Panhandle

I'm spending the night in Tallahassee. For those of you keeping score at home, you know that means I'm on my way back east.

As I hinted at yesterday, I spent the afternoon in New Orleans. As expected, I didn't find it to be the best place in the world to hang out by myself. Looks like a crazy town to visit with friends though; the French Quarter was full of people getting drunk in the street at 2:00 PM on a Thursday.

I accidentally drove through some rough areas, too... entire blocks of apparently abandoned houses, with groups of locals loitering on the street corners. Didn't look like the best place to get a flat tire. I also got yelled at by someone who ran a stop sign and almost hit me, though I didn't understand what he said other than the ubiquitous F bomb.

I headed back to Biloxi afterwards, deciding to drop in on the 1/2 no-limit game that I didn't get to play the day before. That turned out to be a good idea, as I made back most of my earlier losses and got comped another two meals (one of which was the grossest lunch buffet ever. I might need to write just about that in a separate post some day.)

Continued eastward this morning and made it to the Air Force Armament Museum, about 30 miles east of Pensacola, FL. THAT was cool! Inside are several exhibits, including small arms, large machine guns and cannons, missiles and small planes, trainers, and history. And outside, they have actual Air Force planes, such as:

The F-15:

And the B-52 (sorry, it's so big it doesn't all fit in the pic. 8 engines... gaaa) :

Looks like I might make it back to Tampa tomorrow.

A somber update

Here was the view from my room yesterday morning from the 9th floor of the Isle of Capri: (camera-phone pic, sorry for lack of quality)

I drove to New Orleans this morning, via route 90 along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Basically, for about 35 miles, there is a beautiful beach on the left. So if you want to be in your own happy little world, you keep looking left.

On the right... I know I can't adequately describe it. I'm going to give up for now, but I'll try to revisit it later. For the curious, the words that stick out in my mind the most are "graffiti", "cement", and "emptiness."

Biloxi, MS

As much as I'd like to post another poker boast, I'm checking in in the negative column tonight. I'm at the Isle of Capri casino in Biloxi, MS, on the gulf coast. My limit game is very much weaker than my no-limit game, but the only game they were running here was a 4/8 limit game with 1/2 blinds. Yeah, weird blind structure... I'm still feeling a bit confused by it. If any limit hold'em experts out there are reading this, perhaps they can offer some words of wisdom. Anyway, thanks to two huge suckouts (that's what limit is all about, right? and apparently always against me) I finished my 10 hour shift slightly in the red.

I did comp a $17 buffet, and got a reduced rate on my hotel room, which is a whole lot nicer than the Motel 6s I've been staying at! And again, it's too cold to sleep in the car down here, so this trip may be testing my budget more than I anticipated. I'm shocked; I expected it to be a lot warmer in the deep south.

A couple of notes on the buffet: First, I kind of justified the gross over-indulgence and extreme over-eating of the holidays by reminding myself of my summer trip, and how I ate very little, filled my days with activity, and in fact lost several pounds. So then here I am the second day after TurkeyBall and I am comped a free all-you-can-eat buffet (and um, sitting on my butt for 10 hours). YAY!!!! Second note, they had snow crab legs, of which I ate several, though refrained from pigging out since I'm still a tad worried about my phantom crab allergy. No symptoms though... I seem to be doing ok.

I also see that the stock market had a rather nice rally today which makes my poker loss look smaller than the tip I just gave to the bartender here.

TurkeyBall 2007 - The End

Sunday morning, Doug packed for his flight and then he and I headed back to the beach. This time, however, there were far fewer people, and only one set of lines for a volleyball court, which was kept occupied the entire time we were there. After some beach time, we eventually gave up on playing and went to the bar for food and beverage. Amy and Brian joined us shortly after, and we managed to get in a quick game of 2s on our hand-dug lines, and then I took Doug to the airport for his flight back to Vernon.

Note to self: next time, bring lines!

Monday was somewhat less eventful, though Amy did treat us to steak lunches at Remington's before I took Ron to the airport for his flight back to warm, sunny CT. Thanks, Amy! Later that night, we watched the single worst Monday Night Football game ever-- it was so bad, it was like a car wreck: you couldn't help but watch.

And now, having driven all day, I am still in Florida! I'm in Pensacola. Man, Florida is huge. Still not sure where I'm going from here, but I'm thinking of looking for a poker game in the Biloxi/Gulfport area of Louisiana tomorrow.

Thanks again to Dayong and Ron for hosting such a wonderful Thanksgiving vacation.

TurkeyBall 2007 - Saturday

Saturday was the day for the beach. We got off to a bit of a late start, leaving the house around noon. We went without Ron, who spent the day at Busch Gardens, and without Dayong, who played in a volleyball tournament with Ashley.

