A Few Quick Notes 430

-We are in the midst of an almost perfect day in Halifax. Presently it is about 20 degrees and sunny with a slight, but not overpowering, breeze. Though I haven't spent too much time outside today, I have been able to make at least a few brief trips outdoors.

-I think that I am finally starting to get the hang of my new charcoal barbeque. Last night I was able to get it going and not have it blow-out part way through the cooking process. Actually, I think that, if anything, my current problem is getting it a little to hot (which leads to burning on the outside before things cook on the inside). I am hoping to take another crack at it tonight when by using it to cook some chicken (I really should get started on this chicken).

-Yesterday I took advantage of a club soda sale and picked up 12 2 liter bottles at 66 cents each. Today I decided to go back with hopes of acquiring a similar number of bottles. Unfortunately they only had 5 bottles. What a bummer. The real bummer is that as this is only a three day sale I don't imagine that they will have any more before the sale ends tomorrow.

-Last night we had a few friends over to play poker. After some remarkably bad playing on my behalf I happened upon a particularly luck streak and managed to win our tournament. This unexpected and undeserved win likely means that I am now coming close to again being a life-time winner.

-If all goes as planned, I, and a few friends, will be volunteering at a water station along this year's Blue Nose Marathon course. Neil and Rebecca had such a good time doing this last year that I was motivated to volunteer this year.

A Few Quick Notes 327

-We had another beautiful day in Halifax. The sun was out, the temperature was pleasant, and it wasn't particularly windy.

-I made another batch of bread this morning. Strangely, I seem to be more productive on days when I make bread. I think it has something to do with me needing to stay awake until the bread is out of the oven. If I can refrain from taking a nap this long I am likely to be able to get some work in before catching a few more minutes of sleep.

-For dinner tonight we had black beans that I prepared in the pressure cooker. I am really starting to like these pressure cooker prepared black beans. Not only are they relatively easy, they are tasty and low-cost.

-After dinner we made our way to the Halifax Shopping Centre (the mall) to run a few errands. Unfortunately, one of the items I was hoping to buy, garden mesh, didn't seem to be stocked in any of the stores we visited. Otherwise I think I would go so far as to call the trip a success.

One of the products I am particularly pleased to have purchased is a miticide, which I hope will help me on my seemingly unending battle against the omnipresent spider mites. This product should be a little more potent than the somewhat ineffectual insecticidal soap. The downside is that apparently one doesn't want to eat any food that has been sprayed with such products.

-On the subject of spider mites, just tonight I observed that my two corn plants were infested. This meant that the plants had to be destroyed, which is rather unfortunate as one of them was just showing the early signs of the development of an ear of corn. The only good news is that this will allow me to move all of my plants out of my bedroom window and disinfect the area. Hopefully when plants are returned to the windowsill in a few weeks the area will be spider mite free.

-To briefly return to our experience in the mall, at one point we were in the paper towel/tissue/toilet paper aisle of a store. As the three of us were making our way down the aisle we passed a middle-aged woman and an employee, who happened to be stocking the shelves. Just as we were passing these two individuals I heard the woman comment that the toilet paper claimed to be made from recycled paper and then, thinking that she really found a flaw in the system, asked the employee "How do they recycle toilet paper?" Amazingly, the employee kept his composure and simply replied that the recycle material that they use comes from other types of paper, not necessarily from toilet paper.

-Watson just made the money in a Pot-Limit Omaha tournament at the World Series of Poker. The WSOP people are providing pretty regular updates and somewhat regular chip counts. Watson is also providing Twitter updates during the breaks, if you are interested.

A Few Quick Notes 305

-Today has been pretty great. I get the sense that the temperature must have been pushing 10 for a few hours. Now that evening is setting in things are beginning to cool down, though it is still quite pleasant.

-A few days ago I listened to the This American Life episode "Double Lives," which is mostly about gay men hiding their sexual orientation and living as married straight men. What I found interesting about this episode is how much things seem to have changed in the 13 years since it was first produced. My sense of things is that things like gay marriage weren't really seen as likely at the time. I am curious if some of the people were interviewed again today if they would give the same answers as they gave in the mid-nineties.

-We had turkey pot-pie for dinner last night. I thought it was pretty decent, though I could be a little biased.

-I had a final exam today. It was a pretty exhilarating experience, as they tend to be.

-Yesterday Mike Watson (SirWatts) mentioned that he would be providing live updates via Twitter from the upcoming event at the Bellagio. After a few minutes of investigation I got the sense that it would be easiest to follow these updates if I signed up for a Twitter account. So I did, it took about a minute. Shortly after signing up I managed to start following Watson as well as the host from a few of my favourite podcasts.

