CardRunners

 Well I'm back at school ready to tackle my 2nd to last quarter of my collegiate career (or atleast the undergraduate portion of it).  Although I feel like school is a pretty big waste of my time, and I would much prefer to start working full time - I feel quite refreshed and ready to hit the books, partially as sort of a tune-up to the CPA Exam. 

I think my quarter will have a good mix of hard classes and relatively easy ones.  I'm taking 2 days full of classes, and 3 days off per week (hopefully leading to finding a job of some sort).  24 Credit Hours crammed into 2 days of classes.  It may be dreadful, but the combination of my hatred for driving in the snow, as well as me wanting to have some source of steady income this winter -- it is in my best interest to have only a few days spent on campus.

On to other news:

My poker bankroll took a pretty big hit the other day when I was dabbling around in some heads up tables.  I managed to lose two pots of roughly 250BB's size in a matter of minutes in similar fashion.

On both tables I was dealt AA and ended up losing to QT on a 89J board, and J9 on a 932J board.  I don't hate getting it in on the spots that I did, but it definitely left a bitter taste in my mouth.  Since then I've just been messing around at a bunch of mixed games, really just not taking it all that seriously.

I've been playing a slightly modified Omaha strategy with mixed results thus far.  I'm excited to see how it pans out once I get a good sample size, but first off I need to reconfigure my poker laptop, and get Omaha Poker Tracker reinstalled.

Off to finish the Ravens game.

 I've always thought that Brian Kelly is overrated.  Sure he's a pretty good coach, but his 2 year success train has lead to tons of negotiating leverage that he's utilized to the maximum with requests and demands by the University of Cincinnati to accommodate him.  

Funny thing is, I don't believe that he is really that great.  Yes he's had a great record the last two years at UC, but at the same time, he walked into a program full of senior players that were all recruited by former coach and current Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio.  Dantonio himself is no slouch and is regarded pretty highly by recruits.  

After watching the miserable performance by UC, and some of the questionable play calling (how do you get 1st and Goal on the 4 and go pass-pass-run-run including a sneak on 4th down with the game on the line with your 6' 6" QB?).  Also, how do you not give Dustin Grutza a chance to get into the game and maybe change things up, especially after Tony Pike's awful play.  

I thought the play-calling was pretty one-dimensional and UC finally got some good runs from Jacob Ramsey at the beginning of a drive in the 4th quarter, then abandoned the run (later leading to the sequence in the above paragraph).  Unreal.

I hope Demetrious Jones gets to show some of his talent next year.  He was highly recruited and a Notre Dame transfer.  Has great skills and is a dual threat with his legs and arm.  You could see some of the damage VT did with their mobile QB yesterday, UC could use the added dimension.

I realize the program has improved ten-fold and is headed in a great direction, but the game was frustrating to say the least.

 Ringing in 2009, I guess it's only fitting for me to make a post of my closing thoughts of 2008 and also where I'd like to be at this time next year.  Looking back at some of the items that I had in my 2008 resolution, I didn't really achieve many.  I had some good success in the golf world, while also doing a good job of balancing my busy life with poker, friends, family, and school.  I am the first to admit that my priority of school has been relatively low, but I also take pride in having made it so far with the quazi half-ass work that I've outputted in my last four years.  

A few of my top 5 lists related to my hobbies/most time consuming activities from 2008:

Top 5 things that burned my time online:

Browse 2+2
Digg.com
Rail the high stakes games on FTP/Stars
Check blogs on both Cardrunners and Leggopoker
Think of ideas of websites to create

Top 5 Sporting Events I witnessed Live on TV:

The U.S. Open at Torrey Pines: All rounds
Wimbeldon Final: Nadal beating Federer
Beijing Olympic Games: All Days
National Championship Game: Memphis losing to Kansas
Ryder Cup 2008: U.S. beating Europe

Top 5 Movies I saw for first time during 2008:

The Dark Knight
Blood Diamond
Usual Suspects
The Strangers
21

I may be forgetting a film, but that is a fairly decent list.

Top 5 Most Hated Athletes that I'm Sick of Hearing About:

Brett Favre
Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson
John Daly
Michael Phelps
Terrell Owens

Top 5 Athletes I Constantly was Reading About:

Tiger Woods
LeBron James
Anthony Kim
Javon Ringer
Myron Rolle

Top 5 Stories I'm Sick of Hearing About on the News:

O.J. Simpson Trial (is this deja vu?)
Natalee Halloway
Sarah Palin Anything
American Auto Giants wanting a bailout
Israel vs. Hamas/Palestine

Top 5 Coolest Things I Did This Year:

Zip Lining in the Rainforests in Costa Rica
Seriously Contending in the United States Public Links Golf Qualifier (including birdieing 3 of 4 first holes in Rd 2)
White Water Rafting in the Rainforests of Costa Rica
Doing 100% of my Xmas Shopping using FPPs from Poker Stars
Kicking a 45 Yard Field Goal at Nippert Stadium from the Right Hash at the University of Cincinnati

Top 5 Favorite TV Poker Moments (that I remember):

Phil Ivey's ridiculous bluff with Q-hi preflop
Daniel Negreanu's Full House vs. Gus Hansen's Quads on High Stakes Poker
Patrik Antonius's J9 $990k pot vs. Sam Farha's KdQd on High Stakes Poker
Phil Hellmuth Snap Calling Barry Greenstein's All In while crushed on High Stakes Poker (QQ vs. KQ)
Phil Ivey JJ vs. Patrik Antonius AT on AAJ flop on some Euro Cash Game Show

List of Places I got to travel to in 2008:

Knoxville, Tennessee
Columbia, South Carolina
Orlando, Florida
Banff, Canada
Calgary, Canada
San Jose, Costa Rica
Atlanta, Georgia
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

I'm quite proud of my list of places that I've gotten to visit.  Added on to my Asia trip, as well as future trips to Vegas and Los Angeles in the next month, I think I'm quite well traveled for a 23-year old full-time student.  

