Searching and Searching

Found a couple of jobs that might fit. The best looking one is about 5 minutes from home. It is for a major company we all know so chew on that for a while.

I have started playing Ikariam with a group of people from work. This caused me to get Waffles, IT and Riggs involved. Anyone else wanting to give it a try jump in at let me know. We have an alliance that kicks butt...wellkicks a little butt. We are growing and will offer protection and advice. You can go to our external alliance page here.

Have a great day.

Monday

Since the demise of my life as I knew it, I have actually play a small amount of poker. Nothing amazing but with the limited amount of bankroll I have, anything in the positive direction is a big thing.

We’ll start with the Poker Stars blogger thing.

I played in two events, one of the hold’em events and the 8 game rotation. The hold’em event was going well until I had an issue with one of my children. I lost focus and made a play at the big stack on the BB. I was the SB and it was folded to so I raised it up. I had not played a hand in about three orbits so I figured a little steal would work. I had 94 suited so when he re-popped me I should have folded. But I make a comment in the chat about me not playing a hand in a while and then push my stack in the middle. It could have been a re-steal by him so I though he could fold. He felt AT was good enough to call off 2/3 of his stack but I hit a 4 on the flop…it was good until he caught a T on the river. I’m not sure I could call a re-shove with AT but he did and he won.

The mixed game went well until the bets started getting huge and then it became a matter of getting hands at the right time. I didn’t. I do know that I really like triple draw and made most of my chips during that part of the rotation. The part that killed me was having a nullified while holding the nut flush draw and nut straight draw. I caught none of it with my numerous outs and left silently.

So, I have been playing a little on Lock Poker and forgot there was another level of terrible play. Players calling big re-raises out of position with T8 off suit…things like that. Anyway, I took advantage and won a small MTT, about 350 players. Its nice to win but I find my self distracted. I really need to stay away for a while more. To much life getting in the way of smart play.

So being Monday, the only day I work this week, I want to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Moving On

We had an ice/sleet storm during the night but other then that it was just another Monday. But it wasn’t just another Monday…I was now a part time employee and on some levels I felt a sense of betrayal. Considering the hoops I have jumped through for the company, I think my feelings were justified. Anyway, traffic sucked and I arrived about 30 minutes late to work…not a great start.

I checked my emails and headed to the production meeting like every other Monday morning…it is not every other Monday.

I doodled on my notebook and took some notes. This meeting took longer then most and when it was through, I had to write a couple of emails and get some information put together. I went for a walk around the plant and walked with an unfocused gait. I’m wasn’t sure why I was even there.

I worked my way through the day and prepared to leave when I got a call I was waiting for. It was one of our sales guys from the east coast…near waffles…So I told him I couldn’t talk because I’m now an hourly employee and I’m off the clock…25 minutes later I hung up the phone and headed home. Giving away time for free…that will get me somewhere, someday.

Tuesday I went to city hall and the county health department to see what kind of programs they had for underemployed, overweight, thin haired men and their families. Pretty much a waste of time for now. I also called the mortgage company…because we are in good standing there isn’t anything they could do at this time. But if we start having problems they can come up with a plan to help us work through it. They took note I called and said it was a smart move…If we had waited until after we had problems it would have been harder to do anything. I guess having a credit score in the 800s has advantages?

Yesterday I ran a conference call with a customer in New Mexico. The General Manager was actually at the customer’s facility while I sat in the conference room by my self…I wasn’t actually alone…I had waffles on IM.

I’m struggling with the concept of managing a department as a part time employee. I have no initiative. I’d rather sit at my desk and play Ikariam.

Well...

Working through the myriad of issues in your life is a large part of what defines you as a person. The reactions, both good and bad, at the point that the issue becomes real is a moment of truth and our experiences in life move us down a path that is often sloped and strewn with obstacles. Then it is just a matter of keeping our balance or stumbling on the impediments in our way.

My problems are my own and I sometimes spill them on the canvas of this blog. Sympathy is not needed and though empathy fits, it doesn’t bring a solution in most cases.

It started on Thursday morning last week. It was a typical day at work except for closed door meetings with employees on an individual basis. And being a small company, work got out fast that one of the customer service people was getting let go. Them it was a production employee followed by some job responsibilities being moved around. It looked like everyone was meeting with the bosses and everyone was on edge.

