You Know...

you are a school teacher with too much time on your hands during summer break when you find the time to change your image on PokerRoom's Pokah forums. If the shoe fits, wear it.

Mike

You Know...

you are getting close to opening day when while watching KEZI last night you see a 2005 U of O Duck Football commercial.

It's time to start thinking about the season ahead and how best to beat the Beav's this year.

Mike

ps. This is the new logo for the t-shirt, what do you think? Not to impressed myself, goes on sale this Friday.

Coach Carter

Char & I really enjoyed this movie, full of "life lesson" messages, growing up in a tough neighborhood but overcoming your environment. This picture is of a character named Cruz who has his own trials and tribulations. Coach Carter asks him from there first meeting "what is your greatest fear?" Cruz never has an answer until the movie is almost over. His response is below. It was taken from a poem written by Marianne Williamson. Sidenote, Nelson Mandela also used this quote during his 1994 inauguration speech.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is
that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our
darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be
brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not
to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the
world. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within
us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our
own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do
the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others."


Great response! It was one of those movie moments I'll treasure.

Luck Has A Friend In Me

Moss St. Crew
Chuck and I play in this tournament at a local club called Tsunami's. They play four nights a week there with a $25 buy-in and rebuys plus an addon. There are ususally four to six tables to get the whole thing started. Lately the tables have began to shrink a little, because I believe that all of the "fish" cannot afford to lose any more money at this crazy poker game. Therefore, this tournament has turned out to be the sharks eating the sharks. But you know what I say...a shark is just a big damn "fish."

One thing I have tried to put a lot of effort into at the poker table is reading the other players. It doesn't take long to figure out at Tsunami's who is stealing blinds, who is playing tight, and who doesn't know what the hell is going on. The blinds in this tournament do go up at a steep rate, so I have always found it necessary to keep my stack up with the blinds. It helps in later stages of the tournament when the blinds eat other people up.

Last night we were down to about 11 players, playing shorthanded at two different tables. I feel like I have good control over my table, and have a good read on the other players. The guy to my left doesn't know what is really happening, and he is tight. Next over is a skilled player capable of making moves with junk cards, and he has a healthy stack. Next is TREE, another skilled player who knows how to make moves with all kinds of hands. The next player is, just like the guy to my left, a little uncomfortable at the table. The main thing about this guy is that he wore his cards on his face. Sad face means bad cards, happy face means good cards...seriously.

At the time I have around $3500 in chips...not dominant, but not bad either. I am in the, keep my blinds and take other peoples' blinds mode. I am in the small blind, making the big blind the "fish" to my left and the button the "fish" to my right. The two best players at the table fold, and the button raised double the blinds. I looked down at my cards and I saw 2/5 offsuit. This hand is known as the Dead Luka. It is a terrible hand at best. I call his punk-ass raise and begin to watch him closely. The super tight player to my left folds. Of course I am not expecting to hit much with my flop, but I decide if I see him give me that sad face after the flop, I am going to put a big bet in no matter what.

The flop comes J/6/9 rainbow. I look at this guy, and he seriously doesn't look too happy about the flop. He can't stop staring at it, and I think it missed him hard. I put out a bet of $900. With my $900 the pot is now $2900. My bet could have been stronger, but I felt that if he did miss it, a half the pot size bet would get him away. He thinks and thinks and thinks, and finally states, "call." That hurt my feelings a little bit. Based on how long it took for him to make his call I decided that he must be on a draw, or he hit that 9 giving him middle pair.

The turn comes out and it is a 3...a total brick that couldn't have helped him. The board now shows J/9/6/3 rainbow. Again, he stares at the flop, and just looks like he doesn't want me to bet. With a $2900 pot at stake, I decide to go all-in for an additional $1700 making the pot $4600. He didn't like this at all. He literally sat there and thought about it for three or four minutes. He just didn't know what to do. I felt like he was really just going to give it up. I started thinking that I was the man. I would have totally put a move on a guy that I pegged early in the tournament with total junk cards. Remember, I am playing 2/5 offsuit. Instead of me being the man, he calls my all-in. That kinda stunk for me.

He turns over his cards to reveal 10/10. That makes total sense. he missed the flop in the sense that the J came out. It was a great call on his part. I didn't feel terrible about my move. I was excited to make a move on a guy with junk cards, and almost pull it off.

The river card comes out exposing a....the suspense builds....4! The board now shows J/9/6/3/4...with my 2/5 that gives me 2-3-4-5-6, or the nut straight. I had four outs in that deck and I hit it...for once in my life I hit the improbable out when all of my chips were on the line. Four lousey outs. The pot was around $6300 when it was all said and done. It gave me a more than comfortable stack at the final table, and I rode that to a 2nd place finish worth $370. Not bad for a $25 buy-in. I didn't rebuy or addon, so I consider that to be a great night of poker...all thanks to the Dead Luka.

It was a great hand, but I had others last night as well. I also hit quads twice last night, but decided that my impossible victory was a better story to tell. I am going back tonight to try and make mo' money.

Dave

It Was a Father Son Kinda Weekend

The Wines Family

Hi all,

Had a blast with Dadio this weekend. On Saturday I woke up, two hours after falling asleep, to go fishing with Pops up at Clear Lake. We were the first ones at the lake, arriving at 6, and had a lot of fun toodling around catching fish. We ended up catching around 20 (who can keep track when you are catching so many?), while we watched others around us fail to live up to our standards. We trolled the lake, and often caught two fish at the same time. Most of the time we couldn't even get out line all of the way out before some monster 8 inch trout gobbled up our worms. By the end of our time fishing we were getting sick of bringing in all of the planters that Clear Lake has to offer.

On Sunday I introduced Dad to the utter brilliance of the Kill Bill movies. I'm not sure he is as impressed as I am at the quality of the movies, but they are entertaining to say the least. The two movies took up about 4 hours of our Sunday, and were a nice treat after officially beginning my summer (I have been writing a curriculum ever since the kids got out). Anyway, it was a great weekend filled with fish and...well, killing.

Dave

Too Much HGTV

Yesterday I sent Jolene the below email, she got such a kick out of it I thought I would share with everyone else. The picture quality is lame (budget $40.00 digital camera), the dark color is a rich maroon. Enjoy!!

Hi Jolene,

I now know the perils of watching too many shows like Divine Design &
Design on a Dime. For our 10th anniversary Char and I decided to get a
new comforter set. Wasn't too bad picking one out, got a great deal on
one at Freddies. It has maroon around the dust ruffle and the edges of
the comforter with a gold inset that has a pattern (semi
floral-paisley design). Really rich and luxurious looking. Originally
almost $400.00, had been marked down to $225 and then they had a 1/2
off sale making it $112.50.

We decided to go over to Bed, Bath & Beyond to get some throw pillow.
This is where my HGTV skills came into play. Char was having a hard
time imagining what throw to buy (colorwise). We wanted multiple
pillows so we ended up getting 5. Char just couldn't see what I was
talking about, some pillows with gold and maroon, some mostly maroon
with a small design of mauve flowers (picking up the color in the
drapes), some had a different pattern, just like tv I told her they
would work and look great.

Got home, put it all together and she was amazed and thrilled,
unfortunately we spent $180 on pillows, good thing we got the killer
deal on the comforter set. Anyway, I am taking break from watching
those shows, I can't afford it....lol

Love, Dad

Jolene's reply follows:

Okay!! You are way too funny for me! I can't believe you. At least you had the know how to go about matching and accesorizing your new stuff. I can see it now, a new BRAVO network show, Michael Wines in " Straight Eye For the Queer Guy." That is pretty cool. I guess when I buy a new bed set I will know who to call about the pillows and everything else I will need. Have a great day! Thanks for the story and the good laugh!

Love ya, Jolene

Celestia

A great tool for your class Dave!


Celestia: Home: "


Welcome to Celestia
... The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.


Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't
confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the
solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy."

All movement in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit.

Celestia is expandable. Celestia comes with a large catalog of stars, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. If that's not enough, you can download dozens of easy to install add-ons with more objects.

Lewis Barrett Lehrman's "Spooky Paintings"

Found this great website with all of the artists paintings, check it out!
Mike


Lewis Barrett Lehrman's spooky paintings: "David Pescovitz:


Lewis Barrett Lehrman's watercolors of scary mansions, ghostly images, and moonlit vistas have a quality similar to the work of Thomas Kinkade,
'Painter of Light', only much creepier. Maybe that's why Lehrman calls
himself the 'Painter of Dark.' Seen here, 'Thirteen Spooks, Maybe
More.' From Lehrman's artist statement:

How did I become
interested in painting the haunted world? I trace it back to the summer
of 1944, the year I turned eleven! That was when my aunt and uncle
invited me to spend a month with them on a mid-western farm. I was a
New York city kid, a budding artist even then, and to say I was excited
at making the trip -- by myself!! -- on an overnight Pullman sleeper
train to Battle Creek, Michigan, would be understating my feelings by
quite a bit. Sleepless with excitement, I spent that night, nose
pressed to the window, gazing out at moonlit farmlands, lonely houses
lit by solitary lights, as we rolled past in the darkness. They're
images I remember to this day, so it was only natural that I'd be drawn
to painting the night.

Link (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!)"

Ugly Dog Contest

Santa Barbara News-Press

Poor thing ought to be put out of its misery!

Mike