Tuesday, November 25, 2008

BINGO! Umm, I mean poker???

A while back I wrote my initial article on the ClubWPT poker site. I have since noticed quite a few visitors on my blog landing on this particular blog and thought it might not be a bad idea to write a follow-up article with a bit more information for anyone interested. I’ve recently begun spending some more time there (for about 6 months or so, I stopped playing online poker completely) and figured people could use some more information than my original post provided.

One thing that appears to have changed is that the people at ClubWPT must have gotten a bit of static from members about the tournaments that “used” to require rather substantial TP (Tournament Point) buy-ins. I say this because I no longer see any tournament scheduled that has a buy-in of more than 500 TPs today. This, of course, invalidates some of what I said in my original article and, in my humble opinion, just plain sucks.

“Why on Earth would anybody be upset about being able to play the big games with a smaller risk?” you might ask. Well I’ll tell ya – it greatly reduces the skill-level of the players involved in the better tournaments by turning what used to be a source of protection against donkeys for the larger games into a blatant invitation. Not only that, but – since everyone is guaranteed no less than 500 TPs at the beginning of each day – turns the satellite tournaments that can be played for seats to these tournaments into moot wastes of time.

As a case in point, I’m scheduled to play a tournament this evening called the WPT Bellagio Super Final tournament. The winner of this tournament will be “off to Las Vegas, NV in April, 2009, to play at the Bellagio in a Super Satellite tournament” along with “$1,380 in cash for travel and spending” – which makes me wonder if the air-fare and hotel are even included – and you’ll be able to “join a top Poker Professional at dinner to discuss strategy and tips for playing in the Big Event.” Of course the “Big Event” here is merely a $2,620 buy-in Super Satellite to the $25,500 buy-in 2009 WPT World Championship which isn’t bad, but it’s not really what they appear to be selling it as…

The thing that irks me a bit about this is that I won a seat in this tourney. I played a satellite with, if memory serves me correctly, a bit over 800 players that awarded a seat in this game to the top 10 finishers (I placed 3rd). I was hoping that ClubWPT would get this correct and only let those that qualified through the rather large number of satellites they ran to play; but no – after finding the tournament listed, I noticed that anybody willing to drop 500 TPs as a buy-in was welcome to join. This of course translates to ANYBODY! Placing in the satellite was just a waste of time… There are currently (some six hours before the tournament starts) 1816 people entered and this number is sure to grow.

That’s just the way it is there. Sure, tournaments do exist that have decent payouts; unfortunately it inevitably ends up being nothing more than a long-shot played against hundreds or thousands of BINGO players and skill becomes secondary at best. I’m just wondering why they wouldn’t create a club environment where skill was rewarded as opposed to the “anyone’s welcome” lottery that they’re currently running. Having the large buy-ins for the big games was a good start however they’ve done away with that.

One other bet that I have most definitely lost was the original comment I made on their user interface. There have been several “updates” made to it since my original article; unfortunately it still sucks! As a matter of fact, I’m a bit confused as to what these “updates” were even for – seems like the same old crappy interface to me. Perhaps I expect too much in a fee-based, online poker club? I wonder how much bank they’re getting from the members as very little of it seems to be going toward improving the membership experience.

But I guess it is what it is. Just don’t go and fool yourself into thinking that this “club” is going to allow you to play against skilled poker players for fabulous prizes because it won’t. And if you’ve ever played any of those “play money” online tournaments, you should know exactly what I’m talking about. What you’re going to get at ClubWPT is the opportunity to sharpen your skills at playing tables filled with donkeys. Unfortunately if you ever get the chance to play in the “real” big games – the high-stakes games played throughout the world in the various real-life casinos – the donkeys will be rather noticeably absent. If you’re a fan of BINGO then ClubWPT is most definitely for you; if you want to play poker though, I believe you’re much better off heading to a casino.

bis später,

Coriolis

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Doe!!!

I seem to remember mentioning earlier that keeping a car pristine was somewhat of an impossible feat, right…? I mean you can spend as much time as you want pampering the vehicle – keeping the mileage low, only taking her out on days with 0% chance of precipitation and implementing a multiple day wash/wax routine using various Zaino Brothers’ products – however, as one Edward A. Murphy, Jr. would attest, something’s going to come along and render your efforts futile. This happened to me a couple weeks ago…

It was your ordinary Saturday during a tape-out. (A “tape-out”, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the completion of a chip. And by “chip” I am referring to an IC – a CMOS image sensor in this case. In the old days, prior to the high-speed Internet availability, a design was written to magnetic tape and shipped to fabrication … the name “tape-out” has stuck with us since…) I arrived at the office bright and early – 6:30 in the morning. My plan was to get as much work as I could done with the layout for the digital block and kick off a couple probable candidates for timing closure that could run throughout the rest of the weekend giving us a greater chance of something usable by Monday morning. Tape-out is always a very hectic schedule as unrealistic timelines become the expected. 18 hours later, I had completed my task and was headed home.

I remember contemplating which route I should take – should I just hop on the 101 or save a couple of miles and take the back roads (in this case, Potrero Rd. – a much more sparsely used and hazardously bent road that I often take as a straight shot to work). Being that it was approaching 1:00 in the morning on a Saturday night (well … Sunday morning, actually…) I figured I would avoid the drunkards and take Potrero. I’m now questioning whether this was a poor decision or perhaps a life saving decision for, as I will soon explain, I arrived home in Chris’ vehicle.

“What happened to my vehicle?” you might be wondering. Well, I’ll tell ya – it got towed away on a flatbed shortly after becoming non-drivable. It seems that my efforts to avoid a “deer” resulted in Precious (my ’02 Firehwak) careening sideways down the road a bit until she was stopped, rather abruptly, by a couple of boulders on the far side of the road. (The second boulder actually stopper her – the first one just kinda “spun ‘er around”…)

The thing that I’m having a difficult time figuring out now is what, exactly, caused me to completely lose control. At first I figured that it must have been due to hitting the shoulder – your standard gravel-based shoulder – and losing all traction; however the more I think about it, the more likely it seems that something rather important to the proper functionality of my front, passenger-side wheel may have busted. I distinctly remember hearing a very consistent squeaking sound from my front, right suspension every time I would slowly pull into Chris’ garage and, from the damage done, it’s looking like that squeaking was trying to tell me something. If only I would have acted sooner – I was planning on getting the suspension checked out at my next oil change…

I guess it really doesn’t matter now … whatever the reason, I lost control and did some major damage to my poor baby. That, of course, is why I’m paying for insurance. In the last couple of weeks, Allstate has inspected the damage – twice, actually – and, after finally getting some sort of written valuation for the vehicle, has informed me that she is repairable (or in insurance talk, not totaled). The estimated cost of the repair is somewhere around $9700 last I heard (of course I’ll be paying $1000 of that, myself, with the deductible); but the good news is that this rather large sum of money isn’t enough to consider Precious totaled. I really have no idea how long this is going to take, but Paradise Body & Paint is now in possession of my vehicle and assures me that she can be fixed. This, of course, was after she was moved from 101 Collision (directly across the street from Paradise) who basically told me that they refused to complete the repairs due to liability concerns. It’s my impression that they’re just not willing to work with Allstate; but it’s no skin off my back as Paradise seems to be willing to do the job.

Of course something tells me that she’s never going to be the same. The majority of damage was basically cosmetic; however the rear axle was shifted a couple inches to the left after the unscheduled stop which makes me wonder about the frame and suspension a bit. Oh well, the technicians at Paradise are professionals and I guess I’m just going to have to leave it to them to get Precious back to pristine (or as close as possible). All I can do now is hope for the best…

bis später,

Coriolis

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

... On the Other Side

This morning I had a doctor’s appointment. It was scheduled for 8:00 with this dermatologist that I’ve seen a couple of times before. I initially saw him to try to figure out what was wrong with a rather vital organ that had recently broken out with somewhat painful, rather itchy sores. First inclination – VD, right? Luckily for me, all the tests came back negative … and we tested for everything – communicable diseases were ruled out. The doc said it appeared to be an allergic reaction.

But what was I allergic too? Was it possibly one of the condoms that I had purchased when I was back in Greece? Although the packages were sealed, the condoms were well over a year old. My dermatologist seemed convinced that it was these condoms when I mentioned them … unfortunately that doesn’t explain the reoccurrence of the symptoms months later when the use of any condoms had been abandoned. I ended up getting treated for psoriasis although I soon discovered that the best treatment for my condition was abstinence. The pills and creams that were prescribed for me did nothing compared to just not having sex. That’s just my luck though … I finally find myself a girlfriend and, lo and behold, I’m allergic to her.

