Vegas in July vs. the planet Mercury

My first photo op! We be stylin', yeah!

Fossilman, Ozzie Joe and The Poker Brat. I guess when I get better, I'll get a nickname.

Attending the WSOP Academy was fun, exciting and informative, so what else could you ask for? I learned a lot and I'm positive I've got more game.

I didn't win a satellite tournament this year, so I didn't get to play in the WSOP Main Event, but out of 180 attendees, I finished 20th in the academy tournament and I used a lot of my newly acquired knowledge.

I won all three times I played in the Caesars Palace poker room and then after I got home, I won a online sit-n-go tournament, so it hasn't completely paid for itself yet, I'm positive it will in the future.




Here's an easy riddle: What's the difference between Las Vegas in July and the planet Mercury? A: Las Vegas is hotter.


Since I had workshops & tournaments from morning to evening, I didn't leave Caesars Palace for 4 days and I had my car in valet parking. They had obviously parked it in the direct sun and July 5th set a record for the date at 116 degs, so the inside of the car was probably 150+. I had a plug in car fridge that I got from OSIsoft for my 15th anniversary and that melted and warped. I'm just glad the Red Bulls inside didn't explode. I had to toss it because I was afraid that the motor that cooled it off was damaged.

When I started to drive the car, it felt like that tires had melted into the pavement because it would only go really slow. Also the button that lets me lock & unlock the doors didn't work until I got back and went to the car wash, so I guess something was deformed and the cool water made it work again...

I had the water bottle you see below in the cup holder and the bottom softened and deformed, so now it's convex and won't stand up any more. The gum that I had changed it's chemical composition and turned into something really yucky. So the moral of the story is to self park and not on the roof.








The last two night I spent in Vegas, I stayed at the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel. It's an excellent hotel and less expensive than the hotels with a Casino. The beds are very comfy and the showerhead pressure is massive compared to most hotels and they had a nice plasma TV with free HBO.

The best meal I had in Las Vegas was at the hotel restaurant - Envy The Steakhouse. I met a very nice server, Alina Gold, and I had never met anybody named Alina. She told me it's a common name in Russia and also now in Cuba and the latin community because Fidel named one of his daughters Alina. Her mother defected from the USSR and Alina was born in Nepal and I'd never met anybody born in Nepal... We had a very enjoyable evening as it wasn't very busy and I told her about the poker and about reading people. The next night I went back for dessert and she treated me to some excellent raspberry sherbert.

I'm sure to go back next time I'm in Vegas.

This is the end of 2007 WSOP trip reporting - here's a link to all the photos I took.

WSOP 2007

Read Em and Reap - Learning about non-verbal communications

I think this was the most fun day of the Academy - having ex-FBI profiler, Joe Navarro, tell us how to use non-verbal communcation to read your poker opponents. I had gotten his book and read it over the weekend and it's amazing how many things people to subconciously that give away what they are thinking. We found out that the most honest part of the body is the feet and the least honest is the face.

I was able to use what I learned right away in the very nice Caesars Palace Poker Room. One guy would rub his nose when he was bluffing and a woman scrunched up her lips when she saw a card she didn't like. I used this to my advantage and won a few bucks. They also have an excellent Chicken Caesars Salad that they bring to the poker table - it makes sense, eh?

4th of July & Annette_15

Today, we had several hours of presentations about strategy, we played and analyzed hands with pros dealing. We had Scotty Fishman and Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad at our table.


Annette is an online poker phenom. She's from Norway and she started playing poker online when she was 15 (she's 18 now) and never deposited a single Krone because she started playing free roll tournaments. She's won about $3.5 Million in online poker tournaments so far. She can't play in the USA because you have to be 21.


ESPN filmed the simulated games for a future WSOP show. I didn't get on film this time.

I think that Greg Raymer was the most helpful of the poker pros. Joe Hachem was also fun to listen to. On the final day Phil Hellmuth Jr. told a bunch of stories and basically said that since he, Greg & Joe play completely different styles, you just have to find your own style and the more you play, the better you can get.

