Get my mind right!

I sit here wading through thought, restlessness and activity that must be achieved.  Very vague but true.  I am in a great position here and truly appreciate what I have been blessed with and every day I must challenge myself to be better.  I don't have a boss who has an office two doors down from me, he is in another city which is in another state!  I am the one who runs this and I must step up on a daily basis and make sure all of the ground work I started in September continues to this day.  There are days where team members make a mistake, now I have to look at that mistake and deem it a quick floor conversation or a "let's move to the office and talk" conversation.  I've had a few of the later but my goal is to set it up that I should rarely set foot on that floor, I want and need to work to the next level while I am currently running operations here for example our Operations Excellence director is working all the CI projects, I am a CI guy and could help with quality input, travel to get productive data, take some of the workload off and make it my own, to solidify my position and set myself up to move to the next level when promotions are considered.
I have several books on styles of management, I am currently reading a book that talks about how I got to where I am will not get me to the next level.  Very interesting stuff, of course there are a few other books I am reading at the same time along with my comic books and graphic novels.  Yes, I enjoy reading and wish it would better me around my writing skills.  A quote comes to mind, "You get out of it what you put into it,"...right?

So I sit here and thoughts of MW3 are streaming through my thoughts.  Fifth prestige, 1.03 k/d, just doing work!  Those thoughts are quickly followed by sitting at a poker table and felting a lunchbox who called my three beat with A 10 off and runs into my pocket aces.  All of these things take effort, I am an okay texas hold'em player and have been a gamer since rocking and rolling on my commodore 64 in the 80's!

The last couple of years have been unsuccessful in poker in the cash games,  it was so bad last year that I told my wife I'd have to take the rest of 2011 off and not play in a casino environment.  Why?  I had not put into it what I expected!  I have a library of poker books, a lot of friends who play much better than myself and blogs to read and I have not leveraged any of those resources.  I just went off of what I knew and told myself it was like riding a bicycle and  I sat down and played.  Of course I SKIMMED through a couple of my books looking at a few of the highlighted areas and told myself, "LET's DO IT!"
 It was not that easy, I remember sitting at the table, holding K Q suited in the cut off seat and this lady in the hi jack, right next to me raises after two had limped into the pot and I just called but something in the way back of my head told me I should raise here, but I was not sure.  I ended up winning the hand but after that indecision I continued to make bad decisions and eventually lost a buy in.  I have over 10 books about poker and am reading through one that has opened my eyes and has me salivating to get to the tables.  I plan on making a showing in late February and hope to play on Friday evenings going forward and look forward to documenting my WINS and how it was done.  I am putting a lot of research into getting back on the tables and will be talking to a few of my buddy's about random thought processes throughout a session.  I believe that putting the research time, the study in will pay off and it was something I did not do well before.  Yes, I talked about it and said I was going to do it but I actually am and it has been insightful.

Barry Sanders...THE MAN!

I love my family, I love my home, I love my life and I look at others who have children and wonder if my desire to play and take some time from my kids is bad?  What I mean is if I go play poker, I am not around my kids, sharing in those special moments.  For example, my three year old, Sienna, ran into the living room, jumped up next to me on the couch looked at me, smiled and said I love you daddy.  I said I loved her back.  She continued to sit there for a few more seconds and said "You love me enough to get me some milk?"  That was awesome!  She usually taps my hand and says Daddy get me some milk.  Then I have to say, What was that honey?  Then she says, Can you fix me some milk?  But this time it was special as she is learning to manipulate me!  LOL!  It'll only be an evening out of the week but maybe it's the way I am putting down that it seems and feels despicable.  Yet, I want and feel that I need to play and it worries me and I hope it does not worry me so much that I will play bad.  So as I stated in another post, I have to give up my x-box time and hang out with the kids during that time and the weekends are wide open for my little ones.  I have a 17 year old who wants to play football for the first time IN COLLEGE and has asked me to show him some stuff!  Color me excited!  The only things I force on my kids are learning how to respect others, discipline and making sure they are getting an education.  I envy my wife as she lives here life for my kids, not that I don't but it is much different in comparing how she is versus how I am with our kids.  What the heck just happened, now should I delete all this mopey stuff about my kids or should I leave it, hell, going to leave it!  We only live once folks, but we need to do what we want responsibly and hold ourselves accountable!  I know my kids love me to death and I them, so it won't hurt if I am a bit successful at the tables and it pays off when Santa comes...just saying!  Enough!  I have ranted enough, you all stay frosty!

