One of the words in this post was on my SATs

Just dropped SteelerSteph off at the Detroit Metro Airport for a three and half week training in Raliegh, NC and I am feeling a little melancholy. It did not help that I was living in a sitcom this morning; I could practically hear the studio audience laughing. It quickly went from bad to worse when I got to work and reached its nadir as I drove away from the airport worrying about Stephanie lugging all her crap through the airport. “Will they hassle her for what I know is overweight baggage?” “Did she have too much carry-on? – who knows what the rules are these days?” “I hope she gets there ok”

I drove her unfamiliar mini-van away from the unfamiliar airport being careful not to hit anything, an exercise that increased in complexity because it was raining. What a recipe for a shitty day!

So what was the sitcom this morning? Glad you asked. I stayed up late last night since the bed and our bedroom was taken over by clothes in various stages of packing. I watched the Cardinals implode in the most spectacular fashion and finally got to bed around 1 AM. I knew that I had to be in the office by 7:30 this morning for an appointment with a director on my team. I don’t know what happened to the alarm set for 6 AM, but I do know that I went from dead sleep to full panic in about 2 seconds when Stepanie asked, “Don’t you have to be in to work early?” Sleepy Josh, “Yeah….what time is it?..... 7:29!?!?!?! Ohhh shit!”

I went into the bathroom and immediately stubbed my toe on a scale that was not there the day before. “Goddamnit, that hurt!!” Relieved the bladder and I turned on the water in the shower to get it hot and got ready to jump in. Standing outside the shower, I pull the little plunger thing up on the tub faucet and “WHAT THE FU-K?!?!?!” I was instantly confused, wet, and cold. Somehow the shower head was facing directly out at me and I quickly realized this was not going to be a good day. Water under control, dripping wet and pissed I asked Steph if she had done anything to the shower. “Nope”. Whatever, I gotta get going.

15 minutes later I am out the door and into school bus hell. I call the director I am supposed to be meeting with right then and get the info I need to get started for when I finally will make it into the office. The stalled Ford Taurus blocking the right lane of the two lane road was a perfect touch to the morning.

Director taken care of, I get back to my own desk to find out that our collaboration software is slowly grinding to a halt. Our instant messaging screen sharing meetings won’t work, our Quickplace rooms won’t authenticate and our webserver is not displaying the proper awareness that shows if the names listed on a page are in the office and logged in. Quicker than I can say, “Fan-Frickin-Tastic” I am neck deep in troubleshooting and have to bring down all the collaboration software for the firm during business hours. I am sure that even the non geek out there can appreciate that this is not a good thing.

11:30 and I finally got everything back online and 100% functional and I ran out the door to speed to the apartment and got Stephanie to the airport 2 hours before departure. I guess the silver lining in all this is that I was so busy and stressed this morning that I did not have any time to feel bad for myself (like I do now) and worry about the next month (like I am now). Somehow, writing about it here provides a level of catharsis and I feel a little better already.

Tomorrow will be a better day (how can it not, I have the bi-monthly office bowling league!!) and the dog, cat, and myself will start to work out our new routines. In all of this, I feel the worst for the dog. Steph has been home from work with him for the past 6 months. The little bastard is spoiled and he is pretty emotional for an animal. I am planning on making a trip home to the apartment everyday at lunch to let him out for a quick walk, but that will not make up all the time he spent at Steph’s side. I am slightly worried he might stroke out when she finally comes home. I am sure that at a minimum bladder control will be lost.

Soooooo. Bachelorhood until November 10^th. What to do? I guess I hope that I don’t lose my whole bankroll on FT because of all the extra playing time I will have! I am going to set a rule that requires at least 30 mins of exercise before I fire up the virtual tables. It is always easier to exercise without SteelerSteph for some reason. Good chance to drop a few of the pounds that have attached themselves over the past few months. I should get the opportunity for some live play in the local casiono(s) and have high hopes for good results there. Watch some football, drink some beer, play some poker. It will be novel and new at first, but I am sure that by the time Steph gets back I will really be missing her.

Look me up at FullTilt, SteelerJosh.

