Humans Apparently Do not Exist

 This will be an extremely short rant.  We do our banking with a local Federal Credit union and have done so for 30+ years.  The other day I thought I needed an answer to a very simple questions.  I could not find it anywhere on their website.  AI could not provide me the answer.  So I called.  What do I get an IVR system.  No matter what I did I could not get a human on the phone.  I went back to their website and I thought I will engage with their chat bought.  I could not find my answer.  I asked to speak to a human.  The AI Bot give me the same 2 F'n phone numbers I have been calling.  I hit 0.  "Invalid option".  Speak to an agent?  Invalid option

I know from my experiences AI chat bots can offer some useful information.  Typically when I need human interaction I get connected to a human.  WTF bank!  Can you please put a path via chat or IVR to let me speak to a HUMAN.

Long and short of it is that I did not even need the information I was seeking.  Panic and frustration was unwarranted. 🤦

USPS Get your @%&& Together

 Numerous times our wonderful USPS delivers packages to our shared community set of mail boxes.  What the folks fail to realize is that the side they put packages in is larger than the side we take our packages out.

Take a look at these two photos.

I had to crush my fingers and use my keys to get this package out of our mail box.  My lovely wife has complained numerous times and shared photos very similar to these with USPS.  Unfortunately, it was my turn to experience this frustrating situation.

Anyone else have this problem?  Has anyone successfully convinced USPS that this is a problem?

Friendly complaints fall up deaf ears at USPS.  USPS please get your **** together and do better by your customers.

The Next Chapter

 This post will ultimately end in great news but permit me to share my experience.  This is likely a bit of a long rant until I get to the great news.

Empathy - In August my role was terminated at a dynamic startup led by great people.  I know these leaders well and they were having to make extremely tough decisions, which they should be commended for. I am glad I was not in their shoes. The CEO helped me change careers 25 years ago and hired me at 4 different companies.  I wish the company nothing but success.

Confusion - Jobless, I faced a huge internal and emotional debate.  Should I retire or continue to work?  I was leaning towards retirement because there is a tough IT market out there.  I became a Players Assistant at a local golf course, which would help me afford the sport that I love.  I work with some amazing people and I hope to continue this relationship.  I had resolved to myself that I had to retire

Anger - Next is the eye opener!!!  Paying for health insurance in the United States of America is astronomically expensive.  For two people we landed at around $1500 per month, through healthcare.gov only to learn that in 2026 this figure is expected to double.  Wow!  There is no way to live in retirement paying ~$40K/year for health insurance.  The insurance cost alone made me realize that it is not yet time to stop working.  This could be an entire rant by itself, but I shall spare you.

Turmoil - I applied for about 100 opportunities all potentially aligned to my skills and passions.  The software used to apply for these roles in some cases is absolutely atrocious.  With my 20+ years focusing on software testing this experience was tedious and even heart breaking at times.  I am going to call them out this time, but Workday’s ability to parse a resume accurately is not a good experience.  It was so bad that I stopped selecting that option and leveraged cut & paste into the forms.  Form field validation was also a negative experience.  Blocking an advancement in the flow because my first and last name was all in caps.  Wow!  Out of all of those applications I landed 2 interviews.  The people who interviewed me were great, but I was starting to lose faith.  Roughly 60% of the applications were rejected, stating they are going with another candidate.  The other 40% resulted in silence.

In addition to considering retirement, I am eligible for Medicare in January 2026.  Navigating government website implementations requires a Law Degree, a Phd in English, and at least a Masters in Computer Science.  Government websites are the definition of complexity and extremely poor quality.  Trying to get help via a phone call is also a nightmare.  The complexity is so real.  

I also chose to apply for unemployment.  That is another tragic tale of crappy implementations of software, poor quality, and over complication.  For example one week I applied to 8 jobs then the next week I applied to zero, because I was preparing with laser focus on upcoming interviews.  Even with the preparation I totally blew one of the interviews, but I learned.  I would not be paid for the week with zero applications.   The Texas Workforce commission seems to think all jobs are created equal.  The system would send me jobs that were  nowhere close to my experience.  Ugghhh!

During one of the interviews I found my slipping back in the habit of responding to a question without thorough and complete thought.  I did learn from this!

Grateful -  Over my career I now realize that I have been fortunate to meet so many people.  Colleagues and friends emerged selflessly to offer their support.  Thank you!

