The Fleecing of the Burgers, Part I

This is the first in a series of posts that will track how the Burger family bleeds money due to corporate greed, our ineptitude, laziness or naïveté. There are some things that are worth the time and effort to pursue, and some that are not.

About an hour ago, I climbed down from our roof, which was leaking this afternoon, after a couple feet of snow followed by 1/2-3/4 inch of rain last night. Most of the snow had melted, and it wasn't all that deep on the roof to start with, so there was a maximum of about 3 inches of snow/ice/water up there. OK, so what? Why the hell was I up on the roof, and what does this have to do with the fleecing of the Burgers? Well, this is a new roof. A very expensive, flat, rubber roof with fancy copper flashing and drip-edge flashing. A new roof that was installed less than a month ago, and which started leaking this afternoon, after all of the rain last night.

As I was up there, watching the beautiful sunset view, I felt a little like Par Ingalls (must use the r sound to bridge two vowels when in Massachusetts.) One false move with a 15-pound load of ice chunks, and whoop! I fall 12-35 feet to my hospitalization-death, depending on which side of the house I fall off. Luckily, the edges of the roof are slanted up at the edge, to allow water to flow toward the roof drain. So I would plant my front (left) foot, placing most of my weight there, and shove with my shovel arm from about 3-4 feet away from the edge. I was on the roof for a good hour and a half, and got it all shoveled off (with a plastic shovel, of course.)

OK, boo hoo hoo, my new roof leaks. And it was expensive. So what does this have to do with the fleecing of the Burgers? The fleecing in this case comes from the initial lowball estimate from the contractor, and the subsequent tacking on of the copper drip-edge flashing. Originally we thought we would be able to use the original flashing, but oh, no, it's not wide enough, we'll never be able to save it. OK, ouch (a 23% increase in the original quote)! But save the old copper for me. OK. Where's the old copper? Oh one of the guys took it. All right, what ever, man, just finish the job already!

It turned out that on the lower of our two rooves, there was nothing between the roof decking and our playroom "carpet" (just that Berber stuff that everyone who wants to throw down carpet when selling a house installs.) So when the workers took up the old tar and gravel roof, large amounts of ground up tar (a.k.a. soot) fell down between the cracks in the roof decking into our house. Lovely. The guy asked me if I wanted him to clean it. Yeah sure, go ahead, tromp in here with your boots, and do a half-assed job. Yeah, that would be great. So we vacuumed many times, and even brought in a carpet cleaning service. We had guests for Thanksgiving, and then had a big party the following weekend. Not that anyone would have noticed, but at least we did our best.

So am I going to sue this guy, or get him to pay for the carpet cleaning? No. Why? Because, (a) I want him to fix the damn roof; and (b) it would take more time out of my life, and I would rather waste time writing about it than waste time arguing and taking days off to go to small claims court.

Speaking of which, our delicious Christmas Eve dinner of fondue and champagne interrupted this post, and now it's time to go watch IAWL with the family. Merry Christmas!

Next up: Verizon Fios.

Welcome back to Poker Stars

Thank FSM that I'm back on Poker Stars. I made a deposit on Full Tilt Poker, and earned a bonus, but was only able to work off about 1/3 of it before it expired. That's mostly because I only play one table at a time, and I play at the lowest possible stakes (.05/.10 NLHE). After the FTP bonus expired, I moved back to Poker Starts for my cash games, and I'm finding them much easier than the FTP games. Sure, there are still lots of bad players on FTP, but there are also a ton of bot-like players 8-tabling at the lowest limit tables. I started out this go-round on Stars at the .05/.10 tables, but the bonus is structured so that no fractional points are given. So I moved up to the .10/.25 tables, where there are many more hands that rake the minimum .40 for scoring a bonus point. I have been kicking ass at those tables. There are few tricky players, and lots of very loose calling stations. I had one guy call 4 of my bets, for his whole stack, while he was holding pocket 4s (I had an overpair.) I made lots of money off of that guy. Of course, it has not all been roses, but in general, I like Stars much better.

I've been reading Ed Miller's blog for a while now, and it has been helpful. I'm concentrating a little more on opponents' stack sizes, and on hand reading rather than hand hoping (putting my opponent on a hand that is dominated by my hand instead of on a range of hands.) I think the experience of playing the tougher FTP tables has helped.

Bubblicious

Thursday and Friday night I bubbled out of poker tournaments. I don't think I played particularly well, especially in the Friday tournament. But playing well is not the point of that particular tournament -- Katitude's Blogger Donkament. The point is to blow off steam from a week's worth of work, kids, and real life. Or a year's worth. I made a laydown of QQ at one point when there was an all-in raise followed by a re-raise all-in. I had them both covered, and was definitely considering re-re-raising all-in. But I guess I must have left my balls in the minivan again. So I ended up finishing 4th, and the top three places paid, and the previous night in the Riverchasers tournament, I finished 6th with either 4 or 5 places paying. Oh well, at least I had fun.

