Good foot...

To completely steal the idea from my buddy, BigSug (Dave Z.), off on the good foot!

***click image below to see full image***

Sick, Music and running well!

Yeah, so I'm still sick. This is getting old at this point. It's a headcold that has migrated down into my chest. Between lots of fluids (water and hot green tea), dayquil, NyQuil (which isn't helping me sleep), and some Shower Soothers, I'm trying to get better, but I'm not sure how well it's working. Am I going to have to look into getting an iron lung here or what?!? Amanda has gotten sick too (isn't Amarillo GREAT!), so we're a house of suck, currently. Not to mention that even after taking a couple of swigs of 'big fuckin'-Q' before I head to bed, I'm still topping out at 4hours of sleep a night. Yay :/

Outside of that, man, well, shit, life's pretty damn good right now. There are so many things going well that, I'm loving the transition, despite being pathetic and sick.

First off, poker is going great. Take today, for instance. I was fortunate enough (insert sarcasm here) to run AA into sets 3 seperate times, JJ into QQ, yet still booked a $500+ win, all before breakfast. I guess I'm running a little hot, but more than that, I just think that I'm really learning to pick my spots well and my ability to change gears has me kinda giddy about the shape my game is in right now. So teh pokerz is goot!

I also have been in a musical rut of late. I mean, I love pretty much every type of music, but I found myself just listening to the same things over and over...and over. Well, thanks to the good guys over at Footballguys, I got turned onto 3 seperate bands yesterday that I'm really digging:

Mofro "Brighter Days" I don't know how to describe them, but damn they are great! "Brighter Days" and "Fireflies" are my fave two so far...but still haven't heard them all.

Built To Spill Not sure which is my favorite yet, but digging them for sure.

Citizen Cope "Brother Lee" I think that my take on them is Sublime meets DMB. Thoughts on that? And yeah, good shit!

Another great thing going on right now is that I think we have found our house in Vegas! We have two particular ones in mind, but there certainly is one in particular. It's in SE Vegas, better known as Green Valley Ranch. 3466 sq. ft. 5 bedrooms, 3 bath, 2 fireplaces, in ground pool & jacuzzi in the backyard. Not sure if it qualifies as 'balla', but it's gorgeous and we're pretty jazzed about it. Assani is supposed to go see it w/ the real estate guy today, so hopefully he likes it as much as we do. If not, the other one is 3982 sq. ft, 5 bedrooms, 3 bath, w/ the pool and jacuzzi as well. Both are right in our range, budget-wise, so yeah, we're really hoping one of these two pan out. I promise pics once we move in!

So yeah, despite being miserable, health-wise right not, there's a lot of things going well. I plan on doing all that I can to ensure it continues as well.

And if any of y'all reading this have any suggestions/ideas on how to get this crud outta my chest, please lemme know!

In a world of suck

Imo, there are few things that suck as much as being sick. Well, having to go into work being sick is worse, but thankfully, that's a non-issue now, eh? You body aches, head throbs, and no matter what you do, you can't get shit for sleep. Hello 4 hours tops and wake up miserable. No amount of antibiotics and fluids make it better, until they do. But until then, you're just in a world of suck. So here I am, in a world of suck.

Poker-wise, though, I'm at the polar opposite of suck. Everything is clicking. Even after my 'meh' sessions (meh meaning nothing of interest, just kinda 'was'), I'm booking a BI win. This month has been going very very well. My favorite part about it is that I'm full of confidence and not really running 'lucky' either. I feel in control of my game and that's a pretty killer feeling. My bluffs work, my monsters get paid off and I'm picking the right spots to value bet thinly. I know this won't last forever, so I'm surely enjoying this little mini-heater. I think most importantly, I'm not dreading the other side of this rush. I mean, I know it'll eventually come, so why worry about it? Just try to make the best decisions I can every chance and fuck variance. Play well and I know I'm happy.

Last night, I felt I misplayed a hand and it ate at me for a couple of hours afterward because I felt that I had played it poorly. Not because I lost, but because I made a mistake in the hand. I think that's a good sign that I'm not really dwelling on my wins and great call-downs etc. I'm dwelling on my mistakes and making sure that I learn from them. Cool thing is, after hundreds of thousands of hands, I'm still as eager as ever to learn and improve.

So, on another note, I added a new counter to the blog that tracks traffic etc. to my lil space of the innerwebs and I noticed that someone had read one of my posts from like 1 1/2 years ago.

HOLY SHIT!!! how little I knew back then. And seriously, LOL at me being stunned at people 8-tabling back then. *sigh* Wasn't I cute. Just shows how much someone can learn about this game and this life in only 18 months or so.

I go from 3-tabling 2/4 LIMIT hold'em, to 6 tabling 200NL and 400NL. Man how things have changed. I look back at some of my posts in here and realize how big of a fish I was back then. Even though I'm light years further along from where I was, skill wise, I still have that wide-eyed awe of my inner 8 yr-old who still longs to learn more and who still can not get enough of this game. God I hope I never, ever lose that. I love my passion for this game and all that comes w/ it. I may be in a world of suck, being sick, right now, but man, I love my job! I just can't wipe the smile off of my face. Life is good!

Hi everyone!

Wow! I didn't expect to get so many visits so soon. Well, just wanted to welcome everyone (again) and encourage all y'all to leave comments! I'd love to know who my readers are!

Damn the Man Day!

Holy shit do things change quickly...