One of my mentors aligned me to a part time consulting opportunity, which truly helped us not go deep into our savings during this trying time.  

A friend helped me land the Players Assistant opportunity at a local golf course. 

One of my colleagues went to the moon for me, advocating that their company needed to fill a gap in their engineering practice.  Without this person I would not be able to make the announcement below.  

Former coworkers in the recruiting profession also went to bat for me.  Your expertise, your effort, and your guidance was appreciated.

One final note to everyone who gave words of encouragement or added an emoji to a statement made on LinkedIn.  You inspired me in many ways.   I was inspired to reread The Phoenix Project.  I am also reading “CTO The Toolbox” by Sergio Gago Huerta.  And I am excited to learn from a new book all testers and engineers should add to the library, “Taking Testing Seriously” by James Bach and Michael Bolton.  I was in a mental place where I had given up on looking for a job.  Reading these books got me re-engaged.

Blessed -  I am extremely happy to say I am not retiring.  Instead I am super excited to embark on a new adventure as a Senior Staff SEI Platform Lead (SEI = Software Engineering Intelligence) at Cloudera.  This role aligns perfectly to the things I have been learning over the past 5-7 years.  Interviewing with company leaders at Cloudera was amazing.  These were true dialogues.  They were transparent, which was refreshing.  I am excited to knock this opportunity out of the park.

One more time THANK YOU!  

To all of my friends and colleagues still looking for their next opportunity and adventure, please do not give up.  If I can help in any way contact me.  There is a path forward!

Evil People are Lurking

 It is hard to believe that my last musing was in 2020.  I have a ton on mind these days and need an outlet for expressing my thoughts so I am resurrecting this obscure little blog post.

Here is why I say "Evil People are Lurking".  I recently was suddenly pushed into the world of unemployment.  The state of how bad the tooling is for applying for jobs could be written in a book, but I want to share one mistake I inadvertently made.

Having applied to dozens of jobs I have been on pins and needles waiting for replies.  I got this very basic email about scheduling an interview.  I opened it!  As Pop Evil sings "Let the Chaos Reign!".  I now get dozens of emails daily of absolute bullshit.  It has become impossible to sift through the reality and the scammers.

In this day and age why can we not stop this random spamming.  My conclusion is that I opened pandora's box, and the evil people are now trying to do something nefarious.   

If anyone at all reads this, my lesson to you is do not open emails that are not clear as to the intent.  Good luck, because it is hard to discern the difference.  Protect yourselves as best as you can.

One other piece of advise is if you do become unemployed please think seriously about adding the #OpenToWork tag on your LinkedIn profile.  In this case people mean well, but you get a ton of people trying to sell you services (e.g. - resume optimization, career coaching).  I am unemployed and not likely to spend precious money on these services.

Enjoy the day!

If I Were President (Final Post)

Sadly, I have not posted since April.  I can adamantly say that I am going to stop this series. The primary reason is that I would not want the job of such a dysfunctional country.  Hopefully, I can pivot back to posting about fun things like poker, golf, puppies, or music.  Politics make me angry and I do not need anger in my life.

During this Covid-19 stay at home situation, it has become glaringly obvious to me that our two-party system is extremely flawed and enables polarization.  We will always be in the situation of having to choose the lesser of two evils.  We need to shift to a Preferential Voting strategy.  Do your homework if you want to know more.  Several states have shifted to this strategy.

I was playing golf last weekend. Two strangers, I played golf with brought up elections.  Their answer was to vote republican then we will figure things out.  To me, that is a clear signal of how divided we are.

I will restate that I have not voted for either of the two primary parties in the past 20 years.  Since I turned 18 years old and could vote I have voted in every election.  Bullwinkle the Moose will likely be my write-in candidate.  The sad news is that if I throw away my vote we will still have an incompetent leader elected as the POTUS.  Honestly, I am not sure what I am going to do, but I will vote.

The other thing that has me so disillusioned is declaring essentially declaring Marshall Law on cities that are lead by the opposite party.  Insanely poor leadership!

I am attempting to become more aware of Inclusion and Diversity.  I am reading some really thought-provoking books, White Fragility by Robin Deangelo and How to Be An Antiracist by Dr. Kendi.  I am almost done with White Fragility.  I think the biggest take away for me is that the game is rigged.  I used to equate the term White supremacy to organizations like KKK.  The book has made me realize it is much broader than that.  

