins and a toddler.
Every season is a long, winding hike down life's path. At times you just want to get to next checkpoint. At times you forget to enjoy the trail along the way.
I am trying to enjoy today's trail before we play for the national championship. The anticipation is painful. It is also wonderful.
Sure, I want them to win. I want that more than anything else today.
But when the buzzer sounds, and the elation or the pain swells up inside, I'll try to tell myself that emotions are temporary.
Memories are forever.
That's why I posted this now.
So I can look at it after the game.
And before I get up at 3 a.m. to feed one of the twins.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
12 hours of Wait
It's 12 hours before possibly the biggest game as a KU fan, at least the biggest in five years, and I wish I could fast forward the time.
I'm like a little kid waiting for 6 a.m. to appear on the clock so I can run downstairs and tear into the presents.
I'm not pissed at Roy anymore. I got to know him a little bit as a member of the basketball band, and he really is a great guy.
But I would really like to beat him today.
This whole thing sort of reminds me of a break-up, and most KU fans, like me, consider the whole Roy thing over. We're at the stage now where if we see each other at a party, we could talk to each other for a few minutes.
Although we also wouldn't mind showing off some babe or stud on our arm either.
That will come, I hope, in the form of a championship ring.
12 hours to go....
I'm like a little kid waiting for 6 a.m. to appear on the clock so I can run downstairs and tear into the presents.
I'm not pissed at Roy anymore. I got to know him a little bit as a member of the basketball band, and he really is a great guy.
But I would really like to beat him today.
This whole thing sort of reminds me of a break-up, and most KU fans, like me, consider the whole Roy thing over. We're at the stage now where if we see each other at a party, we could talk to each other for a few minutes.
Although we also wouldn't mind showing off some babe or stud on our arm either.
That will come, I hope, in the form of a championship ring.
12 hours to go....
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
The struggle within
Kate and I enjoy watching "Jon and Kate Plus 8." It's honestly the only show we watch together besides repeated and repeated and repeated viewings of "Little Einsteins."
The babies are cute, and we love teasing Kate for her anal ways (something I can relate to, although not to that degree), but we mostly like the show for the fights.
When Kate and Jon tear into each other, even just for brief moments, Kate and I look at each other and share a knowing smile.
We've been there.
The last couple nights we were there, too, as Kate fed a twin and I fed another, her upstairs in the dark, me downstairs in the dark, with only the laptop and the Kansas/Davidson postgame press conference on the NCAA's Web site to cut through the black.
Both of us fuming.
After almost 11 months of raising twins, the stress continues to chip away at what we've built for five years, the whole foundation that led us to having children in the first place.
This fight, as many do, started with resentment at someone's free time. My own. I went downstairs to the basement to play "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" for an hour and a half after the kids when to bed. I didn't want to play poker - Mondays typically suck for cash games - and I didn't want to watch a movie. I wanted to finish a mission or two, crash some fancy cars and mostly just kill some innocents. It had been a tough weekend.
Maybe I should have expected Kate would have to get up several times as a result. Maybe I'm a bad husband for wanting an hour and a half to myself. Maybe I'm selfish. Regardless, when I came back upstairs, Kate couldn't wait to lay into me.
We've had these fights since Jayden was born, and they're pretty much boiled down to two sentences.
"You're not doing enough."
"Yes I am."
Kate, however, had a point during Jayden's first year. She got up with him throughout the night. She bathed him most of the time and fed him most of the time too. I did a share of the work, but it probably wasn't my fair share.
The problem, of course, came with twins.
I could go on about getting up with Kate at least twice a night to feed for 11 months now, or the dozens of diapers I've changed or the sacrifices I've made, but really, this post isn't about me. It's about us.
Even so, last nght's fight was pretty simple.
"You're not doing enough."
"Yes I am."
And the problem this time is raising twins, plus the toddler, is so much work that you can't ever do enough to take the pressure off your spouse. On one hand, that will bring you closer together, in the same way that mountain climbing partners or war buddies make friends for life. But on another hand, it's easy to tear down what you've created if your'e not careful.
The reason is because that stress, eventually, has to come out, and it can either come out in small bits, during calm conversations that you don't have time for over dinners that you don't have time for, or it can explode in a violent, volcanic eruption.
Obviously small conversations are better. But there's the time thing. And the energy thing. And the patience thing. It's all in pretty short supply. By the time you put everyone to bed, all you want to go is either go to bed yourself (Kate) or burn off the tension over poker or video games (me).
We can work it out, as Stevie Wonder says, and we continue to work it out, but I think it will always be an issue. At least until the twins turn 16.
Then we're really screwed.
As much as I love the girls, I sometimes can't help but think it would have been better with just one. I can't help but think that, sometimes, we really didn't ask for this. We didn't take any kind of fertility drugs. This just happened. It was a 1/150 shot. Less than a one-outer's chance at hitting the felt.
And as lucky as we were to get two, man, do I feel unlucky at times.
The babies are cute, and we love teasing Kate for her anal ways (something I can relate to, although not to that degree), but we mostly like the show for the fights.
When Kate and Jon tear into each other, even just for brief moments, Kate and I look at each other and share a knowing smile.
We've been there.
The last couple nights we were there, too, as Kate fed a twin and I fed another, her upstairs in the dark, me downstairs in the dark, with only the laptop and the Kansas/Davidson postgame press conference on the NCAA's Web site to cut through the black.
Both of us fuming.
After almost 11 months of raising twins, the stress continues to chip away at what we've built for five years, the whole foundation that led us to having children in the first place.
This fight, as many do, started with resentment at someone's free time. My own. I went downstairs to the basement to play "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" for an hour and a half after the kids when to bed. I didn't want to play poker - Mondays typically suck for cash games - and I didn't want to watch a movie. I wanted to finish a mission or two, crash some fancy cars and mostly just kill some innocents. It had been a tough weekend.
Maybe I should have expected Kate would have to get up several times as a result. Maybe I'm a bad husband for wanting an hour and a half to myself. Maybe I'm selfish. Regardless, when I came back upstairs, Kate couldn't wait to lay into me.
We've had these fights since Jayden was born, and they're pretty much boiled down to two sentences.
"You're not doing enough."
"Yes I am."
Kate, however, had a point during Jayden's first year. She got up with him throughout the night. She bathed him most of the time and fed him most of the time too. I did a share of the work, but it probably wasn't my fair share.
The problem, of course, came with twins.
I could go on about getting up with Kate at least twice a night to feed for 11 months now, or the dozens of diapers I've changed or the sacrifices I've made, but really, this post isn't about me. It's about us.
Even so, last nght's fight was pretty simple.
"You're not doing enough."
"Yes I am."
And the problem this time is raising twins, plus the toddler, is so much work that you can't ever do enough to take the pressure off your spouse. On one hand, that will bring you closer together, in the same way that mountain climbing partners or war buddies make friends for life. But on another hand, it's easy to tear down what you've created if your'e not careful.
