memoryloot

I was involved with 2 ring games over Thanksgiving break. The first was a $5 buy-in game during a Thanksgiving party. I was doing well earlier with a commanding chip lead but slowly lost it all. Rebought and was up and down until I pulled out even. So I was down $5 at the end of Friday night.

Come Sunday afternoon, I was in my usual group of friend’s ring game for $20. I was catching lots of cards earlier on and was in the chip lead. That dwindled down to $20 but never lower. Ended up cashing out $177 and making $157. I was able to maintain the same strategy and made a few tweaks. I have to say I was lucky catching some amazing suck-outs on Shon. One, my A-5 off-suite versus his A-K where we both have top paired but I catch runner runners to complete my club flush. Overall, I’ve been happy with the adjustments I’ve made. I’ve managed to minimized my losses and improved my chances of coming up on the positive side of the money. Will get to test this out again in 2 weeks. So far so good with this new play schedule. I’m sure Shon will be looking for me next time.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I typically write about what I’m thankful about. So here it is.

I am thankful for…

• an understanding and loving girlfriend who I adore.


• great friends who provide years and years of memories.


• being closer to my parents ever since I started living away from home.


• the emergence of Texas Hold’em as the favorite pass-time amongst my friends and I.


• the ability to to hop on my motorcycle and ride wherever I want.


• understanding co-workers and bosses who value my opinion and looks out for my best interest.


• Dave Ramsey for his podcast on teaching financial responsibility.


• not wanting anything for Christmas because I already have everything I’ve ever wanted.

That is all for now. As for my Thanksgiving activity, I went over to Peuv’s house and had an awesome Thanksgiving lunch. Very delicious food. Even had the effects of tryptophan hit me and napped for a couple hours afterwards. Thanks Peuv for everything!

So who’s getting ready for Black Friday tomorrow? I haven’t decided if it is worthwhile digging up bargains while fighting the other crazy people who would wake up in the middle of the morning to save a few bucks. I know my sister thinks its worth it. She’ll be at Sears and I might get dragged into it. We’ll see.

I would like to extend my congratulations to Aaron & Fran on a beautiful wedding ceremony and banquet. I was honored to be part of the small and intimate ceremony and enjoyed the food of the banquet while cruising the Orange County bay in a beautiful yaht. It was a perfect day all around with beautiful weather, good food, and even better company. I just want to thank them for sharing their special day with us.

After 33.5 hours of deployment, our application finally launched! Some of us got 2 hours of sleep while others had none. Unfortunately I was part of the group that got none. It was worth every minute seeing the 2 year project come to a final close.

Not that I think I get alot of people reading this but I’m back for a brief note. We’re looking good for my project launch tomorrow. Everything is set in place and ready to be executed. Leaving early from work so we can get enough rest for our marathon launch. I couldn’t resist but post about how excited I am. I also wanted to talk about something that happened to me this morning.

On my way into work, I would normally stop by the comissary to grab my usual 2 eggs and 2 sausage breakfast. So I ordered that and was on my way to pay. While lining up, I gathered all my money to get ready to pay. This breakfast normally costs $2.76 and I had $5.76. I don’t know about you but I get a bit excited when I have the exact change and I know that I won’t be getting more coins back. While lining up, this girl comes up behind me and sees that I’m counting my change and blurts out, “Oh crap! I need a quarter.” I turn around and look at her and the single dollar she was holding. And gave her this “Are you serious?” look. I just said, “Sorry I have exact change,” and turned back towards the direction of the cashier.

I paused for a moment and turned back around and asked “Do you really need it?” She nods and smiles, I quickly place the quarter on top of her plastic breakfast cover. She said, “Thank you.” I pay the cashier $5.01 so that I get a quarter back, which by the way is the next best thing – trading in my pennies to get silver coins. I proceed to walk into my building. Then I realized to myself, “I’ve fallen for this before!” Actually we (as in men) do this every weekend. Buying drinks for girls. No I’m not implying that I was attracted to her or if she was even good looking or not. But the willingness to help someone overwhelmed me. I just hope she wasn’t taking advantage of me and that she had a whole pocket full of quarters but wanted mine because she saw me playing with it. That would really suck. I have no choice but to give her the benefit of doubt only to make myself feel better. But of course its only a quarter, right?

This is the final week of a 2 year project that I have been working on at work. We are scheduled to be in production by Friday, November 18, 2005. The events of the next couple of days will be critical so that we make sure this milestone is realized. In a way I feel excited about this final stage. This was only the 2nd project I have been on since working at NBC Universal and also the longest. The burden of launching has been with us since the end of last year, but unfortunately due to circumstances beyond any of our control, we were delayed for another year. So as you can assume, we have alot riding on this launch and alot of people waiting for this to be completed, including myself.

Hopefully after this project I can finally do things I need to do. This includes working-out consistently, finding more time to work on some side projects that I’ve been neglecting, and continuing to move forward in my career path with the same company. I’m hoping that from next week on, life at work should be less stressful. As you can assume, I will be limiting my frequency of posts here. So don’t hold your breathe because I may not be back on until next weekend. Wish me luck!

Note: I also want to wish Shon some luck as he receives news about his bar results on the same day that we launch.

I’ve been consistent with my new rule of playing poker every other week for only a $40 buy-in. Yes unlike alot of my friends, I don’t want to be playing poker all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I love this game. But there’s more to life than just poker. Following my predetermined rule, I should be able to pay off ALL of my debts early next year and still be able to enjoy poker.

On a side-note, I have been doing well for the past 3 times we played in the last 6 weeks. Feels good to be winning. Sure makes up for the time when I kept on losing. I think I’m getting the hang of this game. Tonight I walked away with $10 more than what I had brought. Can’t wait for my next game in 2 weeks.

Yup that’s me! I am Dominant Introverted Sensing.

Introversion
Sensing
Feeling
Judging

Everything is true except the fact that I don’t want to stay in my home town and I don’t do any volunteer work. My time is scarce and I have other things to do (like sleeping and reading) so volunteering isn’t a priority.

I’m back after 2 days and 2 nights of tumultuous family gathering. Thank goodness there wasn’t any vomitting incidents on the way back. It was a good to see my cousin Betty on her wedding day. She seemed very happy. This was a traditional Chinese wedding where red envelopes was exchanged, tea ceremonies was conducted, and a plethora of food was digested by all wedding guests. Being in the middle of our family reunion was also… “interesting” to say the least. Yes, like most families out there, stories and dramatic recollection of events was the talk of the town. But I wouldn’t say my family would be qualified as dysfunctional compared to what I would define as dysfunctional. Lets just say I’m glad to be back in California and getting ready to go to bed.

Thanks to my cousin Lynn for letting our family crash at her place again. Her boy Ethan, has grown quite considerable since the last time I saw him.

You know, the stuff you get after eating a lunch meal at Popeye’s chicken, driving for an hour, and throwing-up all over the back seat of a mini van. No it wasn’t me, but instead my two little cousins, Michael and Leon decided to regurgitate their entire lunch into various crevices of the van and on themselves on the way to Arizona. Boy was my dad pissed. Spent a good 30 minutes cleaning the back seats of his Toyota Sienna. Luckily we got to a rest stop and they got to change out of their tainted clothes and washed off. Felt really bad for them. Leon gets car sick really easily and I think Michael’s reaction was from seeing and smelling his little brother’s vomit. Like nothing had happened, they scarfed down their dinner as if their lunch experience was a distant memory. On the way back, we’re making sure they have bags all around them. Does anybody know how to get rid of the stench of vomit? Yeah, I don’t think pictures are necessary for this post.