Of Fish and Chips

Sorry, no Grandpa news this week.  I’m afraid I’d just repeat everything I already said before here and over my Twitter.  There was a brief trip to the hospital but it turned out to be nothing noteworthy.
Most my time has been centered around playing and reading all the poker I could digest.  In less than two weeks now, my family and I will be taking a trip up to the largest casino in the area (that’s not saying a lot) where I will be trying my skills at real life poker.  I got to say I feel very confident about the event.  While my record has yo-yoed this week, I think I’ve proven that I do have the skills to win.  It’s whether I use them on that day that’s the biggest variable.
I have no illusions of ever going pro and playing full-time for a living.  It just feels incredible to have something that I can say I’m better than the eight other guys at the table for that brief amount of time.  Call in an inferiority complex or whatever you will but the last time I was this good at something was the collectible trading card game (Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, Yugioh, etc.) fad a while back.  While one might argue the more expensive hobby, at least poker is far more widely accepted.  I’ve learned in my sort years that the popular opinion is usually the only one that matters.
I got a day off this week.  First one in over a month.  After blissfully wasting the first half on the couch watching the BBCA, I visited the local library.  I could, and probably will, write a whole post on what horrible condition of that place. I think I’ll call them tomorrow and see if they’re looking to hire anyone.  Or maybe could just use a volunteer.  Either way I have to do something.  I mean, this area isn’t know for its intellectual merit but we could still do better.
Dismounting my soapbox now.
After I checked out Contact by Carl Sagan, I went out to the lake to do some fishing.  I don’t fish often.  It’s usually just an excuse to get out, enjoy the quiet and read.  So I was actually surprised when my pole started slipping into the water.  After some tough fighting I landed a very nice catfish.  When I got back, Dad was a little jealous because he fished almost exclusively for catfish and has never caught one in that lake.  He has all sorts of specialized poles, lures and bait, and I caught one with just an old hook and worm.  Exactly what I needed to refresh myself.

An Eternity, Just Like Before

My first attempt at a Ficly has been published!  It is somewhat allegorical.  Perhaps too obviously allegorical if you’ve read any of earlier posts on this blog.  Coincidentally, this also answers yesterday Plinky prompt about what keeps me up at night.  Just in case I haven’t bared my soul enough already.

everything below is written with complete honesty.

An Eternity, Just Like Before

I’ve always been alone. Only difference now is that I no longer have a choice in the matter. The loneliness, the silence, the mind-numbing boredom; I was well-adjusted to all that and more before I started this. My ‘free range incarceration’ as I have come to call it.
Before… before what happened… I lived with my aging grandfather in a small apartment in the smallest town, surrounded by crop fields as far as the eye can see. I would have loved to get out and meet people or go to an event but my obligations were to my grandfather. And as for my grandfather himself, he was a great man but the years had taken their toll. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t a good conversation or activity partner. It wasn’t his fault for anything.
If I were to be honest, I wouldn’t even know what to do if I did have someone to share in my immortality. Before, I quickly and effortlessly drove away the few who did move beyond small talk with me. I can’t imagine what I could do with an eternity to push someone away.

If you are inclined to, please rate or comment on the original Ficly posting.

Reconciliation

So after yesterday’s incredibly lazy day, I hope to make up for it with a post.  Let’s see if I succeed.
Grandpa is doing well.  No major happenings to report there.  He’s even been able to get out of his chair, to the bathroom and back without any assistance at all.  I know it’s only a remission but it’s still nice to see him take care of himself again.  We’ll be taking a tour of the nursing home once his daughter gets back from vacation later this week.  I don’t think any of us have liked that fact but none of use have any choice either at this point.  I just hope that Grandpa is easier on the nurses then he is on me.
My poker playing has taken a major dive in the past few days.  Not in time spent playing or my skill at it.  I’ve just been having a really crappy run of the cards.  The unique thing about poker is that because it has that element of chance, it’s near impossible to keep up a consistent winning streak.  Even if a player plays a hundred hands perfectly the player could still loose every last one of them.  While that might turn some people off from the game, I welcome the variety.  I love that I will never play the same hand twice no matter how long I play the game.  I just hope the current streak ends soon because we’ll be going up to a casino for my birthday in a couple of weeks.  It will be my first experience for playing live poker and I think I’m ready.  Whether I really am or not is still up in the air.
I’ve also poked my head back into Second Life.  I was once a very active in the SL community.  I loved to attend events and meet all sorts of extraordinarily unique people.  Sometimes I’d spend an entire evening just chatting with creators as they build phenomenal structures and gadgets out of literally nothing.  At one point I decided to try my hand at setting up a business of my own.  While I knew a fair bit about designing stuff, I didn’t have a clue how to sell it and it flopped disastrously.  I haven’t really been motivated to log in since.  This time, however, I am throwing all notions of running a business out the window and am going to spend my time in world as a spectator.  I’ve opened a Flickr account to display my snapshots. Some are better than others of course but there’s so much to see in SL that if I took the time to make every picture a masterpiece, then I would never log off.  Not that being trapped in world would necessarily be a bad think mind you.  You can find me usually hanging around the Ivory Tower of Prims sandbox by the name of Denozile Mubble.  I’ll be the one in a beret.
One last thing.  I’m not on twitter under @AshTheBeatnik.