The reason is because that stress, eventually, has to come out, and it can either come out in small bits, during calm conversations that you don't have time for over dinners that you don't have time for, or it can explode in a violent, volcanic eruption.
Obviously small conversations are better. But there's the time thing. And the energy thing. And the patience thing. It's all in pretty short supply. By the time you put everyone to bed, all you want to go is either go to bed yourself (Kate) or burn off the tension over poker or video games (me).
We can work it out, as Stevie Wonder says, and we continue to work it out, but I think it will always be an issue. At least until the twins turn 16.
Then we're really screwed.
As much as I love the girls, I sometimes can't help but think it would have been better with just one. I can't help but think that, sometimes, we really didn't ask for this. We didn't take any kind of fertility drugs. This just happened. It was a 1/150 shot. Less than a one-outer's chance at hitting the felt.
And as lucky as we were to get two, man, do I feel unlucky at times.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Smashing the shoe
No one wants to beat Cinderella. I'd rather hug her. If Davidson wasn't playing Kansas, I would have rooted for them hard. What's not to like? Classy team, classy coach, amazing player.
But these are my Hawks.
Sorry, Cinderella.
I haven't been that nervous since Kansas beat Arizona to go to the Final Four five years ago. A loss to Davidson would have been devastating, and that's exactly how we played, a team hoping not to lose. There's something to be said for just hoping to last through a tournament or taking it by the horns and destroying it. Maybe there's a poker lesson there somewhere.
When the final shot fell short of the basket, I screamed, startling my co-workers at the paper, and ran up and down the hallway. Then I almost bawled. I'm sure I lost a year off my life.
We're in the Final Four. Later this week I'll talk about my desire to crush North Carolina. But right now I'm drained.
Totally, totally drained.
But these are my Hawks.
Sorry, Cinderella.
I haven't been that nervous since Kansas beat Arizona to go to the Final Four five years ago. A loss to Davidson would have been devastating, and that's exactly how we played, a team hoping not to lose. There's something to be said for just hoping to last through a tournament or taking it by the horns and destroying it. Maybe there's a poker lesson there somewhere.
When the final shot fell short of the basket, I screamed, startling my co-workers at the paper, and ran up and down the hallway. Then I almost bawled. I'm sure I lost a year off my life.
We're in the Final Four. Later this week I'll talk about my desire to crush North Carolina. But right now I'm drained.
Totally, totally drained.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Mucking through the Madness
I had a stack 3xs the average, I was hitting hands and I had a couple easy targets just waiting to give me even more chips last night in the Mookie.
So why was I also writing an article and messing around with my iTunes?
Why wasn't I 100 percent into it?
Perhaps I knew what was coming.
I knew, deep down, there was probably no way I was going to outlast yet another huge Mookie field. And I was exhausted and also knew that I would have to put in another two hours in order to even make the final table.
I really think I played great last night, and I rarely say that about my tournament play. I made a nice bluff early on when a fourth diamond hit the board and my opponent checked, obviously spooked, so I bet close to the pot, and he folded what I'm sure was a made hand, much better than my K-J.
I was aggressive and made the right reads. That work I've done lately on picking spots has paid off, and I'm feeling better about my tournament game now. I'll always play tight, that's just who I am, but now I've got enough aggression to make it to a final table.
At least, I think.
I'm also growing more and more weary of tournaments. Later in the tournament, I'm the big stack at my table, and a guy in middle position raises. I have 10-10 and shove on him, for two reasons. One, I'm thinking I have a big stack and he might just fold, and two, I'm thinking the odds are that everyone else will fold is pretty high as well. Plus I do have a hand if he calls.
Well, the BB has J-J, and my stack is cut in half.
I don't know. Maybe that's a bad play. I'd love to hear your thoughts. But exactly the kind of shit that befalls me week after week in the Mookie. There's a less than 20 percent chance someone has a higher pair than me, and sure enough, someone has it.
Still, I'm building my stack back, mainly by shoving on weak limpers when it's around to me, and I'm in business when I get K-K for the third time that night. EP raise puts me all in, so I call, and he has J-J.
I won't go on only to say that this is also the third or fourth week in a row that my higher overpair hasn't held up. It's getting old.
If I only played tournaments, I'd hate poker by now, and I don't know if I'll play the Mookie next week. I think the BBT3 is an awesome, awesome thing for us, but it's making the fields in the Mookie a little large, and I don't know if I want to wade through all that when I really just play the Mookie to play against good players and learn some things, not win a seat to a tournament I won't win.
Fortunately there's always the cash tables to keep my poker happy and healthy.
Oh, and Kansas, who plays Friday. This is the greatest time of year, even if it is another tournament.
So why was I also writing an article and messing around with my iTunes?
Why wasn't I 100 percent into it?
Perhaps I knew what was coming.
I knew, deep down, there was probably no way I was going to outlast yet another huge Mookie field. And I was exhausted and also knew that I would have to put in another two hours in order to even make the final table.
I really think I played great last night, and I rarely say that about my tournament play. I made a nice bluff early on when a fourth diamond hit the board and my opponent checked, obviously spooked, so I bet close to the pot, and he folded what I'm sure was a made hand, much better than my K-J.
I was aggressive and made the right reads. That work I've done lately on picking spots has paid off, and I'm feeling better about my tournament game now. I'll always play tight, that's just who I am, but now I've got enough aggression to make it to a final table.
At least, I think.
I'm also growing more and more weary of tournaments. Later in the tournament, I'm the big stack at my table, and a guy in middle position raises. I have 10-10 and shove on him, for two reasons. One, I'm thinking I have a big stack and he might just fold, and two, I'm thinking the odds are that everyone else will fold is pretty high as well. Plus I do have a hand if he calls.
Well, the BB has J-J, and my stack is cut in half.
I don't know. Maybe that's a bad play. I'd love to hear your thoughts. But exactly the kind of shit that befalls me week after week in the Mookie. There's a less than 20 percent chance someone has a higher pair than me, and sure enough, someone has it.
Still, I'm building my stack back, mainly by shoving on weak limpers when it's around to me, and I'm in business when I get K-K for the third time that night. EP raise puts me all in, so I call, and he has J-J.
I won't go on only to say that this is also the third or fourth week in a row that my higher overpair hasn't held up. It's getting old.
If I only played tournaments, I'd hate poker by now, and I don't know if I'll play the Mookie next week. I think the BBT3 is an awesome, awesome thing for us, but it's making the fields in the Mookie a little large, and I don't know if I want to wade through all that when I really just play the Mookie to play against good players and learn some things, not win a seat to a tournament I won't win.
Fortunately there's always the cash tables to keep my poker happy and healthy.
