2007

Archive for the year 2007

I Need a New Hobby

Posted on October 6, 2007 by Ching under Poker.

Friday was the last day of our Customer Service Week celebration. It was casino day at work and we had loads of fun. David manned the craps table, Joni manned roulette, Darcy manned black jack (Travis filled in when she went to meet Mike for lunch) and I dealt Texas hold’em, my favorite. I skipped lunch but I didn’t really mind because I was doing something fun. I thought I could make it through to the end of the day without getting hungry, but by 12:30 my belly was crying “Feed me! Feed me!” I had a Kashi chocolate almond bar but I opted instead to eat the rest of Joni’s fries. Why is it that when we have to choose between what’s good and bad, we always end up choosing the bad stuff?

Anyway, Brian and I went to Brint’s Diner after work. Good place to eat. The only thing I really don’t like about the diner is that they servce Coke and not Pepsi. Oh, well. Mom and dad Brubaker ended up meeting us over there. Donna had liver and onions, yuck. David had country fried steak as I did except he had fries instead of mashed potatoes. We are a lot alike in terms of food choices. Brian had some kind of chicken sandwich. Boring choice but he said it was good. My favorite part of the meal was my red beans and rice soup. It is probably the best red beans and rice I’ve had. It had kielbasa in it, which I like. It was tres magnifique!

Then Brian and I went off to poker, our usual Friday night thing. We really have to quit going at some point because neither of us have made the final table in ten weeks. Can you believe it? Brian has come close but generally I am knocked out either before break or right after. I’ve been really sucky lately. You would think that since we aren’t winning and are just pretty much give our $20 away that we would come to our senses and quit going at some point. We always say “Let’s skip poker this week,” but come Friday night we always find our way to the Boulevard Banquet Hall for the Blue Collar Poker Tournament. It’s really sad.

Last night was a particularly crappy night for me. I got knocked out in three hands! It was embarrassing, but I’d gotten knocked out on the first hand before (and they actually announced it on the PA system) so it’s not my record. And certainly not my most embarrassing moment. Anyway, on my way out to get my marketing books I ran into John (Jonathan Sanchez’ dad). I found out that he got knocked in two hands so that made me feel a little bit better. LOL. Actually, chatting with him and catching up on news about he and Suzie and Jonathan and Julie is probably the best part. We got to chatting for a quite some time that Brian had to come hunt me down. I guess he was worried since I hadn’t come back with his truck keys in a long while.

Let me tell you about my three hands, though. I was big blind on my first hand, 7s 5s. Nothing spectacular but no one raised so I was in to see the flop along with five other people. It was check-check-check all the way to the river. At the end, the kid bets the minimum of $200. I think it was mostly a position-slash-feeler bet because he was last to act (or maybe second to last), but no one had anything to challenge him so everyone, including myself, lays down their hands. Simple, easy, quick.

Next hand. I am small blind this time. Two or three people fold, the rest call. It comes back to me. I look down at 9c 9s. Nice. I raise to $800 fully expecting to pick up the pot right then. Apparently, it wasn’t enough of a raise because I get three callers. Flop is blank 10 7. I am first to act. I bet $1200. I’m thinking that if they called $800 they probably have paint and missed so my pocket nines are still good. Two guys fold. I had one caller. The turn card is a 7. I fire another bullet, $1200. This is textbook. You want to fire again because you don’t want to show weakness. I get reraised to $2400. I quickly call. This was my big mistake. I should have taken the time to think and re-evaluate the situation. Anyway, it was too late. The chips were in the middle and now the river card is revealed, 5. It is a blank, completely worthless. I don’t think it helped him but it didn’t help me either. I check because I’m worried at this point. He bets $2000. I should’ve take it for what it was, a value bet begging for a call. I should’ve folded. I couldn’t put him on a 7, though, because I felt that the raise I made preflop would’ve gotten him out. “There is no way he has a 7,” I announced, “There is just no way.” I pretty much talked myself into calling. Sure enough he had a 7. He held A 7 off-suit. I was crippled.