Stay nice as rice and mello as jello!

DEAD MONEY Last Chance table

1-17-2012

I donned my Gulf coast poker.net hoodie, after parking in Harrah's garage, 8th floor.  Grabbed my satchel, put on my size 8 throwback fitted hat and proceeded to the Queen and Crescent hotel, home of the Dead Money tournament.  I arrived in a state of panic as I forgot that there are two entrances to the hotel and was hanging out in the wrong one, I had to cross the street to the main entrance and proceed to the Napoleon room.  I flopped down into a black painted, hard wood chair, quickly took off the hoodie and the throwback Dallas Cowboy hat in order to cool down as I began to slowly perspire, a very uncomfortable feeling.  Met Wild Bill, exchanged pleasantries, grabbed a card player and bluff magazine, have not seen any of these for about a year, good stuff to find out where the poker world is now.  Of course getting on-line, and hitting those sites would be comparable, however; I enjoy holding a magazine and leafing through the pages.  I started a conversation with Austin, another blogger on the site, who had a pretty good cash in the Choctaw Casinos Indian tournament series, (hope that's correct).  He was pictured along side the other final table members in the current Card Player Magazine, cashed for 17K, but we were talking about the rise and fall of  his poker website and then Gene D rumbled in and we started talking with him and he and Austin talked about his free roll in the million dollar event due to his tourney MVP at the recent IP circuit event.
There were some interesting characters, the three friends from Cleveland, Ryan is the one I remember and I believe he won himself into the Main Event this past Saturday.  Also, met Brian from Nantucket, Ma, he's a captain of a fishing boat and had some pretty cool stories.  He's also a pretty damn good poker player.

We had 18 players to try to win two seats to the main table the next day.  I looked forward to this as it would be the first time I have played in 11 months.  I did, lie, and say I have played in some home games but I didn't want to be perceived as weak due to my lack of current experience, one of the only things I regret about the night.  The turn out has to be the 2nd largest if not the largest since Wild Bill started this back in 2004.  That said a lot to me about where poker is today, not dead and growing, much slower but growing.

At my table I had, Brian from Nantucket on my left, followed by an older gentleman who, I believe, plays regularly at Harrahs, not sure.  Followed by a young Russian(I think so because I heard him talking to the other Russian on the other table earlier and I think they were speaking in Russian, so I should be right)  who plays at Harrahs, freaking highly aggressive as I saw him , later that night, put the older gentleman all in with an Ace on the board and the the old guy made a crying call with pocket queens, the young Russian said, "You called, you win," and insta mucked his hand.  WOW!  The old guy still turned his hand up.  Then we had Ryan from Cleveland, Wild Bill, Dave Anderson, and Gene D on my right.  I held my own, after starting in the big blind with 6 8 off and hitting my gutshot straight on the turn, while it completed a flush, I bet it and was called by only Wild Bill.  I bet the blank on the river and was raised by WB, of course I should fold, but I called and he showed K3 suited for the flush.

