Twelve hours remain of 2009–let’s see if I finish this post before the ball drops. Argentina was a good time, hanging with Pauly and Change and Otis and Joe Giron and Jonathan Boncek. While perhaps my proudest moment of the year came in Argentina–successfully getting from Pittsburgh to Mar del Plata all by myself–one of my more embarrassing incidents occurred there as well. Before the final table Jon and I decided to walk around town a bit, see the sights. We’d been warned not to walk around with our expensive camera gear, and at night at least that seemed fairly reasonable. So I left my SLR in my room and so missed the chance to take some shots of some really interesting architecture and street scenes. And walking around Mar del Plata in the daytime was like walking around any seaside resort town, though with more stray dogs snoozing beside statues.

That wasn’t the embarrassing part, though. No, what still makes me cringe was that on that sun-splashed morning I decided to wear a Polo shirt and cargo shorts. We went outside and it was like 50 degrees with a stiff sea breeze blowing. People were walking around with jackets on and scarves. And here I am freezing half to death and looking like a goddam idiot. I think I would’ve been less humiliated had I been wearing a sandwich board that read “JACKASS YANQUI TOURIST HERE!!!” Blend in when you’re traveling abroad, they say. Nicely done.

While we were there just about everyone got sick except me. I chalked this up to my oaken constitution and purity of essence. While I was in Argentina the Penguins began their playoff run and I missed the first few games against the Flyers, though I was out with friends just about every hockey night in Pittsburgh after that. We all gathered at Primanti’s in Cranberry for Game 7 against the hated Capitals and I knew something was wrong. I didn’t feel good, at all. Felt like someone had opened a tap and let my strength dribble away. The Pens blew the Caps out so there was no real drama and I found myself paying more attention to my rapidly declining condition. Went home, got under the covers, and prayed I’d feel OK come the morn.

Woke up feeling like I had a foot already in the grave. I’m pretty sure I had the H1N1 flu, and let me tell you, that’s a bad bug. For about three days I was  totally incapacitated, so weak that I lay on my couch for like three hours trying to summon the strength to get a glass of water. It never even occurred to me to call my parents and say, “Hey, I’m dying, could you bring over a jug of orange juice?”. I just lay there, staring at the shifting colors on the TV, hung up in limbo.

When I finally felt better, I still didn’t feel better. In fact it was more than two weeks before I felt even close to normal. I had no appetite, none, I’d go 24 hours without eating. I started forcing myself to eat peanut-butter toast just to get some nutrition. When I finally felt good enough to leave the house I went to JD’s Pub to watch my friends play some beach volleyball. They hadn’t seen me in weeks and everyone said, “Wow, you lost weight. And you don’t look right”. Mark offered to buy me a beer–I said I’d rather have a Gatorade. I was offered pizza and wings–no thank you, I’m not hungry. “Wow, you were really SICK” was the general reply to that.

Complicating matters was that I had to fly to Vegas a few days later for the WSOP. I was afraid that I was going to be a zombie for the whole Series but by the time my plane touched down I felt almost human. Walking around the Rio that first day to pick up my press pass was the usual surreal almost-out-of-body experience it always is, though seeing the ponytailed AlCantHang walking down that long corridor was a welcome sight that brought me back to reality…though Al’s sense of reality and yours are probably not all that similar. Chances are your work station and mine aren’t that similar and, yes, I do appreciate how lucky I am:

The most memorable aspect of the 2009 World Series of Poker was, of course, the Penguins winning the Stanley Cup. My last night in Pittsburgh we all watched the Pens clinch against Carolina so I was in Vegas for the Finals and I’d sneak away to watch the Finals. But I missed two games, both Pens’ victories, including that scintillating Game 6. Annie Duke made a final table and I HAD to be there in case she won the thing. She ended up going out in eighth and as I received updates via text and Twitter I told my brother I was going to race upstairs to catch the last ten minutes of the game. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE!!” he text-shrieked, “DONT JINX US!!”. Of course, how could I be so STUPID?? I sat at my usual seat on press row, watching the ESPN GameCast, quietly sweating blood.

Of course the Pens hung on to win and for Game 7 I went up to the Rio Sports Book to watch the game with Al and Jen Newell and Tim Lavalli. I think if you asked my poker friends they would describe me as a quiet sort, reserved, kinda chill. Laid-back, easy-going. After watching me scream and rant and nearly die right there in my chair during Game 7 I think their opinion may have changed slightly. When that puck slid out to Lidstrom, and Fleury flopped to his right and made himself big, I rose a few inches off my chair in a crouch in a position of almost incalculable tension. I saw the puck bounce off Fleury, it dribbled to the corner, and the clock read zeros. I jumped out of my chair, touched the ceiling (well, not really) and screamed something along the lines of “HOLY SHIT WE WON THE CUP!!!!”. The combination of the jumping and screaming drained all the blood from my head and I came this close to passing out. Seriously, everything went gray and until I sucked in a bushel of air and tucked my chin against my chest my legs were wobbly. Now THAT would’ve been fun, to see Al and Jen freak as I apparently have a coronary right there in the Rio.

A couple of days later the WSOP hosted a charity tournament that featured NHL players…and the Stanley Cup. My biggest regret of the year is probably not buttonholing WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack (the younger brother of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman) and asking if I, a Penguin fan still giddy with triumph, could have 15 seconds with the Cup. I just wanted a picture, I just wanted to TOUCH the goddam thing. But I didn’t want to impose and I did get close enough to see the tarnish on the silver and the name ULF SAMUELSSON stamped into the metal. BJ Nemeth took this pic of me and Al staring at the Cup on stage…so that’s what longing looks like:

I was sick most of the goddam Series, picking up a cold that mutated into bronchitis that wouldn’t let go. “Gene, you need to see a doctor,” counseled sage Otis and after picking up some drugs that Pauly had no sporting interest in I started to improve. I worked every day of the WSOP but one, and that was the day Michael Jackson died. I spent most of it in bed, feeling awful, watching CNN repeat the same information over and over and over again. By the time the Main Event rolled around I was fried and never quite got my circuit-breaker to kick over. Next year I’m going to take more time off so I’m not a zombie come the most important event of the year.