Nadir was the word that somehow came to mind from the SATs. I am pretty sure it is a nerd word for the lowest point on something and the polar opposite of apogee. Insert nerd laugh here -->

Live Poker Fun

I miss playing live poker. I forgot how much fun it can be to drink some beers, talk some smack, and rake some pots with friends. The stakes are low enough that it can probably be classified as pure fun, but if you get a little luck (as I did) you can make a nice profit. We played 3 five dollar SNGs with second place getting their buy in back and first taking the rest. With 7 players this created a $25 profit for taking it down. I hope they invite me back :)

If my buddy Aaron is reading this, I know he will say, "I told you so" but I had some serious luck. I was winning my races with AK and even got quad 6's one hand. It was a good night.

Game 1. Jim V was a card rack and was playing some good power poker with his big stack. The biggest hand of the game was one that was so rigged it belonged online. QQ vs J9 vs K10 on a QJ9 flop. Fireworks and Jim tripled up with his flopped straight. Jim and I got heads up and he had a decent chip advantage. I got it all in PF with A4 vs his 78 and he caught his straight on the river to take it down and I got my money back for finishing second.

Game 2. I took this one down without any real memorable hands. It seemed to go pretty fast and at the end it was me and Mike B. Time ran out and I won it on total chip count. Mike played solidly and it would have been an interesting HU match if time would have allowed it.

Game 3. I took this one down also with some solid play and a nice dose of luck. The first one out of the game was DFed when he could not get away from his pocket KK on an all heart flop. Three way, there was a pot sized raise (300) from EP, a call and Derek showed me his hand. None of the Ks had a heart on them and he was in a tough spot. Personally, I would have made an easy fold here but I did not advise him as such because I am a believer in one player to a hand. He made the interesting move of shoving all in and the EP raiser (Jim V.) folded (which surprised me) and then Matt agonized a long time over making a call. This was the first or second hand of the tourney so DFed's all in meant Matt would be all in. As it turned out, Matt had a baby flush and made the tough call. DFed missed the runner runner he would have needed to stay alive and was the first one out. He would be unhappy to know that Kings held up two or more three times this game. Oh well. Sixes would prove fickle too as BHoj got Jim V. all in with 66 vs Jim's 44 and the 4 on the flop sent Hoj packing. A hand or two later I hit quads with my pocket 6's and sent Matt home. It came down to Jim and me heads up and I had a huge chiplead and the game was called.

Final Results:
Game 1: Jim V., Josh S.
Game 2: Josh S., Mike B.
Game 3: Josh S., Jim V.

A good time and I am looking forward to the next time we can get together. I introduced them all to the Hammer and it was being played a good bit! I did not get it once the whole night, but there were a ton of 7s and 2s on the boards. I think it was played at least 6 times and picked up a few pots. There are some good players in the bunch and I am looking forward to being put to the test by them. Hopefully you can make it next time Bean!!

Full Tilting

Tempted by Full Tilt’s new reload bonus and claims that they will be around for awhile, I reloaded on there what I withdrew from Party. The past two nights have been a mixed bag. Two tabling 1-2 Limit saw me lose 10 BB over 200 hands. Same old, same old, dodge a river card here, catch a river card there and the results would have been much better. Biggest loser of the night was my AK vs. AQ. One of those nights.

Last night was much better. While chatting with DNasty and watching his beloved Tigers put on a pitching clinic, I played in my first SNG on FT. It was the tightest $10 SNG, hell any level SNG, I have ever participated in. 45+ minutes in we still had 6 of the original 9 participants. Over an hour in, I busted on the bubble when I ran my AJ into the BB’s AA. The A on the flop all but sealed my deal. I did drop the hammer twice and advised the table (both times) of what I thought was the best damn hand in poker. The table was so tight, it did not seem to get me any extra action on my big hands….but it made an impression. When the pocket rockets sent me packing, the comment was something about the best damn hand in poker. J Amateurs!

