Sunny San Diego

I got a new job in San Diego, CA. I have yet to find a place to settle and so I'm in at a public Internet place at the moment. My uncle was helpful enough to pick me up at L.A. airport a week ago and bring me here.

I've never seen so much Filipinos in one area! I have finally eaten Jollibee for like what? 4 years. lol. I still like their chicken and spaghetti. Those fine dining, $50 pastas from Italian restaurants got nothing on Jollibee's spaghetti.

I work at a startup Internet company. It's been great so far... the hours are long. But fortunately, I get paid by the hour. I've already made a few friends there. And I'm learning the ins and outs of an Internet company.

Anyway, today's Saturday, and my cousins invited me to have a dinner near their place near Irvine, CA. It's approximately 2 hours away. I hope to catch up on them.

I recently learned about the devastating typhoon that hit the Philippines. I called my mom and it seem they won't have power for at least a few days. She's stressed out with all of this happening plus the work she was trying to do in the lot she bought.

At the end of it all though, I'm glad my family's ok overall. My brothers are in college, and my sister is happy with her work and she's getting a lot of valuable experience. My father's back in the country, from a business trip and he's finally with my mom. So, I can't complain.

I hope to be back updating more frequently once I get an apartment and set up my Internet connection.

Road Trip Part Deux

I'm gonna have my car oil changed today plus some other stuff done to keep it in top shape. I'll be having another long, most-likely-multi-day road trip. The only problem is, I don't know where I'm going yet! I have recently left my job and am looking for a new one.

I've been in talks with at least 5 recruiters, each to a different place. The only sure one I got right now is the one in Omaha, Nebraska. I consider this the least of my choices. I am not really eager to get back to the Midwest anytime soon, but if none of the others work out, I might as well bite the bullet and take this.

I am not that comfortable using my car on long distances, unlike before. My car has the propensity to break down now. An alternative is to take the airplane route and have a service transport my car there. I have to check on a friend how much it took him when he did it.

$200 buy in tournament

So I'm now in this tournament playing a variation of poker called Razz. I won a buy-in from a smaller tournament. When I won the buy-in, I asked if I could just convert my winnings into real money. Unfortunately it's not allowed. And so I'm here now.

For weeks, the tournament stood at ~300 players, and it had a prize pool of $100,000. I recon the first prize is probably $20,000. As I checked in 30 minutes before the start of the tournament, it bloated up to 1200 players with a 240k prize pool. Wow! And the first prize now pays a little under 60k.

One thing that surprised me too was the tournament structure. In the satellites, the ante's and bring-ins (mandatory fees to start a round of betting), grow quickly (10-15 minute intervals) and so you have to try and gamble more often with less than spectacular hands or otherwise, your chip stack will be withered away by the antes and bring-ins. This tournament has a much slower structure (30 minutes before the antes and bring-ins increase). And you start with more chips than usual. So the action will be a little bit slow and you can afford to wait for more premium hands.

I had an initial strategy entering the tournament. I figured I would play very tight and wait for strong hands but with this structure, you really need to get your feet wet and be part of the action.

55 minutes:
So far, I'm up to 2800 in chips up 300 from the initial stack of 2500. It will be a slow grind. My table is kind of tight, so I have to tangle a little bit. There's two people who seem to like to bluff a lot. Let me get in with a premium hand and I can probably break them.

5 minute break at the 1hr mark:
So, it's the first break, and now I'm able to go to the restroom and do misc. things.

As I wait, let me write about my style of play in Razz. My philosophy in Razz has always been: Make as few mistakes as possible. Razz, unlike Texas Hold'Em is a game of patience. You cannot out muscle people out of pots as easily as you can in Hold'Em. So you oftentimes have to wait for premium hands. If you go in with less, you stand a big chance of losing a big chunk of your stack. Sure, there's an element of luck and your opponent can get extremely lucky on you and vice versa, but going in with a strong hand at least lessens those wild swings.

1h 30m:
I rocketed to the chip leader of my table with 4200. So far, I had two big hands where I didn't get _unlucky_ to lose. Sometimes, you have a sure thing and it gets snatched away from you by a miracle card your opponent happen to catch. So far that hasn't happened to me.

2nd break at the 2h mark:
Time to get some drinks and freshen up!

I didn't advance a lot in the last 30 minutes. I fluctuated from 3900 to 4600 ending up at 4500. And I'm currently 99th place out of the remaining 1219 players still in the tourney. Not bad.

I'm kind of experiencing a little bit of fatigue. Hopefully, I'm still ok in the next hour or two.

2h 35m:
I ran into a couple of tough situations where I got a little bit unlucky and lost. My chip stack shrank from 4500 to a mere 2300 now. I'm still in the game, but the buffer I built up has thinned up a bit.

3rd break at the end of hour 3:
I was at one point down to 900 chips. Fortunately, the last hand I was in more than doubled me up back to 2260. At this point, I need to really be sure of my hands, since the ante's and bring-ins will be higher. Action will be fast in the next rounds.

There are 866 players left and the chip leader is at 12,500. I need to cover a lot of ground.