I cancelled the appointment this morning. Something tells me that my issue won’t be returning anytime soon. You see yesterday was a big day. It was our (Nini and me) five month anniversary from when we started “officially” dating. It also ended up being the last day that we were “officially” dating. So I guess the question of how long someone can put up with my crap has finally been answered – five months…

Not that this was much of a surprise to me – hell, I’ve seen this train coming for a while now – to be completely honest, it’s actually a bit of a relief. Now let’s not take that last statement the wrong way – Nini really is pretty much the nicest person I’ve ever met and I have absolutely no disparaging remarks to make about her. We were just unable to discover a way to mesh no matter how hard we tried. Add to that the allergic reactions I was having and aforementioned technique required for solace and you’ve got a classic “crash and burn” in the making…

So I guess as of today I am, once again, back to my old self. I reluctantly return to that lone soul trudging through life looking for a purpose. It’s familiar territory so the learning curve should be a breeze… Remember, Cori – “The grass is ALWAYS greener…”

bis später,

Coriolis

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

To tip, or not to tip: Why isn’t that the question?

Is it just me or does anybody else out there think that tipping needs to finally be done away with??? I just don’t get it. You go out to a nice restaurant, enjoy an already rather expensive meal, receive the check and are automatically expected to add somewhere around 15-20% more than the actual meal cost. Doesn’t this seem a bit silly? I mean why don’t they just charge us the 15-20% more to begin with and cut out the unneeded hassle…?

I realize, of course, that the “idea” behind the tip makes sense. It’s supposed to be an additional reward for the wait staff on a job well done. Note that – “a job well done.” I’m wondering when it was decided that this apparently unnecessary causality was removed from this equation. Was there a meeting that I wasn’t invited to…? Why am I now expected to leave a tip regardless of service quality? Aren’t we just taking one more step toward mediocrity being expected in this society … not only expected but rewarded?

“But these waiters and waitresses rely on receiving tips for their livelihood” … “their pay is insignificant for survival without the added income from the tips” … “the tip is actually taken as a given when the wages for these positions are decided” … “you’re a complete asshole if you don’t tip regardless of the quality of service you received” … “the wait staff needs the tips to survive.”

I’ve heard it all before although I’m really beginning to wonder why I should care. I’ve worked very hard to earn the income I currently receive and nobody is expected to be throwing any more money my way regardless of my performance. The only thing that I can guarantee is that my income, in complete, will cease to exist if I don’t do my job well enough. As a matter of fact, my income always has the possibility of vanishing completely due to a myriad of scenarios in which I have absolutely no control over – it’s called life. Am I supposed to feel sorry for the people that serve me at restaurants? Is this a pity thing???

You see I’m of the opinion that the people that wait on me in restaurants are just that – people. I have no ill-founded sense of superiority over them nor do I believe that they are any better than I. They are getting paid to do their job which just so happens to be serving me and my guests food and drink. That’s all. Why is it my responsibility to cover the inadequacy in income that their employers have agreed to pay? They took the job. If the pay scale agreed to was insufficient, they had every right to ask for more or look elsewhere.

Over in Germany they’ve already addressed this. Gratuity (as well as taxes, for that matter) is already included in the prices on the menu. It sure as hell makes things quite a bit simpler. Yeah, the prices seem a bit steep at first, but that’s all that is expected to be paid. When you receive your bill at the end of the meal, the total amount due is precisely the amount shown – nothing extra is expected. Not that you couldn’t add on a tip if you felt the service worthy enough, it just isn’t expected. I guess over there they pay their wait staffs sufficiently for survival. And as a bonus, there are quite a few Americans visiting…

The reason I say this is because we Americans have been so well programmed to automatically add on a tip that the whole idea of not doing so seems so wrong to us that, even in places where tips actually are optional, not leaving one just feels a bit dirty – so much so that Jon was constantly giving me shit for not leaving tips when I was over there. Even after pointing out to him on several menus where it clearly stated (in German, of course) that gratuity was included, he always added approximately 15% to his bills. Maybe that’s why the German waiters were always so glad to see Americans…?

What I propose is that we adopt the same system here that they use in Germany. And you might think I’m a bit silly proposing that the prices for meals be raised in restaurants, but I’m not. I’m proposing that the “actual” prices for meals be displayed on the menus. We could then do away with this whole nonsense of tipping. The extra income to the restaurants can be used to pay the wait staffs fairly and the whole unnecessary tipping routine can go the way of the dodos…

Just a thought…

bis später,

Coriolis

Friday, August 08, 2008

He Who Wears the Crown

About a month ago I received a letter from my former dental care provider. I figured it would be a statement showing finalized payment for the crown that I had recently obtained – you know … a statement showing that my insurance had paid what they covered and, taking into account the five hundred bucks that I had already paid on the day of the procedure, that my account was now paid in full and clean. But it wasn’t.

What it actually ended up being was a bill. Not only that, but it was a bill demanding full payment – by me – for the remainder of the cost after my initial $500 was subtracted. It was stating that I owed them $475. It clearly stated that the amount covered by insurance was nothing and that no money was expected from my insurance as well. This got me to thinking…

I clearly remembered inquiring with the dental office on whether or not my insurance (United Health Care) would cover this procedure and remember their response. They said that 50% would be covered by my insurance and that I would be responsible for the remaining $500. This was back when I had the procedure done and, although I was a bit shocked to discover that a covered procedure would still be costing me $500, I wrote them a check for this amount. I then got the crown and proceeded on with my life thinking that this unexpectedly costly procedure was complete. A month ago, I got this bill clearly stating otherwise.

For completeness on this story, this actually was not the first correspondence with regards to this same procedure – the crown. For some reason that I still don’t understand, just a few weeks after the crown had been obtained; UHC sent me a letter requesting more information on the necessity of said procedure. It was the standard documentation about what they considered “fair and usual” charges versus what my health professional was charging complete with extremely unclear explanations – written in authentic legalese – for anything they decided they wouldn’t be paying for. The crown was one such item. For some reason they sent “me” the document requesting further proof of need for said crown – they wanted further documentation and X-rays.

Since I had neither any further documentation nor X-rays to send them, I decided to give my dentist’s office a call and see if they might be of some assistance. Hell, they were the ones that filed the insurance claim. Turned out that this was “news to them” and they requested I FAX over the document. This I did.

A couple weeks go by and I get another document from UHC – same thing as before with a request for some new information that I most definitely did not have access to. This one I decided to ignore. The way I figured it was that it really wasn’t my responsibility to get payment to my dentist from my dental insurance company. The dental office filed the claim and they can jump through the required hoops to get UHC to pay. After all, they’re the ones trying to get paid for services rendered. I already gave them my $500…

As I pointed out at the beginning of this article, I was mistaken. I called my dentist’s office (my former dentist’s office that is…) in an effort to discover why they believed I owed them another $475 and was basically informed that no payment had been received from UHC; and that therefore I was responsible for the outstanding balance. I then informed the nice lady I was speaking with that I disagreed. I explained how I distinctly remembered inquiring about the coverage of this crown prior to paying my initial $500. I also mentioned that I distinctly remembered being told that it would be covered. It was then when I informed this kind woman, if they were mistaken in their affirmation of insurance coverage, that it really wasn’t my problem. I basically wished them good luck at getting UHC to pay and informed her that no more money would be coming directly from me for this crown. She then suggested that I contact UHC and attempt to convince them to make this payment.

Maybe this is just a “pet peeve” of mine, but wasting my time and energy to basically go after an insurance company for not providing the services they are selling seems silly. I covered my ass by inquiring with the dental office about coverage prior to receiving service. I would have asked for it in writing but that seemed a bit excessive at the time. The verbal acknowledgement was enough for me. After that, the problem belonged to my dentist. Or so I thought…

You see that’s just the way health care is in this country (the USA if you were wondering). A large number of people can’t even get health insurance which – due to the outrageous prices for any medical procedure – means that they can’t get any health care. That’s just the way this game’s played these days. For those that are fortunate enough to have health insurance, the game changes a bit; however it’s still a game. Sure, you can get the health procedures done but, if your health insurance company decides you didn’t need it; you are going to be forced to pay the bill yourself. And don’t kid yourself into believing that your health insurance company cares – in any way whatsoever – about your well being; they’re only in this game for the money.