Dissatisfied with my bubble, I fired up some 1-2 Limit and hung around my buy in. I lost with the Hilton Hoes twice and could never get any traction. Curious about the waters the next level up, I found a seat in a 2-4 game. It was a much better game and a few hands in, I noticed a familiar name to my left. change100. Hmmm, could it be “the change100”? That would be pretty cool and a first for me. I have never accidentally run into another blogger at the tables. If I did, I did not know it. I have certainly enjoyed playing with them on purpose in SNGs, MTTs, and blogger events but have never bumped into one accidentally in a ring game. I didn’t really know the protocol or etiquette for a situation like this so I just blundered ahead and asked in the chat box. “Change, shot in the dark here – are you a blogger?” Yup, it was her. “That is pretty cool”, I thought and then proceeded to check raise her after I limped in the SB with KQs. K36 flop and a K on the turn. The turn was checked around and I checked the river hoping for a bet (I was really out of position, but confident I had the best hand). Change100 obliged me and was not happy with my check raise. After expressing her displeasure in the chat box “aaarrgh” and making the crying call with 36 she let me know we were no longer friends J It was nice the couple hands it lasted. I felt a little bad check raising a blogger, but I would not expect anyone to play me soft and would not do that to someone either. When I recalled her perfect week with football picks (meaning she picked against my Steelers) I did not feel so bad about catching that 3rd King on the turn. 36 was her hand and the number of Jerome Bettis. Jerome was an awesome Steeler. Coincidence? I think not.

It was getting really late so I played a few more orbits and wished her luck. I wonder if I will start bumping into more bloggers as the pool of sites we can play on is shrinking. That would be a double edged sword. Cool to run into them, but most of them are pretty solid players so that is one less fish to fleece.

On the good news front, we have an end in sight to our home for sale in Ohio. We had a very low ball offer come in (it was so tempting to counter offer “at least kiss me first”) making a lot of demands. 20k below list. 3k towards their closing costs. All the appliances, we pay for their home warranty, and they want to close 60 days from now. Wow! It is a buyer’s market for sure, but that is a little outrageous. We countered with agreeing to all the concessions but only knocking 5k off our list. They responded by coming up 5k. Hmmm, this is not really getting us anywhere. Long story short, we sent an official counter offer last night for 10k off list and meeting all their demands and our agent expects it to be accepted. We shall see. However it shakes down, if we can sell this house life will be much better for the Steeler household. Maintaining two properties in two different states is neither a fun nor cheap experience. I hope this deal goes through.

Bloody Nose

Poker punched me in the face the past two sessions. Normally this is nothing to blog about, but it was poor timing as I had just moved up in limits. I am comfortable at the limit (it is still just chips meaning I am not playing scared) but the beats are a little bigger to the bank roll and I am throwing in the towel and moving back down. I'll be back bitches.

I won't be back this weekend though because I am enroute to the house in Ohio that is still for sale. Motivated by watching home improvement and house flipping shows, we are headed in to paint the two rooms we never painted when we lived there and to install some blinds upstairs. A thorough cleaning is also in order as we have not been there since the beginning of September. I am not fazed by the work ahead this weekend, I enjoy getting projects done, but there is no Internet or tv at the house now. All I will have for outside contact is my trusty little BlackBerry (which I am blogging from right now). No football, no poker, just a partially empty house. The bright side is that I plan on exercising the ST1100 if the weather permits. I also plan on picking up some brew supplies for the next batch of honeywheat I will be brewing. Oh yeah, we might even sell the house as we have a buyer coming through tonight and we are apparently on their short list. Wish us some luck because I am convinced that is what it will take to sell this place in the current market.

No Steeler football this weekend so I will not be missing much during the drive back to MI on Sunday. After last weeks game I am not sure I would be missing anything even if they were playing!

DoubleAs busted out of the ArUBa tournament but is still having a good time. Next time Scott.

Have a great weekend out there.

Meh

Poker was Meh this weekend with a little Blah thrown in for good measure. I guess the good thing is that I avoided tilt for the most part, and did not go chasing despite the hits that kept on coming. My stats in PT were in line (17 to 22 VP$IP) with all the other winning sessions and I played my good hands aggressively and got action on them. The cards just did not fall my way. There was one read that I made and did not act upon…. I just had to see! That bothered me to the tune of a $9.00 loss so it was not catastrophic by any means, just plain old dumb.

The trend I noticed was the same old one I read about quite often on other blogs. Get stuck early and spend the rest of the session fighting back. Three of the four big sessions saw me not making it back. I dropped a buy in and a half twice on the $25 NL tables and only one session saw me up that same amount. I also hit a rough patch on the ½ Limit tables and was proud of making some decent laydowns. Not sure I would be able to get away from KK, 1010, and AK in limit in the past. I dropped some of the gains I had made on replacing my 2% of DoubleAs in Aruba, but I am still headed in the right direction overall. It feels good.

