Birthday Extravaganza Day 4: Back to the Grind

Just finished my expenses from the December travels. Total: $22,747.61, which include $13,643.81 in airfare and over $500 in phone/internet fees. I'll be copying these receipts for a couple of hours, and who knows if the client will be able to make heads or tails of all the travel and pounds to dollars etc.

So, I also blew my $205 FTP $5/10 buy-in over 166 hands. I did donk off a chunk of it by raising KK with 44 and all overcards on the board, but let's get real a bit:

• First hand: I defend my BB with Kh4h and a caller in front of me. 4cAdKd is sweet, and check to the better and one caller then raise with the better re-raising and the caller getting out. Ks on the turn is sweet, although I'm sweating AK for sure. I quit worrying about that when I bet and am called, only to see the worst Ah on the river. I check/call to see AJ.
• OK, I'm still not sure why I bet into KK with 44, as well as into AK with a K on the board when I had AQ, so let's set those aside for a moment as temporary insanity.
• Top pair bad kicker to limped AA (almost flushed out on him, so I've got no problem losing to limping AA ever unless it's in NLHE and it takes all my money away)
  
• Top pair to A5 with an ace on the river
• KQ vs KJ catching the J on the turn when the K flopped
• A7o vs A6s catching the flush on the river
• Somehow getting pocket pairs and AQ five hands in a row and never improving

Now that I typed all of that out, it goes back to 24% VPIP, playing too many hands while multiplying Euros and Pounds to figure out these expenses.

For the cube monkeys out there, here is a scary thought: I own the company, have no employees in my office, so I have no one to watch me throughout the day, which is probably like having a junkie work in the basement narcotics evidence warehouse place or pharmacy or some sort of analogy. It is really an incredible feat that I don't play 16 hours a day, so I'm proud that I'm typing this rather than playing.

I'm either going to stop in at Commerce Casino or the Bicycle. Anyone who has been to either/both I'd appreciate any guidance. I land at 3:30 Wednesday then fly out 11:00AM Thursday LAX-Shanghai with a stop in Seoul, so I'm going to try to play through the night and sleep on the plane.

POSTSCRIPT EDIT: I've had some great comments and discussion with Felicia Lee regarding her post on what she thinks makes a good poker blog. I thought of one other characteristic, but first let me digress a little more into why I responded. Felicia is in the small group of poker bloggers that are both excellent players and excellent bloggers. That seperates her from the best poker bloggers (Pauly) and the better players (Arieh, Negreanu), so my response was in some ways a self analysis regarding is this blog that I have any good, as well as a response to her. A bit self centered and defensive on my part, but there it is. So another characterstic that makes a good poker blog, in my opinion:

• Candor: the best put reality out there, whether it be donking off their cash, sucking out, whatever. I think honesty and candor bring a fresh reality to the content. It is related to Felicia's characteristic on opinion, which is also key.
  

So there you go with that.