As usual, I have quite a bit to talk about after 2 weeks of no blogs. Without further ado:

-Not even sure what to say about the cruise. It was the most debauchery I've seen packed into a week. There are several great stories from the trip but I don't really think they're suitable for a public blog, if you're friends with me and want to hear some stuff just ask me. I can talk about the ship itself though, so let's do that. I definitely fattened myself up some as there was all-inclusive food available 24/7, including a structured and delicious dinner every night (our group's time window was 6-8pm each night). Since all the food was free, decision-making generally went like this: "Hmm that salmon sounds good, but so does the prime rib. Guess I'll just get both!" The food was really good overall on the ship, if I spent the whole year on there I'd probably look like NVG's image of me.

The drinks were not all-inclusive unfortunately, and this resulted in most servers on board knowing my name by day 3 or so. The fifth floor of the ship included shops, a sports bar, a casino, a comedy club, a piano bar, and a nightclub. We spent most of our time on board here and on the ninth floor, which was the pool deck and also featured most of the food and an awesome water slide. The casino had one poker table which used automated betting machines rather than a live dealer and cards. I was skeptical at first but the machines actually worked pretty well, and it sped up the game a bit for sure. It still did feel like there was something missing though, I like being able to hold the cards and chips when playing live. The waitress referring to me as 'Brian my favorite customer' made it feel like a more normal live setting though (ha ha).

The ship stopped in Cozumel, Belize, Honduras, and Grand Cayman. I only left the boat on the first and last of these, and if I was doing a cruise again, I'd get off every stop and do some research of what I wanted to do at the destinations. Cozumel was my favorite stop aside from losing my cell phone, we had lunch (and conga line shots) at Carlos n Charlie's, walked around shops some, then hit the beach. At Grand Cayman the beach we went to was pretty small (here's where planning would have come in handy) but we still had fun. Like I said I didn't go to the other stops but two girls from Cornell that we met up with onboard went to some zoo thing in Honduras and their pics made me kind of jealous. Next time I'm totally doing that stuff, even if it means waking up at 8am.

Overall I enjoyed the cruise a lot. It did kind of suck being disconnected so much, especially after losing my phone on day 3, but since I was with a bunch of friends it wasn't so bad. I think for me I'd probably prefer other kinds of vacations a bit but I would like to try out another cruise sometime and do more of the excursions at the destination spots as mentioned.

-My NCAA tourney bracket fell to pieces pretty fast. After the first 2 rounds I was 1st in 2 of my 3 pools and 3/89 in the 3rd, but the Sweet 16 round just KILLED my bracket (had Ohio St as champs, Syracuse in final 4, etc.). The semifinal games were pretty ugly, I can't remember a worse close game to watch than Butler/Mich St and West Virginia wasn't able to keep it close vs Duke. I'll be pulling hard for Butler tonight as I'm firmly entrenched on the anti-Duke bandwagon. Also I want to give a shoutout to the Cornell basketball team, who backed up the insane level of hype they had for a 12 seed by winning their first 2 NCAA tourney games in school history before falling short against Kentucky, who just had way too much athleticism. As DeMarcus Cousins of Kentucky eloquently put it, "This ain't no spelling bee." It was a fun ride, great job Red!

-I went home yesterday to be with family on Easter. My parents, grandma, and several aunts, uncles, cousins, and my cousin's 1 year old son all came to my aunt's house in PA for Easter dinner and festivities, including an Easter egg hunt. I won (well Yankee swapped for) a cheese grater and 2 books - one on business relations at the dinner table and the other on business relations on the golf course, ship it! In all seriousness it was great getting to see everyone and lots of fun playing with the 1 year old, who is ADORABLE.

-Today is opening day for baseball. Well actually last night was, although my Yankees really choked it up, but whatever it's 1 game. Unfortunately I can't watch a ton today because I have 3 exams this week and I really have to do a bunch of studying, I'll definitely be sneaking some peeks though. I always get really excited for baseball at the beginning of the season only to be bored to death by it by June, so hopefully that doesn't happen this year. One thing that should help is my participation in the Cardrunners fantasy baseball league. CR is sponsoring a league this year that was organized by my friend Eric Kesselman and pits myself, him, CR's Andrew Wiggins, and Eric's good friend Bill Phipps against fantasy baseball experts. To read more about the competitors click on the link above. I will most definitely be the fish in this league as I don't devote nearly the amount of time into the game as any of these guys, but I'm a big sports fan and played a league with the same AL-only auction format last year (and finished 3rd/10 in my first season playing), so I think I'm by no means dead money and it's gonna be a fun time playing. The website linked will feature regular blog entries from Eric and Bill and the experts will be blogging on their respective sites as well. I'll post about it on my blog periodically too, and I'll start by bragging about my 3 hitters who played last night (Granderson, Gardner, Youkilis) going 6-12, combining to hit for the cycle with 4 RBI, 5 runs, and a SB (sick double steal where Gardner stole home easily on a double steal). Joba's pitching hurt me some but all-in-all still a nice start. I'll be checking updates compulsively today while studying for sure.

-Between the cruise, impending tests, and time with the gf I've just hardly had any time to play poker lately. After my exams this week I should be able to get back into the swing of things more. I did play a fun 100/200 NL session on my front porch the other day when it was 75 degrees and sunny out (minor miracle in Ithaca), it's nice to see high stakes NL games running some again, and although they're not easy I'd like to play them some more, it's a nice challenge for me after hardly playing any NL cash games over the past year or so.

Brian