White Fragility will be discussed this evening by a group of esteemed panelists at Southwestern University.

I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Kendi speak and I was inspired to read his book based on the dialog.

I committed to listening to some podcasts delivered by "people of color".  Unfortunately, my first podcast has me asking more questions.  I was listening to Friends Like Us podcast specifically episode called All that Disparity and Inequality.  I enjoyed the energy and the conversation, but Marina the host made a comment that the "White man is the Devil".  I can only hope that this generalization has more context related to one of the comedians' stand-ups.  I sent Marina an email, but sadly no reply.  Based on my reading this is probably a legit sentiment, but I personally do not find statements like that to add value to the conversation.  It is a polarizing statement.  I hope Marina responds to my email.  I could learn so much from her and her humorous friends.  I will continue to listen to the podcast because as the books above the conversation makes me think.  Update:  Since I posted this I watched some of Marina's comedy on YouTube.  She is hilarious!  

Then once again I was following some current events.  Once again the media does us a huge disservice when they reported the Memphis story where parents dropped off 300 children at a miniature golf course.  The photos I observed seem to imply that is was a racial issue.  This could be my bias showing through. I am trying to work on my biases, but my trust in the media is so low that I wanted to know more. 

Regardless, I will continue my learning journey.  I will do my best to assume positive intent on everything I watch, read, or listen to.  

If I were President (Covid-19 Part 2)

I never thought I would get anxiety going for groceries.  So much as changed in the past 45 days or so.  I thought I would write weekly and continue this post and share perspectives on some of the tough things in our world like abortion, immigration, and health insurance.  Now I am not sure I will ever get to those posts nor if I want to spend the time writing those posts.

What have I learned since Covid-19? 

I started watching a Netflix series called Dirty Money.  I honestly had no clue how fucking corrupt our world really is.  I suspect the series is relatively truthful, but I honestly do not know.  Just the thought of what some of these people do to make money is disturbing.  A co-worker called out I was not setting a great tone during a virtual happy hour.  He was right, but these acts are shocking.  The episode on Guardianship absolutely broke me.

We also watched another series called "Broken".  As a former Environmental Chemist, I was appalled by the business tactics represented in this series.  A great documentary series but again highlights the evil in our world today.

These documentaries set the stage.

The United States (maybe the world) is so polarized that I am not sure we will ever recover.  As of today, I have decided I must stop using Facebook so frequently.  I may look once a week to see positive things, but even the diverse people I call friends have so much angst.    Especially when it comes to politics.  Family members are not even willing to have a deep conversation on topics.  There is such an "I (we) are right" and "you (y' all) are wrong" mindset.  I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. I am considering the same action for Twitter and Slack.  The always-on aspect of the digital age is starting to take a toll on me.

Special interests, corruption, and pure greed rule the day.  When it comes to Congress passing bills there are always contingencies that have nothing to do with the problem at hand.  The attitude seems to be I will sign the bill if you do this for me.   Oh wait, then you need to do that too.

Our economic system appears to be so fragile.  I would never imagine a virus would bring a global economy to its knees in such short order.  Our world is made up of monopoly money and we simply grab another game set to increase the amount.  Our daughter lost her first job that she absolutely loved.  She is heartbroken and so are we.  Millions of people are now unemployed and there is no money to support them all.  I am blessed to still be employed, but I am not happy.  Some talented people are now struggling to find their next opportunity.  Again this breaks my heart because they are great people.  I would like to try something new, but fear gets in the way.  Will we have good insurance to support our illnesses and age?  Will taking the risk of change generate enough income to at least sustain what we do today?  Probably a third of the retirement savings vanished.  I am afraid to look.  I would love to retire in 10 years, but I do not see it happening.  Under the current conditions, there is most likely a higher probability I will not make it to retirement.

People are hungry and some are unable to get food.  Covid-19 has exposed how vulnerable the food supply chain truly is.  I am eating less healthy than I should.  I used to walk at least 4 days per week, but now the motivation is hard to muster and I am lucky to go twice per week.  When I do go for a walk I hope I do not encounter other humans.  I do not like wearing a mask.  I do say good morning or Hi when I encounter others.

I am trying to remain positive, but when I glance at the future the only choices I see are not good.  I used to view politicians as role models and today they are the total opposite.  Social media and the general media cannot be trusted.  We are left to our own processing of data to form any sense of the madness.  What fucking sources do we trust?  I trust none of them. 

