Vegas: The Worst Idea Ever!!!

For those who don't know frisbee there is a company run by my friend Matt "Skip" Sewell called Cu1timate (pronounced "cul" "ti" "mate") that hosts frisbee tournaments for college and club teams across the nation, and overseas (checkout their site for a tournament in Ireland). Anyhow they came up with the idea about 5 years ago to run a college tournament in Vegas (titled Trouble in Vegas: The Best or Worst Idea Ever) to replace the then missing San Diego President's Day Weekend. Anyhow that original tournament has grown to like 64 mens teams and 32 womens teams, and 3 years ago they introduced a club version. Well since it's inception I have either gone to the college or club vegas and competed or coached.

This year was no different as I took a smattering of players from Tsunami and friends from around the Ultimate community. All told there was 11 of us, 8 guys and 3 ladies. I was not cleared, medically, to play so that left 7 guys and 3 girls for a 2 day tournament. Ruh Roh! Anyhow we went in knowing we'd be drinking before play began and we'd have fun. Plan was to fly in on Thursday or Friday and come back on Monday. Well Vegas was hit by torrential rains, funny as it's sunny here in Seattle. Anyhow so when flying out of Seatac on Thursday through San Fran to Vegas my flight was delayed cause it couldn't land in San Fran due to bad weather. It was cool though as I was on vacation and didn't care. I was flying Virgin America for the first time and their staff was awesome. Due to the delay I wasn't going to make my connection and before we left Seattle they had me rebooked on a flight to Vegas that night in an exit row (+1 for Virgin). While waiting in the airport the staff played movie trivia for what apparently equated to a free drink of choice on the flight. In order to answer the trivia you had to be first to the podium, ring the bell, and say the answer over the airport PA, awesome (+1 for Virgin).

Flight to San Fran was uneventful. Virgin has awesome planes and if you have never been on one I recommend trying it at least once. Violet and red lighting instead of normal red, and individual touch screens from tv, movie, games, and food/drink orders. Once in San Fran I learn that Vegas is socked in as well so my next flight is delayed. I kill time doing work on the laptop and eventually we take off. I get to Vegas 8hrs after expected but it's Vegas so landing at 930pm is the start of the night.

I land in Vegas and meet up with Laura and Steve at the Wolfgang Puck cafe in the MGM grand. I eat and drink a little before we head to the tropicana where we will be staying for this trip. Some people bag on the hotel but the rooms are as good as any in Hanford or Burlington here in Washington. They just appear dirty compared to the glitz of Vegas. The Trop is also going through a mass overhaul the next year and so each room has a card with a picture that says "next time you are here, your room will look like this". Very classy. It's like a fuck you to the people currently in the room.

I forgot to mention that during the day Skip emailed saying that due to rain the parks department had closed our field facility. They found some turf fields to play at but this would change the format from 2 days and 2hr game slots, to 1hr game slots and you'd play for a 4hr chunk from 9am to 8pm on Saturday or Sunday (+1 for small squad). Anyways back to the Trop. I drop off gear and Steve convinces me to play $5 BlackJack. I will be first to admit I have a Blackjack addiction and cannot walk away from a table at times, but Steve knew this and said he'd look out for me. As is Steve loses like $75 and I make $40 while we wait for Dylan, Bryan, and Aaron to land. We have good fun and Bryan and Aaron head to the MGM poker room to play some $1/2 NL. Dylan and I join them later as Steve and Laura (old people) poop out around 1am.

The MGM poker room is very nice, and I usually play there on all my trips. Anyhow Dylan and I attempt to sit with Bryan at his "juicy" table but according to the floor man we have to balance tables so we get seated at another $1/2 table. This table is bad for me, there are a few regs and NL is not my game. I am card dead the whole time and I try to speculate with bad hands too much. When all is said and done in 3 hours I'm down $300 and rail birding as Dylan is slowly bleeding his $200 BI away. Sad thing is $300 was my whole gambling roll. Yes I know that it's too small to sit at 200NL but I had no choice on the strip without going up to old downtown, so I took a gamble and loss. About 4am Dylan busts out. We hang around for 30mins as Bryan has moved to our table and we had a good repoire with other players heckling and the like. They also all wanted to know about DeucesCracked. They also began fearing Dylan when I mentioned he graduated from MIT. Hooray for table image :). Anyhow around 5am we head back to our room and crash. End day 1 in Vegas.

