Hello Mookie my old friend.

Hey, its been awhile, come on and play. You know you want to .



Tournament: The Mookie
When: Wednesday’s at 22:00ET
Game: Deepstack NLHE
Buyin: $10+1
Password: vegas1

Pokeme

Anyone want to swap your PS for my FT? It's not as dirty as it sounds.

I can do any amount up to 500.

23skidoo are at gmail

Wednesday Wrapup

I've had some ideas floating around my head, and I'm just going to spit em out rather than keeping the stew on and losing the flavor.

I Love You Man

23skidoo's one word review: PUKE

The wife and I tried to watch it last weekend, I fell asleep both times. Paul Rudd is going to have to earn his way back to my safe list after this one.

I think my wife summed it up the best. We paused the movie about 3/4 of the way through and went out to the back porch to smoke. We chatted about the movie and some other stuff. About an hour later I say something to the effect of how do you feel about turning crap off and 'hitting the sack'. She retorts 'I couldn't care less, I'm fine not giving any more of my life to it'. Apropos

I am a fat bastard

I had a physical 2 weeks ago and I was a bit put off when I saw the scale. 234 is a pretty big number. I'm a big guy so it's a little bit easier to hide the fat, but jeez, I really let go. I know there are some bloggers out there doing some half assed prop bet which involves a weigh-in in Vegas. I'm cool with everything but the Vegas part. Vegas in mid December just is not on my radar. I have joined Daily Burn at the suggestion of Riggs and started logging my intake. After a week I recognized that I take in more than I burn, easy-peasy. The second week I began watching what I eat and lopping down the portions. I also tried spacing my food out through the day. I've dropped to 229, but I'm pretty sure that's mostly water weight. Next week I'm going to ramp up the exercise. This will be hard as most of my days are full. That's the crux of exercise, you have to make time and make it a priority and I haven't quite figured out how to motivate myself to do it.


OK, thats it for now. I know I had more that I wanted to put down, but I'm blanking right now. Time for a little walk....

You kids be careful out there!

My kid is a good sport.

My kid is a good sport.

My son, god bless him, has been graced with superior physical gifts. These I attribute more to his mother's side of the family than to mine. Yes, they grow 'em big on my side of the family, but it takes a good mixture of physical prowess, desire, and cognitive ability to be a better than average athlete. Those of you who saw me nearly lose a leg trying to jet ski know that is not one of my gifts. I am a big boy, but clumsier than all get out.

My son is big for his age. He is 5'1" and 115.5 lbs as of this morning. He is also 10 years old.

When they boy was born, our first, my pride and ego swelled. A boy....oh the places you will go. Like 90% of all dads out there I immediately began crafting his future. I saw him a mix between Roger Clemons and Bill Gates. (hey I AM a geek after all) Not too lofty of goals eh?

As soon as he was able to figure out that whole hand and finger deal, I put a ball in his hand. By 4 he was playing T-ball with the YMCA. The boy has lived and breathed baseball since. The great part of this is he actually LOVES it. He watches games with the old man, he knows stats and he is ravenous to learn baseball history. All of his school book reports have revolved around sports. He has a fantastic positive attitude, and is a good teammate.

Baseball has come pretty easy for him until the last 2 years or so. I attribute this to the rapidity of his growth. He has a tough time doing things QUICKLY, but he always does it right. So, this season he has had some trouble making a travel team. His previous team was ~20min away from us, and a little out of our network of friends. My suspicion is the team's coach had someone else in mind for my son's position (1st). Regardless, we found ourselves trying out for some other teams and we haven't found a spot for him for a variety of reasons. I'm still waiting on the last team to give me a call this weekend.

This post started in a different direction, but I'm going to keep going and see if I get where I need to be.

Flashback to June, baseball has finished and we decide to let P play football in the fall. He had been asking for awhile and I finally gave in. I warned him that the practices would be intense compared to baseball, and he would most likely be put on the line for his size.

He was undaunted, and true to his word he has yet to complain about the heat, the aches, the tedium of learning a new sport, or playing less than glamorous positions in the trenches. And dammit if the kid isn't good.

The coaches have so far gushed over his ability to pick up his positions and made him the teams snapper from game 1. I watched the team play a scrimmage against 6th graders on Wednesday and they held their own.

I've gone through the seasons as my son has played and I've tried to keep as much levity in tact as I can. In fact I'm not misguided enough to think he has a better than average chance to be a collegiate or professional athlete. I do think I have the duty as a parent and father to allow him every opportunity though. I plan on being as supportive as I can until I'm told to stop. There's only one person who can tell me that, he holds the cards.

