Sunny Weather

Things change on a dime around this part of the northwest. We are drying out a bit and with the clouds moving away it will be a cold one tonight. It would be nice to head south for the winter. A small group of us went for lunch yesterday at Red Lobster. It was fun, small group being three, and enjoyable to sit and talk and eat some seafood. Being housebound at this time it is nice to get out any time I can. During our lunch we got a text about a company looking for dealers for their parties they were putting on. They call them casino nights and people are having them for their christmas parties or whatever. They are having so many of them right now they are running out of dealers to help out. Doesn't sound like a bad idea and I decided to get ahold of them when I got home to see what they were about. Having never heard of anything like this before. I did send the email off and got a reply saying they would like it if I wanted to join them during this party and deal the Blackjack game with them. I am definitely going to do this as I am not working right now anyway. It should be fun and some extra money. I say "extra" but not really. I am not sure what this will do with my unemployment but I will have to report this to them when it takes place. I am not sure if this affects my college stuff as well. It isn't a job but it is earning money. Unemployement does frown on that. I was told yesterday that one of the guys that is in the final nine playing this weekend is already making deals for the money and we all have not had a chance to sit down at the table yet. This will be interesting to see what happens. I would like to see all nine of us get some part of the $1,000 prize pool and play the game as usual. Any money in this tournament is positive since it was a freeroll anyway. I was able to get first place of $50 and a third place of $25 gift card during the nine weeks and this is the icing on the cake to get some of the prize pool. I know I am a very happy camper if I can play poker. Being housebound just makes it difficult. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $230 Bankroll = $3.15

Another Day of the Same

Yes, just another day of rain here in the pacific northwest. Usually over here on the east side of the state we don't normally see a lot of rain. We just put up with it and then the sun comes out and we forget that it did rain. I played some Micro poker last night and I did not do well. This may be the fastest I go through the $5. Once it is gone that is it. No more retry. I am playing the .02-.05 NL cash game. I was doing alright at the start and then I got involved in a hand that I should have let go and didn't. Once that happened I continued to try and get the money back by playing more hands. At that amount of $$ everyone wants to see the the flop, turn, and river. I just got disgusted and before you know it I was down and that was it. One of the other things I am trying to do is play at least 50 hands before I stop. Another day and we will see how I do. I woke up last night and reached over for my scooter to get on and go to the bathroom. As I got up, I moved my leg with the boot on it, and set it down on the cushion of the scooter and I started to fall. My foot hit the wheel of the scooter and I brushed up on the closet door. I ended up with weight on my right foot, which had the surgery done, and I moved quickly to get myself upright. I made noise in the bathroom as I couldn't get the door closed behind me. Nothing like waking my wife up doing all of this. I try to be independent during this but then I end up hurting myself in the process. I called Worksource yesterday and found out I scored 100% on my assessment test on the Windows 7 Operating System. I will go in next week and work on the next class which will be on microcomputer concepts. This shouldn't take me very long and then I will be good to go in January at the college. This is a whole different story and will get into it at some later time. I will be glad when this stuff is all done. Have a fun day...... Bankroll = $230 Bankroll = $3.15

House Bound

I am just not used to being house bound. Now that the surgery is done I am in the recovery mode. My foot is getting better each day I hope. I went to the Post-Op appointment on Monday and he said the foot looks good. He had an x-ray done and we took a look at it. When you look at the big toe you see the socket is now metal and stands out. Then you look back behind the ball of the bone and you see two screws. My goodness they look big for that size of bone. I asked him if he was going to take them out. I was just kidding of course but he said no need to take them out. I think he thought I was serious. So now I wait to go back on Tuesday next week and he will take the stitches out. One week closer to being able to walk on the foot. I have been playing Zynga Poker the last few days for the heck of it. It is free and at least I am playing. I am working on some Micro poker at the .02-.05 NL cash game. I am unable to give specifics about this but at least I can play some live. You will see my bankroll is starting at $5. Last night I was able to get it to increase by $1.01. That is a good start. I am not sure what my goals are for this but it is a start. I would like to move up but not sure when I would like to try the higher level. I am in my first week of the 3 weeks of not being able to work out at Club 24. I am anxious to get back to my schedule and keep up my program of loosing weight. Last I checked I was at 227 pounds. As long as I don't overeat while I am off I am hoping I will not gain much weight back. This is a constant struggle. Have a fun day.... Bankroll = $230 Bankroll = $6.01

