CARDRUNNERS

I find that any time at a social gathering religion, politics, or nutrition is brought up, nothing good ever comes of it. I have been in countless arguments at parties with people about religion. This is the big one. The thing is.. everyone is pretty closed minded in their views on this. Most people have it ingrained in their brains from an early age what is ‘right’ for them to believe in. It is a product of your environment kind of thing. Some people take the initiative to explore the concepts on their own, but the average person doesn’t bother, and just follows along with what their parents tell them to believe in. Trying to have a conversation with someone like this seems to be a complete waste of time.

On politics, I certainly don’t know enough to have any kind of argument with someone about public policy, economics, whatever. It just isn’t something I know enough about to feel a need to comment on. However, there are tons of other people that have a similar level of knowledge and go around spouting off about how conservative they are, or how much they love liberal policy and blah blah. If you say ANYTHING against their beliefs, they get extremely defensive and start to argue with you and the hate seems to build immediately. It is uncanny.

However, the BIGGEST one I find is nutrition. What we know about nutrition is learned from our parents, or from our educators in school. Most of this is rubbish, what we call the ‘american diet’. Now, I don’t know a ton about nutrition, but I do know that eating fried food, tons of processed shit, and a bunch of added sugar in everything doesn’t lead to longevity of life. This isn’t an issue ever really, and most people agree with this assessment. Something interesting seems to happen though when you go on a non ‘mainstream’ diet.

I am now on day 9 of eating a vegan diet, and I am enjoying it very much. Don’t get me wrong, I would really like to crush a giant steak, a crabcake soaked in buttery lobster sauce, and a giant piece of chocolate fudge cake with ice cream. I am doing this as a discipline thing to get myself back on eating healthy track before the series. Playing tournaments for 12-14 hours a day can be quite grueling, and if I am bogged down with processed junk in my diet, I tend to lose focus much easier than if I eat super clean.

However.. sometimes people seem to get offended when you say you are eating a vegan diet. It is an inexplicable experience. It is almost as if by consuming said diet, you are personally attacking someone else that consistently eats meat. You are essentially saying they are wrong without ever saying anything. Some people take offense to the mere fact that you don’t want to consume animal products, and are greatly put off by it. They even get defensive and try to tell you that it is unhealthy, and that eating animals is much more conducive to long term health.

Regardless of whether or not this is true, I find it amusing that some people can get ridiculously worked up about this. I mean really, why the fuck does it matter what I eat? I am not doing this for other people. I am doing it for my personal health and well being, and am not trying to prove something to anyone other than myself and exercise a little discipline. In the last week or so, there have been probably 10 instances where people try to tell me that I will wither away and die, I won’t get enough protein, that eating animals is way healthier than ‘sitting around eating grass’.

Well, this is debatable, but I don’t really want to get into that right now. I can see great arguments for eating a super clean diet without any processed foods, but adding in high quality fish, hormone free beef, etc. I honestly have no idea what is ‘optimal’ for long term health and fitness, but that isn’t really the point right now. The point is, why do people get super defensive and offended whenever someone disagrees with their eating habits? I try hard not to impress my nutritional views on others, but if someone asks I will gladly talk about why I am doing what I am doing. I have never at any point said ‘this is way better than what you are doing and you should do it too, this is the best diet ever you will live forever.’

It seems as though it is even more extreme than religious conversations. God forbid you go to a Christian school in the south and mention the fact that you are atheist (god forbid, get it?). You will likely get maliciously attacked, told you are wrong, stupid, going to hell, etc. Well, with nutrition, a very similar thing occurs. You won’t get enough protein, you will die of b12 deficiency, animals are HEALTHY to eat, we were MADE to be hunters, to kill and eat our food, and on and on.

The thing is.. it is all but IMPOSSIBLE to change anyone’s mind about these topics. Everyone seems VERY set in their views, and there is nothing wrong with that! I could care less what you believe in. It doesn’t affect my life in any way. It seems silly to constantly try to impress your views on others. I think it is great when people can have constructive arguments about these topics, but in my limited experiences it just isn’t possible. From now on I will try to avoid talking about politics, religion, and nutrition in any way unless the person is genuinely interested in learning or hearing a different point of view. I certainly have my ideas about what I believe in as far as these things, but I am always open to hearing other sides of the story. Many seem to not share this feeling.

Anyways, sorry for the minirant, just something I wanted to get off my chest. The 40k is in a couple days and I can’t wait. Tomorrow I am going shopping to pick up a new suit, some nice dressy clothes, etc. I like to dress up, and haven’t gone shopping for that kinda stuff in a while. I will probably stop by the Rio and try to reg during my shopping spree. I wonder how many people there will be.. I am hoping there are around 300, but that seems rather ambitious. In any case, it should be a lot of fun and a good way to start off the series.

-David

So I just got done playing the 25k HU. I lost in the finals to theashman103. He is a great HU player and we had a fun match. I am definitely not unhappy with him winning, but obviously I would have preferred to ship it! I felt I played really well the entire tourney, and it was a great way for me to start off the summer. I am looking forward to going into the 40k NL event at the series and stomping. It also helps to pay for my college tuition with 2 days of work.

For those that are curious, I DID in fact record all of my matches, and will probably do some sort of video series on them. I know watching 1 table is pretty boring, so maybe I can figure out a way to do multiple HU matches at the same time, but I feel like that would sort of detract from the flow, which is super important in HUsng matches. We will see.

I am on day 7 of eating a Vegan and everything I am eating is delicious. I have been working out a bunch, and am feeling great. My normal routine has been wake up, eat a bunch of fruit, work out, drink a shake, float in the pool for an hour, then figure out what to do with myself for the entire day. I wasn’t even planning on playing the 25kHU but aejones was like ‘omg this is softest field ever u should play’, so I regged pretty late. Guess that one worked out for me.

