December in Mesa, AZ

aight, my dear friend ken brought it to my attention that i was slacking on this blog.  of course, i already knew that.  i have been putting in a lot of time on various forums, especially TWO PLUS TWO.
first up, i will insert a couple things i have been watching.  HERE is my thread that i have kept fairly updated on 2p2.  A DUDE is attempting to play one million hands of poker in the month of dec.  this is really crazy; he has already set the record for number of hands in one day at 57,000 with a profit of $22 over that 23 hours.  not very good, but pretty crazy.  this dude is an old WoW player apparently.  i never liked that game, but anyway this guy is pretty entertaining.  he's all over youtube as "athene" or something.
the house finance committee held a hearing on the legalization/regulation of online poker last week, which i thought went very well.  i would ask and hope that any of you that are reading this could take the time to contact your elected officials regarding this issue.  http://theppa.org/ is an association which i belong to, that advocates for poker player rights.  please check out their website if you have some time.

have been spending some attention on fantasy football, as always during football season.  it has been a pretty tough year for me, but it looks like i will make the playoffs in my league, so the big first round playoff game to get into the money is next week.

as always, i have been following with great interest my FIRST LOVE.  USF1 is now a reality, so i will have a team to actually root for next year.  hopefully, we can attend next year's canadian grand prix in montreal canada.

as i write this, the rain is pouring down, and for some reason it is interfearing with my air card.  i dont understand what the deal is here!  on that note, i dont understand why the weather is so horrible here.  i guess there is a storm crossing all of america, and perhaps i should be thankful i am not elsewhere (or home), but i wasnt expecting cold and rain, that i can tell you!

as for the last few weeks, we were last in quartzsite, az which i liked quite a lot. it is a desert town that is visited my hundreds of thousands of rv'rs during the winter. it is surrounded by BLM land, so many people legally live for free for long periods on this land. mandi was able to be off-leash the entire time, and we took many walks in the desert. she loves chasing rocks into bushes.

prior to that was san diego. marko was able to visit us there. the most interesting thing was our visit to the border.  over my shoulder is mexico.

below is the wall at the border

visited the grand canyon a month or so ago

anyway, i cant understand the formatting controls on this blog.  perhaps thats why i dont update this much!  this one post took an hour.  it is a massive time-sink.  will try to update more often though.  take care everyone and thanks for looking!

Day of the DOG

Had a pretty crazy night, as i couldnt sleep well, although it was still pretty relaxing.  at about 5am, the dog puked and then immediately pooped INSIDE the rv.  we had taken her to the vet prior to leaving on this trip, and all was well.  she has been a little off, tho for her thats pretty normal i guess.  so, we decided to stay yet another night in vegas.  we have been here almost 1.5 weeks now.  we did a couple errands, and then took mandi (dog) to lake mead for her favorite activity...swimming.  she had a blast, but i had led her thru some underbrush at one point, and she acquired 50-100 prickly half-inch seeds, which got all tied up in her coat.  i mean this was crazy time.  it took over an hour to get all of these things off her.  now its monday night football, and i need a miracle for my fantasy team to win.

A great day

My new favorite show is "shark tank", on abc.  wow, that is some good entertainment.

got a 2 for 1 buffet that was actually really good.  also won a total of $10.04 playing video blackjack by playing my $10 free slot play (so i didnt actually have to risk anything).

we had a great time last night on the strip and downtown in vegas.  got a big slushee drink from fat tuesday, and added a couple of our own "money balls" in homage of jeffo, who is no longer allowed in vegas!  also ate a binyon burger downtown.  the golden nugget, for being downtown, was pretty impressive.  won a grand total of $7 on 6 blackjack bets, lol.

went to hoover dam today, and that was certainly worth seeing, though we didnt take a tour or anything.  also drove through the lake mead nat'l recreation area.

