I was at two Phish concerts over the weekend with Tao of Poker/Coventry Music's Dr. Pauly . Therefore, I didn't update or change any of my fantasy horses and let them ride for the weekend tourneys. Not a smart move but i wanted to go off the grid and chill for a few days with my "lil bro" who took a short trip back east to catch the shows with me and escape the madness that is the WSOP. I filled him up with NYC comfort food like: black and white cookies, and a chocolate Russian coffee cake plus cupcakes from Coccadots. We hit up PJ's BBQ and a Poster Art show that Pete "PhanArt" Mason held up in Glens Falls. Somehow we never made it to the potato knishes.
Full Tilt has had some minor issues with the fantasy game this year and on one such day I couldn't change my picks for the 8PM tourney. I've pretty much written off having a good finish in this thing. I haven't been able to play most of the freerolls I've qualified for either. But I have won another hat, which I wont receive as I never got the two from last year. P.S. Full tilt I have one so really don't need it.
However, I did catch my 4th and 5th Phish shows and I took some video's which are uploaded to You Tube under my Irongirl99 user name. I've also crossed posted one so far to Coventry Music Blog.
And short of only checking a few emails over the weekend from family and Snake5970, I was successful in going off the grid. I avoided Facebook, twitter, PokerNews and any other blogs I gravitate to every day. I bought my Sunday papers but haven't read them yet and the TV was only turned on to the Yankees/Mets game and the World Cup.
I had a great time this weekend met some cool people like TWOL's: Mountain Laura, Steve aka Unolker and Emile, aka Soozy Greenburg, plus two kewl young Southern Hippies: Chase and Tony who we were seated with for the Saturday night show. Now on to Furthur in Brooklyn next weekend.
For those readers too young to remember the title of this post is a play on the song Vacation by the GoGo's.
PEACE & Music
Showing posts with label Phish tour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phish tour. Show all posts
Monday, June 21, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
2010
Contrary to what a few of my friends believe and have teased me about, I did not disappear into the rabbit hole after my immersion into Phish during my Weekend with Dr Pauly following the two night run at Albany's Times Union Center. I actually decided not to write about the weekend and let Pauly do the talking over on Coventry Music and his Tao of Pauly blogs. So much of Dr P's life is public record and getting to share time with "my lil bro" is few and far between. I did give him free rein to have as good of a time as he wanted that weekend. He guided me thru all the Phish music I have never heard and I was there to belay him he if decided to go too far off the edge. I'm pretty low key at Phish/Grateful Dead shows being the tour vet I am. The 2nd night (Saturday), 2nd set of Albany left my face melted. After almost 50 minutes of intense jamming on the 7 Below/Ghost jam, one catch your breathe song, they continued the momentum with what could easily be the best set of sound, I have ever heard. I turned to Dr P after my eyes in awe, mouth agape with a biggest smile I have ever had (except maybe the perma-grin that comes from taking LSD) and high-fived/fist-bumped and hugged him. By golly I finally had gotten what it took so long to get. Most of my exposure to Phish had been during the falling apart 2.0 era and I just didn't get it.
After Phish, I had another concert at Troy's Revolution Hall on Kim's birthday December 4th. We saw one of our other favorite band's: Max Creek. I attended my company Xmas Party right before and won two bus tickets to Foxwoods. I also had my name pulled as a winner of $50 gift card to Chico's a BBQ joint that sounds delish. But i could only win one so they threw that one back in and pulled another person. Coupled with a twitter win of a two night stay to the RIO in Vegas. I was running good.
Kim got lost in South Troy trying to find Revolution Hall. I was trying to guide her in and kept asking her what side the river was on. When she said its right in front of me i knew she was heading west back over to Watervliet and not in a North/South direction which is the way she needed to go to get where I was. I found this funny only because we both spent a lot of time at RPI which is located at the top of the hill from where she needed to be and which i was trying to use as a reference point. She dated a Theta Chi and I a Alpha Chi Rho (that would be the one and only California Rob). We wound up missing the McLovins but were ready for Max Creek when they took the stage. It was a great show as always. They played one long set as they were on their way to Utica for a show the next night.. Scott and the drummers (Scott A and Gregg V) jammed thru the "set break" while John and Mark took care of whatever they needed to take care of. There was one song in particular where Scott Murawski's harmony vocals showed a range I had never heard before (Think Mark was on lead) that proved that after almost 40 years of playing he still has tricks up his sleeve and is still learning and improving.. During one of the Jam's I'm pretty sure Mark Mercier teased the Vince Guaraldi piano piece from It's a Charlie Brown Christmas dance. I had this weird idea that it would be cool to see a bunch of hippies/hipsters etc Snoopy dancing to that whole piece!!
