Santa Visits Early

I got a hit on my website from the North Pole. No joke. Here is a screenshot.

Engaged, Freezing, Reading, Exercise, Experiment

I'm engaged! On Saturday night I proposed to Virginia and she said yes! I was a jittery mess. I had this great proposal planned out but I barely managed to stammer out the question when it came time. If I had it to do again, I would've had a stiff drink first to settle the nerves. The ring itself is pretty cool. The diamond in it is from a pendant that belonged to her great grandmother, and the band itself was custom made. It's a concave ordeal that is really unique, and she loves it which is the most important thing. We don't have any definite plans yet, but we've been throwing around October 10th around a lot. We're also probably getting married in California, but fear not because there will be a reception back here in Nebraska. Like I said, nothing is set in stone. I'll update things as we go.

So, now I sort of know what it's like to be up on Everest. Wind chill dipped to -27F Monday morning when I took Dot out to pee. I don't think that it has hit double digits all week, and I don't think that it's supposed to. We're also supposed to get an ice storm on Thursday which will be absolutely awesome. And by awesome I mean terrible. I don't typically mind cold weather, but -27F is just God being a dick. Whatever we did, we're sorry. Give us +25F just one day.

I'm still reading the Greenspan book. I was doing a great job until Car and Driver arrived. Just as I was finishing it, Popular Science showed up. I've finished both of those and motored through another thirty odd pages to put me at 130 of the five hundred some-odd pages. Hopefully I'll finish it before the year is up.

I've exercised the past two nights. It hurts. I've been running stairs in my house. I've gone up twenty times each night and called it good. If I'm getting back in shape, I have to do it as if I were conditioning for a sport. Since Mother Nature is being a rag and trying to imitate the movie The Day After Tomorrow, I'm confined to my house so stairs it is. I took tonight off because I had to run back to work after I got home and so I didn't really get home until 8:30pm. After eating, giving sufficient time for digestion, and talking to Virginia, it's now 12:22am. I'll run them again tomorrow.

I started a stock portfolio experiment last night. I put an imaginary $1000 into several different stocks and I'm going to see how well I can do. I'm probably going to just make myself mad because if I make any money, I'll wonder why I can't just have $1000 to invest for real. Oh well, hopefully I'm as stock-savvy as I like to think that I am. Bed time.

Phone, Huskers, Work, Books

Dot chewed up Virginia's phone just a short while ago. Virginia doesn't know yet because she's asleep, but she's not going to be happy. It has a touch screen and little puppy teeth don't bond well with the thin plastic. I guess that I could be happy that this is the first thing of significance that she has ruined, but I'm pretty much just pisssed. I guess it was bound to happen eventually.

The Huskers beat Colorado this Friday in dramatic fashion. Alex Henerey and his tiny little body kicked a 57-yard field goal to put the Huskers up by two. A few seconds later, Ndamakong Suh intercepted a pass and ran it in for the touchdown. I flipped out. I really don't like Colorado football fans. If I had to summarize them in one word it would be assholes. That's what makes this win so sweet. Not only did we beat them, we prevented them from going to a bowl game. That's like two wins in one. Gooooooooooo Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeddddddddddddd!

Work should be pretty easy this month. I only have five things to check for compliance as opposed to the normal nine or ten. It should be an intensely boring month.

I'd been doing pretty well with my Alan Greenspan book. I've made it through about eighty pages so far which I find impressive because it is a big book. It's very entertaining so far learning that if Greenspan hadn't attained prominence somehow he would be a complete moron. It seems that he knew everybody of importance in both his time and even now. He dated Barbara Walters. He was good friends with Ayn Rand. It's amazing what good ideas and the right connections can do. I don't mean to take anything away from the man because I think he's the most brilliant economist that I'll ever see in my life. People are laying blame on him at the moment for the current economic crapfest but I call these people Republicans and furthermore highly doubt the claim. I think if I were to dig into the facts I would find that Greenspan was barely holding things together with policy and when he resigned the house of cards toppled. Who knows. I won't for a bit because a new Car and Driver just showed up.

Liar Liar

Look at me being a liar already. So it's Saturday and not Wednesday, but here's another post. I'm closing in on the end of the Sedaris book. I'm doing a good job of staying focused and reading at least a little bit every day, but I keep getting interrupted (Car and Driver, Popular Science). The universe is a cruel mistress.

Work is still okay. I'm going to go in for a little bit today even though I don't have to. I'm nearly caught up, which will be nice until I discover something I haven't been doing and am then behind again. So it goes.

On a positive note, my English is improving. My boss is very formal in everything that he does, and has been hounding every aspect of my speech from grammar to word choice. I'm digging up some of the triple word score words that I know and breaking bad habits like saying "No problem" in response to everything as if I were from the Sudan. I like speaking intelligently but I've had no forum to do so since high school debate, so I've fallen into the traps that everybody else falls into on a day to day basis. Okay, that's all for now.

Work

I've been working my behind off. It sucks that Virginia is a first year medical resident as I really have nobody to complain to, but I've been pulling 55 hour weeks for the last three weeks and it isn't all that fun. I'm starting to get the hang of my new job, and I feel less and less like I'm screwing up something important every day, which is nice. My coworkers are cool and seem to like me even though periodic lack of professionalism seems to catch them off guard in such a buttoned-down branch. I'll post more tomorrow, I promise. I have to work in seven hours so I need to catch some beauty rest. Hope all is well with you and thank you for still checking. I promise I won't have any month lapses for awhile.

Reading/Listening, Update/Visit

Reading: Still Sedaris. I've made minor progress, but the mailman decided that I was reading too much and dropped off both Car and Driver and Popular Science in consecutive days. I've already motored through C&D and I'm exploring Pop Sci right now. See what I did there? Anyway, I'm still pretty certain that I'm going to read An Age of Turbulence when I'm done with Sedaris, but I recently fell off the wagon and blew $60 at Borders. I still very much prefer Barnes and Noble, but Borders is closer and I'm lazy. I had to go to pick up price guides for sports cards as my mom brought me a bunch of my old ones and I need to sort through them, however, while I was there I also picked up a couple of other books. Oil! by Upton Sinclair, a book of Garrison Keilor poems, and a gigantic biography of Albert Einstein that I'm unnaturally excited to read. I have a fascination with Einstein. When I showed Virginia she informed me that he had experimental surgery. She's currently on her Vascular Surgery rotation and while there learned that Einstein had an aneurysm that surgeons wrapped in cellophane. Crazy.

Listening: Everything. We painted this weekend and I put my iPod on shuffle and just listened. There's nothing major to note other than the fact that I really don't even know what I have on my own iPod. Songs would pop up that I'd never heard before, which is sort of sad. I am the ultimate consumer.

So, I've been really busy. Work has been hectic as I've been trying to wrap things up at my current job while also preparing for my new one. I'm going to miss my coworkers and yes, even most of my doddering old customers. A couple of them have sworn that they are going to come out to my new branch to have me help them but it's so far that I doubt I will see most of them again. At home we spent the weekend painting and doing small projects in preparation for Virginia's sister and her husband who will be visiting us this weekend. The next weekend her dad and his partner will be out to visit, so there won't really be any down time for us for a bit. We painted the pink room today so it is now the brown room. In the process we discovered that we should hire things out whenever possible because I am a douche and assume the role of foreman automatically. I am a condescending foreman. There was a confounding factor in my defense. Trivia question: Who has ten toes but only nine toenails? If you answered Bret, you would be correct. The big toenail on my right foot has been messed up since I broke my ankle so it had to go. It wasn't excruciating, but it has felt like somebody has been standing on my toe for a couple of days now which isn't fun. At least it gives me an excuse to take the Vicodin I have left over from my ankle surgery. Hooray! It also gives me an excuse to wear a sandal and a sock on my right foot and a regular shoe on my left in public. Yep, stole that one out of the short bus playbook. Oh well, yet another chapter in my life. That's all for tonight.

Reading/Listening, Promotion, Virginia

Reading: When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris. It's a pretty funny book. I'm trying to pile on the humor before I plow through The Age of Turbulence. I'm about 150 pages through the book so far which is just under halfway. There was an absolutely hilarious story about a particularly bitchy woman that Sedaris sat next to on a flight. One of those people who thinks that YOU are an ass because you don't do exactly what THEY want you to do. I hope the lady read the story but I know that didn't happen because people are that way because they think books are for nerds and that their time is too important to waste on enlightenment.