I opened from position with good hands, had pocket pairs pretty often, lowest being treys.  I had pocket Kings twice, pocket Aces twice, showed the pocket kings once and had a solid image at this table.  Got involved in a hand with Gene D, I was in the hi-jack, he limped in after another before had limped as well, I look down at wired 8's and raise it, I get them both to call.  Flop is A 7 6, they both check to me.  I bet c-bet, looking for a check raise, the other guy folds and Gene D goes into this monologue, "Yeah, guess that hits your range, hmm, yep, that had to hit your range, good hand sir," and mucks.  I was laughing inside, I guess he limped with K 9 or 10, or J.  Maybe QJ or the very least Q 10.  Another hand which had me feeling good about my self was towards the end of that first table, image has been established, so the old guy opens, Ryan from Cleveland flats, I'm in the cut-off and I see that Brian from Nantucket likes what he sees and I quickly think he wants to play so that helped my decision with pocket 4's, I re popped it.  Brian, gives me a slight, "ugh," and the Old guy takes a long time before he folds, it comes back to Ryan, he looks at me and eventually calls.  The flop is A 9 J, Ryan checks I c-bet half the pot and Ryan mucks, the old guy said he had pocket Jacks.

When we lost eight players we got together on one table, I did well at my table but when we combined I had to lay down once when I had AK,  I raised pre-flop and got called by two players.  The flop was babies, 7 5 2, Austin bet into us, fold and I folded.  During this time I was getting blinded out and anted out, did not get a good hand and just did not play my position correctly nor understood the table dynamics enough to make the appropriate moves to win some money, what I am saying is I got very passive and finished by pushing all in with A 4 off into a pre flop raiser and caller.  I hit a four on the flop but pre flop raiser hit a set with his pocket 10's and I was out in sixth place.  Parfait and the other Russian advanced to the next day's final table, Gene D hit the bubble.

Wild Bill ran a good tournament, the only issue was the air, got pretty stuffy in there.  A funny story that happened during the tournament was Ryan went out and picked up some Chinese food and about 20 minutes later we had Chinese delivered, no one ordered it but the fellas bought it anyway, I can remember Captain Ron wanting an egg roll.  Looking forward to next years meeting and hopefully be in a position of playing a New Orleans table in November, last chance if I have to and have the ability to buy into the final table if I have to.  Research and experience, and more conversation with better players are my key ingredients!

You all stay nice as rice and mello as jello!

Alabama, Mardi Gras and Bad Beat jackpots

1-11-2012


Alabama showed everyone why they should have been in this game.  I am a University of Pittsburgh graduate so this is an impartial viewpoint (opinion).  First, it was not a fluke that Alabama did what they did to LSU there were several contributing reasons.  Defense-Alabama shut down LSU's option play, which allows LSU to open things up and do a lot out of this package, since it did not work for them Alabama was able to press their coverage and not worry to much about the deep ball.  We did get a glimpse of Alabama's secondary and it is not as strong as their front line.  That front line pressured, harassed and sacked LSU so much that the secondary did not have to worry too much about getting beat deep.  Running back-Alabama had the edge, due to Trent Richardson, but look out for Lacy next year going forward, he had a strong game.  Receivers and tight ends-Alabama's best receiver went down after a fantastic punt return and the receivers and tight ends stepped up.  There were deflected passes that were caught at crucial times, deep passes caught at crucial times.  Quarterback-not many, but the true Alabama fans, knew that McCarrion was as athletic as he showed us and he kept it under control while Jefferson looked confused and not in control.  Mental Game-Alabama wanted this more than LSU.  It felt like LSU thought that Alabama should roll over and hand them the win. Coaching-Alabama out coached LSU.  Les even admits this in post game interviews, he said he as surprised and did not know how to help his team.."WHAT! REALLY?!?" Score- Alabama SHUT OUT LSU, case closed they showed that they are the best in the nation and showed it in dramatic form. They proved that they, not Oklahoma State or anyone else should have been in this game. Just to put an exclamation point on this, LSU had one penetration of the 50 yard line into Alabama territory and less than 100 total offensive yards!
This was my brief take on the BCS game, I didn't think it was boring, I really enjoyed the watching how well coached BOTH defenses played, but LSU's defense was on the field for a long time and those boys got tired. 