But I digress … I didn’t come here to point out the lamentable state of health care in this country. Michael Moore did an excellent job of that in his “Sicko” film. I came here to explain to you, the reader, why my former dentist has decided that he will no longer stoop to providing dental care for me. That was the letter I received last week. It appears that the nice discussion I had with the kind lady at my dentist’s office about being asked to pay for what UHC was not paying was enough for my dentist to drop me as a patient. So I guess the bottom line in all this is that I’m the “bad guy”…

Funny thing is that I logged-in to the UHC website shortly after my call to the dentist’s office and discovered that the payment had already been sent. I guess it had not reached the office prior to their demanding of payment from me; however it was on its way. I was even nice enough to call them back and let them know this; spoke with the same lady whose feathers I had apparently ruffled earlier. I thought they would be glad to hear this – they were getting their money after all. Heck, UHC was paying the full $500 which meant that I was only responsible for $475 of the $500 I had paid earlier – they were ahead by $25!

The denial of service letter that I received also contained a check for $25. So, financially at least, we (my former dentist and I) are now even. I need to locate a new dentist for any future dental work, but at least the financial audit trail is clean. I’m just a bit confused as to how I’m being labeled as the “bad guy” in this situation. Perhaps I should send my ex-dentist a bill for $475 and see how he likes it…

bis später,

Coriolis

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

blah ... blah ... blah

It appears as though I have survived the onslaught of activity that has recently invaded my world … well, the most recent round. I’m back in California with a newly renewed registration for Precious and a bit less money thanks to my two stops in Vegas. My company has moved to our new office (adding somewhere around 8 miles to my one-way commute) and life continues to trudge forward. Where, exactly, it’s lumbering toward is a complete unknown…

Lately it’s become rather obvious to me that I really don’t have any solid goals that I am trying to meet. Apart from the standard survival routine, there’s really nothing that I am striving to accomplish. Yeah, there are quite a few things that I would “like” to achieve – self-sufficient wealth and the removal of the “need” to work for a living would be nice – however it’s recently come to my attention that I’m not actually pursuing much of anything. And the funny thing is that it really doesn’t bother me much…

I remember – vaguely – an earlier version of myself that was going to be something. I was going to be successful, rich and favorably acknowledged in my community. I suppose my current condition is merely a result of this younger me never actually spending the time and resources to develop and implement a plan for achieving this; however it just seems so obvious to me now that, at my age, I am where I am … it seems like the risk associated with changing the status quo just isn’t worth it. I guess I need to learn how to extract the most pleasure from whatever activities I get involved in and try to make this routine a bit more interesting.

Or maybe it’s exactly the opposite. Perhaps I did come up with a plan on an earlier date that I have completed. Is it possible that my plan was flawed and the expected results where, in reality, a bit exaggerated…? It seems to me that I have pretty much accomplished all of the realistic goals that I had set for myself however my mansion and Lamborghini are still noticeably absent. Maybe the materialistic “high life” that this capitalistic society programs each of us to strive for just isn’t obtainable … at least not by me. The strangest thing is that I really don’t care…

I now realize that, if I had my mansion and Lamborghini, all that would mean is that I would have more crap that I would need to deal with. That’s basically what everything is – more crap to deal with. But is that all life is … dealing with crap…? I sure hope not. There’s got to be something more…

Sex??? Is that it? If you think about it, a hell of a lot of this need for things is no more than a by-product of the quest for a mate. I believe it’s a widely held view (at least in male minds) that the quickest way to a score is to impress with excess. It’s bullshit, but when has that ever stopped us? Let’s also not forget about the morons that are convinced to kill themselves for the outlandish promise of sex with a few dozen virgins. So is that what “it’s” all about, sex?

Hell, I don’t know… And that is basically all I know – I don’t know. I suppose all that anybody can do is decide what is important to him and consciously strive to accomplish it. Happiness comes in small doses and believing otherwise seems to me misguided. Love those that will let you and try not to get overwhelmed by those that won’t. Find that special something and hold onto it for dear life. Try not to get caught up with worrying where your life is headed – just sit back and enjoy the ride. Nobody comes out of this alive…

bis später,

Coriolis

Thursday, June 19, 2008

It's a Trap!

Okay, let’s not get into this “Oh no! California’s taken control of Cori!!” bullshit … however yesterday, at my yoga class, I began to really see some of the benefits with living here in southern California. I think it was whilst transitioning from “cobra” to “downward staring dog” for the fifth or sixth time that my spiritual and emotional energy forces teamed up and pulverized my common sense into submission. I guess it’s time for me to get to work on selling my house in Colorado – which, in today’s market, I’ll be lucky to break-even with – purchasing one of these apartments or townhomes (real houses are far too expensive) here in Cali – for the low low rate of “way too much” per month – loading up my truck and moving to Beverly … Hills, that is…

Of course this will quickly be followed by my waking up – all covered in sweat and screaming! Although at one time (high school…) I believed that California was the “place to be”, I have since realized that the propaganda shoveled into our brains via the multitude of mass media outlets available today is composed primarily of crap. Hold on … let me rephrase that a bit… For me, most of this popular hoopla is crap. That’s just me… I’ve got this bad habit (I guess the “badness” of it is open for debate) of automatically avoiding things (experiences, items, TV shows, music … your basic “things”) with direct proportion to their popularity. Following the latest fad just seems like such a waste of time to me – heck, if I’m not careful I might need to blog about it and who knows how much time I’d be wasting with that…

Funny thing is … my social calendar – for the next few weeks at least – has become rather full and I’m not exactly sure why this is. Yesterday, as I mentioned, I actually did attend a yoga class. A yoga class! Me! Now how weird is that?! Granted I won’t be attending any more … it was pretty much what I thought it would be … however yesterday I went. For full disclosure, it was actually a teaser class that Naoko – our HR executive extraordinaire – was able to set up at the request of Roberto (who, by the way, didn’t even go…) for the employees of AltaSens. This, of course, meant that it was free…

Tonight I will be heading down to Beverly Hills with Nini to attend what is being billed as “Lewis Black in conversation with Joel Stein” at the Writers Guild Theater. I’m not sure what to expect at this event – it was listed as a stop on Lewis’ publicity appearances for his Me of Little Faith book release – however I should at least be able to pick up a copy of the book and even get it signed by Lewis. Whatever else happens will just be a bonus…

Eddie Money is playing a concert Saturday at Constitution Park in Camarillo. It’s free (I think they expect a “donation” but that’s cool…) and, since I currently live in Camarillo, very convenient. I’m pretty sure that Nini and I will be making an appearance there – I saw Eddie Money years ago when he was opening for Journey in Detroit – a little classic 80’s rock could be interesting…

On Sunday we’re heading over to Hollywood to attend a couple tapings of The Gong Show hosted by Dave Attell. Since Dave is a MySpace “friend” of mine, I saw his bulletin posting on free tickets to The Gong Show tapings and – being that Hollywood’s not very far from where I am currently living – I jumped at the chance. I got tickets to both tapings on Sunday…

And to wrap up this latest flurry of activity, the big “Vegas / Colorado / possibly more Vegas” trip begins in just over a week. We’re currently booked for three nights at Paris and have reservations for Cirque du Soleil’s Mystère next Sunday. After that we will be heading back to Colorado so I can renew the registration on Precious, head to the doctor for a physical and enjoy a little quality time at my actual home – somewhere around four to five days… Then we retrace our path on the road trip back to California with another possible (completely unplanned as of yet) stint in Vegas. Should be an interesting trip – a lot of miles for Precious but that’s what cars are for, right? … driving…

Now you may have noticed something rather interesting in all of those plans – I’ve lately been replacing my formerly numerous I’s with we’s. I suppose that’s the reason behind my much more eventful social calendar – I now have somebody to do stuff with. In the past I’ve complained time and time again about the difficulty in finding things to do alone – heck, I’m pretty sure it’s the key topic on several of my previous blog postings – and finally finding someone that is willing to put up with my strange idiosyncrasies long enough to actually spend time with me has definitely expanded my options when it comes to free time. Not to mention that Nini’s always a pleasure to hang out with (which, by the way, is a good thing since she has officially been living with me since June 1st…) and life for me is looking pretty good…

So I’m beginning to wonder – perhaps my distaste for all things California is a bit unfounded. Maybe this thin slice of land just prior to the Pacific is the Promised Land so seemingly believed by a rather large multitude. Perhaps the pluses actually do outnumber the minuses in this state…

Oh Hell no! I’m not falling for that trap! I’ll do my time here for as long as need be; but damn it, I’m a Coloradoan! It’s only a matter of time before I return home … with Nini by my side…

bis später,

Coriolis

Monday, June 09, 2008

The High Cost of Materialism

As some of you are already aware, I am the proud owner of a “Last of the Breed”, 2002 Pontiac Trans-Am Firehawk. A bright red one! Not only do I own this vehicle (I’ve named her Precious although I must admit that it’s not a very good name…) but I have recently come to the rather unexpected decision of actually driving her not too long ago. And by that I mean driving her as my daily vehicle whilst living here in southern California. As some of you may have already read (back in my Vegas, Baby… post), I drove Precious back to California after my latest trip home.

