It's official!

My hand still has cramps from the number of papers I've signed today. After all that, we officially have a home of our own. We've spent all kinds of money and waited 18 months for the place... but I have to say, it's definitely worth it!

The place is beautiful! All nice and shiny and new... and ours. I wandered around the place today a million times, just looking at things. It's amazing... knowing you spent that much on a place, but it's all worth the pain and suffering. Al's already dreading the reduction in bar time, but....

(It's also nice to know that the value has already gone up 25% upon signing. Thanks to our friend for letting us know about the new construction! If you're ever in the area and need a home, let us know... we have a great real estate agent! Have to give her a little promotion...)

I'm beat. I haven't been sleeping well over the last couple of days. I will sleep well tonight... or at least I'd better. There's all kinds of work to be done over the next few weeks. I'm finding that there are all kinds of personality changes when you buy a house... I visited not one but TWO Home Depots today and enjoyed myself immensely! What is this world coming to?

Man, this is rambling... I need to sleep! I promise to post more - with pictures - when I can function normally again. This may take a while... :-)

BEWARE: New Date Rape Drug

Bobby Bracelet was a victim of this one... it could happen to you!

:-)

POLICE WARNING:
Police are warning all men who frequent clubs, parties and local pubs to be alert and stay cautious when offered a drink from any woman. Many females use a date rape drug on the market called ...Beer. The drug is found in liquid form and available anywhere. It comes in bottles, cans, from taps and in large "kegs".

Beer is used by female sexual predators at parties and bars to persuade their male victims to go home and have sex with them. A woman needs only to get a guy to consume a few units of Beer and then simply ask him home for no strings attached sex. Men are rendered helpless against this approach.

After several Beers, men will often succumb to the desires to perform sexual acts on horrific looking women whom they would never normally be attracted.

After drinking Beer, men often awaken with only hazy memories of exactly what happened to them the night before, often with just a vague feeling that "something bad" occurred.

At other times these unfortunate men are swindled out of their life's savings, in a familiar scam known as a "relationship". In extreme cases, the female may even be shrewed enough to entrap the unsuspecting male into a longer term form of servitude and punishment referred to as "marriage". Men are much more susceptible to this scam after Beer is administered and sex is offered by the predatory females. Please! Forward this warning to every male you know.

If you fall victim to this beer and the women administering it..... There are male support groups where you can discuss the details of your shocking encounter with similarly affected like-minded guys. For the support group nearest you, just look up "Golf Courses" in the phone book.

953

Damn, did I suck today on the PokerStars blogger tourney or what? I couldn't catch cards today to save my life. Pocket Js were my best hand and I lost on those. I was able to pick up some chips by stealing blinds, but even min bets when I caught a hand made everyone fold. That's the way you lose a tourney I guess. I lost with flying colors!

After the tourney, I decided to play some cash games at PokerStars. I found a nice little .10/.25 NL table and settled in with $10. At first, people were raising on every hand, but then the limping started. It limped around to me with pocket 8s. I raised and was min re-raised, so I called. Caught an 8 on the flop and got all-in between turn and river. The guy showed pocket As, but it was no match for my trip 8s. I went along with the limping on the next few hands - caught two flushes with 89s and 9Ts and was up to 3x my original buy-in. One of the hecklers across the table starts ripping into me, asking me how I liked being a newbie and how PokerStars takes care of their fish. I made a few comments about how easy it was to tell when someone had a hand, especially with the crap I'd seen played for the last two turns around the table. I ended the conversation with "I have some tissues for your crying if you need 'em :-)". I figured that the guy on tilt would be great for the bankroll, but he left nobody else would play with me. Darn...

I know I said this before, but there probably won't be much more poker until after we close on the house. I just went out this weekend and bought a refrigerator, washer and dryer. $2600 in one shot, but that includes warranties, deliveries and taxes. I found some great stuff at nice prices. A little above what I'd budgeted, but they're good appliances and I hope not to have to replace them within the next 10 years or so. (Did I mention that the washer will hold 30 days of laundry detergent so all I have to do is throw in the clothes and turn it on? Whee!) Closing is Thursday, and appliances get delivered on Saturday. I still need to get the phone, cable and other utilities set up. I have to make sure all my paperwork is in and everyone has what they need. I'm surprisingly not shaking in my slippers right now. I'm sure that I'm going to lose my stomach over the next few days, but I'm too tired to worry about it right now.