Oh, and Kansas, who plays Friday. This is the greatest time of year, even if it is another tournament.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Best Poker Sites Review
Remember the old days, when you would scour poker rooms like a toddler sifting through the front lawn for that plastic easter egg with the five Hershey kisses?
You'd plow through bonuses like a high school sophomore with a trunk full of Schaeffer's working up the courage to ask that junior varsity cheerleader to homecoming. We'd reload, play five rooms at once and overfish the oceans.
Ah, the good old days.
Well, Online Poker Sites might just bring back memories of those glorious old days, before our government decided online poker was bad for us without consulting the banks on exactly how the suits were going to actually enforce the law.
The site is as complete as they come by offering lists of some of the best poker rooms in the world, with complete reviews and rankings (in case you don't want to read all that text), and even gives you some added swag by offering bonuses you might not get anywhere else.
Some of the highlights:
• There are plenty of news links, general news, poker hand rankings, so it's not just there to shill poker rooms.
• The site offers several alternatives to Neteller, an unfortunate must-have in today's poker world, as our government's stupid law did manage to shut down the easiest way to deposit. This is helpful, as there are some Americans out there who still believe it's nearly impossible to get money online. It's not, and the site shows you how its' done.
• If you're Canadian, you'll find several poker rooms that take your bacon.
• If you're American, you'll find options here thanks to the site as well.
Though it was a bit depressing to see the Old Glory on only three of the site's top 10 rooms, I did discover one room that might get me to sign up and chase a bonus.
You know, just like the old days.
***The following was a paid review.
You'd plow through bonuses like a high school sophomore with a trunk full of Schaeffer's working up the courage to ask that junior varsity cheerleader to homecoming. We'd reload, play five rooms at once and overfish the oceans.
Ah, the good old days.
Well, Online Poker Sites might just bring back memories of those glorious old days, before our government decided online poker was bad for us without consulting the banks on exactly how the suits were going to actually enforce the law.
The site is as complete as they come by offering lists of some of the best poker rooms in the world, with complete reviews and rankings (in case you don't want to read all that text), and even gives you some added swag by offering bonuses you might not get anywhere else.
Some of the highlights:
• There are plenty of news links, general news, poker hand rankings, so it's not just there to shill poker rooms.
• The site offers several alternatives to Neteller, an unfortunate must-have in today's poker world, as our government's stupid law did manage to shut down the easiest way to deposit. This is helpful, as there are some Americans out there who still believe it's nearly impossible to get money online. It's not, and the site shows you how its' done.
• If you're Canadian, you'll find several poker rooms that take your bacon.
• If you're American, you'll find options here thanks to the site as well.
Though it was a bit depressing to see the Old Glory on only three of the site's top 10 rooms, I did discover one room that might get me to sign up and chase a bonus.
You know, just like the old days.
***The following was a paid review.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Scrambled thoughts on poker, not the NCAA tournament
My wife would disagree with me, but really, I have thought about other things than basketball (Rock Chalk Jayhawk!) since the NCAA tournament started.
Like poker, for instance.
And, oh, making sure the twins don't crawl down the stairs.
(Really, what is it with a baby's propensity to commit suicide? The population would be much, much lower if babies were allowed to act on their own. Maybe that's why it's an issue: We really all are lemmings at heart and are just trying to control the population, and our parents, because they've spent a few months (make that 10) getting up three times a night, won't let us plunge off the cliff. Maybe if our wives gave birth three weeks after getting pregnant, this wouldn't be a problem, but then again that wouldn't be as much fun as four months of getting yelled at for cutting a grapefruit in front of her, three months of crying jags and two months of snoring loud enough to wake three states.
Dear Girls: The stairs are dangerous. It's also not wise to shove every throat-sized thing you see on the floor, like the dog food, down your throat. Love, Daddy).
Thought #1 - Don't go to bed angry. That's what our preacher told us during those pre-marriage sessions that the Catholic church requires (along with pledging your first born and promising not to use birth control, the last of course we did with fingers crossed). And yet I have had trouble not taking stupid plays and bad beats to bed.
The problem is you're probably going to have one or the other every time you play an hour or more of online poker. I never play a session perfectly, for instance, and suckouts always happen to me, as they do to anyone who understands that if you are re-raised and you are holding J-K os, you should probably fold.
After waking up still mad and frustrated, I've decided that enough is enough. My health is good and I'm in great shape, so it would be stupid to blow up my heart on stress related to poker. Besides, I don't play high limits and poker, ultimately, is about making a little money while having fun. It's not a job. Not even close.
Once I made that resolution - call it my New March Resolution - I had one of my best runs of the year today, almost 12 miles and feeling great. I hope there's a connection there.
I can't say I'll live up to the resolution - most people don't - but I'll continue to try.
Thought #2 - Usually when I have a big hand on the river, I'm having a hard time these days deciding whether to value bet, check and hope for a bet so I can raise, overbet for value (usually just jamming) or bet lightly and hope for a raise.
I'm usually failing on the side of overbetting because I figure the times they do call will make up for the times I get nothing out of the river bet. Skalansky advocates this as well.
I still believe this although lately I'm having a hard time getting my monsters paid, and I don't think I'm playing overly tight (plus I'm playing at the lemming level where they don't pay attention to table image too much), though that is always my nature.
Your thoughts?
Thought #3 - I have been more aggressive lately in cash games and it seems to be paying off, though I'm still jamming at the wrong times occasionally (on the river, when I have no fold equity) and just jamming with high pocket pairs instead of playing them better.
This seems to be making me money, though I've made two bad mistakes lately that cost me more profit, mistakes I would not have made, because I"m trying to be more aggressive.
I suppose this is what we call learning.
Like learning that crawling down the stairs is not a good thing. The trick is for it not to kill you before the lesson is learned.
Like poker, for instance.
And, oh, making sure the twins don't crawl down the stairs.
(Really, what is it with a baby's propensity to commit suicide? The population would be much, much lower if babies were allowed to act on their own. Maybe that's why it's an issue: We really all are lemmings at heart and are just trying to control the population, and our parents, because they've spent a few months (make that 10) getting up three times a night, won't let us plunge off the cliff. Maybe if our wives gave birth three weeks after getting pregnant, this wouldn't be a problem, but then again that wouldn't be as much fun as four months of getting yelled at for cutting a grapefruit in front of her, three months of crying jags and two months of snoring loud enough to wake three states.
Dear Girls: The stairs are dangerous. It's also not wise to shove every throat-sized thing you see on the floor, like the dog food, down your throat. Love, Daddy).
Thought #1 - Don't go to bed angry. That's what our preacher told us during those pre-marriage sessions that the Catholic church requires (along with pledging your first born and promising not to use birth control, the last of course we did with fingers crossed). And yet I have had trouble not taking stupid plays and bad beats to bed.
