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.
Wednesday, May 5
Friday, April 30
Day -1: Recovering
Since I'm technically still employed until Monday, this isn't really even day 1 yet. OK, and I'm a technology geek.
My time off started with a bang. Last night on my way home my car battery died. Had to call AAA to get me home. Looks like I need a new alternator. Always nice to have big expenses right as you lose your job. Oh well, maybe it's an excuse to play more poker to earn some extra income.
Today was about recovering from the last couple of weeks. I haven't been working very hard but work has been emotionally exhausting. I made a list of projects to work on while it helped me get organized, it also seems a bit overwhelming. And I decided to use the product I've worked on to see if we can attack these projects in an Agile fashion. So I organized my work and uploaded all of it into Serena Agile. In the process I found three really bad bugs. While finding bugs is normally exciting, it was actually a bit disheartening to see problems in production and to spend my last week working on real problems. As such, I really haven't been motivated to do much around the house.
So today is about doing dishes, running several loads of laundry, going through the last week of mail (some email too), putting away the stuff I brought home from the office, cleaning out the fridge, and doing some grocery shopping. But first, I got to sleep in late for the first time in a really long time. I think I got up about 10:30.
Oh and I made it to gym for the second day in a row. Good. And I stepped on a scale for the first time in weeks. Bad, very bad. Tomorrow I buy a new scale.
My time off started with a bang. Last night on my way home my car battery died. Had to call AAA to get me home. Looks like I need a new alternator. Always nice to have big expenses right as you lose your job. Oh well, maybe it's an excuse to play more poker to earn some extra income.
Today was about recovering from the last couple of weeks. I haven't been working very hard but work has been emotionally exhausting. I made a list of projects to work on while it helped me get organized, it also seems a bit overwhelming. And I decided to use the product I've worked on to see if we can attack these projects in an Agile fashion. So I organized my work and uploaded all of it into Serena Agile. In the process I found three really bad bugs. While finding bugs is normally exciting, it was actually a bit disheartening to see problems in production and to spend my last week working on real problems. As such, I really haven't been motivated to do much around the house.
So today is about doing dishes, running several loads of laundry, going through the last week of mail (some email too), putting away the stuff I brought home from the office, cleaning out the fridge, and doing some grocery shopping. But first, I got to sleep in late for the first time in a really long time. I think I got up about 10:30.
Oh and I made it to gym for the second day in a row. Good. And I stepped on a scale for the first time in weeks. Bad, very bad. Tomorrow I buy a new scale.
Taking the Summer Off
As many of you who are reading this know, a couple months ago my company decided to close its Bellevue office and laid us all off. I was part of the transition team that was retained until May 3 to help move our work from Bellevue to Kiev. While May 3 is technically my last day at Serena, Thursday was my last day in the office and today starts my "summer".
Rather than jump back into another job, I decided to take a break for the summer to work on some projects. I'm going to try to blog about my day-to-day activities though won't necessarily post daily. One thing I want to do is take an extended trip to Las Vegas though this seems harder and harder to fit in around other plans.
Rather than jump back into another job, I decided to take a break for the summer to work on some projects. I'm going to try to blog about my day-to-day activities though won't necessarily post daily. One thing I want to do is take an extended trip to Las Vegas though this seems harder and harder to fit in around other plans.
Thursday, April 29
Long time no see
I haven't blogged in quite some time because I haven't played any poker since I got back from Vegas. As it gets to be summer in Seattle my weekends and weeknights have been busy. And with my poker buddy overseas, no one has called to say let's play poker.
But I did play Tuesday night finally. Played the 2-40 spread game at Club Hollywood. I used to love this game an find it easy money. But since Snoqualmie opened I've found the lure of no limit 20 minutes away too enticing to trek to Shoreline very often. The game was just as I remembered that I played well which helped. I won three sizeable pots snapping off bluffs on the river, though a couple were just terrible bluffing spots. In 2.5 hours I more than doubled my buy-in.