I haven’t been playing much poker at all really, and I am ok with that. It was a good break, but if games are good I will probably start playing a bit more. I am not sure how many events I am playing this summer, but definitely doing all the big NL and PLO ones, and I think there is a 10k HU which I will definitely take part in.

I would like to take a cool trip somewhere soon, with the purpose of surfing. I haven’t been surfing in quite a while, so definitely want to get some in somewhere. Anyone have any ideas on where really good surfing is right now? I am not really that good, but I want there to be some decent waves and good instruction available.

I don’t really have much to report, life is good, I hope everyone is crushing.

-David

So I wanted to take a few moments and share what I ate today. Today was the first day of the vegan diet, and it was awesome. I am getting help from Phillip (magentaradio on 2p2), he is preparing all of the meals and is a super cool guy. My initial plan was to do this for a 2 week trial, but I could easily see this lasting for the entire summer. I felt great eating everything, and it was all delicious.

In other news I have been pretty busy in the last week engaging in much debauchery in my first week in Vegas. Lisa came into town, and all my roommates were here so we were going out a lot. Joe had a couple girlfriends from jersey fly in and we went out a ton. Was a great time. My favorite night was a date night where Lisa and I went to go see The Phantom of the Opera at Venetian, then did the tasting menu at Valentino’s. I mentioned that in my blog, and it was probably one of the best nights of my life. Anyways, here is the first day of me being vegan.

Day 1 of veganism.

¾ cup cereal : buckwheat, sunflower, quinoa, pumpkin seed, almonds, all sprouted

Cinnamon banana almond milk: 2 cup almond, 4 cup water, 2 dates, 1 banana, 1 tbsp cinnamon, 1 tsp celtic sea salt, yielded 6 cups used 1.5

16oz green veggie juice: ½ zucchini, 2 carrots, ½ cucumber, ½ beet, 3 cups kale, 2 cups swiss chard, ½ lemon, 2 oranges, ½ grapefruit, 1 packet green vibrance, yielded 44oz used 15oz

Workout

PWO smoothie : 2 scoops vega protein blend, 1/8 cup coconut water, 2 cup almond milk, ½ tbsp agave, 1 tbsp hemp seed, ½ pack green vibrance

Young coconut : the juice/water only

‘pasta’ : squash, zucchini, 3 mushrooms, 3 tbsp red pepper, 1/3cup pesto, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, sprouts, 2 flax crackers

Pesto : 2c basil, 1/2c arugula, ¼c miso, 1c walnut, garlic, 1tbsp flax oil, 1 tbsp hemp oil, 5 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp agave, 1 lemon, yielded 2 cups used 1/3cup

Kale chips : cashews, nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, salt, scallions, red bell pepper, garlic, water for the sauce, dipped kale in it then dehydrated it. Tasted like Doritos, was delicious.

Apple mix : 1 braeburn, 1 gala, 1 fuji, 1 red d’anjou pear, 1/2c walnut, 1 lemon, 1/2c almond, 1/2c pumpkin seed, 1/2c raisins, yield 4 cups, ate 1/3 cup

Dinner: 1c quinoa, ½c broccoli, 1/3c onions, 1/4c swiss chard, 1/4c bell pepper, 1/4c mushrooms, all steamed

Miso sauce: 1/4c scallion, ginger, 2 tbsp agave, 3 cloves garlic, 2 tbsp miso, 1/2c sunflower, 2 tbsp sesame oil, 1/4c water, yielded 1.5 cups, used 1/4cup

Strawberry mousse pie

Mousse part : 2c cashew, 1 lemon, 1 lime, 2 tsp agave, 2 dates, 1/2c coconut water, 2 tsp vanilla, 6 strawberries, 1/2c chia

Crust : 2c almond meal, 1/2c walnuts, 3 dates, ¾ cup coconut water, 1 banana, cinnamon, 2 tsp vanilla, 2 tsp agave, pinch salt. Yield whole pie, ate 1/8<sup>th

-David</sup>

This weekend temporarily marked the end of my short lived coaching career. We had our conference playoffs with 8 teams, and we went in as the 5^th seed. We were matched up with the winners from the previous year in our first game, and we were supposed to lose pretty badly. They actually play in a different conference, but for the playoffs somehow they ended up with us starting last year, and they crushed.

We threw one of our freshman to start it off. He hits his spots v well, has a decent curve, and has a lot of savvy on the mound. He doesn’t throw that hard, but he wont make too many mistakes otherwise. John Cooper school threw their number 2 guy, and he seemed pretty solid.. until we put up 4 runs in the top of the first inning. Bink! From there we just held the lead for the rest of the game, and Colton, our freshman pitcher, got the cg.

Immediately after finishing we piled onto the bus and went to All Saints for the second game. We were matched up with Cassady, who we beat earlier in the year when we took a trip to Oklahoma. This game we threw another freshman, Zach, and he managed to get us a good 6 innings in. This game was a lot closer, we were down 5-3 in the bottom of 5, but had a big 4 run inning and closed it out finishing 7-5.

From there, we had to wait around for like 3 hours for the other game to finish. We got matched up with St. John’s, who in the semifinals played Holland Hall, the other team we played in Oklahoma.. who run ruled us. I wasn’t looking forward to this game. We got down 4-0 early on, but fought back and made it 9-6 going into the bottom of the 7^th, with the bottom of the order coming up.

We managed to load the bases, walk in a run then have the top of the order up with NO outs, and a score of 9-7. Our leadoff hit a long fly to right, but the guy on third didn’t tag, so we didn’t get a sac fly run. Our number 2 guy put one in the hole between second and first, scoring a run. The right fielder made a great throw getting the ball in preventing the tying run from scoring. Our 3 hitter came up to the plate with runners on 1^st and 3^rd, 1 out, and only down by 1. He drilled it past the pitcher, but the short stop was basically playing on top of second base, and they rolled it up to end the game. Such a soul crush.