Okay, so what? I’ve decided to drive a car that I bought a bit over five years ago – what’s the big deal…? I’ll tell you what the big deal is – this car is my baby! I purchased her back in April of ’03 brand spanking new. As a matter of fact, I still don’t completely own her as I still owe a bit over a grand on my loan. So basically I guess I will soon actually own her; but that’s just semantics. I adopted her (and yes, I have the birth certificate to prove it) with the intention of taking very good care of her. I’ve always been a fan of the F-body line of cars (GM’s Camaro/Firebird line) and Precious is actually the 3rd F-body that I’ve owned. (A rather in-depth history of my vehicle ownership is available on a much earlier post, A Man and His Cars.) Being that she is one of the rare Firehawk editions (approximately 1500 Firehawks where created by SLP in 2002 – at least twice the number than any previous years…), I’m hoping to keep her as close to pristine as I can … hoping…

Lately, however, I’m beginning to wonder how anybody can keep a car pristine and actually drive it. Heck, I’ll go as far as to say it just can’t be done. Don’t get me wrong – I am planning on taking the best possible care of Precious that I can; unfortunately a few issues have already arisen that have caused me to worry quite a bit. The first problem popped up just after taking Precious in for an oil change. I decided to take her to Bunnin Buick Pontiac GMC Cadillac in Oxnard, CA. I’ve always taken this vehicle to a dealer for any service (every time before Bunnin was to Fisher Chevrolet & Honda in Boulder, CO) to guarantee authentic GM parts would be used as well as to keep the audit-trail on service records clean. It’s also the only place that I have been able to find that would use Mobil 1 and I’m a bit (perhaps misguidedly…) picky when it comes to the oil I put in my vehicle. And, since it states “Mobil 1 factory fill” on my engine oil cap (granted this was not the original oil cap but a replacement for a ’95 Vette – if memory serves me correctly – that I ordered from GM online) I always use Mobil 1.

Now my insistence on Mobil 1 synthetic ends up costing a bit more. Back in ’03 I was paying somewhere around $50 for an oil change and tire rotation. I believe the last visit to Fisher (must have been last October prior to my initial flight to California) cost me somewhere around $70 … inflation, I guess… Bunnin, however, set a new record – $117 and change! For an oil change, mind you!! Oh well, whatever … I’m willing to pay what I need to pay for Precious; and at those prices I would expect nothing less than high quality service. Funny thing is that I noticed a rather interesting new sound from Precious after leaving Bunnin – it was this rather faint yet very noticeable thumping that increased and decreased with respect to the car’s velocity. Like an idiot, I decided to ignore it…

It was somewhere around 2 ½ weeks later that I finally came to the realization that ignoring this new sound was not a good choice. The sound got progressively louder with time and I decided to call back Bunnin and inquire about it. One of the features on my Firehawk that distinguishes it from the standard Trans-Am is its rear differential. SLP replaced the standard Trans-Am differential with a high-torque, performance model from Auburn Gear. What this does is, “enhance traction and help reduce differential operating temperatures under certain driving conditions by detecting variance in the gripping force of each rear tire and redistributing the engine load as road conditions change, thereby enhancing vehicle performance and stability.” What it also does is drastically change the standard service schedule and routine on the Auburn diff as opposed to the standard diff – one major difference being the required lubrication. I called Bunnin to inquire whether they may have changed the differential fluid without informing me (I really doubted it, but with a $117 oil change, you never know…) and possibly used a synthetic differential fluid. They claim that they didn’t and I do actually believe them about this…

Of course the reason I asked about the differential was because I had a pretty good hunch that the noise I was now hearing quite loudly and clearly was coming from the differential. I was instructed to head back to Bunnin and take one of the service techs out for a ride for their expert opinion. I did this. It was a very short ride. The service tech instantly knew the problem – the noise was coming from the front bearing on my differential. He asked me how many miles I had on the car (a bit over 14,500 at the time) and seemed to be shocked that the front bearing was going with such low mileage. We set up an appointment a couple days later for the differential to be inspected and repaired. I asked the technician for a ballpark figure at what this would be coasting me and was told $1400-$1500 worst-case. I never showed up for that appointment.

The thing is, I have absolutely no evidence of foul-play at that dealer; however, the differential was making absolutely no inappropriate noise prior to taking Precious for her very expensive oil change. I spoke with Todd (who, by the way, has worked at several dealerships) about this little incident and he suggested that my car might have been taken for a joyride by someone at the dealer. How this would mess up my differential is still a question; however I guess anything’s possible when a car is driven by someone with no concern for its well-being… As I said though, I have no proof whatsoever – just circumstantial evidence of something gone wrong.

Heck, it might have been the initial differential work I had done at Fisher in Boulder. I know for a fact that, at 6,000 miles – the first scheduled maintenance on the Auburn diff – synthetic differential fluid was used. This was done even after I took the initiative of showing the guy that wrote up my work ticket what was written in the Firehawk addendum to the owner’s manual about the correct fluid to use (GM part # and everything) and how it states NOT to use synthetic on the differential. Luckily for me, the work receipt I received when picking up my car clearly stated “Synthetic Differential Fluid” which I quickly showed to the tech I was speaking with earlier. He tried to claim that the synthetic was standard for my vehicle and I needed to remind him that my vehicle isn’t standard for my vehicle. After once again showing him the clearly written instructions in the Firehawk addendum, he gave in and told me that they would re-do the flush with the correct fluid. Something now tells me that they might not have…

Whatever the case, I wasn’t very impressed with Bunnin’s service department (for more reasons than the possible foul-play on my vehicle) and decided to go elsewhere to get this differential issue fixed. I figured the best solution would be to find a dealer (yeah, I know … but it’s Precious…) nearby that both sold and serviced Corvettes. After all, the Firehawk is pretty much the closest thing you’re going to find to basically a Corvette disguised as an F-body. I then gave Courtesy Chevrolet (in Thousand Oaks) a call. They sold and serviced Corvettes regularly. Not only that, but after explaining my situation, they were able to squeeze me in the next day at 7:00 in the morning. As I said, I never showed up for my appointment at Bunnin

The next morning I dropped Precious off at Courtesy Chevrolet, explained the differential problem and ordered a new set of tires. My original Firestone Firehawk tires were in pretty bad shape (not to mention the left rear tire had a nail in it) and, as it always is with these cars, needed to be replaced much earlier than most people are used to. Heck, 14.5k miles isn’t bad when you consider my Z-28 needed new shoes at slightly over 12k… It was decided that I would get a set of Goodyear Eagle F1 GS tires for the low-low cost of somewhere around $1600 (yeah, I know, dealership prices…) as well as the required differential work. This was turning out to be rather expensive…

Upon reaching work (I was able to get a ride with Naoko – our outstanding HR rep at AltaSens) I decided to do a bit of research into the new tires that I had ordered. I discovered, quickly enough, that I really didn’t want the Eagle F1 GS tires. Although these are actually original equipment tires on Corvettes and Mustangs, I found nothing but bad reviews for them on the web. They are apparently rather loud, decent performance tires that wear very poorly. The tires that I actually wanted were the Eagle F1 GS-D3’s. It’s amazing how much of a difference that little added “D3” has on the quality of the tire – they’re both from Goodyear however they appear to be anything but related to each other where customer reviews are concerned. As opposed to the standard GS’s, I wasn’t able to find any bad reviews on the GS-D3’s. Unfortunately, upon checking my service order from Courtesy, it appeared that I had ordered the standard GS tires. I quickly called Bryon (my service consultant), verified that the standard GS tires where ordered and changed the order to the GS-D3’s. It was going to cost something like $100 more but I’ve got my standards…

A few hours later I received a call from Bryon to inform me that it was, in fact, the front bearing on my differential making the noise. I was told that the bearing was basically pulverized and in desperate need of replacement. He said that the gears in the diff were still fine and, after cleaning out the metal shreddings, the differential could be saved. All this for a mere $1200… I really had no choice, so I asked him to take the new set of tires that I was also purchasing into consideration and see if he could maybe make a bit of a deal on the costs for this repair. It ended up coming to a little over $2400 for everything. Not cheap, but actually a good deal less than the estimates (they ended up taking somewhere between $400 and $500 off the price of the tires…).

