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7.30.2006
Even money
Approximately five hours into the day and Josh is on a break with $10,400 in chips, which is 4% more than he started with. Though not a front-runner (the day's leaders are at $23,000), he's outlasted several big names, including Phil Hellmuth, my least favorite poker player of all time. Yay, Josh!
7.29.2006
W&P
Just about every hotel I've ever stayed in has had a "conservation" program whereby if you hang your towels, they'll skip washing them. Yesterday I noticed that even though we had hung our towels, they got changed out. Then today we were in the room when housekeeping came by, and even though we had not signalled we wanted a change of sheets by placing the "change the sheets" placard on the bed, she changed the sheets. One would think that a hotel in the middle of the desert would be a little more concerned with water conservation.
I also wonder how much this city's temperature is increased by A/C exhaust. I certainly would not be here if there was no A/C, but the amount of energy used and heat exhaused is boggling.
7.28.2006
My first minibar, and a shoulder-rub from Elvis
It's Friday, and we're all settled in here at the Rio. It's a pretty nice room. The square footage is probably competitive with our condo. They call it a suite, but it's really one big room with a separate dressing/bathroom area. As mentioned in the post title, it has a mini-bar. The best thing about it, though, is the bed, which is really comfy. I'm getting sleepy just thinking about it. It surprised me, because the last time we stayed in a "nice" hotel (Blue Harbor) I hated the bed. I'll post some pictures (not just of the bed--of the room, the hotel, the city) eventually, but I didn't remember to pack the USB cable to connect the camera to the computer, so it'll have to wait until after we're home.
Yesterday Josh found out he will be playing day 1-C, which is Sunday. Which means that today and tomorrow are ours to do with as we like. Today was--sleep, eat, more sleep, get completely wiped out by walking to the gas station across the street in 105 degree weather, rest but not sleep, eat. Josh actually spent some time in the poker room, and now he's off taking the bus to a grocery store (I wanted to go with him, but after my poor reaction to this afternoon's trip to the gas station, he insisted I stay behind). Tomorrow Josh wants to spend more time doing the poker thing, starting with a tutorial from Interpoker's pros, Robert Varkonyi and Kathy Leibert.
We met Robert, Kathy and Juha Helppi at the Crypto network's private welcome soiree. In fact, I was talking to Robert's "entourage" (read: the friend who came with to hold head-shots and fetch booze) when the party's Elvis impersonator came up to me and started rubbing my shoulders. I tried not to go all Angela Merkel on him, but he was kind of creepy.
So, two days into our trip, and we haven't gambled, and we haven't been to a show, or even another casino. There are a few shows I could see--Lewis Black, Rita Rudner, Gipsy Kings, Penn and Teller, a couple of the 6 Cirque de Soleil shows that are currently in town--but at $50-$80 a ticket, it certainly makes me think twice. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if Josh and I can afford to feed ourselves for 15 days in Las Vegas. Tonight we ate at the Indian restaurant in our hotel: we had a coupon and we ate vegetarian and we still ended up shelling out nearly $60. Breakfast at the buffet was $20 after the coupon (which is why Josh is on a trip to the grocery store for cereal and bread).
Hopefully the next time I write (which may be a while since it's $10 for 24 hours of internet) I will have seen much more of Vegas and have more to report.
7.24.2006
Not what I expected
This gladiolus is pretty, but was not supposed to be pink. This is a picture of the package that the bulbs came in:
See how the flowers are deep orange, and not frilly, a lot like freesia flowers? That is why I bought this particular variety. Instead, I got frilly, and bicolor, and pink.
There is a "guarantee" on the package, that states if I'm not happy, I can return the packaging for a refund. Well, I'm not happy, but getting sent a check for $2.99 would trivialize my pain.
7.19.2006
Variation on a theme
I've always thought that Americans are unique in their robust sense of entitlement (with perhaps the exception of the French--have you seen their labor laws?). That Americans are the world's leaders in thinking that they are due certain things simply by being born, or, by being born in this country.