Anyone who's willing to come over and give a little help - I pay in booze and home-cooked meals. Hint, hint. :-)

Home again

I made it back to PA. Luckily, the hurricane slowed down and we didn't see any problems with the flight. Only my hangover....

Last night was the closing party for the conference. HP bought out Pleasure Island in Disney until 11 PM, and everything was open for us. I met up with some of the guys I'd made friends with over the last couple of days, and we started in on a long drinking session. Since the games were open too, the guys decided they wanted to "test their strength" on the game where you use the mallet to try to reach the top of the tower. One of the guys had already tried and hit top once. He tried again and was able to do it twice. They convinced me to try next - told me that they tweak down the strength and give me a smaller mallet. I'd already had a few beers by this point, so I was up for it. I walk up, and the guy just stands there holding the big manly mallet. I comment that I guess I'm using the big one. He belatedly offers to get me the smaller one, but I like 'em big. :-) I took my first swing, and I made it about 60 - better than quite a few of the guys ahead of me. By this time, a crowd had gathered and started cheering me on, and I gave a few more good swings. I topped out at 88. Even though I didn't made the 100 mark, the guy still gave me a stuffed monkey. Another guy in our group goes next, and hits a 55. One of the wandering entertainment guys on stilts starts heckling, making sure that everyone knew that a girl had beat him. He hit a 92 on his last one, so his pride came out intact.

Like many other places, smoking is not allowed in the bars. We had the option of either drinking in cool or smoking and drinking in the heat. This was a great dilemma until we hit the cigar shop. The guys needed smokes, so we stopped in and found a nice air conditioned place where we were allowed to smoke. It was right next to one of the beer carts, so there was no problem with the booze supply either. I actually smoked a cigar last night. The guys picked out a very mild one, and I learned how not to inhale while smoking. Very odd concept, especially while drinking.

Many more drinks were consumed, but we all had a great time. We sat around trading stories, then we decided to hit one of the clubs with a bunch of games. Air hockey was played, and I won my games. Time flew by. The bars were closing, and I had to catch a cab back to the hotel. I got back and played some drunk poker (bad, bad, bad) then crashed. Morning and my flight came way too quick.

On a positive note, I got a response to the apologetic email I sent to my new Sun buddy. Luckily, he forgave me and was kind enough to tell me that I wasn't as obnoxious as I'm sure I was. He'll be in the area (sort of) over the next few weeks, so I'll be sure to meet up with him and buy him some drinks. Luckily, my big mouth didn't seem to hurt me this time!

Drinking and being Disney-ized

I passed my certification test! Woo-hoo! First try. I needed a score of 65 to pass, and I got an 81. I'm cool... Now I have my first certification. If I can use my "free pass" to take another test, I'm going to take the Advanced Administration test. No studying. If I pass, great. If not, I don't care. Plus, I won a $200 Best Buy gift card from one of the vendors! If it was only the new laptop instead... Nonetheless, I achieved my objective for the Admin test, and the conference is a success for me, regardless.

I'm enjoying Orlando, but everything here is "kid-friendly". Dammit. (One of the guys told me that he's staying at a Disney resort and it seems that the only TV channels he has are Disney. He actually heard a bastardization of the adage "Don't shit where you eat" on one of the shows - "Don't work where you food." What is this world coming to?) All family restaurants and the like. All of the bars are parts of restaurants... unless you go to Pleasure Island and want to spend at least $10 on cover charge. Of course, that's where we ended up last night. I've found some of the "cool kids" here at the conference. While having a smoke, I started talking to a guy named Scott from Edminton, Canada. He's got the same sick sense of humor as I do, and I saw him at every smoke break in between sessions. Since I had nothing planned for the evening, we decided to hit a couple of bars to celebrate my certification.

We definitely celebrated. We headed to the Lone Star steakhouse near the hotel for dinner before drinking. The only mistake of the evening. The food was crappy and the steak was overdone and dry as a bone. Since I was already a few beers into it and had eaten a bit of the appetizer, I didn't bother sending it back. His was worse - still overdone but greasy as heck. We decided we needed to get out of the place. We headed over to the other restaurant/bar near the hotel, Bahama Breeze. They have an outdoor deck, so we figured it would be a good place to drink. We also inquired about other bars, but the cabbie said that there was nothing around so we'd have to go into Orlando. The cab fares are outrageous here, so Bahama Breeze it was!