This was the furthest Oakridge baseball has gotten in like 12 years. To get to the finals and only lose by 1 run to a team that beat a team that run ruled us was pretty damn awesome. We also put ourselves in a situation to really make something happen in the 7^th. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out, but it was a hell of a game. I legitimately teared up a little bit at the end when we were talking to the players. I got very emotionally involved in this team, and can’t say enough about the experience I gained working with the coaches and the players. I am sad that it is all over, at least for now.

This next week should be pretty awesome though, so don’t feel too bad for me. Tonight I took my Mom, Dad, and Aunt (Dad’s sister) to Del Frisco’s. They are huge nits and don’t like spending money, but this is like my favorite place to eat, and I wanted to treat my mom for mothers day. We all had a great time, had some awesome wine, shared a few laughs, and I got to hear some fun stories.

After dinner we went back to my parent’s house and they did a little birthday celebration for me. Totally unexpected, but I am leaving Tuesday for the summer and didn’t really have a plan to be with the family other than tonight. It was a lot of fun, they gave me a book on John Wooden, a guide book to Santa Fe (where I am going to school this fall) and a really cool wine stopper from Cedar Key (my grandfather’s favorite place). Also had to eat a piece of chocolate fudge bday cake, tragic.

Tuesday I am headed to Vegas for the summer. I am meeting up at DFW airport with Lisa, who is flying in from Austin and coming with me for a week or so. Jeremy is landing in town like 20 minutes before us, so Joe and Alan are picking us up from the airport in a limo so we can immediately go party. My plan is to get to the airport a couple hours early and have a few drinks with Lisa while we wait for the flight, since she has a 2 hour layover, and then have a few on the plane. I think this will be a relatively awesome way to start off the ‘summer’.

Wednesday night we are going to see Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian. I haven’t seen this show, but have wanted to for years. I heard the production in Vegas is absolutely awesome. My parent’s saw it and loved it, so I am really looking forward to it. After that we are going to Valentino’s for dinner. I heard some pretty good things about this place as well, and I am looking forward to doing the chef sampler and wine pairings. When I was in NY I did this with Jay, Emil, Dani, and Phil, and it was one of the best meals I had ever eaten. I often try to go for the chef selection and wine pairings now. Generally I am pretty ABC with food choices and don’t branch out too much. This forces me to and is a much better overall experience.

On the 16^th we are probably going out clubbing somewhere, and staying out pretty late. On my actual bday, the 17^th, I intend to lay in bed recovering all morning, then I am having a few people over for a pool party and barbeque, and a last hoorah of meat eating for the summer. I am starting a vegan diet on the 18^th, for a lot of reasons, and am very much looking forward to that. I did this for a couple weeks last summer and felt really great/had my best month in poker, so we are going to go for round 2.

Last time I ended up making most of the food myself and stuck with what was easiest, so I didn’t really experiment with too many options. This year executive chef Magentaradio(of 2p2 fame) is going to be helping out with food preparation, and should be able to help me experience some other flavors. Joe committed to a 2 week trial (which is huge for him) and Jeremy said he would do it as well. I think Tony can be convinced if we are all doing it, so for 2 weeks at least I will live in a vegan household. Should be an interesting experiment, and I am looking forward to it immensely.

On a nerdier side of things, I picked up Street Fighter 4 on PS3, as well as 2 of the tournament arcade sticks. I had it all sent to my place in Vegas, so haven’t actually gotten to play it. I loved sf2 turbo back in SNES days, and am really looking forward to playing this game. I have been watching some videos and learning some of the techniques to implement, and really can’t wait to try it out. Generally I suck at all things fighting games, but having 3 roommates for the summer should give me plenty of competition and practice.

That is all I have to report for now, but life is awesome, haven’t been happier ever as far as I can tell, and I am SUPER excited for the summer. Pretty much everyone I know is going to be out there for at least some portion of the time, and it will be great getting to see a lot of my poker friends from all over that I haven’t been able to see in a few months. Good stuff.

-David Benefield

This weekend was pretty sweet. Thursday night Lisa got into town late with her friend Anna and we went to eat in Dallas with Mike and Jenny at a place called Stephen Pyle’s. It is apparently a pretty well known place there, and it didn’t disappoint. We started with an 8 piece ceviche appetizer that was fantastic. My favorite was the lobster with mango and basil. All were pretty tasty though.

For dinner I went with the filet which came with a sweet potato chilaquiles which was basically a sweet potato pot pie. We washed down dinner with a couple bottles of Handley pinot noir, one of my favorites. Oh yea the bread they had was amazing as well, I have nfi what it was but there was like 3 different kinds and they were all fantastic.

We went a little nuts with dessert and got global chocolate, which was like 5 different kinds of chocolate including a big slice of cake, as well as a heaven and hell cake which was peanut butter chocolate piece of heaven. We ate it all, though most everyone gave up way too fast and it was up to me to crush the rest. I don’t ever have a problem with that though.

Friday night I took the varsity baseball players out to eat at Texas de Brazil, an all you can eat steakhouse downtown. I promised the guys I would take them out to a nice dinner at the end of the season, and TDB seemed like a perfect place for it. Everyone had a great time, and we all ate entirely too much food. At like 10am that morning some of the coaches called me asking what the deal was with the dinner thing, I didn’t invite them so I think they may have been slightly upset. They tried to tell me they would have to ‘check and see if it was ok’, but I was planning on going either way. Seems silly that I can’t say thanks for the season to the players. Anyways, dinner was awesome.

