August 16 – Off to take our daughter to the Emergency room. We happened to select SunRise Children’s Hospital. I will spare everyone the details of our daughter’s symptoms, but it was not quite how we planned to start the vacation. The hospital was great. At least we could watch the Olympics while waiting. The wait was long so my son and I headed back to the resort to swim and goof off. We played air hockey, pool, and showed other guests the finer art of Wii bowling. Around 6:00 PM we headed back to the hospital. The drive to and from the Hospital allowed us to learn some back roads in Vegas. We arrived just about the time our daughter was being dismissed.

Sticking to the game plan I tucked the family in and headed to Downtown Las Vegas around 10:00 PM. My best experiences gambling in Las Vegas has always been downtown, so I drove to my old venue, Binion’s Horseshoe. I must say the parking garage was a tight fit, but at least there was parking. I had heard that $1-2 black jack was back at Binion’s. Well that turned out to be false, so I headed to the poker.room. I bought in to a $1-2 NL game for $50. I know. I am cheap. I do like the challenge of spinning gold out of straw. I won a few hands. My biggest win came as a small blind special with 74s. Two fours came on the flop and I had one caller all the way. I believe I was up to around $75. A new player came to the table. Oh before I forget the Olympics were on and when the US men won the swimming relay the place erupted in applause. It was really cool. The very first hand with the new player I flopped top two pair, Kings and nines. I bet out $15. He went over the top of me $40, essentially putting me all-in. My gut told me that he flopped a set. I ended up mucking my hand. Two hands later I limped in with KQ. The flop came KQ7. I bet $15. Again this guy goes over the top of me. I put him on AQ, so I pushed in my stack. He immediately called. He turned over AQ. For a second I felt like Daniel Negreanu. Everyone reading this can guess the outcome. An Ace hit on the turn and I lose site of a $200 + pot. I went on tilt. I quickly congratulated the player and stormed out of the casino. I acted like a total idiot. That is the way my play has been online, always getting out drawn on the turn or river. Oh I was frustrated because I thought I played excellent poker. I finished my beer watching the Freemont Experience.

I got in the car and got turned down a street with construction that ran by the Golden Nugget. It was quite serendipitous because the street headed me straight for the Stratosphere and I made it back to the resort in record time with little to know traffic. Thank goodness I noticed the police offer patrolling and I was not speeding.

Play on!

Las Vegas Trip Report August 15-22, 2008

August 15 – Driving from Phoenix area to Las Vegas. We arrived at Hoover Dam approaching dusk. The cost to park was ridiculous ($7) but well worth it to view the Damn up close. Our daughter did not care for it much. Apparently she is terrified of heights.

I believe we arrived in Las Vegas around 7:00 PM. I had not been to Las Vegas since 1991, so I was not sure what to expect. The skyline definitely changed significantly. Our trusted Google map brought us right to our resort, Wyndham Grand Desert Resort.

I made several trips to the car to unpack. I was too cheap to pay the bell hops. Our accommodations were nice. We made a grocery list and I headed to a store called Von’s and to Jack in the Box for dinner. I found the store and picked up supplies for the week. There were only two checkout lines open. I was about eighth in line and there were at least 20 people behind me. It was ridiculous. Definitely all walks of life were out shopping on a Friday night.

Next stop Jack in the Box. I got my order and against my normal practices I checked the content. I was a sandwich short. I parked and walked inside where the quickly corrected the order. After dinner my son and I decided to go for a swim. Man that pool water was cold. We ended up chilling in the hot tub!

Although I was anxious to hit the tables I decided it would be best to stay put for the night. I thought I could kill time playing online. NOT! The internet at the resort sucked.

Rather than an uber post I will post one day at a time!

Play on!

Thought I would share this brief adventure and even include a bit of poker.



Last night I decided to do some yard work to please the boss. I pruned and weeded the bed along the side of our house. It was not a problem and I had energy to burn. I have been inspired to create another water feature so I decided to start digging the hole. I used a shovel and a pick axe, having a grand old time. I hit something hard so I got my 30 pound rock spike. Wham! Wham! Sphhhhshhhhhh! I hit the #@%&*( main sprinkler line. I was pissed! I turned off the water to the house. How the F... was I going to cut this line. I could not get a hack saw in there. Hmmmm! My wife bought me a all-in-One tool a few years back. It took n act of Congress to figure out how to install the saw blade, but I finally managed. In the pool of water I was only able to cut 3/4 through the pipe. I had to dig deeper into the swamp I created then finsih the job with a mud splattering hack saw. I got the piece of pipe out and boogied to Lowes to buy parts. I returned with a compression fitting two couplers and a end cap.



