The dome is half full

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated... I think Seahang's inactivity has influenced me as well. Now I'm trying to work out in jeans, watch last night's episode of Desperate Housewives, and blog all at the same time so we'll see how it goes...

It was an eventful weekend out in Yosemite as a group of five of us headed out to hike half dome. I had attempted the 17 mile hike before way back at the end of freshman year. At that time, the cables were down, so we weren't able to make it all the way up there. This time would be different!

It was late in the season and very different from when Ruth and I went out on a day trip in May. When we passed through the Mist Trail, there was no mist at all!! Despite that, there were still enough nice waterfalls to keep us going, including the always picturesque trail up to Nevada Falls:



It was long, arduous trip, and my lack of being shape became quickly evident as the group started splintering and I was sauntering through the forest alone:



It was a good thing that I had my friend the camelbak to keep me company and hydrated along the way:



As we got closer, my legs couldn't really handle it anymore. I was limping along and it felt slower than when we were trudging out of the Grand Canyon. Nevertheless, we eventually got close enough that the goal became within site!



Unfortunately, one of the items that remained in the way was those darn cables! It was pretty freaky as it was fairly steep in spots and the going was slow... look at how scary this stuff is!



Evelyn and Daniel sped up the outside of the cables to go up and look for Audrey while Adrian and I sauntered our way up the middle. It got a little embarrassing when the 7 year old girl behind us started going up the side with her mom, leaving us behind in the dust as we struggled to go from wood plank to wood plank behind the masses. But... we eventually made it up there!



We lounged around the top and took some pictures... there was a freaky lookout point where you can hardly see Daniel and I:



The hike down was not nearly as bad as the way up, but it was still a friggin long way. The only thing that kept me going was the allure of food at the end of the day. We brought a nice feast with us that included Smores, corn, vegetables... and steak!



It was a super long hike and I'm still feeling the effects of it. I can't believe I actually made it up there and am grateful to have had the chance to get away for a weekend!

Edit: Roothie's really proud of me for coming home safely and not making out with other girls.

Riverstars

Dang, I've had my fair share of bad beats and delivered them likewise on Pokerstars, but this has to be the worst:

PokerStars Game #2600894043: Tournament #12697912, Hold'em No Limit - Level VI (100/200) - 2005/09/17 - 22:05:19 (ET)
Table '12697912 1' Seat #7 is the button
Seat 3: marty236 (3630 in chips)
Seat 5: mccreadj (1065 in chips)
Seat 7: 'in4the$$ (1680 in chips)
Seat 8: ironman9 (3640 in chips)
Seat 9: hubes1 (3485 in chips)
ironman9: posts small blind 100
hubes1: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hubes1 [Ks As]

Friggin nice cards in the BB... someone please raise into me... preferably the small stack.

marty236: folds
mccreadj: raises 200 to 400

Bwahahaha... ignorant small stack.

'in4the$$: folds
ironman9: folds
hubes1: raises 800 to 1200

Pretty academic from here... time to put this poor boy out of his misery.

mccreadj: calls 665 and is all-in

Villain shows his Kc 8c... now all I gotta do is dodge his 8s, right? No worries.. got him dominated, up 72-27. I'll take those odds. Chip lead here I come...

*** FLOP *** [5s Qs 8s]

I was so angry for a sec when I saw his 8... until I realized I just flopped the nut flush. At this point, I'm up 98-2. Yes, 98-2. He has very very very very poor odds now. Starting to celebrate a little bit inside, but still two more cards to come...

*** TURN *** [5s Qs 8s] [8d]

That's what I *really* didn't want to see and why I was holding off on celebrating. Nevertheless, I'm still up 80-20. Lightning can't strike twice, can it?

*** RIVER *** [5s Qs 8s 8d] [5c]

The board pairs. That's usually not a good thing. In this case, a very bad thing. A ridiculously bad thing even. HE JUST RUNNER RUNNERED A FULL HOUSE TO MY NUT FLUSH.

*** SHOW DOWN ***
hubes1: shows [Ks As] (a flush, Ace high)
mccreadj: shows [Kc 8c] (a full house, Eights full of Fives)
mccreadj collected 2230 from pot

hubes1 said, "omg"
mccreadj said, "omg"

At least the poor bastard felt bad about it.