Consider New Orleans. A city built below sea level gets flooded, and the people feel they are entitled to rebuild--and that the rest of us should pay for it, to the tune of $250,000 per capita.
The Daily Show this week provided a less caustic example: some guy moved his family to the Castro District--"the gayest street in the gayest city in the country"--and is now complaining about his children being exposed to gay shops and parades. He feels entitled to a nice, quiet, gay-free life, no matter how his own decisions work against that end.
When I heard that Americans were complaining that the government wasn't moving fast enough to evacuate them from Lebanon, I wasn't surprised. Apparently it doesn't occur to them that if they got there of their own volition and planning, they should be responsible for getting themselves out. The government did step up to help, sending helicopters and ships to get Americans out, as the airport has been one of the main Israeli targets. But then the evacuees complained that the government was asking them to pledge to make reimbursement.
As I said, I expect this from Americans. But then I was listening to the CBC and heard Canadians complaining about the same thing.
Of all U.S. cultural exports, shirking of personal responsibility and an exaggerated sense of entitlement must be the most insideous. Pretty soon the Canadians will think they're entitled to guns, litigation and 2.5% of the world's energy (the same per-capita as the U.S).
7.17.2006
Two weeks in Vegas
After nearly a year of trying, Josh has won entry to a major poker tournament, and not just any tournament, but the WSOP Main Event.
For the uninitiated, the WSOP ( World Series of Poker) is a two-month "open" tournament series held in Las Vegas each year. There are lots of different tournaments, some for different kinds of poker (like stud and omaha) and some for special groups (like women or the hotel employees). The big draw, though, is the Main Event. It's a no-limit hold 'em tournament with a $10,000 buy-in. This year they're expecting 8000 entrants. The winner should take home a prize in the neighborhood of $10 million. (The purse is not pre-determined. They take all the entry money--$80 million for 8000 players--and, after the casino takes its 6% cut, divvy it among the top players.)
Josh won his seat playing a freeroll "ladder" at Interpoker. Basically ladders are like brackets: you win, you move on to the next level. The thing with ladders, though, is that you can usually enter on any "rung," as long as you're willing to pony up the cash. So if the ladder is $10-$100-$500-$1000, you can pay $10 to enter on the bottom rung, or $500 and jump right to the third rung. The ladder Josh won was a "freeroll," which means that the bottom rung is $0. Plus, it was an "invitational"--only players specifically invited by the site were allowed to play.
After Interpoker pays the $10,000 entry fee, the $3000 for our 15-night stay at the Rio, and a $2000 travel stipend, the package is worth $15,000. Not bad for 3-4 hours' work.
Josh is understandably thrilled. Me, I'm trying to be a realist without being a wet blanket. The chance that Josh places "in the money" is small. They'll give prizes to the top 100 or so, which means Josh would have to beat 7900 or so other players. I just don't see it happening. Especially since Josh doesn't normally like to play no-limit (in fact, the blind structure makes this perhaps his worst kind of game) and he hasn't sat at a live table for about a year.
Josh keeps telling me that we'll look at it as just a vacation. He's said he'll be happy to make it through day one, but I know he's hoping for more. And why not? There's no harm in hoping, is there?
In his book, Learned Optimism, Martin E. Seligman says that optimists live longer, are sick less, and have more successful careers. Too bad for me that I'm a confirmed pessimist (which is the reason I own a book titled Learned Optimism). It's even worse for my husband, because my pessimism makes it impossible for me to celebrate his success with unmitigated happiness.
7.14.2006
All grown up
I'm 31 years old, married, and (finally) no longer a student. I've lived more than 500 miles away from my parents for 9 years. I have a mortgage, 2 cars and a life insurance policy. Odd, then, that nothing has made me feel more like an adult than having a repairman in to fix the oven. In fact, I think I got a bigger dose of "I'm an adult now" from having the guy in than I would have just fixing it myself. (Which, it turns out, I probably could have done, saving myself a big chunk of the $215 the repairman cost.) Maybe it's a money thing: I subconsciously equate adulthood with the ability to spend $215, and not have to worry about there not being money to cover it. Maybe in my head adulthood is the (financial) freedom to not have to be a jack-of-all-trades: to use my expertise to get money so that I don't have to have expertise in fixing ovens, or steam-cleaning carpet, or changing the oil in a car.