Note to readers - PVC compression fittings suck! Oh I forgot to add since the water was turned off my wife was let's say "Less than Happy"! I tried four times to get the damn compression fitting to stop leaking. I finally gave up and debated a trip back to Lowes. Hmmm! I bought the end cap for a reason, so I just capped the pipe and turned the water back on. No leak!



Saga continues - Oh I forgot to mention that I did buy two couplers, but I did not have a piece of pipe to connect the two. I stopped at Lowes on the way home from work and got the PVC pipe. I did learn from my boss that there should be a cut-off valve specific to the sprinkler system. I found and opened the box. I was staring at the valving with my sun glasses on trying to study the configuration and figure out how to turn off the water. Then I saw it it laying on top of the pipe. A SNAKE! I was thankful I did not just reach in and attempt to turn a valve. I am not sure what type it was. I poked it with the screw driver. The snake did not put up much of a fight then slithered into the hole next to the pipe. I was thinking to myself -"Man life is full of surprises!"



After several cuts of PVC I got the leak repaired and the water back on.

Poker story will have to be later!

Hello Internet!

I have not posted in a long time. Poker is not the hot topic these days. My only poker comment is that I lose more often than I win when I have pocket aces. Enough said!

I am going to start writing on this blog anything that happens to get under my skin. Here is today's WTF moment.

We are at the farmer's market downtown Austin. There is a line about 8 persons deep to get a pint of freshly picked blueberries. This non-english speaking lady walks by the entire line and right up to the vendor. "How much?" The farmer explains 3 or 4 times the prices. Lady knods her head. "I take two." The young lady starts to package two pints. "No! No! No! One this size."

Vendor prepares a half pint. The the lady tries paying with WIC. The vendor is like sorry we do not take WIC. "You You take! Just like money."

The lady walks away.

I am primarily kicking myself in the buttocks, because I did not ask this lady to get to the back of the line. It was not worth any hassle, but she should follow the rules.

I have experienced several other WTF moments and hopefully I will post those soon.

Howdy Bloggers! I have not been inspired to write in a very long time. However, for some strange reason I decided to read some of the old blogs. Scotts' post of the song by DropKick Murphy for some reason inspired me. Perhaps I will see you at that show. Never heard of them, but I liked it!

My state in the poker world is simple. I have no cash at any sites, so I am back to chasing the freerolls. I am not finding very many good freerolls. At poker time I can no longer consider their site a freeroll. They require one raked hand per day to play in their freerolls. That is a crock. Others freerolls have 5000 players so it is a crap shoot. If anyone knows of good sites were I have a shot to win cash please send me a comment or e-mail. I did finally get my last little bit of stash back from Neteller. I still enjoy playing SNGs for FPPs at PokerStars.

Locally I play in a couple tournaments a month. I thought I would share my experience on Monday night. There were 22 persons in the tournament. Essentially I played AJ suited, pocket kinds, then AJ suited again. Both times with AJ I lost to AKo. I was out with the second AJs. I felt I played the hands correctly, so I was not upset. I then moved to the cash game.

The first couple of hours it was a normal NL Holdem cash game. Soon we had 11 players so we split to two tables. I landed at the crazy table. We ended up playing pineapple, crazy pineapple, Omaha, and Holdem. They would do straddles and double straddles. I thought it was totally insane, but I sat there drinking whiskey and water and more importantly extremely patient. I was down to my final 6 bucks when my luck changed. I built up a stack of something around $30 when they decided to play Omaha H/L. The river brought me the nut flush and the nut low. I raked in an $80 pot. It was a nice feeling. So for the first outing ot 2008 I am plus $42. Perhaps I should quit! :o)

To end 2007 I lost with pocket Aces to 57o to finish on the bubble. I was totally on tilt! I still have no clue how he could call a 4X raise. The flop came 553.

What else can I complain about. My back is mucked up, so I can not play golf. It has been a long time since my back was this whacky. Hell to get older.

I doubt anyone reads this silly blog, but once again I am going to attempt to post more often.

Play on!