Hey Now I Still have a Blog

Twitter has definitely killed my blogging efforts. I also have played literally no poker in the last two, err actually three weeks except that 2010 WSOP seat freeroll I qualified for. That was held on the day I drove back from a music festival. I had it going on early and then ran my big stack into another big stacks turned flush. Yup online poker morons still call pot size bets on the flop with just flush draws. Its also what I expect for a freeroll.

I pretty much have decided to take the summer off from poker. Mostly because, Ive been busy doing other things. I went to Gathering of the Vibes on a day trip with BFF, Kim, stayed over night at my sister's in Westport CT. Shopped with Kim at Trader Joe's, Stew Leonard's and Whole Foods in Norwalk/Westport on the return. It was a good old girls day with a slumber party at my sister's. My sis had not seen Kim in 31 years since my High School graduation party. Suzie is an awesome gardener and sent Kim home with lots of succulent babies to get started.

I got stung by a wasp last Friday night. That resulted in me jabbing myself in the thigh with an epi-pen and a trip to on-call. They held me for a bit, gave me some prednisone and two prescriptions. I was no worse for wear next day. The prednisone took away all itching, swelling and in the morning I could barely see where I was stung. Amazing!!!

I will be headed into actual work for a two week training class in September as it stands right now. The good news, I will work a normal 5 day week of like 8 to 5:30 instead of my 9.5/9.5/9/8/4 schedule I work now. I have had every Friday off for the months of July and August though.

I have not made it up to the Race Track (Saratoga) yet and probably wont. I have an old running friend in town for the meet. She rent's a house for four weeks and I have to squeeze in a day/afternoon to catch up with her. She owns horse's in partnerships much like Snake5970. Snake's horse's are all on the sidelines right now. Two are recovering from injuries. If he's lucky he may see Hooked on Hope run at the tale end of the Saratoga meet. She is still stabled and training down at Belmont. She's been on the comeback trail since getting injured after her last race in late April.

I will make it up to SPAC however for PHISH 3.0 next Sunday 8/16/09. BFF Kim and I are on the lawn. Nephew Zack (Kim's 24 yr old) and his buddy Nate are in the Balcony and Dr Pauly is coming into town (balcony). WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!. Anyone who knows Pauly, knows its virtually impossible to catch up with him when he's working the WSOP. Since he's pretty much west-coast based when he's not traveling now and his trips to NYS/NYC infrequent its cool that he's literally going to be on my doorstep. Way cooler hanging out and catching up in a relaxing setting where people don't talk about bad beats. Plus its my first live PHISH show ever!! Pauly has already initiated a few of us poker bloggers into the way of the PHISH. The only poker-y thing I may even mention is his upcoming book LOST VEGAS. Much rather talk about music, food, travels etc. The only bummer is Nicky isn't coming on this east coast trip and I haven't seen her since the day we both played the 2007 ladies event.

Just for the record, I am not a complete Phish virgin. I did see the Coventry Simulcast in 2004 with California Rob and wife, Toni. I have seen Trey and Mike play with their own bands as well as them sitting in with Phil Lesh & Friends and I saw Mike join the Dead on bass and segway a few years back. This will be my first time seeing the fab four together. I'm going in with an open mind and no expectations. For years, I didn't get PHISH probably because they weren't the Dead. I finally came to appreciate them for the awesome musicians they are. Compositionally, they are nothing like the Dead so to compare them it isn't even fair. But man they can lay down some mind-bending jams.

I also scored tickets for the Mike Gordon Band at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock on 09/11/09. The theatre sits like 250 people. Attached to the theatre are two well know restaurants one Chinese the Little Bear and the renowned Bear Cafe. I'm totally psyched for this because Max Creek/BK3, guitarist Scott Murawski is reprising his role on guitar. Max Creek put on a smoking show at Vibes and I'm going to try to catch them Labor Day weekend at CreekEnd, if i can set aside the time to stay on site as required. I can honestly say that as someone who has followed Creek for a really long time, Scott gets better with age. One of the most under-appreciated/rated journeyman guitarists out there. Time permitting, BFF Kim and I will first travel to the Museum at Bethel Woods, site of the actual Woodstock Festival in 1969. It's about an hour away from Woodstock proper. Plus there is also the Kaatskill Kaleidoscope (the world's biggest) in Mount Tremper.

All for now, time to check out the farmer's markets and stands for NYS's best produce. Tomatoes suck this year. Too much rain causing a major fungus. Fortunately I didn't try to grow any myself this year. The Albany area had the rainiest July in history. We had 9.91 inches which was 6.4 inches above normal. It's also been unseasonably cool.