21 August 2008

Don't Know What's Wrong

I have been writing e-mails and complaining for quite a while about not being able to get rakeback on my account. I finally get my wish and Full Tilt gives me rakeback, so what do I do? I haven't played a single hand since I got it. Go figure. I don't know what the hell my problem is right now. I'm just not motivated to play and have been reluctant to sit down and put in some volume. I can feel myself slowly getting back into grinder mode, so maybe taking a short break will be a good thing. So rakeback should start to help out a little, even if it just levels out some of the short term variance. I'm still playing at the same level, and am just a few buy-ins short of moving up. Again, if I take a shot at the next level and drop below 50 buy-ins at the previous level, I'll drop down and take another shot some other time. The brief session I did play at the higher session was productive, so I just need to stay TAG and keep my head in the game and read players well.

So poker is going great, outside of the lack of will to play right now. I got my check from Full Tilt last week and it hasn't bounced yet. So hopefully the checks will start to flow again. I just got the Harrington on Cash Games series, so I'll be reading that. I'm almost finished with Professional No-Limit Hold'em. So far it has been a great book. I really love how it has gone into aspects that other books really don't cover. It focuses more on the odds (pot, implied, tilt), SPR (stack to pot ratios), and other topics. It is more about the way to think through hands and about your opponents. It's not your typical, raise with XX in such and such position and how to play big hands or draws. Poker is so complex, yet so simple. Poker is a game that can make you decent amounts of money if you play pretty straightforward and mix up your game. It can make you ridiculous amounts of money if you can add exploiting your opponents and position to your game.

My plan is to finish the Harrington series, then get done with some of the books I have on reading players and the math behind the game. Then I will go through the books I have on Omaha and Seven Card Stud. Once I've finished all of these, I want to re-read all four Harrington books, Negreanu's Power Hold'em, and the Zen of Poker. So that is pretty much it for the poker front.

The wedding is coming along and only a month away. My fiancee and I talked about the reception and ceremony and such. We pretty much have everything planned and just need to get through the final details. I still have some things to get done. I do have a few secret projects and things I want to get done for the wedding. I want to get a photo slideshow together that she doesn't know about. It will feature pictures from us as kids to today. The best one is going to be the dance. I have a special song that really represents her, to me. We will have our first dance together, which we both agreed on. Then I want the DJ to announce to the crowd that I have requested this song for just her and I. So I have to coordinate with him to get that taken care of. We get fit for our suits this sunday, so other than that, all is well.

The job is going well. It sucks that to stay employed with the company, you have to join the union. But whatever. I'm not a big supporter of unions, especially for teachers and some segments that always seem to hijack production for wages. Boeing engineers and teachers are perfect examples of why unions are not what is in their best interests. The boeing employees threaten to strike every year. They get great compensation, and forget that the company needs to procure orders to maintain workforce. If the employees price themselves out of the market, it simply leads to layoffs and firings, usually the higher or more senior employees. Teachers unions protect horrible teachers and our school systems have way too many administrators.

Adminstrators are the ones that make all the money when you pass the levies. They might tell you that the kids need the money or the schools need to be refurbished. But a small percentage of that money goes to the kids or schools. My ex's parents were both administrators, and let me tell you, they both made over 100k a year. The average teacher makes about 45k a year. The administrator to teacher ratio is about 4:1 (T:A), you do the math. If we eliminated more administrators, we could hire more teachers, lower classroom sizes, and pay them more. But anywho. I'll get off my soapbox.

We need to get our priorities straight in this country. We need to value our money and our free time more. We need to stop paying athletes millions of dollars, and stop going to movies and paying actors millions to entertain us. We need to spend more time reading, instead of watching TV and movies. We need to spend more time with our kids, not just sitting with them in front of a TV. The average consumer has a lot of pull against the inequities of society. The only problem, is that one alone can't do it. It has to be a collective. We have to get together and decide what is important and what is not. If paying athletes $5 million a year to hit a baseball, or an actress $20 million for one movie is important, than keep doing what your doing. If making sure your kids have a great education and your neighborhoods are safe and clean, than we need to find a new solution. I can't wait for the new election cycle. HONESTLY, I don't think we could go wrong with either McCain or Obama.

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