Win? When?

How did we manage to get a solid win against a Top 10 SEC opponent? I have no idea.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I hate football

The Gators leave me no other choice. Enough about that.

What’ve I been up to?

Not much. I am taking an easy load of 10 hours this semester and that’s left me with a lot of free-time to waste; so far, I’ve done an excellent job. I have been playing a lot of poker and I’ve been doing pretty well (considering our home game is packed with loose/aggressive players, so the most important aspect of our game is the cards and not necessarily one’s skill). It’s been exciting for me to learn more about the intricacies of the game and it’s been encouraging to see that I’ve improved significantly over the past couple of months. The main reasons for my improvement are found in the following books:

Super System, by Doyle Brunson — read
Caro’s Book of Poker Tells, by Mike Caro — read
Hold ‘em Poker for Advanced Players, by David Sklanksy — reading
The Theory of Poker, by David Sklanksy — reading

The best thing about reading these books is that I’m really developing the analytical part of my game. When I first started playing–a few months ago at a friend’s home game–I had a knack for “reading people”, but didn’t really understand the logistics of the game very well. Through reading these books, I’ve learned more about the mathematical, analytical and strategic aspects of the game. These new aspects, along with my knack for reading people have made me a significantly better poker player. Granted, I have a very long way to go, but I’m making steady progress and that’s all that really concerns me.

I played my first “live” tournament the other night and would have had an excellent shot at winning, had I not caught poor cards most of the night. Essentially, I played two hands:

• 88 in the hole, I make a small, positional raise before the flop, simply to increase potential winnings if I hit a set. Flop came garbage and I folded to a medium sized bet.
• KQs in the hole, I raise about the size of the pot before the flop with two or three callers. A and trash on the flop, I bet about half the size of the pot and am raised to the size of the pot, 3rd player folds, so I’m heads-up with the big stack, I think and call. Turn comes low, I check, player to my right bets, I immediately raise to twice his bet. He hesitates and calls. River comes low, I bet out for about 1.5 times the size of the pot, other player says, “Let’s have a look at you (like he’s a pro, sizing me up)” and then says, “You haven’t played much all night, so you must have something nice” and folds. I guess when he had a look at me, he didn’t see that I had nothing but A-high.

Then, I watched the big stack get bigger for a while (mostly, if not exclusively, on great cards) and ended up three-handed with a shorter stack. Each round of blinds is about 1/7 of my stack, small stack goes all-in before the flop for about 1/3 of my stack and I have KQ, so I call. I lose to A2o. Two hands later–I’m now on the short-stack–I go all-in with QJ and lose to A9s caller. Then I go home.

So, that was my first live poker tourney experience. In retrospect, I may have faired better if I’d been a little more patient when it got to be 3-handed, but I had no way of knowing I’d run up against A’s with cruddy kickers and trigger-happy callers…

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

More miserable football

As my blog so accurately reflects, there’s not too much happening in my life right now. I’ve managed to arrange for my last semester here at UF to be pretty easy and that means uneventful (at least so far). Of course, it’s college football season and I’m at a “football school”, so I’ve been following NCAA football pretty closely; but that is proving to be a huge disappointment as we were trounced by Tennessee on Saturday and our schedule figures to increase in difficulty as the season wears on.

I’ve been reading John Irving’s The World According to Garp and Doyle Brunson’s Super System, so that’s been whittling away some time. I’ve also begun slowly making arrangements for my eventual move to Dallas. These preparations are somewhere between exhilarating and terrifying and I think they’ll sway more towards terrifying as time moves forward.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my friends, knowing that it won’t be long before friendships begin to fade with distance and time. I know I have a few friends with whom I will inevitably keep in contact, and that’s very encouraging to me. I don’t deal well with change and it’s nice to know that not everything will.

On that note, I’m going to call it an early night. I have a big day tomorrow: Lab at 1 o’clock, workout with my roommate, three homework problems and possibly some poker. I need my rest.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

UF vs. Miami

Unbelievable.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Do miracles happen?

