Three Brothers

I was the younger brother to my sister, my only sibling, but I still had two brothers. When I was five we moved around the corner into the house that I wasn't born in but do call it my childhood home. The new neighborhood was a world different then the one I came from. The neighbors next door had two sons at the time, Mike and Pete, Mike was my age and Pete was two years younger. I was a little boy who didn't know how to act around boys, I was small, skinny and prone to crying. The other neighbors, across the street, were older and meaner then anyone I had ever met before and would send me home crying to mommy more times then I would care to admit. Mike, Pete and I created a bound that I can't even understand even looking back at it as an adult. I learned about playing touch football, whiffle ball and jumping our bikes off mounds of dirt. Mike was the football player who could swim better then anyone I knew and Pete, even though he suffered with tourette syndrome, was charming, good looking and an incredible athlete even at 4 years old. When Mike was nine he started to suffer from spells where he would blank out and it was discovered that he had a brain tumor. One day he went to the hospital and came back with a shaved head and an enormous scar on his head. A summer of radiation treatments and he was declared cured and life went on.

We did all the stuff that brothers would do together, underage beer drinking, porn mags and cigarettes. We grew up, we went away to college, they moved across town. Other than a couple of Christmas gift exchanges, 2 wedding receptions and a wake, we lost touch. At Mike's wedding reception I found out that Pete was in rehab and wasn't doing well. I only saw him one more time a couple of years later. Then five years ago I found out that after being almost 25 years cancer free Mike was dying of what he thought he had been cured of so many years before. He died in the spring of 2003 and Pete was asked not to come to his funeral. He was not in any shaped to be there and his family had broken off almost all relations with him. Last month Pete died as well and even though no one was saying of what I knew it definitely was not cancer. Even though I hadn't seen him in almost a decade, I felt a very profound sense of lost with hearing this news.

I went to the funeral and when I heard Pete's youngest brother Kyle give the eulogy I was hit with that fact that this was a life that didn't need to be extinguished at 38 years old. As sad as Mike's death was I felt that he was living on borrowed time as it was and there was nothing that he could do about it. He had gotten married and had two great kids and was happy with his life. Pete on the other had had so much to offer the world and he used it to hurt himself and the people who were closest to him.

I don't know if I was involved in his life during our adulthood if I would have had any effect on his character or would have been just another person that he would have hurt, just like he had done to those who were closest to him. I would have like to have had a chance to have him hurt me and instead of sitting in that church and not only feeling bad for his parents who had to bury another child, but for myself for letting time and space come in the way of a friend that was more a brother to me than anyone else I have know since.

Taking Control

I have found that I have been in too many situations in my adult life that I have not had control of what was happening to me. For whatever reason I have suffered on the delusion that if I did what was expected of me or even if I didn't the awesomeness that was me would show through and I would be elevated to whatever stature that I felt should be bestowed upon me. Needless to say I have suffered from some serious disappointments.

I was always fortunate that things came to me easily as a child, school, friends, my music, alright not everything, I always had horrible handwriting even from a very young age, which prompt my first grade teacher to tell my mother I would never amount to much if I didn't fix it (can you imagine) and the one and only summer Iplayed little league was probably the most traumatic of my life. I breezed through school, I got into the only college I applied to, I got into the school musicals, I played lead sax in the jazz band, and I was drum major for the marching band. All of this really came to me without much effort I just did it and it happened. Needless to say once I got out of school and the real world came crashing in on me things didn't always happened the way they did in the past. I have been passed up for promotions, didn't get jobs I thought I was over qualified for, or just wouldn't get the interviews.

I have found myself in another one of these bad type of situations once again at work an it has lead to a bit of soul searching on my part. I have questioned what has allowed me to be in this type of situation and what I could do to change this pattern in my life. At 40 years old you would think I would have learned, being that I have been working as a responsible adult for almost half of my life and really don't have much to show for other than a rather diverse resume.

I do believe that I may have been the type of person that should have worked for himself and not have to deal with a boss or back stabbing co-workers. I have had many interesting and fun jobs that I have felt very fulfilled doing, but nothing has stuck or I have been on the short end of the stick with the higher ups. I finally decide that I am to old to be dealing with this Bullshit and pushed my hand at work. I guess playing sitn'go type poker has crept into my daily life.

I tend to play sitn'gos with patience in the first few levels, pick my spots but wait until a couple of guys get knocked out before making my moves. The only thing that is that I think is that I pushed a work with a short stack on the bubble it even though I have survived I really didn't add that much to my stack. Poker has help realize that the best type of poker played is the best way to lead one's life. Tight Aggressive play works in most all situations. I have waited through a few levels here but now it has come to push all in or get blinded out of a job. Just like in a tournament I would rather go out when I push with the best of it and got out flopped than sit around until I am felted with a 7 2 off suit.

I think I have a few more rounds to play before I have to push, but my stack is starting to dwindle and patience is going to pay off. Even inaction is taking some sort of action but I would rather be seen a person forcing then action then having it take me over. I think this maybe my new philosophy in life as I have tried for it to be in poker.

