G-Vegas

I moved to G-Vegas (Greenville, SC) in the fall of '87 and left in the summer of '91 after our wedding. My wife's family still lives there, so I visit regularly. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment in an older building called the Davenport on Washington and Church. It was the end of the textile industry in the Carolinas and the hint of rebirth of the G-Vegas downtown. At the time, there was a small section of Main Street that was nice with a big Hyatt and my favorite restaurant downtown called Ristorante Bergamo. Most of the downtown was littered with Disco clothing and Army/Navy stores. G-Vegas was a big town then with not much to do except to go out and try to pick up chicks. I wasn't very good at it as I smelled of sulfuric acid and textile dye most of the time, as well as was in a fairly desparate state working every waking hour.

I was on a meal plan at Monterrey's Mexican (or might as well have been--eating there up to four times a week). The best it ever got was one waiter who would see me, bring me my Coke, chips, and salsa, not ask for my order but just bring me beef fajitas/no sour cream/no guacamole/all beans/no rice/extra order of flour tortillas. I was losing about two pounds per week, but this type of food consumption would serve me well in my quest to double my weight. My other favorite places to eat were Frodo's Pizza, Krispy Kreme, any meat and three place (serving three different meat dishes and ten sides, you choose your meat and three sides), The Peddler (where they brought meat to your table, then you told them to stop at some point indicating the thickness of your steak; sort of a wheel of fortune approach to dining).

We went to the Greenville Zoo today. The first time I went, they had an elephant chained to a wall. And I don't mean that figuratively. Today, there was I guess the same elephant roaming in a nice little habitat. Got to see howler monkeys, which seem like a no-brainer when it comes to zoo populating. What a racket! The only time they shut up was when I got to them. I also knocked over a four-year-old girl with her mother right there (my only chance of not being arrested). She was doing some sort of Ice Capades death-spiral spin, and the more I moved away from her the faster she spun at me.

The first grown-up poker I ever played was with shift workers. We'd play two or three card guts, as well as Dr. Pepper (2's, 4's and 10's wild). Guts is a pot matching game, and I won alot from my employees but then had to schedule them for overtime to get them to pay me back. There was no such thing as poker books or theory, just gambling and winging it.

I don't know if I love it here or anything. I used to think I had a great relationship with my in-laws, but that's soured significantly over the last year. They let their displeasure be known regarding my parenting skills and/or general worth. Suffice it to say I've tried to avoid interacting with them too much in the last twelve months, so this trip is not something I necessarily was planning or looking forward to.

I told my wife about a year ago that I thought I couldn't name the least weird person I know. I mean, who is the least weird person you know? I think almost everyone is weird to one degree or another, it's just degrees of weirdness. And the complication in my life is not only being weird but also the fact that it takes us alot longer to reach adulthood now than it used to. My dad's generation became men at 20 or 25. Mine? Well, we still play video games, online poker. Maybe we never become adults now, I don't know.

Trying to practice my NLHE skills for BadBlood's highway robbery, donking off more of my chips on Stars. Just flopped top two pair with JTo, check-raising a bettor and original raiser only to be called by the flush draw. Great. Should you watch the table when you are playing NLHE? I'm always multi-tasking while I play, so I never really pay attention to table image and what people raise with and other stuff like that. You better not try any double moves on me as I won't catch any of them.

Got to play a bit of Party here in the coffee shop in TR (north of G-Vegas). Down a sweet $600, which is always a great way to start the month. $15/30, with a ton of action. I raised in late position with QTs, got capped by two others, flopped my Q then turned my T only to be up against QQ (ouch). Got flushed out of another pot on the river, JJ hit a great flop of AKQ, JJ vs. QQ on undercards, blah, blah, blah, poker hands, blah, blah, blah. The best part of it all is that it looks like I may have closed my China deal that I though I had last week then lost (all in a span of about two hours and three emails), but now it looks like a go. I'm hoping to get a bit unstuck here, but it looks like I got malfunctionized on Party (where I can't get to the table that I'm at). Had just re-raised with JJ, and won the pot (pre-flop). My goal for April has been to be up for the month, so it's probably healthy to be down already (fuzzy math maybe). I've given up trying to get back to the table. It sucks when you find such a good table of re-raisers and loose players, you've invested already, then you can't have a chance to make it back. That is a bad thing, unless I was going to lose more, then it's a good thing.

By the way, this is tomorrow's (Wednesday's) post today, as I try to post once a day during the week, but I'm not sure if I'll find internet access. The boys and I will be riding horses of all things, which should be a great joy. I can't lift my arms over my head due to my biennial workout yesterday. I think I look pretty buff today, though, so I've got that going for me. Take care, and thanks for dropping by.