Listening: I've been obsessed with two songs this last week. The first is Wish I Didn't Miss You by Angie Stone off of the album Fatboy Slim:Late Night Tales. The thing I hate about the song is that it is only 2:24 long. After listening to it, I understand the junkie's craving. I want more. I can listen to it ten times in a row and I still want more. It's almost sickening. The other song is We Major by Kanye West. As much I think that Kanye West is one of the worst human beings alive today, he can crank out a great song from time to time. What I love about this song is the minimal emphasis on the lyrics and the music that just leaves you feeling good no matter how you felt before. The only odd notable song is that this morning in the shower, for no good reason, I started singing El Scorcho by Weezer. When I was driving to work, I started skipping forward in my iPod and about three songs forward guess what popped on? Quite a coincidence considering that my iPod is now home to about 3500 songs. I could tell you exactly except Apple apparently decided to ruin iTunes. Oh well.

If you are friends with me on Facebook you might have already seen that I got a promotion on Tuesday. I will be the new Customer Service Manager at the 132nd & California branch of Bank of the West. It's a small raise for now but much better hours and phenomenal networking as all of the regional staff are based out of this branch. I start on the 21st, so I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

Virginia is on another horrible rotation. We're starting to think that there aren't going to be any easy, regular-houred rotations. She left home just before 6am this morning and she still isn't home (it's 10:25pm, I have no idea what the time stamp says but it's never right). The utter disregard for the rules that they're supposed to follow (maximum 80 hour week, can't be in the hospital for more than 30 hours straight) is appalling. They tell her to go home because she's been there to long, but in the same breath they tell her eight more things that she needs to do before she leaves. On this particular rotation she has a lazy-ass senior resident who is taking advantage of her but she's too nice to do anything about it. I always joke that there are ten million reasons that I couldn't be a doctor, and I think the number one reason is that I can't keep my mouth shut when somebody is straight fucking me over. I hope she gets to the point where she speaks up because she's in an emotional hell right now and the only way out is to elbow out some mental separation for herself. She'll make it because I apparently keep her sane, but hopefully she can regain some sanity on her own and won't have to rely on me for it.

Update

I'm still here. I've been busy, as usual. I finished Lewis Black and am dutifully cranking through the new Sedaris book. Virginia's good. Dot's good. Interviewed for a promotion today. I'll post more tomorrow for certain, but I wanted to put something online today. Until tomorrow.

Reading/Listening, Good Words

Reading: Still Lewis Black. I got a new Popular Science so I got derailed for a bit.

Listening: I was listening to a lot of Medeski, Martin, and Wood over the weekend. For those of you who don't know them (all of you), MMW are a modern jazz trio. They are pretty amazing. If you don't like jazz at all, this probably isn't going to lure you. If you do like jazz, you should check it out. Songs like Bubblehouse are just simply really intelligent and are "must listen" songs.

I used the word "handsy" at work the other day and it got me thinking. There are tons of words that are just awesome. Handsy. Frolick. Vixen. I had a lot more, but I waited a couple of days to type this tiny, pathetic blog and so I forgot most of them.

Hope everybody is doing well. More soon.

Reading/Listening, Furniture

Reading: Still Lewis Black. I'm a little over halfway finished and I'm somewhat disappointed. It's not the book's fault, it's my own. I expected it to be exactly like some of his stand up. Instead, it is more like his views on things peppered with his humor. I thought I was in for an endless belly laugh, instead I get periodic chuckles. It is a very enjoyable book.

Listening: Virginia popped in some Frank Sinatra the other night which was a great change. It started me on a schizophrenic listening scheme though. Just today I've listened to trance, hip-hop, rap, punk, jazz, 80s (damn you Tiffany), a peaceful little number sung entirely in French, and some classic rock. And all of this occurred in the span of about three hours. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

We got our new bedroom furniture today. No more t-shirts in suitcases on the floor. I have too many damn clothes though, which is depressing. When Virginia moved here, my sister helped me clean out an entire closet's worth of clothes. Somehow I'm still busting at the seams with t-shirts though. I need to sort through them. The house is taking shape though. The kitchen is done for the time being. Virginia pained the bathroom today when I passed out on the couch with the dog. Now our bedroom is done. The tortoise is winning the race.

Reading/Listening, Vacation, Not Promotion

Reading: I finally finished Miranda July. I just made the decision to finish her and set to it like a horrible school assignment that I was dreading. The last couple of stories were okay, and I actually enjoyed one or two of them. I think she got tired of trying so hard and gave up. The irony is that her writing improved. I don't have the names of the stories I enjoyed because I lost the book in the move somehow. I'm sure it will show up, but I can't find it for anything right now. I've started reading a book by Lewis Black, Nothing is Sacred. It's not as funny as he is in his stand up, but I've always admired his opinions on everything I've heard him talk about. I'm maybe a third of the way through right now and it's pretty slow. I hope it picks up. I hope my next book choice doesn't leave me hoping that it picks up.

Listening: Deep in the Jungle by Blackalicious. This track is off of the Quannum labels showcase album. It's a really simple beat from Chief Xcel that highlights Gift of Gab's ability to absolutely blaze out words like the Micromachine guy. It's nifty. Check it out.

I went to Lake Tahoe over the weekend for a wedding. It was a nice break. I was really sick of work and just needed to get away. We saw Virginia's parents, went to her best friend's wedding on the beach of Lake Tahoe, kayaked around part of the lake, and spent the rest of the time kicking back. I did so much and right now I just can't spill it all. It's not that I'm hiding anything, it's just the writing isn't flowing right now.

I was denied a third promotion while I was on vacation. This one was expected, but still a nice kick in the scrotum. It was expected because the other ACSM who was next on the list for promotion worked in the branch with the opening. The branch manager only interviewed people because he had to. I interviewed really well, but I'm still on the same island. This is the third time in as many months that I've been shot down for a promotion. What makes it incredibly hard is that I'm already doing the job that I'm getting denied. It makes my head spin sometimes trying to wrap it around this thought. Okay, writing just isn't coming tonight. I'll stop here.

House Stuff, Blue, Vacation

So we've done a pretty good job with the house so far. I've nearly gotten the shower curtain rod back up. All I need to do is go and buy a drill bit for some guide holes and then we're back in business. I need to put another layer of joint compound over the holes in the basement because they didn't patch very well. I mowed the lawn today, as well as alphabetized my books and movies, and I also put some wire ties on the cables on the entertainment center. We only have one area left to unpack and then we have a lot of stuff to paint, starting with the pink room.

Last week was a bad week for me. I've been pushing it lately, and I finally crashed Friday and Saturday. I have to really focus on staying happy and not letting things get me down, otherwise it all crashes over me like a wave and I get caught in the emotional riptide and swept away. To summarize, Virginia's murderous pediatric surgery rotation took its toll on our relationship, my job somehow got more boring, there's a litany of things that need done with the house, and this list of things amplify the fact that I don't make jack shit for wages. These were the droplets on the leading edge of the wave that smashed me into some coral Friday. I'm better now. Despite being uneasy with Virginia for about a week now, we talked everything out and are much better. It's why I'm crazily in love with her. No matter what problems we have, we always talk about them very openly and very honestly. I don't know any other woman that I can look in the face and tell her that she's been "sort of a dick" lately without her getting mad. Also, she's the first woman that has figured out that she can do the same and I don't get upset either. It's why we work. So that fixed the relationship issues. The house issues didn't go away, but I just had to take some time to remind myself that it isn't going to be perfect tomorrow. It's okay if it takes me some time to knock out projects seeing that I'm not exactly "handy." As for the job, well, there's only one real fix there, and I'll be dedicating some time to it this week. I feel somewhat better, but I know that my feelings will improve all week.

My feelings will improve immensely on Friday when Virginia and I wing it to Lake Tahoe for five glorious days of not working. Virginia has read me passages from an astrology book about my sign (Taurus) and it really makes sense. I don't put too much stock in that stuff but it is spooky how accurate it is at times. Specifically, I'm a Cusp of Power Taurus because I'm born so close to the Aries sign (I'm April 24th). One thing that really stood out to me was how the book said that I could do inhuman amounts of work as long as I had periods to decompress. It couldn't be more true. Sticking in ten and eleven hour shifts at the bank drain me, but I can keep plugging away when I know that I have a vacation on the horizon. These next three days are going to be hell knowing that freedom is just around the bend. The dog just fell asleep standing up next to me in bed, so that's the sign that it's time to end the blog. Until tomorrow.

Another Update

No meaningful post as I'm really tired. We got some things unpacked today, took Dot for a long walk, and I fixed four of the seven thousand things that I need to fix in the house. Go me. I also set up my Flickr account so I'll upload pictures of the house and Dot tomorrow for all to see. I'm really excited about the house pictures because I'll keep adding more as we fix and renovate things so I'll have sort of a photo journal of the progress.