The kids are bouncing off the walls with excitement about Christmas, and we took a ride around town looking at lights after eating dinner at Ixtapa Cantina, voted the Best Mexican Restaurant in the Greater Lexington area. That's because the only competition is breakfast burritos at the McDonalds in the highway rest stop. Anyway, it was a fun time, and the food there is pretty good. I left a nice tip, because "it's 'tis the season."

Winter Wonderland

It snew last Thursday, Saturday, and this Wednesday (I think.) Merry Christmas!

Steroid results

OK, 2 out of my 6 predicted previously unimplicated steroid guys (Clemens and Gagne) were on the list. I considered adding Pettitte, because he was such good buddies with Clemens, talked him out of retirement, etc., but I did not. So I guess Dan Duquette was vindicated after all -- Clemens really was in the twilight of his career after the 1996 season. He allegedly took steroids in at least two of his post-Red Sox Cy Young years (1998 and 2001). Mo Vaughn allegedly purchased HGH when he was down with an ankle injury. Mike (The Hypocrite) Stanton allegedly purchased HGH. I guess he learned to cheat in his little prayer group with Pettitte. Stanton makes me puke every time he opens his mouth, because he can't answer a question without praising his god. From one crutch to the next, eh Mike? I hope his wife divorces him. It will be interesting to see what Schilling has to say about Stanton. Schilling of course defended Lenny Dykstra through thick and thin. Curt, if you're going to be a senator, you're going to have to learn to throw people under the bus when necessary (you'll also have to leave Massachusetts.)

The fact that Theo Epstein apparently knew of the Dodgers' suspicions of steroid use makes the 2007 acquisition of Gagne even more of a bonehead move by Epstein:

When the Boston Red Sox were considering acquiring Gagné, a Red Sox official made specific inquiries about Gagné’s possible use of steroids. In a November 1, 2006 email to a Red Sox scout, general manager Theo Epstein asked, “Have you done any digging on Gagne? I know the Dodgers think he was a steroid guy. Maybe so. What do you hear on his medical?"

The scout, Mark Delpiano, responded,

Some digging on Gagne and steroids IS the issue. Has had a checkered medical past throughout career including minor leagues. Lacks the poise and commitment to stay healthy, maintain body and re invent self. What made him a tenacious closer was the max effort plus stuff . . . Mentality without the plus weapons and without steroid help probably creates a large risk in bounce back durability and ability to throw average while allowing the changeup to play as it once did . . . Personally, durability (or lack of) will follow Gagne . . .426

I guess they didn't give up a tremendous amount of talent (Kason Gabbard, David Murphy, Engel Beltre,) but still, they could have used those prospects in a deal this winter.

I wonder which hat Clemens WON'T be wearing into the Hall of Fame now?

Steroid prediction

I predict the following names will be on George Mitchell's list today:

Nolan Ryan
Roger Clemens
Pedro Martinez
Eric Gagne
Nomar Garciaparra
Brady Anderson


Not on the list:

Luis Gonzalez
Gabe Kapler
Randy Johnson
Alex Rodriguez
Ken Griffey, Jr.
Ricky Henderson

So saga

"I don't see what's so saga about her!" said the 8-year-old me. I was looking at the cover of Newsweek magazine, which had the famous picture of Patty Hearst holding a machine gun. And, as a matter of fact, I did see what was so saga about her. I don't remember it as being blue; I thought it had a black background, but maybe I'm confusing/combining this image with Carrie Fisher's cameo in the Blues Brothers movie, or with Sigourney Weaver in Aliens. I guess women holding machine guns/grenade launchers/flame throwers are just ... so ... saga. I'm not sure why I remember that incident after all these years. I remember my mother cracking up, and the image is/was burned into my brain. It's truly sad that as adults we cannot remember all of our thoughts and feelings as children. We look back on those days as idyllic and carefree, but at the time, we did not savor the moment. If any one of us were to travel back in time or become a kid again, we would be loving it. But that's only because we have a lifetime of experience outside the protective cocoon of our parents' care. The act of growing up and taking on responsibility for oneself gives one the perspective to realize that kids have it made. Unfortunately for the kids, they do not realize this until it is too late. Then they can only look back wistfully at those halcyon days and weep tears of joy/sorrow for innocence held and lost.

Getting Things Done

I just fixed my iPod! After at least a year of being without it, I have it back! My wife told me about this trick, and it worked! I have such a feeling of accomplishment, and not just because of the iPod fix. For the past couple of years, I've been adhering to David Allen's Getting Things Done system. I have my ups and downs, but each time that I have an up, the concepts and habits become more strongly reinforced, and I'm building a system over the years that is based on the core concepts in GTD.