Everyone took their turn on vocals that night, except drummer, Greg Vasso which left me a little sad because A)I <3 Vasso and B)I love it when he does Sympathy for the Devil. I said a quick hello to Scott M after the show and left pretty tired after seeing 3 concerts in 8 days.
I did not attend the winter WPBT gathering and would have loved to do the tasting dinner with Astin and company at Joel Robuchon. Next time I would love to do a tasting at a great Seafoody place. One with a seafood tower etc. Sounds like I missed a good time but December is just such a hectic month with work and the holidays around the bend. Astin did manage to take down the winter donkament and a big congrats to him for that (again).
Rags is now inside and my second cat. He's not actually inside my condo as Bailey wants no one in his domain. There has been hissing and growling on Bailey's part thru the pet gate I installed. Rags just sits there and does nothing, its as if he knows its not his territory. Pretty funny since outside Rags was a little hellion taking on all invaders. He definitely was abused/mistreated and then abandoned as he will recoil a little if i go to pet him with my hand coming towards him. But I can pick him up and snuggle him and he loves to sit on my shoulders. He's living in my carpeted stairwell and pretty much lives on the top landing outside the door that enters into the condo. He is very affectionate and grateful. I do let him out as he prefers to do his business outside. I know he has some loss of functioning in his kidneys as is typical in older cats and he does have some dental disease also typical. But hes in a lot better shape now then he was last year when he ran from people and spent the winter outside. I decided I'll make his final years as comfortable and easy as possible.
I did play poker New Year's day. Third time live in about 6 months I think it was. I had a monster stack proving I still can accumulate chips but I was rusty getting nervous when normally I'm chill. Things were going extremely well, until I had your classic on-line make it or break it hand: in a min-raised 4-5 way pot with one person all in I flopped a straight with Q8d on an all heart board. I led out a feeler bet hoping no one flopped a flush after it checked around. One caller, a young kid who was a good player and was second chip stack to me at the table and perhaps the tourney. Turned out he had flopped a baby flush so he called. A turn diamond and he led out with a bet. I all in'd there thinking he was drawing trying to protect my made hand. He thought I had a bigger flush with the Ace and he tanked for quite awhile before calling and actually wound up hitting a straight flush on the river. Which was good for him and launched him into the chip lead and that crippled me down to starting stack of 13k from a high of 50k or so. Sick feeling in my stomach obviously. Sick feeling in young guns stomach as he passed on the high hand pool!! So, all my hard work for naught and after eating prime rib and baked potato etc., my ADD kicked in and I got bored and didn't feel like rebuilding, yup I gave up instead of trying to come-back which I've done before. I shoved with 99 after my table move on the very first hand dealt at the new table. No callers. I lasted a few more orbits and eventually I shoved JT or JQ into AK and busted out unimproved. Home I went to play some online.
2010 will be more concerts with Furthur shows on deck for February and hopefully Mt Jam in June and gathering of the Vibes and Camp Creek in July. More poker as I turn the big 50 in October and can play Senior's events. Also trying to shed the tummy I have acquired going thru the change and I plan on resuming running. I have been taking a body jam class but haven't been in a few weeks with the holidays.
2010 goals - Lose weight, eat better (I did remove most processed food in 2009), chew longer, play more poker, read a lot, see live music, run.
And if you really want to know what I'm doing check out my twitter feed. I twitter aka microblog alot more then I do full blog posts. I'm @irongirl01 on twitter.
After Phish, I had another concert at Troy's Revolution Hall on Kim's birthday December 4th. We saw one of our other favorite band's: Max Creek. I attended my company Xmas Party right before and won two bus tickets to Foxwoods. I also had my name pulled as a winner of $50 gift card to Chico's a BBQ joint that sounds delish. But i could only win one so they threw that one back in and pulled another person. Coupled with a twitter win of a two night stay to the RIO in Vegas. I was running good.