We get settled in and the drinks are flowing. I got a call for a dial-a-shot from Al, and Scott thought the concept was funny but drank his shot all the same. He ordered a different shot - one that I'd never heard of but something he gets in Canada all the time. The bartender made it wrong, so of course he had to try again and we got another free shot out of the deal.

This is where the night gets interesting. A guy sits down next to me at the bar - not an uncommon occurrance. He's wearing a polo with the Sun logo embroidered on it. We're at an HP conference, so we start picking at him about drinking with the enemy. He's a fun guy and we have several more drinks with him (which he paid for at least one or two). He remarks that the scene was kind of dead (which it was), and we agree but tell him we don't have a car to go anywhere else. He says he has a car, but if we'd like to go to Pleasure Island, he'd pay for the cab ride. Score!

At Pleasure Island, we found out about the exorbitant covers for the club - $10 for one club, $30 for a club hopper pass. We just wanted the one bar with a band, so we chose the singe - which Sun guy paid for also. We head in, and Sun guy starts a tab - tells us that his company will pay for all the drinks. Score again! We proceed to have several more drinks, and I made each of the guys dance with me several times - which was like pulling teeth since neither likes to dance, but I was not to be denied.

At one point, we're standing around the bar and discussion gets around to Sun's Solaris product. I open my big mouth and tell him all the things I think are wrong with the O/S. He smiles at me and asks me what I think he does - I'm thinking sales since he gets the company to pay for stuff. He said that he was a tekkie and would bring the suggestions back. Of course, I find out the next day from Scott that Sun guy (according to him) was the lead tech in the development of Solaris' kernel and was the one who wrote all of this. Oops! Put my foot right in my big mouth! He didn't seem to be offended though, and I escaped unscathed.

The bar closed at 2, and we get kicked out. The arcade next to the bar was still open, and we head in for a couple of games of car racing. I lost the first race against Scott, but I won the race against both of the guys - and I was driving stick while the guys were using automatics! Shame on them...

The night ended shortly after, and I crashed. I woke up in the morning with an Al-sized headache, but a couple of aspirin and some water fixed me right up. I got dressed and headed to the conference (after missing my two morning sessions). I didn't realize my next session wasn't until 3:30, so I'm sitting on the outside patio enjoying the warm Orlando weather and writing this. Even with the slight hangover, it's still a better day than being at work!

I'll be doing some shopping later on tonight or tomorrow. They've got an awesome outlet mall within walking distance. One of the guys on the shuttle saw the Polo logo on my t-shirt and started telling me about the stuff he got. They have t-shirts 3/$10 and all kinds of awesome deals. I just can't help myself.

I've also dropped the "business" part of the business casual dress code. Plenty of people were wearing jeans on day one, so of course I have to. It seems to be the trend - everyone's moving to jeans. If I'd only known, I wouldn't have needed to buy the two pair of khakis. Next time, I'm only buying one for the first day!

Hello from Orlando!

I'm sitting here in a hands-on lab for system troubleshooting practices. Seems that they've planned it well since the system wasn't prepared for the lab and we're troubleshooting the problems with it. Cable problem. Stuff not set up. Kind of fun - more than I'd probably learn from the lab otherwise. The purpose of this lab is to teach you the process of troubleshooting, not the tools to troubleshoot with. Why did I sign up for this? I was in support for 4 years and know how to troubleshoot. I was the one who told him that he probably had a problem with the cable - and dammit, I was right! Oh well. He also told us how to access the internet while the systems being fixed up. So, here I am!

Orlando has been ok so far. Yesterday was a bit hellish though. Silly me, I offered to be bumped from my flight so I could get a free ticket (thinking Vegas in December). The next flight was at 4 PM, so I would still be in by 6:30 PM and all set for the conference today. Ha ha - what was I thinking. The first flight went out on time, but my new flight was delayed almost an hour. They were able to make time up on the way, but I was afraid that the shuttle to the hotel would stop running since it was only scheduled to run until 7 PM. Luckily, they extended it and I got to the hotel.

