BURNT!!!!

We went to Bolinas Beach...the HIDDEN TOWN...this Saturday and the sunblock product we brought with us failed miserably. I'm toasty from the calves down where it may have washed off, but the poor piggy is BAR-B-QUE! Recovery is going slow and steady. Pictures to follow.

Bolinas (Bobo town) is a town that was built up by a commune of hippies turned college kids moving into the area afterwards and then doing everything they can to shut themselves off from San Francisco and growth. They bought the local water works and with that very capitalistic privatization decreed that no more public water meters would be distributed...so, no more houses. The last one to become available (the water meter not the property) occurred when a house burned and the meter was auctioned SEPARATE to the property. It went for over $350,000. For a water meter. You wonder why I don't own a house out here?

I have some great pictures to add later, but I thought I would let you know abou this fun little hippy town and the sunburn that has the house down here in D. City.

People watching and being one of the "bigger".

I'm a natural observer. I always have been. Many people might say I have a short attention span or I am not paying attention to them, but the simple truth of it is there is typically something more interesting (or at least unique) happening right around you that you don't notice. Fortunately/Unfortunately I am blessed/cursed with a mind that must pay attention to these things even if it means splitting my attention 5 ways. This is why I like live poker as opposed to online, this is why I'm better at the early stages of relationships than long term, and why I hate menial route tasks compared to "firefighting" upcoming emergencies. They are just more random and interesting than the static world or the flat panel. ...and I'm wandering again, but here is an example.

I had a thought that struck me today as I was pinned in by two larger women on the subway. The thought had occurred before and I had been following the observation like a random social anthropologist. It deals with the size of people and the subway. You can guess with surprising accuracy the following things about a person from just looking at them when the are on the subway.

A. At what point the will stand up to go to the door to disembark the car.
B. What method they will take to get up to the exit level.
C. How they will pay. (given, this is the newest observation game)

A) My casual empirical research shows me that: The bigger you are, the longer you wait to stand up. Being someone that deals with a gimpy knee, carries a lot of stuff and has notoriously poor balance...and is getting fatter by the day. I fully understand why. The BART and Metro Cars are NOT known for coming to a soft stop and there is nothing more embarrassing and hard to deal with for a bigger person than getting launched into a crowd of people waiting to start their day or get home. Especially in SF where you are bound to be crushing small, dainty, or primpy people that take great exception to being squashed, mauled, messed or crinkled. Therefore, the equation is [(Mass)+(# of passangers)]xTrain Velocity = Exit Order. The higher the score the farther back you are. This does not account for the elderly, cripple or people trying to trundle a massive beach cruiser (bike) out of the car at rush hour, but people tend to give them the right of way for similar reasons to those mentioned above.

B) People don't want to change and they will do what is easiest. Simply put, the bigger you are, the harder it is to trudge up 4 flights of stairs. So, the bigger you are, the more like you you are to be on the escalator. Not only that...but farther to the RIGHT on the escalator. That is where the "standstill" folks are. In between the stairs and the standstill escalator people are the "fast lane" people. Folks in a hurry but NOT in enough of a hurry to run up the stairs. Typically, the folks in the fast lane are in worse shape than the stair climbers and better shape than the standstill folks. Most of the time, I fall in the middle, it depends on how the knees are feeling and if I'm in a full suit or just a shirt and tie. Nothing worse than sweating up a wool suit on the stairs.

C) How they hold it and where they keep with will let you guess who to get in line behind to ensure a quick exit. Very few people have adopted the electronic card that I've been with since the pilot program. (Seriously, its the only major city I've ever been to that does not have some sort of balance holding fare card. We finally have one and people are mystified.) Those of us that have it are either holding their wallets or the card itself. Paper people with "multi-pay" cards are easy to spot and everyone else is going to go digging for that slip of paper.

There you have it folks. A random observation post about SF and a guide on how to get the hell of the subway faster.

One year Blog-aversary.