Over the past few months, I have been so swamped with work, that I have literally been working every evening and every weekend for several months. In the past month or so, the pressure has mounted so much that I had to juggle multiple development tasks on multiple machines and multiple platforms at the same time. So, while a build was happening for 5 minutes on machine A, I would work on a different task on machine B. Or while I'm testing on machine A, machine B is doing a build. I also used the interstitials to go through the few emails that have built up since the last time I checked. I get to Inbox Zero almost every time. Here's Merlin Mann's talk on Inbox Zero.


I've kept the Inbox Zero habit for two years now, again with inevitable periods of backsliding. I think that it is the most critical piece of the puzzle for achieving success with GTD. It is the sine qua non of GTD. Ok, so I've had this habit, and have been able to keep at Inbox Zero even during my most trying of times. So now that the pressure has been reduced somewhat, I have found myself with a tremendous amount of work energy, and I've rekindled the other parts of GTD. I processed my entire home desktop, which was piled with folders, papers, routers, and other stuff. I got to Inbox Zero at home. I got to Inbox Zero at Yahoo. I had never seen an empty inbox in the latest Yahoo interface. It felt more than a little strange. I actually lost an email or two during my Yahoo purge, but good ol' search found 'em for me.

After being at Inbox Zero everywhere, I was cleared to truly start Getting Things Done. We had roofers waking us up at 7:00 this morning, stomping and smashing to break up the ice on the roof. That new rubber roof is something that had been hanging over our heads for months. I got it contracted even in the middle of one of the busiest work periods of my life. We have our new HD Tivo received and ready to accept the cable cards from the Verizon installers on Monday. Dinette has the Tivette downstairs ready to accept the Ethernet cable and be up and running. I signed the kids up for ski lessons, the leaves have been blown away, I called my sister for her birthday, and I did party planning with the wife. I am Getting Things Done.

Now, I recently read a somewhat disturbing article about David Allen in Wired. He is apparently a member of a religious cult, and possibly originally developed GTD to recruit members for the cult. For the past two years, I have been haranguing family members about GTD, and urging them to try it, do it, read it, listen to it, here, have some literature. Despite the fact that Allen has a cult-like following(tm), I don't think that people who follow the methods described in his book are in danger of being sucked into the religious cult. So, in case anyone was worried, I'm not a member of a religious cult.

The next things I have to form habits around are the daily and weekly reviews. I'm often hitting the snooze button on my Outlook reminders to go home (set phone forwarding, review task lists). I guess a habit is formed in 21 days, so I will try to do the daily and weekly reviews for 21 days, and see what happens. I did an in-depth weekly review this week, and got lots of stuff crossed off. I also devised a custom view in Outlook that allows me to see the items I've crossed off that day, and that helps with the daily reviews.

Here are some pictures of my iPod before, during, and after.



I used the smallest screwdriver on my trusty Leatherman, and eventually was able to pry up the cover.



I had no problems with ribbon cables, nor was there any padding back there. I accidentally turned the damn thing on a few times by pushing down on it while it was upside down. I squeezed the hard disk with my fingers, and it made a final crunching sound, and sprang back to life!




I sacrificed a Guinness beer mat, using two thicknesses, for a total of maybe 3 mm. I squeezed the case shut, and voila! It was fixed! I quickly navigated to Audiobooks > Getting Things Done, and it had saved my place after all these months. It was within a minute of the line about the second item in your pile being a letter from the president, and the first being a piece of junk mail. Not coincidentally, I had just been expounding on the virtues of Inbox Zero, and the evils of cherry-picking last week at a family dinner. Don't cherry-pick, or you will soon be overwhelmed with junk mail, making it that much harder to cherry-pick!

OK, that's enough for now; I have to go get our house ready for Thanksgiving next week.

Nerd king

Well, I just missed a great family outing, in which everyone had birds eating out of their hands.

I was stuck working at home, sitting at the computer. I saw this, and took the test, and it turns out I'm an Uber Cool Nerd King. A score of 0 on the Dork scale is a little surprising -- maybe they just didn't ask the right questions.





I also broke the build, and got emails from three other nerds who are working on Sunday.

Looking for the Sox to wrap it up tonight -- last night was a little stressful, and a lot long.

Taxile Island

Now sit right back, and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of an idiot,
Who started on his taxes in
The dingy month of March.

He found that there were ov'rages,
Withholding was not there.
Because of things like mortgages,
To pay he did not dare.

Now forward to October 10th,
The taxes were still due.
Except with int'rest, penalties,
His options were but few.
His options were but few.