Kim got lost in South Troy trying to find Revolution Hall. I was trying to guide her in and kept asking her what side the river was on. When she said its right in front of me i knew she was heading west back over to Watervliet and not in a North/South direction which is the way she needed to go to get where I was. I found this funny only because we both spent a lot of time at RPI which is located at the top of the hill from where she needed to be and which i was trying to use as a reference point. She dated a Theta Chi and I a Alpha Chi Rho (that would be the one and only California Rob). We wound up missing the McLovins but were ready for Max Creek when they took the stage. It was a great show as always. They played one long set as they were on their way to Utica for a show the next night.. Scott and the drummers (Scott A and Gregg V) jammed thru the "set break" while John and Mark took care of whatever they needed to take care of. There was one song in particular where Scott Murawski's harmony vocals showed a range I had never heard before (Think Mark was on lead) that proved that after almost 40 years of playing he still has tricks up his sleeve and is still learning and improving.. During one of the Jam's I'm pretty sure Mark Mercier teased the Vince Guaraldi piano piece from It's a Charlie Brown Christmas dance. I had this weird idea that it would be cool to see a bunch of hippies/hipsters etc Snoopy dancing to that whole piece!!
Everyone took their turn on vocals that night, except drummer, Greg Vasso which left me a little sad because A)I <3 Vasso and B)I love it when he does Sympathy for the Devil. I said a quick hello to Scott M after the show and left pretty tired after seeing 3 concerts in 8 days.
I did not attend the winter WPBT gathering and would have loved to do the tasting dinner with Astin and company at Joel Robuchon. Next time I would love to do a tasting at a great Seafoody place. One with a seafood tower etc. Sounds like I missed a good time but December is just such a hectic month with work and the holidays around the bend. Astin did manage to take down the winter donkament and a big congrats to him for that (again).
Rags is now inside and my second cat. He's not actually inside my condo as Bailey wants no one in his domain. There has been hissing and growling on Bailey's part thru the pet gate I installed. Rags just sits there and does nothing, its as if he knows its not his territory. Pretty funny since outside Rags was a little hellion taking on all invaders. He definitely was abused/mistreated and then abandoned as he will recoil a little if i go to pet him with my hand coming towards him. But I can pick him up and snuggle him and he loves to sit on my shoulders. He's living in my carpeted stairwell and pretty much lives on the top landing outside the door that enters into the condo. He is very affectionate and grateful. I do let him out as he prefers to do his business outside. I know he has some loss of functioning in his kidneys as is typical in older cats and he does have some dental disease also typical. But hes in a lot better shape now then he was last year when he ran from people and spent the winter outside. I decided I'll make his final years as comfortable and easy as possible.
I did play poker New Year's day. Third time live in about 6 months I think it was. I had a monster stack proving I still can accumulate chips but I was rusty getting nervous when normally I'm chill. Things were going extremely well, until I had your classic on-line make it or break it hand: in a min-raised 4-5 way pot with one person all in I flopped a straight with Q8d on an all heart board. I led out a feeler bet hoping no one flopped a flush after it checked around. One caller, a young kid who was a good player and was second chip stack to me at the table and perhaps the tourney. Turned out he had flopped a baby flush so he called. A turn diamond and he led out with a bet. I all in'd there thinking he was drawing trying to protect my made hand. He thought I had a bigger flush with the Ace and he tanked for quite awhile before calling and actually wound up hitting a straight flush on the river. Which was good for him and launched him into the chip lead and that crippled me down to starting stack of 13k from a high of 50k or so. Sick feeling in my stomach obviously. Sick feeling in young guns stomach as he passed on the high hand pool!! So, all my hard work for naught and after eating prime rib and baked potato etc., my ADD kicked in and I got bored and didn't feel like rebuilding, yup I gave up instead of trying to come-back which I've done before. I shoved with 99 after my table move on the very first hand dealt at the new table. No callers. I lasted a few more orbits and eventually I shoved JT or JQ into AK and busted out unimproved. Home I went to play some online.
2010 will be more concerts with Furthur shows on deck for February and hopefully Mt Jam in June and gathering of the Vibes and Camp Creek in July. More poker as I turn the big 50 in October and can play Senior's events. Also trying to shed the tummy I have acquired going thru the change and I plan on resuming running. I have been taking a body jam class but haven't been in a few weeks with the holidays.
2010 goals - Lose weight, eat better (I did remove most processed food in 2009), chew longer, play more poker, read a lot, see live music, run.
And if you really want to know what I'm doing check out my twitter feed. I twitter aka microblog alot more then I do full blog posts. I'm @irongirl01 on twitter.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
A Phish Tale
I had a great time at my first live Phish show and a most totally awesome time catching up with and hanging out with everyone's favorite globe-trotting, soon to be book author, Dr Pauly.
You can check out my thoughts on the show over on Coventry Music by clicking here.
And this is just my two cents but local journalists should really be ashamed of themselves for this kind of reporting. I know more then a few poker bloggers who write better then this.