Saturday we went to lunch at a place called Benito’s, an authentic Mexican restaurant in a yuppie area of Fort Worth. We had some ritas and this place had the absolute best tortilla soup I have ever had. The fajitas were pretty solid as well, and they did it right with the soft corn tortillas. I wasn’t expecting the rita to be gigantic fishbowl sized, but I managed anyways.

After lunch we headed over to Stephen’s house to get ready for the DMB concert. It started raining a little bit, so I decided to go with swim trunks and a T-shirt, which ended up being a fantastic plan. While waiting for people to show up, Lisa and I crushed 2 pints of ice cream. Then I had a brownie. I love dessert. When we arrived in Dallas, probably around 430 or 5, the rain had started to pick up a bit. Fortunately we brought a big tent cabana thing to set up a table underneath and get the party started. We got some good games of beer pong in before the rain picked up a little bit more.

At one point, the wind was probably around 40 mph, and the rain was blowing sideways. Most everyone had ponchos but I said screw it and just ran around in the rain trying to embrace it, seemed rather futile to hide from the wetness. We also started pounding shots of crown. That probably influenced my decision to embrace the rain. Anyways, the rain cleared up around 730 and we headed in to the concert.

It was badass. We got to hear a bunch of his newer stuff towards the beginning, and towards the end he played the classic Dave songs that everyone loves. Unfortunately it was like 60 degrees outside so the whole being soaked in the cold wasn’t all that fun. It also started pouring again for the last 20 minutes or so of the concert. We rolled out pretty quick after it was over and piled into the cars. All in all it was a pretty badass night.

Sunday we slept in until probably 2 or so, then went to Brix for a 4pm first meal. Brix is one of my favorite places to eat. It is a pizza wine bar that has absolutely fantastic food, and a pretty decent wine list. I destroyed a 10inch pizza and was feeling kinda gross, so decided to hit up marble slab on the way back. Honestly, I have made better decisions in my life than this one, but for some reason once I get started with the desserts it is difficult to stop. It was delicious.

Today I woke up pretty late and got a workout in. Back on track with the whole healthy lifestyle thing, and then went to baseball practice. It started raining again so our practice only lasted about an hour, but we got some good work in. The end of season tournament has been rescheduled for this Saturday, and the first game is at our field so I don’t have to wake up at 5am on Saturday. I get to sleep in until at LEAST 630. Good times.

Not sure what all is going on this week, probably just taking it easy, getting in a few workouts, and going to baseball practice. I will probably go see the X-Men movie even though I heard it sucked. I really don’t have any plans and am just going to try to relax a bit, then leave on the 12^th for Vegas. I am getting pretty pumped about the trip and this summer in general, should be good times.

-David

Today I woke up around 6am and was unable to fall back asleep. Lisa was pulling an all nighter studying for a final, so I talked to her for a little bit at which point she convinced me how amazing a gigantic bowl of cinnamon toast crunch would taste. So, at around 7am I rolled up to the Tom Thumb and grabbed a box and a half gallon of milk. I only ate 2 bowls, but it was heavenly delicious. I haven’t had this cereal in forever, but I used to eat it on the daily growing up. It was as good or better than I remembered.

Anyways, I was still up at around 8, and I wasn’t really sure what to do. I ended up playing some video games and was just spacing out for a while. I went back and laid down around 1030, and set my alarm for 1245 so I would have time to get a workout in. I got up pretty exhausted and got into the gym. I have been doing a new program with a lot of different stuff in it, conditioning, some crossfit type stuff, and lots of squat bench deadlift stuff. It has been going pretty well, but it wears me out like crazy. Good stuff though.

After my workout I was pretty tired, but had to hurry up to baseball practice. We have our end of the season tournament Thursday and Friday, and I was really looking forward to it. What I wasn’t looking forward to was playing a 9am game in North Dallas, leaving the school at 630, and waking up at 530. Anyways, I got up to the school for practice and no one was on the field.. Hrmm…

Apparently, this swine flu problem is freaking people out. UIL shut down all sporting events for public schools, and the SPC, the division my team plays in, followed suit. It appears as though our season has come to an abrupt close. This really sucks imo, as we didn’t even get a chance to make something of the season. I mean really, swine flu? Gtfo. If I go to play a baseball game and die of pig sickness, so fking be it. Ugh.

Anyways, my Dad turned 60 last month and I got him tickets to a Ranger’s baseball game. He invited his best friend from high school, and we met up around 5 and went to dinner at Pei Wei. We headed up to the ballpark and it kinda started raining. The forecast predicted light showers up until 8pm, but it shouldn’t have affected the game. We pulled up to the valet 30 minutes before game time and headed in. It started pouring.

We waited around for about 75 minutes or so before they finally canceled the game. We sort of expected it, but it really sucked nonetheless. We went back outside (pouring rain) and got in line at the valet (epic long). Ofc us dumbass men didn’t bother bringing umbrellas, so we were soaked to the bone. After standing in an unmoving line for 20 minutes, my dad went up there and figured out we were in the wrong line. Apparently there are TWO valet lines with different color coded tickets, even though there is no sign or anything saying that, and everyone pulls up and drops their car off at the same place. This was fun.

We went over to the other valet line on the other side of the ballpark (makes sense right? Since we all pull up to the same area on THIS side of the ballpark) and started standing in line again. This time we were under a tree, so we didn’t get the full force of the rain. Of course, a tree branch broke off in the wind and dumped about a 16 gallons of water directly on top of us. I found this quite funny because we were already soaked and it didn’t matter.

We finally got up to the valet guys and handed them the ticket. This is probably a good 45 minutes after we left the ballpark, and they are going extraordinarily slow, and seem to have no idea wtf was going on. It was like watching a movie listening to everyone complain and bitch at the 18 year old kids that had no control over the situation. I thought for sure there was going to be a royal rumble under the tent. That tent was our savior from the rain.