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2230 | Rake 0
Board [5s Qs 8s 8d 5c]
Seat 3: marty236 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: mccreadj showed [Kc 8c] and won (2230) with a full house, Eights full of Fives
Seat 7: 'in4the$$ (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: ironman9 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: hubes1 (big blind) showed [Ks As] and lost with a flush, Ace high


And so it goes...

Thank goodness I somehow still barely managed to finish in the money

Random smattering of thoughts...

There's nothing really to post about, but here's a collection of random tidbits from the last week or so:

• Our softball team is so sad that we get really excited and start circulating email threads around when we win. Granted, it was a pretty good game and I'd definitely prefer that to losing, but it was amusing nonetheless.
  

• Golf is a frustrating, frustrating game. But despite a medicore round, I got my recorded my first par on a par-4 hole. At least as far as I can remember, I might have somehow managed to luck into it before as well. And to think I was only a good 9 iron shot away from recording a par on a par 5! Of course, I also lost 6 balls during that round :(
  

• Interviewing is really different from the other side. I find it so hard to stay interested in what they're saying. I guess if/when I'm interviewing again I'll need to keep that in mind. It gives you a whole new perspective of what it takes to be successful at interviewing.
  

• Vegetation in front of the TV is on the horizon. Now have to add Lost to the string of shows I was watching last fall (football, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, 24). At least it's mid-week so it breaks it up a bit. Happy that football season finally started up!
  

• Fantasy sports are fun for the first weeks of the season. I ended up randomly drafting 14 football teams although by the time the season starts, I only care out like 3. Somehow managed to go 12-2 the first week :) But yeah, after the draft and first couple weeks, it doesn't get quite as interesting. At least for football, you only have to pay attention once a week. Then again, basketball drafts should be on the horizon... Go Warriors!
  

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go!

For some reason this morning, it sort of struck me as weird that we were going to work. Like in a bizarre moment of realization, I'm actually working. I just passed my two year anniversary at work and it's amazing how fast it's gone by. I guess it's a good sign that it hasn't really felt like work; we're just figuring out to improve products, building them, and launching them. Although I do put in a fair amount of work, I think I've been pretty good about managing work-life balance... my housemates have recently been a helpful influence in making sure other things are going on. It's definitely good to maintain perspective, like a verse that I've read recently with Roothie:

"All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever."


Three day weekend!

Man, three day weekends are so nice. People are moving pretty slowly the Friday before and are slow to recover the Tuesday after, so it's essentiallly a four day week followed by a three day week. It's just a pity that the weekend itself inevitably goes by quickly. This past weekend I visited Roothie in Houston!

For a lot of the time, we just bummed around, took naps, rented movies, went to the mall, and just generally relaxed, which was a lot of fun. While at the mall, I picked up a new set of kicks... even if I'm going to continue to struggle at golf, I might as well have some snazzy shoes to do it in! Andrew has been regularly checking out the sportmart ads and picked up some shoes for himself over the weekend as well, but I'm sure mine look much cooler:



The first movie we rented was Kung Fu Hustle, which was pretty entertaining. While at the video store, I also picked up a couple used DVDs: Million Dollar Baby, Dodgeball, and Garden State... all of which I've seen before but are pretty good movies... we ended up watching the first two over the weekend. The crown jewel of the video rentals was Ong Bak: Thai Warrior. I had never heard of it, but apparently Abe is really up to date on his entertainment news because it was sold out at the first store and we had to get it from behind the desk at Hollywood. Muay Thai is pretty sweet and this guy does some pretty amazing stuff:



The houses down in Texas are really nice... a lot bigger than here in California of course. Roothie's house is no exception! Her room is especially interesting, as is her collection of pigs she's collected as gifts:



When we weren't lounging around inside, we played with the dogs. It was the first time I had seen Logan in a long time and he had gotten a lot bigger! We even attempted to take them for a walk, but that only lasted a couple hundred yards before it got too hot and we went back inside :) The dogs are still looking pretty cute (Logan's ear is still broken):