You can check out my thoughts on the show over on Coventry Music by clicking here.
And this is just my two cents but local journalists should really be ashamed of themselves for this kind of reporting. I know more then a few poker bloggers who write better then this.
Friday, March 27, 2009
One Man Gathers... What another man spills.
The other day I logged into my Bugsy's Club account and noticed the balance I had left of about $210 after winning $225 in a tourney on Easter Sunday 2007 was gone. When I checked my account activity it had been transferred to Bugsy's for an inactive account. I found that odd as I had received no email notification from them advising that a transfer had taken place. I will admit I rarely played on the site. Only a few tourneys since I had cashed back in 2007. I fired off a tactful email that asked where did my money go? Within 24 hours it was back in my account and I didn't have to fire off the threatening email that i would trash them publicly on my blog.
A few hours after receiving said funds an email from a forum notified me that Bugsy's was closing its doors. I figured my newly returned money was now gone for good. But when I logged into Bugsy's they had a nice post that explained the UIGEA had made it difficult to do business for players wanting to remove funds and deposit. I'm not sure why they didn't seek a merger with the growing Cake or Merge networks but all was not lost for my funds. Bugsy's Club had worked it out with Pokerstars that funds would be transferred to a players Pokerstars account. Major Woot Woot Woot for IG!!.. Within 24 hours of receiving the email from Pokerstars to enter my Bugsy's info the money was in my Pokerstars account.
It does appear that PokerSchoolOnline and PokerPages will remain in business. I'm sure most of us who play poker have accessed the PokerPages data base for player results at one time or another. Lately, I find myself utilizing the PokerDB or OPR more often then not, or the Hendon Mob database over on Full Tilt. PSO utilized the same software as Bugsy's Club which was the money site.
If you followed any of my twitter updates, you will know that Snake5970's horse he's a part owner of, won her debut race at Gulfstream Park on Sunday, going off at 20:1 odds from a morning line of 12:1. A $2 win bet paid $44 and change. I know my friend Action Hank is happy as he had her twice in the second daily double which paid a sweet $400 plus. Snake5970 was the only owner present on race day. At the last minute I didn't put any money down. The Italian in me didn't want to put the whammy curse on her. Hooked on Hope came out of the race fine and is shipping north to Aqueduct I believe where she will run against some NY breds on the grass hopefully we'll see her run this summer at Saratoga too.
Today I took the day off to once again try to attempt to score PHiSH tickets this time for my home venue of SPAC. I'm not sure most 48 year old women still do this but music is and always has been a big part of my life. SPAC is a Live Nation venue. Many of my phish phan phfriends had been shut out of Ticket Bastard for the Gorge and Red Rocks etc. California Rob and wife Toni both tried online and by phone and were able to score two out of the three passes they need for each night. I assume the third is for their daughter Lauren, now almost 6 (edited from 5 per her daddy) Ms Lauren accompanied us to the Coventry simulcast in 2004 with earplugs. The SPAC box office, a mere 10-15 minute drive away is closed till May 10th, so I couldn't get tickets by going right to the venue. I opened up one browser kept hitting refresh, wound up in the waiting room and....... waited. I decided a few moments later to open up another browser and literally I was taken right to the order form. My hands were shaking as I typed in my info and by 1:04 PM EST a mere 4 minutes after they went on sale I had a nice $250 charge on my credit card. Today pigs really do fly. As I said to Dr Pauly via email, I'll gladly take a months worth of river beats on PokerStars to watch a middle-aged man in a dress suck on a vacuum hose. I've seen TAB, I've seen Trey & Mike, I've seen Mike Gordon's band but I've never seen all four members of PHiSH together live. This will be my first PHiSH show.
Shortly after Pigs took to the air, I saw a twitter announcement from the good old Grateful Dead calling out for NYC fans. A sweepstakes entry for three surprise shows before they kick off their official tour. They are playing three shows on March 30th in NYC closed to the public. My entry is in with BFF Kim as my guest. I'll know by tomorrow if I earned a pair of tickets to one of the shows.
Now that its Spring and I'll soon be on work-free Fridays I plan to get a little more active. Tweeting with one of the Wicked Chops entities who is also a runner has me reminiscing about my days scampering up and down mountain sides and thru the woods. And I did once mention I would do another marathon sometime on or after my 50th birthday which is 18.5 months away. I've served as race director for more marathons then I've run. If only my knees and hamstring can take it. My Orca wetsuit hangs unused in my closet and is probably all dried out and my Specialized racing road bike suffers the same fate. I'm not even sure I would be confident/comfortable riding clip less pedals again. (edited from petals.... you can tell i spend more time gardening then riding these days)
And what is this crazy rule that the State of New Jersey wanted to ban Brazilian waxes? Obviously some man came up with that one. If I want to have hot wax applied to my nether regions by an Asian woman I barely know and then have it ripped off with muslin while I pull in the other direction its my right!! And yes, I've paid for the privilege.