So everything was looking positive. I was out quite a bit of money that was completely unplanned; but Precious was once again back to pristine (well, as close to pristine as could be expected) condition. She had a new set of shoes (very nice tires, by the way), the differential problem was resolved and I was able to park her in the garage where I was living. This lasted all of one evening as I noticed something very disturbing the next morning – a crack on the passenger-side door panel. I hadn’t seen it there before (at least I didn’t remember seeing it before) and it appeared to be fresh. I didn’t know it at the time, but this is actually a rather well-known problem with the late model F-body’s. I found out about this after taking the car back to Courtesy Chevrolet and basically accusing them of cracking my door panel. They didn’t, of course, but I was completely unaware of the “door-panel cracking” pandemic associated with these vehicles. A few days later, Bryon left me a voice message explaining how this was a known issue that he was able to verify on the web. Sure enough, it was…

There’s even a rather detailed, completely unofficial, step by step repair for this problem that can be found on the High Performance Pontiac website. It’s my opinion that General Motors should bite the bullet on this – issue a recall and fix these door panels; however, since this is happening on vehicles that are no longer in production, I’m doubting that will ever happen. As for me, I ended up doing the repair myself (a bit late on the passenger side) in an effort to minimize the damage. It only took a bit over four hours for both doors (and believe me, I’m not what one would refer to as a “grease monkey”…) but I am hoping that this will avoid any further cracking. (Oh, and a bit of a side note here: If you decide to do this repair to your late model F-Body, you might want to consider leaving the staple nearest the back untouched. I replaced it with the screw / nut combo and noticed that the spacing between the weather stripping on both sides of my window now seems a bit excessive. I don’t think that this is going to be an issue, but for pure aesthetics, it looks a bit strange if you see the door open with the window down…)

Another issue that began the weekend after getting the differential fixed is that, for a couple weeks so far, I haven’t been able to park in the garage. This is because Chris needed to do some work on his boat and has therefore parked it in the garage. The result of this is that he and I both need to park our vehicles on the street for a while. I’m not happy about this. The main reason is that I was under the impression that, if I chose to drive the Firehawk out to California, I would be able to park it in the garage. It seems to me that I had made it very clear that I did not want to drive Precious out here unless I was able to park her in the garage. I was completely willing and able to drive back Betsy, my ’92 Lumina, should I not have a garage to use; however I was assured that this wouldn’t be the case. Here I am now parking Precious on the street…

And it’s not so much the dirty sprinkler water that gets sprayed on her night after night leaving water spots that appear to have the staying power of acrylic paint; nor is it the fact that I’m parking my car out in public where anything “could” happen to it (accidents do happen – sometimes even maliciously…). No, to be honest, the thing that upsets me the most about this is the fact that I was assured that I would be able to park in the garage by someone that I was considering a friend. I do realize that it is Chris’ house and he can do whatever he wants as long as nothing to the contrary was written up in the rental paperwork that I signed; however I guess I was mistaken in thinking that I could perhaps count on my landlord as a friend. Oh well, whatever … I’ll park my car on the street…

Oh … and get this … somehow three of my chrome tire-valve covers magically turned into standard plastic covers. I noticed this while walking back to the car after eating dinner a few nights ago with my girlfriend. I was pointing out the missing lug-nut cap (one of the black, plastic lug-nut caps has been missing for a couple years now on the right front tire) when I noticed that the chrome tire-valve cap was a standard plastic cap. Strangely enough, this was the case on every tire except for the driver’s side rear tire – it still had the original chrome valve cap. I mean, come on people, what the hell….? It’s pretty obvious that this was done when they replaced the tires; however I can’t prove anything. It’s been a couple weeks already although I doubt anybody stealing my chrome valve caps would bother to replace them with plastic caps … and why only three…? Oh well, I’ve ordered a set of lug-nuts with the black, plastic caps to finally replace the missing cap (SLP only sells sets…) and a set of, get this, “lockable” chrome tire-valve caps from this place called Avani. Have I mentioned that keeping a car pristine seems like an impossibility?

bis später,

Coriolis

Monday, June 02, 2008

Don't Sweat the Stuff (regardless of size...)

“Life is what you make it.” As anybody who’s been reading my blog is already aware, this is basically the mantra that I have chosen to live by. I recently got a request from an old friend to further explain this ideology and am now caught in a bit of a conundrum. The problem (well, not actually a “problem” … more of a “concern”) is that I honestly feel that I cannot logically explain this reasoning – I can only tell stories… It’s within the details of these stories that this viewpoint should become evident…

However – since the request was made – I’m going to do my best to explain my reasoning. First, and foremost, I just want to clarify that I am not trying to tell anybody how they should be living their life. I am not, in any way whatsoever, qualified to be telling others what to do (hell, I’m hardly qualified to be telling myself what to do…) so, if you mistakenly take this post for my insisting that I am right and everyone should be thinking like me, then you’ve missed the point. I was asked to elaborate and elaborate I shall…

For me, the realization came when I got the opportunity to spend nine months working a contract job in Germany. I call it an “opportunity” now; at the time I wasn’t so sure. I had been rather recently put into a position where I was one of the far-too-many people in this country that are forced to take on the somewhat odious appellative – unemployed… And being “Coriolis the Unemployed” was most definitely something that I could NOT be doing for long. Like most working-class Americans, I had bills to pay. I most definitely needed to find a way to get some income!

Now the reason for my jaunt back to the world of the unemployed was no fault of my own. The company I was working for (Flextronics Semiconductor) got sold which basically meant that the entity that had been providing my much needed income ceased to exist. Sure, as is usually the case with these corporate shenanigans (Can I call the sale of an un-needed subsidiary a “shenanigan”? Sure … why not…?) I had the fortuity to basically re-interview with the purchasing company in an attempt to keep my job. There were some other negatives associated with this (apart from having to re-interview for a job I had been doing for the last five years) and I think I covered all this in a much earlier posting; however I basically chose not to attempt to keep the job. I was really getting sick of living my life as nothing more than a number to be bought and sold by the whims of some rich dudes that didn’t have any concern for “my” well being whatsoever…

So I guess my mindset began changing then, really. Up to this point in my life I had always just done what I believed was expected of me – which basically consisted of becoming yet another cog in the capitalistic machine that America runs on. I wasn’t really living my life so much as letting my life control me. Sure, I was actually making decisions that had effects on my life (this is unavoidable); however all of my actions were basically decided for me by my attempt at living the life I felt I was “supposed” to. For me, this insanity was about to change…

After deciding that I wasn’t really enjoying my job enough to justify re-interviewing for it and choosing rather to be unemployed – putting me in the position of needing to get money somewhere – the job in Germany popped up as a possible solution to my monetary woes. But it was a job in Germany … I didn’t speak German and, with my wonderful American public school education, had absolutely no knowledge of what would be required (both legally and personally) to work independently in Germany … could I even consider this? Fortunately, I didn’t need to “consider” it – due to my quickly dwindling monetary resources, the “consideration” was revoked – I had no choice. With slightly more than two weeks to prepare, I was off to live in Germany (on my own, mind you…) for a bit…

Now how all this relates to the “life is what you make it” mantra is buried in the details. The bottom line is that everything ended up just fine. I was basically forced to do something that intimidated me (Who am I kidding? It scared the shit out of me…) but I was able to pull it off. And not only did I pull it off, but the final result is that my life (personally and monetarily) is the best it has ever been! This kind of got me to wondering … perhaps I should take these risks more often…? Perhaps taking these risks is me “creating” my life? Perhaps the “stuck in a rut”, “doing what’s expected” life I had been living until then wasn’t really “living” at all? Perhaps choosing to become that cog is tantamount to death…