It just hit me that I have been doing this blog for a year. Its has been an interesting year and I apologize to the few of you that read this if the quality of my posts have been getting worse. I invite everyone that stops in for this new post to take a trot through my archives and let me know which post you liked the best or thought was the most interesting.

Damn, what a long strange year its been. (Now I feel like a dirty hippie...thanks 'Frisco.)

And yea I bring unto you photos of my new place. Housewarming August 4th. Yep, its a crowded little street, but the place is all ours....to rent.

....Near....

....Far!

Second Bedroom, Workstation, Gamestation, General Mess.
Stairs up the back door.

Our "Sun Porch and Empty Storage.

Believe it or not, that is a Bay View waaay down there from our back porch.

The bedroom.

kitchen back to front.

kitchen front to back. Biggest room in the house.

Annnnd...the living room.

On the paid tour you get to see the garage, bathroom and washer and dryer. But, no high rollers today I guess?

For World Series of Poker Updates: Check www.lifesabluff.com and click on the blog achieves. Also, more photos of the series on the message boards.

In Vegas, Feeling Good, Starting Off Right!

Greetings from the World Series of Poker and the Media Room at the Rio All-Suites Hotel! I got in last night, slept the sleep of the truly road weary in the VERY comfortable beds here and awoke early and fired up, ready to cover the series and play some poker.

Its started off well. Today, while waiting for the Media Room to open so I could pick up my credentials, I won a single table satellite that will cover my room and flight. Now, if I can manage to not loose that, we have a net positive trip in the works! And really, isn't that all we can ask for.

A big shout out to my friends at LifesABluff.com as I am here with this kind of access thanks to them. Should I decide to take anything down today, its one for the crew!! RuntCake shall carry the day!

Well, hopefully some pictures and more positive stories to follow. Until then, thanks for the well wishes and may the BLUFF be with you!

"I'm not dead yet." -- Plague victim, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Last weekend was a return to LA and my last shot at making some serious bankroll before I headed down to the World Series of Poker. I doubled my (thinning) bankroll in the cash games even after blowing out of the two Bicycle's "Mini Series" events I was able to play. Got some high-roller treatment from Mo Fathipour and the Bicycle Casino while I did it so the grand total of expenditures came to $79 for a flight, $10 for a stuffed pig and random tips, etc. that I include in my bankroll anyway. The 3-500 5/5 NLHE game was very good to me and I even enjoyed some 20/40 7 Stud 8OB too. Not a bad time for under $100 bucks.

I have already cut my trip short and have (well, prettymuch...) thrown out the idea of playing the Main Event as I have to be in New York while it is going on. But, I will be there for some of the smaller tournaments, cash games (very soft that time of year...yum!) and to do some business for lifesabluff.com to see if we can't lock in some deals with the Vegas Elite.

Also, I will be there for the Gaming Lifestyle Expo and the craziness surrounding it. I managed to snag a cheap room IN the Rio of all places. Turns out 7/7/7 is making Vegas more expensive than the WSOP and any conventions put together. Go figure huh? Lucky superstitions in Vegas. It might seem odd for me to go to a trade show/expo in my free time, but it was certainly a blast last year.

Up next: Free concerts and sunburn!! That sneaky Bay Area weather.

The World Series of Poker. Wow, its that time of year again and its bigger and better than ever, and for the first time in two years...my bankroll is not ready.

Its my own fault really. Giving money away to friends and family, buying some nice stuff for myself, playing in some bigger WSOP qualifier than I had a business doing with a bankroll my size but ones that I was used to playing. So, natural variance kicks in and now I'm now looking at the bottom of my box for the first time in a long time. I'm not broke...but for the first time I'm "playing down." My timing is horrible.

Well, I have a couple of weeks and we'll see what happens. I think lifesabluff.com has a seat in the Media Event before the Main Event for me. We'll see how that goes then. Going to combine a week of vacation with my visit to St. Louis to go down there and take a look-see.