A few hours after receiving said funds an email from a forum notified me that Bugsy's was closing its doors. I figured my newly returned money was now gone for good. But when I logged into Bugsy's they had a nice post that explained the UIGEA had made it difficult to do business for players wanting to remove funds and deposit. I'm not sure why they didn't seek a merger with the growing Cake or Merge networks but all was not lost for my funds. Bugsy's Club had worked it out with Pokerstars that funds would be transferred to a players Pokerstars account. Major Woot Woot Woot for IG!!.. Within 24 hours of receiving the email from Pokerstars to enter my Bugsy's info the money was in my Pokerstars account.
It does appear that PokerSchoolOnline and PokerPages will remain in business. I'm sure most of us who play poker have accessed the PokerPages data base for player results at one time or another. Lately, I find myself utilizing the PokerDB or OPR more often then not, or the Hendon Mob database over on Full Tilt. PSO utilized the same software as Bugsy's Club which was the money site.
If you followed any of my twitter updates, you will know that Snake5970's horse he's a part owner of, won her debut race at Gulfstream Park on Sunday, going off at 20:1 odds from a morning line of 12:1. A $2 win bet paid $44 and change. I know my friend Action Hank is happy as he had her twice in the second daily double which paid a sweet $400 plus. Snake5970 was the only owner present on race day. At the last minute I didn't put any money down. The Italian in me didn't want to put the whammy curse on her. Hooked on Hope came out of the race fine and is shipping north to Aqueduct I believe where she will run against some NY breds on the grass hopefully we'll see her run this summer at Saratoga too.
Today I took the day off to once again try to attempt to score PHiSH tickets this time for my home venue of SPAC. I'm not sure most 48 year old women still do this but music is and always has been a big part of my life. SPAC is a Live Nation venue. Many of my phish phan phfriends had been shut out of Ticket Bastard for the Gorge and Red Rocks etc. California Rob and wife Toni both tried online and by phone and were able to score two out of the three passes they need for each night. I assume the third is for their daughter Lauren, now almost 6 (edited from 5 per her daddy) Ms Lauren accompanied us to the Coventry simulcast in 2004 with earplugs. The SPAC box office, a mere 10-15 minute drive away is closed till May 10th, so I couldn't get tickets by going right to the venue. I opened up one browser kept hitting refresh, wound up in the waiting room and....... waited. I decided a few moments later to open up another browser and literally I was taken right to the order form. My hands were shaking as I typed in my info and by 1:04 PM EST a mere 4 minutes after they went on sale I had a nice $250 charge on my credit card. Today pigs really do fly. As I said to Dr Pauly via email, I'll gladly take a months worth of river beats on PokerStars to watch a middle-aged man in a dress suck on a vacuum hose. I've seen TAB, I've seen Trey & Mike, I've seen Mike Gordon's band but I've never seen all four members of PHiSH together live. This will be my first PHiSH show.
Shortly after Pigs took to the air, I saw a twitter announcement from the good old Grateful Dead calling out for NYC fans. A sweepstakes entry for three surprise shows before they kick off their official tour. They are playing three shows on March 30th in NYC closed to the public. My entry is in with BFF Kim as my guest. I'll know by tomorrow if I earned a pair of tickets to one of the shows.
Now that its Spring and I'll soon be on work-free Fridays I plan to get a little more active. Tweeting with one of the Wicked Chops entities who is also a runner has me reminiscing about my days scampering up and down mountain sides and thru the woods. And I did once mention I would do another marathon sometime on or after my 50th birthday which is 18.5 months away. I've served as race director for more marathons then I've run. If only my knees and hamstring can take it. My Orca wetsuit hangs unused in my closet and is probably all dried out and my Specialized racing road bike suffers the same fate. I'm not even sure I would be confident/comfortable riding clip less pedals again. (edited from petals.... you can tell i spend more time gardening then riding these days)
And what is this crazy rule that the State of New Jersey wanted to ban Brazilian waxes? Obviously some man came up with that one. If I want to have hot wax applied to my nether regions by an Asian woman I barely know and then have it ripped off with muslin while I pull in the other direction its my right!! And yes, I've paid for the privilege.
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