So far I am not quite sure what I think about the whole micro-blogging concept. I get the sense that it mainly serves as a venue for one-liners, PR, and as a popularity contest. I guess I should give it more than 24 hours to reach a definitive conclusion on the topic.

Watson finished 3rd in EPT £1 Million Showdown

Shortly we went out for dinner Michael Watson was eliminated from the EPT £1 Million Showdown. His third place finish should be good for about £241 000 (about $460 000 CDN).

For those of you that care, the live video feed of the event was pretty good, certainly better than getting text based updates minutes after the action. Furthermore, the commentators were seemingly pretty competent and made more complimentary comments about the online players than many other poker commentators that I have seen.

SirWatts eliminates two more

Michael Watson has now eliminated all three players that have busted at the final table. He first eliminated David Benyamine who called Watson push with pocket aces. Then Watson eliminated Masaaki Kagawa. Watson went in ahead with AK vs. AQ and dodged the Q that he wasn't able to dodge in an earlier hand against Kagawa. Watson is now guaranteed at least £103,000.

Watson is one of eight left at the EPT £1 Million Showdown

Watson's elimination of Isabelle Mercier means that there are now only 8 player at the EPT £1 Million Showdown final table. This means that he is now guaranteed at least £59 000.

Watson at final table of EPT £1 Million Showdown

It seems that Michael Watson has made it to the final table of the EPT £1 Million Showdown. Making the final table means a guaranteed payout of at least £51 000, with the chance to win as much as £516 000.

The final table will get under way shortly. Live coverage is available at eptlive.com. It seems as though they will be streaming the event live.

Update: One can also get events through the PokerStars blog, and as these are text based they might be easier to access for some of you.

A Few Quick Notes 200

-Though the day started off with patches of gray skies things seemed to have cleared up nicely. Actually, I imagine that the temperature and humidity have really reason as the day has progressed. Hopefully by the time I am ready to leave work things will have returned to a more acceptable level.

-My brother, father, and I have been actively watching Michael Watson's progress at the Bellagio Cup in Las Vegas. As of last night all but six of the players have been eliminated (Watson was the chip leader). Today's play will determine the winner of the tournament. This event is to be filmed and may eventually end up being aired in some format.

As always, regular updates are available through World Poker Tour Live Updates.

As things stand right now Watson is still the chip leader with only 5 players left.

-This morning I decided to head to the bathroom to brush my hair after my shower. As I entered the room I sensed something was a little off. I was quickly able to determine what was wrong with the scene. It seems that there was a turd of some sort sitting on the edge of the bathroom sink.

Though I didn't see the placement of this turd, I am pretty sure that it came from the cat. My presumption, though this may be an over-reaction, is that this was intentional on the part of the cat. I assume that it was upset at me for something (such as not letting it come into the bedroom this morning) so it found a way to take out its anger on me.

Assuming this is the case, that the cat has some grudge against me, I am in a bit of a tight spot. I can't try to discipline the cat (as I don't know how to do that), nor I can I simply ignore the cat. It seems that my best approach is to actually try to endear myself to the cat so that it won't be tempted to do such things in the future (though how I am to go about doing this I have no idea). If this approach doesn't work I guess I will be cleaning up cat feces for the better part of the next two weeks.

-A few days ago I purchased a small stove-top espresso maker. I was thinking that a jolt from espresso in the morning would help wake me up more quickly and allow me to be more productive at work. Unfortunately, it seems that the espresso that comes from this machine doesn't have quite the same bite as the stuff I used to make at Thomson House.

-Yesterday while walking the greyhound through a field we both spotted a hare on the path about 30 feet ahead of us. Almost simultaneously we both decided to run for it. Amazingly, I don't think that I slowed the dog down by all that much, but I guess with a leash in play is hard to really know how much of an impact I had.

Watson Still in the Bellagio Cup

From the time of its re-commencement earlier this afternoon the Bellagio Cup has been shedding players at a rather fantastic rate. Michael Watson is still playing and approaching the very big payouts (with the winner taking over $1.5 million).

Live updates are still available at the World Poker Tour Live Blog.

Watson and the Bellagio Cup

It seems that Michael Watson is in the money on day three at the Bellagio Cup. As I write this there are only 72 players remaining, all whom will be making at least a few thousand on top of their initial buy-in.

If you are interested in semi-frequent updates they are available through the World Poker Tour Live Blog.

Sint Maarten: Day 17

At about 5:15 AM I woke to find that my father had already risen and showered. Almost immediately I went in to clean up. Once I was done in the bathroom I packed our dirty clothes and my belongings. We then went down to the main floor to check on the continental breakfast and the shuttle.

