Friday, June 27, 2008

From Mezz0:
Freedom of the Hills


I
just returned from a camping/fishing/hiking trip in the Sierra Nevadas. I haven’t spent any time camping in the mountains since Master P and I tore up the Colorado Rockies many years ago. Back then, in my younger days, we didn’t just conquer mountains, we like, chewed them up, voided them, ate them back up, and voided them again until they were inextricably linked to our DNA.

We met some interesting characters on that trip. My deep tissue massage therapist says that mountain air is healthy, and good for your constitution. I say mountain air makes you fucking insane. This hypothesis is easily proven by stepping into a mountain bar, having a few drinks, and observing the locals, as I'm sure Master P would agree with me.

I packed my Jeep Cherokee with equipment, and headed up north, me, myself, and my ipod, stopping only when I hit 10,000 feet at the Golden Trout campground in the Horseshoe Meadows area of Lone Pine, California. I crawled into the back seat at 1:30am, and slept until morning. I woke up to this:


I pitched my tent, and inflated my air mattress. It felt good that all the old habits were returning. I drove up north to Bishop, and then to a lake at 8,000 feet. I spent the next hour attempting to figure out how to set up a fishing pole. The reel is what really threw me off, and there was no cell phone reception to contact the Youngest for advice.

"Where does the fishing line begin?" I asked myself, "At least scotch tape has a nice little piece of paper at the beginning of a new roll...I should have bought that cool "Dora the Explorer" fishing pole with an enclosed reel and push button release. It would have matched my sandals! I wonder if there are Hello Kitty fishing poles out there. Wouldn't that make even more sense? I should have loaded High School Musical on my ipod... Fish are slimy, but that's OK because they swim around in the water...I'll bet I find some flowers in the mountain to put in my hair...I'll be the prettiest little girl in the whole Sierra Nevadas!

The altitude was clouding my thinking, but eventually, I delicately pulled out my brand new, big-ass fishing knife, and stabbed the reel until I got a loose strand to work with. An hour later, after the beer had turned warm, I climbed into my kayak and paddled around looking for fishes.

Against all odds (not really knowing how to set up a fishing line, not really knowing where to look for fishes, nobody else on the lake catching anything) I caught a couple of beautiful rainbow trout. I was feeling good. I had spent a lot of time at a high elevation, I had caught a couple fishes, I was feeling lucky, so I drove over to the Paiute Palace casino just outside of Bishop, and won $80 playing 4/8 limit Hold 'Em with locals. I drove back to my campground and slept until the sun woke me up in the morning.

The next day, driving back from Bishop, I picked up a hitchhiker, and drove him forty miles to Independence, California, a place where nobody should live without transportation. Interesting fellow. Lived in Japan for ten years upon graduating college, and has pretty much wandered around the United States ever since. He was hitching back from Bishop after picking up some two-for-one underwear. Nice guy. He offered to pay for gas, ("I can give you a few dollars. Don't worry. I can afford it.") but I waived him off like an aristocrat. I didn't let on that at home, I had at least 15 pairs of skivvies, or he might have robbed me on principal.

My plan was to summit Mount Russell, a 14,000 foot peak, neighbor to Mt. Whitney, but with less than a tenth of the foot traffic. I've climbed my share of 14,000 foot peaks in the past, and knew that the key to a successful climb was acclimating, and plenty of rest the night before. I would begin the hike the next morning, so I naturally went to a Lone Pine bar for an early nightcap or two.

I sat next to a man that was sort of tweaking out. At one point, a woman came over to him, and the whole thing smelled of a drug deal, so I went to the bathroom to give them some privacy. The woman left, and I struck up a conversation with the man, asking him about his arm which was so filled with overlapping tattoos that it looked virtually black with ink. These were not done by a professional, and based on the subject matter, this man had problems. Lucky for him, I had an undergraduate degree in Psychology, and some time to kill:



His was a story of a life spent in and out of jail, tangled up in drugs. His was a story of redemption. His was a story of missing thumbs, of getting high on PCP, launching his car over an inclined highway, and landing with a shattered windshield, fully conscious, and watching as cop cars, fire trucks, and EMTs rushed to the scene, and then gathered around the car, staring at the carnage while he blinked windshield glass out of his eyes and laughed and laughed and laughed. His was a story of dealing drugs out of his hospital bed after the accident.