The problem is you're probably going to have one or the other every time you play an hour or more of online poker. I never play a session perfectly, for instance, and suckouts always happen to me, as they do to anyone who understands that if you are re-raised and you are holding J-K os, you should probably fold.
After waking up still mad and frustrated, I've decided that enough is enough. My health is good and I'm in great shape, so it would be stupid to blow up my heart on stress related to poker. Besides, I don't play high limits and poker, ultimately, is about making a little money while having fun. It's not a job. Not even close.
Once I made that resolution - call it my New March Resolution - I had one of my best runs of the year today, almost 12 miles and feeling great. I hope there's a connection there.
I can't say I'll live up to the resolution - most people don't - but I'll continue to try.
Thought #2 - Usually when I have a big hand on the river, I'm having a hard time these days deciding whether to value bet, check and hope for a bet so I can raise, overbet for value (usually just jamming) or bet lightly and hope for a raise.
I'm usually failing on the side of overbetting because I figure the times they do call will make up for the times I get nothing out of the river bet. Skalansky advocates this as well.
I still believe this although lately I'm having a hard time getting my monsters paid, and I don't think I'm playing overly tight (plus I'm playing at the lemming level where they don't pay attention to table image too much), though that is always my nature.
Your thoughts?
Thought #3 - I have been more aggressive lately in cash games and it seems to be paying off, though I'm still jamming at the wrong times occasionally (on the river, when I have no fold equity) and just jamming with high pocket pairs instead of playing them better.
This seems to be making me money, though I've made two bad mistakes lately that cost me more profit, mistakes I would not have made, because I"m trying to be more aggressive.
I suppose this is what we call learning.
Like learning that crawling down the stairs is not a good thing. The trick is for it not to kill you before the lesson is learned.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
To live and die in NCAA
The addiction to Kansas basketball started as it does with most, on my first trip to Allen Field House, the home of the Jayhawks.
I smelled popcorn as I walked past the security guard into the back entrance and clutching my trombone. It was the closest thing a band member ever came to being cool.
Students actually looked at me with envy, something I wasn't accustomed to while carrying my horn. I had a floor seat waiting for me, and all I would have to do to get it was play, something that in the past led to many of those students, or students like them, calling me a geek.
I nodded my head at the security guard as I walked on by. Just one the band members. Have a nice day.
I was still a little conflicted. I grew up hating the Jayhawks, as my parents both went to Missouri, Kansas' blood rival, and rooting for them seemed a little strange.
When I went my first tournament, against Indiana, I was no longer conflicted, but I wasn't entirely hooked yet, either. It was just something fun to do, and I was excited to get to see an NCAA tournament game live.
Now not only were strange students looking at me with envy, all of my dormmates were too.
Kansas went into the game as a heavy underdog. Indiana was the surprise No. 2 seed, as they finished the No. 2 team in the country, and not many gave us a chance as the No. 3 seed.
We started the game on a 26-5 run, and it was over in the first five minutes.
We played Arkansas next and its 40 minutes of hell, and the first half went just like everyone expected. The Razorbacks put us down by 12. But in the second half, we came out like lightning and won the game by 12. We outscored the top team in the country by 24 points.
Before the team came home to a packed Allen Field House, they allowed the band to run out to the floor and play a couple songs. We did, to bleacher-shaking screams, and when we played "In The Stone" by Earth, Wind and Fire, the place literally rocked.
I was no longer conflicted, and I was no longer indifferent.
I was in love.
The next year, we were heavy favorites to make the Final Four again, and it seemed like a lock after the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in our region were upset by the second round. I could taste a Final Four, and this year, I'd be able to go, as I was no longer a freshman and had first pick of the games I could attend and those I couldn't.
We went into the game against UTEP overconfident, but who could blame us, especially after last year?
It made the hurt that much sharper when the final seconds ticked down, and pretty soon, we all gathered in a circle as Roy Williams walked up the stairs and apologized for the loss, and I cried, hard.
My wife always wondered why I was so obsessed with Kansas basketball. She went to the University of Northern Colorado, a place that drew maybe 500 a game. I took to Allen one night over Christmas break, the only time it was possible to get tickets, and after the game she said, "I get it now."
Today starts another journey through the NCAA tournament, and loving Kansas basketball isn't much different than any other affair I've had. There's joy and moments of pure passion and searing heartbreak that stays with you forever.
Maybe she did get it that day, but I'm not so sure. I've sometimes wondered why I care so much about a team when it really has no affect on my daily life. The birth of my children, the day I got married and the day I had to leave the girl I was engaged all changed my life far more than the result of a basketball game.
Yet the games, especially this time of year, have stirred the same things I felt during those times.
The emotions are intoxicating, the memories invigorating, and they, just like the trombone, are a part of me.
I smelled popcorn as I walked past the security guard into the back entrance and clutching my trombone. It was the closest thing a band member ever came to being cool.
Students actually looked at me with envy, something I wasn't accustomed to while carrying my horn. I had a floor seat waiting for me, and all I would have to do to get it was play, something that in the past led to many of those students, or students like them, calling me a geek.
I nodded my head at the security guard as I walked on by. Just one the band members. Have a nice day.
I was still a little conflicted. I grew up hating the Jayhawks, as my parents both went to Missouri, Kansas' blood rival, and rooting for them seemed a little strange.
When I went my first tournament, against Indiana, I was no longer conflicted, but I wasn't entirely hooked yet, either. It was just something fun to do, and I was excited to get to see an NCAA tournament game live.
Now not only were strange students looking at me with envy, all of my dormmates were too.
Kansas went into the game as a heavy underdog. Indiana was the surprise No. 2 seed, as they finished the No. 2 team in the country, and not many gave us a chance as the No. 3 seed.
We started the game on a 26-5 run, and it was over in the first five minutes.
We played Arkansas next and its 40 minutes of hell, and the first half went just like everyone expected. The Razorbacks put us down by 12. But in the second half, we came out like lightning and won the game by 12. We outscored the top team in the country by 24 points.
Before the team came home to a packed Allen Field House, they allowed the band to run out to the floor and play a couple songs. We did, to bleacher-shaking screams, and when we played "In The Stone" by Earth, Wind and Fire, the place literally rocked.
I was no longer conflicted, and I was no longer indifferent.
I was in love.
The next year, we were heavy favorites to make the Final Four again, and it seemed like a lock after the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in our region were upset by the second round. I could taste a Final Four, and this year, I'd be able to go, as I was no longer a freshman and had first pick of the games I could attend and those I couldn't.
We went into the game against UTEP overconfident, but who could blame us, especially after last year?
It made the hurt that much sharper when the final seconds ticked down, and pretty soon, we all gathered in a circle as Roy Williams walked up the stairs and apologized for the loss, and I cried, hard.