I read a few articles in the past few days that have made me stew over the subject of children in sports. I remember reading the tale of Jericho Scott last summer and the subsequent hand wringing involved in the possibility that a child could be blackballed for being 'too good'. In my mind it was further proof of the dumbing down of American society. It ties into every thing that is wrong with today and our 'everyone has to win' outlook.

I appreciated Craig Fehrman's followup on Deadspin on Tuesday. His angle makes a lot more sense. The attributes the heightened anxiety and idea of unfairness that is derived form some parent's expectations of ( or deluded view of) their child's talent.

It is exactly these expectations that I do not want to foist on my child. It has to be his drive, his determination, and his ability to see him through to where he wants to go. I'm here for guidance, understanding, and support. (and a big fat house to retire into. ;)

Read Bob Cook's 'Your kid is not going pro' if you liked this, or even if you didn't.


Take it easy out there kids, have a good weekend.

idiocracy

The Regular Guys were talking about this speech this morning. Somehow I missed it when it was previously aired.

This woman is a congressman, and holds a masters in public speaking.




Congratulations America! Welcome to the idiocracy.

I may not post very much anymore,

but I'm still good!



.....you kids be careful out there -23skidoo

Bloggers marry up.

I finally took the time to cut out Rachel's graduation speech. It's a little over 9 minutes long, but its good, and I'm very proud.

You're daily dose of awesome, with all apologies to Julius Goat

Special thanks to Kissing Suzy Kolber

http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2009/06/joe-namath-autotune-post.html

Calling all dads.

I came across the following site thanks to the beauty of del.icio.us.

Because I don't care for wine, I reject the whole concept of spitting (as opposed to swallowing) (which…this isn't that kind of site, you sick pigs). It's like, "Yes, I want the rather humiliating experience of sipping tiny little birdie-sized helpings of wine and filtering it through my teeth and trying to find notes of oak and cherries and king scrotum in it, but I'm not at all interested in attaining the requisite level of drunkenness that would make this behavior seem less awkward."

http://www.dadgonemad.com/

I thought it was timely since Sunday is fathers day. Happy day to all you dads out there, go play some golf and let those women folk make you a steak.

cheers!

by the way, you can see my bookmarks at http://delicious.com/23skidoo

Recruiting is Elementary..

My son has been playing baseball since he was 3. He has above average talent and is a good team player. I finally gave in to his request to sign up for football this season. I asked around to some of the guys I knew about the local program, and went ahead and signed him up for rec ball. He is now being recruited by a travel team which is more selective and competitive. We're still weighing the options, but it really blows my mind that a 10 year old is being recruited to play football. The kid wants nothing more than to play, and play well on a winning team. We shall see.

By the way, I gave in and signed up on Twitter. You can follow me @iam23skidoo. Dunno if I'll adopt the platform or not, I'll probably end up updating it as much as this place...

cheers!

Checking in

Hi folks!

It has been a long month since we've last heard from your hero. The wife and I have a fabu trip to Costa Rica two and a half weeks ago...geez that feels like months ago. We had an adventurous week full of canopy touring, river rafting, site seeing, and walking....LOTS of walking. Maybe one of these days I'll actually take the time to post some pics, but hey, who am I kidding?

Work proceeded to squarely kick me in the junk upon my return and I have had my head down since.

I managed to play in a few of the BBT4 events, but I just suck. I made a decent run at the Big Game, but got way too tight after I accumulated a nice stack from a turned nut flush draw and a pre-flop AK vs Hammer dual that held up.

Tonight I go to my first live Baseball game of the season. My son and his baseball team get to go onto the field before the game for some sort of fund raiser award.

Speaking of the Braves, I think what they did to Tom Glavine is just despicable. I've never held Schuerholtz in very high regard and now I think he is just trash. Tom is absolutely one of the best Braves of all time and to string him along then make up some BS about his ability is just plain false. Plain and simple the greedy fuckers didn't want to pay the 1 million roster bonus he earned by rehabbing and getting ready to pitch. So in short, the Braves upper management can bite me. They've shown they have no interest in how they look to the fans of their team.

That's all for now kids, back to work.

Around the horn

It is a blissful HUMPday and I'm ready for vacation already....just a few days now and it's to Costa Rica for a week.....oh sweet salvation.

I've played a few BBT4 tourneys and I'm non-plussed, it's discouraging yet expected to see some of the same play I see in the $3 games. I get pissed sure, but I'm gonna keep it to myself (for the most part) since I feel pretty good in my play. Other than the fact that I'm tending to be weak/passive recently.

The thing is that nothing surprises me anymore. The moron hoping for his 1 to 4 outer will hit and that's fine.

God bless.

For some reason this is still 'fun' for me more because of the presence of a select few who I still chat with and the others, who I just laugh at.

