Every morning in Vegas I’ve woken up at 7AM, it hasn’t mattered if I went to bed before midnight or at 3AM. Today I rolled out of bed, performed the tasks necessary to move about in society, and walked into the Amazon Room around nine. There was one other person there, a security guard all the way across the floor, and as I walked to my seat on press row he walked toward an exit and passed through. I took my seat and looked over what was, for a few seconds, my room. Mine and mine alone.

I appreciated that bit of quiet after what’s been a typically weird week at the World Series of Poker. Of course one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about the WSOP is the weirdness, which is usually both copious and profound. An example–the other day I walked out of the room and there was a woman sitting on a bench breastfeeding. I don’t mean she had a blanket draped over her chest while her babe demurely suckled–no no, she had the boob flopped out and the kid was going to town. OK. Sure.

That was a bit weird. What was weirder was when I came back the woman had her infant lying on the bench, covered in a blanket, and the baby contentedly napping. A few hours later the woman was showing her cooing infant off to a bunch of people I took to be relations. And then, again hours later, the babe was napping again on the bench, despite the fact that the tournament was on break and thousands of noisy poker players were storming past.

I wanted to offer the woman my room key and said, “Please, madame, take the baby up there and relax. There’s a couch, you can watch TV, the baby can sleep on the bed until your husband/boyfriend/whatever gets knocked out of the goddam tournament.” She sat there with her baby for, how long? Six hours? More?

This is my fourth go-round at the WSOP and I was a bit shocked at how quickly that I’ve-been-here-forever feeling kicked it. I think it took, oh, fifteen minutes. The clatter of the chips, the crazy pattern on the carpets, that long, long walk down to the tournament rooms. I’ve had dreams that I’m in the Amazon Room and they’re pretty doggone similar to what I’m looking at right now. The fact that I’m a touch sleep-deprived and usually a couple of beers deep after dinner and reality does have a certain dreamlike quality. Everything I’m seeing I’ve seen before, and yet its all new, happening in the here and now.

Gonna try to write more here the next couple of days, gotta gotta gotta starting posting here again. Odd that when I’m in Vegas, my desire to write more on my own blog goes up exponentially. Or, maybe that isn’t odd at all.

The eighth episode of Band of Brothers is titled “The Last Patrol”. It’s narrated by David Webster, a private who went through basic training at Toccoa, jumped with Easy Company on D-Day, jumped again during Operation Market Garden, and was wounded in fighting outside Arnhem. He was in England recuperating during the Battle of the Bulge and so wasn’t there as Easy endured the hell of Bastogne. When Webster finally rejoined his unit he found that those who survived that crucible now looked upon him as an outsider. Or worse, a malingerer who decided a warm bed in England was preferable to an icy foxhole in Belgium. Much of the episode deals with Webster trying to rejoin the band, as it were.

On a much, much, MUCH lesser scale, I feel a bit like David Webster right now. The last few days all I keep reading are posts and tweets from my friends who are picking up stakes and heading to Vegas for the World Series of Poker. And this is the first time in three years that I won’t be joining them.

Oh, I’ll be there for the Main Event, and 17 days in Vegas is nothing to sneeze at. But those of us who do a full tour of duty on Media Row tend to look down our noses at those who drop in for just the Main Event, and this year I’ll be the one staring at flared nostrils. That is a totally disgusting analogy. Jesus.

It’s not like I’m refusing a direct order to present myself at the Amazon Room, and I’m gonna be plenty busy with other work in the weeks leading up to the Main Event. Plus I’ve gotta get myself situated in the house and teach my new wife how to do things the Right Way. I’m actually looking forward to spending much of the summer in Pittsburgh, grilling on the deck, playing a little beach volleyball, enjoying temperatures below triple-digits.

But I feel guilty. Indeed I do. I’ll be following along with the action and reading posts and tweets and looking at pics and feeling like I should BE there. And that’ll especially be the case when I read about meetups at the Hooker Bar and wee-hour Pai Gow. I’m not sure how long this guilty conscience will plague me, or how many minutes in the Rio it’d take before I thought, “Y’know what, sitting on the deck would be mighty nice right about now”. The grass, always greener.

So godspeed, all you insane poker bloggers strapping yourself in for seven weeks on the roller coaster. Reinforcements arrive on July 3rd.

Not a lot of time so:

• Last Thursday we got the OK to close on our house, and we did so on Friday. We thought it wouldn’t be until the end of May when we closed. 48 hours later we had the house.
• Lindsay’s mom has been fighting cancer and on Sunday we got the sad news that she might not have much time left with us.
• And since Lindsay wants her mom to be there when she gets married…we’re getting married today!

So it’s been rather a hectic few days. But in about five hours I’m gonna make an honest woman of Lindsay. So much for me losing 50 pounds and looking sleek for the ceremony. I’m sure I’ll post some pics of the nuptials in the next few days. Not sure if we’re still gonna have our reception at the Aquarium in September, probably best to table those discussions till later.