The wife had a business of her own,
Or was it a hobby?
His hobby was gambling,
Did not need Schedule C.

Now finally he made it through,
From beginning to the end.
State taxes were quite a breeze.
Tax software was his friend.

He filed electronically,
Just as Turbo said.
'Cept one day later, note came back:
"Your e-File's rejected!"

"Argh!" He said, but luckily,
He had a spare cartridge
Of ink for printing out the forms
For dead-tree fiyaling.
Dead-tree fiyaling.

The printout, it was clean and true,
The check was not a blank.
Because they sold some real estate,
The money's in the bank.

Now wifey's business had a lot
Of shipments at the post.
She took the sheaf and brought it down
To the place she knew the most.

She sent the letter certified,
As often people do.
Five minutes later hubby rang,
"Oh what did I do?"
"Oh what did I do?"

She flipped the Razor shut my friend,
And turned back on a dime.
She begged the postman for a break,
Just for once, this time.

You see, my friend, he had forgot
To sign his legal name,
The IRS will not accept,
And they will cause you pain.
They will cause you pain.

So if you ever have to file
The good old-fashioned way,
DON'T FORGET TO SIGN, my friend
Or man, you'll have to pay.
Man you'll have to pay.

Sunset, Sunrise

We finally closed on our old house, after it had been on the market since early May. We moved in April, and have been waiting ever since. On Wednesday afternoon, Dinette picked up the kids, and then I met them over at the old house to put the last of our stuff on the curb. The kids were pretty choked up about it. As I was closing up the cellar, I realized that it was finally clean!! Too bad only the new owners will get to enjoy that cleanliness. Really, there was much more stuff in the cellar when we bought the place than when we sold it. We got rid of a bunch of the previous owner's junk, waterproofed it, took all the hazardous waste to the hazardous waste collection station. We were quite good doobies about it.

Anyway, it was about 6:30 or so as I was driving up the hill to our new house in a woodsy subdivision, and the sun was tequila sunrise color as it set over the semi-distant hills. The view was not quite like this, but since I took this picture out our kitchen window, I knew that I would have many more opportunities to see such sights for the rest of my life. Less than half an hour after I left the old house, the realtor was walking the buyer through for the last time. Sunset on the old, and, finally, sunrise on the new.

Yeah baby!

Mrs. Dino went to a Jimmy Buffett concert yesterday with her mostly single friends, and some of their mostly single friends. So I stayed home with the kids, and baked in the sun at their school's fall fair. My son was completely wiped out from the heat, but he recovered, and we took a swim in the late afternoon before ordering Domino's for dinner.

After dinner, while the kids were watching TV and doing a puzzle with Granny, I was playing Omaha Hi/Lo on Full Tilt, and my cell phone buzzed. Pix message from Mrs. Dino! Pix of her friend's boobs! With a shirt on, unfortunately. So I texted her back and said to pull up the shirt. A few minutes later, another pix message! Shirt pulled up! Alas, still with a bra on. So I texted back, "Yeah baby now take it all off," but that was to be the last pic I would receive for the evening. Oh, well.

After getting the kids in bed, I entered the Full Tilt $3 + 0.30 w/ rebuys $6000 guaranteed. I have never played a non-SnG on FTP, and I expected it to be over within 4 hours. Little did I know they have this incredibly slow structure, and so I was still up when Mrs. Dino returned from the parrot-fest. I complained about the lack of follow-up pix, and she was like dream on buddy, and reminded me that the husband had been at the concert as well. My son came down for a complaint about his stomach, and Mrs. Dino took care of tucking him back in, and then went to bed.

I stayed up, playing well and getting lucky a couple of times. My M varied between about 4 and 15 for many levels. I was pushing with good hands when short-stacked, and stealing enough blinds to stay ahead of the glacial (to me) structure at Full Tilt. I suppose I should welcome it, because it does allow a lot of poker, and should reduce the luck factor a little bit. But you still need to get lucky to make it to the final table, and I don't often have 6 straight hours to devote to a tournament.

At the final table, I was about 3rd or 4th in chips to start, and kept adding to my stack as people were knocked out. I would fold my big blind to steals, but would steal blinds when in position, and finally repopped a guy who had stolen several times on me. That put me close to the chip lead. As the number of players dwindled, the payouts rose substantially. The lowest payout at the final table was about $100, and first place ws over $1100. So each time someone busted, I would do a subdued version of the RainKhan dance (lean forward on couch, pump fist, take sip of beer. Actually, it was so late that I stopped drinking beer (!) Even though Mrs. Dino was snoring away, er, getting her beauty rest already, I still had to get up in the morning with the kids.)