I'll post once more before I'm out for a week or so, I have to lend yet another example of the fact that bloggers marry up.

My wife graduates law school Friday and has been chosen as the speaker for her class. Hopefully she gives me the thumbs up to post the speech here. Stay tuned.

l8ter

Weekend wrapup.

I enjoyed a somewhat relaxing weekend that started off with a canceled poker game. It's spring break here which means most of my regulars were out of town. Thursday afternoon I kind of lost my motivation for trying to scrape together a game, so I scrapped it and adjusted my outlook to doing something with the Fam.

The kids selected Summits out of our options, mostly I'm sure because they have a game room and can spend more than 20 minutes there getting morbidly bored.  Summits happens to be my favorite bar + restaurant in the area. They offer 200+ draft beers and bottles to boot. Not to mention they actually have an edible menu, not this chain restauraunt crap.t You may have something similar in your area. Summits offers a beer club which rewards you with customized mugs at certain levels. The custom mugs also offer a few ounces of extra hoppy goodness.

I'm closing in on my next mug, which is more like a chalace, for hitting 250 draft beers. I figure when I surpass 250 I'll have to start going the bottle route more often on my way to 500 and the custom made German Stein. ahh, but I digress.

On Saturday, my father in law retaliated with my mother in law and had a surprise party of his own for her. The wife and I were far less involved for this one, we got there a little early to help set up. I got the bar ready and was the designated wine pusher for the evening. We did our thing for a couple hours and left somewhat early. It was nice to get home and pass out at a reasonable hour.

We did Easter mass on Sunday, and dammit if I didn't just now think of taking pictures...so slack. The girls were terribly cute in their spring dresses while the boy and I stuck to the khaki-oxford uniform.

Afterwords, the kids relaxed at home for a couple hours while I got some work done, then we headed off to the aunts house to stuff our faces and veg during the end of the Masters.

I must say I was a little sad for Mikelnuts, poor guy just can't get out of his own way. Just what the heck were our boys choking on there at the end? Frigging Argentinean hits a tree on 18 and still manages to win....pathetic. Call me racist, whatever. I've been called worse, its just disappointing to have what seems to be good players shit their pants at the end of 4 days...

Not a bad weekend, all in all. Started out with torrential downpours and ended with some of the most beautiful weather to date this year. I love spring in the south.

Have a good weekend folks, see you around.

Palookavillle

My wife never gets sick. She has an iron will and boundless energy, I often remark that Rach has another gear that most normal folks just don't have. Well, yesterday she got sick. I was staying home already since I was a little under the weather, which happens on a bi-monthly basis. Around 10AM she casually mentioned ot me that she was tired and proceeded to sleep the rest of the day and all night long. I started getting a little antsy around 10PM when she came down to get some tea, drank two sips, and went back to bed. This morning I was certain it was strep. Her voice was scratchy and wavering and she still had no energy. I had a meeting to get to this AM and took the kids to daycare so she could get some rest. As I was writing this I reminded myself to call and check up on her, but got no answer at home and her cell. I busied myself for a few more minutes and tried a few more times for the  next 30 minutes or so. I must admit that I got a little panicked.

She finally called me back from her car just a mminute ago and let me know she was on the way to immediate care, and I let myself breathe again. I know its nothing, but it kind of pisses me off that I have to get reminded of how important she is to me, just being there for me.

That has nothing to do with the title of the post, and I'm struggling to find  a reason for it. I think Ive come up with the fact that I feel like such a palooka sometimes, taking more than I give. I really got to work on that.

On and off

There's little doubt that my zeal for playing cards online has dwindled. My online footprint has become a little toe and I'm just not sure if i can recapture the love and need for the game that I once had. I'm not all that sure I want to either.

This is not a goodbye post or anything dramatic like that. I'm not fishing for attention, just stating a truth that I've been trying to deny for several months. I've discovered what I really love about playing poker will never be accomplished by staring into the magic box for hours on end. Its a tool, but its not the goal.

The things I love about poker are (a) the camaraderie; for a healthy amount of time I thought I had that. I loved discussing hands and situations with my fellow bloggers, I followed progress, I participated. It was good. I have made fantastic connections with some of you that I will not let subside, but I like looking into a person's eyes and the fluid nature of a live game; (b) the nuance; I love the fact that the answer to nearly every poker situation is "it depends". Every situation is unique, every hand requires recall, thought, and intuition; (c) the money; I don't think its a secret that I love to see chips flying across the table. I love the sound, the feel, the sight of a person who has just won or lost a big pot.

You see where I'm going. On-line poker has turned into a video game for me, a time-waster, a place to flush my hard earned money down the virtual tubes. I cant take it anymore, and its false to pretend to think I can be a better player online, 'cause it's obvious to me that I don't care to make the moves to become one.