With my job done (more on that later) I should be able to play more than once a month going forward.
More of poker and my summer plans soon.
But I did play Tuesday night finally. Played the 2-40 spread game at Club Hollywood. I used to love this game an find it easy money. But since Snoqualmie opened I've found the lure of no limit 20 minutes away too enticing to trek to Shoreline very often. The game was just as I remembered that I played well which helped. I won three sizeable pots snapping off bluffs on the river, though a couple were just terrible bluffing spots. In 2.5 hours I more than doubled my buy-in.
With my job done (more on that later) I should be able to play more than once a month going forward.
More of poker and my summer plans soon.
Sunday, March 7
Tulalip tournament
Finally played poker for the first time in a couple of weeks. A friend wanted to play the Tulalip evening tournament, so we met in Northgate and carpooled up. The tournament has 30-minute levels which is much better than the 15-20 minute levels you see in most places. The structure allows for play, though there's a huge jump after the first break when blinds go from 100-200 (300 an orbit) to 200-400 with a 25 ante (850 an orbit). To be frank, this is a flaw in what's otherwise a good tournament.
Given that you go from good stack to short stack after the break, I took some chances in the third and fourth levels and wound up busting out early. While busting out early seems like a bad thing, it's actually better to take chances and bust out early than nurse a tiny stack a long time and still miss the money. 11th and 120th place pay the same -- nothing. Of course if you get to 11th or 12th, you had a chance to cash, but truly these no difference between 30th and 90th except you waste a couple more hours. A had a couple of hands where I made a steal raise, bet the flop and got check-raised all-in. Not having much of a hand, I could fold but that cost be a lot of chips. Went out when I made a small raise with KK looking for action, shoved on an A-A-9 flop (pretty good) and was called by 99.
The cash game was good, though I hate the 1-3 blinds and $200 max structure. I guess it's the same as 2-5, $300 max but both feel very, very small. On an aside, that's one of the pluses of playing in Vegas -- they have larger max buy-ins which allows you to win more money and play more hands. Imagine choosing between two stocks that are similar companies each selling for $10/share (yes the price is silly but bear with me). If you were told one stock could never go above $20 while the other could go into the $50s, the latter is the better choice all other things being equal.
I turned a small profit in the cash game and was close to even for the night. I think I made one bad fold, but since I folded I'll never know. I'd go back sometime, but it's still quite a trip. With a couple stops at the park and ride and dropping off Meier and home, it took me well over an hour to get home.
Given that you go from good stack to short stack after the break, I took some chances in the third and fourth levels and wound up busting out early. While busting out early seems like a bad thing, it's actually better to take chances and bust out early than nurse a tiny stack a long time and still miss the money. 11th and 120th place pay the same -- nothing. Of course if you get to 11th or 12th, you had a chance to cash, but truly these no difference between 30th and 90th except you waste a couple more hours. A had a couple of hands where I made a steal raise, bet the flop and got check-raised all-in. Not having much of a hand, I could fold but that cost be a lot of chips. Went out when I made a small raise with KK looking for action, shoved on an A-A-9 flop (pretty good) and was called by 99.
The cash game was good, though I hate the 1-3 blinds and $200 max structure. I guess it's the same as 2-5, $300 max but both feel very, very small. On an aside, that's one of the pluses of playing in Vegas -- they have larger max buy-ins which allows you to win more money and play more hands. Imagine choosing between two stocks that are similar companies each selling for $10/share (yes the price is silly but bear with me). If you were told one stock could never go above $20 while the other could go into the $50s, the latter is the better choice all other things being equal.
I turned a small profit in the cash game and was close to even for the night. I think I made one bad fold, but since I folded I'll never know. I'd go back sometime, but it's still quite a trip. With a couple stops at the park and ride and dropping off Meier and home, it took me well over an hour to get home.
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