I crippled the third place finisher with A-n vs. A-n-1, and entered the heads-up battle with about a 3-2 chip lead. We had a good battle back and forth, and my opponent was one of the stronger heads up opponents I have faced. I played maybe a little too tight, but was observing his tendencies, especially his rule of always punishing for limping. I limp-reraised once or twice without forcing an all-in. On the final hand, he raised from the button/small blind, and I went all-in with ATo. The blinds were only 25k/50k, with a total of about 3M chips in play, so I could have reraised a smaller amount. But I was hoping he would call with a smaller ace or weak broadway cards. If he called or folded a pair smaller than tens, I was also happy. He called with pocket tens and I was out in second place for a $720 cash.

Yeah baby! After my buy-in, double rebuy, and add-on, my profit was $707.70. OK, maybe not the $8.25 million that Jerry Yang took home, or even but still my largest online cash so far. Also a much-needed infusion to the anemic bankroll after donking and tilting off quite a bit on FTP, and after a disastrous three nights at Bay 101 in San Jose a few weeks ago. We had discussed a split when we were down to three players, but FTP doesn't have that feature, and the idea was a non-starter. Second-place money was just about what a split would have been, so I am very happy. I woke up Mrs. Dino as I crawled into bed and told her the good news. This morning, she asked when my next tournament is -- yeah baby!!

Trip report: Seabrook

On our recent vacation to the beach in Maine, I escaped one evening and headed back down I-95 to the greyhound park in Seabrook, NH, where there is a poker room that opened up within the past couple of years. They donate some portion of the rake to charity, which is why they are allowed to operate in NH. The rake is about 20-25% on tournaments and SNGs, so you have to go deep to make any money. I'm not sure how they make money, as they have to donate a large amount to charity. One dealer said they have 70 dealers, and their web site is advertising for more. They do give a free race book to poker players, so maybe they make money on the greyhound and wire action.

They have several tournaments daily, with buy-ins ranging from $50-$250, starting at 5, 7, and 9. On weekends, they add a 1pm tournament. They also have limit Omaha Hi-Lo and HoldEm, and $50 and $150 SNGs. One interesting feature is that they do not seem to have security cameras at each table. I guess when you donate all of your money to charity, you can't afford such luxuries.

It was a Thursday night, and I got there in time for the 5:00 $50 NLHE tournament. I signed up for their player card, which is required to play, and bought in. Then I bought a (soft) drink and walked out side for a minute. As I walked back in, the security guard hassled me about the drink. I told him I bought it there, and he let me bring it back in.

The 5:00 attracted about 80 players, which I think is pretty good for a Thursday. The stacks were 2500 with blinds starting at 25/50, and 20-minute levels. I made it to the first break with a smaller than average stack, not having gotten many good hands, and not in a mood to bluff much. On the last hand before the break, I re-raised all in with JJ, forcing a limper and a min-raiser to fold, though not after some thought. After the break, I was slowly building up a stack, while a player two to my left bled away his massive stack that he accumulated by getting hit in the face with the deck. I got crippled on a hand where I called two all-ins that I had covered. One had A9d, and the other had 77. I had AKs. A 7 came on the flop for the main pot, and a 9 came on the river for the side pot. I think it was a good call, even though I suspected the second all in had a pair. Maybe not, because I figured one of them had to have one of my aces. The guy to my right said he folded K9, so both of us with aces were drawing thin. The funny thing is, on the very next hand, the two all-ins were again all in, this time against QQ. This time, the guy who had 77 on the previous hand had AKc, and the other guy again had ace rag. This time the ace came on the flop, and that guy went from about T2000 to T20000 in two hands.

A few hands later, I busted out and put my name in for a $50 SNG. The wait was maybe 15-20 minutes, and I ordered a burger and fries at the cafe.

Editing months later: it's now October!

I bubbled out of the SNG. There were a few regulars, and a couple of young guys. The final four were two regulars, one young guy, and me. The blinds were getting high, and I called the young guy's all-in with a semi-reasonable hand, and had him dominated. He hit to double up, and then sucked out on me the next hand or two to eliminate me. No big deal. Pokernews has done a few reviews of NH poker rooms lately, so I might try to get up there again soon.

Trip Report: Bermuda Cruise

We went on a cruise from Boston to Bermuda last week, and had a great time. We we're not really cruise types, and this was our first cruise, but we found ways to enjoy ourselves. Or, I did, anyway, once I saw that the casino offered a $1-$2 no limit holdem game and two no limit tournaments (which turned into three by the end of the cruise.)

