Archive for the year 2005
Posted on December 21, 2005 by Ching under Poker.
So Brian Rush gave me $10 to UB for our gift exchange thing at work. I blew it all last night on American Airlines. Not plane tickets. I had pocket aces. Dude with a Queen 8 offsuit called and caught a gut-shot straight on the river.
I played until 2 am hoping to recover but instead lost another $30. Needless to say, I probably will not be playing any online poker for a while unless someone decides to send some gambling money my way.
Posted on December 20, 2005 by Ching under School.
I can’t believe I survived this semester with only one B. What a relief! I really thought I was going to get a B in MIS 605 and then a C in ACCT 410.
Based on how the semester was going, only MIS 610 (my favorite class this sem because it involved web programming) seemed like a sure thing. Even HRM 466, which is not really a difficult class, was looking iffy because of the workload in all my other classes. Besides that, I just didn’t have the time to study for all the exams and quizzes we had. I barely got an A in that class. An A is an A, though, so I’m happy. No one knows (except you guys) that it was more like an A minus.
I think my A in MIS 605 was borderline too. From the looks of my scores, I thought I would get a B. Steve Helm must have had some good news that day. I’m going to write Santa and tell him to get Helm something good this Christmas because he was very generous in handing out grades!
My B in ACCT 410 was borderline too. So I guess Santa needs to send something to Professor Jarnagin also. Seriously, though, the exams in accounting were horribly hard. Then again, it could just be me. I just don’t have an aptitude for accounting. The subject puts me to sleep. And it really didn’t help that the class ran from 7 to 10 pm because on most nights I was already pooped from having worked all day.
I was really glad the night of our final exam because it meant that the torture was finally over. As I got ready to leave after the exam, Professor Jarnagin took me by surprise when he told me that I had homework to pick up.
Brian picked me up from campus that night and I told him this during the drive home.
“He knew my name, baby! I couldn’t believe it! Teachers must have a knack for remembering names and faces,” I said.
“Teachers usually remember their best students and their worst students,” Brian replied.
“I’m doing horrible in that class. Does that mean I am the worst student?” Brian started laughing. And it wasn’t like he was laughing with me either. He was really laughing at me!
“I guess I shouldn’t haven’t been dozing off in the front row. It’s not like I could help it, though. Accounting is so boring and it’s really late at night!” I said trying to defend myself. I’m really not a rotten student, you know? I try my best. Accounting is just not my forte.
“What are you doing sitting in the front row? You never ever sit on the front row if you think you might end up falling asleep sometimes!” Like I do not know this.
“I have to sit at the front. I have poor eyesight. Besides, I never plan to fall asleep. It just happens. And then I couldn’t move to a different spot because we have a seating chart.”
“A seating chart?!”
“Yeah, we have assigned seats.”
“Never in my entire college career have I ever had to follow a seating chart. In high school, maybe. But not in college!”
“Yes. But he’s really old school, baby.”
Anyway, I don’t think Professor Jarnagin is alone. I’ve actually had a few classes that utilized seating charts. It helps the teachers remember who you are.
So maybe I’m really not a bad student after all? Maybe he just remembers my name because of our class seating chart? That’s it! That sure makes me feel better. LOL.
Posted on December 19, 2005 by Ching under Poker.
Brian talked me into going to be at 9 pm tonight. That is the most insane idea ever. He went to bed and told me to just follow after I finish my sit and go tourney. At least, he was nice enough not to force me to go until I was ready. We were on the bubble with me sitting pretty as chip leader. Then I made one fatal mistake. My two pair ran into a straight. The flop was all hearts too but I made the right read. Somehow I could tell he had no hearts and my two pair was safe. I pushed by betting pot after the flop. He called. I bet pot again, hoping to push him out. Again, he called. After the river card, I started to question what he was calling me with but I was representing the flush so I went all in to put him all in. He was in second place so I had him covered, but not by much. I had somewhere between 5000 to 6000 chips at the time. Losing the hand would leave me severely short-stacked at around 400 chips against three other people who had at least 3000 each. I had to convince him I had the flush, though, so I had to go all in. There was no other way. The guy didn’t believe me. He called me again. Do you know how annoying that is? To get no respect at the table? It’s really aggravating! Guess what?! He chased his straight all the way to the river and got it. I had no idea the ace on the river was the one card he was waiting for. Of course, he was on an open-ended straight draw. The call would have been reasonable had it not put his tournament life on the line and had there not been a possible flush on the board. What annoys me is that he called me after the flop with nothing, and after the turn with nothing, despite my astronomical bets. I guess the most irritating part is that he just didn’t respect my bet enough to buy that I had a better hand. Had his ace not landed, my two pair would’ve held up. And he should’ve had enough sense to fold because there was a possible flush, which is what I was trying to represent albeit unsuccessfully, and he had absolutely nothing. The moral of this story is that it pays to be a fool I guess. That’s what’s so great about newbies is they do not have enough sense and they have no idea how to calculate