Saturation Point Reached

No there’s not a rainstorm happening here.  Not that I wouldn’t mind one with the heat we’re having this week.  Instead what I got to share with you is how I unintentionally tried to overclock (read: short-circuit) my brain last night.

It was after I had gotten Grandpa safely to bed.  My normal routine is once he’s comfortable is to turn the TV off, make some tea and play some online poker with either Pandora or a podcast playing in the background.  I know it’s strange but I find trying to win pots in poker to be very relaxing.

This time I decided to play the newest Non-Prophets.  I was doing well on the ring games so I decided to try some sit-and-go action.  When I started learning to play, sit-and-gos were almost the only thing I played and I now consider them to be one of my strong suites.  These micro-tournaments Begin once a set number of players have registered (usually 6-32) and everyone plays until they bust out; the last one with all the chips wins all the registration fees.  Usually ring games are more profitable but if you want to learn how to play a full tournament, where the real money is, there’s almost nothing better than sit-and-gos.

Getting back on topic, I first registered on one of the big 32-man game.  But it had only a couple of people signed up so I thought I’d waste the time at a low buy-in 6-man table.  I think I must have forgotten how fast the 32-man games fill up because they both managed to start at exactly the same time!  I know professional poker players pride themselves on memorizing all sorts of probability and odds but I’m particularly interested in learning the chances of that little event happening.

So there I am.  Two tables in front of me, podcast going in my ear and at any point Grandpa could call for help.  Luckily for me he didn’t call in the forty-five minute ordeal.  But grandma did come home half way through with a whole bunch of instructions for the next few days.  I think I can safely say I ran the gauntlet last night.  Now I’m one of those people who thrive on a constant stream of information but I think that I had reached my limit right then and there.  I suppose one might ask why I didn’t just pause the Non-Prophets, or forfeit the 6-man game and to be honest I really wish i had done either of those.  I guess I was presented with a challenge and (blindly) took it head on.

Needless to say that I didn’t win either game.  I busted out in 4th place in the 6-man which is a shame because had I been paying more attention I’m certain I could have stolen more pots and gamed my opponents more.  The 32-man I did somewhat better.  In that one I place 9th.  Fortunately I was able to win a couple of big coin-flip hands (where both players have about equal chances) early in the match so I was able to coast my way up the ladder and on to the final table.

I didn’t get a screen shot of the lobby information.  I think I was too mentally exhausted to remember to do so.

With Information and Knowledge for All

Possibly the greatest tragedy in human history is the Library of Alexandria’s destruction. In only a few short days thousands of classic manuscripts were either burned or pillaged.  Humanity has never so much culture in a single event. That is why if I had unlimited resources I would make sure such a tragedy never happened again.

My idea is for a new library in the spirit of the one at Alexandria. A library that holds knowledge free to anyone seeking it. But the problem with physical buildings is that a person can only access what is inside if he or she is standing inside. Fortunately the solution has already presented itself in the form of the internet. If a person were to make a web site and fill it with the great academic works of our time, then proclaim it free to us for all, can you imagine the impact on the world?

Unfortunately for me, I don’t have the resources for such a huge undertaking. But I’ve been wondering; If I were to apply for the Pepsi Refresh Project, would you be willing to support me?

Escalate

I think I have mastered the art of sleeping in my jeans.
Grandpa has grown more dependent on me in recent weeks.  It’s finally come to the point that I am no longer able to take care of him all be myself.  Over the last few days I have been required to stay in his apartments overnight (and because I wasn’t expecting to do so, I slept in whatever I was wearing).   I am just an amateur at the nursing game and he really needs someone more experienced with an environment that can take meet the demands his condition is making.  It’s sad to say but options are getting slimmer with every week.  Eventually I simply wont be able to help him anymore.
I’ve reconnected with one of my half-sisters.  I’ll save the story of how we became separated for another day.  But It really has been cathartic in a way to bury hatchets and build bridges to put it as cheesy as possible.  despite tensions with that half of my family,  it was that half that I felt more alike to in many ways.  I’ve been given a second chance (though it’s more accurately described as a sixth or seventh) and because my father is no longer in the middle, things should be much more civilized this time.
I’m also giving this Plinky thing a try.  With any luck it’ll get me writing more.  And not just writing more on this blog but more in general.  In high school I carried around a leather-bound journal with me everywhere I went.  I stuffed that thing full of short stories and writing prompts and observations,  In a way that journal was a prequel to this blog.  only difference being is that now my life has such an incredible amount of stuff happening that it outshines any fiction I could think of.

Fugging humans, how do they work?

Schrödinger Equation

Beyond a doubt, the most rogue element about life hast to be other people. Everything else tends to stick to some set of rules and because of this they tend to be more or less predictable. People, however, have no such hardwired set of rules. one could spend all afternoon on a bench at a mall just watching people do their own thing and never be able to wrap up all of humanity in a single, elegant statement like a Physicist could define nature in a single elegant equation.

And yet, if a couple of people sit down over a cup of coffee for a long enough period of time, on a regular basis, eventually the two will know each other well enough that they will start finishing each others sentences and knowing what the other is thinking with incredible accuracy.