My wife's mother gave us a ride to the cruise ship; it took us all of about 30 minutes on a Sunday morning/early afternoon. We got there at about 12:15, and walked right through everything. We even stopped to chat with the lady at the bottom of the escalator. There were several of the obnoxious photographers who took our picture -- one of them was against a green background, and so in the print, the ship showed through my green shirt. Pretty hilarious. They had another one with a blue background, so they were hedging their bets. The photographers were obnoxious during the whole trip. when we got off the ship, they were there, HOLDING UP THE LINE TO GET OFF THE BOAT, to take stupid pirate pictures. I couldn't believe that people were stopping to allow their picture to be taken.

Anyway, we were on the ship in about 10 minutes -- apparently that is very good; we were expecting to wait in lines, but it was all clear sailing for us. We got up to the room and then headed up to the top deck for lunch. Since we were among the first people on the boat, there was no line for burgers ans fries. Later in the day, we went to the upper deck, and nicknamed it the "Fat Deck" and "Club Penguin". We were laughing our asses off. It was definitely not our scene.

Now for the good stuff. I went down to the casino to register for the first tournament (to be played Monday). I also tossed in $20 to get $30 in gaming chips to give to my wife. That was six $5 promotional chips, and you could not split a chip. So she played some roulette the next day. She won $180 by placing a $5 chip on number 10 for our tenth anniversary. That was nice, because it paid for a massage for her later in the cruise.

Later on, a $1/$2 no limit holdem game started up, and it was a very good game! There were kids who had clearly never played a live hand of poker, and several fairly decent players, including Jimmy, Mike, and Phil. An old guy sat down in seat 1 or 2 ( I was in seat 8) and proceeded to make some terrible calls, quickly losing his $100 buy-in. Mike and I were wondering what the fuck was going through the guy's mind, but Mike was harassing the fish about his play! I told him several times not to knock on the glass.

I busted Jimmy by calling his all-in with A7s on the flop. I was about 50%, but Jimmy gave me shit for the entire cruise for that call. Then the fish moved to seat 5 or 6, and I took a couple of $100 buy-ins off him. Two of the hands that I remember, he just got unlucky, but in general, the guy was a whale! He just kept buying in and buying in. I believe he was down $500 for the night by the time he left. He may have won 1 or 2 pots, but that's about it. The two times I busted him were AQ vs. AJ and AA vs. QQ, so like I said, he could have just been unlucky.

At the end of the first night, I was up over $500. That's 1/3 of my original poker bankroll! What the hell am I doing playing for these stakes!?

In the tournament the next day, I bought in for $60, and rebought 3 times. Then we had an add on, so I was in for $300. I knocked out two players on the same hand with KK just after the break to bring us to the final table. We started with 3 tables of 7, and the final table started with 10 players. They only had one poker table, so two of the tables were blackjack tables. I was in seat 4 at the final table, and had a decent stack of about T22000 (the initial stack was T2000, rebuys got T2000, and the add-on was T4000). After a couple of people busted out, I picked up 99 in EP, and raised it up. The big blind in seat 1 called. Flop was AQx, and I bet out. She called. Turn was a blank, and I bet out. She called, leaving her with just about 2000 in chips. river was another blank, and I bet out, and of course, she called, and turned over the ace. My ears were burning, as I knew that I had foolishly bluffed off my chips against a terrible player. Argh! I should have just checked it down after she called me on the flop! I was in position to win this tournament, and I blew it!

So I bubbled out in sixth place, and the lady who called my bluff ended up winning it. Happily, she bought into the cash game later that night for $100, and quickly lost it. I ended up getting trapped by Mike with a queen high straight when he had the king. That was about a $600 pot, and I ended up down over $200 for the night. At the time of that pot, we were 3-handed, and I had had several drinks. I vowed not to play short-handed drunk against Mike for the rest of the trip.

We landed in Bermuda, and went to Horseshoe Beach, Dockyards, Hamilton, Tobacco Bay, St. George, and a snorkeling trip to a shipwreck. The first night we were there, a drunk person fell down the center of the stairwell and died. It is rumored that he was trying to slide down the railing. We saw his family angrily leaving the ship the next day, but there was never any notice to the passengers. Club Penguin just kept on Calypso-ing. We ate at the extra-charge restaurant one night, and had Chateaubriand. It was quite good. Another cool thing is that you can order a bottle of wine, have one glass, and they will store the bottle for you. You can then request the same bottle later in the cruise from any restaurant or bar, and they will go get it for you.

We also had a great time snorkeling at the wreck and reef, and at Tobacco Bay. I would say that Virgin Gorda was much better for water clarity and quantity of fish, but this was OK. Definitely bring your own snorkeling equipment, or just buy it at the gift shop in town, as they charge outrageous fees to rent or buy at the beaches. We took buses and ferries around the entire archipelago, and generally had a very relaxing and fun time. On one ferry ride, I fell asleep because of the rocking of the boat. I also got a sunburn on the final day at Tobacco Beach. I blame my wife.

