Miscellaneous thoughts on my 38th Birthday

1. Bodog continues to be a great site for me. PokerStars and Full Tilt....not so much. I withdrew most of the profits from PStars after my big cash last March. Mostly I withdrew because of the RE saga that my family and I finally got done in late Spring. I went on tilt after the BBT3 was over and blew out most of what was left of my bankroll on MTT's on both PStars and Full Tilt after that. I've had a couple of nice cashes in the Bodog 5K and 6K recently so it's a nice coincidence with the Bodonkey starting up again. Baby tilt is not good for a bankroll....I know a few of you out there know what I'm talking about.

2. I had Biggestron transfer me 10 buckaroos to FTP so I could play the Mookie last night. I had 35 in my PStars account left over but I kept getting a cryptic message from PStars about not being able to transfer 10$ because funds were uncleared or something like that. Kind of embarrassing...but last weekend I drunkenly transferred 50 to PStars and I guess it's not cleared. "Oh sure Dave....rip me off for 10 bucks and I'm still looking for a full time job! Take the food off my table so my kid can't eat!"-Biggestron. "This is embarrassing...I guess I'll give you the ten when we go to the HPT NLHE tournament!"-Me It was all in jest but still embarrassing as the transfer to my FTP account was already done. I'll pay you back dude...I swear! I could have just transferred the 10 right back but I guess I needed a good ol' fashion kick in the junk by playing the Mookie again.

3. Speaking of the freakin' Mookie. I can't get to a final table for the life of me. It remains the bane of my poker existence! I've met most of my poker goals for 2008 this year. Win a large 10.00 buy-in tourney for my biggest score-check. Win more than 2K (900 people entry for 2,250.00 on PStars) at the same time-check. Win more than 1.5 K in an online tourney (placed 2nd in the Bodog 10K for 1,550.00)-check. Win a friggen Bloggament (M.A.T.H for 550 or so)-check. Make a good showing in the BBT3 (1st, 2nd, 2nd in M.A.T.H) and cash north of 1K (1,200.00+)-check, Make a lot more final tables this year-check, Meet some more bloggers and play some poker-check, Cash out with a relatively large profit for the year (so far)-check.
Some things I didn't get to do this year but maybe next year: Cash in a Sunday major or a 100+ entry fee tournament, Cash in a casino tourney, play more live (having a toddler and a baby makes that one most unlikely), Win a 1,000+ person tournament, and play either a tournament at the two major series (World Poker Finals in Spring and Fall) at Foxwoods...or a WSOP donkfest. The last seems very unlikely this year or any year in the future for that matter but I did make it into the BBT3 T.O.C so one can always dream.

4. Wow...38 years old. My 20th High School reunion is this upcoming Thanksgiving weekend....that should be interesting. Seems so long ago but it went by pretty fast. College was 16 freakin years ago........fuck. If you asked me what events would happen in the future in 1988 I surely would not have ever thought that the : RedSox would win the World Series.....twice, The Patriots would win a SuperBowl.....3 times, I would have a wife and two kids and a sizable house, I would use this thing called the Internet everyday for multiple hours, I would see a Socialist regime elected who treat the Constitution like a piece of toilet paper (Well that hasn't actually happened....yet), I would care about anything outside of my little world other than sex, drugs/alcohol, heavy metal, video games, gambling, sports.....now that I'm typing this I realize I love all those things but the drugs..I cut that out a long time ago....but I digress. There is a lot more to care about after you figure out how the world actually works. Back in the day in '88 I would have only saw the day and situation I was in at the time with no thought of the future at all.

5. The Phillies just won the world series. Congrats to those Phans in the area. The Phillies were my favorite national league team back when I was in my prime baseball card collecting days. Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt made it easy to be a Phillies fan. Since we had no NL team in the area...I naturally gravitated towards them. Carlton was the best Lefty in that era...and I was a lefty pitcher in the little league. Seeing them win last night reminded me of Tug McGraw jumping for joy in 1980. I guess the Rays won their World Series when they beat the Sox this year. They will be a force to reckon with in the years to come though.....10 years of 1st round draft picks will do that for a team.

6. I have two daughters now....man am I in trouble in the future! I can only hope that they don't become a Massachusetts politician....that is my only fear. This state is a microcosm of what the United States is going to become. One party controls everything and they wield their powers with a force that overwhelms any of their constituents. I realize the last eight years haven't been a joy for most (it's really the last two years for those paying attention)....but I really do not want what I think is going to happen in the near future. I am not a racist for not wanting Barack Obama as my next president. I actually inform myself about candidates and what they do and have done in the past. I don't care if you are Black, White, Yellow or Blue. I want my next president to be a patriot....a constitutionalist...a leader I can trust that won't send our money to any country that hates us and what we stand for. What we stand for is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You have to work hard for what you want....

7. I would like to have many more birthdays but not more birthdays than my children........

8. I would also like to find out what I was meant to do on this earth other than the obvious.......