Of course, that savior, in 35 mph winds, didn’t last long. It wasn’t really a tent, just like, a fancy tarp set up on poles that weren’t really staked into the ground too well. When the next gale hit, the tent uprooted itself and took flight, rolling away into the river next to the stadium. I actually started laughing. I mean, at this point, an hour after trying to get our car, the tent blows away. It is quite comical, and I really couldn’t make this stuff up. Shortly after some old man was yelling at the 17 year old, and I was pretty sure old man river was going to get in a fight with this 30 something guy who was trying to calm him down. Fortunately there was no bloodshed. We got our car sometime in the next 5 minutes, and all was well.

I am trying to figure out what book to read next. I finished a Krishnamurti book a little while ago and enjoyed it, but am looking for something a little lighter. I finished a George Martin book a little while ago and that was great as well. I am considering picking up The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I heard both of these were pretty interesting reads. I also have The Fall by Camus sitting on my dresser, though I never started it. I picked that up on a whim a week ago remembering someone that said I would like it.

Other stuff.. this weekend I am going to a Dave Matthews Band concert on Saturday with a good group of friends. Last time I went to one I was 19 and blacked out, so I don’t really remember what happened. We started tailgating at around 3pm, and yea, that never works out well. I think this time the plan is to get there only a little early and start the tailgating around 4pm, so obviously this will change things. Looks to be another exciting weekend. Life is good.

-David

This weekend was pretty cool. We had a few baseball games in Oklahoma on Thursday and Friday, which was a lot of fun. I drove down with one of the other coaches, John, so we didn’t have to suffer through a 4 hour bus drive. Our first game was in OK city, and we won 8-5 vs Casady. It was a good game, and we jumped out to a great 3-0 lead in the first and held onto it throughout.

From there we had to drive to Tulsa, which is another 90 minutes or so away. We got in pretty late and I got to sample the local flavor at a Wal-Mart while making a sour patch kids run (I always eat like shit when I leave my house, it is what it is). I had never seen a more hick infested site in my entire life. I thought certain areas of texas were super hick, but this set the bar. It was bucktooth bimbo land. I got out of there as soon as possible and stayed up until like 3 reading George Martin in the hallway making sure the kids didn’t sneak out to the girl’s tennis team rooms (they came on the trip too).

I finally passed out and had to wake up at 630 to get everyone up, we had a 10am game and had to make sure everyone got food and we made it to the field for warmups and stuff. I went nuts on the all you can eat breakfast buffet and ate about 107 pieces of French toast smothered in maple syrup, as well as copious amounts of coffee, bananas, bacon, eggs, etc (once I leave home..). We got up to the field around 830 and started warming up.

We ended up getting run ruled in this game, but kept it close until the 5^th. Our starter got shelled, and his relief didn’t do much better giving up 7 runs in the bottom of the 5^th. It was actually a pretty decent game until then, but meh. Everyone piled back on the bus, and me and John got in his truck and tried to figure out how the hell to get home (after grabbing a box of pepperoni/sausage pizza off the bus).

We ended up missing a turn somewhere since we didn’t really have directions, and went all the way back through OK city on the way back to DFW. The ride took like 5.5 hours or so, but was made better by stopping at sonic and getting burgers, onion rings, and sonic blasts with oreo, butterfinger, and reeses mixed in. I got back in around 730 or so and took a shower. Lisa drove in from Austin to hang out so I made reservations for 4 at 9pm at del friscos.

We ate and drank like kings, then went out downtown. The first place we went to Pamela said was awesome and had great mojitos. I was like ok cool whatever I hate mojitos but u said its cool. We get in there and it is all Mexican people. There are jesus candles on the wall bar spaced out evenly every 18 inches. WTF where am I? I also noticed there were way more dudes than girls in the club. We finished our drinks and got out of there quick. Apparently its sort of a place that gay people like to hang out with. Good call Pam.

We ended up at an irish pub drinking beer and playing shuffleboard all night, which made for quite an entertaining evening. We got back, hung out for a bit, then passed out pretty quick. I was super tired from the long drive, and lack of sleep the previous night. In the morning we got up and were planning on having a recovery pool day, but it started raining to thrash our plans. We went to Pei Wei and chowed down on some Mongolian beef, then got in the hot tub since it was the best alternative to pool we had, even though it was the middle of the day. It was rainy still, so it was kinda like night time.

Today I woke up and started being healthy all over again. Got on a newerish workout program that includes a bit more kettlebell work and is a little more intense than what I was doing previously. I also got in a really good meditation out by the pool today. It was raining after my workout, so I jumped in anyways, then decided to meditate on the edge of the pool while the rain was falling. It was a wonderful experience, and one I hope to repeat tomorrow should the weather permit (I’m rooting for rain).

I also played some poker today for like the first time in 3-4 weeks. I haven’t had any desire at all to play in a while, but baseball practice got cancelled because of the rain, and I sort of ran out of things to do. I noticed there were about 12 5-10 games on ftp so I decided to just load up 12 tables and see if I remembered how to play 6max NL. I also had one 10-20 game up, and played for like 40-45 minutes before I got a phone call that I had to take. Phone call took a while and I didn’t really feel like playing anymore.

I did a semi run good, and obv ran hot on the 10-20 table. I like playing smaller stakes, it is much more relaxing as I don’t really care that much about if I lose. If I do start playing a bit again, it will likely not be at the nosebleeds unless games are just ridiculous. Anyways, made like 5500 on the short session so certainly cant be unhappy about that. I always seem to run really good at low stakes after long breaks. Do that vs Gus 1 time? Hah. Here’s a hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4166187 – obviously back to my old habits of limping buttons. This game broke to HU and I haven’t really played with this guy much before so figured I would take the action. Honestly, the river could be a fold, but I really didn’t think he had anything with how he played it. If he played it that well and had a real hand and ownd me, power to him. Luckily he was bluffing and I shipped it.