Speaking of DoubleAs, I am anxiously waiting for some updates from Mean Gene and the UltimateBet Blog from Aruba. I was disappointed to see that their blog did not offer an RSS feed, so I will have to check that one from home. I have a good feeling about DoubleAs in this tourney and I am more excited about it than I otherwise would be because I have some money on it. I figure it is like me playing the tourney for a $125 buy in but with a much better version of me playing and I get to stay in Detroit, not sunny Aruba. So, win-win, right? Umm, yeah. I have been to Aruba once and would jump on the opportunity to get back there. I spent an 8 day honeymoon there at the Divi Divi resort and it was awesome. I did the whole tourist/newlywed thing with SNUBA diving, horseback riding on the beach, booze cruises, etc. and the weather and ocean was fantastic. Looking at the pictures on Mean Gene’s blog took me back there instantly.

I am sure that Gene will be glad that he was out of town and missed the debacle of a football game between the Steelers and the Bengals. It was almost like the Steelers wanted the Bengals to win. It was a very frustrating experience to watch all the turnover mistakes. Muffed punts that the Bengals recover and score with. Fumbles that the Bengals recovered. Interceptions in the end zone that really swing momentum. Dropped TD passes. Ugh, I can feel my blood pressure rising. I hope that game was not a harbinger of things to come. I know we can’t win them all, but the offense and special teams might being trying to prove that they can lose them all. The contest last week with Jacksonville was a good game against a good opponent. This week it was a bad game with an average opponent and the Steelers made way too many mistakes. The score should not have been as close as it was. Booooo Bengals and Steelers. Hooray Beer!!

Excited

Sadly, it has come to this. I am really excited because DirecTV finally came to the apartment and was able to hook up the dish and restore our service. The service includes the NFL Sunday Ticket and TIVO.

This 16 day hiatus from TIVO has helped me realize something about myself.

I love TIVO. If you have never had it, you would not understand. If you have had it and never lost it, you too would not understand.

I managed to live 29 years without you and I know now that I took you for granted while I had you the last year. I am sorry TIVO, I will not do it again. I will appreciate every commercial you let me speed through with your happy "Be-doop, Be-DOop, Be-DOOP" chirp. I will praise you for allowing me to watch LOST when I want to watch it, not when the network says I have to. What, I am busy during High Stakes Poker on GSN? I know you have my back. There was a show with something Pittsburgh Steelers related and I was not aware it was on? You have me covered there too lil' buddy. You know that staying up to watch Lucky Louie would make me tired and cranky the next day so you assure me I can rest easy and watch it on Monday when I get home from work. In short, you are the man TIVO. Keep on doing what you do I promise to keep you happy by recording our favorite shows (sometimes two at a time!) and even finally allowing you to offer some of your zany suggestions.

In the "Other News that Dugglebogy does not care About" department, I am proud to brag that my "children" went 2-0 this weekend. I started off my season in both leauges with a win, although one took a tackle for a 9 yard loss of Washington's althletic TE, Chris Coooley. I scraped by with a .5 point win there. Consider me a fan of the Vikings D for week one (although Mean Gene and I both know who really defines Defense and is starts with a Pitts and ends with a burgh). Bragging will continue as my wins do.

No poker yet this week, but I have been enjoying a modicum of success at the micro-limit NL Hold Em on Party. Two months of positive results at the $25 Max Buy in NL has me feeling that this focus shift from Limit to NL is what I was looking for. I plan to keep grinding away and taking a shot at the next level as I feel comfortable.

I missed the Mookie last night, but plan on being there next week... that is always fun.

Koney Island

Can anyone tell me why there are approx 125 of these per square mile in MI and why or what I would eat there?

I am quite curious, but too afraid to actually venture in one. If it is a greasy spoon type place, give me a Waffle House and I am all set.

1st full week in MI and I have been to the B&M casino zero times. Money is pretty tight right now with a mortgage and rent. I am looking forward to getting some live action in now that I am only 30 mins from the downtown Detroit casinos but it will have to wait for a windfall like a big score online or selling our house.