Bird watchers have a blast waiting to see a particular bird and take great joy in watching all that they see and how those birds interact with their environment.  As a former player, I really enjoy the trench play, how well the defense would stay squared, watching offensive line and tight ends drive block on running plays.  How did the coaches teach them, what methods did they use?  Watching the best, really is interesting, if you watched me during my tenure, you would laugh at how undisciplined and foolish I looked on the field.


This February the 21st is FAT TUESDAY but I believe I'll be visiting friends in Missouri so I will not be around to take dat money at Harrahs. 

I believe that my first visit back to Harrahs will be on the 24th and I am eager!  I am going through my library and reading through some scenarios, refreshing myself around certain plays and situations, re-reading my book on tells but I think I'll be working on not giving away too much.  I have started my mantra, wait to play, wait to play, wait to play...because every time I take time off and get back to the tables, I usually play as soon as possible, out of position when someone has raised and the raiser gets called I look down at A9 suited and say, "yeah go for it you'll surprise 'em, they'll never see it coming," of course that has not worked ONCE!  There is a teaching format that I think I'll share if I can find it.  Helped me get my basics down.  


I was thinking about bad beat jackpots the other day and how hitting one of those could elevate someone's bankroll, quickly!  Well I have been involved in four at Harrahs and one in Biloxi, three at Harrahs were table stakes and the one in Biloxi was a table stake even though it was hit at another table!  Very cool.  The other that I was involved in was pretty special as I was the one who beat the guy for the bad beat, it was the beginning of my poker stint back in 2002, Harrahs poker room was in the back where the steak restaurant is, it had two levels and it was a great room!  We were isolated, not too noisy from the slots but visible enough for people to find.  This was before Moneymaker had hit it big and No Limit Texas Hold'em became "the" game.  Here in New Orleans before Moneymaker, omaha was the big game, especially 1-4-8-8 limit omaha/hold'em.   Well I was at the front table by the walk way towards the buffet.  There was this old guy who had pissed me off on the prior hand by chasing and catching on the river, we were working through the omaha round, every time the button got to the dealer the game would switch from hold'em to omaha back and forth.  I was in the 10 seat he was in the four seat, in the bad beat hand I had QJ suited 8 2, can't remember if it was hearts or diamonds.  I still remember the guy, about 6'4', always wore a baseball hat, white hair, mustache and trimmed beard and  had a look of "whatever" on his face at all times.  (SIDE NOTE-Little history, I used to play 7 card stud, at the treasure chest.  This is where I met Christy for the first time, she is an excellent dealer at Harrahs and usually deals the final table on the main events with Darrell.  I used to look at the half/half game back then and was very intimidated at the speed and the bets.  I finally start playing half/half and started to beat it eventually I would play during the week and the games would finish early so they told me about the room at Harrahs.  I make my way there and really enjoyed it.)  So we get a family pot, now I am steaming, this was during a time when my poker etiquette...SUCKED!  I was steaming and you could see it.  I think I was under the gun, yep, and the flop comes K, 10, 9 of hearts/diamonds.  I bet out, it was four bucks, two callers to the lunchbox and he raises and my buddy, Chris, calls, I call and another one of the earlier callers call as well.  The turn brings another heart/diamond like a 3 or 4, I check, check, lunchbox bets, Chris calls, I raise...yep...fold, lunchbox re-raises and Chris calls.  I look at Chris and he says to me, "Hope you got what I think you have!"  yes with three of us playing.  I simply call because I am confused.  I know that the lunchbox has the ace high flush so I am trying to get a lot of money from him, I just didn't know why Chris was still in it because a set should have let it go after the re-raise.  Well the river is a king, I don't care, I bet, lunchbox gets frustrated and folds, Chris says you do don't you!  He raises, I re-raise and he screams yes!  He calls and yells "JACKPOT!"  Now look, I haven't shown my cards yet, I could have been an idbot and raised with a full house or the ace high flush.  He turns his cards over with two black kings that match the two red ones on the board.  I scream and turn over my straight flush and the table erupts, even my nemesis.  It was a sizable jackpot as I took home $8k, he got over $20k and the table got a nice chunk.   I can't tell you what I did with that money but I promise you, bankroll management was not part of my vocabulary.  I hope that one day I can get snapped off for a jackpot but until then...