OK, this is absurdly long already, so let’s see if I can sum things up quickly (not bloody likely). What I remember best of the Series was taking a midnight run to Binions to watch Drizz and CK final-table an O/8 tournament there (featuring the most batshit-insane couple I’ve ever seen in my life). Watching Pauly and Dan and Lana take down the Dream Team Poker event for $11K apiece was rather nice, yes. Heck, finishing third in the media Dream Team event was rather cool, even though it was Pauly’s 3rd-place finish that got us there. I remember Al bringing me muffins from Gold Coast every morning and, uh, I don’t remember much about that drunken night roaming around the MGM. Hanging out with the gang at the bar in Gold Coast’s bowling alley, those are good times. Jen Newell’s birthday bashes at Sapphire (that was the Bluff party too) and at Tryst with her gang of LA lovelies, yes, that was an absurd amount of fun. And, of course, perhaps the most life-changing moment of the Series came when Otis goaded me into getting my hair cut short, though in his defense he didn’t mean for me to get it cut as short as I did. I think I’ve found the happy medium between shaven and sheared, I’m still fine-tuning things.

If trying a new hairstyle is my tongue-in-cheek pick as most life-changing moment, then the REAL life-changer came on March 18th. I found myself sitting in a restaurant waiting to meet this girl I met online. My friends had goaded me into trying that again (my friends are a goady lot, are they not) and I was meeting this girl named Lindsay for drinks and, depending on how the night progressed, an appetizer. She was very pretty and smart and funny and so I naturally assumed she’d quickly toss me on her rejects pile. But no, we went out again, had a good time, had another good time, and then before I left for Argentina I met her family (and I mean her WHOLE family) and I thought, huh, this looks like it might be serious.

And then I got the flu and didn’t see her for two weeks. We met up the night before I left for the WSOP and that was another seven weeks. We kept in touch and when I landed in Pittsburgh late at night it was Lindsay who picked me up, and boy oh boy was it good to see her. So we’ve been together now about nine months and just about everyone who meets Lindsay says “She’s wonderful!” and “You really outkicked your coverage”.

So while 2009 wasn’t the greatest for lots and lots of people it was pretty good for me. Deathly illness aside I can’t complain, so I won’t. 2010 promises to be a busier year and might see some major changes in my life as well. Is that cryptic enough? Probably not.

I think tomorrow I’m going to post a bunch of my favorite pictures from the year. Right now I have to scrape the snow off my car and buy champagne and beer. 11 hours to go.

It’s been New Year’s Eve for ten minutes now and if I’m gonna write a year-in-review post I’d better get cracking, as the year (and the decade) are tick-tick-ticking away. I’d like to do one of those tidy recaps where I post links to all the stuff I wrote the last twelve months, but to be honest I haven’t written enough to make that work. Writing more here is a resolution I’m trying to get a head start on right now.

2009 was a pretty good year, I have to say. It started off with me turning 40, a fact I still haven’t quite come to grips with. I’m forty years old? Unpossible. I don’t feel forty…well, my hips and knees feel forty, that’s for damn sure. Losing a lot of weight isn’t exactly a resolution this year–it’s something that’s gotta happen if I’m to keep up this rocknrolla lifestyle. Anyway I turned 40 with my friends Rick and Emily and Cathy buying me shots of blue and green stuff after January 2nd turned to the 3rd. Here’s a pic just before the bus went over the cliff:

My hips might hurt but my heart is apparently in decent shape, a fact borne out by the fact that I didn’t expire during the Steelers’ Super Bowl run. The AFC title game against the Ravens wrung me out like a washrag but the Super Bowl itself was diabolical. I thought we had the game well in hand after Harrison’s incredible pick-six but the Cards stormed back and when we watched Larry Fitzgerald streak into the end-zone I thought, “Wow, we were that close to winning our sixth Super Bowl. That would’ve been something”. I’d actually come to grips with the Steelers losing before Roethlisberger put together that drive and Holmes tip-toed us to victory. Watching the replays and waiting for the ref to confirm that, yes, it was a touchdown was quite an intense experience. But that’s why we watch sports, right, to experience these overwhelming emotional highs and lows without, say, pillaging a neighboring country. This season has been a disappointment and it’s unlikely we’ll make the playoff but I think if you asked the average football fan, “Look, you’re gonna have two really disappointing, underachieving seasons, but the season before each you’ll win the Super Bowl. Deal?” Yeah, deal.

I didn’t have any big trips planned this year, but one day I got a call from Garry Gates from PokerNews asking, hey, you available to cover an LAPT event in Argentina? Uh…yeah, I think I can do that. Especially as Otis and Pauly and Change were going as well. So I saddled up and headed south–way, way south. The trip began with my on hyper-tilt, as Otis got upgraded to first class while I was stuck with the proles in steerage. When I went to Vietnam we flew in a modified business class, which provided plenty of legroom and a seat that reclined all the way back. On this flight I flew coach, plain old coach, and that was a long ten-hours to Buenos Aires. I popped a pill and slept through a chunk of it and waking up is something I remember vividly. Dawn was breaking, and as the sun rose I looked down at the low green hills and a river I never did identify, and I felt very, very far from home. When I went to Vietnam I was part of a big group, but this time I was on my own, in a country where I barely spoke twenty words of the language. Also, Buenos Aires wasn’t my final destination, after my ten-hour flight I had to take a cab to the bus station and ride six hours to Mar del Plata.

Getting to the bus station proved a bit of an adventure, as I nearly got scammed by a guy who led me not to the line of cabs waiting outside the terminal, but to another line about 50 yards down the road. They wanted to charge me eighty bucks for a cab ride to the bus station–while I knew that the bus ride would cost me eighty pesos. I channeled my inner-Pauly and got indignant and took my suitcase back and started walking. Suddenly the price dropped to twenty bucks, and when I still acted huffy my would-be fixed gave me a look like, “Seriously, that’s what it really costs”. And in the end that probably wasn’t a bad deal, as it was about 45 minutes to the bus terminal. My cabbie helped direct me in the right direction for the buses headed my way and I tipped him handsomely. I bought my ticket and five minutes later was sitting by myself on the top floor of a luxe double-decker bus. I had visions of a clapped-out school bus filled with diesel exhaust and miserable women clutching sullen children and squawking chickens. I am, obviously, a horrible racist.