He was allegedly 120 days sober living with a drug addicted wife and her fourteen year old son. Technically, he was violating parole (again) by drinking, but it was the only thing he could do to chase away the addiction spider of heroin. He had just given his wife $20 to score drugs for herself, and all the old triggers were going off like synaptic fireworks in his brain.

He was an unbelievably nice guy for the all the shit he has been through. He blamed nobody for his problems. He felt lucky to be alive, to still have a father he got along with, to have a decent job even after being cuffed and sent back to jail while on the job for failing a parole piss test. He didn't speak bad about his drug addicted wife, who didn't work, or the fact that he was financially taking care of her and her son.

That night, I packed for my climb, and set the alarm for 3:00am. It was a short night, and I was on the trail head by 4:20am, hiking in the dark with my headlamp penetrating the dark wilderness.



Mt. Russell is not an easy climb because there is no clearly defined trail. The good people at the US Forest Service have decided to funnel all the damage caused by hikers to the Mount Whitney trail, which is virtually wheelchair assessable all the way to the highest point in the lower 48. Don't get me wrong, the Mt. Whitney trail is not an easy hike at 22 miles round trip, and a 6,500 foot elevation gain, but 90-100 peak baggers from around the world are on the trail every day during the summer season. Last year, to discourage Mt. Whitney climbers who couldn't get a pass on the lottery system from climbing Russell and getting killed, or even worse, not packing out their fecal matter in a particularly draconian "leave no trace" policy, the parks decided to limit Mt. Russell climbers to the same lottery system as Whitney. Luckily, they opened up some additional permits after people who had won the lottery failed to confirm their reservation.



My point is that the Mt. Russell trail is intentionally rugged and ill-defined. I lost the trail a few times on the way up, but managed to find Upper Boy Scout lake early enough for a summit bid before the afternoon lightning rolled in:



Following instructions culled from mountaineering books and trip reports from the Internet, I continued following little ducks left by hikers showing the way... (See Mount Whitney in the background):



...before coming to the startling conclusion that I was hiking the wrong fucking trail. I was following ducks up the "Mount Whitney Mountaineering Trail" rather than the Mount Russell trail.

I was lost. I read every piece of paper I brought I brought with me describing the route to Mount Russell, and could not determine where I made the wrong turn. To add injury to insult, I fell through the ice of what I later discovered was "Girl Scout Lake," luckily only up to my knee. Eventually, I found myself on Iceberg lake, and met up with some mountain climbers who were camping there, and had a good map of the area:



I should have zigged when I zagged and ended up on the wrong side of the mountain. The mountain climber gave me a detailed history of Mt. Russel, told me who climbed it first and what year, called his friend over who had soloed Russell a few years back for further instructions at the peak, and then zipped up my backpack as I was leaving "so nothing important falls out." I was totally pawned by Mother Nature. I wanted to tell them that I wasn't nearly as stupid as I looked,



but who was I kidding? This was an epic failure. I didn't have the time or energy to down climb several miles and find the right trail, so I marched my tired, pathetic ass back down the mountain.

At the trail head, I picked up a couple more hitchhikers who had just completed the John Muir Trail. They had spent 23 days in the wilderness, the last hundred miles with very limited food because of a mysteriously missing cache. I drove them into Lone Pine, and then headed back to Los Angeles with my tail tucked between my legs. It was a good trip, and next time if I don't make it to the top, it won't be for not knowing the correct path to take.

In retrospect, part of me thinks I should have climbed Whitney again (for the third time) just to say I accomplished something to write home about. Then another part of me knows that no matter how much of the mountain you ingest, void, and reingest, you can never pawn the mountain. On a good day, you climb the sumbitch, bask in the view and the sun, and skip on back down, but on a bad day, you snap your picture on the summit and get the hell out of there. On a really bad day, you get zapped by 30 million volts, cower under a rock, and try to stifle down the fear of being trapped in a place in which there is no exit. You watch as lighting strikes the peaks all around you. Or you watch as the snow continues to fall, and your hypothermic body and brain turns to mush. You watch as your own fear is mirrored in your climbing partner's eyes. You watch and wonder why you ever made this climb in the first place. You watch and are humbled, and afterwards you know that this is why you climb - you climb not just to experience the freedom of the hills, but to get in touch with your own morality. To dance with death, and then to get in your car and drive home.

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

From The Youngest:
More Phish, Please
(hell yes!)