Weekend is Done

I did nothing over the weekend. I was unable to go down to Joker's Casino on Sunday to play in the final freeroll event. There are nine of us that will be headed back to the casino next Sunday to play in the final. This should be fun and the money available is good. Today is my post-op day with my doctor. I still have at least a week and a half of no weight bearing on the foot. I can't drive since this is my right foot. Makes it hard to go do some of the things I need to do. My pick-up sits out front and no one to drive it. At least I still have my bankroll and maybe I can get it to grow by adding money into it for the next couple of weeks. I will also be starting another bankroll for a micro poker game I will be starting to play. It will have $5 to start. I will use it to start playing cash games first. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $230 Bankroll = $5

Thanksgiving Week

Surgery was done on Wednesday. Thanksgiving is done and now we are in Black Friday the shopping nightmare. This past Monday I was able to take my test at WorkSource and I felt I passed it with no issues. The test took me about 40 minutes and I was done and out of the center and on my way home. There were so many things to get completed before I have the surgery done. I now have one more class to complete in the month of December and I will be right on track. On Monday afternoon I received a call from Columbia Basin College wanting me to come in and go through the orientation on Tuesday instead of November 27th. I was good with this as it will be another item done, during the surgery time, and since I will be non weight bearing it means I can get this done and will have an appointment December 4 with WorkSource. The meeting went well and I will be starting my classes in Computer Science in Janurary. I will be a student again and this time will be going for a Certificate for Customer Help Desk. On Wednesday I showed up at the hospital at 6am. The surgery started around 7:30 and I was back home around 11am. The foot is very painful right now and I am taking my pain meds as directed. I am hoping this will go well and the pain in my foot will go away and I can start my weight loss program again. Being off of my feet and not driving for three weeks will be hard. Thursday was Thanksgiving and having my family around was nice. I may not have been all that alert but it was nice having them here. My wife put in a lot of work for the meal and then taking care of me as well. I am hoping to be able to play some poker on Sunday. This is the final weekly event before the final table on December 2. I only plan on playing the tournament and not play any live afterwards. I am rethinking about my goal of reaching the $500 bankroll before playing in a larger game. I could reach that level playing the bigger games instead of piecemealing it with the lower game. If I play like I should I could get this up in a faster timeframe. Or, it could drop and then I would have to play the $2-$4 level anyway. At least I could try it out. Have a fun day...... Bankroll = $230

The Weekend Ends

It has been a good weekend of playing poker. I went down to Joker's Casino and signed up for the Freeroll. This is week number eight and we only have one more week of tournament play until the nine of us will play for the $1,000. This will take place on December 2 and with the people already in it should be a good game. The person that won the seat at the end is another known player that I have played against for some time and that should help as well. He is very aggressive and will play a LAG type of game. I just hope I have good position on him at the final table. As you can see I did not win the extra seat but that is fine. Like I said we have another week to go. I did get another opportunity to sit down at the $2-$4 limit game. Again I started with my usual buy in of $20 and this time since we played the freeroll I was given a card for $5 extra at the live table. After about 30 minutes of play I was up over $40 and again I started thinking about the amount I have and getting up and leaving before I gave that back to the table. Then my mind went to the comment by FlushDraww and I figured this was about me and not my thoughts about what others thought about me. Plus it was an opportunity to get back to where I was to start the weekend. After the button went by me and I played a couple more hands I took my chips to the cashier and went home. I felt good about the night. I have to remember this $2-$4 game is so small and it doesn't last a long period of time so whatever I can get is what I will build my bankroll with. I have to remember my goal and keep building anything towards that $500 so I can start playing the $2-$10 limit game. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $230

I Will Never Learn

I went down to Joker's Casino last night to play some $2-$4 limit. I did go down and waited for the table to open up so we could play. There were six of us that started the game and that meant each of us started with the extra $10 in our chip stack. My buy in was for $20. Starting with $30 with the extra was nice. I started playing my usual strategy and got the stack up to $50 and at that point I started thinking about getting up and leaving with the profit. We lost one of our players and put us at five and if I would have gotten up to leave that would have killed the game. We had been playing about an hour at that time. I have always had an issue with getting up and leaving thinking people would think bad of me if I did that. I don't like the hit and run type of player but then again I like to leave with a profit as well. I ended up staying an extra thirty minutes and in that time I ended up giving all of the money back to the table. So, instead of getting up and leaving with a profit and an increase in the bankroll I leave being $20 down in the bankroll. Good job steve. Today I am going to play in the Freeroll and see if I can get another seat in the final table. It would mean we would have one less player and we would be closer to the money. This will be week number eight and that will leave one more week and then the final nine will play for the $1,000 prize pool. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $210