The bus ride was flat-out amazing. And I use the phrase “flat-out” deliberately because the landscape we traveled through was the flattest topography I’ve ever seen. I mean, this pic is of one of the hillier sections:

I looked out the window and was just amazed at the topography, or lack thereof. I was fascinated, maybe because growing up in Pittsburgh all you get is hill after hill. That’s one thing traveling has imprinted on me, how very different other parts of the world are, how diverse the Earth is, yet you can get just about anywhere on the globe in about a day. The world is so big, and yet it’s also very small. And it’s all we’ve got.

OK, this is already about a thousand words long and you’ve got booze to buy. This is one reason why I don’t post as much as I should–everything turns into a book. “So write a book, jackass” is something several of my friends have said. Another resolution. Anyway, I’ll post the rest of my review later today.

Today’s the sixth anniversary of this here blog. The one I don’t write in as much as I should–working on it. Seems a lot longer than six years, to be honest. I remember clattering away during my lunch breaks three jobs ago, writing about my low-limit poker play and troubles with haircuts (might get one today and I’m feeling that old trepidation again). The last year or so my site has felt like an afterthought and that needs to change. I miss it.

I actually have something to write about today–for the first time in 15 years I was on the team that won a league. This gives you an idea of how much I suck and, granted, our Monday league isn’t the deepest or most competitive in town but, still! I get a goddam T-shirt, people!! I have something to wear to my wedding!

We won, thanks in part to our opponent having to play a match to actually make the finals and then probably running out of gas after they beat us in the first match. We won the winner’s bracket so they had to defeat us twice to win the title and we righted the ship after that first loss. I haven’t played well lately but last night was the best I’ve played in years, though I did manage to roll my ankle late in the final game, something I’d never, ever done before. All the years I’ve played volleyball I don’t remember suffering an injury like that, I’ve never landed on anyone after a block or dislocated a finger, nothing. Had some shoulder issues years ago and, my God, do my hips hurt after a match, but somehow I’ve avoided volleyball’s usual occupational injuries. And even last night I was able to keep playing and it’s only a minor irritation today

Another minor irritation is reading all the posts and tweets of folks gearing up for another epic WPBT bender in Vegas. After long deliberation I decided not to go–I’m trying to save my shekels and the girlfriend keeps my calendar full. I really, really, really would like to see everyone, but oddly enough the idea of spending a long weekend in Vegas gives me pause. I dunno, I don’t think I’m still burned out from the WSOP, but maybe I am, just a little. I wasn’t assigned to cover the November Nine but I decided to go anyway, and actually had my flight all scheduled on Travelocity. But when it came time to hit the CONFIRM button I couldn’t do it. Didn’t wanna do it. Couldn’t justify it. “I’ll skip this and go in December,” I told myself. But when it came time to book this trip I again came up with reasons that were distressingly rational. “You’re thinking about buying a house, jackass,” the mean little voice in my head sneered. “Do I need to do the math to show you that extravagant expenses are NOT an option??”

So, crap. No Vegas, not now. But that’s OK, come Monday my pain-free head and liver will be my just reward. Unless my girlfriend’s work Christmas party goes off the rails on Saturday, and when she’s around very little ever stays ON the rails. So you kids have fun, don’t torment those cowboys too much, and say hello to Freddie Mercury for me.

When I was in grade school we didn’t receive grades for penmanship. We learned how to write, sure, and I remember those heady days when we were first allowed to try our hand at cursive. All those loops, those swirls! The letters linking arms to form each individual word. I want to say it was third grade when we first took cursive out for a spin, Mrs. Piasecki directing us like Leonard Bernstein, “Sweep UP, around, DOWN, stop!”. The day we learned how to write the seventh letter in the alphabet, the “G”, oh what a day that was! To spell my first name for the first time! And let me tell you, my capital letter G was something to SEE. A graceful (but not effeminate) top loop, followed by that proud, aggressive, decisive swoosh to the right, ending with a point so sharp you could remove your spleen with it. And then down, down, down!, a dizzying plunge back to earth, rescued at the very last moment by a gentle ascent that carried my pen ever so gracefully to the starting point. Baryshnikov with a #2 Ticonderoga, I was.

So far as the letter “G” goes, anyway. My handwriting was always pretty bad–as I said, we weren’t graded on penmanship, but if we had been I would’ve earned gentleman’s Cs. As time wore on my writing got worse instead of better, as I drifted away from the rigorous lessons of my past and learned some bad habits. I stopped connecting certain letters in a pattern I never figured out (some future psycho-anthropologist might analyze my handwriting and say, “This subject had scary, SCARY problems) and before too long I stopped writing in cursive altogether. I think this is how it goes for most people, you get your schoolin’ and then you develop your own unique hand.

What truly destroyed my handwriting was writing for The Daily Collegian at Penn State. I would cover an event and do interviews and frantically try to write down what the person was saying and that did irreparable damage to my script. I had a tape recorder, there was no need to scribble, but I feared that day when the tape would snap or the batteries die in mid-sentence (which happened once) and I would be left with nothing. So I developed what I liked to call my own personal “shorthand”, but was really my normal handwriting played at 78rpm. I started writing that way all the time and over time the words became less and less intelligible to the casual observer. I used to keep a journal and wrote almost every day and when I look at them now even I can’t deduce what half the words are. And then the “internet” came along and so did “blogs” and soon I was doing most of my “writing” on the computer, to the point where picking up a pen at times feels weird and alien. “What is this plastic stick?” the most refined part of my brain asks. “Do we, stick it up our nose?”

Last week I did a quick interview with Joe Sebok after the taping for Poker2Nite, which is the new poker show he and Scott Huff have on FSN. I’m going to do a brief preview post on the UB blog so folks can know what to expect on that night’s episode. Talked to Joe for ten minutes, got some quotes, bid him good evening. I turned to my notebook, looked at the random marks slashed across the page, and said, “OK…what the f*** does any of this say?”

