Deadlines

"If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of loan payments." - Unknown

Sorry for being gone. Erika has done a great job of writing recently, made me feel guilty for neglecting my blog...though I have been neglecting too many things in life as usual...such as deadlines. I'm starting to get everything in order but the list is long.

So let me tell you about my Thursday. My morning class was canceled, but my externship class was not. So I get to sleep in a bit and then go to my noon class. I get there and the class is empty. I had missed the previous class where everyone found out that class was canceled today. No class until 4pm today in theory, which would have been awesome had I not spent all this time getting ready and driving to and from school for the 2nd class that was also canceled. I even showed up early for that class. I later find out it was in fact canceled. I guess it was a fitting punishment. I drove home and studied for my 4pm class.

I have an interesting class situation today. Poker starts at 6pm and Mark won’t be there, but I have class at 6:15pm. An easy solution, which will probably be the one will be me just missing class, but the other option is to wait until people get there and then let them play while I leave for a bit for class. I am looking forward to playing tonight, but it sucks my poker night is on the same night as all my TV shows. Yeah I think I'll just miss my late class.

Wednesday at work I had sushi for lunch with Bob and Angie. I was up for trying something new. I was very hungry, so I was able to eat it with no problem. I don’t really know if I like it or not. I did not feel well later, but that might have had more to do with the red bull I had for breakfast. I don't think I have been very productive at work lately, so I should probably start getting more sleep.

Speaking of work, I have one more week of my externship and then I am done with my unpaid hours. This is followed by Spring break. It will be a nice break from school and class. The plan right now to is go to Atlantic City for a poker marathon and get back on Sunday when Erika arrives. Then we will spend Spring Break in DC and NYC and other ideas I haven’t come up with. It should be fun and I am looking forward to it. I got a new awesome monitor. My excuse was that it would be for my learning experience as a sit and go specialist (poker). There is a long story about how I first got a new video card. When I installed it, I needed a power connection that my power supply did not have. So now I was going to have to buy a new power supply. I end up doing this extension cord type thing inside my computer and now I got my video card working and my kick ass monitor too. I am very proud of myself for figuring that all out.

There is a lot I can say about poker, but I have no really big results. I had 20 thousand hands played and in the last 2 months I’ve played almost 1000 games and now have over 50 thousand hands under my belt. I still am far from where I want to be, but I’m still a winning above break even player. I am working on getting all my post graduation plans together. Right now my goal is to get tickets for my family to come up and a ticket to fly out after I leave. I got a place now in Austin to study so I’m happy about that. I have a lot of bills from Barbri to water that I need to take care of. I am trying to get everything paid and make sure I have enough money. So many fees. I’m also helping Abram get his law school applications in, so he is feeling the fees crunch too.

I’m hoping the weather starts warming up but my allergies are going to really suck soon. This is the fun of being me.

butterfly lights

Ben and Jerry

"If law school is so hard, how come there are so many lawyers?" — Calvin Trilling

Thursday night was poker night. We had a great showing of about 13 people. I showed up after class and bought in for 20 dollars. We were playing .25/.50 which means the buy in is really shallow. I stayed even most of the night. I lost a big pot early, but since I paid for the pizza and was paid in chips, I was back to even again. I won a decent sized pot against Joanna when my AK paired against her pocket 9s. I did lose half of it back when my AK didn't pair against her pocket 7s. We changed tables and I got into two big hands with Brian2. He is a tight conservative player. He doesn't bet or call unless he has the goods. I forget the first hand I won, but a while later, I run into pocket aces on the button. Brian raises and I double it knowing he won't be able to lay his hand down. Mike behind me calls, which worries me. Flop comes K62 rainbow. Mike checks, Brian makes a decent sized bet. I push allin, Mike folds and Brian has to contemplate a call. He had AK and was sitting with top pair top kicker. Only way I have him beat it two pair, a set or aces. (maybe KK) The preflop raising and calls takes me off 2 pair, or a set, so I might just have AK too. He knows he is beat, but can't get away from it and calls. I take down the pot as he doesn't improve. He plays very well, so I have to get lucky to make sure I hit a big hand against him to win anything. I'm pretty healthy now. I later limp with A6 suited on the button in an unraised pot hoping to hit the flush draw. I get the draw and Mark bets into me. I call and my flush hits on the turn. Mark then bets into me again and I just call since I have position. On the river, he bets 15 dollars. Now I had a big bluff against Mark two weeks back where I raised very little in a huge pot, so I know if I go all in, he will probably fold his lower flush, but if I just min raise him 15 dollars more, he has to call. The board wasn't paired, but there was a straight flush draw out there. He calls and I take down a massive pot. At the end o f the night, I end up with 105 dollars from my 20 buy in. About an 80 dollar profit. Not too bad for a low stakes game. Maybe it is greedy of me, but when people leave with a large winning, I just see that as money I'm not able to win. But that is poker, so I can't worry about that too much.

forgot to post this

Understanding

"Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else." -George Bernard Shaw

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's day. I spent the day alone at home. It snowed over night and work was canceled due to the terrible road conditions. I would love to say I was productive, but I really didn't get too much done. I was able to talk to Erika, so that was great. She went to see Rent with her parents. She has been very busy lately due to the upcoming competition. She works very hard, I wish I was that hard working.

This weekend I went to Texas to visit Erika for Valentine's Day and our Aniversary. We decided to celebrate a bit early. I flew in on Thursday night and left on Sunday. It is great to see someone when you miss them so much. We got to see Pan's Labyrinth which I had been wanting to see. Erika got me some very thoughtful gifts...she always impresses me with how thoughful she is. We went to her cousin's 1 yr birthday party which was very nice. I also got to see my mother very quickly since no one knew I was going to visit.

When I left, I went through the process of being questioned by Border Patrol again and then getting to sit in First class. Those are not related of course, but I have probably once flown first class once in my life and it was nice. I got to BWI at 1am and then drove home. I got home at 2am and had to wake up for work in the morning. The next day I was so tired, I ended up falling asleep early.

I have a huge list of things to do. Maybe I should just start them.

Here is an article on why Men don't throw out the trash. It was probably written by a man. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17150900/wid/11915773/

tilt

Spyware

"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones." - Carl Sagan (1987 lecture "The Burden of Skepticism")

I haven't really had the urge to write lately. Maybe it is part of my bigger problem of not being very productive. I've missed some very important deadlines.

I got Vista. My computer wasn't quite ready for it, but I'll hopefully make the upgrades soon.

I saw the superbowl. I was happy to see the Colts win. I wasn't too impressed with the commercials.

Here is a real American Hero. The story of Watada. At the end of 2005, he was convinced that the Bush administration had purposefully manipulated intelligence to justify the invasion and that the congressional approval of the war therefore was based on lies. I wish the military would just let him resign. He has offered to go and fight in Afganistan and to resign.

I'm going to Texas to visit Erika for the weekend. I can't wait.

http://www.skincancer.org/content/view/36/11/ An interesting note on tanning salons.

30in monitor