Last Friday (Feb. 1), my supervisor asked me the question that my closest friends have asked me for months and the one that I have asked myself numerous times as well, "Why the fuck are you still here?". See, ever since around my 30th B-day, I've entertained the idea of saying goodbye to my ole 9-5 life grind and take my shot as a professional poker player. Obviously I was nowhere near ready back then, but about 6 monnths ago, the ball was set in motion and the date of February 1, 2008, was supposed to be "D" day.

Lots of things happened between my first entertaining the idea and the day that "D" was set. The biggest of which was my divorce from my wife. It was amicable (on my end at least lol), but obviously a huge life-changing event. No kids, thankfully, but a big change nonetheless.

So about 9 months after that, I made the decision to set "D" day and with it came the decision to move to Las Vegas as well. Now, for those that have spent any time in Vegas, I'm sure you're asking WTF would you want to move there when the average person is near death after a week, due to burning their candles at both ends. This would be a good time to mention that I have a serious girlfriend and we have spent some time out there as well and, well, we fucking LOVE it there.

I mean, come on, what's not to love? You'll never be bored, fantastic restaurants, cost of living (esp. now) is quite reasonable, everyone who is anyone, music-wise, comes thru Vegas, we both love boxing and Vegas is the home of the big fights, the location is excellent (we like the desert and you're a quick flight from LA, SD, SF, Phoenix etc) and we both just love the town. Not to mention that neither of us have much by way of your normal vices assosciated w/ Vegas. So why the fuck not?

So, sometime in November, my buddy and also a poker pro, Assani, and I were talking and we brought up the idea of being roommates when we move out to Vegas. It would help save on the expenses when we first get out there etc. and we all get along, so why not? We had originally planned on moving out there @ May 1. May seemed good since it gives us a little more time to prepare as well as gives us a month to get settled in before the WSOP begins. But Assani said his lease is up at the end of March. Hmmmm, April 1 sounds good then, eh?

Then, a week later, out-of-the-blue, Assani's bestfriend, Anthony, calls him and says that he got a job offer from the minor league hockey team out in Vegas...random, but, hey, things happen for a reason, right? So we are now 5 (me, Amanda, Assani, Anthony, & Katie (Anthony's girlie girl). Well, alrighty then!

So we started brainstorming regarding what we wanted in a house.

[x] safe/good neighborhood
[x] running water
[x] air conditioning
[x] 4+ bedrooms (one of which will be used as Assani's and my poker office)
[x] 3+ bathrooms
[x] in-ground pool
[X] in-ground jacuzzi
[x] big ass kitchen

So, with that criteria, we've were looking online, but didn't want to start too soon, since we stil had 3+ months til we all moved in. But man, holy good fuck are there some killer pads out there for CHEAP! Thanks to the mortgage crisis, houses are real cheap, but it's still not ideal to buy, yet, so hence here we are for a year or so.

So, back to the whole, "Why the fuck are you still here?" question from my supervisor...Not sure if I have mentioned it in here before or not, but I was a flight electrician on the V-22 Osprey. A pretty solid job and it's aviation, which is what I've been doing for the last 15 years, first in the USMC then into the civilian world. But, man, I've been burnt out on it for a long, long time. It got to where I just felt like going into work, everyday, day-in-day-out, was a huge drain on my life, but the money was decent.

And Adam, my supervisor knew it, as did all my friends. I mean, let's face it. Eddie is not, nor has he ever, been cut out for a 9-5. I really believe that there are people that thrive in that type of environment, but I am not one of them. So, when I came into work that day, I don't know why, but Adam says that to me...I think it may have had to do with yet another day of just total bullshit that we had to deal with thanks to the government giving excuses why they didn't want to fly our aircraft or the like.

He and I were standing near his cubicle and got to talking about it and I told him that since we're not moving until the end of March, I might as well get that paycheck a little while longer. But then he says something so obvious, yet so profound that it stopped me in my tracks. "But you make a shitload more, per hour, than you do here. You'd have even more time to do it if you didn't have to come in here and be so fucking miserable."

Funny thing is, I knew this already. As did Amanda. And Adrian. And everyone else who knew me. I think I just needed that one more little shove. So what did I do? I called Amanda and ran it by her. Her response? "About time." LDO, right? So, I went to one of our computers and wrote the following:

Adam & Dave,

I am hereby resigning my position as a V-22 Flight Electrician for Bell Helicopter, as of Feb. 8th, 2008. I would like to personally thank the both of you, as well as Bell, for giving me the opportunity to work and grow both professionally as well as a member of the Bell Team. But, the time has come for a change and I must go.
Thank you very much,
SirFelixCat

I signed it, handed it to Adam and asked him to sit on it til the following Monday. He smiled and said that he would and I immediately felt like a ton of bricks was lifted off of my shoulders.

That weekend (last weekend as it were) Amanda and I talked it over and it became the obvious choice. So come Monday, I told Adam to hand it in and then I found myself much more happy and relaxed than I had been in months. I knew that I had the bankroll and the savings to take the shot, just needed a little help taking that first step.

I mean, to be honest, I do not fear failure in the least. I fear regret much more than I ever do failure, so I would much rather step up to this cliff, jump, flail around and crash than to have stepped up to the edge of the cliff then backed away, too scared to jump. How the fuck can you realize your dreams if you never put yourself out there and take that chance?!?

So on February 8, 2008, I punched the timeclock for the final time. Play well and fuck variance, eh? Here we go!