It's actually been a pretty nice month so far, but not so much has been going on poker-wise. Last week I was in WA for a week, visiting my girlfriend's family. She had not been back there since moving to FL with me last October, and I could tell she was getting pretty homesick, so it was good to get her back with them for a while. I had a good time too. Her family is really nice, and I get along with all of them very well. They also like to play a lot of poker, which is pretty fun for me and they are totally cool with me mostly playing poker for a living.

Playing with Nicole's family is pretty fun ($5 donkaments), but her grandfather is pretty annoying to play with. He doesn't pay attention to the action, then he tries to tell people when it's their turn when, in fact, the action is like 2 seats farther along than he thinks. He's not even very old, where that could be an excuse (he's like mid 60's). He also does a bunch of stupid crap at the table like agonize over a hand, say it's probably the best hand, then fold his K7s or some crap. Other times he acts like he's on a draw, then puts in a raise, and I'm thinking WTF everyone knows you're full of shit and flopped quads or something. At least he's pretty much the most readable person I've ever seen. It's amazing, just like you see in the movies. He does tilt me, though, because he wastes so much time and does so much retarded junk.

Anyway, I also got to see one of my buddies that I used to work with at a sports training center while I was out there. We went to one of my favorite places to eat in Bellevue, WA, Rock Bottom. It's nothing special really, just a solid restaraunt with a micro-brewery, but I alway seem to enjoy eating and having a few beers there. I had the buffalo fajitas and lumberjack red beer btw. My buddy Jon I met there is a great guy and I really enjoyed hanging out with him for a while. After, I met back up with Nicole and some friends of hers at this place Joey's, which is also pretty fun. Very solid night overall.

Later that weekend we met up with our friends Dan and Elaine. They are a bit older than us, but great fun to hang out with. Every time we go to their house they pop open some champagne or some great wine, or both, and we have a great time. Last year we went to Nappa with them, and had an awesome time. It also kind of got me into wine. So later, we headed to one of my favorite restaurants in the area, Purple. I love this place. They always have great food and a huge wine selection, and they have 1/2 off bottles on Sundays which is pretty sweet. We started off with a white "Vouvray" and later had a bottle of "Ridge" Zin, which is a very solid Zinfandel. It was a great time all around.

Poker-wise. I've only played around 8K hands so far, all at 100NL and it's been fairly break-even. I feel like I've been playing well overall, but not much has been happening for me. I'm up a few buy-ins, but I'm sure I could have done better with the cards I've been dealt. I'm still liking full-ring overall and will probably stick with it for a while. I'm getting some coaching this week, which I'm looking forward to as I'm sure I have plenty of room to improve (as always). I would really like to solidly beat 100NL this month, then maybe make the move up to 200NL next month. I was rolled for 200NL, but cashed out a $K so I wouldn't be tempted. I probably wouldn't have taken shots anyway, but it's nice to cash out some extra money sometimes. I'm definately not ready for 200NL. Oh, I also had to pay out about 34 buy-ins in taxes this week. Sick!!! I really hate that I have to ship all that money to a government who seems to be doing nothing but fucking up these days. What a great democracy. The Land of the Free, love it. The whole Epassporte thing has me kind of on life-tilt right now. I do like the instant E-check thing on Stars and FTP, though. Hope that stays solid.

Ok, so I'm starting to ramble, time to end blog entry. Until next time......