My wife always wondered why I was so obsessed with Kansas basketball. She went to the University of Northern Colorado, a place that drew maybe 500 a game. I took to Allen one night over Christmas break, the only time it was possible to get tickets, and after the game she said, "I get it now."
Today starts another journey through the NCAA tournament, and loving Kansas basketball isn't much different than any other affair I've had. There's joy and moments of pure passion and searing heartbreak that stays with you forever.
Maybe she did get it that day, but I'm not so sure. I've sometimes wondered why I care so much about a team when it really has no affect on my daily life. The birth of my children, the day I got married and the day I had to leave the girl I was engaged all changed my life far more than the result of a basketball game.
Yet the games, especially this time of year, have stirred the same things I felt during those times.
The emotions are intoxicating, the memories invigorating, and they, just like the trombone, are a part of me.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Tagged by the Twinkies
The Twinkies tagged me, and while I don't normally buy into these things, I will do it because I love her blog, I have a special place in my heart for mothers of twins (since I am married to one) and this blog is a little unique in that it's only partially about poker and more about poker, running, mountain climbing, my toddler and twins and the occasional rant.
The rules are:
Link to the person who tagged you
Post the rules here
Share 7 random or weird facts about yourself
Tag 7 random people at the end of the post, linking to them
Leave a comment on their blog so that they know they’ve been tagged (not anonymously!!)
1. I secretly love cats. I used to hate them until I was living with a girl while in Salina who had them. They were very affectionate creatures, and one especially thought I was his buddy. He would follow me everywhere. When I moved to Greeley I took a cat with me and loved her. I had to give her up because Kate was allergic after we got married. It was heartbreaking and I still think about her occasionally.
2. I like to look at my shit before I flush it away (in case anyone thought I was turning into a girl on #1) to see how big it is. Does anyone else do this?
3. I used to hate cold weather. But over time, I conditioned myself to tolerate cold weather. I did this in just a few months before a trip when I would climb Mount Rainier in the winter. Now I can run in sub-zero weather and actually enjoy it if the wind isn't blowing. You can condition your mind to tolerate and then start to enjoy it things that you might previously find intolerable.
This is why people can play Omaha Hi/Lo.
4. I used to hate brocoli. Now I love it if it's steamed. See example #3.
5. I am a big heavy metal fan, but I find myself enjoying guilty pleasures such as Rihanna and pop songs. I'm not sure if this makes me a weaker metal fan or just more well rounded in my musical tastes. I also love classical and jazz music but those two genres are a lot like metal, probably more than you may realize. Maybe Blood will need to rule on whether it's OK to have Rihanna and Shadows Fall in your iPod Shuffle during a long run.
6. I really don't like to watch much TV, so I usually refuse to watch a show even if it gets drooled over by everyone else. I eventually regret this decision. I'd probably love "Lost," for instance. But I don't want to waste the time to see if I'll like a show.
7. Snakes are my favorite animal. During "Snakes on a Plane" I found myself rooting for the snakes. I really want a snake but my wife is phobic of them and would divorce me if I brought a snake into the house. So there's my out if we get empty nest syndrome once the kids are out of the house.
Just kidding, sweetie.
I really don't want to link to others because a lot of my blogging buds already get tagged a lot by memes. But I will link to her because seems to like them, these three are fellow northern Colorado bloggers, and this guy writes my favorite blog just because it makes me laugh. Plus he doesn't mind when I bug him in the girly chat.
The rules are:
Link to the person who tagged you
Post the rules here
Share 7 random or weird facts about yourself
Tag 7 random people at the end of the post, linking to them
Leave a comment on their blog so that they know they’ve been tagged (not anonymously!!)
1. I secretly love cats. I used to hate them until I was living with a girl while in Salina who had them. They were very affectionate creatures, and one especially thought I was his buddy. He would follow me everywhere. When I moved to Greeley I took a cat with me and loved her. I had to give her up because Kate was allergic after we got married. It was heartbreaking and I still think about her occasionally.
2. I like to look at my shit before I flush it away (in case anyone thought I was turning into a girl on #1) to see how big it is. Does anyone else do this?
3. I used to hate cold weather. But over time, I conditioned myself to tolerate cold weather. I did this in just a few months before a trip when I would climb Mount Rainier in the winter. Now I can run in sub-zero weather and actually enjoy it if the wind isn't blowing. You can condition your mind to tolerate and then start to enjoy it things that you might previously find intolerable.
This is why people can play Omaha Hi/Lo.
4. I used to hate brocoli. Now I love it if it's steamed. See example #3.
5. I am a big heavy metal fan, but I find myself enjoying guilty pleasures such as Rihanna and pop songs. I'm not sure if this makes me a weaker metal fan or just more well rounded in my musical tastes. I also love classical and jazz music but those two genres are a lot like metal, probably more than you may realize. Maybe Blood will need to rule on whether it's OK to have Rihanna and Shadows Fall in your iPod Shuffle during a long run.
6. I really don't like to watch much TV, so I usually refuse to watch a show even if it gets drooled over by everyone else. I eventually regret this decision. I'd probably love "Lost," for instance. But I don't want to waste the time to see if I'll like a show.
7. Snakes are my favorite animal. During "Snakes on a Plane" I found myself rooting for the snakes. I really want a snake but my wife is phobic of them and would divorce me if I brought a snake into the house. So there's my out if we get empty nest syndrome once the kids are out of the house.
Just kidding, sweetie.
I really don't want to link to others because a lot of my blogging buds already get tagged a lot by memes. But I will link to her because seems to like them, these three are fellow northern Colorado bloggers, and this guy writes my favorite blog just because it makes me laugh. Plus he doesn't mind when I bug him in the girly chat.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
March Gladness
I should feel really, really guilty right now.
I mean, the guy just became a father for I think the 13th time.
He has mouths to feed. Many mouths. Like 400.
That's a LOT of Mookie buy-ins.
Yet we all know how much I love my Kansas Jayhawks.
A few weeks ago, they lost in the last seconds to Texas in Hook 'Em Hell-ville, and a few minutes later I got a comment on my blog.
"Hook 'Em Horns!"
I yahooed the guy responsible and quickly offered a friendly bet.
Beat us again, I said, and I'll pay for your next Mookie.
Only you have to do the same.
He agreed, and Sunday, after one of the greatest games I have ever seen, I found a transfer for my next Mookie.
Hey, at least all the citizens of his third-world nation will be honest.
So I should feel really guilty right now taking the money from a new father.
But I don't.
Sorry, Mookie, but you DID start it.
P.S. Besides I have a toddler and twins.
I mean, the guy just became a father for I think the 13th time.
He has mouths to feed. Many mouths. Like 400.
That's a LOT of Mookie buy-ins.
Yet we all know how much I love my Kansas Jayhawks.
A few weeks ago, they lost in the last seconds to Texas in Hook 'Em Hell-ville, and a few minutes later I got a comment on my blog.
