Thirty Years

Good morning everyone. It seems like a good time to fire up the blog again. Well, yesterday seemed like a good time also, since it marked thirty years since I graduate from college. In the almost YEAR that I have taken off from blogging, it seems that Blogger has decided to transition to a new format. You can switch to the new format, or in the new future, Blogger will automatically switch your blog for you. At the current time, regardless of which format I try, I'm unable to upload photos (or at least unable to figure out how). When I tried yesterday, they uploaded as link text. I tried to figure out why, got frustrated, and gave up on writing. This text looks small as I type it, and I can't figure out how to adjust that either, but I'm going to publish this anyway, and see what it looks like. In the preview window it doesn't look horrible, but we'll see... Obviously a lot has happened in the last year, with the presence of Covid-19. The virus was a major factor in my decision to leave my sportsbook position in Biloxi, Mississippi. I just recently moved back to San Marcos, America. My reasoning was that I didn't see team sports (especially football, which I wrote the most bets on at work, and bet the most myself)having much success in the near future. If there's not going to be much football, it makes more sense for me to be in Texas than in Mississippi, or in Las Vegas, etc. I think that the NBA has the best opportunity for success, because they have the smallest number of players, or they're keeping them isolated ("The Bubble," if you will). I think that the NHL has the next best chance for success, as they have the next smallest number of athletes, and are also staying isolated. Major League Baseball, and then football are next in the pecking order, and they have more challenges because of their expanded rosters and the traveling that they are doing. The Big Ten and Pac-12 just postponed their fall sports seasons yesterday, so it appears that my decision wasn't completely without merit (for any haters out there)... Don't get me wrong, I'm whole-heartedly hoping that we find a vaccine as soon as possible, and I want to see EVERYTHING played, but it wasn't worth the gamble for me to sign a lease in Biloxi til the end of next July based on the information that I had available to me at the time. As for myself, I'm finally getting my sleep back on a normal schedule. Just this past week, I'm finally sleeping eight hours consecutively. It rained practically the whole week that I was preparing to leave Biloxi, and I wanted to leave the yard at my rental house as short as possible, so I was trying to find spots between the rain drops where I could cut my grass. Managing my yard came in addition to packing my stuff and cleaning the house of course. On the day that I did move from Mississippi to Texas, I woke up at 1:00 a.m., finished packing and cleaning until about 8:30 a.m., returned my cable box and internet modem, turned in my house keys, and then drove over nine hours to San Marcos, where I unloaded my stuff and ate my traditional "moving pizzas..." The pizza is about the most unhealthy thing that I've eaten recently, as I've lost about 20 pounds from my peak weight this summer, and plan on losing about another 20-25 more. Maybe by then I'll figure out this photo-posting riddle, and I'll be able to give you some comparison pictures. Other than eating smaller portions, while also eating more healthy food, I've also been spending a lot of time playing DraftKings fantasy golf, while I slowly unpack and get my sleep schedule right. Until this last week, I had won money three weeks in a row, scrambling up a bunch of different lineups of golfers, and having a few hit each time. I'm also starting to watch more NBA and NHL, as they may represent the majority of team sports that we'll have for a while. I've also continued to play a bunch of free poker on an app called 'Poker Legends' that I found early in the spring. I'm thankful to have found it, because I was watching way too much t.v. when our sportsbook closed on St. Patrick's Day. NOT that the t.v. hasn't been on while I chip away on the poker site, but at least I haven't been glued to it nonstop... : ) I'm hoping to get this apartment in order pretty soon, and then to have some job information for you. Which reminds me, I was finally able to buy the car that I had been saving up for this spring, which helps tremendously on the job front (and many other fronts). ; ) Well, I have a day full of unpacking and watching hockey games ahead of me (did you see that FIVE overtime game yesterday/last night?!). I have stated before, I LOVE playoff hockey games with multiple overtimes, where it just becomes a battle of attrition. Oh yeah, I'm also putting a few bucks each day on the fantasy hockey, just to have action. : P Have a great week, and I'll see you soon!

The Memorial Day Weekend Flood Of 2015

"The trick is to not let people know how weird you really are until it's too late for them to back out..." -via Bianca Edwards-

"Why can't taco rhyme with Waco?" -HalleyAnna Finlay-



Good afternoon everyone.  I know, two posts in a month - somebody stop me...  ;)  The big news in this area today is the flooding that's taking place due to the recent rain that we've had.  Thanks to my friends, I have several photos to share with you today. We'll start down south, with my sister Whitney...

This comes to you from Schertz, which is just north of San Antonio.  Next we arrive in San Marcos, where all sorts of havoc has taken place.  We'll begin with the photos in and around Sewell Park, which is the home of 'Bikini Hill.'

My friend Courtney shared this one, and yes, that is a regulation basketball hoop...

My friend Katie shared this photo earlier in the morning...

This a different vantage point of the park from my friend Alma.  As we move around San Marcos, you'll see that there is no shortage of photos, and these are just a fraction of what I've seen on facebook today...

This shot comes to you from my friend Keith...

And this picture was taken by my friend Valerie in front of a strip mall that's just east of IH-35...

This photo from my friend Scott was one of the first that I saw this morning, and comes from a local apartment complex...

Cyndi's photo also shows another apartment complex in San Marcos...

J.J.'s picture shows us an access road submerged alongside the aforementioned IH-35...

Monica's shot comes to us from near Highway 80...

This picture was taken to the west of Austin and was shared last night by my friend Hunter.  The Austin-area had several tornado watches and warnings last night, and this restaurant obviously experienced some of the strong winds...

And this morning at my own apartment complex, I saw where the storms were successful in snapping off a big part of this tree last night (the tree on the right, behind the blue dumpster)...