I went into the office with the General Manager and the President like I have a million times before. The conversation started with what had happened to this point and what some of the changes meant to me. Then they let me know I was going to be moved to part time starting the next Monday…two days ago.

I took it about as well as I could. I don’t really understand how I can be a manager and be part time but whatever. It wasn’t a total surprise that things were happening but it was a surprise that it hit me. They gave me the rest of the day off to think about the offer, ironic considering they are trying to save money, and I left a little while later to think about my options.

I basically got fucked. I lost my insurance and 40% of my pay. I am expected to do everything I did before and I might have made more money on unemployment when you look at the gas savings. I write this today as two other employees fly to a customers place for a meeting which pisses me off even more.

So that’s my life in a nut shell right now.

Merry Fucking Christmas.

Love This Movie

Stupid comedy at moronic level.

The Season is Here

Christmas time is here and we started the yearly routine on Friday night as we brought up the numerous containers of holiday cheer. One of the girls had a friend over so we had an additional able-bodied person to help work through the minefield of ornaments, light stings and nutcrackers strewn about the house. By bedtime, we had the tree up and most of the cursory items in place. The only things we didn’t have in place were the outside decorations.

Saturday came and as usual, I was out of the house with Softball Enthusiast around 10:00 and headed to pitching lessons. It was a good day because she has moved onto a couple of new pitches and worked on the proper way to throw them without killing her self. She has a long way to go but she has been working really hard at improving her game and wants to put her self in a position to play varsity as a sophomore. She isn’t there yet but I think it is a possibility if she continues to work they way she has been over the last couple of months. She is to the point where throwing strikes with her fastball just happen because her mechanics are tight. This allows us to work harder on her other pitches and should speed up the progress with she will need to achieve her varsity goal.

So in the afternoon I started to put up the outside lights. Started means I was to cold to stand on the ladder with the wind pulling any warm I had in my body. I did get the light bulbs changed to red and green but the ones hanging from the gutters will have to wait a couple of days.

Sunday I took Lauren to practice in the morning and returned home just after the start of the Bears’ game. I was glad to be inside watching the game instead of outside…except that I had to go hang green stuff outside after half time. I also put up a few of the lights but I really didn’t want to climb the ladder. I am a puss. I made it back inside for part of the 2nd half and got ready to leave for Softball E.’s game. Yes I know it is winter time but her team is playing a winter league in a huge building in towards the city. She didn’t pitch and was 0-2 hitting but drove in a run and smoked the ball both times in their 3-2 victory.

We arrived home around 7:30 and watched one of the Harry Potter movies as we ate our late dinner. Another weekend flew by as we move closer to the end of another year. It has been a tough year but I am thankful to have a family to spend time and do things with.

That Spunky Waffles

Poor waffles…nobody gives him any respect until someone calls him out for what he is. Here is a quote from the tables on Full Tilt.

Maniac57: !!!@bags
Maniac57: mother$#!$ers
Maniac57: cumswillers
jennyho1: shut up you pus infected cumbubble anal wart

Dealer: Maniac57 wins the pot (5,167) with 7,5,4,3,A
Dealer: jennyho1 finishes in 81st place

Maniac57: wheeee
jdinner: lol
Maniac57: Anal Fart
Maniac57: anus
Maniac57: horses &&%@
jennyho1 (Observer): still snivellin cry baby?
Maniac57: pink lips
Maniac57: gg jenny
jennyho1 (Observer): a grown baby, how pathetic
pokerenthusiast (Observer): cumbubbles come from spitters
Maniac57: cumbubbles and straws

Maniac57: was jenny talking to me?

If he cashed the tourney does it count as a money shot?

Have You Met Ralph?

It started out as a typical Friday night except for one thing…I was the first night of my drinking career. To say it was the first night isn’t truly correct. I had imbibed beers before and just the week before I was on my way to a my first over indulgence when I have the fortunate experience of going to McDonald’s for a Cheeseburger instead of staying at the road party that was busted 10 minutes after we left. That was a sobering moment. Anyway, this the story boy meets drunkenness.