"Hook 'Em Horns!"
I yahooed the guy responsible and quickly offered a friendly bet.
Beat us again, I said, and I'll pay for your next Mookie.
Only you have to do the same.
He agreed, and Sunday, after one of the greatest games I have ever seen, I found a transfer for my next Mookie.
Hey, at least all the citizens of his third-world nation will be honest.
So I should feel really guilty right now taking the money from a new father.
But I don't.
Sorry, Mookie, but you DID start it.
P.S. Besides I have a toddler and twins.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Paid review of USA Online Casinos
* The following is a paid review.
Top USA Online Casinos has the right idea.
It's a Web site designed to keep us good 'ole American poker players in the game by helping us determine what sites still take us despite our government pronouncing online poker as on the level of heathens.
As I said, it's a nice idea.
If only Top USA Online Casinos did it the right way.
The Web site doesn't really have a lot of information that we probably couldn't get on our own. Granted, I may not be being completely fair. The site doesn't lay claim to being the best online poker information site, just one of the best casino sites.
In that regard it's not bad. You'll find an easy list of some of the best sites, a way to download it, what bonus you can expect and the strongest point of the site.
I hesitate to blast Online Casinos too much because those juicy bonuses remind me of the old days, when I could play poker and get a little extra scratch on the side. These days that doesn't happen nearly enough.
But the reviews really don't seem to be much more than promotional material you could find on the site itself. I'm all for short, bulleted, quick-hitting items, but if you're going to review a casino, I want to know its strengths and weaknesses in detail. What will make me choose this site, in other words, over others?
If you're a poker player, and many of you are, which is why you're here, you'll find nothing of any real value. The "online poker room" link leads to exactly two poker rooms. I'm pretty sure more sites than that take us American poker players.
As I said, Top USA Online Casinos has the right idea. We need to promote online poker in our country, especially since our government seems so concerned about stopping it, but sites that just want to cash in on a cooling craze by offering nothing but a few links is the wrong way to do it.
Top USA Online Casinos has the right idea.
It's a Web site designed to keep us good 'ole American poker players in the game by helping us determine what sites still take us despite our government pronouncing online poker as on the level of heathens.
As I said, it's a nice idea.
If only Top USA Online Casinos did it the right way.
The Web site doesn't really have a lot of information that we probably couldn't get on our own. Granted, I may not be being completely fair. The site doesn't lay claim to being the best online poker information site, just one of the best casino sites.
In that regard it's not bad. You'll find an easy list of some of the best sites, a way to download it, what bonus you can expect and the strongest point of the site.
I hesitate to blast Online Casinos too much because those juicy bonuses remind me of the old days, when I could play poker and get a little extra scratch on the side. These days that doesn't happen nearly enough.
But the reviews really don't seem to be much more than promotional material you could find on the site itself. I'm all for short, bulleted, quick-hitting items, but if you're going to review a casino, I want to know its strengths and weaknesses in detail. What will make me choose this site, in other words, over others?
If you're a poker player, and many of you are, which is why you're here, you'll find nothing of any real value. The "online poker room" link leads to exactly two poker rooms. I'm pretty sure more sites than that take us American poker players.
As I said, Top USA Online Casinos has the right idea. We need to promote online poker in our country, especially since our government seems so concerned about stopping it, but sites that just want to cash in on a cooling craze by offering nothing but a few links is the wrong way to do it.
The perspective of poker
I think probably the one thing poker has given me, other than a lot of fun, time with friends (both virtual and actual) and enough money to, say, go buy a Wii without the wife saying anything at all about it, is perspective.
Per-spec-tive, as the food critic in Ratatouille says.
It's taught me, someone who puts far too much weight into the results of something, that one moment does not make a career.
I write a mediocre story or make a mistake? I know I've done good work in the past, and I'll do it again.
I raise my voice to Jayden because he won't stop climbing on the chair even though I've told him not to about 785,386 times? I'll apologize and be a better father in a minute.
And, mostly importantly, at least lately, I have a bad run on two hours sleep at one of my favorite 5Ks of the year? My next race will surely be better.
Running is not easy for me. I've never been blessed with athletic skills. Those of you who can rifle a football 50 yards, hit a softball 500 feet and dribble a basketball between your legs while you take off from the free throw line will not relate to this post.
If you've read me before, you'll notice that my favorite sports are the kind that reward hard work, guts and a little suffering, not the ability to ballet in mid-air. I do love my raquetball and softball, but my passions are mountain climbing, biking and, most recently, running.
What that means is I train, hard, year-round, but if you're one of the silky-smooth, you'll probably eventually beat me if you put in your fair share of runs.
Still, I get after it, and because of that, I do better than most. But it's always sort of a struggle.
Lately I've done these tempo runs at four miles, and I try to maintain an 8-minute pace.
I've had a good winter season putting in miles and preparing for what I think will be my best year ever. Today, for instance, I ran 10 miles, and while I was certainly tired, I wasn't dead tired. I feel pretty good right now.
It seems to be paying off. I ran 22:50 for a winter 5K. That's a great time for this time of the year, when I'm not running serious intervals and had to dodge ice and snow and it was colder than a castle dungeon.
And yet, I can't seem to glide along during this 8-minute pace. It should be getting easier, in other words, but every time I pull into my driveway, I'm so glad it's over. I pant and wheeze and pull off my sweaty clothes and like nothing more than hopping into the shower and pouring a bowl of Golden Grahams.
How can I expect to break 48 minutes in a 10K if I can't even run faster than 8 minutes during a tempo run?
But then I tell myself that there are times when I struggle at the poker table. Times? Hell, more than half the time I'm frustrated and a little pissy after a session, even if I win a little bit.
But ultimately, every month I come out of there with a little green.
I'll never be a great player, just like I'll never be a great runner. I don't have the time to devote to either pursuits to become great.
But poker is a great reminder that my new favorite sport is indeed just one long run.
Per-spec-tive, as the food critic in Ratatouille says.
It's taught me, someone who puts far too much weight into the results of something, that one moment does not make a career.
I write a mediocre story or make a mistake? I know I've done good work in the past, and I'll do it again.
I raise my voice to Jayden because he won't stop climbing on the chair even though I've told him not to about 785,386 times? I'll apologize and be a better father in a minute.
And, mostly importantly, at least lately, I have a bad run on two hours sleep at one of my favorite 5Ks of the year? My next race will surely be better.
Running is not easy for me. I've never been blessed with athletic skills. Those of you who can rifle a football 50 yards, hit a softball 500 feet and dribble a basketball between your legs while you take off from the free throw line will not relate to this post.
If you've read me before, you'll notice that my favorite sports are the kind that reward hard work, guts and a little suffering, not the ability to ballet in mid-air. I do love my raquetball and softball, but my passions are mountain climbing, biking and, most recently, running.