Next hand. I am dealer. It’s call, call, call, the kid raises to $600. I looked down at pocket nines again! The exact same hand as earlier. I should’ve gone all in but I played scared and only called. I really should’ve just gone all in right then. I think I could have taken it down preflop with no showdown. Anyway, that’s not what happened. There were four callers total, so five players still in. The flop is 5c 4c 3, I can’t remember what suit the 3 was but it was red. Big blind checks. Next guy goes $1200. The kid who raised it preflop folds his hand. Dwayne calls. At this point, I’ve only got $2800 left. To call would be to commit most of my stack. My pair is above the board and I didn’t think any of them had it so my only move was to go all in. So that’s what I did. Big blind quickly goes all in over the top of me. Not a good sign. Since he is big blind, he could have A 2 for the straight or 3 4, 4 5, 3 5 for two pair. I was toast. The guy who raised to $1200 says “There goes my draw,” as he folds his hand. Dwayne thinks about it for a long time and finally calls. He commits about $8000 more in chips on K 3, bottom pair. I would say unbelievable, but it’s really not. If you’ve ever played with Dwayne, you know that he plays based on emotion. Sometimes he will call with nothing just because he thinks you are bluffing him out of the pot. Big blind held, A 5. So he had a 5, top pair but come on. Who wins pots with a pair of fives? Seriously! I guess he was counting on his straight draw also. Guess what the river card was? An ace. Of course. I dealt it. Grrrr!

Sometimes if you make too many big enough blunders you don’t last long enough to learn from your mistakes. I made the following mistakes:

thinking that $800 was enough of a raise to get crappy hands out of my pot; in hind sight it obviously was not enough
getting too attached to my hand and not laying it down to the reraise; I was in denial I think
not pausing to evaluate the situation; always take time to think and consider your options, you should take as long as you need to make the best decision
not going all in preflop on my second pocket nines because after the pot got bigger after the flop the $2800 all in was really not enough to get anyone out

These are some costly mistakes but I learned from them. You better believe it! I will play better next time.

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It’s Birthday Time

Posted on October 4, 2007 by Ching under Family, Life, School.

October is a huge month of celebrations for us. Mom’s birthday is October 6. I won’t say her age. Grandpa Clark turns 90 on the 12th, which also happens to be his wedding anniversary. And you all know that I turn 30 on the 30th. Man, I’m old!

We are celebrating mom’s birthday by having champagne brunch at Legends at the Airport Hilton on Sunday. Matt, Jennifer and the boys will be there as well. It should be fun.

Can’t have too much fun, though, because I have a Marketing exam on Monday. I will probably mark Saturday as my study day. I really don’t want to take Monday off because it is our busiest day of the week. Plus, I took a vacation day today to study for my Investments exam and don’t have too many days left.

Speaking of the Investments exam, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I think I did okay. Hopefully I didn’t make too many careless mistakes. I hate mid-terms. I had this exam, Marketing on Monday, and then an exam in Cases in Finance the following week. One exam a week. I guess it could be worse. All three exams could happen in the same week. Yuck.

I’m looking forward to two weeks from now when these exams are done, but at the same time I’m not because that means projects will be due. I keep telling Brian that I just need to survive this semester because next semester I’ll only have one more class and I am finished. Yay.

Anyway, next weekend we are celebrating Grandpa’s birthday and their wedding anniversary. I think it will be either at Red Lobster or that Chinese buffet place by the mall. My vote is for Red Lobster. Not too fond of that Chinese buffet place. It’s not up to me, though.

Then it will be time for my birthday. Brian and I kind of slacked off on the planning. I guess it will be a quiet celebration. You don’t exactly want to call attention to the fact that you’re 30. LOL. Maybe he and I could drive to Legends Mall and spend the day there. That would be fun. I guess it will all depend on whether I will have time. Between homework and projects and work and everything else, there just hasn’t been time to do much of anything lately.

We did get to watch a movie yesterday, though. So that was a welcome break. I’ll tell you about that later because Brian wants to go to bed. Until next time.

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Raleigh, North Carolina

Posted on October 4, 2007 by Ching under Sponsored Post, Travel.

