Sunday, October 18, 2009

What's Going on?

If you've wondered, I'm still alive. Here's a recap of what's going on lately... no nothing bad, which is probably why I haven't written as much lately.

Been to the casino 3 times since last post. Well, 2 and a half. I went one day for 2 hours made $175. Then went later that night with my brother and lost everything I made but a buck, and that was like 6 hours of poker. It was lame, but I kept playing even though I was tired and knew I wasn't playing well. At one point I thought about leaving and I would've been up the full 175. I don't think you should leave just because you are up, don't get me wrong. But I knew I wasn't playing well. I started getting bored and playing every hand.. that's bad. That's why I should've left. The latest time, I went was a few days ago, I lost 150$. I was card dead for the first 30 minutes. Then I get AJ in late position. Raise a few limpers. Flop comes Axx. guy bets into me 3 times, I felt like I should've got all in on the turn and it may have even scared him off his hand. But, I just called and he ended up showing over AQ. There was a K on the board and the guy was older and I've seen a lot of people like him scared with AQ. Even if I didn't raise I probably should've realized I was beat, for him to be betting. I think I just wanted to have the best hand. next hand 88 loses to AA and TT, blam. Losing session.

So, the casino not so good to me lately.

Work life. It's been kind of frustrating lately. Sales are doing better than they have been, so that's good. But dealing with upper management is really frustrating. Yesterday for example, It's 6 pm on a saturday. We expect to be busy. Friday is our busiest night, saturday is number 2. Well, things are going well, we are rocking. I have 4 drivers and an insider because I want good service times. I've spent the last 3 weeks trying to improve my service, because the OER auditor is due in at any time to inspect and some of the biggest points you can get are service points. Well, my boss comes walking in and you can tell right away shes in a bad mood. Immediately she asks "why so dead?" meaning the store is dead. I'm like, what no where not we're pretty busy. Then she looks to see how many workers I have on the clock. Apparently her boss sent her some nasty messages about labor and "what doesn't she understand about getting some people off the clock?" Meanwhile, our goal labor is 18%. My store at that time is running labor at 10%. And with as busy as we are it's not going to go up much more than that, by the time I planned on letting people go.

But, immediately it's you need to let this guy go, and this guy go. I was so pissed. Dinner rush lasts til about 8pm. I had to get down to 2 drivers by 630 pm. This of course causes lates and terrible service. I'm visibly upset and shes asks me why, so I tell her. She doesn't like my answer and leaves the store without even saying good bye. I told her I don't blame her, I know shes under pressure from above her. She apologizes and explains she doesn't know what to do about it. It's freaking stupid and ridiculous that these people are in a position to run a company. At meetings they love to talk about shit that they don't even allow. "Great service can increase sales by themself" How can we run great service when we aren't allowed to have enough employees? The best was when Mark, the owner started bragging about a guy in another franchise who gave away free american legends pizzas as part of a promotion and ended up increasing his sales through that over the next few weeks. Well, guess what I did that too, 1 day only. I got in trouble for it! They don't like sampling cuz it raises food cost. The people who run this place are the most narrowminded and two faced people I have ever seen. If I wasn't just in this for the experience I doubt I'd stay very much longer after last nite.

Other than that things are okay. I'm doing well in my fantasy leagues, this week I am 1st place overall again. I spent like 8 weeks at number 1 last year and ended up in 6th, so hopefully i have a better finish this season.

Still haven't met up with Ryan. He's still looking for an apt in stL. Was gonna have my home game this monday, then I realized we don't even own a table. So, ya, gotta find a table first. Yes I mean a kitchen table, not even a card table.

My wife has diarrhea. That was for her asking if I was blogging about her diarrhea. She'll enjoy that. :)

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Some Live Poker

Played some live poker at the casino on Thursday night. The session started pretty rough with me losing half my stack and then getting down to about 50$ early on.

The first hand was ridiculous. It didn't involve me. It was the very first hand at the new table, they took the list and started a new table. The guy to my right, a foreign guy raises preflop, gets a few calls. Flop comes 346, he bets strong guy to my left calls everyone folds. Turn comes 6, foreign guy goes all in, overbet. LEft calls putting over 400$ into the pot, around 200 for each. River 5, for 34566. Guy on left who called down, showed TT. Guy on right looks at his cards in disgust, gets ready to muck then goes "oh, I have a straight" and shows over A7. He was bluffing the whole time and ended up hitting his straight. Guy on left is pissed and leaves immediately. Dealer has the nerve to ask if he's coming back. It was sick. Accidental slow rolls are bad.

So, anyways, live one on my right. Unfortunately, I play 3rd wheel in a hand and get c/r by this guy and cost myself 40 bucks a few hands later. I got quads early on with no action. ANother hand I called/called then had to fold when I couldn't find a reason for a guy to be bluffing and I just had a 6 kicker to my pair of aces on a dry board. So, I was down to 50$ and hating the session. Finally my luck turned around and I fought back to only end up losing 40$ instead of 230$. I was pretty happy with my play and to end up almost even was job well done. The main hand was one that I got all in with inside straight and flush draw and hit. I hit 2 other flushes after that and got paid on a set. Nothing to big but the players were regulars and they were paying off small value bets at least. There were some bad players at the table, but no real fish. I'm sure that's why I wasn't able to get a big pot and really get some profit. I started getting tired toward the end and lost 50$ playing K5 poorly... as opposed to K5 well. I should've folded. I hit 2 pair on the river, but with KJ on the flop I should've got out before it got there. It didn't cost me a lot at least. But that pot was the difference in winning and losing for the session. I forced myself to leave a few hands later.

I plan on going tonite as well. HOpefully, better luck from the get go will help me make some moneys. My youngest brother went to a different casino yesterday and as of 245 am (he was there for 12 hours at least) he was up 350$. At his peak he was up over 500, but ran into some bad luck he said. I haven't heard from him yet, for all I know he's still there. Hopefully he made some money for his time spent there.

I have a bunch of running around to do today, actually. I'm going clothes shopping, to the casino, new shoes or insoles from the new balance store, I need to get new glasses, but that will probably wait now. I need to get the car worked on, but I think I'm going to wait til wednesday, my next day off to do that, cuz I'm thinking I'll have to leave it in the shop for a few hours. Oh, and I need a haircut. I think that's all. Should be a fun day of crap.

Speaking of crap; We found out the other day that SSI, which goes by income to determine the level of help, (when you file for disability they automatically file you for SSI) is delaying our 19,800. They determined that since my wife has been declared disabled that for x amount of months they would pay her around a total of 7k. But, that 7k is actually not extra money, they are taking it from the 19,800. So, they are paying the lawyer themselves which is close to 5k, and they are paying us 7k, but it's over a 2 year span, 2k every 6 months. The remaining 7-8k we are still getting a big check from disability but, it could take another 3 months to get. THat's what the 2k check was the other day. It's from SSI and we wont see another one from them for 6 months. Instead of 19,800 at once. We get 2k now. 8k in 3 months and the rest over a 2 year span. We are still getting her monthly disability check, which the first one we got was yesterday. So, it's not terrible. But, it's aggravating, because we wanted to just pay everyone off at once and we thought the check was due any day now, and it's not gonna happen. So we feel a little screwed. In the grand scheme, yes it's all extra money and it helps us be more comfortable, so can't be too mad. But, whatever.

I told Ryan about the home game idea and he said he's in. So, now I just need to figure out if I want to have it at my apartment or not. I think the first one will be 2 mondays from now. Should be fun and the level of play should be pretty good. Hopefully we don't end up just paying Ryan's rent every month for him, lol.