(similar but represented what happened)

You all stay nice as rice and mello as jello!

2012: Resolutions, College Football Helmets.

What up? So what are your New Year's resolutions? I have a few, of course, one being to lose weight. That one is key because my kids are getting a little more active and I need to show them how it is done! My 10 year old thinks he can dribble a basketball. He can't, however, he can bounce the ball with his hand, but he cannot dribble...not yet, but it'll come. One of the many things I want to be able to do, losing weight will help with that. Another resolution is to get more poker time, that will mean a huge reduction in XBOX time unless I am playing with the kids, because I will have to move that time to hanging with the kids so that I don't miss a beat in that department. I do enjoy playing MW3!
Projects for this year work and home: Patio around our Oak tree to include a fire pit. Enclosing part of the living room to create a gameroom/guest bedroom. Finishing our Five S project in the warehouse. Getting the offices cleaned up. Moving my office to the bigger office. Cleaning my closet. Setting up an ebay sales account, gots things I want to sell. So I will have a lot to do and will not be very idle after this weekend. Looking forward to Pitt playing SMU this Saturday. I don't know much about SMU, lately, but the program looks to be rising again. SMU Mustangs had been more like burros or mules but they have started playing football and have taken a long time to recover from the death penalty they were dealt so long ago. Pitt needs to be focused and finsh the season with a winning record. We picked up a new head coach , Paul Chryst, former Wisconsin Offensive coordinator. New coach and new conference, I am uber excited for the 2012 season! I don't know who is coaching the team in the bowl game but I suggest they start the true freshman from Texas, if he isn't hurt. Their senior...I hate to say this...hate to do this but it seems like he chokes. If they can get the run game going, and just control the ball and grind it out, we should win. Flashy isn't bad either but if it doesn't work it'll make us look bad. Go get that "W" Pitt! So, HAIL TO PITT!

In talking about college football, I secretly love the Oregon Ducks uniforms, all of them especially what they wore in the Rose Bowl. Those mirrored helmets were "BUTTERY!" I heard that the commentators were upset because they were so reflective (not against the rules) and it was hard to see the players numbers. As a fan who was watching I loved the look and enjoyed watching the game. I think those helmets will look better with the white uniforms with the gray wings. Maybe we will see them? I am not going to pressure my kids to go to that school but that is the only way I can wear another schools, of like caliber, colors. That is a rule! I am a PITT grad and I only rock that schools name. I also understand that the NFL is opening up the uniform policy and it looks like they are going to allow NIKE to get in there, starting in April 2012, moving away from Reebok. I have to show you all some of the cool helmets that were out there in college football. Shoot when I played we had one helmet, two different jerseys, freaking Oregon (In a class by themselves) have about six different uniforms and helmets! GEEZ! That, folks, is how much money college football is making, those uniforms are not just for the teams they are for spectators, we who like coolness and difference and will tune in and catch whatever ads that may play during that game, that is another reason, in my opinion, on why these schools get these different uniforms and helmets. With that said there will be a few who will not get multiple uniforms, for example, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama and Penn State. Here are a few of the helmets that I liked: Baylor's flat green helmet (NICE!) Arizona States Firey Pitch Fork (Awesome!) and Southern Mississippi's Flat black helmets(OUTSTANDING!)

