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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

I know, it happens every year...and why should I dedicate a whole blog to a birthday? Well, its been quite a year. A year we will celebrate in gusto in 4 more days. Well, really in 6...when Carley Grace has her big birthday party, her first, up at some park in North Alabama with all her relatives present. Well, that year has been made so great by my Mother. Since the moment we told her we were pregnant...she has been amazing. Checking up with us on EVERY...I mean EVERY...doctor's appointment, asking about Cheryl's health nearly every day, she has been with us almost every step of the way. When we gave birth to Carley...she was with us, on my iPad...courtesy of Skype. Then a week later, she arrived by plane, to spend a week with us...helping Cheryl through those first tough days. Cheryl's mom had been here the day of the birth, and for a week after. We had about the smoothest experience with childbirth that you could hope for.

In the weeks and months since, my mom has sent box upon box to our doorstep, most of them containing clothes. Some of those clothes....Carley grew so quick she never even got a chance to wear! About once every two months, Squirrel sits back in Carley's room...filling up a container with clothes that no longer fit, usually with sadness present on her face. It's tough for a mom, to picture her baby in each outfit...how cute she looked, and have to say goodbye to it forever. Oh...we saved some of them, of course. The Alabama cheerleader outfit.  Her Christmas dress. You know, the important ones!!! The rest...we now have about 3 or 4 bins sitting in the garage...that will go to her next friend or relative that has a little girl. I'm pretty sure our baby factory open and closed with production stuck on the number one! Hey...once you have created perfection...why try anymore? Naw...honestly, we are both just TOO old to keep at this. I hope we don't regret it later, but I think with my amazing family, and Cheryl's truly incredible family...that this little girl is going to be in good hands for the better part of her life.

So, on my mom's birthday, I just want to tell her I love her...we all love her. Carley's first trip on an airplane was to go see Grandma Cheri last fall...and she was a perfect angel. She will get a chance to impress us again with her travel skills when we go out to Seattle in June for a week long vacation to visit my mom and dad. We are really looking forward to that trip.

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Speaking of June and the trip to Seattle, a few of you have asked what my plans are for this summer. Well, I never really thought I was going to do my annual pilgrimage (with the exception being last year) to Vegas for the 7-weeks of hell...I mean, 7 weeks of poker that take place every summer. Bottom line, things are going too good at home right now. I enjoy being at home. I like watching my baby grow. Poker is going well, with the online club...both as the player and the operator...so why risk all that by going to Vegas and playing myself into debt? Or playing myself into mental anguish? I can't see the upside to that. I'm not saying I won't go out there at all. I'd hate to let summer come and go and not get at least a couple weeks to just go out...spend some time at the pool, eat a couple of fabulous meals, catch up with some good friends, and play a few tourneys and see if I can get lucky enough to get my hands to hold up, my over pairs to hold, a few lucky suckouts to occur...and a big score accidentally stumbled into...all without crippling my life bankroll. Sounds like a pretty good plan, right? So...we'll see...now that a good friend of mine is working at the Venetian, and they have a bigger and better poker room, it would be good to go play the Deepstacks (now oxymoronic since their deepstacks play like every other tourney....actually speedier than most) for a couple weeks.  If I do go out, I'm not sure if I would sell a package to investors, or just gamble and play on my own dime. I'll figure that out when we get closer to June. Or May even. Wow...May...next month? Yikes!!!

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So...what a week in news, eh? This mess in Boston was literally like something out of a movie. And I guess if this shithead lives, we will get a whole bunch of new information, still. I sure hope so, because these talking heads on the TV just wear me the hell out with their recycled information....over and over and over. Trying to dig and dig for new information that just isn't there. It's annoying. I finally had to just let Carley switch the TV back to Nickelodeon.

There is a certain person who has carved himself a niche, that being 'Conspiracy Theory Czar!!' I knew....as soon as this all happened, that there would be some new 'story' coming out of Conspiracy Central. I was right. It started with the photos of the three police officers standing around the fallen old jogger...something about the shadows not lining up right. Then we had all the reasons why we should think the boys were set up, used as patsies. Really? So our government concocted a plot, a plot to set off an explosion, with the intent to kill cheerful people watching a foot race on a lovely Monday afternoon? Why? To gain what?

I was pretty interested in all the various theories surrounding the mysterious circumstances at Sandy Hook, and going back as far as 9/11...there were certainly some bizarre things that were never explained, and seemed very damning. You've all seen the documentaries, I assume. On a daily basis we are given reasons to NOT trust our government. To not trust that they are giving us the whole story. That they might even be altering the course of history with the orchestration of certain events. Who knows? I mean...if these things really do occur, then of course someone knows. Right?

Well at some point, you really have to just decide what you are going to believe. I always say...its kind of like the Democrats and Republicans...who just, at some point, decide to draw an imaginery line in the sand where they have their belief system on one side, and the other sides belief system on the other. There is no seeing eye-to-eye, no agreement on anything. And all because they need something to set them aside from each other. The older and wiser I get, the more divisive I find the two-party system of government to be...and counterproductive.

There is only ONE question I have regarding the Boston bombings...and murdering of a campus cop. The person we saw police apprehend, completely naked...and place in the back of a police car? Who was that? The parents, and relatives of Asshole #1 are saying that was Asshole #1 that they put in the back of that police car. And if so...how was he killed in a gunfight? My suspicion, and I'm not going to lie...I'm thinking about calling the Boston PD and see if they will just answer this question point blank...is that the person they carjacked...police had no way of knowing if he was part of the group, and ordered him to take his clothes off to see if he was wearing an explosive device, then placed him in the police car before later letting him go. And his size, and features just happen to appear to look like Asshole #1.