Because the “writing” looked more like the EKG for someone who’d just been thrown out of an airplane without a parachute. Sharp staccato lines and go-nowhere squiggles covered the page. “Aw, c’mon Geno,” I moaned, “an orangutan could write more legibly than this!” All was not lost, I quickly opened WordPad and transcribed as much as I could. And I think I got the gist, at least. This is what one of the better sections looked like:

I do find it amusing that I’m a writer and yet I actually can’t write anymore. Putting ink to paper is hard for me, man. The keyboard has definitely ruined me, and not just because I don’t often take pen in hand anymore. I can type a lot faster than I can write longhand and when I’m writing on paper a logjam quickly builds up between my brain and the pen. My mind is already in the middle of the next sentence while my lagging hand tries to place the last period. It gives me a headache.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s script is pffft; heck, I don’t even know if they teach cursive in grade school anymore. Typing would be the more useful life-skill. And maybe someday soon there will be a port drilled in your skull so you could just plug in a USB cable and download your thoughts right into the computer. And then you’d have the kids saying, “You had a PORT drilled in your SKULL? You didn’t just transmit your thoughts telepathically? Wow, the old days SUCKED.” Unfortunately I don’t think we’re gonna have USB implants or ESP before I talk to Joe tonight. Gotta go practice my ABCs.

Yesterday my Mom and I went to a Veterans Day breakfast held by the Friends of Danang, the humanitarian group I went to Vietnam with. The breakfast was held at the Marriott downtown and so we parked at the arena and walked to the hotel while enjoying a crisp November morn. Brilliant blue skies, a bracing chill in the air, the promise of bacon in my very near future. Nice.

“Oh, your father and I bought something yesterday!” Mom said. And she paused and in that pause I tried to deduce what it might be. Hmm…a new roasting pan for the Thanksgiving turkey? No, too banal. A new washing machine? Ehh, didn’t recall they were in the market for one. Of course, silly me–something for Justin, their grandson.

So I asked what it was and Mom said, “We bought our final resting place!”

I double-took and nearly tripped. “You bought a WHAT?”

“We bought our burial site! It’s nice, we’re going to be in a mausoleum, we’ll be next to each other in the crypt and…”

OK, whoa now. It’s not every day you hear Mom using words like “mausoleum” and “crypt”. What’s more she seemed positively GEEKED about it. “We wanted to take care of it now and we saved over two thousand dollars purchasing it in advance”.

I processed this quickly. “Well…actually you saved ME two thousand dollars,” and Mom agreed, seeing as you can’t take it with you and I’ll be the beneficiary of their forward thinking (I already have an elaborately-plotted scheme to cut my brother Ryan outta the picture). So while I was momentarily freaked by Mom talking about her last stop I quickly jumped on board. God knows I don’t wanna be the one making those decisions and with these Death Panels you keep hearing about on the horizon my folks did me a solid sorting things out on their own.

After we got home my Dad (who had an appointment at his cardiologist that morning and got a good report) said that it costs more to be on the bottom shelves of the crypt but, heck, he’d rather be on the top, thank you very much. The mausoleum sits atop a hill, there’s a nice view and everything. So it sounds like they got a good deal and seem quite pleased with the buy. Of course I hope they don’t get to enjoy their purchase for a long, long, long time, especially as I need to frame Ryan for a crime he didn’t commit to put my plan to disinherit him into motion. Really gotta get around to executing that bogus wire-fraud scheme.

Those of you who write or blog or whatever involving the stringing of words know that November is National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) and this year I’m giving it a shot and who knows? Maybe I’ll actually crank out the required 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Anyway, here’s Chapter One:

It’s a cliché but it was hot enough on that Las Vegas morning to fry an egg on the hood of a car. As it happens I actually was frying an egg on the hood of a car (my utilities were turned off long, long ago) and so, as with all clichés, there is a kernel of truth within. I might’ve been the only person in Vegas happy that the temperature was in triple digits before noon because that meant I would have a perfectly-cooked egg for my breakfast. The night before I went to bed so excited I could hardly sleep.

Temperature aside it’s not easy to fry an egg on the hood of a car. It’s not a flat surface, remember, and the egg tends to both slip and slide. I solved that problem last summer by stealing a piece of PVC pipe from an abandoned construction sites and having a friendly Home Depot clerk use his table saw to slice it into an inch-high ring. It’s just like what they use at McDonalds to make the egg-discs for McMuffins and I’m not too proud to steal a good idea when I see one. So when I get an eggy hankering I:

• Wipe the hood clean with a wet paper towel (towels shoplifted from Wal-Mart).
• Wait for the streaks of water to evaporate before spraying the metal with some cooking spray (also liberated from Wal-Mart) and set the plastic ring on the hood.
• Crack the egg (Wal-Mart, natch, their security is rather lax) and pour the contents within the confines of the ring.

And then you wait. You wait a long time because even in Nevada the sun doesn’t provide the same thermal energy of heat as a stovetop, but that’s OK. An egg cooked slowly, an egg whose proteins are allowed to coagulate at a leisurely pace are always creamier and more luxurious than those dry yellow clots and rubbery splats you find in buffet trays all over town. No, this egg was going to be a real treat, and I was content to wait as long as long as it took.

My eyes slid sideways to see if I was being watched and, yes, there was Roscoe, or the putative human being I called Roscoe. A man with six teeth and seven children who lived in the unit across the way, Roscoe delighted in tormenting me every chance he got. It was, so far as I could tell, his only pastime. Goodness knows that working, parenting, and the pursuit of good hygiene held no interest for him. He sat on his stoop and watched me with those weasel eyes and I did my best to ignore him.

“Watcha makin?” he drawled.

I didn’t want him walking over so I said, “Breakfast” and stared intently at the barely-bubbling albumen. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him stand up and scratch his armpit with such gusto that a nauseous tremor coursed my empty stomach. He said, “The missus, she makes mah eggs in a pan. The last time you have pan-eggs, buddy?”

I shrugged and tried calculate how many inoculations I’d need before I’d voluntarily eat anything prepared by Roscoe’s “missus”. Who was a woman of such comprehensive slovenliness that she made Roscoe seem the second coming of Cary Grant. I did what I could to put such thoughts far, far out of my mind as I watched my egg slowly whiten and set. Roscoe was silent for a few seconds and I let my eyes slide left to see what he was up to. He was backing up the stoop, quickly, reaching frantically for the doorknob and I turned my head all the way ‘round to see him slam it shut. “My lucky day,” I thought as I contemplated enjoying my breakfast in solitude.