Vegas BABY!!!!

I leave for Vegas in two days. For those not aware I take an adult coed team down to have fun on and off the field (i.e. this is an excuse for my friends and I to hangout in Vegas every year). This year Cat won't be going, new position at work would make it hard for her to take time off and I will be sad she's not there. This will be a strange trip for me without Cat there, me not being able to play in the tournament, and having so many random pickups playing with us. I look forward to the trip but still skeptical how well it will work out with 4 girls and 8 guys playing a coed tournament, but I think all of us know it's not about the win/loss but about the fun and mischeive we can make while there. Almost everyone has at least 1 or 2 extra days with us and it should be fun. I am hoping to get in some good hours at the poker tables as I want to increase my bankroll before I return to learning/playing online poker next month. I will post more on that later, but for now I got to get back to work so I can get some rest before PT in the morning.
On a side note I have gone 3 straight days doing all my exercises and my knee/back are feeling better and stronger. Next benchmark is in May for sockeye/Voodoo/Downpour tryouts.

Frustrated

For those who know me for more than 6 months, you have seen a trend of injuries throughout my life. I will be first to admit that I do not take very good care of my body, but I like to think that I am getting better and because i am only 27 I think I can turn it around.

Anyone who has seen me in the last two months knows that I am rehabbing a knee injury (patellar tendinitis). I was doing PT twice a week with the hope that I might play, even sparingly at Vegas in a little over a week. Well as of yesterday afternoon I took a step backward in recovery and this morning my physical therapist put to light my fear that I will be flying to Vegas but unable to play without possibly damaging my body further. I had hope till today.

The most frustrating thing is that I have had pain everyday for almost 2 months now. Lower back pain, knee pain, quad pain. I've tried muscle relaxers, Vitamin I (ibuprofen), vicodin, ice, chiropractic care, and PT and I still take 2 steps forward and 1 step back. My wife has to be the strongest person ever as she has dealt with consistant elbow and thumb tendinitis for over 2 years now, including having surgery. I am miserable after 2 months and I cannot see how she has persevered through her pain. It must be frustrating.

Physical Therapy

Today I had my second session of PT to rehab my patellar tendinitis. It was a tough workout, working on form throughout lunging and dips to try to get my knee to track better. I appreciate Laura Bogh's work as a PT as she is making use of the repetative motions I am prone to do as a frisbee player. I have quite a few exercises/stretches to do on my own and I am constantly working on flexing my core and sitting/standing up straight. My back does not get as tired of being fully upright as it has in the past which is good. We are optimistic for me playing at Vegas but I'm not betting the farm on it.

A New Year, A New Beginning

I won't make any promises as it's really hard to always keep your word, so I figured I would just step out and do it. Go blog and if I blog a lot, great. If not, no big deal. This new year and next month brings a lot of promise but first a few quick notes.
My wife and I went back East (New Jersey) for Christmas as we tend to do and the trip was rough. I love my in-laws and really lucked out with them but I have patellar tendinitis right now and walking at that point was impossible without heavy narcotics. Then we were delayed 2 days on the flight out, 1.5 days stuck in the actual airport. I couldn't sit comfortably once in Jersey so I spent most of my time working and lying in bed, sad holiday imo. On a side note, DC bought me a new laptop so I can edit/produce videos while back east so I can still make some money on our trips (Thanks DC). Anyhow, by Christmas I had developed a massive head cold that I am still slogging through. Sad trip indeed.
Later this month my frisbee team is playing at Vegas again, small squad as usual. I hope I can pull a legitimate team together but we shall see in the next two weeks. Either way my ticket is bought and I am going to be there. As it is I don't know if I will be cleared to play even if the team is all together.
I began PT shortly before going back East and it's helping. I still hurt with lunging motions, or if I ma on my feet for more than 30mins but that is much better than curled in bed not being able to straighten my leg, yes that bad!
A lot of work is coming down the DC pipelines as I got a raise and ever more responsibilities. I am working on learning about SEO (Search Engine Optimization: how google rates you as a website) and it's a lot of startup work that Rob ahs been breathing down my neck about. Hopeful I can make some good progress and get him some solid stuff by Monday. Also, I was told if I can take keepyourchips.com and figure out how to max profits from it, I could run with that idea. I like that.
I took 3rd (out of 12) in my DC Fantasy Football league so I have $200 plus the $100 I have in cash to begin playing/studying online poker again. I am excited. I will be posting hands nad tracking most of my poker winnings at a blog on DeucesCracked.com, but I will be sure to cross post once I get going. First trick, how do I deposit online without the UIGEA affecting me.
Coaching will begin in earnest later this month with the Garfield kids. I have a great group of captains and I am looking forward to the new season. I put in our field request late but hopefully I can get something, somewhere. We have a team parent meeting this coming Thursday. Hopefully this year we can get some parental support, if nothing else I would love more folks out at the game.
All in all, an exciting month indeed!!!

