A Typical Day/Week in the Life....Of Your's Truly....

Well, there simply hasn't been a lot to write about lately!
The weather here in SW Minnesota has been very cool and dreary for April.
The days where it reaches 60 degrees and we see some sunshing have been few and far between.
Today, however was a different story.  It must've got to about 65 degrees and the sun was shining all day long.

We are fortunate enough to have a brother-in-law who has a very nice wood splitter and is letting us use it....SO, we have been very busy cutting up our wood pile and trying to get everything split before it has to be returned.
We have an unbelievably huge pile of wood that needed to be split.
We've been at it for 4 full afternoons now, and we are starting to see the end of it.
I figure another 3 afternoons and we should have it licked.
It will really be a good feeling to have that taken care of!

Today my dad was up helping for the afternoon.
A couple of days ago, my brother Brian, helped for the afternoon.
Our son, JD helped us one day....and our daughter, Heather has also helped for a day or two.
Christine of course, has been a fixture, and has helped every day but one.
Our great neighbor, Quentin has helped a couple of days also....

Most of the wood actually comes from Quentin.
He's a sheriff's deputy, who does wood cutting & tree-trimming on the side, and on his days off.
Whenever he gets good hard wood, like ash, black walnut, elm, locust, etc.... he simply drops off large chunks of it in our back yard.
We have an awful lot of wood, but I simply hate to turn down good wood, when it gets delivered to our back yard.
I told him this week that we may have to sell some of the wood next fall/winter and get some going-out-to-eat money for his family & our family.....
He really is a great neighbor.  He keeps an eye on our place whenever we're out of town for more than a few days.  He regularly comes over to see if I have any chain saw blades that need to be sharpened, and if he sees me working outside, and he has a day off, he just jumps right in and doesn't expect anything in return.

I/we do have opportunity to pay him & his wife back occasionally though.
We help watch their 2 girls, if they're ever in a pinch.  I was also able to help him tile a bathroom that they put in their basement a month ago....
It all works out pretty good.....

I continue to try and have everything in place for an extended motorcycle/poker vacation in June.
I am hoping to leave here around the end of May and will probably try to be back by the 4th of July.
I still have plenty of work that can/should be done before I leave.

I probably won't be able to play poker again until next weekend. (unless if I go to the little local Indian casino tomorrow night, which is a possibility)
Next weekend, I need to pick up something for a Lakota Creations customer on the way to MPLS, and also drop something off for another customer, so we can write off another business trip...& that's what we intend to do.
We'll probably leave on Wednesday and be back on Sunday for Mother's Day hopefully.

We had a great Easter.  Most of Christine's family was able to come here for the early meal. (and an Easter egg hunt)
We had turkey, ham, and all the fixin's.... & it was delicious!
Late afternoon we headed to Inwood and had a lighter meal with my side of the family...at my parents house.
We had a very enjoyable time at both places!

Christine should be home shortly.  We both worked very hard today, so she ran into town to pick up some chicken & potato's from Pizza Ranch.  It's normally very good....and I'm sure it will be tonight.....especially since I'm really, really, hungry.....

Ciau for now.....

Passed Out Cold in S-Town

Well, it's been an interesting and not so uneventful weekend.
We (Christine & myself) find ourselves in Shakopee, MN relaxing in our hotel room, after a long day at the card room (for me) followed by a nice dinner at Chili's this evening.

We left home on Wednesday this week and took care of a little bit of Lakota Creations business to start the trip.  We do this whenever possible so that we can at least write off the trip as a business expense.
I also had an appointment at the Dentist in Savage, MN on Thursday morning, to get 1 tooth pulled and quite a bit of dental work/fillings scheduled on my other teeth.
(We made the mistake of letting this slide for about 5 years and I'm now paying the price)
The appointment was for 2 hours so that hopefully they'd be able to finish up everything on this visit.
We go to the same dentist that we used to take the kids too when they were living at home.  At this location they have about 5 or 6 dentists and probably that many hygienists also, so when you're there with an entire family, everyone can be worked on at the same time.

My appointment on Thursday started out routinely enough, as the dentist patiently started plugging away at all of the work that needed to be done in my mouth.  A couple hours into the appointment, he had me look at one of my teeth....and to consider a couple of options.  This particular tooth, if worked on would need a root canal, as well as a crown, and would ultimately cost an extra 2 grand about...  I thought about it for a brief amount of time and gave him the OK to pull it out, along with the other one that was scheduled to be pulled out.

This also went pretty good I thought.  The teeth came out easier than I thought they would. 
With that, after about 3 hours in the office, with my mouth wide open, they had the work completed.  I had my mouth stuffed full of gauze, so using sign language, I asked the nurse if she would call Christine to let her know I was ready to be picked up, which she was kind enough to do for me.