Now, if that was only the hotel I had reservations at, it would have been much better. :-) It seems that there are two Courtyard Marriotts at Lake Buena Vista, and I was booked at the other one about 5 miles away. Great. It might as well have been 500 miles away since I didn't have a rental car and the conference shuttle didn't run to that hotel. The desk guy was great and got my reservations cancelled at the other hotel, then made new ones at their site. I made sure to send my boss an email and let him know it was going to be $30 more a night. Hey - I tried to follow company policy and look where it got me. Damn corporate travel agents.

After an awesome dinner of cajun shimp pasta (yum yum!), I crashed. (Actually, I tried to get onto Full Tilt, but their "high speed" internet access sucks. It was timing out trying to find websites like google and aol.) I figured that since I actually had to look presentable today, I had to get up early. Like an hour before my usual time. I actually IRONED MY CLOTHES today! I thought hell was going to freeze over with that one. My clothes didn't have any burn marks, so I was happy.

I get to the conference by 8:15 AM (after the continental breakfast at the hotel) and start with the meetings. Yawn, for the most part. I've learned some cool things for work, and I definitely have plans running through my brain. After a pretty good lunch (lots of veggies and roast pork tenderloin), I've ended up here. Drinking my Diet Pepsis (for caffeine to stay awake) and messing around on the internet. Of course, I thought of you, my dear reader. (Yeah, I know there's only one of you out there, and I appreciate it Al, but I already married you.)

More to come, I'm sure. I don't plan on doing much tonight except study. I have a 3 hour span tomorrow where I should be able to take my certification test. Wish me luck - I need to pass this! (If not, I'll be spending my own money to take it again on Thursday. I need that money for Vegas!) Yeah, that, and there aren't many cool people here to hang out with. I'm surrounded by Geeks! Usually that's not a bad thing, but I haven't found the cool ones yet. I'm going to keep looking...

Power Tools and Packing Up

I've never been known to be the most graceful woman on earth. I mean, I don't fall over my own feet when I walk, but I've had plenty of injuries in the past. Messed up my right knee roller skating and finished it (along with my ankles) off with 3 years of high school volleyball. Many sets of stitches. Sprained wrist when I hit a deer with my car. Car accidents in July or August of 3 consecutive years. I'm past that now... I've come a long way since the days when I gave myself a black eye in batting practice for softball.

So, why does my husband turn 3 shades of pale when I tell him I was working with a power saw earlier that day? He visibly cringes when I start talking about how I was putting up tyvek lining on the side of a house - two stories up near the roof. Our company support the United Way and allows us to take work days to help out the local communities. I volunteered to help repair a 95 year old woman's house. It needed lots of work, and including replacing a toilet and residing part of the house. I like doing physical work - my job has me sitting on my butt most of the day. I'm actually pretty good doing that type of stuff. I'm a little sore, but it's that good type of sore that lets you know you accomplished something. Otherwise, I'm completely unhurt.

He'd better get used to me using power tools. We close on our house in 12 days. Twelve whole days, and I have all kinds of plans for the house. Installing ceiling fans and new light fixtures. Repainting several rooms. Finishing the basement. I'm going to have to be up on ladders doing work. I'll be helping cut and put up drywall, along with building a set of cabinets in the basement. I'm looking forward to it. Not the actual moving, but having a place of our own will be so worth it!

The next couple of weeks will be a blur. I leave tomorrow for a week in Orlando for a conference. I have an HP-UX certification test or two to take while I'm there. I get back on Friday and have to prep for updating 4 servers on Sunday. Back to work for 3 days, then close on the house Thursday. Four days of painting and installing fixtures, split with another Sunday of updating servers. Getting the new appliances delivered on Monday. Moving in and getting things put away. (If anyone living close is good at painting, I pay in beer and good food. I'd love the help!) :-)

Poker will be limited for the foreseeable future. I'm looking forward to the blogger tourney on the 23rd. It will be good to play against everyone again. Vegas is still up in the air. By that time, I'm sure I'll need the vacation. Until then, I'll be doing everything I can to keep my sanity. What little I have left...

No poker for you!

I haven't had 10 minutes to play poker since the weekend. I had to go shopping for business casual clothes for my conference next week, and I had a date last night. Yes, the married woman had a date. Before anyone starts to think that I'm crazy, it was a friend that I used to work with and was in my wedding. We've stayed really good friends over the years... and besides, I'm lacking a lot of what he's looking for in a relationship (like a penis). We had a great time, and I got to hang out with my old team. I'm just a little tired today.

After dinner last night, a bunch of us went to another bar to hang out and relax. Of course, the topic always turns to stories of the old times when we were young and stupid. (Now, we're just old and stupid.) We began to reminisce about my time working with them, and my "going away" party was brought up. My date was highly amused because the last shot of Yukon Jack he bought me that night was the one that sent me over the edge and puking on an hour ride home. I got a little payback in last night though. When I went to order another round, I made sure that he got a shot of Yukon Jack, just for old times' sake. I owe him so many more of those...

Tonight is dedicated to the mortgage. Ick. Finishing up the paperwork and working with the mortgage broker to get the final pieces done. I know very little about mortgages, so she's been walking me through every step of the way. She's explained a lot to me about all the different kinds of mortgages there are, but I have a few more questions to clear up before we put the pens to paper. That should be done tonight, and it's one more item off my checklist.

I can't wait until the next 3 weeks are over. The conference and my certification test will be done, the house will be ours, and I can finally relax. Sort of. I'll still be moving stuff in and decorating and the like. I want to get a bunch of painting done the first weekend we move in, but Al thinks I'm crazy. I know that since it's a new construction that there will be nail pops and patching that will need to be done, but I don't think I could live in an all-white painted house for a year. I'll repaint sections as necessary, but I need to make this place mine. Oh yeah, and Al's too. The guys are already working on the plans for the poker tables. He has his priorities and I have mine...

The Weekend in Poker

...for me. Unlucky as hell, at least in the beginning. I'm sure I could've played my hands a little stronger, but I was getting slapped left and right by the deck and not in a good way. The first time my pocket As got cracked by pocket 3s, I figured that those things would happen. The guy caught trips on an otherwise harmless flop and I fell right into it. When I got another set of pocket As 20 minutes later, I got really annoyed when I put QJ all-in after the Q-high flop...and the J came on the river. Not much long after, my beautiful pocket As ran up against J9o, which held in for a gutshot straight on the turn. I don't slow play my As. I've seen them cracked when you try to sucker in as many people as possible. I usually only had one or two callers pre-flop. It seemed that it was enough. I hadn't even thought to keep track of the other bad beats.

That was yesterday. Today would be different, right? Wrong. It started with pocket Qs losing to KQo on an all low flop. The guy made a small bet, and I pushed all in. He calls... next card is that king. Another pair of pocket As - J high flop, he bets, I push all in... and yeah, it was the river that brought the K this time. I was ready to give up right there...

...then I thought about it. My cards were the best when I got all of my money in (except for those damned 3s). I played really well otherwise. I was thinking I could've raised more pre-flop, but I'm not going to get anywhere taking just a quarter or two. I want one person to call, two if I'm feeling bold.

So I keep playing, and this hand happens - which reminds why I play on these tables. [I'm not just posting a hand history I promise - but you have to see how it went to understand why I love this place so much.] BTW - the comments make more sense if you know that my icon is a cat (which just happens to look exactly like mine).

Seat 6: stop_six ($24.15)
Seat 8: MrsCantHang ($12.80)
MrsCantHang posts the small blind of $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to MrsCantHang [Qd Ac]
stop_six raises to $0.60
MrsCantHang calls $0.50
*** FLOP *** [Qh 9c Qc]
MrsCantHang checks
stop_six bets $1
MrsCantHang raises to $2
stop_six raises to $3
MrsCantHang raises to $4
stop_six calls $1
*** TURN *** [Qh 9c Qc] [6s]
MrsCantHang bets $8.20, and is all in
stop_six calls $8.20
MrsCantHang shows [Qd Ac]
stop_six shows [9s Td]
*** RIVER *** [Qh 9c Qc 6s] [Qs]
MrsCantHang shows four of a kind, Queens
stop_six shows a full house, Queens full of Nines
MrsCantHang wins the pot ($24.60) with four of a kind, Queens

DxMagneto: lol nh
MrsCantHang: thx
stop_six: the big blind flops quads, wow.
DxMagneto: small blind
MrsCantHang: I was staying in w/the AQ anyways, but....
DxMagneto: beautifully played kitty
stop_six: beautifully played?
stop_six: how the !&!$ hard is it to play that
DxMagneto: she made u call all in
stop_six: ..I would've called if you had gone all in initally
DxMagneto: dont be mad puppy, cats rule!
stop_six: man these low limits are annoying

I mean really... does anyone else think T9o is such an awesome hand? I know most people would have raised in that situation, but I wanted to hide the strength of my hand a little bit and make some money on the hand instead of having everyone fold. Plus, he raised for me... let the dumb man do all the work! :-)

The comments were what really made me realize why I still play. There are people like that out there that will call all-ins with crap. I stayed around and ended up tripling up a couple of times, which made back everything I lost plus quite a bit more.

Now, if this would only happen at the higher stakes, I'd be all set!

I suck

And not in the "good way" either. I didn't get drunk last night, I'm not hung over this morning, and I suck at bowling.

It started out pretty good. I'd only subbed one other time for this league, and my average from that night was a 154. Pretty good for a chick, huh? Last night started out good. First game was a 163 and we beat the other team by 10 pins, even though one of the other guys had 6 strikes in a row and bowled 100 pins over his average. Second game wasn't so good - 129. Everyone has a bad game, and usually it's the middle one for me. Third game, I'm lucky I could find the lane, much less the pins! I swear, they kept jumping out of the way whenever I tried to hit them. I'm ashamed to admit, I didn't even break 100. Heck, I didn't break 90. My lowly 88 was the reason we lost the third game and total pins. So it was declared that I suck, and not in the good way.

I did drink, but I was oncall for work and had to be prepared in case I got called. Now that I no longer have any backup, I actually have to start staying sober for work. Dammit! At least it's Friday. I'll be oncall until Monday, so I'm prepared for a very rainy and very sober weekend in the house.

I guess I should start packing anyways. We finally have a settlement date for the townhouse we signed for in April of 2004. The basement will become the party room, complete with poker tables! That will be fun to set up...

Just 3 more weeks to settlement. Then I'm going to have to start making money at poker to pay for my drinking habits. I need a crash course! :-)

The site was down, I swear....

I was planning on posting last night after work, but they took the site down for maintenance. I know I've been slacking off on the writing, but it really wasn't my fault yesterday...

On Wednesdays, I always write about the freeroll the night before. This Tuesday, I can honestly say I felt good about my play. I think it was better than it had been in a long time. I was steadily building my stack. We had a guy on the table who'd been drinking and was uber-aggressive... kind of like Lewey on a bender, but I've played with Lewey before and I can read him a little better. Drunk guy took out one guy, then someone else took out Landow and drunk guy took out him! He was big stack, but I was still above average pretty high up on the food chain for our table. Then, they broke up another table and we ended up with 4 new additions. We played for a while, and I ended up losing some chips when my best hand went to worst with the turn of a few cards.

The new additions included a guy who was pretty easy to read. Whenever he had a middle to low pair, he'd overbet to take the pot. He happened to do that while I held AQs. Blinds were 4/8 getting ready to go up and I needed to make a move. I knew he had a middle pair - I called. It turned out to be pocket 10s. It was a classic race. I flopped a jack, but there were 3 hearts on the board. Of course, I was suited in diamonds. The turn brought another heart and I was done - one of his tens were hearts. I still think I made the right call, which is a change since I usually beat myself up over how I go out. Since I was out, I sat and talked to the woman I was sitting next to.

Her and her boyfriend have been coming to the Boathouse for as long as they've had the freeroll. They are the nicest people! (Her boyfriend is the one who I will get out of the pot when he reraises since I know he doesn't bluff that often. He's a rock!) We started talking about various things - the house coming up, painting, decorating and the like. A comment was made about someone who works at the BH, and she whispers that she used to work there. I was shocked! Knowing the soap opera drama that occurs between the staff in that place, I couldn't imagine. She only worked there for a short time, and the drama was the reason why she couldn't stay. We talked about a whole lot more, but it was a private conversation and I found out a whole bunch of things that I didn't know before. What a small world!

Well damn, this has got to be some of the worst drivel I've written in a while. I don't even know if I had a point to the whole story... See, this is what happens when you try to write documentation at work then try to write something for pleasure. Documentation turns your brain to mush!

I'm going bowling with Danielle tonight. I'll be hungover tomorrow. It's a given. I just hope to be home by 1 AM. Don't expect much from me tomorrow either....

Bash at the Boat 6 dawns bright and early

Since everyone has read much better writeups about this than I could ever do, I'll (try to) make this the quick version....