What that means is I train, hard, year-round, but if you're one of the silky-smooth, you'll probably eventually beat me if you put in your fair share of runs.
Still, I get after it, and because of that, I do better than most. But it's always sort of a struggle.
Lately I've done these tempo runs at four miles, and I try to maintain an 8-minute pace.
I've had a good winter season putting in miles and preparing for what I think will be my best year ever. Today, for instance, I ran 10 miles, and while I was certainly tired, I wasn't dead tired. I feel pretty good right now.
It seems to be paying off. I ran 22:50 for a winter 5K. That's a great time for this time of the year, when I'm not running serious intervals and had to dodge ice and snow and it was colder than a castle dungeon.
And yet, I can't seem to glide along during this 8-minute pace. It should be getting easier, in other words, but every time I pull into my driveway, I'm so glad it's over. I pant and wheeze and pull off my sweaty clothes and like nothing more than hopping into the shower and pouring a bowl of Golden Grahams.
How can I expect to break 48 minutes in a 10K if I can't even run faster than 8 minutes during a tempo run?
But then I tell myself that there are times when I struggle at the poker table. Times? Hell, more than half the time I'm frustrated and a little pissy after a session, even if I win a little bit.
But ultimately, every month I come out of there with a little green.
I'll never be a great player, just like I'll never be a great runner. I don't have the time to devote to either pursuits to become great.
But poker is a great reminder that my new favorite sport is indeed just one long run.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Torn
I got my swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated in the mail a couple weeks ago. Normally this is cause for a celebration that rivals the Irish whooping it up for St. Patrick's Day. Instead, I haven't even cracked its cover.
I was whooping up a storm as I walked in the kitchen, mail in hand, already anticipating a night of Marvin Gaye, low lighting and soft, slow turns of the page. It's a tradition I've loved since I was 13, when the Internet didn't exist, we didn't have cable and its generous helpings of Cinemax every night and the Sears catalouge sometimes had to do.
The SI swimsuit, compared to the Sears catalouge, rocks.
I used to bargain with my friends. We would trade Paulina Porizkova for Kathy Ireland as if they were baseball cards and when I stumbled upon the old Christie Brinkley issues, I was treated like the guy with the best snow in Miami. Fortunately reason took over me at the last second and I turned away the sissors, preferring to keep Ms. Brinkley whole, the way she should always be, before Billy Joel got to her.
I still have all the issues in a box up on the shelf, next to the Kansas Jayhawk Final Four editions and when the Royals won the World Series.
Only when I walked into the kitchen, my two girls were staring up at me, happy and excited to see their Daddy home.
And I remembered when I gave my brother a Girls of KU calendar for Christmas one year. We were both new parents. Our children were just a few months old, and I thought it would be fun to relive our college days.
I had a son. He had a daughter.
Kate looked at the calendar.
"Maybe Sofia will be in there one day," Kate said.
She knew exactly what she was doing. Brian laughed for just a second, and then his mouth slowly turned into a grimace, then a frown, and finally, a new expression I hadn't seen before, one with wide eyes, a slightly downturned gnash and a wrinkled nose.
It is probably the face of any father the first time they see their daughter walk down the stairs in her prom dress, or when they take a family trip to the beach and notice that their little girl has boobs.
The three stages I saw in Brian, just like any father, I would imagine, were:
• Holy Shit.
• Wait, I remember what I was like when I was a teenage boy.
• If anyone touches my daughter, I'll KILL him. With an axe. While I laugh merrily and sing "Helter Skelter" by the Beatles or maybe, in a pinch, the Motley Crue version.
I didn't go through all those stages just yet. I blocked out my thoughts, and my hearing, and ran downstairs before Kate could see the magazine and ruin it for me.
But the vision of my two, smiling, innocent faces is enough to make me pause and think "that's someone's daughter" when the TV brushes across Cinemax late at night.
Before you think I've reformed, let me tell you I haven't. That would be too easy. I'd throw the magazines away, block Cinemax and smash all my extra-special videotapes that I keep downstairs. And that would be the end of it.
But I'm torn, and it's not just because the 15-year-old in me says "WAIT, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" with his voice cracking under puberty.
I really don't think what the women are doing is immoral. I'm not exactly the church-going type, anyway, but the photos in SI are tasteful and professional (at least I think so, I haven't seen them yet) and, though they border on Playboy material these days, the models do that for a living and make damn good money doing it, in fact.
I don't even have a problem with stripping or, I suppose, porn. I dated a stripper once, and she was a good woman. We had a good time together.
And I'm still a guy and love beautiful women who like to get naked.
Finally, it bothers me that a woman who models or strips or even does porn is a whore but the men who do it are studs (or gay, but that's not what I'm talking about here).
Yet I can't help but wonder, especially when it comes to strippers and porn, that for every liberated, well-spoken woman who chooses to do that for a living because it's great money and because she feels great about herself and her body, there are dozens who do it because Daddy fucked up, or Step-Daddy fucked her, or Uncle Johnny stared at her a little too long and did something about it later that night.
Or her parents ignored her.
That makes me sad.
At one point, they were daughters in their high chairs, happy when their Daddy came home, just wanting him to love them.
That's the image I can't get out of my head when I look at that Sports Illustrated issue.
That's why, for now, it remains closed.
I was whooping up a storm as I walked in the kitchen, mail in hand, already anticipating a night of Marvin Gaye, low lighting and soft, slow turns of the page. It's a tradition I've loved since I was 13, when the Internet didn't exist, we didn't have cable and its generous helpings of Cinemax every night and the Sears catalouge sometimes had to do.
The SI swimsuit, compared to the Sears catalouge, rocks.
I used to bargain with my friends. We would trade Paulina Porizkova for Kathy Ireland as if they were baseball cards and when I stumbled upon the old Christie Brinkley issues, I was treated like the guy with the best snow in Miami. Fortunately reason took over me at the last second and I turned away the sissors, preferring to keep Ms. Brinkley whole, the way she should always be, before Billy Joel got to her.
I still have all the issues in a box up on the shelf, next to the Kansas Jayhawk Final Four editions and when the Royals won the World Series.
Only when I walked into the kitchen, my two girls were staring up at me, happy and excited to see their Daddy home.
And I remembered when I gave my brother a Girls of KU calendar for Christmas one year. We were both new parents. Our children were just a few months old, and I thought it would be fun to relive our college days.
I had a son. He had a daughter.
Kate looked at the calendar.
"Maybe Sofia will be in there one day," Kate said.
She knew exactly what she was doing. Brian laughed for just a second, and then his mouth slowly turned into a grimace, then a frown, and finally, a new expression I hadn't seen before, one with wide eyes, a slightly downturned gnash and a wrinkled nose.
It is probably the face of any father the first time they see their daughter walk down the stairs in her prom dress, or when they take a family trip to the beach and notice that their little girl has boobs.