I have since then had some very interesting situations arise. I was – upon returning from Germany – once again unemployed; however it never really bothered me. I knew that I would find something somewhere … in time. Heck, maybe I’d head back to Europe and find another contract job … maybe somewhere else – Asia, perhaps? Maybe I’d be able to get a job in Colorado and actually have an opportunity to live in the house I’m currently paying for…? Maybe I’d get that chance to throw away the engineering world for good and become the professional poker player that I long so much to be? I was thinking, “anything but California…”

And here I am now … in California… I’ve got the best paying job I’ve ever had, I’ve once again got medical – and dental – insurance (been a while since I’ve had those…) and I’ve finally met a woman that loves me for who I am. I think I’m doing a decent job “making my life” so far…

bis später,

Coriolis

Saturday, May 24, 2008

A Typical Vegas Night

Okay … so where was I…? Oh yeah, Vegas. I had just completed a couple hours of poker resulting in a $417 profit (obtained on the last hand) and needed to get back (along with the Toddster) over to Treasure Island for the “Bounty Hunter” tournament that we bought into earlier in the day. I believe I may have ruffled a few feathers at the table when I announced I needed to leave directly after taking what was pretty much the biggest pot of the day; however time – she was a’tickin – as she so consistently does and I wasn’t about to miss a tournament that I had already paid the buy-in for … so, I left…

Todd and I rather quickly made our way back to Treasure Island (much quicker than I expected, in fact, as it was still something like a half hour before the tournament started when we arrived). Todd headed off to grab a bite to eat at one of the available eateries and I bought a rather expensive can of Red Bull (I forget how much I paid although I remember that it seemed quite overpriced at the time) and patiently waited for the start-time to arrive. I smoked a couple cigarettes (something that I no longer do … haven’t smoked since a week ago yesterday…), drank some Red Bull (needed the “wings” I guess…) and watched the ever-growing crowd of people line up for Cirque du Soleil’s Mystère show … it, as well as the “Bounty Hunter” tourney, was scheduled to begin at 7:00pm…

At 7:00 (well, a few minutes before…), Todd returned from his meal and we both took our assigned seats for the game. I wouldn’t be sitting in mine too long – I was eliminated shortly after the first break – however Todd fared much better and would be occupied for quite some time. This, of course, meant that I had some time to kill. Time to kill in Vegas can quickly become expensive for many … for me it actually became a bit profitable. I got bored just sitting there waiting for Todd to finish the tournament so I headed on out to the casino (you know – where they keep all those “one-arm bandits”) and did something that I don’t usually do … I started playing slot machines…

You see, I’ve never quite understood the allure of slots. After all, these machines are basically nothing more than computers programmed to take your money and they (the casinos) don’t even bother to hide this fact. They actually use signs stating something like “98% return on our slots!” to lure in their victims. I understand exactly what that means – it means that you are pretty much guaranteed to walk away from these machines poorer by 2% of the money you play. How is this an incentive? And, if you factor in that – on the rare occasion – somebody’s going to hit big and walk away with many times the amount they were playing, it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to realize that it’s going to take a heck of a lot of people walking away with nothing to keep that median payout at a mere 98%. But I guess that’s the dream – to be the one that causes these losses to be necessary. I was, however, bored … so I thought I’d attempt to be “that guy”…

I wasn’t “that guy” – I never hit anything huge; however I was able to walk away with some profit. I started at a few quarter machines – turned ten bucks into twenty five, another ten into nothing, the twenty five into some smaller amount (I wasn’t really keeping track – just cashing out and pocketing any profits made and considering the busts bad choices at machines…) and finally decided to try out one of those dollar machines. It was a typical slot machine in that you could bet various amounts (1-3 dollars) per spin and, of course, your winnings would have slightly higher proportional payouts if you chose to gamble more. And it had a special “hit” on the third wheel that would let you play the bonus game. The bonus on this machine was a Deal or No Deal type game where you would get offered an amount of money that you could choose to accept or deny on up to four chances. If you denied the first three, you were forced to take the fourth offer. Being that it was a dollar machine, the offers were pretty good. I was actually lucky enough to hit the game somewhere around 4 or 5 times and never ended up taking less than $35 … not bad on a $1 spin…

So basically I sat there playing with any bills I had that were less than $100 until I collected payouts of more than $100. I then headed over to the cashier and got the money and returned to the same machine to play with any new sub-$100 bills until $100+ was won again. It was a nice way to waste some time – I played slowly, smoked a few cigarettes and had a few drinks “on the house” – and I actually walked away with something like $70 in profit (may have been more … may have been less … I really don’t remember…). In time, Todd emerged from the poker room and found me…

The good news was that he was able to place 5th (if memory serves me correctly) in the tournament! The bad news was that payouts began at 3rd … the even worse news was that he didn’t succeed in collecting any bounties either. So basically his results were the same as mine (complete loss of the buy-in) even though it took him a few more hours to achieve the loss. He wasn’t happy about this… But, that’s poker. Especially with tournaments … it can often be a long trip to nowhere… The night, however, was still young and we decided to head out…

We walked back to Caesar’s, hopped in the car and headed out for the Palms. There we paid for our free drinks by playing several slot machines. We both lost a decent amount (the figures have long since been forgotten by me) but did our best to make up for the losses in free drinks. In time we decided to head on over to the Rio where we did basically the same before deciding to return to the strip. I’m pretty sure we parked at Paris … pretty sure… Whatever the case, I remember us being at Paris. I also remember heading over to Harrah’s and briefly considering going to some sort of after-hours club that we couldn’t even get into – we were wearing sneakers which apparently wasn’t allowed… Come to think of it, the club wasn’t even in Harrah’s – it was located in that casino on the way to Harrah’s … it’s all pretty much a blur to me now…

One thing that I do remember is that we (Todd and I) must appear to be “easy money” to your standard Las Vegas prostitute. We’re not, mind you; however we sure as hell must appear to be since they were approaching us pretty much everywhere we went. I don’t remember any at the Palms or the Rio; however they were out in full force once we returned to the strip. It was rather comical to see these women in action with little to no regard for the police that were also there. I guess being a cop in Vegas is akin to being a child in a chocolate factory as far as vice is concerned… One lady approached us not more than 20 feet away from a couple of cops that were basically herding prostitutes like cattle. Sin City, indeed…

I think it was somewhere around 5 or 6 in the morning when Todd and I finally called it a night. After all, we still needed to drive the rest of the way to California later that day and we needed to check-out of the hotel by noon – amazingly enough, we were able to accomplish this. Getting Todd up before check-out was not easy (I ended up returning the key with Todd still in the room) but we did leave the hotel without getting penalized… We stopped off for breakfast (well, lunch as breakfast was no longer being served) at the surprisingly decent, extremely no-frills restaurant located at the Knights Inn. I think I had a BLT… It’s not important what I ate … I’m still amazed that I was able to function considering the lack of sleep I had recently had and amount of alcohol I had drunk the previous night. But, hey, it was Vegas; so we finished eating and drove on down to New York, New York … we wanted to see if they had a poker game…

In case anyone was interested in learning, they don’t. We walked around the casino looking for a poker room or at least a sign that might direct us to one; but completely failed in our quest. I even broke down and did a very un-manly thing by asking the lady at the information desk. Interestingly enough, New York, New York appears to not have gotten swept up in the poker craze of late – they do not offer any live poker games. We were directed to try either the Excalibur or the MGM Grand – both located directly across the street from NY, NY; one south and one east. We headed east, across one of the many pedestrian crosswalks, to the MGM Grand Casino. We knew there was poker there…

And with that, I’m going to end this installment of my little blog. Apart from losing around $50 playing poker at the MGM for a few hours and a drive from Vegas to Camarillo that took quite a bit longer than was expected (Sunday afternoon/evening is NOT when you want to be driving from Vegas back to California … traffic is pretty bad…), this also pretty much completes this story. Vegas always ends up being an interesting trip and I’ve already got my next trip to Vegas scheduled at the end of June. The plan’s to meet with my parents, introduce them to my new steady girlfriend, take in a performance of Cirque Du Soleil: Mystère at Treasure Island then drive back to my home in Colorado for –get this – an emissions test. Since it didn’t occur to me that I needed to get this done for this year’s registration, I failed to get an emissions test prior to driving Precious back to California. Now I get to drive back to Colorado in order to complete this task … followed shortly by yet another drive back to California… Precious is finally beginning to acquire a few miles.

bis später,

Coriolis

Monday, May 19, 2008

Vegas by Day

So that was day one of our little trip – a lot of driving, a little poker and some much needed sleep. I was down a little, Todd was up a little and we had one more full day (and night) left before we needed to leave on the remainder of our trip to California. I seem to remember that I woke rather early Saturday morning – a bit too early for Todd if all his bitching and moaning was taken as an indication. On my agenda for the day was to find a local Wells Fargo (get some cash), find a local car wash (Precious wasn’t looking her best…), get a bite to eat and head down to the strip in search of a decent game. Todd got over his morning grouchiness soon enough and we headed out to find the needed services…
First was a quick trip to one of those automated, brushless car washes. The name of the joint was Terrible’s and all I can say is that this place was named amazingly well – the car wash was absolutely terrible! The poor quality of the automated wash added one more destination for our day: stop #2 – another car wash… For the second wash, I decided to stop in at one of those “wash it yourself with our hose and brush” spots that just happened to be located right next to the Terrible’s Auto Wash … great business planning by somebody as I’m sure they get quite a bit of business leaving their neighbor…

After all is said and done, I was able to get my car washed – twice, actually! She still wasn’t up to the admittedly high standard of cleanliness that I have set for Precious; but she was cleaner … not to mention that we still needed to drive to California the next day so lowering my acceptable cleanliness criterion seemed acceptable. Who knows how much filth she’ll be gathering on tomorrow’s trip…?

