Reflections

I’ve been a little busy for the past ten days… and it hasn’t been all work… Jack is definitely not being a dull boy!
Ten days ago (or so), it was my birthday! I’m now the ripe ol’ age of 33! To celebrate the day, I decided to call up an old buddy to go to a bar in Arlington to have some drinks and play some poker (yes, I’m becoming addicted — at least it’s free)!
So, I grab a beer, grab a chair and go at it. I play decently, but not nearly as well as I did the week before at TT Reynolds, when I won the whole thing. So, after about and hour and a half, I’m out of the tournament. My friend and I head to the bar to continue having some drinks (and to wait for the second tournament to begin).
Well, while we’re waiting, our waitress from the poker area asks us if we’d like something else to drink. I coyly bring up the fact that it’s my birthday (in hopes of getting a free drink), and she replies “What do you want? A hug?”
“Well, OK, if you’re passing them out, I’ll take one!” So, I got my hug and then my friend convinced her to get me a free drink anyway. So, she buys me a shot of Jaegermeister. Let me repeat… SHE BOUGHT IT FOR ME! It wasn’t a comp from the bar, she purchased it, gave it to me, and watched me drink it. And from then on, I begin to notice her smiling my direction, and start thinking that she may be flirting with me… Hmmmmmm!?!?
So, the second tournament begins, and an hour and fourty-five minutes later, I’m out again. And instead of leaving, I, under the influence of some alcohol, think that maybe I should check out the waitress and see where it might go.
So, when the poker tournament made it to the final table, I was standing there watching, and my waitress comes up to me and asks me what I was still doing there. “I want to see what happens!” She asks if I watch the poker games on TV, and I tell her that I do.
And then she asks me what I do (what my job is). Honestly, I answer her that I run the dining and catering services for a private high school.
“Which school” she asks.
“Episcopal High School” I answer.
“I don’t know that school. Our school doesn’t play them.” And at that very instant, I have 2 thoughts enter my head at the exact same time: one, she’s a teacher; or two, oh no!! And then she unloads the fact that she’s only 18. AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!
I respond something like “and I was just trying to figure out how to get your number, and you’re 18!?! I so had guessed that you were 22 or 23!” And immediately, I begin trying to figure out how to get out of the situation without her thinking that it had anything to do with her being only 18. She has to get someone else a drink, and I sneak away.
18!?! Sorry, can’t do that. I have 18 year old girls at the school where I work — it just wouldn’t be right. I’m still “surprised” by her little revelation!
So…
That following Saturday (almost a week ago), I’ve still got the poker itch in me, and drive all the way down to Woodbridge to a bar called Brittany’s. I have a beer or two, and make it to the final two tables (still not doing as well as I did the first night) before losing. And while waiting for the 10:00 tournament to begin, I start to watch the final table from the first tournament.
And I don’t notice it, but a girl comes up beside me and starts watching the final table too. And then she begins to ask me questions about poker, and I explain it to her as best I can.
And when the 10:00 game begins, she asks if she can sit with me and watch me play. OK, no problem! And while we’re playing, she peaks to see my whole cards. And then she asks other poker-related questions. Every now and then, she’d bring up some other topic, but it wouldn’t get too far because we were playing poker.
Well, we finally get to the point where we’re down to the final two tables again, and another older lady joins the table. She introduces herself, and it was at that time, I learned my “new friend’s” name — Melissa. She also finds out my name — Brian. The game (and I’m not talking poker) had changed just a little bit.
Well, I get knocked out of the game just shy of making the final table — again — I’m really needing more practice before the regionals on June 18! So, as usual, I start watching the final table. And Melissa is right there watching too. And when the final game ended, I took a seat at a nearby table, and Melissa joined me.
And the conversation went something like this:
Me: “What are you going to do now?”
Melissa: “Well, either I can go home all by myself, or I can go to your place.”
Just the kind of answer I was looking for. I followed her to her place to drop her car off, picked her up, and came back to my place. She doesn’t even know my last name, we’ve had next to no conversations (unless it was about poker), and she’s going to go home with me? OK!
Well, in the car, we got to do some other talking. And here’s part of where I’m not sure about Melissa. Some of the conversation seemed quite simplistic. She’s a year older than I am (“twenty and fourteen”, she said), and she starts asking me what my favorite color was and my favorite foods and what kind of music I listened to. I was kind of puzzled by all of that.
Her voice also has the sound as if she may be (or have been) deaf or partially deaf. But I didn’t see any hearing aid, and when I’d talk to her in the bar, she could understand me — and we all know how hard that can be in a bar.
But she has the body type that I really like: thin, petite, long legs, small boobs, and a nice ass. Who would I have been to complain?
And when we got to my place, we both sat down on the couch…
… and … (if you’re easily offended, don’t click on the extended entry link below — and
Mom, you’re not allowed to read below!)

read more…

Coming soon…
Details of a strange night (last night) involving poker, and a potentially psychotic woman…
Interested? Stay tuned….
I’ll try to post when I get caught up on some sleep… after all, I WAS up all night…..