At the end of the day, I know what I stand for and what I have accomplished in life.  I am proud of these accomplishments and the family we have fostered.  I feel I could go on and on and on.  I will end with this.  Everyone should do at least one kind thing a day. 

I am starting to get lost.

If I Were President ( COVID-19 )

Based on my outline of topics this was certainly not present in the draft outline.  The first guide to all of the people is to be safe and respectful of others.

As President, the first thing to do is to assemble the most brilliant doctors and scientists to develop the right strategy for our country.  Based on limited reading this did not appear to happen.

In general, I struggle with the First Amendment as it pertains to potential national emergencies.  As the COVID-19 news broke there seemed to be so much misleading information in haste to get the news out.  The public seems confused and that should not happen.  The other negative is immediately the blame game emerged.  Depending on the media source there was finger-pointing at both primary parties.  I support the First Amendment, but I would welcome the opportunity to go back in time when facts and integrity were foundational to the news we receive.  Despite the news source, the facts should be the facts.  Speculation and sensationalism bring little value when we are facing a global problem.  I am truly perplexed on how a President, Government, or Society can correct this news ship.  I will have to come back to this concern in a future post.

For the past few months, I have been diligently studying resiliency as applied to software.  The one primary lesson for me is that in order to get a deep understanding of an incident is we must be blameless.  The term blameless seems to have become a cliche, but it is really true.  COVID-19 is an international incident and the world should inspect deeply all of the things that have emerged.  I thought humans were naturally resilient, but human factors are as complex as our biological chemistry.  It is perplexing that many times the first thing that happens is to blame.  We should form a strategy to mitigate the problem, then analyzing deeply what happened and what could change for the better.

I am puzzled by some of the human factors during this Global Incident.  Specifically the panic purchasing and the hoarding of goods.  This is a psyche that I do not understand.  Are we truly a global "me" society and not a "we" society.  I think this is the most disturbing aspect of the human factors influencing the COVID-19.  As a society are we going to instrument circuit breakers for groceries similar to the stock market.  I am going to have to talk with many people with varying views on this topic to better understand the psyche.  I am certain I have some sort of bias, but I am confident if I needed help some of my human networks would come to aid.  I hope those people who hoarded items, even fought over items, reflect on their actions.

If I were President, we would have to assemble strong business leaders to craft a strategy to help those who cannot work from home and temporarily would be without wages.  I would encourage businesses to continue to pay their employees so that we can survive this Pandemic. 

If I were President, I would have to thank everyone around the globe who is manning the hospitals.  Everyone who has chosen to self-quarantine.  All businesses that quickly took action with work from home policies to flatten the spread of this virus.  All of the experts who produced consumable data and facts that make sense.  All of the individuals who were disciplined and purchased what was needed.

Be kind to all!

If I Were President (Introduction)

This is intended to be a series of posts that I have been thinking about for some time.  I do not believe politics belong on Facebook or Twitter.  If you want to express political views write a blog, so join me on this journey.  Challenge any piece you wish with peaceful comments.

First of all the unfortunate truth is that I could never be President with the current state of things.  I am not a billionaire, a millionaire, nor willing to be bought by some damn greedy corporations.  The blogpost is over.  No, it is not!  What would need to change?

This past Tuesday was the primaries.  I had no primary to vote in.  The first thing that we should consider changing is that there should be a primary for all potential political parties.  For several elections in the past 20 years, I have abstained from the two primary parties or went into a party to demonstrate that I was willing to vote. The fact is that the two parties of power are simply not pragmatic and frankly they are polarizing.  The second thing that seemed truly frustrating about this recent primary was all of the ridiculous poll questions people were asked to weigh in on.  I think those need to move to a separate format so that voters can get things done quickly.  I read that some people in Texas waited 8 hours to vote.  The purpose of the primary becomes focused on reducing the number of candidates and that is all.  Maybe we use Survey Monkey to poll the people

The biggest obstacle to becoming President is money.  My proposal would be comprised of two key things.  The first is every Presidential candidate gets a fixed sum of money to campaign with.  The question is what might be an adequate sum of campaign funds for the primary.  I would propose $500k.  The candidates would complain that it is nowhere near enough money.  Candidates would have to get creative.  The second part of the proposal is that there would be taxpayer funding for public TV and radio channels for candidates to express their views and frankly have professional debates.  Each candidate gets the exact same amount of air time.   All debates are on these channels and all candidates are invited.  Prior to the primary, these debates would be party specific. As a side note, I recall during the last Presidential election there was a congress or senate race in Florida where the candidates spent almost $700 Million.  To me, that is a huge problem because think of all the social good we could do with that amount of money.  This is where the taxpayer-funded TV and radio channels come into play.  We have to stop individuals and corporations from buying elections.