So, I'm sent home with the typical instructions that everyone gets whenever a tooth is pulled.  I was going to follow those rules to a "T" because I didn't want any problems.  I was however wishing I would've ate something before my 8:00 appointment, because I now realized, it may be awhile before my mouth was going to be feeling good enough to eat.

Christine arrived shortly after 11:00 to pick me up & we proceeded to go back to our hotel.  I pretty much had planned on going back to bed when I got back, and that's what I did.  Christine was going to go play an afternoon session of  BINGO at Mystic Lake.  By the time she left, it was supposed to be OK for me to remove the gauze, which I did.
I then proceeded to go to sleep and slept for about an hour.
Here's where it started getting interesting....

After laying in bed and watching TV for awhile, I needed to get up to use the bathroom.
So, I saunter into the bathroom and start using it.....
I remember thinking that I probably should get back into bed, because I was feeling a little bit dizzy.
The next thing I know (and remember) is waking up flat on my back.  I had no idea where I was or what was going on.  I turned my head to the side and realized I was laying on ceramic tile and about that time I realized that I must've passed out while I was using the bathroom.
Well, that's about all I remember and I was "out cold" again.
When I 'come to' the second time, it was kind of a repeat of the 1st, except that I had my wits together just a bit more....  I had the where-with-all to realize again that I'd passed out for a 2nd time.  I went through the scenario in my head and decided to check my clothing situation.  I now realized that my shorts were exactly as they were while I was using the bathroom....so I tuck my jewels back in.
I didn't want the hotel maids to come in the room and find me like that....   Probably would give them the scare of their life! 
I was still laying flat on my back and realize that I am freezing cold.  So, I cautiously stand up and stumble back to the bed.  I was still dizzy and probably didn't have much time to waste or I'd have been 'out' again.  I figured after looking at the time that I must've been out cold for about 1/2 an hour....and I knew it was still going to be at least 2 hours before Christine was back.

I grabbed my shirt off of a chair by the bed and got my phone, just in case there was a serious enough problem that I thought I would need to call for help.

Well, Christine did come home around 4:30 and was surprised to hear about my interesting day.
I told her that she was lucky I didn't crack my head open on the tile & bleed out.  I told here that she'd have found me laying there in a pool of blood, with my jewels hanging out.  For some reason it must've painted a funny picture in her head, because she couldn't stop laughing.  I told her that if that would've happened I hoped that she would at least have tucked things back in before the medics or coroner got there....
If you're like me, that sounds kind of morbid.... but I'm telling you, Christine couldn't stop laughing!

I'm in the process of getting some life insurance, as we speak....  (and I was before this weekend)  :)
I told her she'd would've quit laughing once she realized that the insurance policy wasn't in effect yet....and she'd be up a creek without a paddle if I died before it went into effect.  She still couldn't quit laughing!
Kinda makes me wonder if I should put a hold on that policy!

I'm just kidding of course...  I know I bragged her up pretty good in one of my earlier entries and I also know she loves me dearly....even though she couldn't quit laughing at my ill fortune on Thursday.

I did realize by Friday, and especially on Saturday, that you can hurt yourself pretty good by passing out & falling down hard.  (and not being able to break the fall at all) My elbow, my knee, my tailbone, and my head all were hurting by Saturday.  My tailbone and elbow are especially tender and sensitive, but I'm hopeful that within a couple of days everything will be feeling better.

I was able to play cards Wednesday, Friday, & Saturday and had winning sessions every single day.  I didn't make a killing, but the trip was definitely worthwhile.  Seems lately that I just have to do a lot of "grinding" at the poker table.  I've been chalking up win after win, but none of them have been huge... 
Don't get me wrong...  I don't mind that a bit.  It seems that as long as there's no big losses, and lots of wins, (even if they're not huge) the bankroll gets bigger....and that's what we're after.

The Legendary Johnny Moss

For those of you who don't know, Johnny Moss was the "old man of poker".  He won the first 3 World Series of Poker tournaments.  He is credited for really putting poker 'out there' for the world to see.
Benny Binion set up a match between Johnny and Nick the Greek where they were going to play for big bucks and the general public in Vegas was allowed to watch.  (and watch they did!)
Now, I heard the story from Johnny.....and I read about it in the card-playing history books.  :)

I started traveling to and from Vegas when I was a young guy in my 20's.
I believe the first time I went, I stayed at the Rio which is located slightly West of the infamous strip.
I played at the Mirage, because that was really the only place to play on the strip. (at least if you wanted to play medium to high limit poker)
I suppose I could turn this one story into two stories by telling you all about my very first trip to Vegas.  :)

I got into town late evening as I recall and took a shuttle to the hotel.  I didn't go out that first night.  I just wanted to get rested up for some poker the next day.  To this day, I have never played poker the day that I arrived in Vegas.  It's not superstition or anything...  I simply want to be well-rested and playing the best poker that I can...so I get a good night's sleep.