Tonight, I entered a Free Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tournament at TT Reynolds. Now, realize that I have been learning poker from playing online, but I have never played “face to face” against a bunch of people.
Well tonight, I did. I actually got to see the chips, shuffle the cards, and look at people’s reactions and expressions.
I was kind of nervous, mainly because I wasn’t quite sure of the protocol — how did people deal, how did they cut, how were the blinds managed? All of this stuff is normally done by computers when playing online. So, a few hands into it, I started catching on pretty well.
When I play poker online, I try to employ a “tight-aggressive” philosophy — that is, I only play good hands, and when I have a good hand, I play it strongly, for lots of chips. I wasn’t sure how that would work in this tournament. But I tried it anyway… besides, it was how I had practiced when playing online.
Well, this particular tournament had 66 players total — there were 7 full tables with 8 people each, as well as a waiting list 10 deep. My starting table seemed to play pretty conservatively, and there wasn’t any early attrition. Next thing you know, 2 people were gone from the table.. then 3. And then they started combining tables, bringing in extra people our table. And some of these people were coming in with “monster stacks” of chips, far outnumbering what I had.
Eventually, the numbers had dwindled so that there were only 8 people at the final table. And guess what, I made the final table. And in three straight hands, three more people were gone. I made the final five. And not much longer, there were only 3 — and I was one of them.
When we made it to the final three people, I had the short-stack (the least number of chips at the table). And in fact, there was this woman who had to have 3 chip-racks just to bring her chips to the table!!! If I were going to finish first, I had some monster pots to win, and that lady could “bully” us around with her massive number of chips.
At one point, I didn’t even have enough chips to be able to cover the small blinds, so I went all-in. I had pocket queens, and I won that hand, so I got to stay a little while longer. And then the next hand, I had to go all-in again. And on this hand, our hands tied, so we split the pot. And then in a way I can’t explain or that I’ve never seen, I started getting good hands every hand.
It wasn’t long until I had the chip lead, and everyone else was playing catch up with me. And I kept getting decent hands! So, at one point, I may have had around 120,000 chips, the blinds were 20,000 and 40,000, and I was the big blind. Basically it meant that I had to put in 40,000 chips just to play. Well, on this particular hand, I was dealt pocket aces — pretty much the best starting hand you can have.
Well, the guy on the small blind had just enough to cover the entry bet (including the small blind, he had something like 47,000 chips), and he went all in. And then it was up to me… I asked the lady how many chips she had, that I was going to put her all in. She told me, and I bet the same amount of chips. So, if she wanted to play in that one hand, she would have to go all-in too. And she did.
They turn over their cards, and the lady had two heart cards, and the guy had something like a Queen and an eight. I had a DECIDED advantage!!! And then came the flop… and there was another Ace — I flopped a set of aces!!! And I won the whole damn thing!!! I know it’s cliche to win with pocket Aces, but dammit, that’s just what happened!
Yep, in my first “tournament,” I left the champion!!!
So, I won a $25 gift certificate to TT Reynolds, and he gave me a t-shirt. Unfortunately, the shirt was only an XL, and I can get one good wear out of an XL before it washes and shrinks up on me, so I ask if he has a XXL, and he doesn’t. So, he offers me a deck of cards… WPT (World Poker Tour) cards to be exact!!!
But there’s more!!! My victory has earned me an automatic invitation into the regional tournament on June 18!!! This one will be much bigger and tougher, I’m guessing. And the winner of that tournament will play in an online tournament (of only 11 people), where the winner gets a free $10,000 buy-in to the World Series of Poker!!! How cool is that?
So, I will say… I am exhausted!!! When I got to the final table, and the blinds were getting so high so quickly, it got tense and stressful!!! And that wore me out!!! The other 2 finalists say that they were pretty worn out as well.
More importantly, I had a great time! There was one gentleman, who was at my first table, and he also made it to the final table. He was very cool, and before he left (that was when there were only 3 players left), he said that it was great playing with me, and that we started the tournament together and it was great to make it to the final table with me. Very cool!!!
So, right now, I’m excited, but very tired!!! But it gets a little worse!!! I “taped” the Survivor finale, and I have to watch it tonight!!! It will be impossible to NOT see who won it tomorrow. They usually talk about it on the radio and have it on the cover of Yahoo! News. So, I’m going to watch the finale, and then go to bed!