So my party, The Pragmatic Party, now has a primary.  The candidates are all on the same footing as all other parties.  I convince the people that my ideas are reasonable.  The people select me as a candidate.

We move into the Presidential election.  The funding increases slightly $1M per party candidate.  There is more air time because we have fewer candidates.  The candidates have their portion of the air time to convince the people of their ideas.  These amounts can change but they would come from a balanced government budget.

I would require that we operate our government with a balanced budget.  Our monopoly money society has probably made this damn near impossible, but we need to do something.  I am not sure about everyone else, but I do not feel that the tax dollars I contribute are put to good use at all.  I feel the tax dollars are lining the pockets of the greedy or are supported by the greedy or are fueled yet by more greed.  I have worked hard and yes I do want to live a wonderful life. Today to have a good life takes money, but do we need millions or billions? 

While I am living in fantasy land there are a couple of other things I would require.  And the biggest one is term limits.  Two terms for the President make sense and should not change.  For congress, we should also apply the same term limit.  It is really a problem that we have had people in congress for 40 plus years.  People tell me the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again.

So I have been elected, we have formed a plan that will not spend more than we take in in tax dollars.  There is no corporate influence.  Ending lobbyists would be a good thing in my opinion. There is one more thing that must be done.  Bills flowing through Congress can have only a single purpose.  Riders and clauses cannot be added.  We vote on one thing at a time.  I just read today that the Covid-19 bill was denied because of the pork fat added in by our political heroes.  I was devasted years ago when a rider was added to the port authority act to halt online poker in the US.  Did Congress know that was part of the bill?  More importantly, did the public?  I am not the most informed, but I was certainly surprised.  There went my entertainment where I was actually making a small amount of supplemental income.

"IF I Were President" I would end daylight savings time!

Finally. "If I Were President", I would run our government using Agile methodologies.  We would be lean, transparent, and iterative.  We would have a public kanban board where everyone can see what we are working on.  Hopefully, we did a great job of socializing the why and the value of the outcomes.

There are many other complexities that I am probably naive to, but this is where I would start.  One last thing I would completely eliminate is all of the signage placed on fences, billboards, and popping up at voting centers.  This is nothing but pollution!

2018 is Here

What went well on New Year's Eve?

I was able to use my Big Green Egg for the first time to cook a couple of pork tenderloins.  I struggled to keep the correct temperature, but I think I am going to be able to make some amazing food on the Big Green Egg.

We had a nice bonfire and our son had some friends over to roast marshmallows and make S'mores.

I enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine, Lagavulin, and a shot of chocolate chili tequila.

I won a couple of small stakes Sit N Go tournaments.

What did not go so well?

Fireworks caused our dog to leave a trail of pee throughout the house.  Nothing like mopping up pee on New Year's Eve.  Fireworks are banned from our neighborhood but do not stop anyone.

What is ahead in 2018?

I think there is definitely some significant changes heading our way.  We shall see.

Happy New Year!

Invisibility

My current theory is that stop signs are invisible.

Yesterday coming back from the Farmers Market, a guy just turned left in front of me without ever stopping at the stop sign.  One must support the local farmers!

A few weeks ago someone was killed in our neighborhood while walking and another person was injured.

About a month ago my wife witnessed someone run 3 stop signs in a row.

Everyone should slow down, enjoy life, and see those stops signs.

Merry Christmas!

Global Poker

I have been playing for awhile on a site called GlobalPoker.com.  They had an interesting way of getting around the stupid appended amendment to the Port Authority act (circa 2006 maybe).  You buy gold coins and they give you "Sweeps cash".

I am a grinder at low stakes and have had many ups and downs.  This is a conspiracy theory, but I honestly question the randomness of their algorithm.  I wish I had tracked the number of times I have lost on the river.

Last night I hit the nut flush on the turn only to lose to quad 3's on the river.  Yes, it could be me just losing my ass and bitter.  It could be the fact that I play for low stakes so no one gives a shit and calls with anything.  Needless to say, it is frustrating.  I have had countless hours of fun!