Bill and I had two 15 packs of Stroh’s, one for each of us and since he was driving I had a head start. It wasn’t long before half mine was gone and we had only been out about an hour. We drove around and finally met up with some friends on Green Acre Road. It is one of those roads that is a few miles long with only one or two farmhouses sprinkled along the side of the road. It was a great place for us to hang out and I don’t remember ever being busted there.

So it is still early, maybe 8:30 pm…the sun had gone down and it was a nice evening in early October. I had a good buzz going and pushed it until the point of being stupid drunk. I can recall closing the back door of one of my friend’s car while his hand was there…you know how hard it is to open a car door when someone has their hand stuck in it? Anyway, I probably drank about 10 beers in the span of an hour and a half or so and it was catching up to me fast. Bill said it was time to go home but I rejected his plea. This was fun, my mind was muddled and I needed another beer. After some protesting, I finally gave in and jumped into the car to get a ride home. About 300 yards down the road I insisted on stopping so I could take a leak. My real intention was to run back to the party and have some more fun. He pulled the car over and I did my best to act coy…easy to do when you are drunk…and turned to start my jog back to the party. Within two steps, I was face first into the ground. I had my pants unzipped as part of my plan and I may have peed on my self…don’t remember for sure because I was laughing so hard.

Bill drove me home.

I walked in the door and my mom was watching something on the tube. She commented on how early it was as I sat down in the chair across the room from her. I was hammered out of my gourd. She asked if I was drinking and I admitted to having a couple of beers. As we talked, I propped my elbow onto the left armrest to try to steady my misbalanced body. I tried to follow the conversation but my mind and body was having an issue with maintaining focus. As I sat in the chair, leaning on the left armrest, I started to fall to the right. Nevertheless, my expert instincts held up as I deftly caught my self and smoothly switched to leaning on the right. I was in complete control…there is know way she knew I was hammered. A few minutes later, I excused my self and went to bed.

After taking more time then usual to take off my cloths, I slid into bed feeling the weight of to many drinks. I knew I was going to crash quick and I was ready for the slumber. But, a strange thing happened. When I laid my head down I was greeted with a feeling of unbalance. I wasn’t sure how to cope with a room that seemed to be falling, or tilting or maybe both at the same time. I rolled over on my side hoping that getting comfortable would help me get through this strange affliction that had attacked me…but I was wrong.

I’m not sure if my mom heard me heaving but I let loose with everything right there on my bed and on the floor. When I was finished I rolled over the other direction and fell asleep. At some point I was woken by my mother dragging me into the bathroom…maybe I walked/crawled…don’t remember. She threw a towel at me and I wiped off the puke off my face and curled up into a ball on the cold tile floor in my bathroom. I think I used the towel for a pillow.

When I woke up to day light, I went back into my room to see that everything had been cleaned up. I can’t imagine that it was fun cleaning up alcohol induced vomit off of a carpet but there was no way I could have done it that night. I grabbed a blanket and crawled as deep under it as is possible to try and drive the throbbing heartbeat out of my head. I can remember think that I was never going to drink again.

Sometime later I grabbed my mattress and took it outside to air out. It took me 45 minutes to get it from my room out into the late morning breeze. I had 20 minutes to get some food and head to the high school for my soccer game. It was time to move on.

I Smell Something

Independence is a major milestone in the life of a child. Being able to dress ones self and be responsible for various small tasks builds a child’s self-esteem and pushes them towards dependability. But there are flaws in the process as they grow into their role in their growing responsibility.

Being in a household that has both parents working, my son (7) and middle daughter (12) have one day a week where they have to be home by them selves for about 20 minutes or so. This isn’t a big deal, they know the rules and follow them pretty well. So yesterday, they get home and Speedy E. goes up to her room as normal and Baseball E. goes to get a snack. He has a slice of pizza left over and decides to warm it up in the microwave, something he has never really done on his own. He goes upstairs and asks his sister how long to let it cook and she said 30 seconds. He heads back downstairs and fires up the machine. Apparently, 30 minutes is not the same as 30 seconds because he turned it off when he saw some smoke starting to come out of the microwave. We think it ran about 5 minutes before it started smoking but we are not sure.

House smells like smoke a bit but we opened some windows and it seemed to so the trick. We talked Speedy about not being a couch potato and to actually act like a baby sitter. No blood, no foul.