A LETTER FROM PAGE 06.26.08

Given the volume of speculation and rumors that have bubbled up recently, I have been asked to make a statement…Here goes.For me, the last four years have been great. I’ve spent quality time with my family and have watched my daughter grow. I took great pleasure and pride in writing and recording an album. I’m living a healthy lifestyle. I travel as little as possible and I sleep in my own bed. It took a couple of years after the break up to begin talking to my old band mates, but once the conversations began to flow it wasn’t long before the friendships were rekindled. And I can honestly say that I’m closer with all of them now then I’ve ever been in our 20-year relationship.

Recently the conversations have turned toward the possibility of spending some time together. Currently many of us have plans and projects already in the works, most notably Mike, who made a great album and is about to hit the road in support of it. Given that I might not even see some of the guys for the next six months, I would say that the announcement of a reunion is premature. However, later this year we hope to spend some time together and take a look at what possible futures we might enjoy. In fact the only real decision that has been made is that when we do get together, it will only be the four of us, hopefully with no distractions. I am really looking forward to that.

I want to say just a few more things. The prospect of Phish reuniting is something I consider very seriously, and I think about it a lot. And lastly, as always, there is plenty of misinformation floating around. Try not to focus too much on secondhand sources and random gossip. If there is anything real to announce, it will come from the four of us as a group.


Until then,
Page

Friday, June 20, 2008

From Mezz0:
Joe Frank



A couple of years ago, I listened to the Joe Frank radio show for the first time. It was after 11:00pm on Sunday night, and The Youngest called me into his room. He said, "I'm listening to a radio show where this guy is calling up people from all over the country that have his name." It sounded interesting, so I listened, transfixed, as trippy music loops played in the background, a Buddhist man with a Mr. Roger's voice calmly dispensed wisdom through modern zen anecdotes, a woman told a horrifying story involving self abuse with a lobster, and Joe Franks from all walks of life described themselves.

Almost every Sunday since then, I have tuned into the show on Chicago public radio WBEZ on Sunday evenings over Internet radio. Joe Frank stopped producing his show after broadcasting out of Santa Monica for many, many years. I'm currently living just a few miles from where Joe originally produced his material, but I tune into Chicago radio over the Internet. All radio shows are hit and miss, but the Joe Frank show has produced some absolutely amazing works of radio art. It's a shame that the great radio shows of the day: Joe Frank, The Mischke Broadcast, This American Life, are virtually unknown.

Some time ago, I saw Joe Frank perform at the Largo in Beverly Hills. Although I arrived early, I was forced to sit on a hard bar stool in the back of the room. I was alone, and drank three beers quickly while waiting for the show to begin. I stepped outside for a cigarette, and saw two woman, dressed up, looking for a lighter. I lit their smokes and talked to them briefly.

"How do you know Joe," one of the women asked, who turned out to be Debi Mea West, a regular on the Joe Frank radio show. Her friend was involved in editing and writing the show. Debi does voice for commercials, video games, TV shows, and movies. A lot of Joe Frank's later shows are very autobiographical, and the talent sometimes complains that they are not being treated fairly by Joe. A lot of Joe Frank's talent appear to be involved with Joe sexually. I had always wondered how much of the show was real, and how much was scripted. Based on the five minute conversation I had with Debi Mea West and her drunken friend, assuming they weren't engaged in some sort of performance art for an audience of one, the shows that were meant to come across as autobiographical were indeed based on actual conversations between the cast. Debi Mea West, it should be noted, accused her friend of "fucking Joe" in a manner that suggested that Debi doesn't shit where she eats.

I brought a friend to the same show at the Largo a week later, and before Joe took the stage, ran outside to smoke a J. A couple of people outside had the same idea, so we all huddled together to create a human shield to block our minor transgression from Fairfax avenue. The couple asked me if I was a fan of the Joe Frank show and I described how I started listening to him. The guy told me that he used to listen to Joe when he was broadcasting out of Santa Monica, and his show would air on Sunday mornings. He and the girl he was with would smoke a bowl on Sunday morning, lay on the bed together, and go to "the church of Joe." The three of us, reentered the Largo red-eyed and giggly, just as the show began.

The live performances were good. He incorporated some of my favorite monologues into the piece. Joe was physically a mess. His voice was still powerful, but his body appeared weak and old. He was apparently recovering from a major surgery, and I happened to meet one of the owners of the Largo, who explained that all ticket proceeds were going straight to Joe.