i have decided today to put up my first specific poker hand on this blog.  it is such a glaring example of why money can be made playing my chosen game.  i know that many times people do not want to hear about specific hands, bad beats, or great hands, but i think i will put up specific hands once in a while.  at least one of my friends actually requested it too.  anyway, here is the hand:
i took the flop for free from the big blind in a 5/10nl game, holding K4o.  i think four players saw the flop, which was 44T rainbow.  i decided to check it in order to mask any strength, and the 3rd player bet out the pot.  last position folded, i flat called, and the other player folded.  the pot was approx $120 i think at this point.  the turn was a blank, so i decided to check again.  i was shocked to watch the other player shove his stack of approx $800.  what im thinking at this point is he has me beat with A4 or TT, (or the tiny chance that he hit his boat on the turn), or else im in a great position.  in this game, i must be prepared to call off my stack in this position, as i have seen so many funky plays.  also, a push at this point from an unsophisticated player often shows that he wants a fold, in which case i have him.  i decided to make the call, and there are a couple of "lmfao"s from other members of the table when the guy shows JJ.  this is a great result for me, and a pot win of just under $1900.

Gangstas in the pool

Hmm, maybe we stayed at the wrong place afterall!  somehow, three g-bangers (it seems) have snuck in to the park's pool.  where the f is the security around here?!  this is retarded!

VEGAS!

Plans have changed, as they often will on this trip.  we are paid up for 1 week in vegas.  i also have two weekday comp nights available at bally's or rio.  it would be cool if someone could come visit us last minute!  we may take a trip to the grand canyon soon.  stayed last night in valley of fire state park, which was pretty impressive, though i wasnt in the best of moods to appreciate it.  more soon...

AREA 51

Not sure what it is with this region of the USA, but for the second straight night i had to deal with barking dogs for multiple hours during what i consider quiet time. last night, for several periods, one being 3am-4am, a dog decided it was time to bark. im not talking like 20 barks, im talking an hour straight of barking! i honestly have no idea what these owners are thinking, or if there even ARE owners for that matter. i have NEVER experienced a dog barking for more than maybe 5 minutes in the middle of the night before. what a disaster.


AREA 51 visit was a total success. we went to two of its borders, got some pics, and saw one truck that contained guards who were watching us. what was more spectacular about the area was the testing range. there were constantly fighter jets flying over, and we witnessed about 8 sonic booms. apparently these are multiple daily occurrances around here. the proprietor of the Little A'le'inn was very nice, as were the other employees. we bought two coozies to add to the collection, and had dinner and beers there. we met a couple who have been full-timing in an rv for something like 15 years. they were REALLY cool, and were gracious to invite us into their very nice 5th wheel. they gave us a load of tips and stories, and we had a great time. i thought it was especially funny when the guys and girls from the two couples split up. i sat in the living room talking to stan about a wide variety of subjects, while rachel went to the kitchen to talk about "woman subjects" with sue!! i could overhear small parts of their convo, talking about spices, cooking, cleaning supplies, etc! knowing rachel and her "womens studies" past, i had to laugh inside! anyway, this was our first contact with other rv'rs on the trip, save for some very small convorstaions. thanks to our hosts!

we head now closer to grand canyon. we may spend the weekend in vegas, or possibly valley of fire state park. hope all is well with friends and family. thanks to my mom for continually giving good advice to us on email. please, everyone try to keep in touch!