Now that I am frustrated can anyone recommend other poker sites that permit US citizens to play for money?  Ideally, I would like a site that has freerolls so I can spin gold out of nothing.

Play On!

Three Observations - Poker, Gym, Life

My poker observation playing in the local Friday night game.  A person went all in and I knew he was chasing a flush after I had flopped top set.  I had no choice to call him.  Well, everyone knows he caught the flush on the river, which completely changed my night.  I did have fun playing until 4:30 AM, which is quite a feat for this soon to be 57 years old.

If you belong to a gym that has a towel service, please pick up your towels.  On Sunday there were towels left all over the place including inside of two showers.  I cannot believe grown men cannot pick up after themselves.

I was reading the local news while eating lunch.  I read that EMS was called due to several people over-dosing on K2.  I am like what the heck is K2.  Thanks to Google I learned that it is synthetic THC.  Just smoke the real stuff people.  Amateur chemists are a disaster waiting to happen.

Play on! 

Barista Distraction

The Rock Garden has been dormant for some time.  Recently, I seem to make strange observations about life and I am playing poker again.  I thought I would start blogging about some of my recent life observations.

Today I am about to visit a new dentist and I am hanging in the nearby Starbucks. 

Here is my observation.  A Barista should not be chit-chatty if there are over 10 people awaiting their beverage.  They should focus on getting the job done, then chit chat.

It still amazes me that I drink Starbucks coffee and put up with the sub-par product.  Oh well!  That might be another short post.

Play on!

Playing Poker On-Line Again

Well, it has been forever since I blogged on this site.  Who knows if I will keep it going, but I wanted to share the event from today.  I found this event quite exhilarating.

I have started to play online again at globalpoker.com.  They have an interesting way of getting around US Gaming rules, but I am playing for real money again.  I really wish the US would get their shit together.

I decided to play in a $3 +$.030 NL Holdem tournament with a guaranteed purse of $500.  Everyone started with $2000 in chips.

The very first hand I flop a spade flush (10,9).  I got all-in against pocket Kings.  You guessed it.  On the river, I get counterfeited with another spade and the opponent had the King of spades.

I had $100 left.  Here is where the fun began.  Chip and a chair is true if you take the right opportunities to double up and yes there is some luck involved a hand or two.

So it was a grind, but out of 90 players, I managed to work my way to the final table.  I got pocket Q's when the board brought 7AK.  The turn was a King.  I got pushed all-in and let the hand go.

I managed to a 6th place finish, collecting $23.

I truly forgot how much fun tournament play can be.

Play on!

The Commerce

It has been a very long time since I have posted, but I have a poker story to document.  We are visiting California touring art schools for our daughter.  I was able to convince my better half to let me go to the Commerce Casino.

I walk into the casino and I felt like the bar in Star Wars.  All walks of life in this casino.  I went into one poker room and ask for a $1-$2 NL Holdem game.  A lady who did not speak english very well tried to explain to me that sure there was a game, but she was not clear.  Then this well dressed older man came over and very kindly told me I was in the high roller part of the poker room $600 - $1200 minimum blinds.   Definitely not my place, so he kindly guided me to the other section of the poker room.  There are only 248 tables in this place.

I put my name on a list.  They called my name and I sat down at a table.  They told me it was $100 buy-in.  I happened to have $100, but I thought I was sitting at a $40 buy-in $1-$2 game.  I was swiftly dealt 4 cards.  Oh shit!  Definitely not holdem.  I pretended that I had no clue what Omaha was.  I caught a flush and split the pot with the low hand.  I quickly got up and went back to explain that they sent me to the wrong table.  I was sent to another table that was $3-$6.  Finally I got to the correct table.  I exchanged my $5 chips for $40 worth of $1 chips.  I left the balance of my $60 on the table only to get lectured by the dealer.  If those chips are not in the game you would make the jack pot invalid.  I quickly put them on the floor at my feet.

The third hand I believe I had K2o.  The flop comes KQ9.  I decide to slow play and checked.  I believe it checked around.  The turn was a 9.  Someone bet $4 and I smooth called.  The river was a 9.  I checked.  The player to my left bet $12.  One other caller.  I thought there was no way he had a 9 and the worse case would be I would split.  Yep, he had the nine so my initial buy-in was pretty much toast.