So, time to find my cleanest T-shirt and a pair of shorts without holes in them and go get married!

When I was in G-Vegas for the Mastodon Weekend we were sitting at the bar (natch) and ESPN had brief segment about the NFL Draft. There was talk about where Jimmy Clausen would go, if perhaps the Redskins would reach for him at #4. I turned to BG and said, “This is why having your franchise quarterback signed for ten years is nice, you don’t have to worry about making a huge mistake on a QB.”

And then the next day Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault.

Roethlisberger’s fate has of course been a huge topic of discussion in Pittsburgh and now that the D.A. investigating the case has decided not to charge Roethlisberger the chatter has, if anything, gotten louder. Before the D.A.’s press conference you at least could say “Hey, we don’t know what happened, we have to wait until the facts come out”. Now the facts have come out, or at least the information gathered during the police investigation has come out, and it’s leaves the league, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Steeler fans in a moral no-man’s land.

Here’s the first part of the problem. Roethlisberger wasn’t charged with a crime. Accused of a crime, but not charged. So, if you’re the league or the team and you want to suspend him for his conduct, what conduct are you suspending him for? He wasn’t charged with a crime. The NFL’s personal conduct policy allows Roger Goodell to suspend players for littering if he pleases, so whatever penalty is handed down will have to come from the league, because if the Steelers try to impose their own discipline the NFL Player’s Association would almost certainly fight it. Sanction a player who hasn’t been charged with a crime? That’s a precedent the union would no doubt fight tooth and nail.

That’s part one. Here’s part two–Roethlisberger was accused of a heinous crime, and there seems to be compelling evidence that he did it. Or, at the very least, he and several of his companions engaged in some utterly loathsome behavior. It’s true that Roethlisberger wasn’t charged, but that’s due in large part to the alleged victim not wanting to pursue the matter. That might have saved Roethlisberger from a criminal charge, but it might not save his career. In the aftermath of the D.A.’s decision not to press charges, we’ve heard a statement from Roethlisberger where he said he was “truly sorry for the disappointment and negative attention I have brought to my family, my teammates and coaches, the Rooneys and the NFL”. OK, fine, you brought disappointment and negative attention. That’s bad. But what exactly did you DO? If I was accused of sexual assault and I was facing serious financial repercussions and the destruction of my reputation, and I didn’t do it, once I was out of legal jeopardy I’d be vigorously defending myself. Instead we had a hangdog and creepy-looking Roethlisberger standing at a podium (alone, no owner or coaches or teammates offering support) mumbling a vague apology.

Yesterday Art Rooney II said that “After imposing an appropriate level of discipline…we intend to allow Ben the opportunity to prove to us he is the teammate and citizen we all believe he is capable of being. And we hope the entire Steelers community will allow Ben the opportunity to prove to them that he deserves their trust and their respect.” Rooney then said, “”I have made it clear to Ben that his conduct in this incident did not live up to our standards. We have made it very clear to Ben that there will be consequences for his actions, and Ben has indicated to us that he is willing to accept those consequences.”

Which leads us full circle–exactly what conduct did not live up to the Steelers’ standards? Roethlisberger was accused of raping a drunk girl in the bathroom of a bar and that doesn’t live up to anybody’s standards. What the hell do the Steelers think happened that night? Does the fact that he wasn’t charged with a crime mean they don’t believe the most serious charges? Has Roethlisberger told the team his version of what happened and they found his story convincing?  The alleged victim said Roethlisberger had sex with her after she said it wasn’t OK. Her friends say two of his “bodyguards” physically prevented them from going to her aid. After they left the club they reported the incident to the first police officer they could find (who apparently wasn’t very sympathetic and today quit his job). What has Roethlisberger told the team that makes them believe his side of the story?

Because if there isn’t another side of the story, then all this talk of discipline and suspensions should be moot. If the allegations against Roethlisberger are even vaguely accurate, the Steelers should cut him. NOW. After the police findings were released a lot of NFL reporters and observers on Twitter were saying that the info was so damning and disgusting that they thought that Roethlisberger’s suspension should be far worse than the two-to-four games that was the general consensus beforehand. But if you believe the info in the police report, then I don’t see how Roethlisberger has a place in the NFL. He certainly shouldn’t have a role with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The team should release him, immediately.

The fact that the Steelers haven’t released him makes me think that the team honestly believes he didn’t commit sexual assault. I would like to think that the Rooney family wouldn’t go to bat for a despicable criminal, even if he is a Super Bowl-winning quarterback. But we still don’t know what happened, we don’t know what Roethlisberger told Goodell and Rooney that makes them feel that stern discipline is warranted yet not an immediate release.

