Uber-post to catch up

For once, instead of making a bunch of itty-bitty posts, I think I’ll behave like Iggy and just write one massive, giant uber post to mark the 800th posting to this little corner of the interwebs (and a big thanks to the nearly 14,000 sets of eyes that have come here, plus a bunch of feeders.)

On Monday morning, I took my father back to the airport after an eight-night stay. All in all, it was a fairly uneventful trip, which is about the best that could be hoped for. On Sunday, my patience was beginning to wear a bit thin, but that could have also been due to helping move a friend on Friday and going to Six Flags on Saturday.

We talked about a number of things for future care and planning – he’s returned and set up appointments for radiation and chemotherapy treatments for his lung cancer, and seems to have a realistic but positive outlook on things. He thankfully seems a lot more grounded than he used to be.

Strangely enough, the one around the house who will probably miss him the most isn’t me, or the kids. It’s the dog. Having someone around during the day that moves around as badly as she does probably helped a bit, and it was probably nice for her to have company all day.

The kids enjoyed spending time with him, and we prepared them for his eventual return to Arizona, so they didn’t have too much of a meltdown when it was time to go. They did enjoy having him around, talking with him, and playing with him. They probably also enjoyed the occasional story of my younger days, when they listened.

The biggest thrill for the kids all week was probably Six Flags. Alex is just barely over 42” tall, but that is tall enough to ride some of the faster, taller rides. He was able to ride his first real rollercoaster – the Scream Machine – while sitting in the front row with me.

He LOVED it. He didn’t get sick, or scared, but thought it was “AWESOME” as he told me when we pulled back into the station.

He also got to go on the Canyon Blaster, the Mine Train, and Splashwater Falls, and enjoyed the new Thomas Town area built this year.

Samantha enjoyed Skull Island and playing in the water, while climbing up everything with me, so she had a good amount of fun as well at the park. She was pretty comfortable the rest of the week, even going and sitting next to him on the couch several times during the week.

Overall, I guess it was a good visit for everybody involved.

Now that this visit is out of the way, it’s back to life as normal – for the most part. In fairness, we haven’t been at “normal” for about a year, so it will take a while to get back there – and once we do, it’ll be time to upset the apple cart again as classes start in August and I’ll be gone some nights of the week.

Once August rolls around (by which time the WSOP and all associated online freerolls will be over) I will probably stop playing online poker entirely. I have a T$ balance still on Bodog which I will be using in their mini-SOP events (in which I am 0-for-2 so far), and a lot of freeroll tournaments coming up on Full Tilt in connection to the WSOP, but besides those I don’t think I will be playing too much anymore. I’ve noticed that I’ve been even more tired than normal lately, and this is probably the time when I need to rest up and enjoy other things before I start classes again.

I am enjoying the coverage Pauly is putting out there on Tao of Poker (which is some of the best writing around) and I’m glad it is on a site I can read during the day – I can’t pull up PokerNews. I love reading about it, and I wish I was there, and I don’t plan on pulling out of live play because it is so much fun.

But it is time to decide on no more donkaments for me for a while. I need a break. I’d like to have nights like the last two nights, where I can get home from work and have time to prepare a nice, normal dinner without worrying about that night’s tournament, or the next day’s classes. For the record, I think the fried chicken breasts and marinated pork steak were some of the best meals I’ve made in a long time (apologies for the lack of pics), just because I haven’t had the time to actually enjoy being in the kitchen, being around kids, writing posts that occasionally get an avalanche of views, and just take things in stride.

It’s been a non-stop barrage of trippy occurrences, one after the other.

So, it’s time to take a break of sorts from poker. It is summer vacation, right? Besides, with travel starting in a few weeks to (possibly) Washington, Florida, New Orleans, New York, Boston, Maryland, and maybe even the Winter 2008 version of a western sojourn along with any work travel that might pop up, I need to rest up.