Of course I think the flat paint jobs are due to an inspiration from the hit MTV show Rob and Big when they "murdered" out the Tahoe in all flat black.
Of course The New Years was great, we had Mitai's and frozen Margaritas. We fired off $40 worth of fireworks which seemed like a lot but was nothing compared to my neighbor who went through $2000 worth and what a show that was. Getting ready to start grinding it out in February. My first stop should be in Biloxi and then I'll make stops in Harrahs on Friday nights, so look for me in Harrah's grinding it out, I'm looking to try to make 40 big blinds an hour in the 1-2 NL game. I'll need prayer.

Okay, you all stay nice as rice and mello as jello!

NFL football, and Old Friends

What a day! A lot to do and just looking through my block and quality to see what we can sell and what we need to go ahead and scrap. So I jump over and look over yahoo news and see an article that motivated me to write this post...it has me a little irate, nah, really pissed off! The Saints crushed the Falcons last night. I mean they put a slacking on these guys, Micheal turner had 11 carries for 39 yards! SHUTDOWN! The Falcons had to throw the ball and M. Ryan was 65% for 373 yds and one touchdown! The Saints took over in the second quarter, scoring 14 points, and never looked back. The biggest story of the game is that New Orleans beloved Drew Brees set the NFL record for yards passing in a season, a mark that Dan Marino(HAIL TO PITT!) held for 27 years! Marino broke the record on Monday Night Football in 1984 flash forward to 2011 and Brees does so on Monday Night Football!

(A picture of the place where Marino played in his college days.)

OUTSTANDING! The thing is I am not a Saints fan, I love the Dallas Cowboys! Here is the thing that pissed me off! The writer basically accused the Saints of running up the score! Wow! It is my opinion that this writer got what he wanted, people to get pissed off at him and write about him and talk about this subject because if he was serious then I believe he's a moron! This isn't pop warner, middle school, highschool or Alabama playing Harvard! It was two NFL teams playing, professional football players who are paid a pretty penny to get the job done, quite frankly the Falcons DID NOT get the job done! All who play this game and have played this game should agree, I guess someone may not agree with this but they are playing at the highest level and if you cannot stop them that is on the opposing team's players and coaches...it is not on the other team to go, "Geez, they're having a bad day, try not to score." Those types of thoughts take place when you are playing El Paso High in 1990 and you are the Andress Golden Eagles and are up 42 to nothing in the first half and that is when your coach says guys, second and third team are playing the second half. NOT IN THE NFL do you do those things. I don't recall hearing this nonsense when the Saints smacked the Colts around! A fellow Gulf Coast blogger wrote that he hopes New Orleans appreciates what they have in Drew Brees. I love this blogger but believe me Drew is a freaking god around here. If he ran for mayor he would win in a landslide! I mean I have grown ass men who tell me stories of when they met Drew Brees and how down to earth he is and how freaked out they were that he actually stopped what he was doing to say a few words to them. Again, as a none fan of the Saints, I and 99% of New Orleans LOVE AND APPRECIATE Drew Brees! As a matter of fact I believe they need to pay Drew more than Peyton, as a base and then add the incentives, he should be the highest paid QB in the NFL! Also, yes, I believe, he needed to break that record on MNF and in front of all of America. Also, he will have to play next week for a few reasons 1-Brady just needs 190 yds to break the same record 2-He is still on track to getting another record that of consecutive tds in all games played 3-Brees needs to insure the victory just in case San Fran loses to shore up the number two seed. Poor taste to that sports writer for yahoo, trying to smear a class act like Drew Brees!
Okay, my final NFL item is the Cowboys are playing the Giants for all the marbles, a spot into the playoffs! My boys struggle too much with all the quality and talent that they have, until the last few weeks I believed Jason Garret was an outstanding coach but there have been some funkly flubs by him with the timeout and sitting Romo! WHAT! Also, is Jerry Jones a help or hinderance to the Boys? I mean they have not gotten back to where they were when they had Jimmy Johnson running the boys and we know why he left, TOO MUCH JERRY IN HIS KOOLAID! I am routing for my boys, but we know if they make it, who are they going to beat? UGH!