This week I am supposed to go to the ranger’s game on Wednesday with my dad and his best friend. His bday was last month and I got him tickets on his date of choice 3^rd baseline as close as possible whenever he wanted. He decided to go this week, but I’m not entirely sure rain will allow us to go, which really sucks. We also have our big playoff tournament for baseball this weekend and it looks like it might get rained out. I may be stuck inside all week. Aids.

-David

So day 2 kicked off with me laughing uncontrollably at 10am at the situation that happened with Whit. He immediately got on the phone and tried to settle the situation, but obviously got no answer. Poor kid. It was his birthday. Anyways, we met up with Stephen’s aunt and her lover, who was also very cool, at a place called El Sol y La Luna, some tequila bar that had pretty awesome food. We brunched on some mimosas, and I tried a chipotle chicken dish that was pretty fantastic.

After lunch we went to this place Cain and Abel’s, which is right near UT campus. Apparently it is a pretty popular spot. They have this drink called ‘Texas Tea’, which is a variation of a long island iced tea. It comes in this giant 36oz plastic cup, and is half liquor. It is pretty ridiculous. We all ordered a Texas Tea and began playing darts. Halfway through my drink I started missing the board completely. The day seemed to be shaping up quite nicely.

After drinks we stopped off at some hamburger place that is Zagat rated, but I don’t remember the name of it. It was one of the best burgers I have ever had in my entire life. I made sure to eat copious amounts of onion rings drenched in ranch, as well as a giant chocolate milkshake to go along with it. I was pretty drunk at this point, and after the meal I was ready for a nap. This was one of my better decisions. I got in a good 90 minutes or so back in the hotel after eating, and woke up feeling only slightly tipsy and ready to go.

Whit made the mistake of partying with Melissa(the car) instead of taking a nap. They were terrorizing the hotel bar as well as the bachelorette party that was sharing the space. I rolled out of bed and headed down there while Stephen and Pamela showered, pulled up a seat at the bar and ordered a crown and coke. Whit was barely functional at this point, and was slurring noticeably as well as heckling the cute bartender every chance he got. At one point, one of the girls from the bachelorette party came over and asked him to take a picture, only it was ‘Haeasdyf casduet guasdey takadfed apicfdterrre’? He understood her perfectly and they hit it off.

After downing my drink I went back up to the room for a quick shower. We had dinner reservations at 830 at the Bellmont, which we were obviously 30 minutes late to. Whit had on birthday glasses which had cupcakes with light up candles over the eyes. He was not very sober. The restaurant was good, and we made sure to mention it was his Bday. I ordered a molten chocolate lava cake and some ice cream for dessert, and while we were waiting I went for a quick bathroom break.

On the way back, I noticed the table next to us (which contained 4 attractive mid 20 something girls) seemed in especially high spirits as Whit was sitting back down at our table. That drunk idiot gave away my cake. Now, there are few things that really enrage me, but when you take my dessert away I am not a happy camper. We remedied the situation by ordering 2 more, and it was one of the best desserts I had ever had.

After dinner we were planning on watching the UFC fights (I had big 20 dollar bet with Stephen against Chuck, I had nfi who he was fighting but I bet against him anyways), so we headed to a bar Six. Wow, this was the same bar we were at late last night! Whoah! We got there and it was pretty packed, but they weren’t showing the fight! WTF??? As we got there Joe txtd me ‘haha chuck got knocked the fk out’, so that was good enough for me. We ordered a round of drinks then took a walk around the club.

We walked upstairs, where there was a second level bar overlooking the bottom floor. Melissa grabbed a table and I continued up the next flight of stairs. There was a rooftop balcony with another bar! Ok I like this place. I immediately pushed my way through the crowd and locked up a table along the railing with room to fit 8. Apparently the people were just getting up so I lucked out. Stephen was with me so I sent him back down to get the crew, and ordered a round of shots. This was going to be a good night.

I also noticed at this point that Whit was gone. I presumed he went back to the hotel and passed out. For the previous couple hours he was talking to the girl he passed out on the night before, and convinced her to let him make it up to her. However.. at this time I am pretty sure Whit was in blackout mode, so he vanished and I had no idea what happened. I later found out that he went back to the hotel room and passed out again. Blowing off the girl from the previous night.. again. Happy bday Whit, gl workin that one out.

Later on, Lisa and Leslie met us up at Six. We were hanging out for a while and looked up to one of the big buildings in downtown Austin, the Chase building. On the top floor, there was a corner office with a light on, and two people were going at it HARD. Like, porno style battle on the top floor of the chase building. You could make out the silhouettes really getting after it. Clearly another round of celebratory shots was in order.

We hung out here for a while since we had such an awesome spot, but I really wanted to check out ‘dirty 6^th street’ which apparently is the east side of 6^th. This is where the younger crowd hangs out and there are more seedy establishments. We rolled out around midnight and headed that way.

Honestly, I have nfi the names of any of the bars we went to at this point, only the last one, which I will get to in a second. The first bar we hit was pretty gross upon first glance, but had a really awesome band playing. They did Kings of Leon Sex on Fire, and it was pretty sick, sounded just like the real thing. I made sure to tip these guys. Then they started playing some weird too hardcore rock stuff so we rolled out shortly after.

The next hour or so was me attempting to hunt down some flaming doctor pepper shots. We sniffed it out after a little while and ended up walking to a place called ‘Cheers’.. only.. right outside there was a man laying on his back in the middle of the street with a bloody face. I was like whoah check out that dude he got his ass kicked.. but then like, he wasn’t moving at all, and I noticed the ambulance and 2 paramedics just standing around not in a hurry to do anything. Ummm.. really? Theres a dead guy just laying there in the middle of the street right outside of Cheers? No one thinks this is a big deal, or maybe worth like, covering him up or something? WTF??