Pray for me, sacrifice a chicken, do what you have to do...just wish me luck! ;)

Warmer days and qualifier woes.

The sudden infusion of warm...nay, HOT...weather into the Bay Area this last weekend and week got me out of the house and helped me get over a cold.

Piggy and I went to see a great game with the Phillies and Giants where the Pil'delfia batboys trounced the streaking SF Giants and really showed off their skills. I'll let her post the pics, but we were really pretty close to the action. No foul balls (darn it) but some GREAT batsmanship out of the Phils and the Barry-less Giants. You see, Barry does not play a day game after a night game, cause he might get a boo-boo on his syringe thumb or something and not be able to juice properly without a full 24 hours rest...or some crap like that. Anyway, the Bond-ster is at 745 as we speak, just 10 shy of Hammering Hank (who mysteriously -- along with the commissioner of baseball -- don't seem to want to be near Bonds when he breaks his record.) and a much debated place in baseball history. Right up there is Babe Ruth being one of the best starting pitcher the Sox ever had. Seriously...where did those guys go? If we are all bigger, stronger, faster, etc. where is the pitcher with the .347 average and 30+ dingers to go with a sub 3 ERA?

Worked the techno-glitzy Software 2007 conference this week in Santa Clara. I think it was good all around. Now back to sorting out the new place. Which, when the fog is out, had a great view from the back deck.

Poker, poker, how 'bout the poker. With the WSOP fast approaching, I have been on a bender (live and online) of attempting to qualify. Unfortunately, I have nothing great to report right now. The busted live qualifiers and a bevy of online tries that have sapped my bankroll have made me think I may have to raise the cash the old fashioned way and just win it. Or at least win enough to play some satellites while I'm there if I roll up a starting stake. Wish me luck, patience and clarity.

The otter finds the otters! Well, this weekend I "cashed in" my Valentines Day gift from the piggy and we motored on over to the Monterray Bay Aquarium to see their new 'Wild About Otters' exhibit and the rest of the place too. Here are some pictures. I promise we'll get some of the house too when, we'll when someone reminds me at an opportune time. Details below.

Me and the statue of an Asian Small Clawed Otter. Those guys are crazy! Kinda like this dude.

The biggest female liked to hog all the toys in the tub in the middle of the tank.Big, cute, fuzzy faces.
This is the position that Sea Otters spend most of their time in. They sleep like this wrapped in kelp.The caged fuzzy furry of a horde of river otter pups!
The BIG saltwater tank!
Woo Hoo!!

My road has s'plode! (www.homestarrunner.com reference...deal.) So, much to the chagrin of Rosie O'Donnell and her 9-11 conspiracy ilk, the accident that pretty much melted the overpass in the MacArthur maze has caused traffic havoc here in San Francisco. Apparently though, pretty much everyone is over it in 24 hours with a free commuter pass and a pat on the back. It did flood the trains for one day as everyone jumped on the 'freebie' ride to work on Monday, but congestion was down by about half today, showing that it must have been worth about $5 of inconvenience. I don't take that road (I-80 and 880) anymore since I moved onto the peninsula but I can only imagine what it did to the auto traffic. Probably looks like LA now. I'm really cheesed off about something else that happened on the BART today. I'll post again after I follow up with that. Just thought I'd let everyone know that the exploding truck and resulting transit mess has left me unscathed and unscarred.

The Brit Bus Tour has stopped in San Francisco. All Aboard Mate!

Pretty fun time and a great group of folks putting things together. CLICK HERE! to see more about it! Anyway, Julia Jones, The Crave and the Jyrojets are on this tour and I got to see them do an acoustic bit on Thursday at the King George Hotel and a "Pub Crawl" Tour today with three stops and a sudden FREE PASS to see the Kaiser Chiefs perform at thw Warfield . AMAZING stuff. Sometimes its good to be me. "My Favorite Thing About Jane" by the Jyrojets sounds clean, ready, and catchy. My bet for the hit song of the tour! Look for these guys on a radio near you soon.