And that’s when huge, heavy hands fell on my shoulders.

I would’ve jumped ten feet in the air if the man restraining me wasn’t approximately the size of a grizzly bear. “Aw, shoot,” I said, squirming around a bit until strong fingers dug under my clavicles and squeezed HARD. That froze me in place and after a perfunctory struggle I gave and hung my head in limp resignation. Damn Roscoe distracted me so much that my highly-tuned sense of danger hadn’t, well, sensed the danger.

“Lehtz me guess,” said a heavily-accented voice. “No money?”

I didn’t recognize my tormentor and that threw me a bit. “I’m frying an egg on the hood of a car. You think I have money?”

“Okay,” the brute said. “Boss want to see you anyway.”

“Wait, what?” I said, not liking this change in protocol. Usually at this point I would be beaten about the head and thorax until my assailants grew bored and left me in puddles of various bodily fluids. That had always worked in the past, and I didn’t care for this new scenario one bit. The giant released his grip on my shoulders and wrapped his massive palms around my head. His fingers dug into my skull as though testing a cantaloupe for ripeness and this is how he dragged me, my heels kicking up dust, down the block to their waiting Cadillac. I struggled for air and my pursed lips found a gap in my tormentor’s constricting fingers. “Boris?” I croaked, “Boris, is that you?”

“Da,” sighed a man off to the right. “I only get most important jobs.”

I twisted my head two centimeters. “What’s the problem? Can’t we work this out?”

I heard a short bark of laughter. “Sure, we work it out. Six years I yell at you, beat on you, tell you the next time I see you be the last time you see anything. One of these days that come true.”

Panic rising I asked, “Is today that day?”

I heard him yawn. “I don’t know, I don’t care. Boss say bring you to him, I do as asked. I could not give a shit either way.” The giant dragging me down the road stopped and yanked me to my feet. He released his grip on my skull and I turned around. “Right,” I said, “You’re not Nikolai.”

“Nyet,” the giant mumbled. “I’m Georgi, Nikolai is my cousin,

I titled my head way, way back to take in his doughy face, limp black hair, eyes black and flat as olives. “I see the resemblance. Nikolai is only around six-six, I guess he’s the runt of the litter. He’s well, I hope?”

Georgi nodded. “He move back to Moscow, pay much better back home.”

Boris ran fingers through his thin, pale hair. “Again this bullshit? You want go back to Moscow, go already! Go make that big money with Nikolai.”

The giant looked down at his size-17 shoes. “He doing good there, he says.”

“Sure,” Boris said, lips curled and brow furrowed with contempt.  “He’s making so much money. Ask him if he’s making enough money when he shits his pants starting Alyosha’s car in the morning. Ask him about his bank account when he has to worry about someone firing an anti-tank missile through the fucking windshield.”

“It’s not that bad…”

“No, no, you’re right, it’s not that bad,” Boris soothed, with so much sarcasm that you could dip a tortilla chip in it. He patted the huge man on the shoulder and said, “And I promise, when Nikolai gets blown to pieces tomorrow, or next week, or next month, I’ll see you get a whole hour off to mourn him. With my hand on my heart, I make this promise to you.”

Fascinated as I was by this discussion of working conditions among hired goons I was still preoccupied with my own perilous situation. A situation that grew more perilous when Boris pressed a button on the key to pop the trunk. “Get in,” he barked.

“Wait, what?” I said. “Boris, come on, it’s like 100 degrees. I’ll die in there.”

He nodded. “Yeah, maybe. Tell you what,” he said reaching in his pocket and pulling out a bill, “I bet ten dollars you survive the ride. This is Vegas, right? I even give you a deal—you die before we get there, I buy you a headstone. Your name on it and everything.”

“You’re a funny guy, Boris.”

He spread his palms. “This best deal you ever get. Look,” he said, stepping close and putting a hand on my shoulder, “We both know you ending up in a ditch, or a culvert, maybe just left for the coyotes. This, we both know. And I’m offering you an actual grave with tombstone. No Potter’s Field for you, no bones pushed up 20 years later by bulldozer.” He patted me on the cheek with one hand and pushed the trunk lid open with the other. “You can’t lose. Now fucking get in.”

There was nothing to do but duck my head and crawl into that infernal metal box. “Wait, I want to improve my odds,” Boris said, disappearing around the car. I heard the door pull open, slam shut, and he reappeared carrying a plastic water bottle. He was about to hand it to me when I said, “Boris, look, I gotta be honest here, I don’t have ten bucks.”

Boris took a deep breath, and at that moment he looked very, very tired. “You make it hard to have my fun,” he said. He unscrewed the cap and lifted the bottle to his lips, chugging about two-thirds of it, dribbles of water coursing down his chin. He twisted the cap back on the bottle and tossed it to me. “You’ll owe me later. Or, maybe not.”

They walked off to the side and I heard Boris say “You drive” and Georgi say “I drove here, you say you drive back” and then they realized they were talking to each other and not to me and reverted to rapid-fire Russian. Which was fine with me, I didn’t really care what they were saying because from my stifling enclosure I saw Roscoe skulk down the stoop of his hovel and make his way toward my car/skillet. He’d brought a paper plate with him and as I watched, helpless, he tossed the plastic ring aside and scraped the egg off the hood. “My breakfast,” I mumbled, impotent. And then Boris, having settled his situation, walked into view and slammed the trunk lid shut, and all was blackness, hotness, helpless, etc.

I was in a good mood. My Nittany Lions had just dragged a squirming and squealing Wolverine squad behind the woodshed for a long-overdue stick beating and now I was at the bar with my girlfriend and her gang to watch the Penguins. I was sipping yet another beer and enjoying the evening when Dave came up with a bright idea. He ordered a shot of vodka and five shots of water. We each downed a tumbler of clear liquid to see who got good ‘ol H20 and who got hit with the hard stuff. I knocked back my shot and it was cool and crisp and decidedly non-alcoholic. It was Lindsay’s brother Jason making a face as he set his shot glass back on the bar. And there was much rejoicing.