Time Passage

Another month goes by and no updates from me. It's currently my last night back East with my in-laws and some realizations have come to me. I like to work with my hands and I look forward to the new year, getting home, and working on some personal projects around the house. Cat and I got some money to Home Depot this Christmas and we are looking forward to maybe finishing up the house. Get some rugs, hang some art work, get some things planned out for the future.
I am interested to see how the new year taxes turn out with the portion of self employment I did. Hopefully most of the money we have put away will not go towards taxes and we can finally have a true honeymoon. The new year also brings up the need to begin running and getting into shape. Also, Vegas is coming up soon and I'm going to try and play every point of the tournament. I kinda have to go all out as we are running with a short-handed squad.
My meds dried up about a week ago and my body just doesn't feel right. I'm shaking way more than normal but I cannot tell if it's my lack of meds or a change in eating habits based upon being back East. We'll find out once I get back home and get back on my meds.
I am running into a mental block right now, maybe I'll update a bit later.

Hectic Life

So it's been over two weeks since I last posted and a lot has happened in that time. Cat's mother and father came into town for four days. They had a great time or so it seems. They went to the museum of flight and the Tacoma Glass Art Museum. I've never been to the Tacoma Glass Art Museum before so I joined them for the day. I was very cool, I've always been a fan of glass art, especially Chihuly. It's great when we are with them as they are so generous even when visiting us they pay for everything. We also had dinner with my folks and went and saw Body of Lies. I don't care for Leonardo DiCaprio don't think I ever will. His vote just grates on me.

Ultimate has been going well. My shoulder is still on the mend but it will get there. We just wrapped up winter league for both my hat team and Tsunami. Both teams had some success this year. It's fun to play with Margo, Rob, and Dylan and I look forward to Vegas in January. Tsunami might make a come back next year, we still need a couple more women and some more confidence but the wins we got this season were definite steps in the right directions. I don't have any more Ultimate scheduled till January so I am hoping to go run some track twice a week starting Thursday.

This Friday will mark my first day back as an Aquarium Volunteer. I haven't volunteered there in at least 6 years and I am looking forward to it. The backend operations have changed a bit since I was last there but I am sure I will get back into the groove easily enough. I made some new friends at training but unfortunately they don't work the same days/times as me. I hope to go visit them on occassion as now I get in free.

The DC holla crew was in town last week. I was crazy at times with video releases and lunch, not to mention the home game on friday. I walked away up but like with most of the moe game of Rob's it was purely a coin flip situation. Work is going really well. I was given a raise to start November off and we are running well with our final season of the year before we launch DCv2. Everyone is looking forward to the new release. I've had some major projects come my way that keep me busy, I was even working 9 hours the other night due to some technical issues beyond my control. I like the company and I think I am a good fit for them, once again just lucky and in the right place at the right time.

My own poker playing is not going so well. I am down 14 buy-ins at 25NL as I attempt to learn how to play NL. I was a decent winner at limit micro-stakes but I am attempting to learn NL as that is where most of the fish are nowadays. I'm watching videos and attempting to make my play better, but it is always a slow grind.

Home life is good. I realize that I don't get as much accomplished in my own personal life as I do in work or other things that take me outside the house. I really should have finished putting the office together by now, but I haven't even cleaned my desk once yet or got caught up on balancing the books. I've set the short term goal to clean my desk tonight when I am up. Little battles, little battles.