Be A Sponge

Day 1 of the WSOP Poker Academy at Caesars Palace. The main message was: "Be a sponge". The more information you can get about the players, their betting strategy and their tells, the better.

I learned quite a bit already and today is a full day with a tournament in the evening.

After the workshop, we went to the fancy nightclub, Pure, for a reception. I sat down to a guy that didn't have a badge and we talked for about 45 minutes before Phil Hellmuth Jr. came by and asked if there was any food in the joint and then I found out that I'd been talking to Phil Hellmuth Sr. For the non-poker players, Phil Hellmuth Jr. won the WSOP Main Event in 1989 and has won more (11) bracelets than anybody. Phil Sr. & I talked about everything from Scooter Libby to Paris Hilton to Oakley Sunglasses to Wisconsin (he said he's from Madison, so politically he's left of left) to poker to how it is to have a famous son and more. I thought I was going to go for about 30 minutes and bail, but I stayed for 2 hours.

Frappr Map/Guestbook - Add yourself

World Series of Poker Academy

I'm going to Las Vegas on July 2nd to attend a 3 day workshop on No Limit Texas Hold Em. I don't have a seat in the Main Event yet, but there are still a few more chances.

Here are the details of the workshop. Even if I don't get into the Main Event, this should be way fun.

The WSOP Academy will hosts its next event, the Main Event Primer, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, starting July 3 and ending July 5 - on the eve of the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event. Spaces are still available for the comprehensive, three-day poker school that is specifically designed to prepare participants for the WSOP Main Event, poker's richest and most prestigious competition. On hand as instructors will be an unprecedented team of world class instructors, including past Main Event Champions Phil Hellmuth, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem, multiple WSOP-bracelet winners Mark Seif and Scott Fischman, Joe Navarro and many, many more.

At the end of the first day of the Main Event Primer, participants will receive VIP treatment at an exclusive Opening Night Party at PURE nightclub in Caesars Palace. The second day of the Academy will be capped with a private tournament where participants will battle it out for a $10,000 seat to the WSOP Main Event and other prizes. On the final day, another $10,000 seat to the Main Event will be given away in a shootout tournament. Finally, on the closing night, a special banquet will be held that will include the final table of the first tournament, taking place on stage under the lights and cameras for all to watch.

My pyrate name is Iron tom rackham

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.

Froggy

I've got a frog in my front courtyard. He's very loud because I can hear him over the TV way in the back. I guess he's looking for Mrs. Frog. He's out there ribbiting away every night and today because it was foggy (rhymes with froggy), he was making his music, so I recorded it.

Click here for Froggy of Dreamland.

This is my 100th post.

Someone asked me if having a frog making noise was annoying. I said no and then Froggy vanished for about a week and I missed him.

Tonight he came back, so I went outside in the faint hope of getting a photo of him, when I know he's hiding behind the fountain.

BUT!!!! I made a noise and he answered and then I had a conversation with Froggy which I guarantee will make you laugh.

Click here for "My Conversation with Froggy".

Triskaidekaphobia

This is my 99th post and it's been a pretty good Friday the 13th for me... Much better than usual. I got in the 2 Cents again because I like to send in a funny answer and most everyone else is serious...

Mitt Romney - Great White Varmint Hunter

...The former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney has called himself a lifelong hunter, yet his campaign acknowledged that he has been on just two hunting trips -- one when he was 15 and the other just last year.

Campaigning in Indianapolis on Thursday, Romney said he has hunted small game since his youth.
"I'm not a big-game hunter. I've made that very clear," he said. "I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will...
Yosemite Sam has a couple of comments about Mitt and his Varmint Hunting - Comment 1 - Comment 2.
Another intelligent cartoon based political statement made by Mitt.