On that note, Caleb and Tisha are headed to Omaha on Friday for an MMA fight (Caleb's brother fights) and so Virginia has decided that we must unpack everything and get the guest bedroom painted before they get here. The chances of this happening are -12%, but I will wait until later this week to crush her hopes. Okay, more tomorrow.

Update

So we're in. We're not unpacked, but we've got all of our stuff in our new house. I think there's a coffee table and a lamp left at the old place, and a hefty amount of cleaning, but it's all tolerable after moving. We fought a couch that we were putting in our basement for over an hour today. The couch won with a final score of two holes in the wall but it came down to the wire because we shredded the top of it. That'll teach the bastard. Virginia and I have already decided that it will be coming out in two pieces courtesy of a saw whenever we decide to replace it.

The holes in the wall didn't phase me as my honey-do list is pretty extensive. The people who owned our house before us half-assed every single thing inside of it, so now I get to redo it. Some examples:

Our main bath is a claw foot tub that they installed a hand held shower head in. They also installed one of those nifty shower curtain rods that attaches to the ceiling and allows you to cover all around the tub. One side is anchored into the wall, the other into the ceiling. Except they only put one of the two screws into the stud, so the other one has pulled out of the drywall. I get to fix it.

The garage door safety sensors are aligned using a block of wood. This was obviously a better idea than just installing them correctly.

Rather than get a three inch piece of wood to mount the door catch onto for the porch door, they had a two inch piece of wood that they just screwed the top of the catch into. Except it doesn't align with the door lock.

I could go on for days about this but there's no point. It will be good for me to learn all of these man things that I've never known how to do. I've decided that I'm just going to write down between one and three things every week and just knock them out slowly. If I try to do it all at once, I won't be able to afford to do everything right and I'll just be furious all of the time.

One thing that will relieve my stress is Dot. Yep, I bought a dog. That's the little pooper at the top of the post. I've had her for roughly a month now, but I've been keeping her a secret. Today we went and picked her up and I drove straight to my sister's to get it over with. She actually wasn't mad at all. I thought she would be. I consulted her before I bought the dog and she told me it was a bad idea. I agreed with her. Then I went and bought her anyway. We have a ton of pictures of her already, but I don't have a Flikr account yet to post them all. In the meantime, you'll have to settle for the one above. She's a Boston Terrier, but she's all white with one black spot on her. Typically Bostons are mostly black with a white belly and some marbling, but the white ones are rare. Like redheads. You'll definitely hear about her more, but in the meantime, enjoy the photo.

Quick Update

So we got all of the paperwork squared away for the mortgage, but there's one last snag. The appraiser said that the outside door that leads into the basement and the top portion of the back of the garage need to be scraped and repainted before he will sign off on the house. He's afraid that Virginia and I are going to eat paint chips and produce five-legged offspring. We found this out Wednesday. About the painting, not five-legged offspring. It was supposed to get done yesterday (Thursday) morning, but alas, mother nature decided we finally needed some more rain and so they couldn't do it. So now the ridiculously close schedule is that the painting will be done by 1pm, which is the time that the inspector will drive by again. We're still on track for a 4pm close. I'm not sure how, but I'm going to make this happen. Okay, bedtime.

Mortgage Crunch, 200 Posts

So I got a call from my mortgage lady today and she needs more documents. Now. On friggin' Tuesday. When we close Friday. Oh, I forgot to mention that she wants documents that don't exist. Very long story short is that Virginia's federal student loans can only be deferred one year at a time according to federal law. The law that the underwriter hasn't read because she wants proof of 5 years of deferment. Tomorrow I get to figure out how to make her understand that I can't give her something that doesn't exist. I hope she doesn't read this blog.

This is my 200th post on this blog. It is pretty weak as it is late and I need to get to bed. Hooray blog! It has lasted longer than I thought it would, and at the ripe old age it managed to produce and offspring. I hope I can still breed when I'm 194. Bed.

Reading/Listening, Still Sick, Packing

Reading: I actually read another story in No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July. I had actually read about half of it before, but it had been so long I had to go back and reread it. Again, a big epiphanic meatball over the plate and a swing and a miss. I don't mind resisting the epiphany, but what July does is the literary equivalent of missing so bad that she spins around and falls down. She TRIES for an epiphany and never finds one. This is more commonly known as trying too hard, as I've said before. She would be a better writer if she just let what was inside come out rather than try to be the best author alive. She would probably say different in person. She would probably say that she is just writing what she feels, but what she feels is that she wants to be the best writer alive. She wants to be a part of the modern literati. She probably is. I can picture people in drab color clothing massaging her ego after a reading like an illegal immigrant in a rub and tug joint. Hemmingway would put down his coffee and look her in the eye and say "You're trying too hard kid, just let it come."

Listening: I made Jessica a hip-hop compilation. Jessica is a girl I work with at the bank. She's a big music buff and has very good taste, but she's less experienced in the realm of hip-hop. She was very interested when I one day mentioned the song Latyrx by the group of the same name. Latyrx is Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truth Speaker, both from the Quannum label. In this specific song, DJ Shadow (a Quannum turn-tablist) laid down a simple beat for the two to rap over individually. Then, he overlaid the two freestyles to make a song where the rappers are rapping different things at the same time. It's pretty cool, and Jessica wanted to hear it. I threw a bunch of other stuff on there that I figured she may not have heard of. The album includes songs from Mos Def (Umi Says, Hip Hop), The Roots (Quills), Lateef & The Chief (Ambush, Matter of Time), A Tribe Called Quest (Check the Rhime, Oh My God), The Pharcyde (Passing Me By, Runnin'), Gift of Gab (The Writz), Outkast (Ghetto Musick), Kelis (Millionaire), DJ Honda (Trouble in the Water, Travellin' Man), Big Boi (The Train), Andre 3000 (She Lives in my Lap), Slick Rick (Memories), and Jemini (Knuckle Sandwich). It's so good I don't really want to give it to her, so it's in my car until I finish listening to it. I should put it on iTunes.

I've still got the plague. Right now I'm coughing like a ninety year old chain smoker. I hate being sick. I really need to get unsick before I have to move this weekend, but I can imagine that I'll be fairly sleep-deprived this week as I work at 7:15am every morning. Bleh.

Virginia had one of her eight weekends off this past week and we spent the time doing fun couples stuff; packing. The only things left are our bed, big furniture, electronics, bathroom stuff, and clothes. Our apartment is without adornment. We have no kitchen items. No plates. No spoons. My bookshelf looks like an old cowboy, empty and dusty. I'm starting to get excited to move. Not to actually move, but to be in our new house. I got really pumped at the idea of sitting out on my patio and playing poker on my laptop. Virginia says I need to get outside more. Hopefully I'll keep up with posting this week in preparation for the move, but it may be tough as we have a lot to do.

Sick, House

I'm sick again. I'm bad at being sick. I have two modes; pissy and angry because I'm only sick enough to be irritated or a total baby because I'm horribly sick. I'm borderline the second at the moment which makes it bad because I'm at my most irritable. Adding fuel to the fire are some minor annoyances that normally wouldn't bother me too much, but currently just irritate the bejesus out of me. One of them is the house.

I just found out today that the sellers can't manage to get out of the house before 6pm on the day that we close. Keep in mind that they've owned another house for nearly two months and have had our accepted offer for a month and a half now. Virginia works at least eighty hours a week and I put in another forty or fifty and somehow we've managed to find time for all of these things, but apparently this couple hasn't figured it out. My real estate agent was trying to assuage my anger by telling me the trials and tribulations of their remodel but I cut him off because the bottom line is they said they would be out on the 22nd. If they couldn't do that, they shouldn't have said so. So I guess we're rounding down from the 22nd and 3/4ths back down to 22. Whatever. At this point, I'm just taking these lumps as lessons. I really feel bad for the next people that we buy a house from because I'm not going to get jerked around again. Okay, I'm apparently in super-angry mode so I'm just going to quit for the night.

New Blog

In case you didn't notice, the posts here no longer have a Poker section. That's because I have created The Poker Plecostomus, a dedicated blog for my sinful escapades into the world of gambling. Even if you don't like reading about my poker, I'd appreciate you all popping over so my StatCounter isn't at zero anymore. Hopefully, with the separation of the blogs, I'll be able to expand both of them to be better than they were before. I've changed the links off to the side and will hopefully be adding some new ones. I have a blog that I want to link but it seems like the owner fell off the planet at the end of last month so I'm waiting for him to post again before I link it. Okay, bedtime.