Yes, they do.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Another long day…

I thought I might get an early start on the weekend or something after yesterday’s intensity, but alas, I have two homework assignments due tomorrow and I’ve spent the past three hours working on them. The frustrating thing is that one of the assignments is totally pointless in the “grand scheme of things” and the other one is for a class in which I’m about half a lab behind and I should already be starting the next lab. I guess feeling as though I’m perpetually behind is just part of being an engineer. I’ll definitely not miss that part of engineering when I finally graduate.

Road Rally’s tomorrow

Road Rally is an annual event with Crusade, wherein all of us students pile into cars in groups of three or so and try to win a scavenger hunt that spans all of Gainesville. The idea is to figure out all of one’s clues, so one can get the rest of the clues and ultimately be the first one to the set rendezvous spot. It’s an excuse to drive like a maniac and have something cool to blame it on if I get a ticket.

Big football weekend approaching

This weekend, we play Tennessee in Knoxville. We’ll probably lose, but if we don’t, we have an excellent chance at representing the SEC East in the SEC Championship game and maybe even an outside chance at getting an invite to the National Championship. Both of those are a long-shot, but I guess you never know what’ll happen in college football.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Where’d he go?

Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying about myself lately. I’ve been super busy with school and Campus Crusade and I caught a pretty nasty cold (flu?) the other day. I think that about does it for my lame list of excuses.

Good weekend for football…

At least from my perspective as a Gator, this was a good Saturday. Several ranked teams were brought down by either unranked or lowly(is that a word?)-ranked teams, while we won pretty big over an unranked team. Translation: We should move up a few slots in the polls… maybe even to the top ten, although eleven is probably more realistic.

Next week, we play Tennessee on their turf. I think it’s going to be a tough game, but we can win if we use our run wisely (run=Earnest Graham). If we beat Tennessee (currently ranked in the top ten and threatening to take the SEC title this year), we’ll be making a decent start to a run for the SEC Championship. I guess that’s how it is every year when we play Tennessee, though…. I was in Knoxville two years ago when we beat ‘em with a controversial touchdown reception by then-basically-unknown Jabbar Gaffney (now playing for the Houston Texans), so I know anything can happen when we play them.

Building a new PC

I’m building a new PC and it’s almost ready to be ordered and then assembled. Unfortunately, it’s going to cost a pretty penny, but I think it’ll be worth it in the end. I’m considering posting the “specs” for it here on my blog, but that may just be an incredible waste of time and space. Suffice it to say this is gonna’ be a top-notch system (at least as far as PC’s are concerned).

Classes intensifying

I’m about to begin my fourth week in the semester and that means fun-time is over. Generally, we’ll spend the first few weeks catching up and reviewing in my classes; then, the prof’s start laying it on pretty thick and that means my free-time to work-time ratio will begin decreasing. I guess that’s what school’s all about, though.

Right now, I need to get some sleep because I have to be up in about six hours for church. So, g’night…

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

We got worked…

There isn’t much to say except we just got beat. I guess I’m just hoping that our team and coaches need time to gel and that they’ll be good and gelled before Tennessee in two weeks. We can still have a decent season, but not with a loss to Tennessee.

How frustrating…

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Whew…

I haven’t been tired this consistently for this long in a long time. Mark that previous sentence as evidence of my fatigue. So, I’ve spent the week ambling about campus, sweating, catching the occasional lecture and doing puny little homework assignments that are meant to remind me of all the stuff I’ve already “learned”, but may have forgotten between previous classes and these. Last week was the same and equally as exhausting. I almost made it through the first two weeks of classes without missing a lecture, but I blew it when I skipped my last class today. I had a headache, was hungry, was tired, was lazy, had errands to run, only had a ten-minute walk to my car, which would readily whisk me away to home and nap-land. One can easily imagine how my conversation with myself was, as I talked myself out of attending that last lecture. I’m a pushover when it comes to skipping class…

New song, sort of

This week, I wrote a guitar lick, which will hopefully become a song with some nurturing and lyric writing. I like it because it’s “up tempo”, but not “upbeat”. I guess what I mean is that it’s a sort of fast song, but it’s not “poppy” as so many fast songs tend to be today (at least when they’re written on acoustic guitar by a mediocre vocalist such as myself). I had a nifty name picked out for it (yeah, I guess naming songs is sorta’ like naming kids… only not) last night, but I forgot it. I had some lyrics I was singing over it, too, but I forgot those as well. I need to start writing this stuff down again.