In my last post I talked about catching up with some old friends...I got in touch with them last night! Oh yeah, it was good to hear from them and it helped close that down and now they'll be a constant in my life. LIFE IS GOOD!

Finally, when it comes to taking care of business on the felt. I was reading Monkey's blog about Harrahs and their dealers and floor staff. Very funny! I do know part of that is because Harrah's is all that we have in the New Orleans area to get a good variety of poker.

(One of the best dealers I know in the business)

Boomtown is more lower stakes and I think the big game moved there for a while because of what Monkey talked about. My experiences have been more positive than negative but I wonder how it will be when I go to play here in the near future. I have not been there since May, and that was for the smaller tournaments they had there. Nothing to report, made it to the dinner break. Just cannot get myself to play without cards in those crucial levels where it is important to accumulate chips, my transition game...SUCKS!

Okay, you all stay nice as rice and mello as jello!

Pondering...

Lots of stuff just running through my head and I just had to put it down here, for the record. I am in a great position with the company I am with, we just went through a huge audit on paperwork, safety and security and our inventory. I did well on the first three parts and the last, inventory, was horrible. Not to worry, I have been in this position for four months working on my fifth now, so we discovered that there were a lot of things not being done correctly and it's my job to get that fixed. I do not want to bore you with the details but let me throw a few in here. I control, the building, am responsible for all inside that work in it, responsible for the inventory and all shipping and receiving goes through me and my personnel. I work alongside another manager who is responsible for the store attached to my building...long story short on this piece, we are working well together. Getting back on topic I have to make sure the warehouse is professionally set up to retrieve product and it needs to look very good and be easy for a new employee to walk in and go to a location and pick what we need from it. I have a temporary solution set up and have plans to get a more permanent solution down, basically straighter lines using paint instead of warehouse floor tape. -Side note-A fellow Andress High Alumni invited me to join linkedin which was pretty cool, after I had pictures up on my facebook about my "5 S project".

Back on subject, so I need to set up processes around picking correctly, receiving correctly, sanitation schedules and making sure all paper work is signed and DATED correctly. We also go through SOX audits, some facilities are targeted monthly through a random selection process, all publicly traded companies must abide by Sarbanes Oxley-a law passed due to the Enron Crisis. So if my paperwork does not have a signature and DATE, or if missing one or the other, we fail. We just went through a SOX audit a few days ago, we failed the SOX audit, because four pieces of paper work had NO DATE! Laugh out Loud hilarious! Another item that I am going to have to control. Basically, the business ran well but inefficiently and not as cost effective as they could have, process was not followed on a consistent basis, it was almost like the wild west around here.

Another thing I have been pondering is friends, I have a few GREAT friends and then I have friends that I talk to rarely but were GREAT before and I have those friends that I get together with maybe once or twice a year. I have been really thinking about my former GREAT friends, the guys who honored me by asking to be in their wedding parties, both were white and they had the one big black guy in all their group wedding pictures...meant a lot to me then and well...I miss those guys! I don't know, I mean look at your friends, mine tend to be very similar, smarter then me, a bit more successful then myself and believe in a being higher then ourselves usually God or Jesus Christ. I think that if we associate ourselves with people in a better place we thrive to be better ourselves not because we envy what they have, just because...I wish I could elaborate but if you know what I am talking about, maybe you can explain it for me. Currently I have AT@T who is an engineer that works month off and a month on in Angola. He's also a great poker player. Another GREAT friend, WBP, has his own website and has leveraged different outlets in order to write for them and get paid. I studied English at the University of Pittsburgh and when I read his stuff I just wish I could write as well. He is also a great poker player. Just a couple of examples of my buddies whom I am proud of. I am abusing the English language by the way.

So I have been trying to get in touch with a couple of GREAT friends that live in Pittsburgh and I have not been successful, they are both engineers and OUTSTANDING people, who I learned a hell of a lot from.