4th break:
I'm at 3700 chips at the moment. I actually made a good run up to around 6000 chips before I lost some of it in a big hand. The tourney's down to 508 players. And at this point, the big stacks (around 25,000 at this point) should be looking to elminate the little guys (like me!). But I have to just play at the top of my wits and hopefully I win something big.

5h:
I went to as much as 10,000. But then a couple of tough hands brought me down to 4k. After that, I couldn't catch something until I am finally eliminated--finishing 361st out of 1297. Not bad.

On my final hand, I had very bad cards, but I knew my opponent was even worse. I went all in and when the cards were turned, I was correct. I had the better hand, but a card on the river saved my opponent while I didn't improve. Oh well, it had been fun. And I'm exhausted. Time to have some R&R.

How tonight went

Manu and I decided to eat outside tonight. It's been a while since the last time we went out together.

Anyway, I was upset with most of the evening; he knows what it is about. He told me a few things to lighten the situation. It's so annoying when he makes a point that makes sense.

Anyway, after dinner, we didn't feel like going home quickly. And he figured I'll be asking us to play pool. He's not really good with it and always loses to me, so he said he didn't want to do that. I futilely asked him to go bowling instead, but he gets beaten so bad there too, so he didn't go for that.

Actually, come to think of it, I beat him in every single game that we play. Except maybe in poker, where he sometimes gets lucky. But that's another story.

So finally, we decided to watch a movie. Eventually, we came to watch The Wicker Man starring Nicolas Cage. The movie was "meh" at best. I can't give anything out and ruin it for others, but it's a pretty average movie. There was one actresss there who I thought was Claire Forlani (the actress in Meet Joe Black), but it turns out it's just a stunning look alike.

Anyway, that's pretty much how tonight went.

Old friend

It's funny how, when we're reminded by our past, we usually enjoy some fond memories. No matter how many people you have met over the course of your life and will still meet, it's the people when you were young that will play a significant part in your life no matter how long it has been.

When I was young, I used to think that friends were ranked according to certain criteria. Like how understanding they are, or reliable when you got problems. I have met people like those and they're really great friends. But you had when you were young are some of the fondest friends that I have come to appreciate.

Like today, for example. I used friendster to lookup an old friend. We had some good times, and the feelings I had when I was a kid all came back. I remember how we were, our place in each other. There aren't any walls during that time, not that we were even aware of them, and that kind of gives it an innocent feel. There was even the hint of childhood crush that I hid. Those were fun and innocent times.

As I read more about her entry, I notice myself thinking of "What could have been." What if we continued to be friends? Or maybe even a step farther, "What if we became more than friends?" During those times, I could certainly have taken steps to make it happen.

It occurred to me how great her life must be these days. She has lots of friends and she seems successful in her career. And knowing what I know about her kindness and caring for the people around her, she is the perfect girl any guy can dream of.

It's so fun to ask these questions, and not dwell on them. They are just day dreams after all. But if I were given a choice to go back and choose, would I really _want_ it different than what it is now? Hmmm, now _that_ is an interesting question.

Thank God I have a lifetime to enjoy thinking about it.

That Unforgettable Night

It was easily my most physically painful night...

I looked at the wall clock. It read 2:36am. For 5 hours, I have been vomitting like crazy. Judging from the amount that I have purged, last night's dinner was all gone 2 hours ago. Whatever I'm was still vomitting, only God knows.

My stomach started aching at around 9pm and I figured it must be just a small deal and I can just sleep over it. Now, I'm thinking of how to get to the hospital. What made the situation worse is that my closest friend was in another place 2 hours away. How did I end up here? All alone in this alien town?

I suited up and walked slowly toward the parking lot behind the apartment building. God, it's cold. I already had 3 layers of clothing and it was still cold. It's not as bad as the eery silence all around. There's absolutely no one awake.

The pain was excrutiating. I couldn't walk very fast and one hand was holding my aching belly. I hope I don't vomit on my way.

I got into my car and reached for the glove compartment. It was a lot of effort just to stretch out a bit and get this folded piece of paper. I unfolded a map of the town to figure out exactly where the hospital is. The map was drawn in a kiddie sort of way, which I noticed made me upset since it was hard to see where the hospital is.

I drove into the town's main road. For some reason, I was hoping to catch a glimpse of a police car or something.

But there was none. It was like a ghost town.

After getting lost for a few minutes, I finally found the hospital. My stomach was so painful I was surprised I didn't pass out from the pain. I quickly knocked into the hospital door, which was locked. It took the guard a couple of painstaking minutes to open it.

I told the nurse about the whole ordeal. The doctor came afterwards and he pumped out all the contents of my stomach and injected some fluids. I then drove back and was glad I can fall asleep peacefully.

Looking back, it was a trying time, but these days, it's a good story for laughs.
The doctor said that I may have to change my diet forever, like no spicy or greasy foods. Pizza has turned me off, since it's makes my stomach queasy. And I have gotten a new found appreciation for milk which I drink whenever I can.

Can't win

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