Call!

Last week the company I work for sponsored a poker charity event and having missed last year's run I didn't want to miss this one. It was a chance to simualate the experience. I know it's not a pro event, but I was nervous and felt the cold in my hands as I placed each bet. I didn't think I'd last, but you know what......by the time they announced the raise for the second ante I was still playing. In summary, I won one hand (woohoo!) and lost two big hands (both bad beats when I had aces in one and queens the other), the second of which ended my run. I still felt like a winner, though.....I think I played my cards well, I wasn't the first to bust out, and the two players who were obviously the pros in the table asked me to reload and keep playing...and even shared poker lingo with me (no, I didn't know how to respond without looking like a fool so I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders). On the way out I grabbed another bottle of beer (oh....yes, they served beer and pizza, too!).

It's been a while

It's been two months since I last posted here and it's not for lack of any activity. My brother-in-law visited Seattle on business last month and I was excited to meet him and take him to Shakey's Pizza in Renton (a popular place from our past lives back in the Philippines) his first night. We had a bit of time the following day so we got to visit the Space Needle and the Microsoft Visitor Center before he had to get back to his company's local office. We had lunch that day at one of the mysteriously abundant teriyaki places here.

I got a chance to come back to the bay area for a brief weekend. Saturday I joined my brother and my friend, Thess, to watch the Treasure Island festival...to see Goldfrapp perform again :)...well, that's again for me as I also saw them perform at the Showbox the day before my flight. Alison did sound a little tired and her voice was a little rough the first few songs. So it scared me a bit when she started Utopia...which I was dying to hear, but still..... Anyway, the roughness was gone as soon as she belted that one (cleared the throat, I guess :)). At the Treasure Island festival, that was the first song she performed.

Sunday, Thess and I went for a drive down south on HW1 to take some pictures down the coast. Our itinerary was to reach Ano Nuevo state park, but that was more like a heading and we made stops whenever a place might have a calling (the beach above was about 5 or so miles north of the park). On the way back we made stops at the goat ranch and downtown Half Moon Bay.

Back in Seattle I took my kayak out for a trip one weekend around Lake Union. The season's pretty much over but for as long as the cold is tolerable I'll probably keep taking my kayak out before it goes into hibernation for the winter.

I do hope the sun continues to shine so I can paddle on my kayak some more....which come to think of it is a story I haven't even mentioned here. It's a Northwest Kayak Cadence LP. I've rented Northwest Kayaks before at Lopez island and have really grown fond of them. It's very hard to find one used in the market but I lucked out with a private seller at Friday Harbor. I enjoy the fact that this brand is local (handmade in their facility in Redmond)...which, as of this writing, is where my kayak is at...for rudder replacement (to switch to their new rudder design....alas one of the benefits of having the local factory in your neighborhood :)).