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From The Youngest:
I Don't Generally Like Non-Animated Cartoons...
But we may be able to develope a theme here (Remember this?).
From now on: Drinking + Drawing = Post Worthy




Thursday, June 19, 2008

From Mezz0:
Beverly Hills Library



I'm killing time at the Beverly Hills Library while waiting for the Dirty Whore to get some tread. In case you were wondering, the Beverly Hills Library is a lot like other libraries in the United States, only way, way, way sexier.

(Seriously)

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From The Youngest:
Work Productivity = Lower Than Normal













I was almost finished with a post regarding my latest trip to Las Vegas with Mezz0, but last Sunday I was hit with a terrible cold/cough/headache/congestion that still hasn't gone away. I assume that I brought this sickness home from Vegas with me...it has killed my motivation to add the finishing touches to my post and will, most likely, result in another shitty, half-assed piece of hack writing.

In other news, I found this sweet website which is going to give me at least 5 hours of entertainment at work today. The other 3 hours will be spent coughing/blowing my nose/figuring if enough time has passed to re-dose myself with one of the handful of drugs that I'm taking. The link is to a collection of pictures taken from film left inside discarded cameras. There are a ton of pictures from a ton of cameras and the webmaster seems to focus on pictures from the 60's and 70's...which makes things interesting.














Occasionally I stumble across weird shit like this, shit like the Pet Cemetary documentary from the 70's that Mezz0 has, shit that seems to give you a much more clear idea of what American life used to be...more so than, say, a video montage showing Woodstock, Kent State, the moon landing, woman's/black rights protesters, the Patridge Family, Vietnam, Richard Nixon, and various objects in strange, dull shades of orange and green.

Just click "next slide" after the jump and prepare for endless entertainment.
Picture Pages, Picture Pages, Picture Pages

I couldn't leave this post alone without making one more point. Sure, that old guy pictured above might look adorable to you. You might even say to yourself, "Gosh, we haven't changed that much after all these years. That's something I would do! How clever! I guess it just goes to show that we aren't all that different."

What you don't realize about this picture is that this old guy was almost certainly an anti-science, bible-thumping racist freak. He would would have been quicker to lynch a black man for walking in public after dinner time than to even consider washing his hands in the same sink as...as...uh, that first black baseball player...what's his name...Jesse something?

Martin?

Whatever...I'm always getting those blacks confused with each other.




<---Elitist. Possibly Muslim.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

From Mezz0:
Ass Pennies

I interviewed with a health care company today that specializes in disease management/addiction recovery. I consider myself a “gonzo” business analyst, and to better understand the client population I might be developing software to support, I enjoyed a few snifters prior to my interview. After years of battling anxiety, the alcohol flowing through my bloodstream would effectively serve as my “ass pennies.”


Would my interviewers recognize that I was half in the bag? Or would they respond well to this “spirited” fellow with ruddy cheeks? If I sensed they were oblivious to my inebriation, they would be handling my ass pennies, and I would have the upper hand.

I interviewed with five people. First, the tech lead, who was a diminutive Indian man not really in the mood to chit chat, or interview, or be around other people, so our meeting was nice and short. I have a feeling he will be making his recommendation based entirely on the resumes. Fair enough, V1veek. You won the game by not playing it.




Health Care Company: 1 Mezz0: 0

I handed the second man, a VP of something-or-other, my resume as he was way too important to click File --> Print. He dropped it on the table like it was packet of Penny Saver coupons, and asked with a funny accent, “Why don’t you tell me what is on this?” I immediately relaxed. The poor man couldn’t read, or couldn’t read English anyway. Advantage: Mezz0.

He let me ramble on without showing any signs of comprehension. Then he asked me specific examples of documentation, which I gave him, using hand gestures to animate deriving business requirements from business process flows. Then he asked me to explain to him what I understood my position to be responsible for, misheard my response, and proceeded to correct me.

Throughout the interview, I was trying to place his accent . Then I realized it was the voice of the man from the cab in the Kid’s in the Hall movie “Brain Candy.” Whenever he spoke, it sounded like he was saying, “It’s made from monkey-cum. The drug. It’s made from monkey-cum,” which was even funnier because Brain Candy is about the pharmaceutical industry, and I was interviewing in a disease mana….Forget it, you had to have been there.

Sah1d very well may have taken my ass pennies, invested them in an exotic financial derivative, and used the proceeds to like, have me tortured and killed in a Turkish prison.


