It's 3:42am, do you know where your children are?

I know where mine are, cuz I just put them to bed. Late night feedings are back with a vengeance, but fortunately my lovely wife has handled 99% of them recently.

However, many people's kids seem to be playing a tournament on Partypoker.com. I placed 144th out of ~1800 people in a $1250 no-limit hold'em tournament, and the guy that took me out got lucky and didn't even realize it (and I was double the average chip count when I went down - was doing great). I had Q-J of diamonds, raised pre-flop, opponent had 10-9 off-suit and called. On the flop it comes 10-9 diamonds, 2 of spades. I bet big, he goes all-in (he's the big stack), I call. Only a set was ahead percentage-wise, and that very little - my high straight-flush draw should win most of the time. But he lucks out and I draw dead, no hits on my 15 outs + the runner-runner trips/pairs.

Best part is, he tells me not to EVER go all-in on a draw. I tell him I was significantly ahead at the flop, he just goes nuts. Parents, spank your kids. It'll make us all a little nicer people in the long run.

Fortunately, I got to tell him that a fool and his chip lead are soon parted, and that he may have more chips tonight, but tomorrow he'll still be stupid.

For what it's worth, 1st wins $250, 2nd $125, and then on down the hill. And it was a free entry using Party Poker points from playing previous hands (still have enough points for 3-4 more entries in future tournaments).

Word

Japanese school girl KO's purse snatcher

Kick-ass video - is it fake?

http://daynews.ru/index.php?act=show_news&id=939751

Remodeling Diary - Phase 2

It wasn't enough the first time around, so we're getting started with phase 2 planning. This is the biggie - whole new second story with 3 bedrooms and 3 baths + laundry room, new front porch, changing front entrance and making my office into a foyer with a stairway to the upstairs, adding a screened porch in the rear. And of course, all new siding and likely windows as well (hopefully not on the windows, that'll break our budget).

Met with Jeffrey (our architect) on Saturday to revise the older 2-story drawings for what we've done downstairs, make a few changes now that we know more about what we want, etc. In two weeks, we'll get updated drawings and start shopping to GC's. Likely Grady with Segue Builders, Mike Todd and Doug from our first renovation, and a few others we know something about. Hoping for a 6-month time-line with 3-months of serious move-out time, a $150k price tag, and an option to keep costs really low by not finish the upstairs at all (saving initial bucks and letting us do some of the easier finish work).

Alica will be trying to do her PhD work in Chapel Hill with the kids for the 3 months of insanity with the roof off the house and new second story being framed, and all of the siding being replaced. She'll hopefully stay with my brother - he has a big crib, 3 kids (1 1-year old) already, and is right in town for UNC-CH work . With a day-time nanny, the 1-year old and our kids might be able to stay at home all day, Alica could go to school, and then she could help around the house after hours in exchange for the room.

It'll be insane for both of us, but it's the only way for her to get focused time to get her dissertation done, and for us to get that second floor space. Given the $450k price-range houses have been selling for right next to us these days, we think a very nice 3100-3200 sq. ft. house can easily reach $600k on this street now, and we'll only have $450-500k into the house to get there. More importantly, since we aren't planning on moving anytime soon, we'll have a house we can stay in forever at an affordable price in a great location. Room for in-laws to come visit for months without hassles will be SWEET.

Nanny / Baby-sitter / Uber-babe

What do you call a woman that comes to your house and makes your life livable by taking care of your kids for a little while? Whatever she wants - we are blessed by the presence of Lori on a daily basis, even two Saturday nights in a row. It costs, but what price sanity? Obviously I shoulda looked into that one a LONG time ago.

Life, the Universe, and Everything

42.

Moving on, Bill Bryson is a genious. Go read A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Pressure Washer, All My Base Are Belong To You

Meatpile let me borrow his pressure washer this week. I'm in love... I took care of some fence posts and other misc. dirty outdoor trim, and then tackled my whole patio. 2+ years of nasty black grime from a sick tree were caked on, but that washer took it out with a vengeance. At 1.9gpm, I used up about 300 gallons of water to clean the patio and the teak furniture on it, and I LOVED IT!

Limit Poker at MeatPiles #3

Played $2/5 limit hold'em at Meatpiles tonight, the usual crowd. In event #1, I made $100. In event #2, I lost $20. In event #3, tonight, I made $288 (but paid Science back 15 out of my stake for a food debt).

Woohoo!

Nothing better than hitting draws against strong players with strong hands...Sorry Billiam!

Online Poker take two

Just finished my online poker craze. Ended up with a big loss on Party Poker, but I had already taken out all of my initial money and a huge profit, so all I lost was more profit :). I then played my last $100 stake on Full Tilt, and had an UNREAL streak of luck and made $400 by the time I quit. I have now cashed out all money invested except $100 on Full Tilt Poker.

Final stats: $500 initial stake, cashed out $1250, $100 left on Full Tilt Poker. Plus I have enough points on Party Poker and Full Tilt and NetTeller to have a lot of free poker and free "lottery tickets" on NetTeller. Not bad for a total of 7 hours of play :).

Party Poker luvs me!

I've played a LOT of online poker for free, and I spent a good solid week playing on-line on Party Poker a month or two ago just to get a nice bonus (played $.50/$1 limit hold'em for 1000 hands to get a $150 payout). But until this weekend, I had never played a decent stakes game. The good side of higher stakes games is more reasonable play - you can defend a good hand, you can bluff, generally it's better poker. And if you are good and/or lucky, you can win some serious jack :).

So, I played 5-6 different 1 hour or so slots this weekend, Friday-Sunday, and each time won $50-200. It was insane! The first time I was up $200+ in the first 15 minutes, then suffered some bad play and bad beats and dropped to only $50 up before ending. But each time I came back I won more, and it kept being EASY. The final wonder game was being up $180 in 25 minutes, quitting while I was ahead. I love it!

Brought $100 to Party Poker via NetTeller (I wanted to play Full Tilt and some others, so NetTeller is a good place to be since it is supported by most of sites out there). I had 2 bonuses queued up: a $20 bonus for 200 hands, $7.50 for another 75 hands. I bought in on a $3/$6 table, made $50 in the first hour, quit. I came back later that night and won $100. An hour or two later, I made another $100. So, my $100+$20 (bonus 1 made)+$50+$100+$100 had me at $370.
The next morning I brought $150 to the table and left with $250. Later, Meatpile whined about how he was sucking on Party Poker, so I joined his table and promptly won $30 (including taking him all-in for his last $12 and winning on the turn), and made the second bonus for $7.50. After Meatpiles regular $2/5 local game fell apart, I played one more time on Sunday morning, starting at $129 and ending at $311 25 minutes later. $370+$100+$30+$7.50+$182 had me at $689.50, a profit of $589.50 in about 4-5 hours of play.
And, party poker has a free roll system, so I now have enough party poker points to buy into 10+ tournaments for free, giving me a free shot at another $500-1000.

All of this, of course, was happening with babies going insane, a 5 year old nephew racing around, and very little sleep feeding the brain. Makes it all the sweeter :).