My Political Prediction for Mitt -

Mitt is still toast - his latest goofballism - On Monday afternoon (5/21/07), McCain made fun of Romney's evolving positions on other issues when asked about the immigration controversy during a conference call with bloggers.

"In the case of Gov. Romney, you know, maybe I should wait a couple of weeks and see if it changes, because it's changed in less than a year from his position before," McCain said. "And maybe his solution will be to get out his small-varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his lawn. I don't know."

The jab squeezed in references to two past controversies: Romney's backtrack on an April comment that he'd "been a hunter pretty much all my life" -- he later said he had shot "varmints, if you will," such as rabbits, as a child; and a 2006 report in The Boston Globe that a landscaping firm Romney hired to maintain his home for years had hired illegal immigrants.

Giant Rat of Sumatra

I hate rats and I hate rat cousins. Earlier this week, I smelled something bad and then flies started showing up. Luckily, I have my Orkin Man's cel phone number, so I called him up and he came over in about an hour. There was a big dead rat in the crawl space behind my comfy chair, so when he opened up the vent, the smell became really bad. The dirty, stinking rat was way under the floor, so he took a long pole, duct taped a glue trap to it and snagged the rat. He asked me if I wanted to see it and I decided to go check some email. He said that if I had waited another day or so, the stink would have lingered a lot longer. The moral of this story is: Don't poison a rat, but if someone else does, be sure to have the Orkin Man's cel phone number.

P.S. This year, 2007, hasn't been a very good year for me so far. Lots of things have broken, lots of frustrations, lots of problems and then a Dead Rat. I've decided that the Dead Rat is it. No more bad things will happen to me for the rest of the year, cuz it's got a lot of making up to do... So that's it!

2007 NCAA Final Four

Last year, I predicted the outcome of the final 4 in the March Madness, NCAA Basketball Tournament by using the Mascot theory. This year, I have a monetary interest, so luckily for me, I can manipulate the outcome and still make logical Mascot vs. Mascot sense, such as it is...

We have the UCLA Bruins vs. the Florida Gators again, just like the championship game in 2006. Last year I said that Gators would eat a LSU Tiger, but that's only if they get them into the water and I had a Tiger eat a baby Bruin. This year, we've got a real life king size Grizzly Bear, which can put a big time chomping on any Florida Gator (I saw a demo on the Discovery Channel and a bear can bite right through the head of an alligator).

Then we have the Ohio St. Buckeyes vs. the Georgetown Hoyas. A Buckeye is a giant tree and I don't care what the Georgetown website says, according to Wikipedia, a Hoya is a small flowering plant, so obviously, a giant tree defeats all small flowers. That's an easy pick.

So in the final game, we have Bruins vs. Buckeyes and as you can see from this photo, the giant tree will fall and crush any bear... So GO BUCKEYES!!

UFOs, Alien Kidnapping & the Hindenberg

News Item: France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades. The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists. "It is a world first," said Jacques Patenet, the aeronautical engineer who heads the office for the study of "non-identified aerospatial phenomena." French UFO Website

I'm not sure if I really was kidnapped by aliens, but the story below is true.

When I was 13 years old, I would take the same bus every day to school. I had to walk about 10 minutes to the corner to the bus stop (AC Transit) that came around 7:15am. one day, I left at the usual time and I got to the bus stop and waited and waited and waited and finally a bus came and it was the 10:30am bus. I've never worn a watch, so I had no idea what time it was, but somehow about 3 hours went missing from my consciousness, so I've always just figured I was kidnapped by aliens and they couldn't deal with me, so they just put me back.

Or maybe that's why I am the way I am?

I once thought I saw a UFO, but I figured out it was someone from the other side of the street that shot off a Roman Candle right over the top of our house.