The main event of the weekend was probably the Astros - Cardinals game that we caught, which featured two of the best pitchers in the game: Roger Clemens and Chris Carpenter. It's too bad the Rocket got injured and left the game early. It was a close game, but the Cards managed to pull it out. Going to such a nice stadium made to realize again how run down the A's Coliseum is :( I was expecting it to be hot and humid, but it was nice and cool since it was indoors. Despite the hometown loss, we still managed to have fun and eat some yummy chili cheese fries:





It was a really fun weekend as Roothie and I got to hang out for the first time in a while. Can't wait until the next time!!!!

When life gives you poker, pick up poker chicks

Gimpy cracks me up... reading his chat is more fun than actually playing:

[ gimpy opens with his standard raise ]
gggimp said, "hey you're pretty cute yilov"
yllov said, "ohhhhhhhhhh tyty"
gggimp said, "psyche!"

yllov said, "lol"
[ she laughed... she's a keeper! ]

[ gimpy pushes ]
gggimp said, "can i have your number?"
yllov said, "lol srry to far away"
gggimp said, "where are you?"
yllov said, "sweden"
[ swedish chick! ]

[ gimp the romantic ]
gggimp said, "love knows no distance"
yllov said, "lol"

[ gimp the desperate ]
gggimp said, "you can give me webcam love"
gggimp said, "love at first chat, baby"

[ next tries bribery ]
gggimp said, "give me your digits and i'll lose a pot to you"
yllov said, "if u ur kind and give me u chips maybe i give it thought:)"

[ distracts other players ]
scooby5 said, "she even chats in an accent"
gggimp said, "yeah totally sexy"
yllov said, "lol"

[ trying to move the online pickup into an offline meeting ]
gggimp said, "have you been to america yllov?"
yllov said, "no but soon i go"
yllov said, "in december"
gggimp said, "NEED A PLACE TO STAY?!?!?!?!"
yllov said, "lol i go to LA"
gggimp said, "perfect that's right by my house"
yllov said, "lol"

[ demonstrating his eloquence ]
gggimp said, "are you an aspiring actress?"
yllov said, "hmmmmmm what that?? srry i have bad eng"
gggimp said, "are you be going to hollywoods to becoming an actress"
yllov said, "lol no"

[ at this point, gimpy flops top two pair ]
gggimp said, "oh because i'm a producer"
gggimp said, "i'm looking for new talent"
yllov said, "gl lol"
gggimp said, "i can tell you have good headshots"
yllov said, "oklol"
gggimp said, "how tall are you?"

[ top two pair slowplayed into letting someone runner their straight ]
gggimp said, "BASTARD!!"
gggimp said, "i was saving those chips for my love"

So what came of this whole exchange besides the careless loss of a $6 buy-in? Only time will tell...

Go big or go home!

I don't really understand how people pick up lifelong hobbies because it seems like everytime I pick something up, it stays interesting and fun for a season before the next hobby comes along or interest somehow wanes (usually in high correlation with discovering that I can't perfect it after just trying it for a few weeks). This is just as true for our house.

For example, we acquired some random items like a dartboard and a mini basketball hoop. We played like crazy for a few weeks, perhaps a month even, but I think the novelty just wore off.

When it comes to sports, I don't think it's so much that the novelty wears off, but that it gets too frustrating when you can't perform like you'd want. There are definitely periods of time that I just don't play volleyball for months on end because of a frustrating season. At this point, it seems like we've built up some reasonable momentum with softball, although it's one of those games you can just always pick up whenever.

And then there are things like hearts and working out, where they seem to have continued on because there's either 1) a social aspect to doing the activity together in a group and/or 2) there is public humiliation for not participating. Most recently, we've added golf and online poker, where there are definitely elements of camaraderie, be it struggling to reproduce those fleeting beautiful shots or commiserating in times of bad beats. I feel almost guilty for re-invigorating our house around it as we've had plenty of late nights this week. Maybe it's more about finding hobbies that cater to 1), although I guess 2) is also a pretty good motivating factor. Not that I ever agreed to the stupid penalty jar!