Now granted, from the first paragraph of this post, I may have led you to be thinking that it was still rather early in the day. It actually wasn’t… I think it was going on 11:00am after completing the second car wash of the day. It’s all good though – Todd’s not much of a morning person and we both needed the rest. The slightly-later-than-expected start ended up working to our advantage as it was good preparation for the day/evening/night/morning that we were heading into. It was, after all, the only full day that we were planning on being in Vegas and I’m sure I don’t need to explain how these “one day in Vegas” trips usually end up…

Being that it was, however, a Saturday and banks don’t seem to enjoy opening for any useful hours on weekends; we then needed to find a Wells Fargo. I didn’t bring much actual cash with me (for some reason I thought I could just purchase chips with my debit card at the casinos … you can’t, by the way…) and had already burned through the maximum amount of money I allow myself (pre-meditated controls…) to withdraw from an ATM on any one day so I really needed to find a physical bank that would allow me to get some fundage. I was still thinking that I might be playing some of the higher-stakes poker, however I never did; but that’s cool … I was prepared…

This preparation was accomplished when we rather quickly found a Wells Fargo bank. The good news was that it was open – if I remember correctly, it was actually scheduled to be open most of the day – that’s Vegas for ya, I guess… Getting “in” the bank required the ability to quickly figure out the intricacies of a rather convoluted double, automatic, pressure/presence sensitive set of doors with a metal-detector in between; the bank, however, was open. On something like the 3rd of 4th attempt, I was able to enter the bank and withdraw a grand… I was prepared…

After visiting the bank it was a short trip back toward the car washes to get a bit of breakfast (or lunch depending on how strictly you associate named meals with times of day…). Not that car washes are known for having great food available … there was this restaurant, felipitos, that we saw earlier that looked like it had some decent, rather inexpensive meals. It was here that we finally purchased some food. Heck, now that I think about it, I think this might have been the only actual meal that I ate that day … I believe Todd grabbed something at some small eatery in Treasure Island just prior to the “Bounty Hunter” tournament; but I can’t seem to recall eating another actual meal until just after checking out of our hotel. Seems like I should probably get back to eating on a more regular schedule – but I digress – this story’s about Vegas … not my irregular eating habits…

So we ate our rather authentic Mexican lunches and headed out toward the strip. Todd really wanted to stop, but I was able to convince him that we probably shouldn’t stop at the Liberace Museum (not an easy task – Todd just seems to LOVE Liberace…) and we continued past toward the strip. Upon checking the tournaments for the day on my cached web pages the night before, I had decided to park at Caesar’s Palace and hoof it from there to the various casinos we were planning on checking out. It was then just a bee-line (if the bee were disoriented and apt to fly routes in a completely indirect manner) to the Caesar’s Palace garage followed by an admittedly lengthy ordeal at finding an available parking spot. We did, however, find one – on the top floor, near the back…

A bit of a side note here: I highly recommend the Caesar’s Palace garage if you are parking a vehicle that you are a bit concerned about. I’m not sure if many other casinos in Vegas do the same (the list of one’s that don’t includes the Flamingo, the Palms, the Rio and New York, New York…) but at Caesar’s Palace you are required to show a valid picture ID to a live guard upon entering. Whether this equates to any sort of improved security or is merely a “feel good” extra for their patrons remains unknown to me … however, I saw it as a rather nice touch…

The first tournament I was interested in checking out was, according to the information I found online, a $330 buy-in tourney at Casear’s. It was scheduled to be starting at noon – which, by the time we finally arrived at the poker room, was quickly approaching – and was supposed to be a very good “Skill Level 6” event. The thing that interested me the most was that players started with a $10,000 chip-stack which made it a more skill-oriented tournament as opposed to the BINGO-esque free-for-alls that often arise in the tournaments where the starting stacks aren’t sufficient to cover the quickly increasing blinds. Add to that the 40-minute blind levels and this tournament sounded pretty good to me…

Unfortunately, due to the scheduling of the World Series of Poker circuit events, this weekly tournament wasn’t running. There were several WSOP tournaments that we could have played; however paying the cost required to possibly win a seat into a tournament that we weren’t even assured we could attend (life has its way of interfering with spur-of-the-moment planning…) seemed a bit silly. We decided to try our luck elsewhere and headed out toward the Mirage.

To be honest, I don’t even remember checking the poker room at the Mirage. I’m sure we did although my lack of recollection tells me that we didn’t find anything playable there… We basically did the tourist thing at the Mirage – walked around a bunch, saw the large aquarium behind what appeared to be the hotel registration desk (at least that’s what I believe I remember…), checked out a few of the interesting bars and attractions and spent some time near the Beatles, Summer of Love – Cirque de Soleil gift shop. We didn’t attend the show and, from what Todd has told me he heard from several that did, didn’t miss out on much – as far as Cirque de Soleil shows go, the Beatles aren’t quite the right material… We then decided to head over to the Treasure Island tram (one of the few no-cost travel conveyances left in Vegas). After arriving at the Treasure Island Casino, we quickly found their poker room and headed in to check out the possibilities…

Treasure Island has a rather interesting, somewhat low-cost tournament run on Saturday evenings – the “Bounty Hunter” tournament. I believe it’s actually run every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7:00pm and is a standard no-limit Hold’em tournament with a bit of a twist. The buy-in is $125 with a $25 fee and the prize-pool is split 50/50 between the top 10% finishers and bounties. The way the bounties are paid is that every player in the tournament has a $50 bounty on their head – knock anybody out and you instantly claim the $50. This gives an opportunity to make the money without actually “making the money” … you could, theoretically, win back all or some of your buy-in without even making it to the prize payout. It’s an interesting twist and a rather decent tournament for your standard weekend visitor…

Todd and I decided to buy-in to the “Bounty Hunter” tournament, plopped down the $125 and received our starting seat assignments. Of course, since it was only early afternoon at the time, we needed to eat up the remaining several hours before the start of the game… We decided to check out Vegas a bit and began the activity that is ever-so-popular in Vegas – walking…

We headed over to the Wynn, waited a bit on a bus to take us to the north end of the strip – and perhaps downtown – that never came, walked past the Palazzo (apparently a newer extension of the Venetian) and ended up at the poker room in the Venetian. The games at the Wynn were a bit too expensive for Todd (and, a bit more than I was comfortable playing at the time) but we were able to get a couple seats (this time on the same table) in a $1/$2 no-limit ring game at the Venetian. I bought-in for $300 and Todd, I believe, for $200 and we ended up spending the remaining time prior to the “Bounty Hunter” tournament here. As poker usually goes, it was a bit of a rollercoaster ride … I was up, down, even … until the last hand I played…

I had been playing for at least a couple hours thus far – Todd, unfortunately, was out. The table had the usual cast of characters – the kid with the horseshoe stuck up his ass that kept getting slapped in the face with the deck (he had recently left the table), the guy playing with his poor girlfriend stuck watching (she must not have been a player and he was trying to impress her with his poker prowess…), the aggressive guy that I was patiently waiting to spank and a few obvious tourist fishes that really shouldn’t have been sitting there. I was back to my starting stack of around $300 when I was dealt a pocket pair of 7’s. Nothing to get too excited about – just a mid pair; however I was the big-blind and the miniscule raise made by the aggressive guy pre-flop wasn’t enough to get me out. I called the additional $5 in order to see a flop…

