Check this beauty out:

It makes me shiver…that’s what fairy tale heavens and ethereal dragons are supposed to look like – according to me anyway. It’s the Eagle Nebula M16 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Every now and then I go off the deep end – a child of Earth staring at space through the aid of the Internet and the Hubble – and I spend too much time going to ‘next’ – ‘next’ – ‘next’ because each picture is completely better than awesome.

Return to Earth.

There’s always poker afoot. The Blogger’s Tourney is rapidly approaching, all kinds of bloggers writing about it, and why not – it is going to be fun. Hopefully everyone will have a great trip report when they head for home…with pictures.

On the work scene, Moi has missed the last two nights of work. Sick call in, no not mentally ill (well maybe just a teensy bit on the strange side), but the dust mites and pollen grunts invaded my head. Maybe they’re boring for oil or looking for gold. I have that damn vertigo (Ménière’s disease) thing going on, when I lay down and turn over, or even lean my head back to the left, the black vortex has me…and it even spins. It’s allergy related, fluid in the inner ear. It’ll go away soon. I hope. It will…won’t it? *nervous laugh* No…really, it will. It comes and goes about three or four times a year and Dramamine helps believe it or not.

What I have missed by not going to work is – of course the damn money – the beginning of Bellagio’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic. I’m sure it will be rocking and rolling when I hit the room tomorrow. I’m prepared to deal my little fingers off and work my full shift. Except for Friday, I have to E/O, if at all possible. Big Garage sale is kicking off on Saturday and for some reason, people like to come during the day (when I would normally be asleep). I’ll be up all day drinking coffee and Red Bull, ready to haggle and dicker as I wish they would all go home so I can s-l-e-e-p.

Monday night, my first game was $40-80 Mixed. Adam was playing and started a conversation with me about my blog post; a friend of his had sent him the link. Of course I missed a raise in the action, not missed it in as burned and turned, but had to be stopped so I didn’t burn and turn too soon. The 4s, an Asian female, basically told me to shut up and deal – not exactly in those words. I did. She was right anyway.

Later in the night, I was waiting to push a game right next to the game Adam was still playing in. We went back to the conversation. He had asked me if anyone else in the room read it. I don’t know. He seemed a little in awe of the fact that I would just write about Tony like I did, since it was sort of public. I explained that it was my diary, and that’s what I did. I write about people and happenings in the room and in my life. I told him management knew that I wrote the blog and he seemed even more in awe of that. I laughingly told him that if I’d known he was going to read it, I wouldn’t have been so complimentary to him. Ok, Chris, you can rat me out and tell Adam I wrote about him again. *laughing*

The reason I brought up that particular conversation with Adam is because I can’t help but wonder why people think they should be secluded or hidden from the public just because they play poker. And I mean people in general, not just Adam. TV has everything going on with poker, they even show players standing up and cursing when they take a beat, so why shouldn’t players be written about? I always thought it was amazing that when Andy Beal was playing the biggest limit game in the world at Bellagio, and everyone playing in the room, during that two year interval, knew about it, went home and wrote all their friends about it, posted about it on the Internet on RGP, and all other chat groups in the world, that it was supposed to mysteriously disappear from everyone’s mind – like it never happened. History in the making and no one – especially me – was supposed to write about it (that’s another story for another time).

With all the media jumping on the poker platform, there is absolutely no way a poker player is going to escape the public eye. Check out the daily news…they never leave any stone unturned and poker ain’t gonna be no different, Kids. If you, as a player, can’t stand it, start a private game and stay out of the casinos. And as I’ve said before, if you misbehave and act like an idiot, why shouldn’t you be written about? And if you act like a real person, Adam, you get written about too. J

*****

I called my brother, Kenny, in N. Idaho, the place we have our family reunion at each August – six inches of snow yesterday and six more expected tonight.

Then I got this email from my sis, Vickie, Missoula MT:

*Begin email*

It snowed about 9 inches of light fluffy snow last night, wanted to puke when I got up. But anywhere it was plowed or shoveled it melted off.
Love you

*End email*

Kee-rist! Why don’t these people move?