Picked up Otis at the airport at noon, after getting stuck in construction traffic that made me late. Since we had time to kill before BadBlood's flight came in, we went for lunch. Yup, cheesesteaks. Two days in a row. Awesome food - brought some back for the others. While finishing up lunch, we get a call from BadBlood saying that his flight was already in. Awesome! We head back to the airport, and after a couple of mistakes, we find him and toss him in the truck.

At this point, we head straight to the Boathouse. I've already gotten calls from a few people for directions, questions, and the like. We get there just as the general manager is arriving, around 2 PM. Joaquin and his friends are already waiting for us. I get the gm Matt to let us hang out on the deck before they open, and we get the tables and chairs prepped in thanks. Others began pouring in - Jason Spaceman and his lovely wife, Carter, Helixx, F-train and Stephanie, Al and Landow, Pauly, Derek, StB, Bobby Bracelet. Of course, this meant that there was enough for 2 tables of cards, not just one. One limit HORSE table, one NLHE table. While everyone was otherwise occupied, I snuck off to get ready for the evening.

I get back, and cards are still going fast and furious. I begin drinking. The magician got there, and asked that I help him out during his fundraising for the evening. BigMike was paying him to be there to raise money, but he thought that my presence gave him more credibility. He came over to the blogger tables first, and he was a hit! Amazing tricks. Joaquin performed a trick of his own - he made over 20 roosters appear.... by dropping his pants to reveal rooster-covered boxers! I have to rat out Joaquin, because I know I did much worse by the end of the night....

The whole time I'm escorting the magician, I'm greeting friends and accepting beers. I must have had 6 or 7 in the 3 hours that I was working with the magician. I was feeling no pain by this point. I was talking to the lead singer Jake of Petey and the Band Campers when I found out he had Mardi Gras beads. They were going to hold a contest - the woman with the most beads would get her bar tab paid. I already knew mine was paid, but it didn't keep me from trying to win anyways. I can only imagine how many times I flashed people that night... and I'm still hearing stories of random acts that I can't even begin to remember.

Here's what I do remember -
* Sending shots of petron tequila to the end of the bar where F-train and Otis (?) were, asking Terri to tell them I'd be right there, and walking over to find that they'd already done the shots! Party foul...
* Dancing with Jake and having him give me several strands of beads - just for the dance!
* Telling the bartender Terri that we wanted red-headed sluts (shots), just not the one that was hanging out with Bobby Bracelet's conquest of the evening.
* Having a chugging contest with Otis... water chugging. :-)

Being a hostess, I saw that Otis was looking a little rough and might need a nudge in the right direction. Honestly, I was more worried he'd try to recreate a "Running of the Lewey" and kill himself in the process. How could I ever explain that to Mrs. Otis? We took turns keeping him away from the gate to the hill, and I started thumbwrestling people. Why? I don't know. Drunk muscles? Whatever... :-) it was fun, but I don't have much recollection of who I competed against and how I did. If someone can only tell me...

Fast forward - end of party. Ugly lights. Ugly bar tab. Final cleanups. I think I actually won the bead contest, but Carter took my beads. I don't know if anyone thought about counting at that point. Making sure everyone got back to the hotel. I know I got back there... but I don't remember the drive so much. BigMike was my hero and ran to Wawa (local convenience store) for water! It was the only thing that saved me the next day.

Next day - brought StB and Otis for their flights - at some ungodly hour - 7 AM or something? Way too early to be up after the night we'd had. I threatened to make them walk if they did this next year. :-) Came back, and we all headed to the BH for football. Another trip to get BadBlood to his plane and went back for more football. StB had won the gift certificate for dinner at Hibachi, and he generously slipped it to me before he left on Saturday. (Thanks!) Since we had the free food and Bobby Bracelet (and I) wasn't up for much drinking, we went and grabbed dinner instead. Great dinner, and off to bed to pass out.

Bobby had an early flight, so I saw him again at 5:30 AM the next morning. Again, more threatening about early flights. Shipped him off and started work early.

It's been a week now, and I think my body is still recovering. My memory has lots of holes, but I have friends who are taking great pleasure in filling those in for me. The fun part is that we're already starting to plan next year's party!

One of the cool kids

Of course I had to do what all the cool kids were doing... just a little later than everyone else.

I'm signed up for the blogger tourney over at Pokerstars. Just another one of the awesome perks from having a blog!

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 7893058