Touring around San Fran in a double decker will get you some looks, but I think the best thing was easily the people and the music. The PR team, event guys and the bands were all solid people and great folks to go on a Pub Crawl with. Cheers fellas! And "The Crave" owe me a pint when I get back to the UK.

Beer Glorious Beer. For those of you in my circle that do not appreciate fine micro-brewing or beer in general, go put on your worry-wart hats and sit in the corner for a while. This post is not for you. For those that do, wellll....

Yesterday I attended a 'Tion' for the Russian River Brewery at The Toronado in the Lower Haight here in San Francisco. Two things:

First: The Toronado should be on any beer lover Haj. (Yes I'm trying to be ironic, not bigoted.) In the midst of so many fine breweries in the NW US, this bar continues to stand out as the home of great, craft brewed and non- traditional beer. It looks like a biker bar/dive from the outside but when you enter and get an order in past the surley, tatto laden barkeep, you will have a world of fermented fabulousness at your fingertips. It serves NO FOOD! It is a beer bar. But it is perfect happy to allow you to toddle in with baskets or paper plates from the almost equally as locally legenday Mythic Pizza or Sausage Parlor that flank it. What more could you ask for? www.toronado.com

Second: The Russian River brewery produces some brew that PACKED the house all night for this event. They weren't giving it away, they were selling it on a Wednesday and the result was an elbow-to-elbow-buy-4-at-a-time event. The Pleny the Elder (an IPA) and Lap Dance win the 'keepin' it realz' beer name award. Most of the catalog is very religious. Links below:

• Little White Lie
• Redemption
• Perdition
• Benediction
• Damnation
• Deification
• Erudition
• Rejection
• Salvation
• Sanctification
• all at www.russianriverbrewing.com

Go ye forth and find one to enjoy. You will thank me for it.

Cheers Big Ears!!

14 innings end in disappointment! Outside of the fact that I was hanging out with a ton of great people from work, Philly Piggy, Mo-Piggy and leading the band when it came to cheering the Cardinals Wednesday at AT&T/Pac-Bell/Cingular/Nextsponsorplease Park I felt a bit of a pang of regret when the game ended. After 14 innings of hard fought baseball, the Cards inability to keep up a steady batting average and some blunders with coaching and communication ultimately cost the Red Birds the win against the very sucky San Francisco Giants. Maybe its just karmic revenge for getting a mass of people together to go to a game where I was rooting against the home team. Bah, who knows. At least we saw Pujols pop a dinger and Bonds put number 738 into McCovy Cove.

Good luck to Frank Frisina of www.lifesabluff.com as he heads off to Vegas hoping to build his business, play in a ASPCA celebrity pro-am charity tournament and hopefully fleece some WPT tourists at the poker tables all in one trip. Killer Flops and Suckas' Drawing Dead, Franky Bones. Don't pop a lung...again. Seriously.

This last weekend was the little otter's 4th birthday party and we got her a big ol' back yard swing set. Her backyard 'park' as she put it, was an instant hit and will probably be the source of a lot of "time for dinner" fits from her mother. Everyone had a great time and I'll be sending out some photo CDs to family soon. If you don't get one, email me.

Also, the move is complete and we have a new home number! Yep, no more cell-phone only for Waldo, I have been shoved into the world of land lines yet again. Mass email to friends and family coming soon.

PS -- I hate parking enforcement and community bureaucracy.

We be moved in!! The new Palcio de Otter y Piggy has all our stuff in it. Still some unpacking and sorting to do and TV etc. to hook up, but we are now officially there! If you don't have the new address call or email me.

Its a tight street but we've managed to work out a couple parking spots. The neighbors are plentiful but fairly friendly. Some issues with very few power outlets, but that is about it. I'll edit up some photos soon.

The UK wrap up post...a week late.