Ok so that was weird, def needed some shots. We walked into cheers, and they pointed to the back when I requested 8 flaming doctor peppers. Out back they had an open air bar, apparently set up just to make the shots legal. Some bar somewhere burned down while serving flaming doctor pepper shots. They are kind of a big deal. Anyways the bartender set everything up, but to be honest I was pretty drunk at this point and it was kind of a blur.

What I do remember was him lighting his hand on fire, then throwing it at a giant tower of beer glasses and shot glasses, and then a flamethrower blast explosion shot out 10 feet across the room directly into my face. I was terrified and enraptured all at the same time, and didn’t bother to move out of the way. He tipped one of the glasses, the shots fell in the cups, and the flames were extinguished. We all ran to the bar to chug, and it really did taste like doctor pepper. Awesome.

The bars closed shortly after this, and we hit up some pizza stand on the way back. The line was probably 50 people long, but one of the girls saw a friend close to the front and we used her as a mule to get our pizza. We walked back in a haze, and stumbled upon some rickshaws. I jumped in immediately and shouted out the name of our hotel, and 3 minutes later we arrived. Oh, apparently we were closer than I thought.

I was with Lisa and Leslie, so we got out and I asked the guy how much I owed him. He said ‘Ten’ and I burst out laughing. ‘No fking way I owe you ten dollars are you crazy that was a 3 minute ride, you did nothing a cab ride 5x that long would be six dollars’. He was like ‘honestly man I am giving you a break, its 5 bucks a person’. I really wanted to say cruel awful mean things to him, but I paid him 10 dollars and walked into the hotel. I am not a fan of getting ripped off, I could care less about the 10 bucks, and honestly if he said I owed him 5 I would have happily given him a 10 cuz it was kinda cool, but 10 bucks for 3 minutes is a crude face slap. He ownd me though cuz I paid him. I could feel his smirk drilling into the back of my head.

We went up to the 1 hotel room we had, where apparently 7 of us were supposed to sleep. The previous night we had an extra room, but they only had it available for 1 night. I ended up in a car back to san marcos with Lisa and Leslie, and ended up going back to Lisas house. We stayed up all night talking about moral philosophy, stupid people, and the like. It was an awesome night, she really is a little badass. It is rare to meet someone that is actually interesting, and then spend the whole night talking about stuff I actually enjoy discussing, that I can’t really talk about with a random idiot off the street. Was refreshing and gave me hope for humanity.

The next morning we woke up after a couple hours of sleep and drove back into Austin to meet with the rest of the group for brunch. We went to this place called Bess, which is owned by Sandra Bullock. Apparently they had a really good crab eggs benedict, and I got into an argument about how delicious hollandaise sauce was with Lisa (I was in the it tastes like balls camp). I ordered a pitcher of orange juice and some ham and eggs, and everyone else ordered the silly eggs benedict. Ok fine, it tasted pretty damned good, but I was content with my ham and eggs.

I made a comment in the car on the way back to the hotel that last night was pretty low key. I was met with looks of amazement, and then reminded of the dead body followed 5 minutes later by pyro flaming doctor pepper shots. ‘Oh yea’ was my only reply. Yea, it was not a low key trip. We dropped off Lisa at her car, I told her to keep in touch. The drive back home was pretty uneventful; I passed out in the car and woke up pulling into Stephen’s house. I went back to my place and slept for the next 14 hours or so. All in all I would say it was a pretty great trip, Austin may have changed my overall opinion of Texas.

-David

So this weekend was pretty insane. I woke up Friday morning pretty late after going out on Thursday, but the weather was kinda rainy and I got a call that baseball was cancelled. This was good news because I had to leave anyways to drive down to Austin. I headed over to my friend Stephen’s house to make some cds for the road trip and wait on everyone getting over to the house. While waiting, I grubbed on some Ben and Jerry’s Oatmeal cookie ice cream. It is pretty much the bomb.

We finally grouped up with me, Stephen and his gf Pamela, Whit the birthday boy, and Melissa the car (we drove her lexus down there). I didn’t realize we needed nice clothes for the trip, I brought mostly jeans and tshirt attire, so we stopped back off at my house and I grabbed a few button downs, then we proceeded on our way. We stopped off at Chik-fil-a and grabbed some sandwiches and started making drinks for the 3 hour drive.

The road trip was pretty uneventful aside from playing Lonely Island’s on a boat on repeat, and about half of the captain morgan’s spilling out when we tried to move it from the trunk to the back seat while driving. Those hatches are quite effective. We got into town pretty inebriated, checked into our hotel two blocks from the capital building, and immediately hit the bars on west 6^th.

This was my first trip to Austin, but damn. 6^th street is pretty out of control. We started off at Mol&Tov, and it sort of reminded me a bit of the vegas scene as far as the types of people. Everyone was pretty well dressed, and most were in the 21-26 age group. We were meeting a few people from the Austin area that night, so we hung out at the first bar for a little while, where I also met up with Jaime, 2p2er kickpushcoast, very cool guy that hung out with us for the rest of the night.

After grabbing a crown and coke, I took a walk around the bar to check out what was going on. There was a birthday party here, a bachelorette party there, pretty standard stuff. The attraction of this bar, an open air rooftop bar, was shut down for renovations, so that was a bit of a let down. As I was walking back to find the group, some guy was apparently talking shit to this tall attractive blonde girl, and she proceeded to Ryu tiger uppercut him in the junk. He collapsed on the ground and rolled around in the fetal position much to my amusement. This is something girls can do to completely own men. We really can’t do anything back, so it is the ultimate soul crush. This kid’s night was ruined.