Health Care Company: 2 Mezz0: 0

I was then escorted to the neighboring building where I met with two members of the medical team, a doctor of psychology (dude) and Rn (chick) both with clinical backgrounds in addiction treatment. If anyone would be able to suspect that they were handling my ass pennies, it would be them.

They clearly had no background in software development, and were just looking for some soft skills or a pulse or something. I sensed they were a little embarrassed to be interviewing me in the first place, so I gave them a brief background of my career, explained my methodology for business analysis, and chatted about Ireland (the semester abroad, noted on my resume, finally paid off) and the tragic inability for technical people to communicate effectively with clinicians. We had a nice little conversation. The Rn was wearing a skirt, and repeatedly crossed and uncrossed her legs, then made a Freudian slip when I left saying “herpes” instead of, well I’ll be damned if I knew what she was trying to say. Regardless, her hands were filthy with my ass pennies.



Health Care Company: 2 Mezz0: 2

I was escorted back to the original building and interviewed with a very high energy HR guy who had a background in corporate recruiting. My buzz was starting to wear off, and I was losing my edge. Using the exact same language I used for most of the day, I explained to him three qualities that a good business analyst should have, and then I told him how happy I was to be interviewing at a company that took Human Resources seriously, without a trace of irony in my voice. He was from Cincinnati, and I told him how much I loved those mid-sized cities like Minneapolis, St. Louis, but couldn’t stand the Midwest weather.

Just before leaving, he said, “I can spot good Midwestern people from a mile away. There’s one guy left to interview, but just so you know, unless this last guy can walk on water, I’m recommending you as number one.” We shook hands, his encrusted with ass pennies.



Health Care Company: 2 Mezz0: 3

My last interview was with a very tired project manager. He looked exhausted, and somewhat disinterested, and had browser windows open to Yahoo! and ESPN. He would be the perfect pm. I get the impression that he is looking to leave the company. He went through the motions of explaining to me the software, and told me that the people I interviewed with would most likely contribute most to the hiring decision. His apathy was no match for my ass pennies.



Health Care Company: 2 Mezz0: 4

Jeff Probst would tell me I have a one in four chance of winning employment at a small and growing health care company with amazing benefits. The place sounded like a chaotic madhouse, and the position I interviewed for was described several times as "highly visible," but if this interview proved anything, my anxiety has finally cleared up as long as I stay away from caffeine, and keep circulating ass pennies in the local economy.

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Friday, June 06, 2008

From Mezz0:


I Just Read The Business Requirements

We have received your resume. Your background and experience will be reviewed for the Business Systems & Application Support Analyst opening. Please understand that due to the volume of resumes we receive, it may take several weeks before we are able to complete our review.

Should your background meet our needs, we will be in contact with you. If you are not contacted, please accept our sincerest best wishes in your search for new career opportunities.

Again, we appreciate your interest in Playboy Enterprises, Inc..

The Recruiting Department

Playboy Enterprises, Inc.

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From The Youngest:

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

From Mezz0:
Falling Down


I used to fantasize about doing this on a daily basis back when I was a health care consultant. My favorite part is at 2:31 when the guy who clearly has grappling skills hits the high elevated single leg take down, flows right into a moderately elevated double leg, drags the man to the ground, and swings his lower body around into side control without taking his weight off the man's upper body. Nice work, Boris!
From The Youngest:
Poker Rica --> Poker Vegas

A mere two weeks after returning from my terrible failure at the Latin American Poker Tour in the hot, humid country of Costa Rica, I'm set to head over to the blistering heat and dry city air of fabulous Las Vegas. I'll be going there one week after Mezz0 was there for a convention. My hope is that he will join me this upcoming weekend as well. He has been promised a free room and two free 3-4 star meals. Plus I'll be looking to score some drugs, which I always share with only a modest amount of resistance.














Our old man will be in Vegas the weekend after I/we visit, so in three consecutive weekends, each male member of our family will have been gambling in Las Vegas at least once. This may seem odd and somewhat disgusting to some people.

For a conservative (fiscally, religiously, and politically) father, I'm not sure if he finds this poker-fueled random vacation planning troubling or not. Maybe he's just trying to calculate the odds of such a thing happening. He was, after all, the man who spent more one-on-one time with his underage sons at the horse races than anywhere else. Without him, I would have no idea what it meant to hedge a $2 exacta box in the 6th with a $10 wager on the 5-1 horse to place. He never drank when he gambled (or any other time in front of us, for that matter) and he frequently reminded us how stupid gambling was while we were at the track…then he'd walk upstairs and place our bets with the $10 bankroll that he gave us.












