Life is Good

Lots of stuff going on around here so I might as well get right into it. First of all, Danielle and I are officially moving (for something like the 6th time for me since 2005) on Saturday. We've spent the last 4 weekend days doing as much work as we could on the house, and actually did manage to accomplish a fair bit. This weekend's project was ripping out the ceramic tiles that cover half of the first floor, a project for which Danielle was quoted a cost of $3500. Now mind you, as soon as I heard that number my reaction was "There is simply no way the two of us can perform $3500 of manual labor in a weekend. It's not possible". But we tried anyway. As it turns out, the tiles were very easy to rip up, as the the concrete like substance that holds them to their sticky paper basically all came off the floor with them. The quote she got was based on that sorta not happening and it being like 5 times harder to get the tiles off the floor. So we spent the entire weekend working, got something like 30% of the tiles up (and scraped the sticky paper off the floor, which is like 90% of the work), with her realizing at the end of day 1 (and me realizing at the end of hour 1) that we simply had no chance to finish. So we left the job 30% done and she got a new quote from the contractor and...success! As it turns out the simply fact that we had been able to get ANY of the work done ourselves in a single weekend was enough to convince him that the job was super easy. He re-quoted her $800 for the removal, for a savings of $2700. What's the real take home lesson here? It's that the job would have cost $1200 had he known how easy it was, and we managed to take down $400 of it over something like 25 hours of combined hard labor. That's a lot more in line with what I thought my physical labor was worth :)

So we're moving and most of our stuff (or at least most of my stuff) is all packed up. When we move though we're not really going to be able to move in because the contractors are going to be blowing up everything for something like a month (I hope just a month) and we are basically going to be camping out in the living room. So consequently Danielle doesn't trust me to pack any of the stuff we have left because she's afraid we'll need it and she wants to know what box it's in. Admittedly, my "smash 'n grab" methodology of packing is a little unorthodox, and I can see why she might not trust it. But it's gotten me through 5 moves in 5 years so far, and really nothing bad has happened. But whatever, less work for me which is always a bonus.

Moving on to the realm of poker....I really miss full tilt. It was fitting into my schedule perfectly, allowing me to quit after my shift at the bike was over and come home to grind out a few hours and keep my skills sharp while generating some reasonable winnings. Perhaps it's for the best that I've had a good bit of "free" time to take care of some other stuff (like today for example I realized I haven't had health insurance for 4 months...they just stopped billing me in January...their explanation was "the card didn't go through". It wasn't a new card. They'd billed it before. They claim they sent me letters. This is also false), but really I'm concerned my skills are going to deteriorate as I went from playing thousands of hands a day back to, you know, like 300 or something silly. At the risk of interfering with the boom switch, however, things could almost not be going better at the Bike. Everyday I just win. And win. And win. I take horrendous coolers, like MikeL raising his BB 3 ways with 98s, me having 97s in the small blind, and the board running out A98-9-4, or the dumb fat man who always complains about everything ("I'm the only regular here who doesn't have some sort of deal" or "This game is too small, you can't win anything in 15" or "I can't afford to play 40") sitting in the 40 and not realizing he's not posted and therefore calling my raise with 92s and the flop coming T22-K-5 and me fist pump 3 betting the turn with the AA and being confused as he calls the river and shows me el deuce. It doesn't matter. That stuff happens, but I also get to turn two pair against MikeL, hit my gut shots, and generally just destroy people. Everything is wonderful. I might even start getting paid soon....lol

I will close with a MikeL monologue performed while we are playing 40/80 4-handed:

"No no, what we need is that guy (motions towards the 15 table) to get over into this game. He used to play 40 all the time but now he's just playing those damn yellow chip games. I don't get it, it's not like it used to be. Back in the day the fish, the really committed fish, would beg, borrow, and steal just to continue playing as high as they possibly could. You just don't see that sort of commitment anymore. You should have seen it, it was like man's quest to go to the moon. It was truly noble."

At this point Mike returns to his phone to continue his next game of Carcassone and I'm left to ponder how much money I'd have if my entire life was shifted 10 years back in time.

* Addition...

I remembered that the 92s hand was actually even funnier. I'm sitting at the table on the left of two pretty hot shot pros, wondering why I'm in the seat. To boot I have MikeL on my direct left, which really just makes life...difficult. So the seat halfway across the table opens up and the fat man is taking it and as he's doing it I say to the big potato "I really should have taken that seat" as the dealer is pitching me my UTG hand. I get the ace of spades and an ace of red and raise and am like "well, maybe not" and get cold-called by a fish and...the fat man in the cutoff. I actually say "what the f" at the table because the fat man, while being irritating and kind of a jerk, really never cold-calls raises. It crosses my mind that he doesn't know he wasn't posted in (even though you don't have to post in the other games...he's new to this game...maybe he thinks he has to post) but I don't really bother because the flop is:

T22 with two spades

I even have the freaking ace of spade here people. I bet, the fish raises (sweetness), he cold calls (I put him directly on the king and the queen of spades...immediately) I 3 bet and they both call.

Kd

Amazing. I bet, the fish folds, he raises and I 3 fist pump the 3 bet. He calls me down sheepishly and can't believe I was stupid enough to 3 ball ONE PAIR on the turn. I say "You do know you weren't posted in, right?" and he says "No, I didn't know that...I never would have played it otherwise!" while stacking the 16 bet pot.