Fred, who consults for our company said something at a meeting this past Tuesday which was so profound that I believe I will remember for quite a while:

There’s a reason why the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror!

Look forward, not backward, people!

Tis been a while since I’ve posted anything, so this one will be of the short, bulleted variety…

• Springtime is finally here! And the top has been down quite a bit! I’m thinking that since gas is so high right now, and expected to be just as high if not higher throughout the summer, that maybe this summer will be more top down, less AC on!
• I’m completely intrigued by no less than 3 TV shows right now:
  “24” is simply the best show on TV… they can’t make a bad episode… although you do have to suspend belief that it all can happen in an episode (or all of it in 24 episodes).
  “Alias” started off this season in a great fashion, and then headed in a disappointing way — well, it’s damn riveting right now. The first episode was phenomenal… it made it seem like the show was heading in it’s old direction… a direction where duplicity was an essential element of the show… unfortunately, that all went away in 2 episodes. And then every episode looked like it would be the “bad guy of the week” show, with little to no ongoing or developing storylines. Well, that got better. There are like 2 episodes left, and I can’t wait to see what happens!
  And as usual, Survivor is fantastic! Tonight’s episode had so much “drama”, that I had no idea who would be voted off — even as late as the reading of the names! Simply great TV! Survivor: Palau will end this Sunday, and you can bet I’ll be watching! My prediction is that Jenn will win, as she’s stayed mostly out of the conflict, although I can certainly see scenarios where any of the 4 will win!
• I bought tickets to see Tom Petty and the Black Crowes for this July at Merriweather Post Pavilion. I’ve seen the Crowes at least 5 times, but have never seen Petty. I’m REALLY looking forward to this one!
• I bought myself a new desktop computer a couple of weeks ago. I got a Gateway with a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4. I finally have a flatscreen monitor. But the part that has most intrigued me (and most interested me), is the inclusion of Windows XP Media Center Edition. I am totally fascinated by the capabilities of the Media Center. First, I have hooked up my cable to the computer — not a cable modem, but the actual cable — I can watch cable on the computer!
  I can also record TV shows, and burn to DVD. There’s a whole “My Music” section where my songs can be retrieved and played. There’s a “My Pictures” section and a “My Video” section. Hell, there’s even a “My Radio” part, where I can listen to FM Radio or internet radio… all through the computer.
  But the best part is the capability to have all of these things go anywhere in my house. With the purchase of a Media Center Extender (which I will NOT be purchasing, however read below for why), you can “stream” all of this material from the computer to my living room. Yep, I can play the songs on my computer through my living room stereo receiver. Yep, the TV shows I recorded on my computer can be played on my TV in the living room, with the sound (in 5.1 Surround, I’ll add) going through my receiver.
  But there’s so much more.. you can rent movies online (streamed quickly)… there’s exclusive content like live music, movie trailers, music videos, news… lots and lots and lots
• Microsoft unveiled the Next Generation of the XBOX tonight. At 9:30 on MTV, they aired a show which announced the impending arrival of the XBOX 360. I’ve always been a Playstation Fan (I bought the original Playstation on the first day it was available), but I must admit that the XBOX 360 looks pretty damn cool.
  All games will be in High Definition (which will be great when I get a HDTV). The controllers are wireless. The graphics are amazing. It’s ready to be networked (adapters built in for wired networks, and I think I read that an adapter can be purchased for 802.11a, b, or g networking — if not, then it’s built in too!).
  But the main reason I’m pondering switching from Playstation to XBOX? Out of the box, the XBOX 360 will also serve as a Media Center Extender. Since I really want to share the Media Center across my whole home, no additional purchase would be necessary — it can cover my gaming as well as my geeky media sharing yen.
  The XBOX 360, although it hasn’t been formally announced, should go on sale in November.
• But, I’m still not sure I’m ready to abandon the Playstation preferences I’ve had. Besides, Sony is expected to announce the details of its Playstation 3 release at E3 next week. Depending on the features of the PS3 (and of course, how cool it looks), I may just stay with the PS3. It looks like (but it hasn’t been announced, either) the PS3 will not go on sale until next year. Timing might lead me to the XBOX direction too. I’m just wondering if I have the wisdom to NOT purchase both systems?

I was thumbing through the comics section of the Sunday paper today, and noticed something that I do that’s a tad peculiar.
I don’t read the comics from the front page to the back page. Call me strange. I read the front page, then the back page, and then I open the section and read the rest from the back to the front.
I don’t know why I do it that way, but I always have.
Just call me strange… or a little different.