Traveling the Worn Path

While traveling the road of life, one can't help but notice the patterns that we fall into. It goes above just a daily ritual, because if you take a second to look you normally will find that even in the process of a week, the same situations and scenarios will consistently occur.

This week turned into one of those very same regularly-scheduled programs.

New Years graced me with an extended weekend, which was great in that the work week was therefore shorter. I'll take four days of work over five days of work anytime. The one problem was that I got very little sleep all week, and would just mope around like a zombie from being so damn tired. I got so much sleep on my day off on Monday that I couldn't fall asleep at a good time for the first day of work, then the Penn State game went late on Tuesday night, and finally on Wednesday night the championship game between Texas and USC.

So I stumbled into the weekend anxious not only for a chance to sleep late, but to break the monotony and actually do something stimulating. Friday I went to hang out with Kent and Brett, and was treated to the surprise of Rach coming down for the weekend. Not much really happened, just your standard night of hanging out and chilling. I did get to gain control of the TV long enough to watch the Flyers game, who won a good one against Washington to pull ahead to first in the conference AND in the entire fucking NHL. I'll tell you a secret..... those guys are pretty good.

Saturday is when the "action" happened. Went to play pool, which went fantastic. And by the word "fantastic," I actually mean "horrible." Just wasn't shooting the ball well at all. We have tried to move more to 9-ball, and actually played only that on Saturday, but our poor play went beyond getting used to a new game. It was definitely and unfortunate swing from how I played last weekend, so I guess I have some work to do next weekend to get back to form.

Then last night was the big $50 max buy in poker game at Kent's. The starting lineup included Ladies-Man Abel, Keyur "The Professor" Patel, Big Brett, King of Men, Tegatron 4000, and some guy named Dan. I won't get into much detail about specific hands, but will say that while I was getting decent cards, I also think I played them very well. I lost the first hand of the night when Kent used his skills at cheating to get himself pocket Aces while I had top pair of Kings. I lost about $24 right off the bat, re-bought an extra $20 to have a good starting stack again, and then proceeded to win many big pots. Trips against Abel, then a pot against Kent when I bet my pair and flush draw and hit, I got Keyur to lay down a straight when the flush was on the board (although this was bad for me because if he called I would have hit my quads on the river), and I also got him to fly all in when I had the nuts.

However the night was not without heartache. In for $70 and up to about $350 on the table, I lost a monster pot to Kent late in the night that doubled him up and knocked me down to a $60 profit for the night. Kent had been winning many pots in the night, admittedly, by bluffing. He was moving over the top of people and raising with nothing because of the cold cards he was getting. So when it was 4 handed, and I was holding KK after raising, I just couldn't convince myself that, on a board with disconnected and unsuited low cards, that Kent actually had a hand. When he bet all-in for 43 on the river and showed down trip eights, it was a pretty tough blow for me to take. I can't be too mad: after all, most people were down that night and I still left with a decent profit. But knowing that I could have left up at least two hundred dollars, and that I probably could have folded on the turn and saved myself a hundred....... well, I wasn't very happy for a good portion of time.

I played for about 5 hours and left around 1:30. After sleeping in today, I watched some football games and just chilled around the house.

So if you weren't paying attention, the standard pattern is: work during the week, hang out at Kent's on Friday, play pool Saturday morning, do some activity Saturday night, sleep late Sunday and just hang around in my pajamas and watch football.

Not a bad pattern if I do say so myself. Now if only I could add "bangs a hot chick" somewhere in there, I'd be happy as a clam.