OK, so here we have a slightly late but entertaining bit. Two days after the train jumper-offer, we had a train jump in-fronter. Ewww. Needless to say it caused a delay as the driver was to shocked to carry on. I got into London OK that weekend and met up with some Welsh friends to have a night out before heading off to the SW for my last few days. Many, many drinks in many bars in the "interesting" SoHo area later, we saw Fergie (or formerly/kinda with the Black Eyed Peas chick) come on stage for all of three numbers. Not sure if it was worth the wait, but it was a bit more remarkable than sitting on my butt all night.

Did a little wandering around the Covent Garden area and its ritzy shops and old pubs the next day and afternoon. Did you know it actually was named in a spelling error. "Convent Garden" was the original name. Funny. Hopped yet another train for Taunton in Somerset. We did not have anyone climb on or jump off in irregular ways, but we were late anyway.

Somerset, Exeter and Wochester we all great little bits of the smaller city/countryside in England. Beautiful little places with lots of charm. Its always stunning how much the country changes from region to region in the UK. Many times very distinctly in the time it would take you to drive across a medium sized US state. Met with several interesting businesses but each day was punctuated by a brewery. Darwin's Brewery, Cotleigh Brewery and the Weston's Cider Brewery. Perry. That is all I have to say. Yum.

Just for posterity, I'd like to point out that I'm not a complete lush. Its just hard NOT to drink when out with the British and when you job revolves around helping Food & Drink Companies in the UK (including breweries) make it to the US...you get in a situation or two where there will be drinks. Fabulous breweries though, most at least 100 years old (two much more) in their history with a mix of "ancient" technology and very modern process.

The flight home was the Premium Economy that I was SUPPOSED to have the first time. The big seats UPSTAIRS in the Virgin Atlantic Airliner. Very posh. I had to bounce through LA to get home a little earlier. Ya' see, Piggy and I are moving up to Daly City. It should cut down on both of our commutes and cut out the tolls as we will be on the peninsula. So, rent goes up but costs go down...and I can have more of my day that is NOT a commute. Hard to put a price on that. BUT, we now have an actual HOUSE so all of you wishing to visit have a place to stay and you don't have to worry about condo rules, neighbors, etc. Email me if you want the new address, etc.

I'm thinking about getting a dog.

UK Trip Report: Bag thief jumps off train.
OK, well, I'll lead with the interesting story. I'm on a GNER train heading for London and somewhere between York and Duncaster, the train slows to a halt and a "attention, customer has pulled the emergency handle" sounder comes on. Turns out some jackass (I think it was a drunken sot walking up and down the aisles for a while before) grabbed a couple of plastic bags and JUMPED OFF THE FRIGGING TRAIN. Yes, while it was moving. The train was already an hour behind due to switching problems up north and this wasn't too much of a delay. They calmly explained the issue to us and started rolling again, adding in, while he may have avoided oncoming train traffic, if he got hit it was probably what he deserved." I love these folks in the northern side of the island.

So, back to the semi-boring stuff. I started out in London at a big food trade show and met a lot of great people. Made about £120 at the Pot Limit Hold Em game at the Gutshot Club (still holding on as it fights for appeal to the rather BS sentence passed in London. All poker players, please go to www.Gutshot.com and click the banner to help.) and they were PACKED on Saturday night. I was jetlagged and had crashed for 8-9 hours when I landed so found myself wide awake at 11:30 in London. Nothing to do but go play some poker. From there I traveled the Northwest region, past the midlands and near Wales and saw the outskirts of the Lakes district. So damn picturesque you could just stare at it for hours.