NV desolation

The desolate, and i really MEAN that, nevada desert: its where we have been since leaving reno. the cotrast to the way of life rachel and i are used to is quite marked. rach is driving the rv now, for her fourth time. we are heading southeast on highway 95 toward tonapah nv. its a two lane road with a speed limit of 70. we usually go 55 or 60 at the most. we have cell service here (i have NO idea how), but data services arent available on it, so i am composing this on wordpad. after leaving reno, we spent the night at scotty's rv park, in hawthorne nv, and last night stayed at the el capitan casino parking lot (free) in the same town. this parking lot was the loudest overall place that we have yet stayed, far louder than the 5 (LOL) free nights in the sands reno parking lot. reno ended up being far better than i would have thought. it was my fourth time there. i lost track of the total reno gambling losses, but they were not above $100. i ended up losing $100 and $80 on two separate nights, while rachel was up $20 and $40 on those nights (i think) all playing blackjack. prior to that we were up a bit less than $50, and rachel also made a final $25 blackjack bet (due to a coupon) the morning we left that she won. maybe we are down around $45? anyway, doesnt matter at all, because we had a great time eating at all the cheap places, and walking around the town. also, poker (online) went quite well while in reno. people might be surpised to find that i didnt spend a single minute at a live poker table in reno. at this point im used to playing 8-12 tables of online at a time. the live game (except for home games with friends) makes me bored and i probably dont play well in that environment either. also, the thought of it just feels like a chore, and i dont think my time is used wisely there compared to just playing my normal online game.


we had a minor problem being parked for 5 days with no electricity: the batteries in the rv ended up going dead. we didnt bring either of the two juper cables we own, so we had to buy some. the ol' suzuki jumped the rv straight away, so no problem. we have a generator which is quite hard to start in the rv, and i think that was the main culprit that drained the batteries. i have decided from now on to start the rv engine before starting the generator (so the alternator will be working). also, it doesnt seem that the solar panels on the rv are charging the batteries at all.

on to hawthorne, and the nv wasteland. this place just feels sad. its not as bad as tulelake was, but there are so many stores that are vacant, and these places just have an overall bleak feel to them. it makes seattle look like such a prosperous place. there are little towns every 20 miles or so out in the middle of nowhere, with deserted and fallen-down buildings, and people living mostly in double-wide trailers on small lots. it definitely makes me keep in mind how good our lot in life is.

we took a day-trip to navada's "best ghost town", aurora, which is about 15 miles east of bodie (a well-preserved ghost town that is a california state park, which we saw last summer on our honeymoon). the roads to aurora were all unpaved. we just followed the gps, and it took us the shortest distance. we ended up on a 5 mile stretch of some of the roughest "road" i have ever seen. it was 5 miles an hour the entire way (yes, took one hour), and totally covered with rocks. the suzuki traveled like a champ, and we got to test out the four-wheel-drive-LO. this road ended up being the rear entrance to a working gold mine! there were two security guards who were very nice, and pointed us in the correct direction (saying that we werent the first nor last to make the mistake, but that we "probably shouldnt come back this way" either!!) aurora once had 10000 or more population, and all that is left is a cemetary and a buch of tin. we couldnt even find any foundations, so it wasnt too spectacular, but the journey was well worth it.

one of the things that has been on my mind a lot is the recycling situation. some of you may not know, but at home i was a militant recycler. over the past three years or so i had started walking often, and i began to clean the entire neighborhood around my house of the bottles and cans that were littered there. one of my friends jake, who didnt have recycling at his apartment even brought his recycling to my house. in the rv, it is impossible to recycle without a huge inconvenience to us. there isnt space to save up the stuff, nor are there recycling containers almost anywhere. also, hauling it around until we do find a place to recycle means more wieght and less gass mileage. so, though it pains me, we have reverted to just throwing away ALL our recyclables.

not having cable or satellite tv is quite a change, though i am glad at this point to not have signed up for it. everywhere we go, we get several tv stations, many in HD. thanks to my dad for helping me mount the 32" HD samsung lcd that we have been enjoying.

to the future: we will stay a night at least in tonopah, nv, which is probably the highest town either of us have been. it is over 6000 feet above sea level. we never know what we will find in any given place, so are ready to stay longer if there is something of interest. next, we will be heading down the extra-terrestrial highway to rachel, navada and past AREA 51! neither of us realized we were so close to it, and i think being close its a must-see. we will continue past las vegas to the grand canyon, as the weather is a concern, and we must hit that asap. then we will either head back to LV to stay for a bit, or south to other nat'l parks and finally san diego. we have a better plan at this point than we have since we started, though we still dont know the specific days for anything (i would argue that this is the perfect way to be!)