Reading/Listening, Blabber Mouth, Long Days

Reading: Magazines. Miranda July is apparently on hold, and these things are apparently not my decision. I want to read more of her stories so I can finish the collection and move on to things that I would rather read, but instead I've plugged through an entire Car and Driver and am quite a few pages into my new Popular Science. The new Popular Science has given me an idea for a great company that somebody has probably already started and is making millions off of. I'm good at thinking of things after everybody else does. I'm not stealing ideas, I'm just legitimately ignorant to the world outside of my little sphere of influence. Knowing is half the battle.

Listening: I just popped Offspring's Greatest Hits into my CD player today. I've been anti-iPod lately for some reason. Well, I know the reason. I have an armband on my iPod, and when I listen to it in my car, I slide the armband over the gear selector so the iPod doesn't fly around when I'm driving. Lately, I've been taking bottles of water with me everywhere I go, and my cup holders pop out of a spot just behind the gear selector, occupying the space where the iPod normally resides. This problem has a simple solution in that I just the iPod ahead of the gear selector, but I'm lazy so I've just stopped using it. So I'm listening to Offspring. I honestly feel that time will prove that Offspring was one of the better bands of my generation. They have a distinct sound that has always set them apart from other pop bands and their songs have always been either entertaining or quite intelligent. Songs like Come Out and Play and Original Prankster are radio classics, and I think the average person would be amazed at how many hit songs the band actually has had in their long career (it has been damn near 20 years since their first CD debuted). Go to iTunes and depress yourself by counting the number of Offspring songs that you know and love. Go ahead, nobody's watching. You can cry, it's okay. It's the first step towards recovery.

I said something at work today without thinking. The words had apparently been waiting to rush out but just hadn't been given the chance until today. It's no secret that I've become disgruntled in my employment. Disgruntled is the wrong word. Frustrated. I'm bursting at the seams but nobody has offered me a bigger ball to reside in (promotion). So today Joy (my direct manager) asked me if I would mind working six days next week since two of our tellers have to have minor surgeries that will have them out at the same time next week. I told her no because I close on my house on Friday and need that and Saturday to move. She had forgotten that I had the time off and was fine with it, but then I offered to work open to close from Monday to Thursday if it would help. "You'd do that? How could you stand that?" "Well, all I do when I go home is change into shorts and hope I die before I have to go to work the next day anyway, so it wouldn't be much of a change." Whoops. Brad (my coworker) thought it was hilarious. He didn't stop laughing for a good five minutes. I don't know how Joy responded because I started laughing too. It wasn't true, but it was a very good summation of my current attitude toward my job. Monday was a good example. Joy went home sick first thing in the morning. Michelle (my boss) had to leave early to pick up her kids. It was slow because we were busier than hell on Friday, and nobody generally gave a shit about work. I didn't want to be there, but yet I still got a teller observation done, made several phone calls to people who needed to come in and sign things, worked two different account reports, copied and filed about twenty new signature cards, resolved an issue for the back office, completed three days worth of minor account maintenance requests, and I think that's about it. So I polished off 1.5 peoples tasks for the week in about four hours while still getting in a healthy dose of screwing around. Like I said, my statement wasn't true, but it was what needed to be said right then. I have today (Wednesday) off, so I'll be my usual chipper self again on Thursday when I have to go back.

Virginia might utter the same thing I did at work tomorrow if her brain allows her mouth to function. She worked from about 5am until 11:30pm on Tuesday, and she's received two pages since she passed out at 11:40pm. I don't know how she's still going. I'm wired to run without sleep. She is not. Very definitely not. It makes me wonder why the very profession that tells us how awful fatigue is for our bodies and how poorly we perform when fatigued willingly subjects its professionals (and the people in charge of OUR well-being) to mandatory fatigue. It seems to me that doctors should be REQUIRED to only work a certain number of hours per week and not a minute more. They should be chased out of the hospital when they start nodding off at inappropriate times. This month has been really hard on her and it scares me that it's not quite half over yet. I'm naturally negative. I like bitching about things and bagging on things. Because I'm good at it and you should do what you're good at. Virginia asked me not to speak negatively about her long hours and such because she has to stay positive or she'll crack and I've been faithful to that, but she scared me tonight. In a very serious tone she started talking about how maybe she had made the wrong career choice because she didn't feel like she was cut out for it. Then she laid on the bed and passed out. I hope the last nineteen days of this month don't crush her spirit and enthusiasm. Reason #4,628 that I couldn't be a doctor...

Cars, Virginia, Poker

I've been thinking about what car I want to get after Monique passes on. For some reason, I'm really digging badass looking cars. Cars with presence. The two cars that I've already got my eye on are the Mercury Marauder and the Infiniti M45. In addition to the blunt styling of both cars, I also like that they have bigass V-8s under the hood. I'm still two years away from a new car as Monique and I don't even have a year under our belt, but as is typical of me, I've already got my eyes open.

Virginia has been working disgusting hours on her pediatrics rotation this month. I think she logged about 98 hours this week (I wish I were exaggerating), and I'm pretty sure she was close to that last week as well. She goes get all of next weekend off, meaning she doesn't have to set foot inside the hospital at all. I imagine she will get drunk. I know I would. She was talking with one of her attendings and he told her that he remembered his pediatric surgery rotation very vividly. Driving to work one morning at some ungodly early hour, he had the thought that if he just wrecked his car he wouldn't have to go in that day. Virginia was like "I've had that thought twice now." They didn't laugh because it wasn't a joke. I didn't laugh when I heard the story because I've had that thought going to work before. I think nearly every job I've had since age eighteen, there's been one day where I thought that if I just jerked the wheel a little, I'd get a day off. So sad.

Poker has been going fairly even keel. On the one hand, I've been murdering Bugsy's Club. My bankroll there is at a nice fatty $461.29. I had a second place in a $2 MTT for $30. It was the same story as the first place I had a couple weeks ago. When we got to the final table I was about average. I was the chipleader with 13 left but I dropped a huge pot trying to bust a guy and was back to average when we hit 10. As blinds went up, so did the use of my raise button. I kept taking down the blinds which were big pots for our chip stacks and got myself back on top. I then busted a guy with Q4hh vs his A3 offsuit AIPF. He was pretty pissed, but I had open-raised from middle position and his all-in laid me 3:1 on what I figured was a 60/40 call, which turned out to be correct. I ran it from there and entered HU with a 10:1 chip lead which I promptly coughed up. I'm not that mad about it because in HU the other guy got killed by the deck. He had, in order, AT, AK, TT, 99, QQ, and AJ. I doubled him up on the first 3, pitched the next 3, and he was in the lead. The 7th hand brought my KQ vs his A8dd and I blanked it on out to give him the $45 first place prize money. Go him. Another big chunk o' cash found its way to my account when I decided to sit at a $.10/$.25 full ring NLHE table. I sat on the lists for a $15 and $20 HU match for about an hour and decided to just take $15 to the ring game and call it good. In 30 minutes I had racked up over $54 in profit so I called it quits. I kept getting paid off on good hands. The only lucky one was my AK vs T6 vs ?? on an AT6 flop. The dude who I don't know what he had had gone AIPF for like $4 more than my $3 raise, so I called as did the dude with T6. I led out at the flop for the pot which was around $21 and set the other guy all in. He called and the next two cards were 5's giving me aces up to beat his tens up. While things at Bugsy's are going so well, things at FTP are just crushing my soul. I had run my $5 freeroll winnings all the way to something like $18.30 before I went on a sickening losing streak. I started playing one guy who was just god awful, which is of course why I ended up something like -5 matches against him. In every match, I would be on the crush to start, driving him down to 900ish chips, then he would get in bad, hit, putting me on the short stack, and then get in bad and hit again. One particular match summed it up. I had about 2k in chips, leaving him with 1k. I was then dealt 44. The flop was AJ4. I bet, he shoved in, I called. He had J8. The turn was a J, the river an A. Go him. The next hand, I'm dealt KQ. Flop KQ6. I bet he calls. Turn 9. He checks, I bet, he calls again. River T. He checks and I check. He shows J2o and wins. Next hand, I'm down to about 500. I get AA. I raise, he calls. Flop A46 rainbow. I shove in. He calls with KQ. Turn J, river T. Much berating. I goad him into playing me again. I finally outlast his luck and peel off 3 in a row, so of course he quits. I hovered around $4 forever, losing one and winning one before I finally put a couple together to claw back up to $7. I then took my $7 to the $.02/$.05 table and ran it up to its current $11.05. I'm not sure how I'm going to proceed. I like the fact that the $2 HU matches are so small and give me a cushion against failure, but the garbage players and the big luck factor with the 1500 starting stack pushes me towards the ring games. I guess I'll play what I feel like. I might end up sending some of my Bugsy's cash over to FTP anyway since I can't get any of the decent sized HU matches going. Off to bed.

Reading/Listening, Crash, VBDay, Poker

This will be quick. I'm still reading Miranda July and I haven't gotten a page further, and I'm also still listening to the new Coldplay CD. My tape adapter for my iPod needs cleaned but the recent oven-like temperatures in my car have caused the little bottle of cleaning solution for the tape adapter to cake shut in the little hole in the dispenser, so I need to get something stabby to open it back up.

I crashed a wedding this weekend. It wasn't like the movie. One of my best friends from high school got married in Omaha and I wasn't invited. I felt like I should be invited, and two of our other good friends from high school were invited, so I went. I took a date. The date was another friend of ours that I thought should be invited. Virginia was nervous at the idea so she met us after. It was very awkward. Not the crashing, that didn't bother me at all, and despite a stammering "H-H-H-H-Hey man!" from the groom, it didn't bother him too much either. What was awkward was knowing why I wasn't invited. Back in high school, we had a group of friends. Five of us to be exact. Within our group of friends, we all had our roles. I was sort of the outsider. I came late to the group, and I wasn't a guaranteed addition to any group activity. I had other friends. Not that they didn't, but I was a degree shadier and thus disappeared from time to time to engage in shadiness that they didn't want a part of. That was my role. Caleb was the jock. Ryan was the smartass. Kip was the whiner (dubbed "Bitch"), and Greg was the fat one. Not because he was actually fat, but because he was fatter than anybody else in the group. We called him Gurg, a sort of shortened version of Gargantuan. Both Greg and Kip (real name Zach) absolutely fell off the map in college. Greg and I talked and hung out a couple of times our freshman year and never again after that unless by happenstance. I saw Kip once in college and tried to hang out with him and his friends but it was so terrible that I seriously considered stealing a car to get away from awfulness. What I gathered from these experiences in college was that they took our joking to heart. They really felt like second class friends rather than an integral part of our group. Caleb, Ryan, and I remain good friends because we took it for what it was for; high school insecurities playing themselves out verbally. Make fun of the trait that you wish you had that you see in others to devalue it. So it hurts less. In college, I grew to embrace my own perceptions of my shortcomings. I realized that to be the person that I thought I wanted to be, I had to sacrifice things that I really like and I didn't want to do that. I matured. These two guys didn't. Or they did in a different way. I hope they realize that they really were good and dear friends back then and not just a way for me to feel better about myself. They will both be invited to my wedding someday. Greg will get two or three invitations in the mail so he gets the point, but he will still be invited. Of course, by the end of the night, I fell into old habits; I was the drunkest one there. They cut off the bar pretty early so I was forced to sniper drinks that people set on tables to dance. The nature of this activity is that you have to drink very quickly so as not to get busted. Mission accomplished. Virginia made the executive decision that I in fact did not need to meet up with Caleb, Ryan, and Dave after we closed down the wedding and the bar next door and took me home and put me in bed. It was a good decision.

Speaking of my lovely girlfriend (no, I'm not kissing ass, she doesn't read my blog; doesn't even know the address), it was her birthday yesterday. I took her to see her secret present (which I will divulge at a later date) and then we went to Blue where I had the most delicious fare that I've had in a long time. I had JUMBO shrimp that was fried with glass noodles and drizzled with sweet chili sauce that was stunningly good, and Virginia ordered a Vegas roll, a Hawaii roll, and salmon sashimi. Both rolls were amazing, and she said the salmon sashimi was the best that she's ever had. Keep in mind that she spent two years in Vegas, a place known for its world class cuisine. She was so thoroughly impressed with the food that she instantly discredited the chance that the owners were Nebraskan. The only way that her birthday could have gone better would have been if she hadn't gotten off early so I could've taken her flowers to her at the hospital, but as it stood I got to spend more time with her. I'll take that tradeoff.

Poker has been going very well. Sunday sucked, but still not badly. I've been running perfectly with odds lately which has been a big positive for my bankroll. I've been hitting the $10 and $15 HU matches at Bugsy's and the $2 HU matches at FTP. Sunday I played a few matches at Bugsy's and got dealt with. I only ended the night -1 on matches, but it was a struggle to get there. I kept getting in with the best hand and the other person on a draw and it just kept hitting. Flushes, straights, etc, wham wham wham. To end the night, I sat at a 3-handed $.25/$.50 NLHE table and won back the -$15 or so I was down. This was too high for my bankroll, but I decided to buy in for $15, ditch the match if I lost just as I would an HU match, and also to bail on the table if it filled up. It was never more than 4 handed, and that only lasted for a couple of hands, so I'm pretty happy with the self control. At FTP, I've worked my $5 freeroll winnings up to something north of $11. I went on a little run to start, which was nice because I'm very shallow there right now. I was as high as $13+, but I caught a bad one to end my night. I don't like that the rake is $.15 per tourney this low because it means that I have to come up +3 on every 20 matches just to break even. I can still accomplish this, but it's nice to have as big of a cushion as possible seeing as how I don't have the bankroll for 20 matches right now. I've made FTP my focus right now, because that is where I stand to make big money. You simply can't get big dollar games going at Bugsy's. As it stands, I have to wait about ten minutes on average to get a $15 game and it's only going to get worse as I go up. Further, FTP has much higher dollar tourneys for me to cash in on. I'm not ready to just transfer all my cash yet as I need to adjust my game to the lower starting chips at FTP, but I've been doing pretty well so far. Hopefully I can keep this going and avoid a bad patch until I have the cash to weather it. Bugsy's roll is at $363.69, FTP is around $11.25 (approx., can't connect now for some reason).

Reading/Listening, Stuff, Poker

Reading: No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July. It's not bad. I've been reading it off and on for a month or so now. A lot of the stories seem very bland. Not bland in the sense of boring, because her subject matter is very interesting, but most of the stories just seem to miss the greatness they could achieve. The story "Swim Team" is brilliant. The narrator spends a summer in a pool-less small town and teaches three very elderly citizens how to swim on the floor of her apartment. But the story isn't that great because it's framed by the narrator telling her ex-boyfriend about it. The muddiness created by the pointless and dull dialog with the ex-boyfriend doesn't need to be there. Another story I just finished, "The Boy from Lam Kien" was more of the same. It started out like the last shot of a fireworks finale. The shell streaming into the air, building anticipation in the crowd as it trails a glorious tail on its ascent. And then nothing. July has this quirky lady that is intensely interesting and she creates a scene with tons of potential and then she has the lady go to sleep. It's as if she's trying too hard to subvert the expectation, which makes sense. If you click on her name above, you'll find out that not only is she an author, she's also a singer, a songwriter, and a movie maker. She tries to wring art out of everything, and this urgent desire comes through in her writing. The problem is that she's wringing her stories dry. If she didn't try so hard to have an epiphanic moment in each story, the book would be a lot better. Maybe it will be. I'm on page 119 of 201. Let's hope it improves.

Listening: Viva La Vida by Coldplay. It's awesome. I think it's about war. I haven't read anything about it (other than the lyrics to the title track), but just listening to it makes me think it's about war. I think it's because it is epic in effort. If you plan on catching them on tour for this album, expect to see a full orchestra performing along with them. Every track is richly layered and most have split personalities, ie the first half of the song is different from the last half. This is probably related to the Rocky and Bullwinkle nature of the CD title (Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends). I don't have the case with me now and I'm too lazy to go back to my desktop computer and look at track names, but there are several songs that I can't stop listening to. Go buy this CD because it's important. It's about war for God's sake. I think. I swear it's about war.

So mortgages are stressing me out. I don't like the fact that I have to run around to get fifty different pieces of information just so I can owe somebody a large chunk of money. It seems like they should have to do this. Things are going more smoothly with the house now. Our walk-through is tomorrow afternoon, so the inspector will let us know if everything is kosher. Virginia and I had a half-assed fight about the whole thing this evening though. My primary concern right now is getting the mortgage squared away because I'm tired of dealing with it. She has moved past the mortgage thoughts and has moved onto the various projects that we'll be doing once we move in. We were on the phone. I was asking her about copies of her contract. She was asking me about fence posts. Then I got snippy. Then she needled me. This is our way. When I get upset or frustrated, I just need a minute or two of peace and calm to tangle with things inside my head and wrestle them back into their cages. When Virginia senses that I'm upset or frustrated, she tries to act goofy to cheer me up. She does so by annoying the ever loving shit out of me. Misunderstanding things that I say, talking in funny voices, etc. I love her for trying to make me smile. I'd love her more if she'd just let me be surly for a few minutes. Anyway, we sorted out both the mortgage AND the fence once I got my moment of respite, so my day off today is going to be pretty busy. This whole process of buying a house really needs some improvement. It should be fun and exciting. If you drop over one hundred thousand dollars on something, you should have a perma-grin on your face for awhile. I've just got extra frown wrinkles so far.

Poker was pretty good tonight. I had a ridiculously frustrating experience in HU matches tonight against a guy named M. deSad. We played 7 matches and I ended up at 4-3. Things did not go my way. Three matches ended in coinflips. Guess who came out on top in all 3? His playing style is very easy to beat but very irritating. He raises and bets everything. Except there's no variety. Only 1 time in nearly 3 hours did I actually have to wonder what he had. When done right, this technique is incredibly difficult to combat. This was not one of those times. What was so irritating was my frigidly cold deck. I had another ridiculous string of unpaired flops. I stopped counting at 18. So I just waited. Periodically I would throw in a strong reraise to steal a pot to keep me afloat while I was waiting for a made hand. It was very boring and very frustrating. While this was going on, I played 2 other MTTs. I entered a $3 with 25 people for a guaranteed $100 pool. First payed $50, second $30, and third $20. I was doing quite well. I doubled on the first hand with 66 vs ?? on a J62 flop. The turn was another J and the river a 4, so I would imagine the guy had some sort of J but I don't know. I won another big pot about 5 minutes later with KK vs ?? on a final board of 99833. A high? I don't know why he would've called off all of his chips, but I've stopped trying to understand most players because I'll never see them again. I was then put to a test for nearly all of my chips and I intentionally chose wrong because of my other tourney. I called off all but 300 of my 38k stack with Q high to a set of 5's because I was also in a freeroll at Full Tilt. I know this doesn't make sense because first in the freeroll was only $15 and the MTT at Bugsy's paid $50, but I really need to get some money to Full Tilt without depleting either my Bugsy's bankroll or my checkbook. The Tilt tourney was hilarious. I THOUGHT it was an Omaha Hi/Lo tourney for the first 1.5 hours, but it was in fact an Omaha HI only tourney. Despite my misunderstanding, I still managed to somehow stay in the top 50 in chips for the duration of the tournament. 2400 people were there at the start, and I finished 6th for $5. I think it took over 4 hours, but oh well. It was fun. My Bugsy's bankroll is at $343.94 and my Full Tilt roll is at $5. I don't know why I'm still blogging as it is very, very late, so if you want details (Brandon) just call me tomorrow evening. Peace.

Hung Over, Poker

I am decidedly hung over today. My sister called me at a quarter to eleven and asked if I wanted to go jet-skiing. I didn't even realize that I was alive at first. The problem I have when I go out with Jeff is that I don't know any of the people that he does. They start talking themselves into a proverbial friend corner and I'm left in the middle of the room. So I drink. I remember everything from the bar. Home is hazy. I can picture chicken McNuggets with buffalo sauce and Demolition Man. Apparently I called Virginia. I did not call the President. I'm trying to motivate myself to do things, but it's difficult because my head weighs three hundred pounds right now. It doesn't hurt, it just feels heavier than my neck can handle. I want to job hunt, clean up the bedroom, do some laundry, go lay by the pool, and maybe work out. But here I sit too lazy to put a shirt on. I am listening to the new Coldplay album which is quite good. I imagine that my hunter-gatherer instinct will kick in here soon because my stomach is eating itself.

I had a nice score last night. I played a $2 MTT and came out tops of the 65 entrants for a $45 win. I absolutely steam-rolled the thing. I started off really slowly, but with about 40 people left I started to build it up. I was 4th in chips with 20 left. I started the FT at 3rd and in 3 hands I had the lead. I floored it and just raised every hand and quickly amassed a massive stack. With 8 left I had 250k of the 650k in play. With 5 left I had 450k. When I got it to HU I had a 600k to 50k advantage which I almost coughed up somehow by doubling him in 3 of the first 4 hands of HU. Everything just went my way and my calls were rewarded. Overall, I was happy with the ROI and it boosted my bankroll up to somewhere around $322. I don't know exactly because this morning has started out decidedly poor. I dropped my first $10 HU match when my JJ ran into QT on a J98 flop. It was sad because the dude I was playing was very ungood. He was overraising and overbetting everything, so I was waiting to pick him off, it just so happened that he hit gold when I woke up with a hand. Of course he didn't play me again. I dropped another $10 HU when a guy either kept getting tough or had the sickest run of cards ever. I was colder than a penguin's ballsack so I got chunked off bit by bit until I took and stand and got chopped off at the knees. It was like having a small cut on an artery but also being anemic. It sucked. I also whiffed in a $1 rebuy HORSE tourney. I think I was in for $4. After the first round through I was the overall chipleader but the big limit hold'em took 75% of my chips and I fizzled in Omaha 8B. So yeah, not so hot today. I'm going to take a break to get some food and then I'll probably hit it again later, hopefully with better results.

Delirium, Problems, The Infamous Poker

There's a delirium that comes with old age that I'm just not ready to handle. I won't ever be. I it at the bank every day. Subtle things sneak in like a master thief, and then slip back out again, unnoticed. Calling twice to check a balance on a checking account. Not remembering stopping in the previous day. Things that aren't necessarily out of the ordinary for most people, but for the elderly they're as damning as bloody gloves. Right now I forget things because I never really committed them to memory in the first place. Or because I'm fending off three other things that threaten to drive me into the ground like an emotional railroad spike. Or because I drank a lot for a long time. But if I see seventy-five, I'll forget things because everything is falling apart in my head. A jigsaw puzzle in a rat infested house; pieces missing pieces, pieces missing entirely. I'm not ready for that. I already find myself laying awake at night because falling asleep feels like dying. I can't imagine having to close my eyes at night wondering if the reaper is hiding inside my eyelids. I don't believe in an afterlife because I can't. I always prepare for the worst. I've always wanted a bomb shelter. Just in case.

It's not just the fear of death that scares me. The fading of life scares me more. Everything is so rich and wonderful as it is, I can't look forward to a life that's like watermelon in December. Tasteless. Crumbling. Save it for prisoners in Gauntanamo. Tell them that their best years are behind them. That they've become a nuisance to the ones they've loved and their sole remaining activity is awaiting a dirt nap. They'll beg for the waterboard and draw a map to Osama.

I'm kind of a downer to be around right now. My roommate wanted to go grab a beer. I advised him of the terribleness of that idea. For his sake. I'm nice sometimes.

Some of the cloud cover is caused by the perpetual problem that has become my house. The mortgage guy called today. "PS, you don't qualify for the lower rate mortgage. You're still approved, it's just going to cost an extra $600 up front and an extra $8,000 over the course of the loan. Love ya bye." My budgeting is going to have to be exquisite and my job searching will be vast and determined. Call me if you have a hook-up, even if it is your friend's cousin's dog-walker's neighbor. Bretty need new jobby. if(NewPay = (2(CurrentPay) || 1.5(CurrentPay))) then NewJob = 1. If you understood that last part, you're a huge nerd. And probably one of my friends. Or a computer science major. Or a mathematician.

I may have been doing this before, but I'm trying to build a $10,000 bankroll from $20. A professional poker player named Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (he looks like most people picture Jesus Christ, he really does) did this, except he started at $0 and had $10,000 after eighteen months. I started at $20 probably six months ago and I'm currently at $239.89. It took Jesus nine months to get from $0 to $100 and then another nine months to get from $100 to $10,000. Don't hold your breath. I'm really going to do my best not to be me this time and actually keep building this, but if history is any indicator, I'll get to around $2,000, get a bright idea, and be back at $0. For the time being, I'm playing $5 and $10 HU matches, $.02/$.05 NLHE and O8B, and the occassional small SnG or MTT. I'll keep you updated. That's enough for tonight.

Ressurection

Wow. Over two months since I've blogged last. My how time flies when you can't tell the days apart. Actually, that's not true in the slightest. In the past two months, I have (in no particular order):

Bought a house
Had Virginia move in with me
Been denied a promotion
Regained the ability to walk
Bought a new cell phone
Been through several tornadoes and ridiculous storms

Actually, that's about it. For the last month I've been working fifty hour weeks at the bank. We had a part-timer get fired so that means Bret works six days each week. I even had a thirteen consecutive day stint because I'm a retard and agreed to work a Sunday at another branch. It's been pretty brutal. Virginia and I both get home around 6pm, make dinner, do one chore, and then we're both exhausted and it's time for her to go to bed. The bad part about having her here is that I don't get to bitch about my hours. For those of you who don't know her, she's a first-year general surgery resident at UNMC, which means she works eighty hours a week. The fundamental difference is that her work is intellectually stimulating. Her reward for killing herself all day every day is that she gets to spend several hours rearranging peoples' squishy bits. My reward for my work is having survived another day without jamming a paper clip into the outlet after the third time Mr. Vecchio has come in without his hearing aid that day. For instance, we were decently staffed on Friday, so I decided to spend some time away from my drawer and take care of things. By the end of my 8.25 hour shift, I had finished a week's worth of work for two people. Sadly, I'm not kidding. I hadn't done anything myself all week, and my customer service manager is out on vacation. So I did all of the things that she would have done that week, and all of the things that I should've done that week, and I did them all in one day. This speaks to the mental gymnastics that I'm subjected to every day. It's harder than you think to not drool on yourself.

The house. Virginia and I bought a house. Yard and all. Garage and everything. My real estate agent said that I'm a hard-nosed negotiator. The reality is more that he must be terrible and I'm slightly less terrible when it comes to house negotiations. We close on August 22nd. A house-warming party will ensue. The peasants will rejoice.

I have more to say on these subjects, but I'm struggling to write this morning. As I age, I wake up earlier and earlier after I drink. I went out with Jeff last night because Virginia is afraid that she's sucking the life out of me. We went to a bar and felt old. To pass the time, we counted people wearing Affliction t-shirts and performed an informal survey of how many people know who Jackson Pollock was. Let's just say that the future of the country doesn't look too bright. ZZ Top can take off his shades. I'll write more later when the brain clouds clear up.

Hello Again

So, where do I start? As I mentioned previously, I broke my ankle. It has turned out to be the worst thing that I've ever done to myself. I have a new respect for permanently disabled people because I flat out couldn't do this all the time. It would be slightly different if I didn't have the use of my legs, but as it stands I'm essentially helpless. I can't really feed myself because I can't move a plate or glass because of my crutches. I'm not too bad with things with bags, and I can use two fingers to hold a pop bottle and still operate my crutches, but aside from that, I'm screwed. I've gotten pretty astute at getting around at least. I can shower and get dressed by myself, as well as navigate around my apartment. I'm back working, but I'm pretty useless there. There are some narrow areas and I can't get around with any sort of speed. Aside from that, if I have my foot down for more than maybe twenty minutes my ankle hurts quite a bit. I was going to try driving today, but we went to the mall so I could pick up Virginia's graduation gift and I was humbled by an escalator which took the wind out of my sails on the driving. Driving would involve my left foot exclusively as I still can't put any weight on my right foot. Anyway, those are the nuts and bolts.

Emotionally, I'm doing a lot better. I was laid up the entire week after my accident. I tried to go to work on Tuesday before I had surgery, but I only made it about five hours before I had to throw in the towel. I spent the rest of the week on the couch with my leg up. It really wore on me. I was really mad at myself, as well as feeling like I would never be able to walk again. I also felt like I would be in pain for the rest of my life. This feeling was compounded by several things. In the quest to permanently keep my foot elevated I have to sleep on my back. Normally, I can NOT sleep on my back. This means that I'm only getting four or five hours of sleep a night at most. Also, I developed a tolerance for my pain meds, meaning that I was in a constant state of discomfort. I was fine when I had Virginia here with me, but when she left Thursday morning I had a long weekend. Everything has gotten better. They put me on new pain meds, my ankle is healing which means that I'm in less pain in general, and I'm not such a burden on my sister anymore. I'm still a big pain in the ass, but I've gotten some other people to do things like give me rides and help me out at my apartment. I'm still eagerly awaiting the 29th, which is the day that I will start physical therapy and be able to walk in my boot. I think I have nearly a month of that, so it will be July before I'm walking bare-legged again. That will be a good day. For now, I have to settle for small things. They skipped putting me in a permanent cast, so I went from a splint to a boot, which was cool. Everything appears to be healing quickly, which is why I'll be walking on the 29th and not three weeks after that. Also, my friends and family have been amazing. Like I mentioned before, there's no way I'm going to be able to repay my sister for all of the help she's given me. Picking me up most of the days of the week, getting me food, doing nearly everything for me, she's been awesome. My buddy Mike has been helping me out quite a bit too. Also, people have been keeping me company as well. D'vo and his girlfriend Sarah came over last weekend and watched a movie with me. This weekend, Caleb and Tisha were in town for a wedding. They stayed at my place. Even though they have other friends in Omaha, they stayed in with me Friday night and came back a bit early from the wedding on Saturday to hang out with me some more. It was very cool of them.

I've done several things to keep myself occupied. I've read two Car and Drivers, one Popular Science, and I'm halfway through another one. When I finish this magazine, I'm going to tear into my real estate book and hopefully polish it off by Thursday when I leave to go to Reno for Virginia's graduation. I've also got some other plans for productive things while I'm laid up, but I'm keeping those under wraps for now in case I change my mind. I've played over twenty-four hours of the new Grand Theft Auto. I'm still not even halfway done. I watched every single show that was on my DVR, which was nearly twenty hours worth. I've also played a small amount of poker. I've avoided writing because my general state of drugedness and sleep deprivation reduce my eloquence. Hopefully I'll get back into the habit of blogging regularly. Well, that's all for now, hope you are all doing well.

PS - Go skydiving. It's amazing. Just make sure you are better than I am at landing.

Update

It's been quite awhile since I blogged, but quite a bit has happened. Virginia had several surprises for me for my birthday. One was a party at the Crescent Moon with a bunch of my friends from out of town. The next was a day off of work. The last was a skydiving excursion. All of it was awesome, except for the landing on the skydiving wherein I broke my ankle. I'll update more, but I've had surgery now and everything is fine. Virginia stayed around to take care of me while I've been crippled up, and she has been incredible. I'm going to miss her when she leaves tomorrow, but at least I get to see her in two weeks for her graduation. And at least I'll get to skip through the airport because I'm the bionic man now. I'll update more later.

Reading/Listening, Dog-Sitting, Stuff

Reading: The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. I somehow made it through high school without having to read this book, and it's a shame. I initially picked it up to avoid having to tackle the monster poem that stumped me with Stevens, and I've really gotten into it. I don't have it with me at the moment, but I think that I'm around page 130, so I'm well over half done. I can't wait to finish it because even though the tension hasn't build much, I know that something big is going to happen in the next fifty pages. I can't wait. Salinger has absolutely perfected the tone of voice of his main character, and I'm incredibly jealous of the man. The funny thing is that I went to Borders to buy another book of his and came home with a George Saunders book (I forget the name and am too lazy to go to my bookshelf which is a whopping twenty feet away) and Silas Marner by George Eliot. Oh well, such is my fickleness.

Listening: Across the Sea by Weezer. The song is off the Pinkerton album, which most people don't like as much as the rest of Weezer's work. However, both the CD and this particular song never cease to surprise me. The premise of the song is hilarious and sweet all at once. Allegedly, an 18 year old Japanese girl wrote what I imagine is a typical fangirl letter. "Dear Rivers, I love you and want to know what your favorite food is and your favorite book and any hobbies you have and your hopes and dreams and etc, etc, etc." Rivers, instead of writing a letter back, wrote a song. However, I think the song itself is very romantic despite claiming otherwise ("I could never touch you/I think it would be wrong"), and specifically, it speaks to my current situation wherein I long for the touch of my loved one but she's way across the sea (the sea of states). Give this one a listen.

I watched my sister's dogs for a few days because she went to Las Vegas for her birthday. I had to sleep at her house because "the dogs have never spent a night alone since I've had them." Yeah, it's incredibly sad. Anyway, there were a few major downers, the biggest one being that the dogs are used to waking up every morning between 6:30-7:00am. I am not. Especially on weekends that I don't have to work. What WAS cool about it was getting a taste of what real life is like. I mean real life such as owning a house, having my own dog, weekends off; just generally acting like a domesticated adult male. I'm looking forward to it now.

I meant to blog more, and a lot has been running through my head lately, but the motivation just fell off about halfway through the previous paragraph. Sorry if it feels as half-assed as it was.

Motivation and Disappointment, Poker

I've been fairly proud of myself lately. I've been coming home from work and actually accomplishing things despite being drained. It's not that my job is physically tiring or mentally taxing, but it does it's best to suck the life out of me. Today, for instance. I took a phone call from an old lady who couldn't hear and wouldn't listen. I had to yell everything into the phone five or six times before she would get it. Everybody else thought it was funny as hell, I was hoping that her cat would die or she would break the urn that held her husband's ashes. Not because I dislike her, I didn't even know her, but because I deal with twenty different versions of her all day, every day, and each is equally as irritating. Anyway, despite dealing with this frustration from sunrise to moonrise I've been coming home and getting things done. I polished off another chapter in my real estate book last night, I've taken care of a few errands that I've been putting off, I'm even starting to make headway on my messy room and pile of laundry. All of these uppers and I was still really bummed when I talked to Virginia. She told me that she was going to go on vacation with her dad the first week of June rather than move here. I'm still not sure of the time table, but all I can focus on is that I've waited so long and been so patient, and now I have to wait some more. I can't seem to remember that she'll be here permanently when this is all done, I can only see that we will get one less week together before she starts the five years of hell that is residency. I'm also mad at myself for not having a better job that I can't just go with her and her dad. That thought opens the floodgates for a multitude of other thoughts as well. Hopefully this is a temporary feeling that will be gone in the morning because I realize that there are a million reasons why I shouldn't be bothered by any of this, but it did bother me and now I have to deal with it.

I suppose the above situation isn't helped by the fact that I'm getting throttled at poker tonight. It's one of those nights that happens, and I'm taking it pretty well, but it's sort of like a prostate exam; you only take it because you have to. I've dropped AK to QQ on an A-high flop when runner flush cards hit; I dropped KK to 33; I got set up with TT vs KK on an all under flop (but I got away from it without going broke), and I've been on the wrong end of a couple of running straight cards as well. I'm only down $10, which is 2 buy-ins, but I hate losing at these limits because I know I shouldn't. Like I said though, these nights happen and you just have to take them like a prostate exam; hold your breath and think of something cool, like a Ferrari.

Graphic, No Poker

So, I have this irrational fear that manifests a lot at work. I've always had it, but, well, I'll just get into it. I'm afraid that when I'm wiping my behind while wearing a long sleeve that I'm going to get poo on the cuff. I don't know how I think I'm going to accomplish this, nor have I ever done it, but I seriously worry about this. In my mind I can picture it happening and then me not noticing. Handing things to people as they cringe in that state where you want to tell the person but you don't want to embarrass them. I picture myself shaking hands with some poor unsuspecting sap, neither one of us knowing. And what do you do if something like that does occur? Do you ask to go home? "Hey boss, I accidentally got shit on my sleeve, I'll be back in a bit." I don't think you come back from something like that. I think you just stop showing up and everybody understands why. I don't think I'd hold that against somebody. These are the things I think about.

Reading/Listening, Poker

Reading: Too much. Haven't advanced in Stevens at all. I read about ten pages of Catcher in the Rye by Salinger, and I also bit off some more of my real estate book. In the grand scheme of things, I haven't made any headway on anything, but the Salinger looks like fun, and I don't see myself having a ton of motivation to read any time soon. Reason: I'm picking up a lot of overtime at work, and I really have no motivation to do anything except go to bed when I get home.

Listening: The Sound of Settling by Death Cab for Cutie. It seems to fit my life right now, or rather, where I want to steer away from. I have a lot of things going for me right now (Virginia), but that's the exact reason that I need to push forward with my life and not just let it happen. Grab the proverbial reigns. Whip the shit out of it. I DO actually have a hunger twisting my stomach into knots right now because I'm nowhere close to where I thought I would be at this point in my life, and I have a lot of things to prove to myself in the coming months. I know this is a little abstract, but I will get more specific in a short while.

I went to the casino a few nights ago to play poker. I lost the $150 I took to play with in about an hour. It was a very humbling experience. A year ago, I would've ran the table I was sitting at for about $600 or $700 because people were playing in obvious manners and had some obvious tells. I only realized this as I was driving home though. While I was at the table I was trying to avoid shitting my pants because I just wasn't used to playing live anymore. My hands were shaking like I was waist deep in ice water and the guy across the table from me could probably hear my heart pounding. I used to be a cool customer, now I'm just like everybody else. If I sat down and played every day for a few weeks, it would all come back. I immediately identified every place I screwed up when I was driving home; the minimum raise on a QTT flop, the darting look after a flop, the relaxed demeanor after a turn card made a hand, all of these things I was oblivious to in the moment. I felt like Michael Jordan must have in his last season; like things had passed him by and while the instincts were there, the spark was just gone. I went home after my beating and played microlimit poker until 3am to convince myself that I'm not as bad as I played. Since them I'm up like $30 in my tiny little online games with a roll of $161.70. It's funny that nearly a year ago I was trying to get out of a rut, and now I'm trying to get back in part of it. I want to play some poker nearly every day so I can shake the rust off and get the creaking, squealing machine back to life, but I don't want it to dominate my life like it used to. Good luck me.

Reading/Listening, Denver Airport, Difference, Poker

Reading: Still Stevens' poetry. I don't think I've advanced more than a page or two since my last post because I bought a Car and Driver that I've been reading nonstop and I've been pretty tired. Tackling poetry requires a certain amount of focus for me, and I haven't had that lately.

Listening: Change Your Mind by The Killers. This was several days ago, but I did listen to it on repeat until I was giving somebody else a ride in my car. I don't like other people to see my music OCD of repeating a song over and over and over. I don't have any great insight or commentary on this song, it was simply the song that I wanted to hear a little bit ago, so I listened to it repeatedly.

So, the story about the woman in the Denver airport. When I last flew to Vegas, I had a layover in Denver. I thought it would be perfect because I had an hour and a half between flights, so it would give me enough time to get off of my plane and roam around the airport for a bit. Denver is my second favorite airport only to O'Hare in Chicago. A lot of people hate those airports because of their size, but that's what I love about them. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet that you could find a French restaurant in Chicago. Wolfgang Puck has his restaurant in Denver. There are also tie shops, shoe stores. Anything you want, you can find it in Denver's airport. So, looking forward to wandering, I was pissed when the flight out of Omaha was delayed, causing me to have to rush to make my connection in Denver. I got off of the plane and hit the terminal frantically looking for a departure board. I saw one a few gates up and made a bee line. It was packed in front of the board, so I had to edge in on the right side. While I was scanning the monitors for my gate info, I noticed a small group of people to the right of the board. I took a few steps over so I could see what they were gathered around when I saw an elderly woman lying on the floor. Somebody was on top of her doing chest compressions, and two or three people, presumably her family members were watching close by. There was an empty wheelchair there that made me wonder if she had collapsed out of it or had been dragged out when somebody noticed she wasn't breathing. I looked up and down the terminal, expecting to see paramedics rushing to the old lady's aid, but there were just people trying to find their gates or their way out. I looked back to the group. The blonde lady doing chest compressions. The other lady with two teenage girls watching anxiously, stoically. A few feet away, one of the desk agents was on the phone. There was no urgency in her face. I looked around the gate and nobody seemed to notice that a woman lay dying. There were just people trying to make their flights. And then I was reminded that I too needed to make my flight. I started to turn my attention to the board even though I wanted to sprint down the terminal and find somebody who could help. The nagging voice of reality told me that I didn't have the first idea where to run, that somebody HAD to be on their way, and that I was going to miss my flight if I didn't move my ass. I made the conscious decision to stand there for a few more moments, looking at the ground. I felt like I still do when thinking about death; that the world should stop, just for a second. Despite our hustle and bustle and drive to get ahead, there are still moments when things should just stop because something is more important that our petty needs. I hope the old lady was ok. I'll never know.

I woke up this morning feeling like garbage. I went to sleep last night feeling like garbage. I've been sick and sleep-deprived, which probably contributes to this feeling, but this morning I had one of those "what's the point?" feelings. I went through everything that I might do today and realize that if I just disappeared from the map that nothing would really change. My job isn't dependent on me. Nothing is dependent on my job. People would miss me, but not for about a week or so. I didn't like the feeling that I could just disappear for a week before somebody (aside from my roommate) would notice. It's that same feeling I get when I know that a change is coming. We'll see what the change is and what it brings.

I've played a little poker over the past couple of days. I'm pretty much even. I won maybe $3 playing micro cash games, but I lost around $3.50 playing micro SnGs. There's not much to write about in these games because I play robot book poker. I do play quite a few hands though, because nobody knows what they're doing in these games and you can limp a lot of pots. No hero calls, no monster folds. If I have a good hand, I'll pay off a bigger one because there's no point in folding down here. I'll keep posting about my progress when I play.