And it leaves Steeler fans in moral limbo. If Roethlisberger remains on the team and returns to the field after the inevitable suspension, are we cheering on a rapist? And while there are no doubt Steeler fans who would forgive Roethlisberger if he shot Sidney Crosby, just about every person I’ve talked to wants the Steelers to either release Roethlisberger or trade him. I don’t know about the ethics of trading a player who might be a sexual predator (I think it’s a wee bit shaky) but people seem disgusted at what he allegedly did and fed up with him in general. Roethlisberger has never been especially popular in Pittsburgh, I think the motorcycle accident was what made people first look at him askance. And then he was accused of sexual assault in Lake Tahoe, though that was a civil suit filed a year after the alleged incident and not a criminal charge. People seemed to believe him when he refuted the allegation and filed a counter-suit, but once again he was in the news for all the wrong reasons. He wasn’t named a team captain until a few years into his career and the fact that he wasn’t named team MVP until last season led to rumors that he’s not well-liked in the locker room. But of course there’s a big difference between being unpopular and being a rapist. Right now all Steeler fans know is that Ben Roethlisberger did something bad, bad enough that he’s going to be suspended by the league and bad enough that it’ll probably cost himself at least a million dollars in lost wages. But not so bad that the Steelers are washing their hands of him. Roethlisberger is a man charged with no crime who is acting like a criminal and being treated like one.

The saddest aspect of this story is that everyone (including me in this post) is focusing on how this incident will affect Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and not on how it affected the woman who was allegedly the victim of a violent crime. This story is a sordid and all-to-common confluence of sex and money and celebrity where concepts like the truth and justice are given short shrift. It’s ugly, and its stupid that something as trivial as sports should be the focal point of this story. And unless compelling information exonerating Roethlisberger comes out, I’m going to feel ugly and stupid rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers with him as their quarterback. Until I hear that compelling information, my opinion is that the Steelers should release him.

I really, really need to start posting again. I tell myself this just about every day. And yet. Anyway, maybe if I break the ice here I’ll get back in the swing of things. A quick update:

So the wedding date is set and the bid on the house has been accepted. The underwriters are making me jump through some ridiculous hoops because I’m self-employed and so we haven’t set a closing date. Once that happens I think the fact that I’m BUYING A HOUSE will fully sink in. And that after we move in I’m GETTING MARRIED. And that my bride-to-be has a FREAKIN’ DOG. A little more than a year ago I was a carefree bachelor living the high life…with a cat. Now I got another cat, getting a dog, getting a wife, getting a mortgage…I should say I’m totally fine with all these changes. Especially the wife part. The house, too. The dog…let’s see how well the dog responds to my particular brand of justice.

Chances are we’ll be moving in sometime in May. Also in May (at the end) is the World Series of Poker, and for the first time in three years I won’t be there for the whole rodeo. I’ll be there for the Main Event, so it’s not like I’m missing the feature presentation, but I won’t be doing the full tour. I’m of two minds on this–on the one hand, I see the logic behind it (the Main Event is where nearly all our marketing dollars go, our pros post a good bit of stuff) and last year I was totally fried come the Main Event. I worked just about every day and had the thousand-yard stare on Day 1C. This year my eye will be bright and my tail bushy all the way through the big dance.

And if we’re moving in May I won’t have to bail right after we relocate. I’ll be around to strip wallpaper and paint and make sure the beasts acclimate. Plus I’ve taken on some new tasks of late and I should definitely have enough work to keep me busy. But it is gonna be weird, really weird, not being there as the WSOP plays out. I’m sure I’m gonna feel some serious pangs of guilt following along with the coverage from my buddies (and hearing about their dread exploits) from the comfort of home. Then again, if I’m hearing about their dread exploits while I’m grilling burgers on our deck with a night acuddled with my gal on the docket, I think I’ll be able to deal.

This does have a feel of calm before the storm. I’m watching the Pens play the Caps in an important-yet-meaningless game, with the Stanley Cup playoffs on the horizon. The greatest sporting event there is just a few days away. The summer looms like a big…looming thing, and this year I’ll be in Pittsburgh for most of it. Lots of lazy nights playing beach volleyball and sipping Yuengling under the stars. And then I’ll have to sign my life away, pack up my apartment, and move into the house I’ll probably (hopefully?) spend the rest of my life in. I’m gonna have to…walk the dog. EVERY DAY, MAN. I’m gonna have to mow the lawn. And, yes, we’re probably gonna be thinking about having kids sooner than later. I’d like my spawn to head off to Penn State before I’m collecting Social Security.

So lots of changes coming. Hopefully posting on my much-neglected blog will be a part of them.

It occurs to me that I haven’t posted anything since, uh, 2009.

That’s effed up.

So let me briefly recap the last six weeks. I:

• turned 41
• got engaged
• set my wedding date
• put a bid on a house

Other than those life-altering events it’s been pretty slow. Picked up some additional writing work and so I’ve been clattering away at a pretty good clip, just not on these pages. Need to upload some pics as well, haven’t fiddled with the camera in quite awhile. I took this pic with my iPhone after I gave Lindsay the rock–don’t tell her I posted this or she’ll kill me. She came over after a rough day at work, tired, hungry, and I caught her totally by surprise.

Write more soon, promise.

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.