Fast forward a couple of days to Newcastle in the North East. Just off the border to Scotland, this town has dragged itself out of an industrial malaise and really jumped forward to be a part of the modern economy. They also have a Grovesnor Casino that hosts a nightly poker tournament and game. This was a lil' £10 pot limit rebuy, but we generated about £1300 in the prize pool and I took down my first pot limit hold 'em tournament and got a nifty card protector and some new card buddies out of the rather late night. Got to see a ton of the city walking about (in the rain.) and saw the revitalized Quay-side district (pronounced KEY-side) and had a pint in a pub over 200 years old and some FANTASTIC authentic Chinese food at Hei Hei. Its nice to have a job where its my "duty" to do these things. I think I'll miss Newcastle. I'll have to come back longer next time. Hopefully with better weather. Aye. That's it, n'dt it?

Well, I am blogging from a moving train (huzzah!) and this brings us almost up to the moment on our train jumper and my time out and about. Busy little otter here lately. Almost time for some very important birthday parties and the stretch towards winning my way into the World Series of Poker.

Cheers Big Ears!

BUSTED! Well, the excitement is over. One misstep and I bit it. I think this pic will say everything I could. for more www.cardplayer.com

Day 1b. Stopped in for a peek and to "flex" that Lifesabluff.com media street cred.

The nightmare scenario! 5 bounties, 6 total pros, 3 other guys that could get rich if they weren't scared to death. Chip Reese elminated Jen harmon and Gus Hanson in one hand catching a flush against Hanson's KK and Harmon's set of Tens. Total players: Seat 1 Gus Hanson, 3 "Miami" John Cernuto, 5 Amir Vahedi, 7 Jen Harmon, 8 Nedad Menic, 9 Chip Reese.

MiMi Tran and Joe Pelton. MiMi got knocked out...when I left, lil' Joe remained!

John Juanda and Ted Forest...neighbors.

Tough Table again...The Grinder and Patrick Antonius.

Eric Sidel is F'N TALL!

Mr. Chan is not amused.

Lloyd and Sam! The guys that REALLY run tournaments at the Bay 101.

Tod Brunson lets his hair down! Fresh off a 3rd in the 2k event, bust out level 8, Day 1b.

I SURVIVED!! And then some! The first day of the Bay 101 Shooting Star is over and not only did I survive Phil Helmuth Jr. at my table (well, three hours late Phil Helmuth) but I finished with 66k in chips putting me somewhere in the Day 1 top 25 (bottom end) unofficially between Scotty Nguyen and Allen Cunningham. Because I'm not a pro...no online listing yet. here are some pictures though! Enjoy.

The Bay 101 -- SHOOTING STARS! (Day 1) www.bay101.com

Behind me, David Williams, Eric Lindgren and Phil Helmuth Jr. Chat it up. To big fat heads.
The owner of the Bay 101, then Eli Elesra, Daniel Negranue (sporting the local hockey jersey) and Scotty Ngyuen.

The poker side of the Bay 101...fat dealer scratching his head.

Tod Bruson on his way to finishing 3rd in the 2k event with a first prize of 100k. Get the results at www.carplayer.com!

(above) and me! Hey look! I have chips!

Strangaties. I noticed today that I know people at work, and I know my old friend (who I don't see enough) but I don't know anyone outside of work. My social network is an issue. I've started making friends with select people at card rooms but that rarely does anything more than "where was that home game?" and "good to see you, let me by you a drink to celebrate your win, etc." I'm trying to do more, but I'm getting sidetracked to the journal post for today.

I had the thought today as I was parking to jump on the train that I am really familiar with my fellow commuter's cars. I see the same ones almost daily. When I am running on time, we park in almost the same places and, I assume, they are sitting somewhere near me on the train but I don't know them. Its weird being lonely and yet surrounded by people. If it wasn't for my friends occasionally touching base electronically or Philly Piggy at home, I think that kind of thing is enough to drive someone nuts. Maybe this techno-isolation we all fall into in the modern world is what is causing some people to snap. Reality fades and loneliness and a need for meaning, place and purpose warp into something sinister. Meh. Who knows. All I know is that the dog lover in the blue Mazda 3 hatchback needs to fill her right read tire and I don't know how to tell her.