I bought in again and manager to win 3 more hands on the night.  I had to get back home in order to drive to San Francisco, so I could not grind my way back.  I dropped $50.  :(

It is good to say I played poker in the worlds largest poker room.  Although the largest poker room it is not the classiest I have been in.  Now when can I own a poker room in Austin Texas?

Just feel like blogging

I wish I could get in a regular cadence of blogging, but I don't.  So sad!  I do enjoy writing and allowing my 2 brain cells to wonder.  So I am going to meander through my recent experiences with online poker.

First of all I wish the hell the US would bring back online poker.  I do miss the grind of free rolls and spinning gold out of zero investment.  I could rant about how stupid this country is, but that would be one hell of a long blog post.  :)

So I now find myself being entertained by playing Zynga poker via Facebook.  I tend to play their weekly challenge where the quest is to win as much fake money as possible.  Early when I started doing this I thought, "Hey, there are some decent poker players here."  Now as I play more there are a bunch of "all in" idiots.  It is fake money after all so I really should not expect much more than this.

So now the challenge is how do I extract more fake money from these "all in" idiots.  Recently I did win my first Million $$$ Hand.  Pocket aces actually worked for a change because I was up against pocket kings and one rag hand.  Normally the rag hand wins in this scenario.  I also met Irene a good poker player on the site.  So I am also challenged to beat her weekly.  I have 4 million this week and she now has 3X that amount.  Damn it!  Hopefully I will get to play a ton this lazy Thanksgiving day.

BTW - Happy Thanksgiving to the four people who follow this blog.

Shifting gears I played in a charity poker event a few weeks ago.  It was a blast except the blinds went up fast and somewhat randomly.  I played well.  I read a friend of mine like a book and got all in against him twice.  Both times we got me on the river.  The second time was my last.  The after party at the Key bar was definitely something to remember or not remember, depending on who you ask.

Any rate someone mentioned that you could play online again for money legally.  I said no way.  Well it turns out you can using bit coins.  I tried the site, but it was hanky.  Plus I really do not trust bit coins. Heck there was a dude in Austin who made I think over $11 million, selling drugs online using bit coins.

So the short of it is I am stuck playing free fake money poker on Facebook.  WTF!

Even our local neighborhood game has decreased its frequency.  Hopefully one will get scheduled soon.

Play on!

The Poker Game that Wasn't!

Last week I blogged about my excitement of going to a Monday night poker tournament.  I had a beer under my belt and a few for the game.  I had grabbed a tiny yellow Dalek (Dr. Who) to be my card topper.  i was feeling good.  I navigated my way through traffic and I was about .5 miles away from my destination and my phone rings.  "Sorry, but the tournament was on Saturday night!"

No worries!  I went home and did chores.

I am looking forward to the next tournament.  Hopefully it is on a night that I can go.  I usually take a 50 cent piece as a card topper, but for some reason the Dalek seems right.  :)

Shuffle up and deal!

Back on Tour

Tonight I am going back into the lion's den.  I am playing in a local poker tournament.  Our kids soccer practices used to prevent me from playing on Monday nights.  This was one of my favorite poker groups.  Many of them are really good players.  The cash game after getting knocked out of the tournament got out of hand.  Anyone could sit in for any amount they wanted.  That sure puts my $20 at a disadvantage.

I plan to play in the tournament and not the cash game.  Of course I would like to do well, but I really have no expectations.  I think the key will be to try and steal some chips early.  I also need to concentrate more on what I think the opponent might be holding relative to my hand.  Another area I need to improve is reading the player and not rely so much on the cards.

Hopefully I will follow up with a post on tonight's adventure.

Day 1 - Adventure to Pune, India

I promised to blog more, but I am failing to do so.  Today I am going to chronicle my journey from Austin Texas to Pune India.

Yesterday (or two days ago) I headed for the Austin Airport at 4:30 AM.  It was more crowded than I expected.  I guess due to spring break.  I got through security and got to my gate just in time.  The flight from Austin to Newark was fun.  When I arrived in Newark it was snowing.  Things did not look good.

I owe a big thank you to my boss.  He suggested since I had a 9 hour wait until my flight to Pune, that I should pay to join the United Club for the day.  It was supposed to be $50.  For some reason the lady processing my request had trouble, so for me being so polite and patient she let me into the club for free.  Not only did she let me in for free she gave me a pass for another day at the club.  I enjoyed the day drinking Sam Adams and munching on free snacks.  I met some nice people.  CIO of Starpoint Solutions, a lady who works for Rolls Royce, and two brothers heading to Breckenridge for some skiing fun!  Who knows how many beers I had and I added a couple of shots of Jameson.  It was a pleasant day working from the lounge of the United Club at Newark.  Thanks Jack!