So I was home for about 15 minutes before I had to head back out the door. I saw there was a letter from my high school so I opened it up to check out the news.

Back in the day when my gut wasn’t the size of a basketball, I use to play basketball. I was ok but nothing great…I just had some mad jumping skills. Yes, white men can jump. Anyway, during my junior year we went to the state finals and eventually, our team became kind of an icon in our town. Well that was 25 years ago and the school is going to honor the team in a ceremony before the varsity game on January 30th, 2009. I guess I will get to see how bad my body has broken down in comparison to the rest of the guys I played with back then. They are also having an alumni tourney the following day. There is now way I will play that because I will probably have a heart attack the second time running down the court. I wonder if I can still dunk?

Blogger Fun

This should be fun.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

All bloggers can play in this exclusive online poker tournament.

Registration code: 589358

Its Not a Whirlpool

Poker seems to be warming back up to me. I have done a little dabbling at Lock Poker and it reminds me of my early days of playing online.

When I started out, I first played for real money after filling out a survey and having $5 put into my account at Noble Poker (This is when I started this blog). I went in with the idea that I would try and grind it out but not worry if I lost it all because it was free. I started with the >02/.04 limit tables and would grind out 37 cent sessions and had a stop win gap of $1. I bought in for 60 cents and had a stop loss of 40 cents. It was small time poker but I stayed focused and before long ground it up to $10. Then I was up to $17. In a couple of weeks, I had a bankroll of $25 and was living high on the hog. I played my first SNG when I hit the $30 level and moved into the $75 zone. Without to much trouble. I started taking random shots at this point, random meaning I started to play a $5 SNG now and again. Anyway, I found they had a jackpot SNG program where you received $300 if you could finish in the top 2 of 5 straight SNGs. I hit it on my first 5 and the rest is history.

Within a few months I had money on Stars, UB, Pacific, Full Tilt, Party and Sun Poker. In all I had a couple of grand sitting out there and started to take a random withdraw now and then. I’m sure a lot of it had to do with pure luck but I made my start without ever depositing a dime out of my pocket.

So here I am again. Sure, I have a little money on Full Tilt and will continue to increase my bankroll there, at a snails pace, even if I don’t play considering the few people who signed up through my affiliate program. Anyway, I will try to regain the old magic from days gone yore by playing at Lock Poker for a while. The biggest question in my mind is whether or not I can go back to grinding for a while…maybe for the next few months. I truly a tourney player at heart and even though I have yet to fail to cash in the double up SNGs, I know playing them to rebuild a workable bankroll will be a grind. If I stay within my bankroll management restrains.

Would I consider going back to Full Tilt full time?

Sure but with the rake on the low level SNGs, trying to work it back up might be more then I am willing to do right now. It will be better for me to slowly build my roll there, $5-$10 per month through my affiliate money then to play $1 SNGs with a 25 cent rake. So I think I’m done with Full Tilt for now. I will miss it and I will still rail some of the time…I may even buy into a random event here and there but I think it would be silly to leave the deal money at Lock Poker alone.

So what about my new found killer of family time? I played one hold’em tourney and didn’t cash or even make it very deep. I had a workable stack but blinds were at the 250/500 level and I look at AK suited in the BB. Early position player raises to 1900 and a middle position player calls. I have 5700 and see over 4K in the middle. The initial raiser has both of us covered and the other player has 2200 behind. I look at my price to call vs. what I have left and realize I will probably have 3-1 or better odds to call anything post flop so I go ahead and push. I figure I’m against a pocket pair and maybe a strong K and realize the big stack will not fold no matter what. He didn’t and the middle position guy called also. My chance to triple up is here and I see 77 and KJ. I question the KJ calling but the big stack had the 77 sow I have 5 outs to take the lead…but they don’t come.

I jumped into a double up SNGs and grind out a cash and also started a PLO tourney. I hit a big hand early and went dormant for a while. As we approached the final table I knocked out a few players and hit the final table as the chip leader. Dormancy struck again and missing a few raised flops left me in the middle of the pack with 4 players left. My run ended when I flopped two pair and was open ended but lost to a turned flush.

So not a huge score but the grinding has began.

@&#%*&% Morons

Well things seem to be moving forward a little in regards to my dad’s estate. But let me back up a little and walk you through the process.