Back at sea, we had another$60 + rebuys tourney on Friday, and this time I had one rebuy and ended up at the final table again. I pushed on the first hand with T11000 and 22. I got 3 callers, TT, JJ, and KJ. The KJ won the main pot, and the JJ won the side pot, and I was out. Another questionable play, although I was figuring people might be tightening up a bit.

That evening, I ended up winning about $190 in the cash game. The action was considerably less than on the first night, so I think on future cruises, I will make sure to get in the game right away on the first night. There were a couple of young guys who were at the tables several nights, and they were very wary of me. One of them won the first tournament, but had to borrow a buck to buy in to the cash game. I guess he didn't want to risk his winnings, or maybe he blew it on dice.

The next day, we had a bonus tournament, two tables, and 13 entrants. I had about T4000 or so, and found KK on the button. I raised, and the big blind put me all in with AJs. The ace fell in the door, and I had to rebuy plus add-on for an extra $120, for only a paltry T6000. Oh well, I was vowing to play better at the final table this time. When we made it to the final table (after three bustouts) we got a free drink. At the first final table, I took a beer, but at the other two, I just took a free drink coupon. We were joking that these were some of the most expensive drinks we had ever had. I was in seat 1 this time.

By the time we were at the final table, I had maybe T10000. I doubled up to about T21000 when I knocked Mike out with a flopped pair of aces against his 77. Once I had a bit of a stack, I was again in position to win. I started picking up blinds, I knocked out another strong player, and my stack kept growing. When we made the money, it was only for $60, so I had to go for the win. I kept up the pressure, and kept building my stack. When we were down to 3, I had about T40000 or so against about T20000 or so for each of the remaining two players. Blinds were 1000/2000, and I was raising to 6000 on just about every hand: "Six," (everyone folds,) "Six," (everyone folds,) etc. I was relentless, and these guys admitted that they hadn't played many tournaments. I haven't played many live tournaments, but I've been in plenty of online tournaments, and won plenty of them. I really felt that I should have one the first one, and felt that this one was a must win for me (and for my bankroll.)

So these two guys, one of whom ended the week with a first, a second, and a third, failed to repop me until it was too late. They ended up making stands with pitiful hands as they were about to get blinded off. I think heads up lasted about three hands, one of which I folded, much to the consternation of some of the spectators. I figured, the guy had T8000, so two double-ups, and we were almost even. I had a 52o on the button/small blind, so I gave him the 2000 instead of doubling him up to 16000. The next hand, he went all in and took down the tournament for a $486 first prize. The best part was the impossibly hot Belarussian casino hostess/tournament director seeing me later, and saying "Congratulations, Jason!" when my wife was with me. My wife was a little miffed, and called her "the other woman."

As we got closer to port, the crew were looking forward to their two hours off, and one Indian guy asked if we knew any Indian restaurants near the cruise terminal. One of the poker dealers was going to the Cheesecake Factory for a piece of cheesecake. Whatever.

At the cash game on the final night, I bought in as usual for the maximum $200, and was steadily going down. We had a couple of drunk guys at the table, so it was frustrating that I wasn't able to increase my stack. On one hand, I put a kid all in after I raised with JJ and he reraised me with TT. He hit a four-flush on the river, with the Jh as the river card, just to twist the knife. So I rebought again, bringing my total buy-ins to $400 for the evening. I made a few bucks as we took apart the table, and on the final hand, we were down to four-handed. I raised to $8 on the button with 99, and Mike re-raised in the BB to $20. I called, and the flop came T2x. He bet $25, and I raised to $75. He raised all in for another $66. I went into the tank and considered my options. I figured him for a higher pair than mine at that point, but the pot was something like $250 at that point, and I only had to throw in $66. So I figured I was beat, but priced in, and I said so as I called. I was not looking forward to being down nearly $400 for the night. I said, "I've got nines. What do you have, jacks?" He flipped over K2o for a pair of 2's, saying, "No, I've got twos." The turn and river were no help. Mike had me pegged as an ABC player who raises only with an ace or a pair, and I guess he decided on that hand I had an ace and thought I was bluffing. I'm not sure what I would have done if he had had a much larger stack and moved in on me. I'm sure I will see him again, either at Foxwoods or Seabrook, and I think I can learn a lot about live play from him. But, for this trip, ABC and a little luck won out.

We arrived on time on Sunday, and disembarkation was almost as smooth as embarkation. We had to hunt just for a few seconds for one of our bags, but then it was out to the taxi line and on home. That taxi driver was sure lucky to have such an expensive fare. We had originally thought we might try to take the T, but one of our bags was so heavy that we would have been exhausted.

