Netherlands

Well, we made it.

We survived getting up at the butt crack of dawn for two flights and a 3+ hour car ride to make it to my Dad's place on the Grand Ronde River.

Our original trip was supposed to coincide with my trip to Vegas during the WSOP but had to be rescheduled do to sever weather conditions that caused some flooding of the property.

Luckily we were able to reschedule our trip.  The river has dropped, the skies are blue and the weather is fabulous!  We could not have asked for better conditions.

The boys rediscovered their love of BB guns and fishing.  Today we went tubing down the river.  The younger boy isn't too wild about it but we are going to go in spite of him.  The weather tomorrow is supposed to hit the 100 mark so we will definitely be looking for something to do to cool off.

So, if you need me you know where I will be.  I guess you'll just have to make do without me.  :)

Crack of Dawn

I don't know why but pretty much every flight I take out of my local airport leaves at the Crack of Daaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwn!

Ok, every flight except the one to Vegas which I wish was at the Crack of Daaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwn!

The boys and I are headed to the netherlands of Oregon to visit my dad and his wife.  We expect to see wildlife, swim in the river daily, and the boys are scheduled to be the official poop scoopers for the horses.  My oldest is already planning to volunteer to drive the four wheeler to the mailbox a half mile away as often as needed.  Silly boys and their toys.

I lose cell signal about 45 miles from my dad's place.  He does have satellite internet but I don't foresee a lot of opportunity to steal his internets.  So don't be surprise if you don't hear from me for the next 10 days what with me going all native.  I'll see you on the flip side.

May The Farce Be With You

Those Pokerati guys gave me a laugh today.

Based on my last blog post:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Or, if you go a back a few posts.

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I apologize to anybody who reads my pathetic babbling and actually likes either of those authors.  Any resemblance is purely accidental and wholly unintentional.

Fike's Cash Game

I've whined about how bad I run in Fike's game before. 

Yeah, I know, I whine a lot.

His game used to be once a week but this summer he's dropped it down to once a month.  I have sworn off this game so many times it isn't even funny but when I got his text saying the game was on tonight I just couldn't resist. 

I arrived about 30 minutes late and there was already a full contingent of players.  The game had gotten a little anemic lately which is what prompted him to drop down to once a month.  I took a seat a the end of the table to the left of my favorite bad player and two seats to Fike's left.

I supposed I should warn you that this game is fast and loose.  There is a 7-2 rule and often a straddle.  Lately, opening raises are more of the $1.20 (6x BB) to the $2.40 (12x BB) range depending on whether or not there is a straddle.  Yes, you heard me, the opening raise is often 6-12x the BB. 

I spewed off a decent portion of my chips last night when I picked up 2c3c.  We all know crubs always get there.  I limped in after the guy to my right.  A few more limpers to sweeten the pot then Fike raises it up to $1.20.  Well, I was pretty sure everybody was going to call and sure enough the guy on my left called and I called.  Not sure if anybody else did but I'm inclined to think it was just us three.

The flop came down A high with two clubs.  BP checks, I check and Fike bets $4.  BP folds and I'm sitting here thinking I only have another $5ish behind if I call the $4.00 (I was getting about 3:1 on my money) which I will be forced to stick in even if I miss on the turn - this is the rationale you have when you are a donk, just sayin.  I have to believe my draw is good here.  Yeah, only my draw but hey, it's only chips, right?

I ponder my situation knowing I have a rebuy if I miss and punt my Hail Mary.  I ship it and Fike insta-calls.  I don't turn over my cards and neither does Fike.  The turn rolls off a blank.  The river a (non-club, duh) three.  I look at Fike, he looks at me,  I declare, "I have a three," and flip up my 3c.  He fires his cards onto the table and asks that immortal question, "How can you do that????"  He went on to show his KcQc.  D'oh.  How was I to know my draw was no good? 

I have to say that is probably one of my most egregious suckouts and it FELT SO GOOOOOOOOOOOD!  I no longer feel pangs of regret or embarrassment when I get it in bad and suckout.  There is no way I could ever catch up to all the donkeys that have sucked out on me so I might as well just gratefully accept my allotment of suckouts and go on my merry way.