My father passed away back in February.

My sister is executor.

I have two stepbrothers and two stepsisters.

One stepsister was given $1 as her part of the inheritance.

My stepmother died 13 and a half years ago.

Stepbrother 1 had not seen or talked to my father since his mother’s death.

Stepbrother 2 talked to my dad at random intervals totaling maybe 12 times or so since his mother’s death.

Stepsister 2 talked to my father often until she divorced and moved away, leaving her children with her ex-husband and giving up her rights to them. This pissed my dad off and he said he would never talk to her again.

My sister and I take care of all funeral arrangements.

We fix up the house, my sister more then I, to get it ready to sell.

We get stuff ready for garage sale.

My sister informs steps to come to the house to get anything they would like to have.

They never come.

My sister, acting as executor pays all the bills, takes care of lawyer stuff.

My sister, as executor asks for 15K compensation for her executor duties plus hours of labor and mileage. I think this is a little high but not to terribly high. My calculations came to about 11.5 but I’m not going to argue over $3500 split between 5 people.

We are ready to disperse money in November. Two of the steps hired a lawyer to argue the executor fee after they hired the lawyer to hurry up with the payouts. There is still one bill outstanding so we will have to hold back 10K in reserve.

A new court date was set for December 4th.

Steps lawyer says they will sign off if my sister lowers her fees to $7500. She counters to $12000. About where I thought it should be.

They prepare an order to have the money released.

My sister makes a deal to send each of us 10K until everything else gets worked out.

Fucking morons fighting about 1K each. They will spend that in there lawyers fees. Fucking idiots.

Have a nice day.

Sticking My Toe In the Water

Well I stuck my toe back in the water and it is tepid at best. Playing on a very short bankroll is frustrating as hell after having a few years of taking shots when I want. Anyway, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to play some online poker at Lock Poker. Let me tell you, there are plenty of fish in the sea.

When I opened the poker client, I found it easy to navigate after a bit of thought. It wasn’t long before I opened a PLO tourney and watched as an agro donkey build up his stack only to give it away time and time again. I was the happy camper when he doubled me up a couple of time but saw my hopes dash by his brilliant play when he called my re-raise with his 367T rainbow vs. my AAKT double suited, The Q92 flop could not have been better for me but he knew he would hit his 6 and 7 on the turn and river so he called my push and caught up.

One thing I noticed was a deeper payout structure. I don’t recall the exact structure but they pay a few more spots then lets say some of the other poker site out there today. This can be good for some but I would actually like to see it pay a little more to the top finishers. Over all it isn’t to bad.

After looking around a while, I went to the SNG section and saw a few things that would be great for an action junky. They have some kamikaze SNGs that require you to push every hand. What a thrill for the action bloggers out there. The also have some lightning tourneys where everyone must ante 250 chips each hand and thus the pot is huge to start. Not a bad idea but you are all in within 4 hands because you start with 1000 chips. But my favorite part was the double up SNGs. Have the table receives twice their buy-in. I played 4 or 5 of these and have yet to fail to cash. Now they are a bit of a grind but I think they are an easy bankroll builder for the smaller bankrolls.

They also have a few guaranteed tourneys including a 250K. But many of the guaranteed tourneys were re-buys so you have to check the fine print before starting one.

For the FPP players out there, they have gold chips and gold cards that you can earn during your play there. You use there chips to buy into other tourneys, kind of like free rolls, where you can win some cash if you make a deep run.

The only draw back that I saw was when I signed up for one tourney, the table didn’t open. I could tell that the tourney was progressing but I couldn’t get to my table. I sent a quick email to support and then logged off and back on. The table was there but I had missed a number of hands before I was finally on my table. The good thing though was that support sent me an email right away suggesting that I log off and back on to fix the problem. I can think of some other sites where I wouldn’t have gotten a response for hours or even days. I’m sure Lock Poker is looking into fixing the bug and will eliminate the problem in the near future.

My overall impression is very solid. The traffic as between 5 and 6 thousand so not real high but there seemed to be enough for a lower level player like me. I’ll give it 4 out of 5 as my recommendation because of the one issue and that I think they need to add RAZZ to the mix. So if you are looking for an online poker download, try Lock Poker.