I think that I would like to go on another cruise, especially a poker cruise. I might like to try something a bit more upscale, but even then, the pool scene is unlikely to delight me. I might also like to try one that doesn't force you to pay extra for every beer or soft drink. My wife said she likes the multiple days in port, because I could not go to the casino while we were in port. And, or course, there's always the accidental deaths to worry about. I think the kids would probably like it, but it would be a pain to keep track of them all the time. Maybe when they're a little older, we can try one with them.

The auction's over

Kinda sorta almost over. I've been working on the kids' school auction for the past two months, and for the last three weeks in every waking minute that I was not working on my regular job, the new house , or the old house. I was the technical and business guy on an auction committe comprising 5 moms and me. The hours are brutal -- I was up till at least midnight every night, usually past 1 am, and several times past 2. It's strange that I felt such a sense of duty, responsibility, and dedication to a non-paying job that interferes with my paying job.

Leading up to the auction, I kicked it into high gear with data entry, scheduling, printing gift certificates, bidder sheets, guest lists, etc. For the last two years, I helped out by developing a slide show that is shown during the live auction, with one slide per page. I also did photo slide shows to display before and after the live auction. This year, I got someone else to do the live auction slide show, and she did it much faster than I would have. I guess I tend to be a perfectionist and slow, and she was good and fast. I stll did the phto slide show, taking a couple of nights, and then the show did not get used on the night of the auction. What a waste. Well, at least my company will pay the school for my volunteer hours (at $12.50 an hour!) For last Friday and Saturday, that will be a cool $400.

On the night of the auction, my highly untrained volunteers and I managed to record almost every winning bid, donation, and pledge correctly, in a frenzy of flying paper, gift certificates, and bags of items. We had the auction at the new school building this year, so I was able to plug into the school's network, and used their copy machine as the printer for the event. That kicked ass compared to last year, when my wife had the print server die on her in the middle of checkout. Many people came to us after the big rush was over, and said we looked professional, organized, and efficient. From the other side of the desk, I felt that it more like controlled chaos, but I'm glad we projected the appearance of organization. I had meditated long on the checkout procedure, and while it did not work as smoothly as I had hoped, we were able to get it done. There is just not enough time between the end of the silent auction and when people start coming at you, requesting their total and items.

After the auction, we kept going, entering missed bids, reprinting invoices, and generally cleaning up. The next day, I went in and did more of the same. Of course, my wife had scheduled two family events for the afternoon, and called to give me a ration of guilt. I had literally moved my home computer to the school for the auction, and so rushed the hell out of there, running down the ramp to my car with all the paperwork and computer equipment. I work well under pressure, but only if I can concentrate on the job at hand. I am very bad at rushing to get out the door, and will inevitably leave something behind.

We got the kids their bikes for their birthdays, but cancelled the family dinner with her nephew.

In the following days, I re-checked every bid, every payment in cash, check or credit card, and handled inquiries from guests missing their items, or had not paid. The scariest part was transmitting the credit card data to the bank, knowing that if anyone called, my call waiting would destroy the upload. The upload is done via a credit card terminal that has no * key, so I couldn't disable call waiting. Luckily, no one called while I was doing it.

Now, I just have to mail out a few invoices and gift certificates, and collect from a couple of rejected credit card holders and deadbeats who didn't pay at all. And then I will be DONE forever! We are not returning to the school next year, so someone else will have the pleasure that I did this year. Now it's on the the move, taxes, selling the old house, and kids' birthdays.

874 channels

I just tried out the cable box in my new house, and we get channels 2 through 874. So with 2-based indexing, that's 873 channels. Of course, most of those are not subscribed, so we probably only get 200-300. Boo hoo hoo.

The real loss will be the Tivo. We are moving to HD, kinda sorta, so the Tivo will have to go to the studio or the playroom. We will have to deal with the Verizon/Motorola DVR. Ugh. We are so used to the Tivo, from 7 years of use, that it will be a severe blow to lose it.

Update: I can't tell you how much I hate the Verizon DVR. You'll have to read for yourself how bad it is. It's not worth wasting the bits to describe the horror. Between the bad DVR and our bad wireless experience, the television-watching portion of life has been ruined. Therefore, we're switching back to Tivo! I just received the email about the Series 3 HD Tivo for $300 plus $200 to transfer the lifetime subscription, so I'm going to do it. We'll have to get cable cards from Verizon and give them back their DVR. The old Tivo Series 2 will have a year's subscription for free (just to get/keep us hooked on whatever we use it for). I don't know if we'll end up using it, because the analog output from the Tivo seems broken. I've tried it on two (admittedly old) TVs, and it gets a terrible pinked-out picture. If we get a plasma for the TV room, then the current TV could work with the old Tivo, because it has various newer inputs.