Enough Already

I need to get some tv service or something else to do in Michigan. For Fook's sake, poker is really pissing me off right now and I seem to be in a flat spin. This is particularly frustrating after a great August that saw me making steady gains throughout the month. With no DirecTV service yet (screw you installers) I am spending a lot of free time mashing buttons and getting the shock. No banana. Stupid monkey, when will I learn?

Baahh Humbug.

Unpacked (Almost)

Had some time for poker today and it was not nice to me. I think I played well, but I could not win a HU SNG if my life depended on it and my one MTT was 1 hour and 26 mins for nothing. My JJ could not win the race against the maniac that hit a three outer on the river earlier against me to stay in. Funny how that catches up more often than not. The guy that should have been on the rail survives his all in with me and then proceeds to knock me out later in the tourney.

One thing I enjoyed in this MTT, and I have to thank Hoyazo for, was playing my pocket pairs. I utilized his treatise on playing middle pairs and raised them 3x BB regardless of position and it went well for me. A great example is when I had pocket 8's late in the tourney and raised to 3600 UTG +1. In the past I might have limped with these hoping to hit a flop but this time my raise won the blinds and the antes. I raised all my PP 3x and almost any hand I was playing and this really helped to disguise my monsters and my hammers. Looking at my stats in the disappointing final table money miss, I think I might have played a little too tight. I was hot early on and was chip leader most of the first hour. I checked my stats after the break and I was only 14% VPIP according to Party which means I was closer to 10%. Pretty tight. This is good, as I have been working on that, but that is probably why I finished out side of the money.

Actually, poker has pretty much sucked since the move, but what else am I going to do? I have no tv service yet (not until the 14th..don't ask, but DirecTV can bite my ass) and you can only arrange so much crap. After dropping half a G at Ikea, at least I have a place to keep all my clothes and I have lights in each room. Pretty much, moving into an apartment after living in a house.... sucks. On the bright side I am now 14.4 miles from the office and there is a ton of shit nearby the new homestead. I got my haircut, purchased groceries, had pizza delivered, and found some nice dog walking less than a mile from the Steelerhome. Curious how I will feel when it is winter here.

Ironic that DNasty is in MI this week but we will not see each other. He is in the woods have man sex with his brother or something. They call it "camping up north" but I think I know the real deal. I might have to re-develop my passion for sleeping and eating without walls and roof but 3 years stationed at the National Training Center and sleeping under the stars for 2 weeks out of every month kinda killed that desire. It did develop a knack for knowing how to shit outside and which MRE's were the best, but not so much a desire to rough it. Anyway, I hope DNasty is smart and uses protection...

from mosquitoes.

Before I go iron something for my first day in my new office, let me worry publicly about Big Ben and his appendectomy that will cause him to miss the opener. I am not a Batch hater (which is against the grain in my new locale), there is something about Ben that just wins games. Charlie might get it done, but I have less faith/hope that the defending Super Bowl Champs will start the season with a win. I wonder what this is doing to the line at Mansion.

Have a good week all and make HighonPoker's Poker.

Break from the Move

For my Cleveland Office Fantasy Football Draft. I had to drive into the office... check that... FLY into the office because I got stuck in IKEA with the wife and parents-in-law. Wow. That place is not designed for an easy or timely escape... but I digress.

Running late, I hauled as much ass as I could in Detroit traffic and got to the office (and my only means of connecting to the net right now) and started off my draft right with Shaun Alexander in the third pick. Surprised he was there.

My favorite quote of the night was, "That Wali Lundy pick has me rattled!" (after Mr. Lundy went with the first pick of the 10th Round)

My team shook out like this:

QB: Daunte Culpepper
Jake Plummer

RB: Shaun Alexander
Julius Jones
Deshaun Foster
Jerious Norwood
Dominic Rhodes

WR: Terrell Owens
Andre Johnson
Rod Smith
Nate Burleson

TE: Todd Heap

K: Matt Stover

D: Baltimore Ravens

I like how they look on paper, hopefully there are no injuries (or suspensions T.O.!!) to my big starters and I really like my Norwood pick late in the draft. Fast Willie might lose to him in a footrace... that kid is FAST!