The last thing I have been pondering is poker...the reason I started this blog. I have looked at the success of Wild Bill and "No Blood from a Rock" Gene, recently, and I want that...see they are pushing me to be successful!

Finally, I was watching a little WSOP Europe, geez those guys three bet with A10 off! So freaking aggressive! Believe me I thought I was aggressive. Ah, maybe he knew how the guy played and wanted to really see where he was and when the original raiser called the three bet he settled into a range for the guy, because after the board paired twice he must have thought the guy was on a pair higher then the two different pair the board was showing as he gave up his hand after the guy check called to the river where the board paired again and lead out with a bet 3/4 the pot. A10 let it go, the winner had deuces and took the pot without a showdown. Aggressive. I wanna play!

Alrighty, until next time...Stay nice as rice and mello as jello!

New House, Fences and Trick or Treating...

I have been very busy with our new home. Especially with it being brand new, had to hang blinds, had to frost some of the windows, had to set up the washer and dryer, instead of having the new furniture delivered (to save money) I picked it up and put it together. Just a few of the things we had to do as a homeowner, not to mention all of the items we had to purchase. For example, a lawnmover, I have a decently sized yard and three hoses, and three yard watering devices, weed eater, shovel, brooms and the list goes on. It is awesome being a home owner and scary, can't just call the land lord and say come get this fixed. It's on me! Through all of this, poker has always been on my mind. I am always reading people as I ask them questions, through the house hunt and working with our agent in the subdivision I asked a question he could not answer ,"how are race relations in this subdivision?"and I read him and was very comfortable with my read and it looks to be a good one...so far!
So this past Saturday we had trick or treating in the neighborhood. One of the families took it upon themselves to make flyers and pass them out indicating that we are going to do so in our subdivision. We have about 40-50 homes in our subdivision with more being made daily. Our HOA does not start until 2015, so I called the subdivison agent and asked if they sent that flyer, no they had not. Now, I guess that was a good idea, with Halloween being on a Monday, but I did not like something being done without my input, some of my neighbors felt the same way but for the kids sake we went with it. My kids started by giving out candy, then saw how heavy the kids bags were before getting to us so they asked to go themselves, my seven year old went on her own, that is another thing I love about my neighborhood. My ten year old went by himself as well. I walked my three year old around and she ran up to the houses with me sitting in the street, she had a ball! I look forward to being a part of the HOA, setting up block parties, rules and regulating the ones in place. I mean people have white mail boxes, only black allowed. Putting up a fence should have the good side out, some have put the bad side out and they did a crappy job of that! This leads me into my final point...
I started to put up our fence this weekend, well we started yesterday the 30th of October. New home, fences do not come with them unless you buy them but we did not know about the option but no worries my wife wants one, I will deliver!
Well, I got a helpful hand from our kids grandfather. We got the auger, 10-10 foot 4x4 and 30-8foot 4x4. We didn't get everything as we wanted to get the pieces as we went along. We started at 10am after eating a quick breakfeast, we drilled the four holes, lined out the fence line, and thank GOD for Mr. Rudy as he was instrumental in setting everything up. I learned a lot and am in awe, he is 57 and moves around like a 25 year old. Full of energy and gracious enough to take a couple of breaks for my sake. After we had the fence line marked we spaced it out for the 4x4's and started drilling, this was the hardest part of the job, we had to go down 3 feet for the 8 foot 4x4's and had to use the extender to get down two more feet for the 10 foot 4x4s. It wasn't easy peasy either as we had to sit on the auger at times to get it to dig down or we would hit a couple of roots where Mr. Rudy got down and had to move the auger's blade manually in order for us to pull it out. We got the poles into the ground but did not level them out yesterday as we finished up at about 5:30 pm. Today, I am beat! We have a trunk a treat tonight that we are going to in Ponchatoula at the park. I love Ponchatoula, if you don't mind the drive into the city and are looking for a good place to live...look into Ponchatoula, LA!
You all stay nice as rice and mello as jello!