Friday Poker

Every once in a while I will get to play in a poker home game. Getting ready for the Monday exam and playing some Saturday live poker. I have been working on completing the Windows 7 operating system and I am taking the test on Monday. Hopefully I will get through this and will be ready to go on to the next class. That will be in a few weeks though once I am able to get back on my feet and drive. I played in a home game last night. It was a $5 buy in and we had a full table. I played a tight conservative game waiting for the cards before I would put money into the pot. This is my usual anyway so nothing changed. I haven't played with these players in quite some time so my knowledge of them was from months past. The table was mostly loose aggressive and my position was good as well. I just waited and in fact I played very few hands in the first tournament. I ended up chopping when we got down to two players. We did start a second game for the same buy in and I tried to open up my game a little bit an ended up in third place. At least I got my money back for the second game. The night ended with an increase to the bankroll by $20 and that was good as well. I had fun and hopefully we can get a live game started soon with this group. Tonight I am looking at going down to the casino and playing some live $2-$4 limit. They have a special going that if you start at the table you will recieve an extra $10 with your buy in. That would be a good start to see if I can increase the bankroll from there. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $230

It's the Weekend Already?

It has been a busy week for me doing my daily workout and spending time at Worksource taking my computer class. Looking forward to the weekend to play some poker and the surgery that didn't happen. I have been getting my workouts in on a daily basis and still have not looked at the scale to see where I am at. When I was at the doctors office, the other day, they weighed me on their scale and I was at 231. I know that is not correct since I had my clothes on and I should be around the 227 mark, and if that is correct I am headed into another month without loosing any weight. I know the inches are coming off and people have mentioned that I am looking better. Wish it would show it by loosing the weight. In fact the winter jacket I bought last year is now too big for me. My other jacket is not warm enough and is slightly smaller. The problems with loosing weight and having to buy different clothes. I think that is a good problem to have. I have been taking a class at Worksource on computers. The class is called Operating System Windows 7. I figured I will get this one in and then do one more called Concepts. This one will give me the hardware and software concepts. I am ready to take the test on Windows 7 and will do that on Monday. Then I will start the Concepts class when I can get back into Worksource after the surgery. I have not played any poker this week. I would really like to spend one or two evenings playing the $2-$4 limit game. I have been thinking about some goals for this and I would like to stay at this level until I build up the bankroll to $500 and then move into the $2-$10 Limit Spread game. At that point anytime I am below the $500 I will move back to the lower game and build back up. I didn't go to the Wildhorse Roundup this past week since my bankroll is not big enough to pay for the buy-in. Playing tournaments just takes too much bankroll and not enough money being made on a consistant basis. The smaller tournaments like the Freerolls and the $5 tournaments are the ones I will probably play and see if I can get the bankroll up without depleting the money. The Surgery that was to take place on Thursday did not happen. I was called on Wednesday and was told the part did not come in and they needed to reschedule me. Now the surgery will be on the 21st of November. I quess I will definitely be laid up for Thanksgiving. I think someone dropped the ball and didn't get the part ordered that was needed. This will put me a week behind with my schedules and I have two important meetings on the 27th and December 4. I will not be weight bearing at that time and may not be on crutches either. Hopefully I will not have any problems with the job hunting during this time. We are now headed into the Thanksgiving week and I hope everyone is thankful for something. I am thankful for my family and friends and the opportunity to give everyone reading my blog a snippet of my life while I write about what I do with myself. Have a fun day...... Bankroll = $210

Weekend

I have been getting ready for the surgery coming up this Thursday. I started a computer class this past week as well. Poker for the weekend as been fun. Working out at Club 24 and my weight loss journey. I went in on Thursday to start all of the pre-op and finished up on Friday. I am ready to go and it will take three weeks for the foot to be ready for some walking or at least weight bearing. Since this will be the right foot I will be unable to drive so that will make everything very interesting. Considering I am still trying to get employed and must put in my job applications. Now, even though I can't walk doesn't mean I can't look for work. It just means I will be on crutches. One of the items I am doing at worksource in conjunction with our community college is computer classes. I have two that I will be doing and one of them I started this past week. It is the class on Windows 7. It is basic information but since I have never gone through it I want to make sure all of the computer stuff is taken care of before I start taking more classes in this. The next one is on the computer concepts. I started a class a few years ago for the C+ class and it looks something like that. I just want to get through these. Not being able to drive for three weeks will slow me down definitely. I played in two tournaments this weekend. The first one was Saturday night at a pub and it was fun. There were about 24 players and in that situation we all had to take our turn in dealing. I didn't do well but it was fun to get out and play. I then played in the Free Roll on Sunday at the local casino and I got first place and a seat into the final tournament with a prize pool of $1000. That was important to get this seat and have the opportunity to win some money. I did win $50 for this tournament as well. That always helps the bankroll. I am still working out at Club 24 and I have gotten myself pretty tired. I have been doing the 3 miles on the treadmill and 8 miles on the Recumbent Bike. I haven't made it all of the way through the bike riding the last couple of days. I have been tired and just unable to finish. I have been at least getting my walking in on the treadmill. I don't know what my weight is right now since I have been staying away from any scales. I just don't want to know. The surgery will have me not exercising for at least three weeks so that will be interesting as well. I will have to make sure I don't gain weight just sitting around with my leg elevated. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $210