We went across the street to a place called JBlack’s or something, and met up with some other friends, Leslie and her friend Lisa, as well as Pamela’s brother. There were some pretty drunk frat boy types dancing some weird combination of the robot and Michael Jackson’s thriller, and that was an entertaining sight to behold. Many laughs were shared by the group at the poor frat boys expense.

After this the night was a blur. We ended up at a place called Six, where Jaime used to work, and it was kinda empty, but we had a run of the place. Too many shots were shared and they ended up throwing us out around 215. Bars in Texas close at 2 which is ridiculous, but what can ya do. We went back to the hotel room where drama ensued..

There were 2 guys that got picked up somewhere along the way with one of the girls, and no one had any idea who they were. There was also some random girl that got picked up along the way that decided to go lay on the floor in the corner and pass out. None of this was ok, so.. girl on the floor ended up leaving with the 2 guys, who I THINK came with her anyways, I hope.

We had 2 hotel rooms, so me and random guy Stephen(RGS) went back down to mine with a couple of the lady friends, where more drama ensued. Whit showed up a little while later and said some less than kosher things, and the girls got a little unhappy and rolled out with RGS. After raining on my parade, Whit decided to try and booty call one of his Austin squeezes, and somehow managed to talk her into coming over at 5am.

I fell asleep before she got there, and woke up somewhere around 9. I rolled over and looked at the bed next to me to see whit laying there alone on top of the covers with his clothes on. GG. Apparently he passed out and his phone died. I woke him up, and he was like oh f*** me as he plugged his phone on. It showed 18 missed calls and 11 text messages. The girl was not amused. I was.

Part 2 to come..

Last night I went out with some friends to the Keg, which is becoming more and more popular around here. I remember going to Niagara for whatever WPT event was there and I saw like 4 Keg’s within a 3 minute drive from each other, it was pretty ridiculous. The food is decent, the atmosphere is kinda cool, so I suppose it is normal it would be a popular location. They also had fantastic sautéed mushrooms, something I am becoming a bigger fan of by the day.

After leaving, we headed out to some of the local bars around the TCU area. Something just felt.. off about last night and being around a lot of my old friends. Most everyone is graduating now, trying to get jobs (many unsuccessfully), and just trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives. The second bar we went to is a popular hangout for people that were in my frat, so I ran into about a billion people I haven’t seen in probably over a year.

A lot of people were asking me what I was doing these days, if poker was still going well, etc. I responded with stuff about coaching baseball, going to school at St. John’s this fall, etc, and people were dumbfounded. The common response was something along the lines of ‘What? If poker is going well why would you ever go back to school? Classical literature and philosophy? WTF? How can you get a job with that? Why are you coaching baseball? I mean that’s kinda cool but why don’t you just play poker?’ In all honesty, I would have asked myself those same questions even 18 months ago. It is amazing how things change, perhaps even a little scary..

Baseball has been going great, the team isn’t really doing all that well, but we are having a lot of fun and they are definitely improving. Last night we had a game against a team from Dallas, and we were down 8-1 in the second inning. Somehow, someway we battled back and ended up winning 10-9 in the bottom of the 7^th. The boys definitely needed this win, especially in that fashion as we have tournaments coming up pretty soon. Was a great confidence builder to come back in that game.

Workouts have been going pretty well, I changed up my routine a lot since I haven’t done BJJ in like a month. My shoulder was really giving me issues so I decided to take some time off and work on strengthening it. I will pick back up with that when I get out to vegas, somewhere around May 11^th or 12^th. Hopefully I don’t have any issues, but if I do, I guess the only option is surgery, though that sounds pretty terrible.

I have been focusing more on get big and strong type workouts one day, and lots of kettlebell stuff the next, then taking a day off. I am doing Squats, Bench, and Deadlifts for the heavy days, and then various kettlebell stuff on the next day, consisting of a combination of swings, jerks, clean and presses, as well as dumbbell incline. This setup works well for me and I am pretty happy with it. I have been trying to eat a lot because I want to get a little bigger, but I only plan on doing that for another oh.. 14 days or so and then I will start trying to get in shape again and do lots of HIIT type stuff and perhaps even start running.

For some reason I look at running as this miserable process, even though it is such a simple activity that every human should be able to perform well. I just plain don’t enjoy it, but it’s probably because I am just not very good at it. I would like to be able to wake up in the morning and go for a 20 minute jog without wanting to die 1/3 of the way through. I have always considered myself to be in pretty good shape, but for some reason I just plain suck at running.

Tonight I am headed down to Austin for a friend’s birthday. I have never really been down there to party, but apparently it’s a pretty cool scene. I know quite a few people that live in that area, some that I haven’t seen for a while, so I am really looking forward to this trip. I would imagine we will do quite a bit of partying and not much else, which sounds like a pretty good weekend to me.

On the poker side of things, I haven’t played very much at all. Last week were the scoops, and I decided to skip out on the main event, which was something I never thought I would do. The prize pool was gigantic with a guaranteed 5m to payout. I had a baseball game Monday night, and if somehow I magically made day 2, I would have had to skip it. I made a rule when I started the baseball thing that I would never skip anything for poker, and I have stuck to it. I missed 1 practice for a meeting with the St. John’s admissions dean, and that’s it. I did play the 5k plo, which I cashed in, but didn’t play any other tourneys.

I am not sure what this summer will look like for me. We have a pretty sweet setup with the house now, as the pool just got finished. I really can’t wait to get out there as I think this summer is going to be an absolute blast. I have no idea how much poker I am going to play, but I will probably play somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 tourneys, mostly all the bigger NL and PLO championship events. I think the 40k NL will be super awesome, and I am trying to figure out how many people it will get, hopefully 250 or more, but that might be a bit optimistic.

-David