Short Goals of 2009:

Launch a fully functional website with great challenges and opportunities for experience in entrepreneurship
Earn about $1k/month playing low stakes poker in limited volumes (assuming the UIGEA doesn't get more strict)
Shoot cumulative under par on my golf trip to Columbia, SC in May
Have atleast a few sections of the CPA Exam knocked out by this time next year
Work out and improve my flexibility and strengthen myself for golf
Continue to expand on Chinese and Spanish, and possibly learn another language (Japanese maybe?)

Anyways, I think that's a pretty thorough wrap up/vision of what I'd like to do in 2009 and where I'd like to be in 365 Days.  I may add to this post later, but time to watch UC beat VT in the Orange Bowl.  Go Cats!

I've done pretty much absolutely nothing for the last few days.  I've played a good amount of poker, to mixed results -- which included a mini-tilt session where I managed to piss away 2 or 3 buy ins to this aggro clown.  I've had good results at heads up, so I may stick with that for a while.  Aside from that, I've just been lounging in front of the television, watching 30 Rock as well as some random movies.

I saw the movie 21 the other day, and was pretty impressed with it.  I'm not entirely certain that the ending events were an accurate portrayal of the actual MIT team, but it definitely made for a better movie.  Kevin Spacey just rocks and I seem to like all the movies he's in, such as Se7en, Usual Suspects, and American Beauty.  I'm sure he's been in more, but of the ones where I recall him having a major role, I seem to enjoy them.

My good friend Dan flies in today from South Carolina.  I only have one day in town while he's here, as I leave for Costa Rica in two days, but I'm sure we'll make the most of it, probably with some fun dealer's choice poker, Golden Tee Golf, and whatever else shenanigans we find to do.  He'll want to hit up Skyline Chili I'm sure, but other than that we'll probably just waste away the day doing meaningless stuff.  

Speaking of Costa Rica, I still need to pack!  I was planning on just using a lot of the same clothes that I had in Orlando, but now that I've thought about it, I think I'll pack up a lot of my old raggedy clothes that I don't wear anymore -- with the intention of just throwing them out in CR once I'm done wearing them.  It'll be like, cleaning out my closet and furnishing my wardrobe for the trip, all in one right?  

I'll leave you with this amusing YouTube video.  I can't believe that people would actually sign up for this competition, but from what I can gather from the video -- these guys are reciting a tongue twister under an immense amount of pressure.  I'll leave it at that.  I can't figure out how to embed... if you can give me advice, please leave me a comment!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmMEddx9w-I

So I got back from Orlando on Tuesday, and really have just been catching up on sleep since.  I think I've slept about 28 hours since I've gotten back, which is probably the same amount that I get during a normal work week!  It definitely feels good to be on a break and have some opportunities to unwind, sleep, and just chill.  

Anyways, the trip was awesome.  It was just as good as I remember, and even better in the sense that there were two more rides that were new.  It amazes me at how much money and time Universal Studios (and I'm sure Disney) invest in making each ride so unique and truly encapturing of the theme and environment.  From the queue lines all the way to the fine details of the exit doors, they really theme everything to the max.  

I think my favorite rides there are The Mummy, Spiderman 3-D, Incredible Hulk, and the new Simpson's Ride.  As an example of the details I was talking about -- during the Simpson's ride, they even spray you with Baby Powder when you interact with Maggie... that seems a bit much, but it really is a neat little surprise (unless you hate the smell of course!)

So the majority of our days were spent at the park.  The temperature was a little cool, but it was warm enough to allow us to still take advantage of our Xpress passes and skip all lines, even for the water rides.  One of the highlights of the trip was running through the park with trash bags covering our clothes trying to make it to each ride for a final time before closing.  

The park wasn't too crowded but it was busy on each day.  It's interesting because last year when Lauren and I went, we probably guessed that half of the visitors at the park were of British origins (based solely on accents), but this time around, probably the good majority were latino-speaking or from Brazil.  I guess it is a direct reflection of booming economies, because if I remember correctly Brazil is growing like crazy and there is a large rise in the middle-class.  Pretty neat to hear all the languages and see the different ethnicities though.

I think my favorite part of the trip was Saturday night when we went to the SAK Comedy Club in Downtown Orlando.  I read great things about the club and decided to get tickets for all of us.  The show didnt' disappoint as the actors were hilarious and the crowd was very reactive and responsive to the actors and their requests, which makes for a better show.  The show is Improv Comedy, very much like Whose Line on TV, and the SAK Comedy Group is where Wayne Brady honed his skills and made a name for himself.  

Overall a great trip. Kind of a short TR but I am typing in the blog text and not in MS Word like usual, which means I don't want to lose this text when the blog hiccups like always!

Cheers,