I did try to create a UFO on Halloween, but it's probably lucky my plan failed. For some reason, when I was a kid, the Chemistry sets you could buy had lots of dangerous chemicals (life was so much more fun back in the good olde days, eh?) and I figured out how to make Hydrogen gas and in my wierd mind, I thought I would take a couple of dry cleaning plastic bags doubled up for strength, fill them up with hydrogen gas that I was going to make in the garage, put a gondola full of lighter fluid underneath, make a slow burning fuse, which I was able to make with my chemistry set and float it up over the town on Halloween night and when it blew up in a Hindenberg Jr. like explosion, I would see the story in the paper the next day. What an excellent idea, eh? Make hydrogen gas in the garage with a car full of gasoline..

Well, lucky for me and the rest of my family, I failed miserably. and I was truely miserable afterwards. as I was putting a glass funnel into the rubber stopper which I was going to use to mix the chemicals, the glass tube broke (I didn't know you were supposed to use Glycerin to make the glass slide through the hole) and I jammed about 2 inches of the tube into my right hand right between the thumb and index finger in the nice fleshy part and then it broke off making a nice tube where all the blood could nicely squirt out easily and quite a lot of it did flow.

My Dad was watching football and as calmly as I could (this part is fuzzy in my mind because it's so long ago, so maybe it was a panicky scream?) said I needed some help. We went down to the hospital, I had to wait for what seemed like a really long time with a bloody towel wrapped around my hand, the doctor shot me up with some anesthetic and in about 2 seconds stuck a jagged glass tube held in tweezers in front of my face and said: "Is this it?" Those doctors are such jokers!! Since is was scientific glass, it has lead in it, so it will show up in an X-Ray and there was one small piece left in my hand and it floated around for about 10 years, sometimes coming near the surface and causing pain when I shifted gears while driving. Thankfully, it's stuck somewhere deep inside and it just leaves me alone.

The moral of this story is: If you ever get the idea to recreate the Hindenberg disaster, just watch the film of it bursting into flames and think about the "Humanity".

Hindenberg Video

My Golf Towel Collection

I've been collecting golf towels for a long time. I liked them because they were colorful, had cool logos, said something about the location and scenery and are usually about $10-15. Over the years, a lot of family & friends have helped me add to my collection, although I think I picked up the most remote towel myself from the Alice Springs Golf Club in the Outback of the Northern Territories in Australia.

Jesse Isotalo was in Sao Paulo Brazil and had hired a taxi all day for $50 (Sao Paulo is about 600 square miles) and drove to every sporting good store he could find (it was winter and all the golf courses were closed) and all they had was soccer & NFL stuff. He finally went to an embroidery shop and had them make up a fake Sao Paulo Golf Club towel.

My brother, Larry, was living in France, where they don't play much golf. He took a train, a bus and then walked 5 miles to a private club - Golf de Saint-Cloud. They almost didn't let him in because in their French mentallity, they didn't understand why anybody would come all that way just to get a golf towel.

Click here for the complete collection

I've got Golf Towels from: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, France, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea & US - California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee & Utah.

Four Things About Me You Might Not Know

Four Jobs I've had in my life:
Worked on an Army Fort fixing computers
Tour Guide on Amtrak
Hardware & Software Technical Support
Event Planner

Four movies I would watch over and over:
Maltese Falcon
Ferris Beuller's Day Off
Jurrasic Park
Used Cars

Four Places I have lived:
El Cerrito CA
Salinas CA
Hayward CA
Castro Valley CA

Four TV shows I watch:
Lost
24
Heroes
The Office

Four Places I have been on vacation:
Alice Springs & Great Barrier Reef Australia
Yellowstone Park
Grand Canyon
Hawaii

Four of my favorite foods:
Salmon
Filet Mignon
Seafood Salad
Chocolate Ice Cream

Four places I would rather be right now:
Watching the sunset in Lahaina, Hawaii
Watching a movie
Point Lobos State Park
In my comfy chair

Here's what you're supposed to do... and please do not spoil the fun. Hit forward, delete my answers and type in your answers. Then, send this to a whole bunch of people you know INCLUDING the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little known facts about those who know you. Remember to send it back to the person who sent it to you.