Reflections

September 11, 2001 was a day that irreversibly shifted the worldview of just about every American that was old enough to understand what happened. Sitting in my office space almost 10 years later, I find it not just a little difficult to focus on the daily tasks for which I am paid to perform. Since the announcement last night, I have been flooded with decade old feelings and memories.

Fear. Loathing. Helplessness. Anger. And the images. Oh, the images. There weren't that many visuals to broadcast, so we kept seeing the same ones over and over and over again.

Similar to this very morning, I got to the office earlier than usual on that day, before 8:00 AM. Less than an hour later, the 3rd floor was abuzz and had nothing to do with selling mortgages. Eventually, I was able to catch the word hijacked from the other side of the wall and was horrified at what I found on the CNN homepage.

In 2001, there was still very little in the way of live streaming of audio or video via the web. I spent about an hour reading and refreshing my browser. Click. Read. Previous. Refresh. Over and over again. By the time of the Pentagon strike, there was absolutely no way I would be working even one more minute on that day and left.

Inevitably, I tuned the radio in the car to the news station and was greeted with the news of a fourth known jet and reports of several more. The news outlets were blindly reporting every nugget of information they came across, most of which would never be retracted. The cumulative and net effect on me was, however, non-retractable. The damage was done.

I was familiar, academically of course, with terrorism. Hijackings were chiefly hostage taking operations in order to achieve some other goal. Now, after decades of playing for increasingly larger sized pots, the jihadists went all-in. (see what I did there? this used to be a poker blog, after all)

All I wanted to do was be as close to my wife and 11 week old daughter as possible. We laid in bed together, my wife and I in horror at what continued to be reported on tv, our daughter between us, blissfully ignorant of anything other than being near mommy. When she was born, exactly 11 weeks prior, she spent 14 days in the NICU while fighting persistant pulmonary hypertension. During those 2 weeks, I had no doubts that everything would be ok. Just over 2 months later, I knew that nothing would be ok again.

It actually took a week before the nightmares started. I thought I had managed to avoid them but I guess, eventually, my brain needed an outlet to purge the badness that was accumulating in there. Needless to say, I slept quite poorly for about 4 nights in a row. Looking back, some of the dreams were actually fairly comical, though disturbing at the time. In one, a 747 came crashing through my grandparents' house in Northeast Philly. Why that house? I'll never understand my subconscious.

Anyway, what was the point? Here we are 10 years later and I feel like the killing of Osama bin Laden is nothing more than the tying up of one loose end while the whole damn thing is still unraveling. For now, it is a not-so-subtle reminder of what happened on that day and how great our country became in the aftermath. If we can hold on to that for a little while, I will happily accept the painful memories that have returned from exile.

Unfortunately, I think that the mission (brilliantly carried out by our military and intelligence, btw) will be quickly politicized and spun into talking points. For now, we got him, good for us, but there are actually a few (thousand) more important things for us, as Americans, to focus on. Let's see if we can get anything accomplished before the current zeitgeist inevitably wanes.

I won't hold my breath.

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...

Politics As Usual

Political climate in the U.S. is so incredibly tense that it's almost impossible to get the real story on anything. Objective and reasonable doesn't sell papers, ad time, etc. so it's almost impossible to get to the facts to formulate a non-biased opinion.

To that end, I have developed a filter that allows me to immediately discount what I am hearing as agenda driven and to be ignored. The following words and terms will immediately find you on my muted list:

Tea Bagger
Lame Stream Media
Faux News
PMSNBC
Barry
Republitard
Hitler
Nazi
George Soros
Koch Brothers
"Big" Anything

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...

WBCOOP 2011

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: XXXXXX 834046

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...

Why Yes - WPBT 2010 in Short Form

Why yes, I did take 2nd in the blogger tournament at Aria over the weekend. (ok, I was in the chop but 2nd in chips)

Why yes, Lagasse's was absolutely unbelievable, eclipsed only by the people I had the privilege of hanging out with.

Why yes, I did get dealt quads in pai gow, with JJ up top no less.

Why yes, I also remembered to bet the fortune bonus.

Why yes, I slept no more than 8 hours total for the 3 nights checked in.

Why yes, it was a blast watching Eagles/Cowboys with fans both friendly and not so toward my team.

Why yes, I do miss everyone already, even the ones who by now have already forgotten me.

Why yes, I'm already counting down to next December.

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...

WPBT 2010 Booked and Confirmed

It looks like The Baccardi Diaries have been picked up for another episode. Arriving at LAS just after 1330 Friday and leaving about 1530 Monday.

43 days and counting... tick... tick... tick...

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...

The Steel Panther Test

Just so wrong, especially for me with 2 girls. But still, so damn funny, so Steel Panther.



Four months and eight days til Vegas. Tick...tick...tick...

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...

Rising From The Ashes

So where've I been you ask? And I mean that rhetorically, since I know YOU weren't asking. Anyway, I stumbled across those five little words that every blogger who innocently (naively?) wants to remain anonymous hopes to never have to say.

My wife found my blog.

There. I said it. And after the extended hiatus, I'm good with it. I think.

The announcement of this year's winter gathering actually gave me the kick in the pants I needed to get back on the horse, so to speak. I'm going again. Sorry to say for all of you. This year's trip has been paid for since the end of last year's trip courtesy of the good people at Harrah's and the fish that play at their LHE tables. I've talked my friend Jerry into making the trip with me and Riggs has also expressed interest in flying out with us. I'll believe that when I see him at the gate.

For those who like to try to plan out their weekend reeeeaaaalllly early, I found out that, according to GVR's website, Steel Panther is now playing on Saturday nights. So it looks like Friday night will play out a bit differently.

Finally, if you made it this far, our 9 year old daughter now has her own website. It's basically a blog in a website wrapper but I won't tell if you won't. She's been bugging us for upwards of a year to start one so, since she is required to do a project as part of getting her junior black belt, we told her she could incorporate the blog into the project.

Check it out here. She already has a better wit about her than her old man, although she likes to keep her posts short and sweet. Only time will tell whether she sticks with it longer than I did mine.

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...