Almost there

I have impressed myself with my disciple. I have been playing O8 on Pokerstars and have set a bankroll goal before I move up a level and I am so close to that mark that I can taste it. The me of about 6 months ago would have pushed it and jump a level already, since I have been running rather well, but I won't until I make it. It has been up and down for the most part for the last week or so and I just can't quite get past that line. In the past I have jump up levels and I have lost all of the gains I had made and then some. I am looking forward to the new challenge that awaits me soon. The game can be frustrating at times but for the most part I am enjoying the challenge of it and it's always good to expand your horizons and hold'em has been getting tired for me as a ring game. I played it a bit over then weekend and I still have a knack for it but I have had a much more positive run with O8 right now so I will stick with it as long as it is treating me well.

No Shoes, No Service...

I standing there at the gas pump looking around as I was annoyed with the fact that the little thingie that allows me to clean my windows while I am pumping gas was missing and I had to hold the lever. A white Bonneville pulls up and what I notice first is that the man getting out of the car is not wearing shoes. This isn't to odd because it is summer here on the coast of Connecticut and the guy was wearing shorts. It was odd that he chose to wear tube socks to compliment his shorts but chose not to wear any shoes. He was also wearing an astounding obvious toupee, so his sense of style was definitely impaired. I have accepted the fact that I am 40 years old, my hair is slowly turning gray which I can also accept and it also may be thinning on top which, for me, is a bit harder to accept. My father was bald and I used to tell him that I never wanted to lose my hair, I started telling him this I think when I was 3 years old. My father came of age in the fifties and if you could have seen the head of hair he had all slicked up in a curly pompadour you would think he would have bought a toupee when he went bald. He never did and he also was never a victim of the dreaded comb over. I always admired him for the fact that he was so self assured that hair on his never made him feel any less of a man. So, I can tell you for sure that I will never pull into a Cumberland Farms store to buy my lottery tickets or a six pack in white late model American sedan wearing a toupee, shorts and tube socks with no shoes. I will definitely be driving a BMW ;)

Not much going on

I haven't really been doing much of anything, the munchkin is doing all her stuff and we are getting a break from all the parent-tot classes for a while and I will be trying to spend as much time with her at the park or the beach in the morning before I go to work while the weather is nice. I haven't really been playing much online I am grinding it out on the O8 and Stud8 tables and building my bankroll back up slowly. I have set monetary benchmarks to hit before I move up a level and sticking to it, unlike in the past when I got ahead of myself and decimated my bankroll. I would like to play some more tourneys but my work schedule still is not conducive to that. I am still itching to get up to Foxwoods, I haven't been able to play live in over six months and my live bankroll is burning a hole in my lock box downstairs in the basement. I just heard that the are running a $3,000 buy in deep stack tourney up there and you can satellite in starting at $60, next tourney is on July 19th I'll see if I can get up there soon.

Finally had the party...

We finally had the friends over for the official 40th B'day party and a good time was definitely had by all. I don't know if the munchkin understood that it wasn't my birthday again so soon and why she only had one and seem like Daddy had more than one. She did enjoy all the people that were there to play with her because she is three and that is really the only reason anyone comes over now. I got a couple more gift certificates to the camera shop so I am a bit more than half way to my new digital camera. I of course don't want just any camera I want a Canon SLR digital that can take my lens from my Elan II. I will have to pay dearly even with the money I received as gifts but I know it will be worth it.

Not Enough Time

I haven't had as much time once again to post as much a I would like and I also haven't had as much time to play poker as I would like. It seems that every time that I get a chance to play something in the back of my head is making me tentative to play, maybe it's because there is something else important I should be doing. Let's just being with the fact that a couple of Sundays ago we had the nor'easter tear through and leave several gallons of water in my carpet in the basement and spend the five days hoping that the new dehumidifier would suck it out 60 pints at a time (I know it was wishful thinking). I finally decide for the safety of my family so they would not die of mold poisoning, is there such a thing, I would rip out the carpet and clean out the basement. Now we can start using it as an office for my wife, TV/Playroom for the munchkin and a computer area for me to play poker. Now we can remove the laptops from the kitchen table and reclaim it for the purpose it was intended for.

I guess the time we spend making our lives better and more productive is always time well spend. I would rather have more time than more money because money can always be replaced but the time lost can never be replaced. I really enjoy playing poker even with the ups and downs in my bankroll. I have also learned a bunch about myself while playing, poker has become a mirror for my life, but I would never sacrifice the time I get to spend with my family for any game because that is too important to me. Right now I have been very fortunate to be working afternoon to evenings hours at my job because I get to spend most of the waking hours with my daughter and even though I don't get to read her a bedtime story, I do get to go to gym class, music class and just hang out with her at the beach in the summer more then most dads do. I have made career choice that might not seem right to some other people but the time these first years of her life that I have been able spend with her are worth more money than I could have earned in a high powered career.