It's been awhile since my last blog. Here's the latest...

The Cardrunners Ft. Lauderdale trip was a blast. The house we had rented was huuuge and gorgeous and with a ton of bedrooms and bathrooms and places to sleep and at least a couple "living room" type rooms, a huge patio with pool on it and large grill, and the ocean directly across the street.

We played beach volleyball the first day I got there, and again on Saturday before leaving. Those who know me well know there's few things I'd rather be doing than playing beach volleyball. The CR crew has some guys who can play, and on Saturday we ended up playing three games with me, Taylor, Daut, and Stinger versus Cole, Wiggins, Raptor and Menlo. All three matches were fairly even. We won the first one by one point after having a huge lead, and then in the last two squandered a big lead once and came from behind to take the lead before again squandering it. I feel like I played pretty well other than the last 5ish points in our third game, which I played woefully bad and in my opinion cost us the match. Blaaaah I want a rematch in Vegas this summer, I feel like our team is a huge favorite even if the results don't suggest it. I can dig like a champ, and hopefully come summer I'll have gotten enough games under my belt before Vegas so my set-passes aren't so sporadic and I can actually use my pretty wicked overhand serve (in our CR games I abandoned trying for my overhand after about 4 tries of hitting it into the net and not feeling like trying to battle the wind and my own rustiness).

Our first night out we went to a combo Sushi/Thai restaurant and then off to a dive bar a few blocks from the house and had a blast playing beer pong/pop-a-shot/shuffleboard. Me and Daut played Raptor and his friend Jeremy the first game and got off to a quick lead only to lose it after sitting on one cup for about 100 shots. Near the end of the night me and Cole played Stinger and Wiggins 3 times and won the first two and lost the third. Also, Taylor is a pop-a-shot champ. I hope this doesn't kill any potential prop betting action he can get in the future, but I would advise not playing him for money :-P

The last night out we went to a swanky Chinese (I think?) restaurant in Miami that was locally famous for its roasted duck. I didn't try any duck because I just can't get past my mental block of eating that bird specifically, but did enjoy some super good beef and chicken items. After that we went out to a club and all of us managed to get very drunk - though I think after talking with everyone it's funny that really none of us are huge club-types in the group, and everyone had said they'd go to a club thinking that it was so-and-so who likes clubs so we'd go because they wanted to. I know my preference is going to a small dive bar, being the only group in there, and feeling like we're owning the place.

In other news, this weekend Thorvy and I are flying to Phoenix to visit another high school friend who lives there, Goodson. The main reason for going is to go to the Vikings-Cardinals game on Sunday, and I think we'll be making a visit to Casino Arizona too Friday or Saturday. I've never been there yet so it'll be fun to see, plus by going it becomes another trip that can be written off :)

I finally got around to using a whole bunch of FPPs on Stars to order a slick digital SLR camera and a few nice lenses and accessories. One of my many ambitions for 2009 is to get into photography and take some pictures that worst case are good enough for me to be willing to hang them on my own walls - best case to create a website and try to sell some of my pictures online and maybe even see about getting a booth at the Uptown Art Fair in 2009 or 2010. I don't expect I'd be able to make much money on such an endeavor; however, it's a challenge and something to strive for and would for sure give me an excuse and another reason to travel to places I've never been to.

Also in 2009, I would like to copy Cole and Tri and make my own e-book, but for LHE and charge something like $200 for a copy. I want to try to do this for the same reasons as the photography project - though I see this one as being a little less likely because it's not as "fun" and would probably take more actual focused work (not to say that photography doesn't take effort...it's a different kind of effort).

Plus it'd be neat to be able to say that I am a poker pro and teacher, real estate mogul, entrepreneur, photographer, and author. Hopefully within a few years I can have about 18 million different titles of things I do and make money on. :)

Poker has been going well. Swingy, but good. It's a shame though that the best and most plentiful action has been in the 1am-6am time ranges (and also sometimes like 9am-1pm), I'd really like to get to fully fix my sleep schedule. I wish though that the tracking sites that exist out there were at least close to accurate, if they're going to exist at all.

Finally, before I forget for the 50th time (I told him last May I'd give his blog a shout-out), if you're ever bored and want to check out an entertaining blog mainly filled with drunken debauchery stories, check out www.michaelmoller.com/ which is a high school friend's blog. Maybe they're entertaining to me just because I know him and some of the people referenced in his stories, but I think overall they're pretty funny.


I leave this blog with two "mashes" I've found when up late at night searching for music. A "mash" is basically combinining two songs into one. I think both of these ones work very well together:


The Killers & Muse - "When you were a starlight":
www.youtube.com/watch


The White Stripes & Prodigy - "Voodoo Blue Orchid":
www.youtube.com/watch