Update

As expected I didn't blog from Las Vegas.  I was doing some running updates on Twitter and Facebook.  Just not enough time/dedication to sit for 10 minutes each day and blog.

Had a great time in Vegas.  The weather was hot and sunny and I actually got to enjoy it for at least a few minutes each day.  Yes most of my time was spent inside poker rooms -- which is why the weather in Vegas doesn't matter too much -- but I walked outside and spent a few mornings relaxing by the pool. Overall I wound up down a bit for the trip playing poker.  I did really well the first week, then the second week I made a few mistakes and got a bit unlucky in a few hands.  No doubt playing a lot improved my game.  One of my big takeaways is learning to trust my reads -- i.e., whether my opponent has a hand or is bluffing -- which have been dead on.  I've been pretty good but lost a few pots where I called and should have raised.

I played at about a dozen different poker rooms and stopped by two or three others just to take a look.  Added to my chip collection and upgraded a number of other chips to excellent condition.  I guess with all the action the WSOP brings to town a lot of places put new $1 chips in play.  Speaking of which, one of the really cool things I did was to check out the WSOP action.  Meier and I watched the $50,000 Players Championship where we could see 100 of the best -- or at least 100 of the wealthiest poker players -- up close.  Basically every big name player was there, like an all-star game or sorts.  I'd say 1/3 of the field was big name players anyone who follows the sport would recognize (Doyle Brunson, Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, etc.), 1/3 were guys some people would recognize or some knew that they won this or that tournament, and the rest appeared to be internet wonder kids.  There were a bunch of young guys that didn't look at all familiar. In addition to watching the start, I came back three days later to sit in the studio and watch the final three battle it out.  It's just what you see on TV.  In fact if you watch on ESPN July 27th, you should be able to see me on TV.

Also met up with my cousins Roz and Irv while there and got to catch up.  And I did a touristy thing and checked out the Auto Collection at Imperial Palace.  Lots of cool, classic cars; Monica would love it.

Last week I spent catching up between handing our remodeling projects.  With the floors being sanded and finished, I had to get the dogs out of the house every day.  Our deck contractor also started the tear down of the existing deck.  We knew some of the decking was bad, but as he's removed the decking up we can see how badly rotted some of the joists are.

The hardwood floor is basically done.  The flooring is all in, sanded and finished.  He just needs to reinstall the molding, air registers, and some other things that were removed.  He's also going to install the hardwood stairs and then we're done with the inside.  Deck project is going to take a while.

Day 2, Wednesday

As planned much of the day was pre-work on the hardwoods.

To replace the carpets in the living room and dining/piano room with hardwoods (thanks doggies), we need to get all of the furniture out of the way.  For the most part Monica and I could move the items ourselves, but there's the matter of a huge, heavy piano so we hired professionals to store everything in our garage for a month.

Got in a quick workout before the movers were scheduled to arrive at 10 AM.  Unfortunately there was a car fire on the 520 bridge and even more unfortunate they chose to take 520 instead of coming across I-90 which delayed them until 10:45.   Other than that the move went smoothly.  The wood delivery showed up at 11, but they kept out of each other's way though they were using the same space.  Move was done by noon.

My little project for the day was to fix the outdoor light for our backyard. At least I thought it was little -- position ladder, remove bulb, replace bulb.  That didn't help.  The light is on a programmable timer switch and it turns out the batteries in the switch needed to be replaced.  Had to go to Fred Meyer to get tiny watch-like batteries.. and now the switch works but the light doesn't come on.  Working more on this today.  Also picked up a programmable lock for the garage -- the kind where you can punch in a combination instead of using a key.  Our garage is detached so we need to unlock it every time we go in there.  This probably would have happened a year ago if there was room for my car in there.

Went to the Mariners game last night.  Pretty good for 7 innings, but overall yuck.  It's pretty painful to watch Griffey play.  And without Bradley, that offense is terrible.

Off to play poker in the AM.

Days 0 and 1

The weekend doesn't count because I'm usually "unemployed" on weekends, so this isn't different.  And this was pretty typical for a spring/summer weekend.  Went to the Mariners game on Saturday and played started softball season on Sunday.  Mariners lost and I've yet to see them win in person this year.  Softball team went 1-1 which is good since we started last year 0-7.  We also met with our hardwood installer again and finalized our floor plan.  We're going to install real cherry wood floors rather than prefinished wood.  It's a lot messier and will take a few days longer because it will have to be sanded and finished, but it will look a lot better and be less expensive.  Also we can get the wood this week instead of a 3-4 week backup for delivery.

Monday was day 0.  When we got laid off, it was supposed to be our last day of work, but as noted I was already done so my real plans were for Tuesday.  Slept in, went to the gym, hit Costco for some essentials, finished Mother's Day shopping and mailed all our Mother's Day gifts.Got movers in place for Wednesday.

Tuesday I had some plans in place.  I took the dogs to the vet in the morning.  Cocoa was due for his annual checkup and some vaccines and Hunny Bear needed to have stitches removed from his surgery last week and was due for a vaccine as well.  Hunny Bear is great though Cocoa has a yeast infection in his ears.  We need to do some serious ear cleaning on him. Then I met a friend for lunch, met with my financial adviser to discuss converting my traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs which has special rules in 2010.  It turns out to be a good idea if you're far from retiring and don't want to be forced to take withdrawals at 70 1/2 -- say you don't expect to ever need the money.  Didn't make it to the gym.

Monica and I had a 4:30 meeting regarding the Humane Society's vision plan, so it was a bit of a short day.

Plan for day 2 is to be here while they do the prep work for converting carpets to hardwoods.