Clearly, he was an excellent role model and without this early exposure to responsible gambling I would never have taken up poker. That certainly would have left me with a lot of idle time. But what would I have done with it? Would I be a better person? A college graduate? A poet? More soberer?

Fuck that shit.

Back to Vegas.

Originally I was planning on playing in the $2,000 Omaha hi-lo World Series of Poker event on June 8th and making my first attempt at earning a WSOP bracelet--or at least cashing in a WSOP event--while bumping elbows with various poker celebrities. That was before my minivan developed a transmission problem and I was forced to spend my entire poker bankroll on a new set of wheels. Now, tragically, my live poker bankroll is at $0.00.











I am still desperately craving a seat in this tournament, more so than I was for Costa Rica, even though this tournament lacks pretty much everything Costa Rica had: 4 prostitutes to every guy, Master-P--shaved headed and Harley Davidson bearded--staring down Daniel Negraneau & making him move out of his way, and a welcoming party featuring topless girls painted to resemble rain forest creatures….also smoke machines, cheap booze, $2 packs of cigarettes, Montel Williams, ceviche, rainforests, Orel Hershizer, beaches, and a reconstructed American bomber plane built into a bar on the outskirts of a national forest…and the opportunity to do tequila shots with poker pro Victor Ramdin. Now that was a poker tournament, but without any bracelet possibilities.




<---Does tequila shots with strangers the night before big tournaments to reach peak poker playing prowess.







Luckily (I mean skillfully) I have been on a recent upswing (see image below) on Poker Stars. I've got just under $700 in an online account right now and I plan on logging several 180 person multi table tournaments this week and trying my damnedest to boost that up to $2200…then I'll withdraw $2,000 and I'll be set with my tournament buy in before I leave. Of course, if past performance is any indicator, this plan has "FAIL" written all over it.





<---Games 300-500 = shoulder surgery + oxycontin




What's more likely to happen is that I'll arrive in Vegas this Saturday at 8:30 pm, find a Wells Fargo ATM, withdraw the maximum ($300?), meet up with Mezz0 at the Imperial Palace, eat one of their delicious Philly Cheese Steaks, and start getting drunk and hammering the $1/$2 NL tables at the MGM at about 11:30pm.

By 5:00 pm the following day, I need $2,000 in profit.

It's hard to lose at $1/$2 in Vegas, but it's even harder to win $2,000 in one sitting while drinking heavily...and your opponents can only buy in for $200 at a time. So the goal is to earn $350-$450 by morning. This is an entirely possible and realistic goal. With winnings in hand, I will then go to the roulette tables and bet it all on black twice in a row.

No, no, no. That's just stupid.

Then I will rest up and wake at around noon on Sunday. I'll head over to the Rio and plunk down $225 or $325 for a WSOP single table 10 person satellite--apparently they run around the clock--and I'll put my sit n go skillz to the test. This plan, of course, has "EPIC FAIL" written all over it.














That's why Mezz0 better take the Dirty Whore up to vegas and keep me company at the tables while I explain to him why it is more risky to play $3/$6 limit than $1/$2 NL while he stuffs his face with the leftovers from my plate. It's not about gambling. It's about family.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

From Mezz0:
Getting Lucky


I was in Las Vegas over the weekend at a convention with over 3100 exhibitors spanning an insanely large area of convention real estate. Nero and I were doing recon for the Underpants Project. We approached software vendors, and asked them detailed questions about their architecture, source code, database structure, number of clients, biggest clients, employees, and pricing. We had badges that made us look like retail IT employees rather than competitors. Everyone was very nice, and very forthcoming. I imagine next year will be awkward when we are exhibiting next to these same people.

Saturday night, I was busy working at a Texas Hold ‘Em table, laughing at an Oklahoma retailers dumb jokes, when I was dealt an Ace and King of diamonds. I ended up hitting a back door flush, and triumphantly turned over my cards. The last remaining opponent had three of a kind. The dealer pushed the chips towards me, and mucked the cards. Then the table began discussing the hand, and came to the conclusion that my flush had, in fact, been beaten by a full house. I hadn’t seen a pair on the board indicating a potential full house, but I was also busy working, that is, drinking heavily with next to a potential client.

“Anyone can win with an ace-high flush,” I told the retailer, “but only people with true talent can beat a full house with an ace-high flush.”