The flop that came was pretty good for me – ace, king, seven … none suited… I was first to act and decided to try to trap the aggressive guy – I checked it. This was quickly followed by a $5 bet from Mr. Aggressive and a call from one of the remaining fish. Excellent – my trap worked. I “hesitantly” raised the bet to $10 which Mr. Aggressive quickly took to $15 and the fish came along for the ride. I went “all-in” (somewhere around $300) and was called by both. This brought the pot up to a bit over $700 (I had more money than both remaining players) and all betting was over with…

Now the rules for ring games are varied depending on casinos. At the Venetian during a ring game, an all-in player doesn’t need to show his/her cards until after the river is dealt. It allows people to “save face” on stupid plays as well as creates a game where bluffing is a bit more fostered. Since my goal was to spank the ultra-aggressive guy in this hand (nothing bothers me more than machismo-induced, hyper-aggression – and it seems to me that the airing of the WSOP on ESPN has increased the likelihood of running into this type of player several-fold…) I decided not to wait for the river and slowly turned my pair of 7’s over…

After a few choice words and a lot of excited emotional spasms, Mr. Aggressive slapped down his Big Slick. I think all the fish had was an ace-nothing which, of course, lowered Mr. Aggressive’s already miniscule number of outs to three. After the remaining cards were dealt, my two opponents were busted and I pulled in a profit of $417 on that one hand. That actually ended up being my final hand at that game as Todd and I needed to get back to TI for the “Bounty Hunter” – it was scheduled to be starting in a bit over a half hour…

I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait for the rest of this story as I’ve written all I’m going to for this day. Thanks for reading my silly little adventures and remember to come back for the remainder of this trip – you can learn what not to do in Vegas… Actually, who am I kidding? I think the Vegas lessons have already been taken by most … whether or not they are ever “learned” remains the unknown. Heck, I’m sure I’ll be signing up for the course again in the near future … perhaps in late June…

bis später,

Coriolis

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Vegas, Baby...

A couple weeks ago, Todd and I had ourselves a little adventure. I had, as mentioned earlier, flown back to Colorado to participate in the DPT semi-finals, get myself a new tooth (in the form of a porcelain crown) and pick up my Firehawk. It was in the Firehawk that Todd and I would be driving back to California and Todd had a flight back to Colorado scheduled for the following Wednesday. Of course a road-trip from Colorado to southern California just wouldn’t be complete without a short stay at this quaint little city that we would be passing through on the way – Las Vegas! So we decided to book a room at the Knights Inn for Friday and Saturday nights.

It’s about a nine hour drive from Longmont to Vegas and we left bright and early Friday morning – I believe it was about 9:00am when we began the drive. I had gotten enough sleep the night before and was feeling pretty good – a large bonus as I would be the one driving. Todd, on the other hand, could’ve used a few more hours… It didn’t matter though, we were Vegas bound and there’s not much better for a couple of poker players on a mission…

Okay, so let me qualify that last statement a bit… I was more of the “poker player on a mission” than Todd. I’ve been earning a pretty good bankroll as of late with my job in California and figured that this might be a nice time to give some of the more substantial games a try … perhaps I would buy-in to a $500 tournament, maybe play some of the higher-stake ring games … you know, give this whole poker-for-a-living idea a real world test. You can’t go pro if you never actually start… As it ended up, however, I never really played anything big. In hind sight, this is probably a good thing – Todd’s bankroll was somewhat smaller than mine and he had the sense to stay within his means (as much as is possible in Vegas…). And since I didn’t want to abandon the guy in Vegas, I ended up staying within my means as well…

Our first stop on the journey ended up occurring at Copper Mountain, CO. We both were in need of a nicotine hit (no smoking is allowed in Precious…) and I figured I could top off the gas tank. Also, it was a nice place to pick up a Red Bull to keep my wits about me whilst driving through the wet and slushy portion of I-70 that we were currently traveling through – as fate would have it, a little snowstorm had just passed through this section the day before. Amazingly enough, my little sports car actually performed pretty well in these conditions – a nice surprise to a guy that had previously driven his old Z-28 into not one but two freeway dividing walls in the past during snowstorms… The only problem with this first stop was the realization that we didn’t dress appropriately for it – it was 29° F at that stop and we were basically wearing jeans and T-shirts, standing outside the vehicle, quickly sucking down cigarettes and risking frost bite. It was a pretty good way to wake up though…

After a quick stop in Glenwood Springs for a bite to eat at Burger King, it was just a bit of driving … and driving … and driving … through a rather large portion of Utah and a rather small portion of Arizona before our next meal stop in Mesquite, Nevada. There was a $4.99 prime rib dinner in Mesquite – how could we pass that up? The best part about this stop – apart from the surprisingly good cheap meal – was that I was finally able to get in touch with my newly acquired girlfriend. Okay, so we weren’t technically “boyfriend/girlfriend” yet … heck, we weren’t even officially dating; however after leaving a couple voice messages on a couple unsuccessful contact attempts and not getting the anticipated return call from my new female interest, I must admit that I was beginning to worry. That just seems to be my luck in the relationship department – I finally meet somebody that I honestly connect with and she dies in some horrible twist of fate before we’re even able to explore the possibilities… Turns out she left her cell phone at home and I was able to contact her at her place of employment after the prime rib dinner. I was relieved, recently fed and excited to complete the 80-some miles left to Vegas. We easily covered the remaining distance in less than an hour…

The sun was setting as we arrived in Vegas. Unfortunately, I was quite a bit worn from the drive. But that didn’t matter – we were in Vegas! The first task at hand was to check-in to our extravagant hotel. (Don’t let the sarcasm pass you by … the Knights Inn is basically a dive. When in Vegas though, a hotel usually becomes just a place to crash and, to a certain extent, pretty much anything will suffice. The Knights Inn approached this extent rather precariously…) After some poor navigation by myself, we found the hotel, checked in and – in what was obviously a bad choice due to my worn condition – headed out to the strip to find a ring game…

Now this was a bit of contention between me and Todd – not the poker game, but how we were going to get to the strip… You see, driving Precious around the mean streets of Vegas with all the insane, possibly drunk tourists was not – I’ll repeat that for emphasis, NOT! – something that I was looking forward to. Todd – having really nothing to lose in the ordeal – just didn’t seem to understand my concern. Okay, he probably understood it, but he sure as hell gave me shit for having it. I finally gave in when we checked the shuttle schedule at the Knights Inn – best described as “not very often nor very late”. That and the realization that my car would probably be much safer in one of the larger casino/hotel’s parking structures than in the parking lot of the Knights Inn eased my concern a bit. We parked Precious near the top of the Flamingo’s garage…

We then set off to find ourselves a game. The Flamingo had one seat open on a $1/$2, no-limit table however, rather than wait for a second seat to become available, we decided to head on over to Harrah’s. Todd had played there before and thought the game was pretty good. Here we were able to find a seat for each of us (on different tables – no sense taking each other’s money…) at their $1/$2, no-limit game and sat down with $300 (actually, I think Todd may have sat down with $200) in chips.

Todd did pretty well. I don’t remember the exact amount, but within an hour or so he got up from his seat and called it a day. I was down about half my stack at this point. What I should have done, of course, was “cut my losses” and get some sleep; unfortunately I chose to continue playing until I went broke. The worst part about it is that I know damn-well that one should never be playing poker when they aren’t well-rested and eager for the game. I was neither and was even considering not playing this night and opting for some sleep instead. BUT – I was in Vegas… So, as is usually the case with being in Vegas, decided instead to pay $300 to once again take a class that I thought I had already passed. Oh well, perhaps I will learn better with iterations – costly iterations … perhaps…?

After generously donating my money to the nice people at my table, I got in touch with Todd and we headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest. We checked the cached poker tournament information my computer – the Knights Inn does not have WiFi so cached sites were all we had – for the next day, selected a few possibilities to check out and got some shut-eye. It really wasn’t that late either – somewhere around midnight although neither of us had adjusted our watches so it may have only been 11:00… Whatever the case, we got some sleep…

Well, as is sometimes the case, this posting is getting a bit on the long side. I also have other tasks that currently require my attention; so I will be stopping here. I’ll try to get around to posting the remainder of this story sometime in the near future; however I received a package Todd recently sent me that might limit my available time for blog writing a bit. Check back in a little while if you’re interested in hearing the rest of this story…

bis später,

Coriolis

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