odds. So they call when reason says not to and then get lucky, which annoys the crap out of me! Anyway, I took that as a sign it was time for bed. Granted it was barely past 9 pm but Brian was already in bed so it made sense just to hit the sack too. Except I wasn’t sleepy yet. Typically I will ask Brian to tell me a story to put me to sleep but, as he was already fast asleep, I was left to toss and turn. Counting sheep never works. I’ve found over the years that there are only three things that have ever worked for me. I need one of three S’s to fall asleep: sex, story or sangria. Usually a full glass of sangria will do the trick. We don’t have any in the house, though. I would need Brian awake for the other two alternatives and, as he was down for the count, I was left with absolutely no options. The ironic thing is nothing keeps me awake more than trying desperately to fall asleep. I would’ve tried reading my accounting textbook but I sold it back already. I should’ve kept it as a cure for insomnia since all I got in exchange was a measely $20 bucks. However, when you’re as broke as I am $20 sounds pretty enticing. Besides that, I despised accounting so much that I never wanted to see that book ever again. I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. It would’ve been nice to have in this situation, though. As they say, hindsight is always 20/20. After almost three hours of trying, I just got up. I need to send my body to obedience training or something because I’m really tired of it not following orders. So here we are.. It’s one in the morning and I’m sitting here blogging.
Posted on December 15, 2005 by Brian under Life.
I truly don’t know where to begin with this one, I should go over all the details of the year since that’s what I’m posting about but its just too much to write about. So instead I’m going to sing a song! Kidding, instead I’ll pick a few goods and bads out of the year, things that just really stood out.
January was one of the worst months of the year for us, we had this incredible Ice Storm come in and blanket the entire city in ice and snow. People were without power for weeks; my wife who works for the power company was working almost 18hrs a day for over a month. She was so stressed out that she was about ready to kill everyone that spoke to her. It was a pretty tense time for all of us, but we worked it out.
In April I finally got a job with Cox Communications. It was fun, we had TV’s all over the place and I got to learn something new about a product that I actually used (quite regularly). I also learned that to some people the cable is just as important to them as oxygen is to everyone. I spoke with people that just could not live without their cable, but didn’t have jobs to pay for the services they had. I believe that 50% of the people that I spoke with were on some sort of fixed income like Social Security or Disability. However, they did not budget this income and instead paid cable before everything else. It was really sad to see how much television has infected the minds of society. I watch TV don’t get me wrong, but I have the responsibility to realize that their are more important things to pay like house, power, food, transportation. Some folks just don’t realize that their is a big world out their and television will only make that world smaller if they allow themselves to get engulfed in it.
About July my mother lost her job, this was an eventful time. I tried to console my parents as much as I could, my father thought the world was going to end and my mother lapsed into a deep depression (mainly because she has never been fired from a job before in her entire life). Finally my father realized that this is not the end of the world and tried to look at the positive. My mother is still to this day unemployed. She is continuing to look for jobs in the field that she worked before as a Paralegal Secretary, but the job market is pretty thin in this area.
In September we got 2 new additions t the family, our sugar gliders. They are adorable. If you want to know more about them then just go to my wife’s page. Their is always new pictures and stories about what they have done.
In November I finally quit Cox and started working for Engenio technologies. It’s a great company and I am much happier. I have a lot to learn and it’s real advanced as far as the type of knowledge I need to know. Unlike most of my other jobs I can’t bull shit these people because they actually know what the hell they are talking about. Unlike your average customer in the consumer world that doesn’t know jack shit about anything accept that it’s broke and he wants it fixed.
Other than that we are working every day to make the world better. My new motto; Healing America by Beating People Up!
Brian and I were going to go to Sumo for a post-finals celebration dinner (to celebrate my temporary freedom from school work, at least until next semester) but once again, long wait for Sushi. The last two times we tried to go, people were packed like sardines in the waiting area and there was a long wait in both the hibachi and sushi sides. It used to be that we could get in relatively quickly for sushi, but it seems sushi has grown in popularity. Either that or people just like to feel trendy and decide they’ll go to a sushi bar so they seem cool even though they despise eating sushi anyway or it could be that these are just people waiting for their hibachi table and they don’t care that they’re taking up room from real sushi lovers like us. At any rate, an hour and a half wait for sushi. Bummer. Plan B was to go to PF Chang’s and eat there but the wait was 30 minutes and we were starving! I guess it’s all those office holiday parties going on right now. Almost every decent resto is packed. We were left with Plan C – take out. Better than having to cook, I guess, specially since there’s nothing at all to cook in the house.
« Older Entries « » Newer Entries »