So much so that we did it again. Six shots, but only one chamber loaded with live round. A less lethal version of Russian Roulette and once again I selected a glass, waited for the toast, and tilted my head. This time the stuff in my mouth was hot and cleared my sinuses and as I set the glass on the bar I gasped and said, “Yeah, that’s me”. And there was much rejoicing.

So we did it again. Seven shots this time, one vodka and the rest water. I had second choice and and I picked the shot furthest from me. One-two-three-DRINK…and again my eyes watered as a thimbleful of vodka went down my gullet. “Me again,” I said and everyone laughed. Especially Lindsay. I glared at her and she laughed harder and I took a long pull at my beer.

I should say that I’m not much of a hard-liquor drinker. I tend to drink fast regardless of the liquid before me and so I don’t always moderate my intake when I’m drinking high-octane stuff. A couple of times I’ve gone from witty bon vivant to sloppy staggering caricature in 45 minutes because I lack experience in dealing with booze in a mature manner. So when another round of shots came around I ran through a quick mental checklist to ensure that I still had both hands on the wheel. Did I feel like I was going to fall off the stool…no. Was I able to string words together in sentences my fellow man could comprehend? Yes. Did I want to physically assault some random stranger who was considerably smaller than me? Yes No. In fact I felt pretty good, totally in control. So I had no worries when the bartender brought yet another platter weighed down by seven shots. This time I had first choice, I looked them over with a careful eye, trying to determine which one was not like the others. This time I picked the shot closest to me. One, two, three…

“Oh god damn, GOD DAMN!” I said as I licked my lips and dropped the glass on the bar. And everyone laughed. Including Lindsay. Especially Lindsay. She was practically rolling around the floor. I took note of this.

The Penguins were laying an egg and watching New Jersey when they have a lead is like watching ice melt. Attention turned from the TV to the bar and, again, shots were delivered. Now I didn’t worry about which glass to choose or which draught of colorless liquid was from the tap or the bottle. I let everyone pick their shot first and trusted in the numbers. Choosing that first shot was a one-in-six chance. Just a roll of the dice. The second was a one-in-seven. As was the third. Of course each separate occurrence must be taken independently, the shots don’t care who drinks them, so once again I was facing a one-in-seven chance of picking the vodka. But that also meant I had a six-in-seven chance of choosing water. Those are pretty good odds. I lifted my glass to my lips with quiet confidence.

And a second later I was slamming it on the bar sputtering, “OK, yeah, that’s me again”. Lindsay was in hysterics for an unseemly amount of time as I tried to calculate what the odds are of losing/winning a 1-6, 1-7, 1-7, 1-7 quadfecta. “I think it’s one in 2,058,” I said. I pondered a bit and figured that’s like losing to a one-outer on the river. Two hands in a row. I think. I was a little bit intoxicated and math ain’t exactly my strong suit. I don’t know if I used up my reservoir of good or bad luck with that run…probably bad, considering how I felt yesterday when I woke up.

When it comes to discussing events that I cover I have two rules:

• I never, ever complain about covering a Hold-Em-only event, not after my nightmarish time working the $50K H.O.R.S.E event in 2008.
• I never, ever complain about covering a tournament where English is spoken at the table, not after I couldn’t understand a goddam word during the LAPT event I did in Argentina.

If the format is simple and I can understand what the hell is going on, I’m not going to complain. Final table lasts 28 hours? I’ll sleep when I’m dead. The food is leftovers from an Alabama chain-gang? I need to lose weight anyway. It’s colder than a meat locker in the tournament room? Perfect time to beg for swag. I keep a sunny attitude and go about my business.

So when I tell you that there were times this past week in Aruba when I was thinking Very Bad Things you may wonder what made me crazy. Aruba is, after all, rather a nice place, what with the sun and sand and the Caribbean and all. The tournament itself is a breeze compared to the World Series, with the whole field in one room and play wrapping up by 8:30pm for the first four days. And this year I brought my girlfriend along with me (yes, I have a girlfriend, don’t look so surprised) and most nights we went out for dinner and drinks after I finished work. There’s was plenty of time for fun and I think if you asked most folks who went down there they’d say they had a great time.

There were, however, complications along the way that put me on super-hyper-mega-lifetilt. Let’s take them in turn:

We woke before the dawn and headed for the airport with plenty of time to spare. Until there was a huge pileup on the Parkway West just past Robinson. Which we got stuck in for, oh, 90 minutes. We got to IKEA before traffic came to a standstill and there we sat for nearly an hour. Didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Nowhere to go. And as the clock tick-tick-ticked along we went from having plenty of time to cutting it close to we’re-missing-our-flight. When you’re calling the airline from the car trying to rebook your flight you know you’re screwed. We finally cleared the crash site and, ignoring the ambulances and police cars lining the road, I drove like 90 miles an hour to the airport. The only way we were gonna get there in time was to park in the short-term lot (hope I can get reimbursed for that) and literally sprint for the US Airways counter. And with my camera gear on my back and laptop slung over my shoulder and a packed suitcase tottering behind sprinting wasn’t easy.

We got to booking with 30 minutes to spare. And there we were told…we couldn’t check our bags or get our boarding passes. The system wouldn’t let us check in because it was too late…even though the goddam plane would be sitting there for another goddam half-hour. The folks at the counter told us to go to another line to see about rebooking…and there we were told they couldn’t help us. With steam almost literally whistling out my ears I started to get a bit vocal about my displeasure and we were guided to another counter to see about rebooking. Lots of folks who’d been held up by the accident showed up red-faced and puffing but for them I felt nothing. I just wanted to find a way to get us to Aruba that day. And, miracle of miracles, Terri at US Airways pulled strings and twisted arms and found a way for us to hopscotch our way down the coast and finally hitch a ride to Aruba.

So we fly to Charlotte, thence to Miami. Ever been to Miami airport? It was designed by the Marquis de Sade, at least that’s the only explanation I could come up with. The structure defies logic. There are no signs telling you how to get from one terminal to another. None. To get to our next flight we had to walk past the security checkpoint and go around it and then through a…door. No signs. Nothing to indicate that this door led to another 50 gates and not an employee lounge. I texted my brother to see if he’d ever been there before and he said, “Why do you think immigrants take rafts to Miami instead of flying?