North Carolina is one of those places that I’ve never been but have always been intrigued about. I have read of how beautiful it is there and, from what I’ve seen on TV and the internet, this no exaggeration. It makes my list of places that I would be willing to relocate to if the opportunity ever arose. Although, Brian says that the cost of living there is really high. Then again, the cost of living everything is high compared to the cost of living we are used to in Wichita. No matter what people say about Wichita, how boring it is, how much they hate it, how much they want to leave — we are blessed to have the quality of life that we do here. In that sense, I find it hard to justify moving elsewhere. It would be nice to check out what it’s like in North Carolina, though.

For a city that has about the same population as Wichita I think North Carolina has a lower crime rate, which is nice. Crime in Wichita scares me. I don’t know if the news just sensationalizes these occurrences, but it really does scare me. It makes me not want to leave the house. Of course, if you’re like my dad and you work from home, you really wouldn’t need to leave the house. Unfortunately, we don’t all have that luxury.

Anyway, back to North Carolina.. There are several big companies that are based or operate there. These include Nortel, Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, Red Hat, Progress Energy, First Citizens Bank, just to name a few. Incidentally, I checked the stock price of Progress Energy (PGN). It’s trading at about $47.52 right now. Not bad. Okay, more on that later.

The thing is, you can read about what a place is like but nothing really compares to going there and experiencing it for yourself. My advice would be to actually go and check it out. Now would be the best time because they’ve got several things going on right now in Raleigh. Plus, it is a beautiful time of the year there.

The Visit Raleigh web site actually has a special promotion going on right now for a free fall getaway which includes accommodations for two at the Courtyard by Marriott Raleigh Crabtree Valley, a $25 gift certificate to Bloomsbury Bistro (never been there but supposedly really good), free VIP admission for two to Rum Runners, two tickets to the North Carolina Theatre (if you are into that sort of thing), two tickets to the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism, and two tickets to Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. You can register for this free Raleigh, NC getaway by clicking on the link. It’s not a shabby getaway package. And you get to check out the area, just in case you decide you want to move there permanently.

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Bless His Heart

Posted on October 2, 2007 by Ching under Life.

We watched a little too much Top Chef over the weekend. It inspired Brian to do some culinary experimentation last night. He made spaghetti with chunks of steak in it. It doesn’t quite work, I know. He said the steaks were on sale, though. I guess he was trying to save money at the same time.

I think it could’ve worked if he just stuck to the basics. Cooked the steaks and then served potatoes or rice on the side. Rather than putting it in spaghetti. What a weird combination. I guess he thought he could cook this stuff up because he’d been watching the Top Chef contestants seemingly throw stuff together and it turns out really good.

“Don’t quit your day job,” I told him. On the up side, if he keeps cooking this way I might just lose weight. LOL.

The Top Chef finale is tomorrow night. I’m not sure how we are going to watch it since we are going to the movies with the folks at work to celebrate Customer Service Week. I asked Brian to DVR it, but he says we have too many shows DVR-ing on Wednesday and there isn’t room for it. Boo.

The crazy thing is that I’ve never ever watched the show until this weekend, but now that I have I’m totally hooked. I know I’m behind but the finale is the only important episode anyway. I just want to know who wins it.

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Keeping Romance Alive

Posted on September 30, 2007 by Ching under Life, Sponsored Post, Web.

Brian and I often get mistaken for newlyweds. When we tell others that we’ve been together for over eight years – one year of dating (actually more like a few months), two years of living together and five years of marriage – they usually can’t believe it. They want to know what our secret is. There’s really not a big secret or method to it. Brian and I just make sure we set aside time do fun things and we always celebrate milestones. We don’t necessarily spend money on gifts for anniversaries, but we invest in memories. Our philosophy is that any new toy or trinket you have will only last a few years (if you’re lucky) before you grow tire of it or it breaks. Memories, on the other hand, last a lifetime.

These celebrations – for anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, etc. – need not be expensive. There are many resources on the internet that will give you ideas. Romance for Everyone is one such web site. They have many tips on how to cultivate love and romance, articles on relationships, and samples of love letters. The web site also has sample “I miss you” and “I’m sorry” letters, perfect for times when flowers aren’t enough to convey how you feel. Although it’s better if you write your own, the sample love letters are particularly helpful to those of us who are not so creative or don’t have a talent for letter-writing. At the very least the sample letters will help to inspire you.