The three stages I saw in Brian, just like any father, I would imagine, were:
• Holy Shit.
• Wait, I remember what I was like when I was a teenage boy.
• If anyone touches my daughter, I'll KILL him. With an axe. While I laugh merrily and sing "Helter Skelter" by the Beatles or maybe, in a pinch, the Motley Crue version.
I didn't go through all those stages just yet. I blocked out my thoughts, and my hearing, and ran downstairs before Kate could see the magazine and ruin it for me.
But the vision of my two, smiling, innocent faces is enough to make me pause and think "that's someone's daughter" when the TV brushes across Cinemax late at night.
Before you think I've reformed, let me tell you I haven't. That would be too easy. I'd throw the magazines away, block Cinemax and smash all my extra-special videotapes that I keep downstairs. And that would be the end of it.
But I'm torn, and it's not just because the 15-year-old in me says "WAIT, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" with his voice cracking under puberty.
I really don't think what the women are doing is immoral. I'm not exactly the church-going type, anyway, but the photos in SI are tasteful and professional (at least I think so, I haven't seen them yet) and, though they border on Playboy material these days, the models do that for a living and make damn good money doing it, in fact.
I don't even have a problem with stripping or, I suppose, porn. I dated a stripper once, and she was a good woman. We had a good time together.
And I'm still a guy and love beautiful women who like to get naked.
Finally, it bothers me that a woman who models or strips or even does porn is a whore but the men who do it are studs (or gay, but that's not what I'm talking about here).
Yet I can't help but wonder, especially when it comes to strippers and porn, that for every liberated, well-spoken woman who chooses to do that for a living because it's great money and because she feels great about herself and her body, there are dozens who do it because Daddy fucked up, or Step-Daddy fucked her, or Uncle Johnny stared at her a little too long and did something about it later that night.
Or her parents ignored her.
That makes me sad.
At one point, they were daughters in their high chairs, happy when their Daddy came home, just wanting him to love them.
That's the image I can't get out of my head when I look at that Sports Illustrated issue.
That's why, for now, it remains closed.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
A step-by-step guide to changing twins at the ass-crack of dawn
Before you begin changing your 9-month-old, just-learned-to-crawl-twins (video coming), it's highly recommended you practice for a bit.
We recommend fishing out a bass with your bare hands and trying to put a sweater on it, learning how to scuba dive and wrestling with a squid or playing with a Slinky while you juggle a carton of eggs and jog up and down a flight of stairs.
1. Hear wife's lovely voice asking you to get up at 6 a.m. Try to ignore fact that wife's voice sounds like sandpaper being rubbed on a chalk board that early in the morning.
2. Walk into nursery and have gray clouds lifted from soul, at least a little, by big, wide smiles and babbling.
3. Remove twin from crib and place on carpet.
4. Instantly scoot over to catch twin before she crawls into the bathroom.
5. Pull now screaming twin back to you.
6. Put pacifier in twin's mouth.
7. Remove one piece of tape from diaper.
8. Flip twin back over.
9. Remove other piece of tape from diaper.
10. See something that looks like Bill Cosby stuck one of his Jello Pudding Pops inside diaper overnight.
11. Yell for wipes when you discover the bag is out.
12. Try to hold twin by leg while she squirms left and right and try to clean bottom with wipe.
13. Ignore protests from said twin, who prefers to be on the move ALL THE TIME.
14. Finish job, release twin from foothold and turn around to get diaper.
15. Scoot across carpet to catch twin. Drag her back, flip her over.
16. Move her to open diaper.
17. Move her again.
18. Again.
19. There you go. Put diaper on twin.
20. Ask wife to pick out outfits. Grunt when she asks if everything is OK.
21. Hold down protesting twin long enough to get pants on. Fight like hell to get her to stay put long enough to put on pants.
22. Remove twin's legs from one pant and start over.
23. Do it again. Fight like hell urge to toss twin out of second-story window.
24. Catch twin, flip her over and put pants on one leg at a time.
25. Give twin plastic crab.
26. Sit twin up and put on shirt. Make brrrrrrrr noise with mouth so twin doesn't panic when her face is covered for 30 seconds.
27. Give twin a smile. You're done!
28. Close bedroom door so twin doesn't escape.
29. Lift second twin out of crib.
30. Start over.
We recommend fishing out a bass with your bare hands and trying to put a sweater on it, learning how to scuba dive and wrestling with a squid or playing with a Slinky while you juggle a carton of eggs and jog up and down a flight of stairs.
1. Hear wife's lovely voice asking you to get up at 6 a.m. Try to ignore fact that wife's voice sounds like sandpaper being rubbed on a chalk board that early in the morning.
2. Walk into nursery and have gray clouds lifted from soul, at least a little, by big, wide smiles and babbling.
3. Remove twin from crib and place on carpet.
4. Instantly scoot over to catch twin before she crawls into the bathroom.
5. Pull now screaming twin back to you.
6. Put pacifier in twin's mouth.
7. Remove one piece of tape from diaper.
8. Flip twin back over.
9. Remove other piece of tape from diaper.
10. See something that looks like Bill Cosby stuck one of his Jello Pudding Pops inside diaper overnight.
11. Yell for wipes when you discover the bag is out.
12. Try to hold twin by leg while she squirms left and right and try to clean bottom with wipe.
13. Ignore protests from said twin, who prefers to be on the move ALL THE TIME.
14. Finish job, release twin from foothold and turn around to get diaper.
15. Scoot across carpet to catch twin. Drag her back, flip her over.
16. Move her to open diaper.
17. Move her again.
18. Again.
19. There you go. Put diaper on twin.
20. Ask wife to pick out outfits. Grunt when she asks if everything is OK.
21. Hold down protesting twin long enough to get pants on. Fight like hell to get her to stay put long enough to put on pants.
22. Remove twin's legs from one pant and start over.
23. Do it again. Fight like hell urge to toss twin out of second-story window.
24. Catch twin, flip her over and put pants on one leg at a time.
25. Give twin plastic crab.
26. Sit twin up and put on shirt. Make brrrrrrrr noise with mouth so twin doesn't panic when her face is covered for 30 seconds.
27. Give twin a smile. You're done!
28. Close bedroom door so twin doesn't escape.
29. Lift second twin out of crib.
30. Start over.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
This is a little spooky
I hadn't flopped a set in a long time during this ho-hum, blah streak, and I picked up a pair of 5s. Presto!
Here's the result:
Again, not paid off that much. But that's not the point. The point is I don't get quads very often - who does, really - but the four times I've had them in the last three months have all come with Presto.
Count me among the members of the Presto is Gold cult.
Here's the result:
Again, not paid off that much. But that's not the point. The point is I don't get quads very often - who does, really - but the four times I've had them in the last three months have all come with Presto.
Count me among the members of the Presto is Gold cult.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