So we get to Aruba, get to the hotel, check in and hit the bar for a Balashi. And everything’s fine. The next day I wake up and head down to the tournament room to see what’s up, say hello to folks I know, take some pics. I head back to the room and try to upload the photos and my computer won’t recognize the SD card. This has never happened before and it’s happening NOW?? “Come on!!,” I begged, sifting through the Windows Vista control panel and being told my card reader was disabled for some reason. “But I didn’t DO ANYTHING,” I whined and turned to the Google for  an answer. But I had trouble connecting (a portent of things to come) and after scowling at my screen for an hour I had to plug my laptop in so it wouldn’t die. I put the card back in…and it worked. No clue why it wouldn’t work on battery power but everything was copacetic plugged in, but that’s what happened. I looked at myself in the mirror and my hair was 30% grayer. Time for more Balashi.

The tournament started Monday and we had trouble connecting to the internet. Now, this has happened in the past in Aruba, you have this island paradise and all of a sudden 500 online poker players invade and clog the pipes with sit-n-goes and tournaments and porn surfing and YouTube. But it’s always usually gets better after a day or so. We spent a pretty penny upgrading the Radisson’s capabilities, but either the tubes just got overwhelmed or something else was afoot. Because we could not connect to the ‘Net. And this problem lasted, well, the entire tournament. There were literally hours at a time where I couldn’t post anything. Couldn’t upload photos. Couldn’t do squat. Instead I kept hitting the Refresh button, in the vain hope that THIS TIME the wires would connect and my bits and bytes would broadcast to the world. At times I couldn’t tell if what I’d written had posted because WordPress puked and I couldn’t get the blog to load. So there I am like a goddam idiot trying to refresh TWO pages to see if my goddam post posted.

Making things worse is that bland, passive “Problem loading page” screen that comes up when shit don’t work. I think what REALLY got me pissed was how that phrase wasn’t capitalized or in boldface or there wasn’t a half-dozen exclamation points after it. It didn’t say PROBLEM LOADING PAGE!!!!!!!! It said “Problem loading page”. As if this wasn’t something to get worked up about. It happens all the time. In fact all day and all night you’re gonna have a Problem Loading Page. Deal with it, jackass.

And so instead of taking pictures or writing as many posts as I wanted I had to sit there and try to stuff what I’d already written through the tubes. Our staff knew there was a problem (everyone was talking about it) but the IT folks down there couldn’t fix it, Aruba not being as tech-savvy as Silicon Valley. I could believe that people were jamming the network because even though Aruba is a tropical paradise a lot of these poker zombies were no doubt holed up in their rooms twenty-tabling and downloading vast quantities of porn and streaming movies. But we were still having trouble connecting on Friday night, when even the most degenerate Scandi clickfiends were doubtless out looking for a pint or chicks. And so I sat there with tears in my eyes thinking “Oh please, oh baby JESUS, please let my Hellmuth chip-update post so I can write something else, oh mother of GOD!!”

So, there were frustrations. I knew covering the final table would be a challenge because we’ve never gotten WiFi out by the pool and that means running in and out of the hotel to post updates. The PokerNews crew of Garry, Eric and Don were there so I didn’t have to worry about missing some crucial hand while I was furiously writing up some other crucial hand. It rained again this year so the final table was held in the bar/restaurant next to the pool, which was fine. Play ran into the going-away party Sunday night (in part because the final four players discussed a chop for over an HOUR before deciding to just play it out) and so I ran back and forth between poker and party snapping pics. Which brings me to another technological fail:

So the tournament is over and I’ve been outside in 90-degree and 90% humidity conditions for eight hours. I’m soaked with sweat. I’m a bit stressed. I had to run back to the room to give Lindsay a wristband so she could get into the party and then run back, contributing to my sweaty/stressed state. I write up my post and decide to head back to the room, have a quick wash, and change clothes. It’s not a long walk to our building but when you’re carrying 25 pounds of gear and you’re tired and thirsty it’s long enough. I walk up to the room, insert the key…nothing. I insert the key…nothing. I INSERT THE KEY…NOTHING!!! This was the second time during the week that the goddam key didn’t work. And I was PISSED. I had to haul my ass and my gear all the way back to the front desk, getting madder and madder with every step, to have them recode the key.

Now, I had the magnetic-stripe key in a separate part of my wallet, it wasn’t rubbing against any credit cards or anything. I explained the situation to the desk clerk and, summoning vast quantities of self control, toldl her that this is the 2nd time this has happened. I should say that the Radisson staff has always been extremely friendly and helpful, they’re great. But the clerk says, “Well, it can become demagnetized if it’s around electronics…” and here she looked at the camera dangling from my neck, “like a camera”. I nearly lost it there. I didn’t have the goddam key inside my GODDAM CAMERA. At times like these it’s best to count to ten before saying anything and I think I counted to 67 before I even risked exhaling.

So that was the frustrating bits of the trip. I should say that there were some good parts as well. Watching Liv Boeree and Lacey Jones wearing dresses and chicken-fighting in the pool, that was a good part:

Had a couple of very good meals with Lindsay, which was twice as nice because usually when I’m down there I’m just grabbing something from room service. Nice to actually wander off the Radisson grounds and enjoy ourselves. Got up early a couple of times and went swimming, Lindsay went scuba diving three times. I felt guilty about getting tilty when I’m working in Aruba, but work-tilt is work-tilt.

I posted a bunch of pics to my Flickr page and I still have to go through a bunch more this week. Maybe I’ll post more this week…there’s the one of me and Liv in the pool, but that’s on Lindsay’s camera…

The other day I sat down and wrote out the reasons why I haven’t been posting here. The list grew to six items, which I’m not going to bother you with. Suffice to say I’m gonna try to do better, write more, eat more fiber, etc etc.

Anyway, last weekend I went to Penn State to see the game and let us never speak of that again. It rained just about the entire day, I got soaked to the bone, it was about 52 degrees, and I’m now sitting here sneezing and coughing and feeling generally miserable. But this is actually a good thing, as I leave for Aruba on Friday and I typically get a cold down there. If I can get the ooginess out of the way here I’ll be way ahead of the game when I’m working.

Back to Happy Valley. I’ve gone to a couple of games over the last few years and the changes that have taken place since I graduated a billion years ago are stunning. The more so because so much looks exactly the same. I hadn’t been on campus itself for at least a decade and we took some time to walk down memory lane. Mark and I visited Porter Hall, where we lived for two years (and, from the young women using swipe cards to gain admittance, is now co-ed). The tennis courts are now a construction site, the field we played football on has been the home of a massive building for about 15 years. Tell you what, if you wanna feel like time marches on and doesn’t wait for you, visiting your old college campus will give you loads of perspective. I stood in the middle of Pollack Halls, looked around, and without much effort could imagine myself an 18-year-old freshman headed to dinner. Walk 100 yards and the landscape is changed so dramatically that a spaceship landing in the middle of the road would’ve been less jarring. There’s been so much construction up there, both on and off campus, that the Penn State I went too seems quaint and backward. Heck, even Beaver Stadium has grown by more than an quarter since I graduated.

The big reason I wanted to walk around campus was to complete a pilgrimage to Carnegie Building, which is where the student newspaper, the Daily Collegian, was housed when I wrote there. This was where my career in journalism was born…and then died, about two years later. I wrote a lot of good stuff for the Collegian, stuff I’m still proud of. And I loved working there, loved it to death. Why did I quit, you ask? Well, a number of reasons, not as many reasons as why I haven’t been writing here, but it’s a long silly story and not worth retelling. Believe it or not I had a personality conflict with someone on staff and for those of you who know me and my easy-going ways that should give you an idea about the personality I was conflicting with. So I decided to leave and try some other things, like occasionally attending class. Wasn’t all that successful at that, to be honest.

The Collegian moved out of Carnegie just after I quit, and when I visited the new offices it just wasn’t the same. They were clean. Well, clean-ish. The old newsroom was split in two, there was the old, huge room with our mailboxes and the Sports Desk and the huge table where the copy editors sat (and where the business side was also located), and then the room around the corner that was brightly-lit and had windows looking out on campus and about 15 workstations. I wish I could say I had pictures to show you but the goddam doors were locked and I couldn’t get it. I think I might’ve been able to go around to the side and get in that way, but it was four hours to kickoff, we wanted to drink, and it looked like it was gonna rain. Which it did, about fifteen seconds later. Anyway, here is the imposing facade of Carnegie Building, which looks almost exactly the same today as it did 20 years ago:

The high points of the trip were both culinary. We made another pilgrimage of sorts to the Lion’s Den, where we enjoyed many a wing and a pitcher in school. Ordered some wings and they were fantastic, top-notch. I also had an exquisitely-seasoned cheeseburger that was served on some sort of artisanal bread and was freakin’ fabulous. I’m not saying fabulous for a divey college bar, I mean it was flat-out awesome. We also got subs from McLanahans, the we-have-everything store on College Ave, and they were just as cheap and delicious as once upon a time. I got the turkey sub with the hot pepper relish, and while the turkey was perhaps a bit dry (maybe I should’ve had it moistened with a bit of oil) it was also pretty fantastic, almost exactly as I remembered it. And for a bit more than three bucks for an 8-inch sub, a ridiculous bargain.

I’ll definitely get up there again sometime soon, maybe have more time to walk around and take pictures without risking hypothermia. Then again I remember it being rainy and cold and gray about 95% of the time up there, so I may have to roll the dice and suck it up. An umbrella might be a wise purchase at some point.

I was Twittering while watching last night’s episode of Mad Men and asked a question that was misinterpreted by a few. Understandable as media criticism is difficult at 140 characters a pop, but what I was wondering about was this–how did Dick Whitman become Don Draper? Not, as a few people quite reasonably thought, how did Dick take on Don Draper’s identity. That I know, I’ve seen the first two seasons, saw the flashbacks in Korea and his meetings with the real Mrs. Draper.

No, the question I have is how did Dick Whitman, who in every flashback was an unsure, frightened, passive man, turn into Don Draper, Master of the Universe? Taking a man’s name is one thing, but it’s much harder to playact another whole personality. And even harder to fake extraordinary talent. That’s what I was thinking about last night–Dick Whitman took on Don Draper’s identity, but the creative talent, the salesmanship, the will…that springs from somewhere. How did the soldier who pissed his pants in Korea morph into the creative director at Sterling Cooper?

We know a little bit about Don Draper’s resume–he sold used cars (and was apparently successful) and wrote copy for a fur company (he talked about that before he made that extraordinary Kodak Carousel presentation). But there’s still some pretty big gaps in his history, and perhaps that will be explored in future episodes. While I was musing on this extremely important question I engaged the Google and came across Alan Sepinwall’s interview with Jon Hamm. If you haven’t read Sepinwall’s episode recaps of The Wire or The Sopranos block out eight hours or so and dig in. Fantastic stuff. Anyway, he asked about the Whitman/Draper character and Hamm said, “When Don’s in trouble, Dick runs”.

And that’s true, especially when it comes to having his identity revealed. When he’s escorting “Dick Whitman’s” body back from Korea he hides on the train, which is understandable because then his family would see that, like, he’s still alive. But his brother Adam sees him and never stops believing his brother is alive…right up to the point where they meet again in New York. And Don responds to this happy reunion by trying to shoo Adam off with hush money. Adam commits suicide, so no need for Don to worry about exposure from him, but Adam mails a package that’s intercepted by Pete Campbell. And after Pete tries to blackmail Don he rushes to Rachel Menken asking her to run away with him. Who wants nothing to do with it and tells Don that he’s a coward. Which he is.

That of course led to the famous showdown with Pete in Bert Cooper’s office, where Cooper, after hearing Pete’s story, utters the immortal line, “Mr. Campbell…who cares?” Which leads to another thought–who really would care if Don Draper’s past was revealed? Maybe it would damage him professionally, but talent tends to win out against petty considerations like pathological lying. Maybe it would end his marriage, but that nearly happened in Season 2 anyway and doesn’t it seem probable that Betty would forgive hiding Dick Whitman from her over excusing Don’s serial infidelities?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, hence I watch the show. I’m also now going to sit down and read through Sepinwall’s episode recounts of Mad Men, which I think will be just a bit more interesting, insightful, and nuanced than this.