Can't sleep, and an entry's long overdue. Part of my journal neglect was due to a bug that led any entry mentioning 'c_a_s_i_n_o' or 'p_o_k_e_r' to crash. I still don't know how to fully remedy it, so as a temporary fix, I'll be using the terms c-place and p-game.

Randy Newman Loves It
In my last entry, I neglected to mention a trip I took to Los Angeles in late January. Saying LA might be misleading though. In fact, I spent most of my time in Commerce C-place (a really classy card room). Back in December of last year, I signed on for mentoring with a high-stakes p-game player named Steve who I'd met through FCP. I felt like I'd done a lot for my p-game education, and that seemed to be the next logical step. His group now includes roughly a dozen students of various skill and experience levels. The trip was mostly to meet those guys in person, and I quite enjoyed it. It's definitely a fun group. During that trip, I also took a shot at my biggest game up until that point (5/10 NLHE) and did well. On to where I left off...

Biloxious
I made it down to Biloxi, but unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to visit Jordan. I'm still planning to do that at some point... and feel guilty for having not. I was quite impressed with the Beau Rivage and some of the repair efforts that have happened since Katrina. Sadly, the area still hasn't fully recovered though. You can drive for miles along the beach without much in the way of buildings. In some senses, that's actually an appealing feature. The sandy beaches are somewhat rebuilt, but they're not overgrown with tourism - condos and tacky shops. On the other hand, there's a pronounced lack of dining with a view. Wanting to avoid the "timeless" c-place restaurants, my dad and I searched for food along the coast. We finally stumbled upon a Waffle House - likely the only Waffle House in the country with an unobstructed view of the ocean.

Huntingtonsvilletown
Post-Gulf, I headed north for David W's wedding celebration. The bachelor party was at an indoor karting place. I really like go-karts, and I consider myself pretty proficient at both video game karting and live karting. Therefore, I was quite disappointed with my poor showing. I probably need to learn to use brakes when they're as high-powered as these things were.

The night before the wedding in Huntsville, we had the rehearsal dinner. David's parents put together a rather impressive multimedia presentation... sharing lots stories and photos. Bekah's mom made one of the funniest/awkwardest pronouncements I've ever heard. It was something along the lines of: "We hope we can come to love you as much as Bekah apparently does." Needless to say, she wasn't very approving of the wedding. I was one of the groomsmen in the ceremony along with Jordan, David A, Seth, and Jim. I had a great time catching up with those guys.

Las Vegan
After David's wedding, I set out across the country to Las Vegas. My wording there suggests a more eventful journey than the mere several hour flight that I took. Perhaps I'm coloring it by the length of the stay as opposed to the arduousness of the travel.

As I mentioned before, I rented a condo for June with several guys that I knew from FCP (but that I had not met in person): Mikey, Ahson, and Zach. The people renting the condo picked me up from the airport and took me to our plush accomodations several miles south of the Strip. I'll try to post some pictures. Since I was the first to arrive, I took the master of the two bedrooms. Mikey got the second bedroom when he arrived the next day. Ahson ended up staying on an aerobed in my closet (which was quite large), and Zach crashed on the couch for most of the visit. We were quite a multicultural group. Mikey's from California and his family's Korean. Ahson's from Montreal and his family's Pakistani. And Zach's from Ontario. It was a little like going to summer camp without counselors or rules. All of us play p-game, so we spent a lot of time discussing it by the pool or playing along the Strip. During one of our late nights, we ended up discovering Dominos (which Ahson referred to as Dos... think 'dohs'). I'm happy to report that Team USA soundly thumped Team Canada most of the time.

While I spent most of my trip last year at Caesar's, I ended up playing mostly at the Venetian and Bellagio during this one. I spent some time at the Rio (site of the WSOP) also, but I'm less "starstruck" after Reno, and my bankroll didn't really support playing more than an event and a satellite. As for my results, I actually did decently at first, but ended up plunging into a huge hole for June (that I somehow recovered from for a small profit overall in the last few days). The most fun games that I played were dealer's choice home games... I did pretty well in each of those and consistently picked Crazy Pineapple, which I don't get to play very often.

Dustin, Ahson, Mark, Ray, me, Josh, Teddy, and Jeet

For extracurricular activities we mostly met up with other FCPers and went to eat. I ended up having Korean and Vietnamese food for the first time while I was out there. One evening, Mikey, a friend of his, and I went to an "up-scale hip-hop" club at Caesar's. Cover, a "VIP table", and a bottle of rum ended up costing like $150 for each of us... which is a tad expensive. It led to some funniness though. The VIP area was "roped off" with a bouncer. Lacking inhibitions, I brought over a few girls to sit/talk with us. As I was following them into the section, the bouncer leaned over and notified me to let him know when we "got sick of them" and he'd be happy to "get them out". A couple of nights, we headed over to a huge bowling alley and split up into teams. I consistently bowled way over (150's) my average (130) the first few games of the first night, so I felt pretty awful when I flushed the last game (90) for my team. Fortunately, my team did much better on the second go-around.

Overall, I enjoyed meeting a bunch of friends in person, and I'm looking forward to something similar next year. After three visits this year and the one last year, I'm starting to feel like I "know" the city... even moreso than Atlanta at this point.

To close out the poker section, I've really scaled back on my play in recent months. Since I've got a job now, I'm no longer relying on it to pay bills. I've played a few more times briefly in person - going to Vegas twice more (on business) and Biloxi once. July and August ended up being pretty poor results-wise, while September was actually my best month ever (I had my biggest tournament cash in the biggest online tournament ever).

Blowing Stuff Up
I returned east at the beginning of July and headed to Chattanooga for the requisite 4th of July celebration. Some of the Birmingham crew came up for a visit again, so that was nice. I also finally met Haley (one of my mom's students). We ended up playing Bocce for the first time. It's funny how much enjoyment we get out of simple backyard games. I was quite pleased by the smoothness of the fireworks this year, though we did have one flip and explode rather close to the spectators. Fortunately, no one was hurt. =)

Occupational/Habitual Improvements
Since then, I've mostly been back in Auburn with occasional side trips for business. I'm not directly working for A-company as I'd thought, but I still have a large interest in it. I'm pretty sure I've informed most of you. (I can't help sharing with most everyone.) That said, I'll elaborate a little. A-company sells a product that's a "fertilizer", though the wordy way to say it is "plant growth enhancer". Basically, it causes plants to grow faster/bigger/better... in a scale unlike anything in the past. The ramifications of this are pretty incredible. We're hoping to make ethanol viable, clean up the atmosphere, and end world hunger. My job with GBC primarily involves the last two goals. Yeah... I'm in the world-saving business. Very exciting stuff. I'll probably talk more about it when we get the website up.

Other than all that, I've been keeping busy with self-improvement by learning to speak Japanese and play the piano. I've had both as long-term goals for a while now, so I'm pleased to actually be actively pursuing them. I think I know about 25 Japanese phrases at this point that I've learned via podcast. I'm taking weekly lessons for the piano and learning via the "chord" method. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to play some Ben Folds songs (particularly "The Luckiest").

These bulky "update" entries keep me from sharing much in the way of insights/reflections, so hopefully I can get around to some of that soon. Oh, and I've still got a bit more in the way of pending "updates" concerning the Bham crew visiting Auburn and my cousin's wedding.

Actually, I'll leave you with this reflection: one can "unravel"; how come no one ever "ravels"?