It was about 1:00 and a little cloudy, though perfect temperature, when we got to the Undertow Bar at St Pete Beach. There were four volleyball courts set up, and we had to wait a bit before we could play. I started playing 3s with two other girls, against Doug, Amy, and Akiko. My team won pretty easily and held the court for a while before my friends made it back. Fortunately, once they did, we all got to play for the rest of the day. And, long story short, we played until after the sun went down... by the time we finished, it was hard to see the ball. And unfortunately we were too busy all day playing to take pictures! We had a few snacks and drinks at the beach bar before heading back home.

Dayong cooks unbelievably good Chinese food, and he was cooking when we got home. We were pretty exhausted, but once again thankful for great food. I felt a little bit like a stuffed goose when Ron brought out dessert, but there's always room for ice cream, right?

Finished the night with some college football, including getting to see an Auburn player attacked by a police dog. Bad dog!

TurkeyBall 2007 - Friday

We went to bed Thursday night thinking we'd try to get up early and go on a canoe trip before Feng's flight back to New York. Didn't happen. It was around 9:00 by the time I stumbled downstairs and I was the first person up.

Dayong and Ron took Feng to the airport that morning, and Doug and I decided to take the canoe trip anyway. It's the same one we did last year, down the Hillsborough River via Canoe Escape. We got to get up close and personal with lots of wildlife, including some baby alligators:

And some not-quite baby alligators:


Lots of other wildlife as well, including herons, comorants, turtles, and jumping fish.

When we got home, Ron was setting up the house for Dayong's birthday party, so we helped set up. There were even more people there that night than on Thanksgiving (including Amy and Brian, who flew in later that evening), and unfortunately, I can't remember all their names. But it was another great meal, this time, steaks and asparagus cooked on the grill. And I learned something very important about myself. Two of their friends brought over some homemade crab soup. Now, I've lived my life so far convinced that I'm allergic to crab, since it runs in my family, and because i sometimes get some mild allergy symptoms if I gorge myself on shellfish. So I initially declined the soup, but it smelled so good I had to taste it. And then I couldn't stop eating it... but neither the hives nor the anaphylactic shock arrived to ruin my evening. So I have been living with a phantom crab allergy, and now I can eat all the crab I want! (might have been better to learn this back when I was making lots of money, but oh well!)

Finished the night off with cake, of course, and then more wine, of course, and then plenty of college basketball.

TurkeyBall 2007 - Thursday

Time for the volleyball tournament! There were six of us, so Dayong put together a schedule of ten games that had each person playing with and against everyone. The winner would be the one who played the most games on a winning team. And to spice things up a bit this year, we made betting sheets, where, for a dollar, you could pick winners and losers in hope of winning the final pool by picking more correctly than anyone else. So, as an optimist might say, there were two chances to win! The tournament, and the pool.

In addition to those of us from yesterday (Dayong, Feng, Doug, and myself), we were joined by two of Dayong's Tampa friends, Akiko and Ashley. We headed to the court at about 1:00, just in time to get rained on. Fortunately (or not, depending on your perspective) the rain ended about midway through, and that's about when two more of Dayong and Ron's Tampa friends showed up and started taking pictures.

Dayong on the attack (Akiko and Feng looking on, Doug blocking)


Me hitting, set by Feng. Ashley playing defense:


Feng passing with Akiko:


Me blocking Dayong:


Doug trying to block Dayong:


Doug showing perfect hitting form:


Final Results of the TurkeyBall Tournament: Dayong won, with 7 team victories. Feng won the betting pool, having picked an amazing 9/10 correct! Congratulations to the winners!

Thanksgiving dinner, of course, was to follow. Ron cooked an amazing turkey dinner, and their friend Sue brought over a really fantastic ham as well. As happens so frequently on these occasions, I ate to excess. And as is the TurkeyBall tradition, the tournament losers (of which apparently I was one, along with Akiko) have to do the dishes. I think that means we don't have to do them next year at least, no matter what happens.

As the last guests were leaving, Ron brought out the poker chips, and Doug, Feng, Ron, and I played the first annual TurkeyBall Poker Tournament while Dayong watched the UConn women trounce perennially overrated (in every sport) Stanford. Feng hadn't played before, and was knocked out first by Ron. It looked like I'd be next to go, losing most of my stack to Doug when my trip queens lost to his straight. But I managed to double up a few times and then knock Doug out, and eventually take out Ron when my pocket 77 held up against his AJ.

So I guess when I said there were two chances to win, I was wrong, as there were actually three!