When the repairman (who, btw, was more than just a bit creepy) showed up, I was working on a sewing project. After using my bathroom, cooling himself in the AC vent, telling me how to keep the drain in the back of my freezer open with boiling water, checking if the handle on my dishwasher worked, attempting to pull my contact-paper memo board off the wall and, oh yeah, fixing the oven, he told me that the part that broke (igniter) only lasts about 5 years, and in the future I could probably replace the part myself, or at least instruct a friend or coworker (I don't think he picked up on the fact that I'm married) how to do it. "You're handy," he said, "not a lot of people can do stuff like sewing these days."
I think it was meant as a compliment (or maybe even a lame come-on) but it felt like what he was saying was, "you clearly can't afford to pay this kind of money for a routine repair, so maybe you should think about fixing it yourself." Most of what I was hearing was from guilt over having spent so much money on what turned out to be a relatively simple task. Part of me was upset that he could generalize being skilled at sewing (which he actually had no evidence of) to being handy with appliances. Part of me was mad at the implication that I couldn't afford his services. He thought he was being kind: showing me how to do the fix myself, telling me there was a $10 coupon in the yellow pages that he'd take even though it was expired. I read it as a judgement that there's something wrong with me that would prevent me from making good money.
I don't want to waste my money; nobody does. However, the ability to contract out tasks that I could conceivably do is a large part of what I have always wanted in my life. I love my parents and everything they've done for me, but we didn't have money, and that meant holey umbrellas, washing out ziplock bags, and servicing our own appliances. I guess that for me, not having to live like that means success. At being an adult. Having my oven repaired means I'm successfully being an adult.
7.08.2006
The Huntress
It turns out that our lab cat still has a bit of the tiger in her, and not just her savannah-colored fur. Despite being the consummate housecat--she rarely gets to go further than the balcony--today she caught herself a bird.
She's been stalking a pair of birds that were foolish enough to nest in the rafters of our balcony. One day last week, she got within a few feet of one which was sitting on the railing. Yesterday they perched on the mat next to the porch door and had her enthralled. She even ventured a pounce, but as the door was closed, she didn't have much chance of success.
Even so, I didn't give much thought to the fact that she might actually catch one of the birds. Last summer, a bird accidentally flew into the house, injuring itself, and as it lay dying in the living room, Zora just looked at it. She has no front claws, refuses to walk on grass, and we've often teased her for "hiding" behind objects like shoestrings and throw rugs.
Obviously, though, instinct is a strong thing. Not only did she catch the bird, but once she had it, she knew what to do with it--as long as what to do with it is toy with it for as long as it can still move.
For as bad as I felt for the bird, I couldn't help but also feel bad for Zora, who had done exactly what she was born to do, successfully, for the first time in her life. Not bad enough to let her toy with the bird in my living room, but bad.
7.07.2006
Mini-holiday
This year for Independence Day Josh and I decided to take a mini-holiday to Blue Harbor Resort in Sheboygan, WI. We got a lakeside jacuzzi suite, and as you can see from the picture, the view from our balcony was awesome. The evening of the fourth we watched Sheboygan's fabulous fireworks, again from our balcony. Pretty much everybody cleared out after that, so it was as if we had the resort to ourselves on Wednesday. We got massages in the spa, and I finished up with a facial and mani-pedi. Overall the resort was great. We should have booked a couple extra nights.
7.03.2006
Quality journalism
I was listening to the BBC this morning, and they were doing a report on the Mexican election. Their reporter was in some public square in Mexico City or something, reporting on some protests for one candidate or the other (I wasn't paying close attention). Then the reporter said something like, "those protests broke up earlier this morning, the chanting you hear behind me is some other protest, we don't really know what for, but it probably has to do with the indigenous people."
Um, didn't ya think you might want to ask what the protest was about before filing your report?
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