Bought the Simpsons: Second Season DVD set

I have already watched some of it on my roommate’s copy of the set, but I wanted to buy it because I guess I’m collecting them or something. I don’t collect much stuff anymore (I used to collect baseball cards), so maybe it’s some sort of outlet. Mostly, I think it’s just cool to own seasons of the best sit-com ever… No, that isn’t open for debate and yes, I do remember The Cosby Show.

Had a great home cooked meal tonight

Apparently, I’m sort of notorious for getting free food. To most, that may not sound like anything significant, but to college students, free food is like some sort of mythical thing that only happens in the movies. Some college kids prowl around campus the first week of classes, just to seek and devour the free food that different groups and companies are offering. Some college kids just beg for free food.

I think it all began my freshman year… Most of my friends (especially the ones I knew before I came to school here) were girls and so I spent a good amount of time hanging out with the girls. As it turns out, girls like to cook and, as everyone knows, guys like to eat. So, we had a neat little dynamic going where the girls would cook and I would eat and everybody would be happy. I guess that sort of continued throughout college and it apparently persists to this day (I’ve had three free, tasty, home cooked meals since I got back to Gainesville a month ago).

Anyway, tonight’s meal was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and salad; we had brownies a la mode for dessert. It was nice to get meatloaf because that’s gotta’ be one of my favorite ground-beef creations and there isn’t much of it cooked among the college kids I know. What a tasty treat.

Exchanged Trivial Pursuit: 20th Anniversary Edition for Genus 5 Edition

I’ve heard that the questions for Genus 5 are better, so I figured I’d exchange it. (Hopefully, I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I bought 20th Anniversary Edition last weekend) I don’t mind the swap except that the 20th Anniversary Edition came with a groovy card dispenser that isn’t with the other versions… Ya’ win some, ya’ lose some, I guess.

Huge game tomorrow

We play Miami tomorrow. I’d say this is probably the biggest game we’ve had since I’ve been here. Well, that may not be true: we had Tennessee here last year at the end of the season and that was make-or-break for the National Championship game. Anyway, this is a huge game and, if we win, the polls are gonna’ be all screwed up. I think we can do it, but I haven’t seen enough of our running game or defensive line to know how they’ll stack up against Miami. I’ve heard Miami’s got a solid secondary this year, too, which may mean Rex won’t be throwing for over 300 yards this week… at least not to Jacobs. Hopefully, we’re well prepared and it’ll be a tight game. I can’t wait.

On that note, I’m going to sit in front of the TV for a while. I’m tired and it’s Friday night, so that means I get to sleep-in tomorrow. Now that is exciting news!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

First week of classes is over

I made it to every class and even did most of a homework assignment that isn’t due until Tuesday. I feel like this semester will be a good one for me, academically, and I’m looking forward to getting a lot of extracurricular stuff done. I don’t really think I’ll have all that much “free time”, but I think that, if I manage my available time wisely, I’ll be able to get some things done and, of course, have plenty of time for hangin’ out and goofin’ off as I usually do.

Still reading…

I’m currently reading three books: A Prayer for Owen Meany, Searching for Shcrodinger’s Cat and Heart of Darkness; I’m basically just moving slowly through each of them with no priority on any, but a high priority on finishing all three. I still have a lot of books that I bought on my last Barnes & Noble shopping spree that I need to get to eventually. I hope I can keep reading this semester. I’ve already found a lot of time for reading on the bus everyday on my way to and from campus. Seems like a good use of time to me.

First Gators game

We whooped up on the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) pretty good (51-3, I think). Next week we have Miami at home; that will be our first chance to see what we’re really made of. I think it would be incredible if we can knock off the reigning national champs and one of the current number one ranked teams in the nation. I can’t wait to go to that game.

It’s time for me to go to sleep now. I’m tired and I have church at 10:30 tomorrow morning. This’ll be my first time at my local church in about three months, so I’m anxious to get settled back in.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites