playing poker with phil

this past friday, i had the opportunity to play in the poker tournament in the annual company 'g' picnic. when i arrived to play, i learned that non other than the great phil gordon was the host/master of ceremonies of the event. who's phil gordon? i had no idea, but apparently he's some famous poker player. from a field of 230 participants, the winners of each of the twenty-six tables moved on to the semi-finals. by virtue of playing at a table primarily populated by tight passive players as well as a healthy helping of good ol' lady luck, i was able to vanquish everyone at my table and move on to the semi-finals.

at the final 3 tables, i changed my strategy to super tight. the top ten players would win prizes. by playing tight, i hoped to wait out the more adventurous players and make it to the final table of ten players. my strategy worked, though predictably leaving me with a rather small (though not the smallest!) stack. the final table was quite crowded and the organizers set up bleachers for spectators to watch. each of the players even had their own fans. it was a bit strange to have a bunch of people cheering my name even as i made dumb plays. phil gordon even called me out on a dumb lay down once towards the end of my run in the finals. ultimately, my tight strategy would only get me so far and i bowed out in fifth place.

and my prize? a phil gordon autographed book set on poker--the contents of which, i undoubtedly still need to review.

reverse karma?

for those of you not familiar with the city of san francisco, there are nice parts of san francisco and there are not-so-nice parts of san francisco. the most not-so-nice neighborhood in san francisco is almost certainly the area knows as the tenderloin. it just so happens that i recently started volunteering somewhat regularly in that area. after getting off a volunteering shift this past weekend, i found that the tenderloin had shown its gratitude to me in the form of a smashed window for my car.

the front passenger window was now a million pieces scattered throughout the front of my car. the glove compartment and center console had been rifled through. while i had nothing of value in those compartments, the cordless drill and box of checks certainly might have proven valuable to the smash and grab thief had he (or she!) bothered to check the back seat. really, the only thing that was taken from my car was my GPS system. so i am a GPS boi no longer. i had the GPS system for but a few months and had logged just under a hundred hours of driving time and a max speed of 118 mph (a satellite glitch, i swear!).

sometimes when you give to the community, you end up giving a little more than you might have originally anticipated. i just hope my GPS is performing admirably on a shopping cart or wherever it's new home is.

a bird's tale

once upon a time, there lived four birds in a cage. as chance would have it, two of these birds were gray in color while the other two were a lighter tan. though the four birds were cage-mates, they did not share a friendly relationship. in fact, it got downright nasty at times. specifically, the gray birds ruled the cage and would chase the tan birds around. every time a tan bird found a place to rest, a gray bird would fly straight at it and push it out of that spot. on and on this would go, with the tan birds flying from one place to another, only to be chased away by the gray ones.

then one day, one of the gray birds escaped from the cage. only one gray bird remained with the two tan birds. did this put an end to the bullying and pushing around? no, but it did turn the tables. now the tan birds chased the remaining gray bird around and the only place the gray bird could rest was at the bottom of the cage with all the droppings.

clearly there is a lesson to be learned in this flighty tale. birds of a feather, do indeed flock together and you reap what you sow, but sometimes life's lessons can be distilled to even simpler terms: don't be an asshole.