I love the game, I am a successful player when the cards, the people and the chips are in front of me. I really don't know why there's a difference. It just is, and I'm not ignoring it anymore. Most of you who still read this I'm sure you'll see me virtually or live again. I still won't be able to tear myself away from games like this:

..among others. You guys are just too much fun.

So if indeed you still read these pages, I appreciate it. I still read ~50 or so blogs on a regular basis.

I'll try to be more read-worthy in the coming months posting more about the traveling that's going on and the hustle and bustle of everyday life that is a father of 3 in the 'burbs.

See ya around!

Weekend Wrapup

Hello kiddles and crazies, how are things going?

I had a long exhausting trip up to NYC Thursday and Friday, I layed low even though I did contemplate hitting up a new club for some poker. By the time 6:30 rolled around on Thursday I was sofa king tired I could barely complete a sentence.

I opted to plop myself down in my hotel's bar for food and basketball highlights. I could have easily retired around 9, however I befriended a young salesman from NC and proceeded to get good and lubricated. I finally hit the sack around 11 and managed to donk off some $ on Full Tilt. I'm such a monkey sometimes.

I worked tirelessly yet bleary eyed through Friday and caught my Flight out of LGA confident in my abilities to put out quality work while smelling like an oak Macallan cask.

I pulled in to my house around 10:00 where the wife was there entertaining 2 of her friends and an unfortunate boyfriend. Obviously we stayed up far too late and polished off what wine we had in the house.

Saturday, I bailed on my tennis match and took MasterP and one of his buddies to their baseball practice. While they practiced, I found the nearest coffee and proceeded to drown in it for the next hour. After practice I took the boys to Zaxby's and we downed copius amouts of chicken digits. I had somehow managed to miss Zaxby's up till that point and wasn't overly impressed, but it aint bad for fast food I suppose.

The mouse (middle girl, stay with me)  had a softball game Saturday afternoon, which I had to miss. Keep in mind the mouse is 8 years old and just starting to appreciate softball.  I was however regaled to the following story:

Mouse was playing third base at the time and the biggest girl on the opposing team (BFG) was up to bat. BFG crushed a line drive towards my daughter's left knee, and she just did not have the time to move. Mouse fell to a heap on the ground and my wife bolted in from left field to asses the damage. Mouse was bawling and heaving and clinging to my wife for a few minutes and someone else delivered some ice. My wife asked mouse if she wanted to have a seat on the bench to ice her knee and mouse just stopped, grabbed her dusty hat from the dirt, put it back on and assumed her position at 3rd base as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

The very next batter hit a drive down the third base line which the mouse speared, then stomped defiantly on third base for the third out. She gently tossed the ball toward the mound and marched off the field. Both she and the wife repeated the story to whoever would listen for the next 24hours, it was a good one.

The in-laws were having a surprise party for my father in law on Saturday night, and I was a key part of the obfuscation of the days activities. I had to pretend to go to work on a planned outage and my wife was going shopping with her mother. Therefore pa-in-law was called in for kid duty, which he actually loves.

As flimsy as the plan was, it worked and he was dutifully surprised. We partied with the old folks and had a generally good time. Given the proper amount of 18 year old Balvenie I'm a real charming mofo.

Sunday the wife had a tennis match and the boy had a baseball game, which they won easily. I seem to remember the boys being so much better pitchers when I was that age....anywho. I couldn't get home fast enough so I could assume the position on my lazy boy and pass out.

What Joy.

Tinkering

I'm tinkering around a little bit, so if some lame poetry popped up from me on RSS I apologize.

I have no intention of torturing any of you with my mental regurgitation from days gone by. I do intend to transcribe the vast majority of my poetry here, but I will keep it hidden from view from now on out.

I'm warming up to this again, so bear with me, I'm gonna tinker some more so I'm happy with my 'new' home. Then I should be able to be comfortable enough to once again regale you with my BS.

Cheers!

TEST

Sorry I'm a moron, switching to do it yourself mode has its drawbacks.

101891024A

smashed against

a density unknown

like flashes from a camera

strobe and up-close

pardoned from treason

a reason

slighted by

an agency of fascinating people

looks on

observing behavior much unlike its' own

the creature stirrs with madness

unlike the possibilities

reaches unknown

an alien abduction from

his natural domain

sightless and bleary

unable to live in the midst

of the ungratefulness we serve

to the ones we owe so much

apparent to philosophers

unseen by you and me

we wave in disbelief

as the trail leads to

space

BK

Coming soon...

I believe I may soon come out again. The groundhog has seen his shadow and spring is coming.

This is me:

....beware