Back to the boxes and the unpacking in the new apartment. In case you have not experienced this, it really sucks moving from a house to an apartment. It really feels like you are taking a step back in life. Not to sound snobby, but the second refrigerator that we kept in the garage is nicer and bigger than the only one in the apartment's kitchen now. At least there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Barring a complete crash of the Northeast Ohio housing market, we will be back among the homeowning class in 12 months.

I am getting high speed cable hooked up tomorrow in the apartment. See you all then.

M Day

Move Day.

Michigan Day.

Off to the land of Thrice Confirmed Huge Junk. Wheeee.

Maybe this is the same scientific phenomenon that occurs when you buy a new car and then notice that every third car you pass is the same one..... but there seem to be several other bloggers going through the move process and they all seem to express the same feelings I have... only better than I can.

Scurvy Dog
Mean Gene
DuggleBogey
Poker Poison

I have not tried it, but I understand Mean Gene completely when he says, "It is very difficult to successfully throw away a garbage can." I also identified with his Bittersweet post. Well put.

I am moving today and will not have cable in the new place until Friday so I will have to get my blog fixes via Bloglines and the BlackBerry. Good luck to all at the Mookie and WWDN. Miss my chips.

In summation: Moving is teh Suck.

No Hammer, No Glory

Let this be a lesson. From teh Mookie:

PokerStars Game #6028848228: Tournament #30401788, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2006/08/23 - 22:28:43 (ET)Table '30401788 1' 9-max
Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: HighOnPokr (2075 in chips)
Seat 2: smokkee (3078 in chips)
Seat 4: Iakaris (1900 in chips)
Seat 5: aquaverse (565 in chips)
Seat 6: hoyazo (1750 in chips)
Seat 7: STeelerJosh (3292 in chips)
Seat 8: willwonka (1160 in chips)
Seat 9: bthecloser69 (1805 in chips) I
akaris: posts small blind 15
aquaverse: posts big blind 30

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to STeelerJosh [2h 7d] <---The Real Deal, 72o


STeelerJosh: folds embarrassedly
Iakaris: raises 210 to 300
aquaverse: raises 265 to 565 and is all-in
Iakaris: calls 265

*** FLOP *** [8d 6d 7c]s
*** TURN *** [8d 6d 7c] [2s]
*** RIVER *** [8d 6d 7c 2s] [3h]

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Iakaris: shows [Kd Kc] (a pair of Kings)
aquaverse: shows [Qc Qd] (a pair of Queens)

smokkee said, "the hammer woulda took it"

So true it hurts smokkee.... so true.

Michigan Vanity Plates

As you may have guessed by my avatar, blogname, face paint, etc. I am a pretty big Steelers fan. For that past two years I have had customized plates on my car and I will be losing them when I move to Michigan. I mistakenly thought that it would be easier to get custom plates with Steeler references in MI. I was wrong. I can't even get my current Ohio plate up there!

With DNasty's help today, we came up with the following available plate ideas:

ST33L3R
STLRJSH
STLRPRD
COWRPWR
STLRFN1
BLKGLD1
STLCURT
STLRN8N

I think my favorite two are COWRPWR and STLRN8N. I am leaning towards the latter since I am not sure how long Cowher will maintain his coaching job. There seem to be some rumors around the lack of a contract renewal with an organization that has traditionally renewed coaching contracts with two years left on them. Personally, I hope Bill stays but I would respect a decision to not renew if it was on his part. If he was forced by the Rooneys to leave (unlikley, but possible I guess) I would think the Steelers organization would be making a mistake.

Whew, I have to be careful... I can get on my soapbox pretty quickly on anything Steelers related (don't even ask me about #22 Staley) Anyway, if you think you are pretty creative and want to give it a shot, try your idea on the link below and leave me a comment.

http://sosntsl01.sos.state.mi.us/plates/papstep2.asp?plateTYPE=STANDARD&plateID=blue

My New Name is "Chedda Bob"

Detroit News is the Craziest

In some odd twist of the cosmic controllers of DirecTV I am receiving Detroit local channels on my television now. This came to my attention when I got home from work last night at 7:58 PM with the intention of telling Tivo to grab the new season of Prison Break (outside of my Sunday night HBO tv manifesto, Prison Break and Lost are required viewing) at 8 PM. My best efforts were thwarted because I no longer had a channel 8. WTF? All my local channel numbers were weird. I finally found Fox on channel 2 and pressed record. Previously, my channels stopped at 3.

I had a sneaking suspicion that the call to DirecTV for the upcoming move may have caused this funny state of affairs. Funny you ask? Yes, hilarious. If you have not had the pleasure of staying in a Detroit are hotel and enjoying the Channel 4 News, you are missing a lot. The news is ridiculous. I think that the local news always finds the worst stories to cover, shootings, robberies, rapes, etc, but apparently D Town is really rough! One bad thing just does not happen to a person in the D, but multiples! “In other news tonight, a Wayne County woman was hit by a car, her unconscious body was mugged, and then she was shot and killed in a drive by. In Macomb County tonight a young boy was caught stealing a car, raped an old lady, and held up a local convenience store.”

So, SteelerSteph and I watched the news with a small amount of building apprehension about the upcoming move and I don’t think I reassured her much when I explained that we were moving to Oakland County and that county was not mentioned in any of the great news stories. We are excited about the move and Steph’s new job with *Edit by Bobby Bracelet*, a large pharmaceutical company. (Can you get in trouble for your husband’s blog?) We have started packing the unsold house and I am about to find out what fun the logistics will be of living in one state and maintaining a property for sale in another. Open to any advice of anyone that has done this before…. ScurvyDog, Duggles?

I guess my solace will be that no matter how rough it gets driving back to Ohio to mow the lawn or staring at the bank account when I am paying a mortgage and rent…. I will be able to enjoy the goodness that is Local Channel 4 News at 11 and the cheer they will bring. I just hope I don’t get carjacked/shot/thrown into Lake Erie and make the news…..

On the poker front, I am really starting to like my shift to low stakes NL on Party. I am developing the cash NL skills that I lacked and making slow but steady additions to the bankroll. It has been interesting to see how I develop in this area, I know that I could grow faster with more aggression, but right now I am happy with my results and decisions. Other than the Mookie, I am pretty much sticking to Party these days so if you are on there, look for STeelerJosh on the baby NL tables.

Nervous for SteelerSteph

Nervous for SteelerSteph

She set off for Novi, MI this morning at an ungodly hour (“O Dark Thirty” is what we called it in the Army) and last I talked to her she was close to her destination at 8 AM.  While the more dramatic might call it destination unknown, I would not fault them.  She was traveling to meet a group of her potential new co-workers at a Panera Bread in Livonia, MI and then off to meet with the division VP and her potential new boss.  That is a lot of unknown to deal with in one morning.  Job interviewing is a stressful proposition, I am sure she did not sleep well/much last night and I am sending her all my good thoughts today.  She really deserves a break and has jumped through all of the hoops required for this new job.  She has not given the new employer any reason not to hire her…. But you just never know with these things.  Good luck Steph, I am feeling good things.

Was SteelerJosh playing the role of good husband last night and helping her prep for this last interview?  Of course not!  He was at a Dave Matthews Band concert with a buddy from work.  I would feel a little more guilt if Steph was not the reason I was there.  I have been a DMB fan since their inception circa 1990 and I had a $100 Ticketmaster gift certificate lying around.  She found a local Ticketmaster outlet and turned the 2 year old gift certificate into tickets to see Dave at Blossom Music Center.  I thought that this was a pretty cool thing to do as I would not have done it myself.  She could not make it with me (because of the whole interview thing today) but I asked a buddy at work and it was on.

Dave brings back many fond memories for me.  When I got out of the Army in 1996 and went back home for a few years, I did a lot of partying with my brothers and their friends.  It seemed that Dave’s albums, “Recently” and “Under The Table and Dreaming” were always playing.  My brother can play a mean air guitar to DMB’s cover of “All Along the Watchtower”.  Hand that kid a fire poker and watch him get busy on the coffee table.  Anyway, watching all the stoners, long hairs, hippie chicks, frat boys, and other monkeys getting their head right for a Dave show took me right back to that place and time last night.  I miss them… the times and the friends.

The only cloud I could see outside of my silver lining last night was that I am getting old!  Mingling with drunk and stoned underage crowd clarified the age difference.  I am on the cusp of really standing out in a DMB crowd as an old guy.  Booo getting old.

Well, think good thoughts for SteelerSteph and her big interview.  I will be sure to post the results…. as long as they are good!