The weather miraculously cleared and my flight left close to on time.  The flight to Mumbai was relatively uneventful, but the plane was FREEZING.  I was so glad I had on my Snake Eyes wind breaker.  I watched 4 movies:  Argo, The Dark Truth, Chasing Mavericks, and Trouble with the Curve.  I really enjoyed all 4 movies.  I also played a game on the iPad called Trenches II.  I suck at it, but it was entertaining.  The food on the plane was marginal at best.  I did not like the breakfast much at all.  Fortunately I happened to pack some pretty tasty snacks.

I arrived and needed to go to the men's room due to the wonderful plane food.  Let's just say the bathroom experience at the airport was exactly that an experience.  Trust me, TMI!

I made my way through customs although I declared I was bringing meat into the country, beef jerky.  Nothing happened, whew!  Interesting in that the scan your luggage upon departure from the airport.  I had no phone service so I could not text my family.

I found my driver readily.  Hard to miss the large placard that had my name, but it took a minute or two to scan the large crowd.  My drivers name was Kalyan.  Fortunately for me he was an excellent driver.  He did not know much English, but I felt safe.  I will describe the traffic like this.  A NASCAR track where speeding cars had to dodge large slow trucks of all flavors, motorcycles and throw in pedestrians playing "Frogger".  I cannot do the experience justice in words.  I now love Austin traffic!  There is no way in hell I could have driven in this madness.  Half way to Pune we stopped at highway facility.  Honestly I was not about to use the mens room until I got to the hotel.

Finally arrived at the hotel at 2:00 AM.  The hotel is very nice.  It took me a few minutes to figure out how to turn on the lights in the room.  I felt pretty stupid, but I chalked it up to my sporadic unrestful sleep on the plane.  I was easily able to access internet and let my family know I had arrived.  I took a hot shower and a sleeping pill.  The bed was so comfortable.  I slept like a baby until the barking dogs woke me up around 8:00 AM.  I did feel well rested.

I went downstairs for the complimentary breakfast.  Wow there were so many choices.  I had some scrambled eggs with onions, spicy peppers, and mushrooms.  The staff were amazingly polite.  Here is what the kitchen looked like.  And just a note to my family - I did resist the donuts in the photo at least for today.

The breakfast buffet was amazing.  The service was exceptional and the people warm and kind.  The music was also very peaceful.  I wish I could find out who the artist was.  During breakfast you could hear the occasional crack of a fly meeting what looked like a mini tennis racket.  The coffee was deliciously strong.  I took some photos of some great sculptures.

After another warm shower I am about to head out with my colleagues to tour Pune.  I have no idea what is in store for me, but it should be a fun adventure.

What the hell?

I have not posted a poker blog since 2010.  I did not have many followers, but I did enjoy the poker bloggers I connected with.  I miss the online poker community.  I have some found memories of meeting local poker bloggers for a tournament or two.  It was an inexpensive way to sharpen skills and meet new people.

Since I cannot legally gamble online in the great USA, I am stuck playing sites like Pure Play Poker and Zynga Poker.

I sure wish Congress had not shelved the federal bill, "The Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection Act".

I am going to resurrect this old blog and start posting poker experiences again.

Two Friday nights ago I was playing in the neighborhood game.  I held pocket 7's.  The flop came 7d5d3d.  I made a modest bet with my set and got called.  The turn comes 3c giving me the nut full house.  I made a good bet thinking I can lure someone in.  I got called again.  I am getting pretty excited when on the river comes a blank.  I bet an amount to milk the pot.  I got raised by $8.  I immediately went all in for my $23 bank roll just to get an instant call.  Yes my opponent had flopped a straight flush.  The funny thing is if I had been paying attention to the player and not the cards, I would have realized I was beat.  I should have listening to the pointers in Daniel Negreanu's book "More Hold'em Wisdom for All Players".  I should have called the $8 bet and still ended the night with a profit.  Instead I gave away my entire bank roll.   Another player tried to point out that my opponent was shaking.  If I had simple taking the time to look and consider the possibilities on the board.  We usually play until 3:00 AM and it was 2:50 AM.  No time for a come back.

I learned some good poker lessons with this mistake.