People want to debate about whether or not they were terrorists? Dude...if you pack a bag full of explosives, place it at the feet of two little kids (one killed, one losing her leg) during a marathon...walk a couple blocks, then detonate it? Yeah....you are a fucking terrorist. It doesn't really matter where you are from, does it? You have somehow gotten twisted enough in your beliefs, your values, and allowed your anger with the country you are lashing out at....to perform this cowardly act. Yeah...fuck, you're a worthless little scum bag terrorist...who isn't man enough to look his enemy in the face and challenge him to a fight. Instead, he sneaks around blowing shit up.

This doctor who is getting torn to shreds by (mostly Fox News) the media for his statements the other day about the US bearing some responsibility for this? Because of our intervention in the Middle East? Well...to be fair, he makes some interesting points. In his defense, and to blast the main stream media, who love to twist the words of people...what he said WASNT that the 'US DESERVED what happened in Boston.' I hate the way these assholes in the media like to re-write people's statements. What he said...was that our activity in the Middle East...with the killing of innocent women and children (allegedly) through drone strikes and other operations...has incited these feelings in Muslims that have them wanting to strike back at us. To call this guy a Muslim sympathizer is ridiculous. He is simply pointing out the obvious. Do I think their is ANY way on God's green earth that we will EVER see peace with the Muslims? Hell no. I think any attempt they make to make us THINK they are peace loving people is merely an act to lull us into a complacency that will make us easier to conquer. But do I think there is an EASIER way to deal with these nutbags? Hell yes I do.

What exactly was the point of bankrupting our economy to attempt to infuse our style of politics, religion and economics on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan? Building them schools that they would just blow up because they don't believe in education? Building them roads and bridges that they would destroy? These people HATE our western ways...and for us to assume that we could just go over there...overthrow their military, and ingratiate them into our way of living? Was a joke. This mistake in the Middle East has been 15 years we will never get back. Remember when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan? It was almost the same scenario. Didn't go so well for them either. The Russians have had the same battle with Muslim-dominated Chechnya...the place these sweet little assholes in Boston came from. For awhile, we sided with the Chechnyans. Just like we sided with these psychopaths who overthrew the dictator in Egypt last year. Great idea, Barack, lets just go ahead and aide all these Muslim extremists who have one goal...the goal of destroying western civilization.

So back to my point. Who cares if these little pricks had help? Does it REALLY matter? The point is...they educated themselves to become what they became. The older, angrier Asshole....obviously willed his younger, more impressionable Asshole brother into going along with this act. It doesn't, and shouldn't, allow for anyone to feel sympathy for that shitbird who is laying in the hospital healing from his injuries...one being a throat wound that we have no idea how it occurred. Gunshot from cops? Attempt to kill himself?

I sat reading threads from the politically paranoid...how the Lockdown on Boston was a sign of things to come...of the Government's ability to put us all under their thumb. Excuse me...I think its a little different when you KNOW WHY they are putting the city on lockdown...and simply staying out of the way and allowing the cops to do their job....which...HEY! They actually did! With pretty damn good results.  I don't think our fellow citizens are going to allow the government to just one day take us all over. There are too many strong-willed people to let that happen. You don't piss off the people of the United States. We have demonstrated time after time...that once properly riled up...we will stomp the shit out of anyone. Including our own government, if they decide they are a little too big for their britches. I think the paranoid, conspiracy-touting whack jobs need to just take it down a notch...seriously. Barack only has three years left to do nothing...before we throw another useless Republican in there to take his turn. Probably Marco Rubio. 

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Hell's bells. I thought I posted this on Sunday...which WAS my Mom's birthday...and I just came on here to post something about Carley's birthday...her FIRST birthday...which is today!!! We are just about to load up the car and drive up to North Alabama for her first birthday party on Saturday. I guess when I hit 'publish' was about the time I lost my internet connection....so it didn't get published. Great.  :(

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Why do people have to drive like SUCH assholes? I mean...when you are going 65 in a 35 zone...and someone pulls out of a neighborhood...a good 100 yards ahead of you...but because you are flying...you come right up on their ass in a few seconds...why do you think it's fair for you to honk, flap your arms and flip them off? Answer? It's not. You are the ASSHOLE! Either slow your ass down....or be ready to hit the breaks when someone enters the street.

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On a mission to locate something for Squirrel the other day, I happened into the Wal-Mart in Gulfport. Now...I will say the obvious. People in Wal-Mart tend to be scary looking. In fact, its almost legendary. Their have even been websites created to show off the 'Wal-Martians.' But what I saw the other day blew even me away. And it was during peak hours...around 6pm. I did not see one...not ONE...even semi-attractive person in there. Not one. And it wasn't even close. You had every kind of ugly you could ever hope NOT to see in one place. 

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With 5 days left in the month...I'm currently sitting in 3rd place on the TLB leaderboard for our Pokerstars Tournament Series club. I have no shot at catching the guy in first...who has played like 200 games this month...compared to my 144. They guy in 2nd has me by about 20 pts. Last month I got 2nd...but by the most ridiculous of margins...achieved on the last event of the last day....beating me by half a percentage point. The schedule on there has really expanded. So much so that I am giving some thought to opening a second club with a full schedule. I hate to say it...and this is such a complete 180 from just 3 months ago....but I hope online poker NEVER returns to the USA!!!!

Okay time to get packed up and on the road.  Mama wants to see her birthday baby...and she is already up there, having left two nights ago.

MONKEY

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The key to winning is confidence, sounds like your losing it!

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday to Carley! Enjoy your weekend with family.

-TimLovesTiff