Surfergeeks

I know! You’re all saying “What the fuck?!?!?! New pics?!?!? Already??!?!? Is he sick????”

Nay. Nikki & I took Alex to Springbank last week when the weather was fucking awesome! We took these pics while we there.

Well, last night was our regular monthly game. It was the smallest tournout we’ve had yet: 10 people. It’s a shame really, there were over 20 people that expressed interest and we ended up with 10. Some people had good reasons: ill, wedding, etc. but then others just never bothered to reply. That sucks. So anyway, the folks last night were Nikki & I (obviously), Jason, Jen & Mike, Jeff M, Jeff O, Mike H, Liz, and the one-and-only Donkey Boy (aka Mooney). Format was the same as last week. We decided that we’d go down to one table at 6 players. Technically, we could have started at one table, but then it would have been a unnecessarily crowded table. Top 3 places paid out. Our final table was formed when, at table 2, Nikki and Liz are all-in against Jeff M’s bigger stack. Nikki caught and sent Liz to the rail and doubled-up off of Jeff, sorta crippling him a bit and giving her overall chip lead. The final table was made up of Nikki, Jeff M, and Jen from table 2 and Jason, Mike C, and myself from table 1. The four bounced players started a twoonie game at the other table. Jason & Jeff were the first two to go out at the final table. Jen fell next, making the final three Mike, Nikki, and me. I went next. At this point I started dealing for Nikki & Mike. They finally ended up all-in together and Nikki was the victor, taking down the tourney.

Since it was such a small tournout, the game went fairly quickly so we decided that the remaining people would do a $5 buyin as soon as the other table’s twoonie game was done. It ended quickly after we badgered everyone into going all-in. Liz won that one. So our short game ended up being: Jason, Liz, Nikki, Jeff M, myself, Donkey Boy. Since there was only $30 and 6 players, we decided that Top 2 would pay out. Liz was first to drop, followed by Jeff, then Nikki. She was horrendously card dead the entire game and ended up seriously short stacked. So we’re down to the final three: Donkey Boy, Jason & me. We finally sent Mooney to the rail after the best hand held up for once against him. That guy sucks out more that Monika Lewinsky sucked. Heads-Up. Jason & I. We go back and forth a bit until we end up all-in. Jason had cowboys and I had something that made up a straight draw. Let’s call it 9T. The board showed KQx. I needed a jack AND the board not to pair. I rivered the jack and doubled-up off of Jason, giving me a HUGE chip lead. It was only a matter of time at this point that I finally beat Jason, winning the small game. But it was a plain, simple suckout on that hand. Jason should have won right there with his set.

So it was a good night all around. I think everyone had a great time. We had a new player join us. And, best of all, Nikki and I finished in the money in the main game, first & third respectively, and I won the second game. Kinda makes up for the lack of either us making the money last month.

Next month’s game is May 27th. We’re hoping to have more than ten people at it.

The next poker night is May 27th. That’s the weekend AFTER the long weekend. If you’re interested in coming out, let me know!

Also, we’re thinking of doing our BBQ poker night July 1st. Get everyone together around 6pm for burgers/dogs/whatever and then sit down to play ’bout 8pm. Lemme know what y’all think!

I just uploaded a bunch of new pics. Look for about a dozen or so new shots of Alex, a few new ones in The Furries section as well as a photo-journal of part of our day-trip to Toronto last month.

EDIT: Pics are currently unavailable. Upgrading Gallery program. We know what happened last time I tried that. Fingers crossed. Will post again when pics are available.

EDIT #2: Pics are back online. As well – the sidebar over to the right on this page will now display arandom pic from the gallery. Some of those pics could be quite old…

R.I.P. – Gizmo (1998-2006)

My mom just let me know that her one ferret, Gizmo, died. We got him back in ’98 as a gift for me but he quickly became my mom’s ferret. He was an albino ferret and, as such, was stone deaf. He was incredibly funny to play with though. And, unlike most ferrets, he wasn’t a biter at all. Instead he would shower you with kisses.

The average age of a ferret is 6 or 7 years so he lived a full life. Silent, but full.

If you look over at the sidebar you’ll see a little ‘Add to Google’ button. This is to add the site to your Google Reader account. Very handy. If you don’t already have a Google Reader account, I highly recommend it.

As I write this, my desktop weather widget is telling me it’s 21° outside. For all you people that can’t quite grasp metric, that’s 70°. Not too bad for April. I took Alex outside today in his little car and sat it beside my car while I cleaned out the backseat, floor, and trunk. Then I moved him to the backyard while I did a bit of work back there moving and repositioning a downspout drain and one of the satellite dishes. Such a beautiful day out. I would have done more out there but Alex was starting to get a little cranky out there. I think he was bored.

We’re taking my car in on Monday to have a couple new tires put on it. I’m also going to get the muffler fixed and an oil change. While Nikki’s car is in a bit better shape than mine (no thanks to some asshat trying to break into my car last year and royally fucking up the driver’s door lock) it will be much, much easier to load Alex in and out of my backseat. We’re hoping that late fall/winter we’re going to trade both cars in on a new car. Fingers crossed. I’m itching to test drive the forthcoming Saturn Aura. I’ll also test drive the Saturn Relay while I’m there. We haven’t really decided which direction we want to go: sedan, SUV, or minivan. Each has it’s plusses and minuses. Here’s the list of what I’ve decided to test drive for CERTAIN: the above two Saturns, from Pontiac: G6, Montana minivan, and the Toyota Matrix. If I go the SUV route I’ll definitely testdrive the GMC Envoy/Chevy Trailblazer EXT. I don’t like the Saturn VUE so that one’s out. It’s a while off yet though, so we’ll see. What vehicles would any of you suggest I test drive??? I know that one of my visiter’s, Phronk, drives a SMART car and as much as I’d LOVE to have one of those, I just can’t see it be a very useful family car; especially considering the fortwo model only has two seats and no room for the kid…

In other news – I’ve created a separate blog for my poker exploits. BIG news will also be posted here, but if you want to bore yourself with the mundane poker shit head over to Robbie Robb’s Poker Blog. Bookmark it bitches!

Apparently, I am actually pretty good at tournaments. I decided to play a $2.20 today. And well, I ended up winning! Yes, I have now won another tournament. This one had a very nice payout as well. First place paid $528.76. Not bad for 5 1/2 hours of work. Click on thumbnail for a bigger image.

So I figured I’d give a $4.40 180-person SNG tourney at Pokerstars a try for the first time. In case you haven’t figured out from the title of the post, it didn’t go too well. Actually, it was going along VERY nicely until the hand below. Then it all came to crashing halt. I’ll point out the key parts below…

PokerStars Game #4549063440: Tournament #22663247, Hold’em No Limit – Level III (25/50) – 2006/04/07 – 10:33:57 (ET) Table ’22663247 4′ 9-max
Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Robbie Robb (3955 in chips)
Seat 2: Jackman (1280 in chips)
Seat 3: Gammon39 (4225 in chips)
Seat 4: SAL JAM (1220 in chips)
Seat 5: lucky 1991 (1810 in chips)
Seat 6: Kaloster (4545 in chips)
Seat 7: jimpepper (5100 in chips)
Seat 8: potman2 (1080 in chips)
Seat 9: Mikle (1870 in chips)
lucky 1991: posts small blind 25
Kaloster: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Robbie Robb [Ah Ac]

The absolute best starting hand in Hold ‘Em. The dream cards.

jimpepper: raises 200 to 250
potman2: folds
Mikle: raises 250 to 500
Robbie Robb: raises 3455 to 3955 and is all-in

I loved this. jimpepper makes a sizeable raise and then mikle follows it up with a reraise. I shoved all my chips in at this point for a couple reasons: 1) I had the BEST hand. There are none better. Worst case scenario one of the other two has AA as well. 2) I was hoping to chase one of them out of the pot. While AA is 88% to win heads-up, that number drops rather quickly when faced with more than one opponent.

Jackman: folds
Gammon39: folds
SAL JAM: folds
lucky 1991: folds
Kaloster: folds
jimpepper: calls 3705
Mikle: calls 1370 and is all-in

Okay, so they both call. I’m still in good shape. Because of the way Pokerstars does their hand histories, you’d have to scroll down to find out what cards they hold. To save you the trouble, I’ll print them here. jimpepper turns over KK and Mikle turns over QQ. As soon as I saw those, I figured I was dead. What are the odds that I’m going to duck both a king AND a queen in five cards? Read on…you’ll see…

*** FLOP *** [Kc Qd 9d]

See what I mean??? At this point the ONLY card that will help me is one of the last two aces.

*** TURN *** [Kc Qd 9d] [Jc]

This jack actually helps me a little bit. Now, in addition to the two aces, any ten will complete the straight and I rake in the pot. Six outs. Fingers are crossed.

*** RIVER *** [Kc Qd 9d Jc] [Ks]

Figures. That gives jimpepper quad kings and mikle the boat, queens full of kings. If you’re keeping track, both those hands beat me two pair, aces and kings. FUCK!

*** SHOW DOWN ***
jimpepper: shows [Kh Kd] (four of a kind, Kings) Robbie Robb: shows [Ah Ac] (two pair, Aces and Kings)
jimpepper said, “wow”
Kaloster said, “poker stars”
jimpepper collected 4170 from side pot
Mikle: shows [Qc Qh] (a full house, Queens full of Kings)
Robbie Robb said, “nice hand”
jimpepper collected 5685 from main pot

So that ended my first run at a $4.40. It wasn’t bad play, just horrible luck in that instance. I like the way I played that game and even this hand – I got my money in when I had the best hand. That’s all you can do sometimes.

I was sitting in the living room today while Nikki was back in the baby’s room getting him ready to go out shopping. All I hear over the monitor is “You have big feet Alex. You have big feet!” And I think, “Atta boy….”