Well, the next day around noon, I headed down to the Mirage and got into what I thought was a really good 20-40 limit HE game.  I had come to Vegas with about $2500 as I recall and was intent on at least doubling it.  Little did I know how difficult that would be. 

Looking back, I was probably playing in one of the toughest games in town....
There were some players playing in that game...that I didn't know...but over the next few years, I would get to know....   You can see them regularly on the Game show network playing in the High Stakes Poker game...and not infrequently at the final table at major poker tournaments as well.

About 1:00 or 2:00 AM that first night, I found myself with every bit of money that I had come with on the table.  I had only a few hundred bucks left...
I got dealt JJ and was soon involved in a monster pot.  I had every single last chip in the pot before it was over, and I proceeded to win the pot for $1100 or $1200.
To shorten the story up, I played all night long that first night and stumbled home about 9:00 in the morning and if I recall correctly I was about a $100 winner.  That was probably the toughest 100 bucks I've ever made in my life.  I stayed in Vegas for several more days and by the time I went home, I had about $4500 in my pocket.  I hadn't quite doubled it, but I was a happy camper.  I'd made 2 grand in about 4 days I think...and that seemed like good money to me...

I also made it downtown to Binion's Horseshoe on that first trip and I felt right at home.  It had that old-school feeling where people were relaxed...they weren't in suits and ties...and they were playin' some good old-fashioned poker.  They were smokin' cigars and drinkin' beer & mixes...  
That's always a good thing to see if you're a professional poker player.  :)
This first trip downtown might've been the first time that I played with Johnny Moss, but I can't remember for certain.

Now, to shorten this story up...over the many, many, trips that I made to Las Vegas, Johnny Moss & I became pretty good friends.  I think he recognized that I was a good young poker player, and I respected him for the legend that he was.  He appreciated that I think.  Many of the younger players didn't respect him much.  I just thought he had earned my respect for the things he had accomplished when he was younger. (and well into his 70's)

To some degree, he kind of treated me like a son.  It wasn't quite that intimate, but we had a good relationship.  If he was having one of his bouts with gout or another sickness, I would sit with him and let him unload a bit on me.  Johnny was already a fairly old man in the late 80's/early 90's and he did have health issues.  I knew from stories and books that he had lived life in the extremely fast lane, nearly all his life.

Well, one day we were just chit-chatting/visiting and he was sharing a story with me (of which he literally had 1000's) about when he had taken Nick the Greek on, in a poker game, at the Horseshoe in 1979.
Johnny told me that he had lost a huge pot to Nick the Greek on the last card.  (They were playing 5-card Stud, No limit)  He told me that Nick had paid a huge amount of money to see that last card and was a huge underdog, but he got lucky and spiked it so Johnny lost a massive pot.
Johnny said after that pot, he felt really good, because he knew that he was a better player than Nick and because of the way Nick had played that hand, Johnny had no doubt that he would take all of his money.
Well, that part of the story is pretty much how history has recorded it, but then Johnny went on to tell me that over the course of the next 5 months, he beat Nick the Greek out of over 4 Million dollars.

I don't think anybody knows for sure how much he won, but it's a fact that he won an awful lot. (especially considering it was in 1979)

Since hearing that story, I've had the opportunity to read up a little bit on Johnny and he probably was telling the truth.  It was an honor for me to get to know Johnny on a very personal level and play with him at the poker table 100's of times.  Even though he was old, I saw moments of complete brilliance, where he was thinking leap years ahead of his opponents.
Most people playing the game with him simply couldn't appreciate some of the moves he made during the course of a game, because to put it bluntly....they didn't understand the advanced thinking behind the moves...

Johnny was notorious for all of his winning prop bets and for his many losing bets at the craps table.
He said he had lost at least 8 million in 4 years playing the dice....
He was a true gambler....and some people say the worlds greatest card player of all times.

To me, he was just a cool old man, who I liked to visit with... and listen too... and learn from....
He passed away in 1997 I believe and along with his passing, in my opinion, a complete era seemed to drift quietly into oblivion....
Sometimes I wish those simple... good old days could come back....

BTW, we did make it to MPLS this past weekend and I had winning days every single day that I played, (3 x's) so it was a very good trip....and my wife was even able to yell "BINGO" twice over the course of 3 sessions.  That made her happy....and as we all know....   When mama's happy, everybody's happy!