As it happened, they were loading a shuttle as we exited the lobby. We thought that we would head over just to check things out, and maybe to find the schedule. It also became clear that again there was a bit of a backlog and that things may take longer than one would want. As we approached the shuttle it was clear that many people weren’t going to make this particular journey. Somehow, just as this was becoming clear to us, one of the individuals who wasn’t going to make the trip because of space constraints pointed out to the driver that we didn’t have luggage and that we would fit. So at the last moment we made our way onto the shuttle for the three-minute journey to the AirTrain station.

Unlike like our first trip on the AirTrain, our second journey required us to visit all of the terminals, even those we had no interest in seeing. Fortunately, the train wasn’t too busy and seemed to move quickly from one stop to the next.

Once in the airport we were able to go directly to security as we had already checked our bags to Montreal. This was a relatively quick process, and certainly more painless than in smaller North American centers, but nowhere near as painless as Sint Maarten.

Soon enough we were through security and on our way to our gate, which we thought we would check out before getting some breakfast. As we continued walking we realized that our gate was quite a ways out, and that we likely wouldn’t be able to make it back to the restaurants at the beginning of the journey as they were just too far away.

Fortunately, just as our gate came into view so did a final food service establishment. After a quick examination of the menu we learned that they sold basic breakfast sandwiches for reasonable prices, and even dropped 30 cents if you didn’t have cheese. Even more pleasant than the low price was that the fact that the sandwiches were actually relatively large, and very satisfying. I was also very satisfied with the coffee that I purchased, it was much better than I expected.

Soon enough we were able to board our plane. For the first time on our trip my father and I were actually assigned seats next to one another, which was a pleasant change.

Both of us fell asleep very quickly, before the plane even left the ground. I ended up waking up and reading while my father continued to sleep. Eventually both of us were up and served drinks by the very competent and pleasant flight attendant. Unlike most Canadian flights, the flight attendant actually came back and offered us a second round of drinks (and this is on a flight that is only about an hour long).

Once in Montreal we raced off the plane and to the immigration screening area. We were the first people, possibly of the day, but certainly of the flight, to make it through. Though we were asked a few questions there were no problems.

We then moved down to the baggage claim area where I went to the bathroom. By the time I returned our bags were making their way along the conveyor system. Our only real delay then was that my father also wanted to use the bathroom, causing us to wait a minute or two during the entire process.

Customs was even less problematic than immigration and we were able to exit the secure area and enter the arrivals area.

While at the airport we went to the ticketing counter to try to change my flight itinerary so that I could spend some time in Halifax on my way to St. John’s. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let me change the schedule without paying a change fee and the cost of the new fare. This made the trip impractical, as one of the main reasons was to reduce shipping costs, which would be less than the change to the itinerary.

We then made our way to the shuttle bus. While at the ticket counter we were told that there would be another shuttle at the main bus station that would transport us to our final destination, which we thought would be McGill. Soon after taking our seats we were on our way, reaching the bus station in a very respectable time. Soon after arriving at the bus station we noticed a particular individual who seemed to be associated with the bus company. My father was convinced that this particular man was the shuttle driver. Eventually my father approached this man and learned that he was in fact the shuttle driver.

Much to our surprise, instead of ending up a Sherbrooke Street hotel, the driver dropped us off at my door. This was particularly nice as by the time we boarded this second bus it had started to rain, and was raining quite heavily by the time we reached my apartment.

Soon after arriving and dropping off our bags we went out to Place Milton for lunch. As it happened to be a holiday they were only serving breakfast, meaning that I wasn’t able to purchase the hamburger that I had hoped to order.

Once we had finished lunch we started on the packing. Basically we needed to back my belongings in both suitcases and boxes by the following afternoon, at which point we needed to head out to the airport to catch a flight to St. John’s.

Amazingly, we were able to pack about 6 boxes and the better part of four suitcases in a number of hours. By time we finished packing for the evening it was dinnertime, meaning that we had done what we needed to in about 4 or 5 hours. This was a much more efficient operation than I had originally expected, but that is fine with me. Our productivity meant that we had a much more relaxing and productive day the following day.

After dinner, which we ate a restaurant on St. Catherine, my father and I hand-trucked a load of beer bottles over to the local grocery store. I was able to get about $14 from the load, which was nice. The only downside was that it wasn’t quite enough to cover the dozen beer and bag of pretzels that we were purchasing.

Shortly after returning to the apartment Liam arrived for a poker game that Nithum was arranging. Eventually Dougal and Nithum also arrived, allowing us to start the game. Eventually one additional player arrived. As it turned out, the latecomer was the big winner.

Soon after finishing playing poker we hit the sack. Both of us were able to get to sleep relatively quickly as we were going on about 4 hours of sleep.