Politics

Three of the areas I truly stay away from are politics, religion and sexual behaviour. There are so many views and the arguments start when you get going into any of these topics. That is why I will stay away from them. Now that the election is done I hope to see all of the signs come down in a rather short time frame. Our lives will continue, and we must live within the parameters that we have. All of the new laws, new taxes, higher prices and what ever else is put upon us. I guess the two that have me stumped for the state of Washington is the new law for recreational use of pot. The other is the same sex marriage. I am not going to discuss the same sex marriage one since I don't want to and I don't have to. I am leaving that one alone. The other one is the recreational use of pot. I guess we can all now start our own farms and grow pot and then sell this to the recreational users. What does this do for all of those in jail having been put there for being in possesion? I do see that the state will make money by charging a 25% tax on growing, then a 25% tax on wholesaling and then a 25% tax on retail. Maybe the state found a way to make up the deficit. The other part of this is the fact that I am still unable to play online poker in my own house in this state. We have asked to be taxed and still nothing. Our lives are not important when it comes to smoking pot but the state wants to protect me from myself in spending my own money when playing a game that is a skill level game. I must say I do enjoy my time in the casinos and I don't mind playing the games there, but the games available are not what I would like to play with the bankroll that I use. You see, I don't use household money to play the games. This is my recreational money and I always hope it is growing to allow for bigger games. Plus being in a smaller town the casinos are not the tribal casinos that attract a lot of people. If there was a way to move to another state I would do it but I have a home here in Washington and that would make it hard to sell and move to another state just for poker alone. That does not sound reasonable. For now I must move forward in trying to find a job and taking classes to see if at 56 years old I can move into a new career. Can I get hired? We will see. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $180

Sunday Poker

I finally got out of the house and went down to play some poker. I entered the Freeroll event the Casino has going in the bar area. This is not connected to the poker room and is run a little differently. It doesn't matter it is still poker being played for some cash. First place is $50 and a seat into the final table at the end of nine weeks and they are playing for $500 prize pool. Today I made it to third place and walked away with a $25 gift card for the casino and if I play the $2-$4 limit game I could buy in for $20 and recieve $5 extra in chips. I am all over that since I will be in the black before I even started. When I finished with the tournament I did go into the casino and sit down at the $2-$4 game. During the short session I was able to get K10 and I ended up getting the high hand with a KxKxK on the board. Now if I could get the game to last a couple more hours I would get $50 for the High Hand. That didn't work out since the game only lasted about 30 minutes after that. My luck in not getting that HH. I did end up with a $5 positive. Overall the day was good. We have been working on the house and we got the tub out of the master bathroom and now I will turn towards working on the toilet, sink and floor. Since it is still a functioning bathroom I hate to completely tear it up since the money comes in slowly in trying to rebuild it. We are good at deconstruction and slow at construction. This week I have appointments with Worksource and have my orientation in the computer room for some classes. Putting in my three job applications per week is going alright. I have a hard time putting job applications in unless I know that I can really do the job and would like the job I am applying for. There are some who just put out applications just to get the no and I can't do that. Just doesn't feel right. So many things run through my mind for small businesses that I feel I could do myself. I need to just take the time and see if any of them would work. All of this takes $$ of course. I wish it were easier. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $180

Lost My Drive

I really need to get this thing in gear again. It has been a rough number of weeks trying to get myself back to playing and doing something. I have not played any live for a couple of weeks now. I have been letting my bankroll just sit until I have the right frame of mind to get back and play again. This unemployment thing has really got me second guessing myself. I don't mind trying to find a job but then all of the other stuff I have been doing at Worksource and now looks like school in January. I keep screaming I don't want a career at my age I just got out of that a few years ago. I really enjoyed watching the WSOP this week. I was rooting for Merson and he won. There was some good plays made by all of them. I was surprised that Balsinger made it so far but he really turned it on in the later stages. I was really surprised the Hungarian chose to go all in with that much of a chip stack unless he really felt Merson was not going to call him with the all in. I watched until about midnight and then had to go to bed. Wow, it went almost 12 hours til the end. I will have surgery in a couple of weeks and will not be able to get on my feet so that will be interesting as well. Wish I had online poker, that would help out while I am down. Crutches here I come again. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $150