2005

There were 67 posts published in 2005 (this is page 4 of 7).

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Sorta’ bored

Since I got back from Europe, I’ve felt a little down. Nothing serious, but I just haven’t felt spectacular. I can think of a lot of reasons for this, but I think a big one is I’m just kinda’ bored. I feel like life is good in Dallas: I have a good job, a good paycheck, some good friends, and I’m comfortable. But all that’s the same every day and I think it’s wearing on me.

For one, I feel like it’s time to continue pursuing acting. I haven’t done much since the short film in February (which I should be getting a copy of soon) and I’ve been putting it off for some reason. I think, mostly, I’ve been waiting on a few other things to settle out before I move forward. I’m good at multi-tasking, but I’ve always preferred to take things one at a time if I can get away with it. I think the next thing I need to tackle is this acting thing.

I don’t generally experience a lot of emotion, but I’ve been experiencing a bit lately. Nothing serious, but I definitely feel a bit of a quickening and I’m paying close attention to it. I’m not sure what’s up. Maybe it’s nothing.

Another basketball whoopin’

We got worked last night. Our first problem was that only 3 of our teammates (of 8) showed up before game time. We were able to recruit a random guy to play with us, so we didn’t have to forfeit, but that was little help. Our fifth guy showed up a few minutes into the game, but we’d already spotted the other team 7 or 8 points and it was downhill from there. I can’t remember the final score… probably because I don’t want to remember it.

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Big Tournament = Huge Letdown

I got no cards for about 120 hands. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a run of cards that bad, but I guess it had to happen some time. Here are my statistics from the entire tourney:

120 hands played and saw flop:
– 2 times out of 14 while in small blind (14%)
– 4 times out of 14 while in big blind (28%)
– 7 times out of 92 in other positions (7%)
– a total of 13 times out of 120 (10%)

Pots won at showdown – 2 out of 5 (40%)
Pots won without showdown � 1

The two pots won with showdown were AQ vs. AT, KQs vs. KJs. One pot won without showdown was AKs and I just stole the blinds and one limper’s call. The three losses at showdown were a check-down on a flush draw I missed, AQ vs. 22 (both short-stacked and all-in before the flop) and then the following hand with A6 vs. K3.

I was unable to steal blinds because of my table. They were very loose/aggressive and most of the stacks were showing a lot of variance. The up-side was that if I caught a big hand, I could easily double up. Unfortunately, my biggest han was 99 and the flop came TJK with two hearts.

I ended up busting 1180 of 2497. Considering I was handcuffed by the cards, I’ll take that. Hopefully, I’ll be able to win a seat to this tourney again soon and actually do some damage.

That’s poker.

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Getting ready for a big tournament

In an hour, I’ll be playing in the highest buy-in tournament I’ve played yet. It’s $200+15 and there are thousands of dollars at stake. I’ve seen first place in this tournament pay as much as $150,000. Of course, I’ll need all my skill and a lot of luck to make the money, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

The best part is I’m basically free-rolling in this tournament. I won my seat for $9 earlier this week. So, if I make the money, I’ll get a minimum of $215, with an investment of $9. That’s a pretty decent ROI.

I feel pretty prepared as I’ve been playing lower-stakes tournaments this week and I’ve done pretty well in them. Of four tournaments, I made the money twice, bubbled once (finished 115 when 99 paid) and busted the first hand with KK vs. 32. In all four cases, I busted with the best hand. My last tournament, I busted with AQ vs. AT when AT flopped a straight. Anyway, I’ve been playing well and I think I can make the money today. But, even if I don’t, at least I had a shot at a ton of money for a $9 investment.

What else?

If it seems like I haven’t been doing much lately, that’s because I haven’t been doing much lately. I’ve done some reading, written some things on the guitar, written some things on paper and played a lot of basketball. We lost by 17 on Wednesday to a good team that has played together for a while. This Wednesday, I think we’ll do better, but I guess there’s no guarantee.

Work has been going well as I’ve had a lot more responsibility and I think I’ve handled it very well. Things are going very smoothly even though I’ve recently taken on the responsibility that was previously covered by two people.

That is all.

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Bad luck with poker

What a great contrast to last night. I figured I played well last night, so I’d take a shot at today’s PokerStars $10+1. There were 1385 people registered. This is literally the first hand of the tournament:

PokerStars Game #1893303229: Tournament #8870985, Hold’em No Limit – Level I (10/20) – 2005/06/13 – 19:45:00 (ET)
Table ‘8870985 80’ Seat #2 is the button
Seat 2: Tanzz (1500 in chips)
Seat 3: Lou_C (1500 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 4: Josh (1500 in chips)
Seat 5: allLiving (1500 in chips)
Seat 6: harleybum68 (1500 in chips)
Seat 7: Rocawear101 (1500 in chips)
Seat 8: johnnydude (1500 in chips)
Seat 9: jmonnett (1500 in chips)
Lou_C: posts small blind 10
Josh: posts big blind 20
jmonnett is connected
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Josh [Kh Ks]
allLiving: raises 1480 to 1500 and is all-in
harleybum68: folds
Rocawear101: folds
johnnydude: folds
jmonnett: folds
Tanzz: folds
Lou_C: folds
Josh: calls 1480 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [Jh 6s 4d]
allLiving said, “no 5”
allLiving said, “gotta go”
*** TURN *** [Jh 6s 4d] [5h]
allLiving said, “****”
*** RIVER *** [Jh 6s 4d 5h] [9h]
allLiving said, “lame.”
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Josh: shows [Kh Ks] (a pair of Kings)
allLiving: shows [3d 2s] (a straight, Deuce to Six)
allLiving collected 3010 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3010 Rake 0
Board [Jh 6s 4d 5h 9h]
Seat 2: Tanzz (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: Lou_C (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: Josh (big blind) showed [Kh Ks] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 5: allLiving showed [3d 2s] and won (3010) with a straight, Deuce to Six
Seat 6: harleybum68 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: Rocawear101 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: johnnydude folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 9: jmonnett folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

To sum up: I busted out on the first hand with KK vs. 32o. I was an 85% favorite to win this hand (it doesn’t get much better than that). Normally, I wouldn’t put my whole tournament at risk nearly this early, but if I knew I was an 85% favorite, I’d play this hand this way every time. This was the first time I’d ever been the first person to bust out of a tournament. Hopefully, it’ll be the last.

The astute poker players reading this (I doubt there are any) will say, “What if he had AA?” And to that I say, “Odds are, he doesn’t. And if he does, more power to him.” But the real answer is that he moved in the split-second it was his turn to act and he was first to act. I had to figure he was going to move in with any two cards, so I was up against a random hand and a huge favorite.

That’s poker.

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Getting back into the swing of things

This week has been better than last. Last week, I basically just wanted to be back in Europe… or at least not sitting at my desk or running around to get mundane things done. This week, I think I began to accept that this is what I get paid for right now, so I should just get to it.

This weekend, my new (old) roommate arrived and he’s begun moving in. We were roommates back at Florida, so I don’t have those “new roommate” fears. Also, some friends of mine from Jacksonville are in town, so the new roommate and the friends from Jacksonville and I all went out to dinner tonight. We went to a Brazilian Steakhouse called Fogo de Chao. In a word, it was awesome. The basic idea is you pay a flat fee for all you can eat meat. That sounds ok… it might even kind of sound disgusting if the meat weren’t some of the best I’d ever had. Filet-this-and-that, pork loin, leg of lamb, on and on and on. They just keep bringing it to you, cutting off the piece you want and sliding it on your plate. It’s a little pricey, but well worth it.

After dinner, the new roommate and I went to a place called Kathlene’s Art Cafe, which is one of my favorite places to eat around Plano. Good food, good atmosphere, good employees. Unfortunately, I ate a little too much of some good cake and I’m feeling pretty disgusting. I was careful not to eat too much at the Fogo de Chao, but dessert was just a little much. Tasty, but too much.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to.

And some basketball

We’ve practiced the past two weekends and so far I’m pretty pleased with our team… or at least the part of it I’ve played with. Personally, I’ve been playing well in spurts. It seems like I have a really long warm-up period, then I just start playing really well. I can’t decide if I’m streaky, or if I just need a long time to get warmed up, or if I’m only seeming to play better because everyone else is so tired and they’re playing weak defense. Anyway, I’ve been working on specific aspects of my game and my work is paying off. I think I’m ready to run point this season.

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Updates from Europe

Well, I have been back for a few days, but just haven’t updated the blog. I kept a journal while I was there and my initial plan was to transcribe the journal into my weblog… until I remembered the three updates I sent out to my family while I was there. The updates pretty much cover everything and they’ll save me from having to type everything I wrote in my journal (that could be a problem for several reasons including “I can’t read my own handwriting”). By way of disclaimer, my spelling is atrocious for several reasons, the first being that I can’t spell well. Also, I was using various European keyboards and I got pretty lazy when trying to hunt down certain letters and characters. Finally, I was generally in a time crunch when I sent out e-mails, so I didn’t have time to spell check. One time, I sent an e-mail and then got kicked off the computer 8 seconds later because the time I purchased had expired. Also, my grammar is terrible (I have no excuse for that) and the formatting seems to be a little funky. I guess I could fix the formatting… or not.

Anyway, here are the e-mails:

First e-mail:

Hey everyone!

I’m in Rome, Italy and loving every minute of it. I don’t have much time to type because I’m on a half-hour time limit at a cyber cafè near our hotel. So far, I’ve seen most of the big sights and some not-so-big ones.

I’ve seen: The Coliseum, The Ruins, The Roman Baths (not too great), Vatican City (including The Vatican Museum and St. Peter’sBasilicaa–the tallest dome in the world), the Borghese Gallery (there’s a room there called “The Raphael Room”) and many other places. I’ve ridden “The Metro” several times–first time on a subway–and haven’t been mugged yet.

Our hotel is right smack in the middle of the historical part of Rome, in the city. I’ve been doing my best to communicate, but it’s a tough language to learn, partially because it’s similar to Spanish and I keep trying to say things in Spanish. Anyway, it’s really beautiful here and I’m having a wonderful time.

Next, we’re off to Florence, Italy where we’ll spend a day or so. I’m looking forward to seeingMichelangelo’ss “David” and doing some shopping at the markets. From there, we’ll go to Switzerland. Hopefully, I’ll be able to send another update by then.

I’m getting plenty of pictures (as are those with me), so don’t worry. I hope all of you are doing well. Please send this along to anyone I may not have included.

Ciao!

Josh

Second e-mail:

Hello, all!

Well, I’m currently in Interlaken, Switzerland and I’ve been here for a couple days now. I’m kind of short on time (as always), so I’m just going to give the highlights of my trip so far. I think I covered Rome, Italy in a previous e-mail, so I’ll skip that part:

After Rome, we went to Florence. On our way there, we took a little side trip to Pisa, where the Leaning Tower stands. We got some pictures near the Tower, then went right back to the train station and hopped the train to Florence. Florence is beautiful and was pretty refreshing after a few days in Rome. Florence, though touristy, seemed much quieter and more laid back. The highlights were The Duomo–a giant dome built by Brunellesci (excuse my spelling)–and the city itself. I spent most of my time there just wandering around, looking at everything. It’s really amazing how different the architecture is here. For one thing, it’s actually interesting to look at; for another, it represents history and has meaning. In the States, all the architecture is similar and it seems like the architects all stick to a “minimalist” mentality when they build. There’s hardly anything fascinating about even some of the best buildings in the Sates… and most of the best buildings (ie, most of Washington, D.C.) are based on buildings in Europe. Next, we went to Cinque Terra, Italy. Cinque–Five–and Terra–land or towns. It’s a little string of five towns along the western coast of Italy and it’s really, really beautiful. The towns themselves are great and there’s lots of hiking and outdoors stuff to be done. Although we didn’t do it, it’spossiblee to hike from city to city in about 5 hours (give or take). We hiked the longest section between two of the cities, but spent most of the rest of our time at the beach or “on the rocks”–there’s very little “sand” beach here, it’s mostly rocks. The water was beautiful and we had a great time and saw some incredible sunsets.

Next, we came up to Interlaken (again, forgive my spelling). The first day, it was very dreary and rainy here, but since it’s been clear and sunny. We didn’t do much the first day because we caught a 6:00 AM train out of Cinque Terra and we didn’t get to Interlaken until 4:00 PM. We all just sort of checked into our hostel and took naps. Yesterday, our second day here, we started the day off by going “Canyoning”. Canyoning is an extreme sport where you walk, hike, jump and slide down a canyon with a river (and probably you could do it in a canyon without a river). We had some fun jumps–the highest was 18 feet off a little cliff into a pretty serious rapid below–and some slides. Walking was fun too, but we pretty much just did that to get to the jumping and sliding. After canyoning, we relaxed at the hostel for a bit and then went out for a sunset walk around the city (it’s a small city). We ended up getting lost and we were gone for about 5 hours… the sun sets close to 10:00 PM here, so we were fortunate that we had enough light to get out of the woods where we were. Today, we went for another short hike up into some of the Swiss mountains. These mountains are incredible and it was great to see them from such a vantage point. We got some good pictures, too.

Next, we’re off to Paris! We’re catching a train in 45 minutes and we’ll get to Paris around 10:00 PM tonight. We’re not sure what we’ll do, but we’re probably going to the Louvre, Versailles and the Eiffel tower. We’ll also probably spend time wandering around the city just to see what there is to see. We’re in Paris for a couple days (and nights) and then we’re off to London for the final leg of our tour. We’ll be there for a couple days and then we hop on a plane back to the States. My plane will be getting into Dallas around 8:00 PM on Monday night.

Ok, I have to run and catch a train. As before, please forward this to whomever you think should have it. I figure it’s easier to send it to a few people and let them send it out than to try and remember everyone that might want to know how my trip’s going.

Auf Wedersein (spelling still bad)!

Josh

Third and final e-mail:

Hello everybody

Well, I’m back in the States, but I wanted to send out one last update covering what I did in Paris and London.

We left from Switzerland by train and got to Paris pretty late in the evening. We decided to grab a bite to eat and ended up getting big fat greasy burgers at a bar near the hotel. Then, we decided to try to see the Eiffel Tower at night. Unfortunately, we got stranded between metros (we were trying to switch trains and the system closed for the night), so we had to walk about 2.5 hours back to our hotel… in Paris… after midnight. I ended up getting to sleep around 3:30 that night. Next day, a few of us just tried to enjoy the Parisian culture. We went to a market and got supplies for lunch, then went and ate our lunch in Notre Dame’s backyard. Then we toured Notre Dame and walked around the city, seeing the sights. Next day, we went to Versailles and saw the palace andtheh gardens out back. It was really overwhelming and consumed almost all of our day. We went straight from the palace to the train station where we caught a train through the Chunnel into London.

In London, we stayed at a dump called the Hyde Park Hostel. Turns out the actual place was not nearly as nice as their website. We went out trying to find some food and finally found a pub where most of us got fish and chips. Things in London are about twice as expensive as in the States, so that was tough. Next day, a few of us went on an open-top bus tour. We also went to see Saturday Night Fever (based on the film) and that was an experience. The most entertaining part may have been catching the actors slipping out of their Bronx accents into their British ones. Later, we continued roaming around London and spent some time in Hyde Park. That night, we ate at a place called “Mr. Jerk”, which was aCaribbeann place. It was interesting and not all that tasty, but it wasn’t bad either. Next morning we went to “see” the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. I used quotes there because I didn’t see anything changing… I just saw a band go by or something. It was very much a non-event. Later, we continued our bus tour and then sort of walked around London looking at famous things. We saw the outside of the Globe theatre (Shakespeare’s place) , “The Clink” an actual prison where the slang term originated and some other places. For dinner, we went to a steakhouse in Piccadilly Circus… the steak was pretty terrible and expensive. Next morning, we started our 17 hour journey back to the States.

So, that’s about it for my trip. This and the other two e-mails are a pretty good summary of what I’ve been up to.

Hope you’ve all been well.

Josh

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Counting down to Europe

It still hasn’t really sunk in that I’m about to go backpacking around Europe for two weeks. I’m all packed up (except my toiletry bag, of course) and ready to go. I have to confess that I cheated quite a bit: I used Rick Steves’ books and website to know what to pack and what to expect. I also bought some gear from him and I’m glad I did. His stuff is perfect for what we’re doing.

I head out for the airport in about eight hours. My flight gets into Newark around 3:00 pm EDT, I have about 90 minutes of layover, then I’m onto an 8 hour flight to Rome. Then, the fun begins!

I need to get some sleep. Hopefully, that won’t be a problem tonight.

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My first ‘celebrity sighting’

Really, it wasn’t a celebrity sighting at all, but it makes me feel special to say it that way. I went to Starbucks to read some of a new book I bought (more on that below) and the guy behind the counter says, “This may seem a little strange to ask, but are you into acting at all? Have you done any work in student projects?” I told him I had and he said he recognized me from a short student film he saw this weekend. I said, “Oh, well cool. I hope you liked it.” He said he did like it, he thought it was funny and that he was there to support his cousin, who directed one of the other shorts. Anyway, it was strange to be recognized as an actor. Strange, but nice. Hopefully, I’ll get to experience more of that in the future. I don’t feel I have a big need for validation… but it’s still nice sometimes.

Good run at poker

I’ve been playing well and/or getting lucky for a couple weeks now. My bankroll was hurtin’ for a while there, but then I went back to my bread n’ butter: Sit N’ Gos. I’ve more than tripled my bankroll in the past couple weeks and I’ve used some of the cash to help finance my trip to Europe (I transferred some money to a co-worker’s account in exchange for a ride to and from the airport). I also bought another poker book today. I’d already read most of it in Barnes & Noble, but I wanted to buy it so I can re-read it when I’m done. This was the first book that I bought directly with money from my poker account and it felt good. I’m sure it’ll pay for itself quickly.

Only 7 hours at work tomorrow and I’m out for two weeks!

I don’t feel I need to elaborate on that too much, so I won’t.

Kendra will win The Apprentice

Same story here.

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Busy, busy, busy

I’ve been so busy lately, my head is spinning. I’ve recently been given much more responsibility at work, so my days seem shorter and I’m keeping busy. Last weekend, I moved into my new apartment. I didn’t move far, but I had more stuff than I thought, so it was a pretty intense weekend. I started moving on Friday evening around 7 and finished cleaning out my old place on Sunday night around 9. I’m still preparing for next week’s trip to Europe, but I haven’t started packing yet. I’ve decided I’d like to try to get the new apartment organized before I start trying to pack for Europe.

So, that’s about it. I’ve been working hard at work, moving into a new place and preparing for a trip to Europe. I know this is a lame post (aren’t they all?), but I’m just too tired to elaborate on this stuff. Maybe some other time.

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Not much happenin’

I haven’t written much lately because I haven’t had much to write about. The trip to Europe is still on and it’ll be from May 15 through May 30. I’ve already got my plane ticket and my rail ticket has been purchased. I’m letting the experienced members of our group pick hotels, hostels and such, so I don’t know much about where we’re staying. I went to get my passport on Monday and I should have it by next Friday. I bought a book about Europe and I’ve been reading up on the places we’ll go so I’m prepared… or at least as prepared as I can be.

Roommate possibility

A good friend and former roommate of mine has been offered a job at Raytheon here in Dallas, so there’s a good chance we’ll be roomies again. I’m looking forward to it. Of course, that’ll mean I have to move and I’m not looking forward to that. But it looks like the new place would be on the first floor and just across the way from my current place, so that’s not too bad. I generally like new stuff, so maybe I’ll be able to convince myself that I’m just “moving somewhere new” and I’ll forget about what a hassle moving is.

Poker and takin’ it easy

I’ve been playing very little poker lately because I realized that I wasn’t focusing very well when I was playing. I think I was playing too many tournaments and it was watering down my ability to concentrate and my boredom level was drastically increasing. I’ve been trying to play less so I focus more and the results so far have been pretty good. Unfortunately, my bankroll took a bit of a hit before I had this revelation, so I’m slowly building it back up. I’m still up overall, just not as much as I was a couple months ago.