Poker

No, really, I played some poker. 

Very, very little poker.

But, I've been happy with the results.



I mean, who would argue that 30 PT BB/100 for ~1600 hands isn't statistically significant? Besides every arm chair statistician? (Sarcasm is a lost art, isn't it?)

My plan is to play some more live poker after the boys get back in school.  They get out much later this year than previously so I have more time to play at the boat.  I'm getting more and more comfortable playing 1/2 live.  I was at ease at the tables in Vegas so I think I'm ready to tackle the local tables.  I'm hitting the FTP cash tables so I don't get too rusty between now and back to school time.

Unfortunately, I don't have near the bankroll I did.  I took a vast majority of my online bankroll off prior to June 1st.  I am now only rolled for 25nl but that's fine, as long as I stay away from the "crack cocaine of poker", yes, I'm talking about the Rush Poker tables. 

I'm debating about investing in the Table Ninja software. Clearly it wasn't be free forever since the PokerStars version wasn't free but I was still disappointed when I got the message that my 30 free trial had expired.  As little as I am playing right now I'm not inclined to spend the money for the software.  Maybe after I hit some profit milestones I will break down and pay for it.  It really is a must have if you are multi-tabling and I did love using it before it became a paid app. 

Drunken Euchre

Last night's drunken euchre was, let's not mince words, an epic fail.

The Sweet Tea Flavored Vodka was delightful, a little too delightful.  I was no where near loaded but my brain was in neutral all night long.  I made a few mistakes that I don't normally make. 

My partner and I were in the barn a couple times (not that kind of barn you yokels - it means one point from a win) only to have them catch up and pass us.  It was brutal. 

To couch it in terms you poker playing degenerates might appreciate: I ran bad and played worse.  Maybe next time I should leave the vodka at home... nah.

Twilight: Eclipse

My tweener son got me sucked into the reading the Twilight series of books.  I had to catch up and pass him so I could determine whether or not I thought the later books were suitable for him. 

There was entirely too much teenage emotional drama and angst for my taste but the author did manage to move the story line along at a pace that kept me engaged in the story if not the whole relationship turmoil of the book. 

Neither Edward or Jacob really floats my boat although I do have an ever-so-slight preference for Jacob since he seems to wear his emotions on his sleeve which I find endearing not to mention a killer set of abs.  I, however, am not your average teen aged girl.  Of course Bella is absurdly drawn to the emotionally reserved Edward. Duh.

The first installment of the movie was out of the theaters before I read the books.  Just before the second movie was released I watched the first movie.  I found it to be an epic waste of time.  The second movie, in contrast, I thought was well done.  There was actually a budget for special effects and they were quite effective at increasing the impact of the movie.

Last night several of my neighbors and I went to see the latest release, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.  While I found it entertaining and quite well written - all of the pertinent plot points were addressed in succinct, if somewhat choppy, scenes - I found the overuse of extreme closeups of the principle deadpan actors to be dull and not the last bit compelling.  The action scenes really made the movie for me.

During the ride home we discussed several shortcomings of the movie.  We all agreed that the casting of Edward was an epic failure.  I'm sorry but that boy has absolutely no skills and zero charisma.  The same goes for Bella.  All of the aforementioned extreme closeups really did nothing for this movie since neither of them can convey any emotion whatsoever.  Her puckered upper lip trembled in exactly the same way IN EVERY DAYUM SCENE.  BO-RING.

Random thoughts:

• I had and still have no empathy for Rosalie's character. 
  
• Jasper really came into his own during his backstory and the training scenes. 
  
• Alice is so friggin adorable and charming; I could watch her all day. 
  
• Whoever chose Carlisle's hair color should be fired - it totally distracts from every scene he is in.  
• That Jacob boy has some seriously nice abs.  We all wished he was older and lived in our neighborhood.
• With the exception of Bella (whose eyebrows are overplucked) everybody's eyebrows where overgrown to distraction.
  
• Bella's skinny jeans prove that even skinny people look like shit in them. I LOL'd when she tried to run up the hill but could only waddle.

Oddly, my son has no desire to see the movies.  He told me that they would ruin the books for him since he already had the images of the story in his mind the way he wanted them.  Kudos to him for being able to realize this at his age.  While I have seen the first three movies, I'm not inclined to watch the next installment since, having read the book, I can't imagine any way they could depict particular key moments that would not be wholly inadequate compared to the way the scenes play out in my mind.

Internet Bouncer

It doesn't take me long to figure things out.  OK, sometimes longer than others but I usually, eventually get there.  Eventually.

Summer is an interesting time at my house.  My boys think that summer is the time for them to vie for the ultimate laptop bum award.  They have Olympic caliber skills when it comes to playing games and goofing off online.

My old TrendNet router has been the best router I have owned to date.  It is about 3 years old and has been the most stable router of the three I have used - the other two were a Linksys and a NetGear.  The Linksys was a piece of shit.  The NetGear was good but often needed to be reset. 

I figured out how to limit the boys' access to the internet using the TrendNet's settings.  While I have tried in the past to use the Windows Parental Controls they don't allow the boys to play their favorite online games so I had to abandon that effort to limit their usage.  This has come in incredibly handy.  Nothing incentivizes my children to do just about anything more than turning off their internet.

Since getting my new ASUS laptop and upgrading my netbook's wireless card I have been more interested in getting a Dual Band Wireless N router since these devices are compatible with the 5ghz band.  I did some research on Newegg and Amazon.  I neglected to check with my buddy (not Zerb) who has had a dual band router for a few months now.  I did recall that he had a couple issues but was happy with it for the most part.  I did read some recommendations for the Linksys E3000 router on a forum related to my ASUS laptop.  I ended up ordering one.

After flashing a firmware upgrade and making sure I set up the access program we started using the new router.  It wasn't long before the boys were complaining that their internet went out.  I did a little troubleshooting and eventually settled on a router restart.  When it came back up it had lost all of the settings.  Every last one.  Sigh.  Good thing I had backed them up as part of the firmware update but still, if this thing wasn't going to save settings between reboots I was sending it back.  The same problem happened again.  I immediately set up the old router and had my finger on the return button when I decided to reflash the firmware update one last time and see if that didn't fix these issues.  And, so far so good. 

Not long after getting the new router back up and running I watched a Tekzilla webcast specifically because it discussed Wireless N routers.  They seemed to like the NetGear version that, it turns out, my buddy (not Zerb) owns.  My buddy (not Zerb, no really ;) sent me a link to a site that evaluates and tests router noting that this place just loved his model.  I looked at both the NetGear and the Linksys models and both had there strong and weak points.  I found a good deal on the NetGear so I ordered it with the intent to run both for a week and decide which I like better.  So far the Linksys is not having any issues - the first firmware update must not have 'taken' - operator error I'm sure. 

The best part of having dual bands is being able to stick the kids on their own while I get one band all to myself.  I download a lot of content and I have noticed a HUGE improvement since I kicked them off my bandwidth.  I doubt they have noticed any difference at all.

Before I even bought the new router I had set up the old one so that I could access its control interface remotely from my phone or any internet connected computer.  Think about that for a minute.  Remotely access my router.  Why o why would I want or need to do that?  Have you ever tried to get your kids to do anything WHEN YOU WEREN'T HOME?  Epic fail, amirite?

I had to run some errands the other day and the boys were not being cooperative.  I had already disabled their internet with the promise to turn it back on if they would only do their chores, etc.  It wasn't until I was ready to walk out the door that they even began to show any interest in doing their jobs but suddenly wanted me to turn the internet back on before I left with the promise they would do all their stuff.  Hahahahahah, as if.  I said, "Nope.  You do your stuff.  Text me pictures of your clean rooms, clean closets, clean kitchen, clean garage..." you get the picture.  And so did I.  Lots of stunningly beautiful pictures of clean places.  I was standing in the Walmart checkout line when I finally turned their internet back on.  [Fist pump!]

My sons might have professional caliber goof off skills but those are no match for my geek cred.