So yeah, the flooding is a pretty big story down here in south Texas.  Before all of this happened last night and into this morning, the local graduations were the big story. My friend Lauren shared a pre-flood photo from Texas State (same Sewell Park) earlier in the week...

Several graduates celebrate by jumping into the river after the ceremony.  You'll notice that you don't see any of the steps in the background in the previous photos, as they're all underwater right now...  And this gem comes to you from Lubbock, where one of my former softball players received a bit of recognition from Texas Tech...

I may have gone to medical school if I would have known that I get could my name put up on the big screen after I finished.  Well..., probably not...  ;)  Congratulations Amanda!  I'll even spare y'all the story where I was pitching batting practice and as a freshman, Amanda NAILED MY THIGH with a line drive, giving me a bruise that I sported for well over a month.  I'm SURE that the guilt from that experience encouraged Amanda to complete medical school...  :D

To go along with that throwback story, I have a throwback photo of myself that I put on facebook earlier in the week...

This was taken just before the finish line at the site of my first marathon in San Antonio.  I was a pound or two lighter back then...  AND I've got a photo for you from Las Vegas...

A sneak preview from the upcoming World Series of Poker, as my brother is attending his new employee orientation today...  I know that I haven't posted much lately, but when I do post, I make them count...  ;)

I hope that all of you have a tremendous Memorial Day Weekend, and I'll see you soon (maybe)...

Lots Of Basketball

Good evening everyone.  I have been pretty busy lately, but I wanted to give y'all the link to the predictions that Joey and I have made for the 'Sweet 16' games that are taking place tomorrow and Friday.  You can find our picks with scores at 'Coach's Parlay Card'  This is where I've moved my sports stuff (predictions anyway), and where all of my football picks will be posted in the future (Joey's picks also, if he keeps picking games with me).  Joey and I will put up our picks for the Saturday and Sunday games at the 'Parlay Card' site also, and I'll try to write a full entry for this blog.  I've just been busy lately, but that's a good thing.  Enjoy the rest of your week and I'll see you soon!

South By Southswim

"If someone's not getting their face beat in, I don't stay interested long..." -Leanne Calderon-


Good afternoon everyone.  I decided that I had to take a few minutes and make sure that I caught y'all up on things today.  I've been so busy with my new job that I've been neglecting all of my blogs, but I'm going to post at all of them today.  I already have my basketball picks for the day up at 'Coach's Parlay Card' , and I'll later be posting at 'Coach Goes Viral' and 'Three Chips Poker'  As you could guess, I've already got the t.v. tuned into the NCAA Tournament, watching the media darlings in the Kentucky uniforms that are struggling with a #8 seeded Cincinnati team, IN KENTUCKY...  Yeah..., they're gonna CRUISE to a 40-0 record - WHAT EVER...  Anyway, that's for another blog, and some people CLAIM to have never even heard of 'March Madness...'  My friend Leanne posted that as a status last night, which made me laugh and recount the tale of how when I used to coach softball in San Marcos, the umpires at our annual spring break tournament (Leanne played for us) would have the t.v. tuned into the tourney up in the hospitality room at our softball complex...  :)  That's where Leanne's quote from the very top of this page came from, as she's not so much of a basketball fan, but more of a fighter...

I still think that we could bring Calderon in to intentionally foul people, but I guess that we'll just let her keep training...  :)  I joked with Leanne about airbrushing muscles onto legs, and she said that would take more effort than the actual working out...  :D  I'm extremely proud of Leanne's dedication, and I have to get myself back into shape someday (a shape other than round)...

Speaking of friends and former student-athletes, and one who did play basketball for me, it's South By Southwest time here in Austin again, except that there is A LOT of rain in the forecast...  We're actually under a flood watch until 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, and I'm wondering how much money that's going to cost the good people of our fair city.  Well, the city is exactly fair...  My aforementioned friend Jessica was in town to make some money this week...

Jessica does a little bit of modeling, and what initially got my attention from her facebook page this week was a hashtag to one of her statuses, where some genius evidently thought that her time wasn't worth any compensation...  The hastag was #worthmorethannothing (which I really liked), and I chatted about this with Jess a little earlier today.  I told her that I had planned on likening the situation here to one where a bar letting a drunk girl get up and dance on the bar was some sort of privilege, like letting Jessica work as a model at their event was doing her some sort of favor.  Then Jessica told me that this genius actually told her that the models were not doing an actual job.  Jessica replied, "It is a job.  It's my job.  If it wasn't a job, why can't any of you do it?  Why do you even need us?  Oh..., because you need someone else's skills to accomplish a task for your own personal agenda.  That's called a job, buddy..."  Yeah, I like Jessica...  :D  Again, #worthmorethannothing..., a very appropriate hashtag.

Like I said, a lot of rain forecast here, so I'm not sure how the rest of South By Southwest is going to play out, but I plan on watching a lot of basketball.  Joey and I will be back with our predictions for the 'Sweet 16' over at 'Coach's Parlay Card' sometime before the games tip next Thursday, and we'll give you our picks for the rest of the tournament from there on out.  Speaking of basketball, not everyone agrees with me about Kentucky, as Joey posted his "bracket" on facebook earlier this week...

Considering that the Wildcats are letting Cincinnati hang around, I still think their prospects for sweeping the rest of the tournament are pretty bleak, but we shall see...

I never did make that crawfish boil last Sunday, which was a mistake considering how this weekend is getting poured on, but I still have these 14+ basketball games ahead of me.  I hope that all of you enjoy the rest of your weekend and the start of spring as this tournament kicks into full gear, and I'll see ya soon...

BRING ME ANOTHER SMURF!

"And whenever you're dark inside, don't let go, no, don't let go, remember there's rain, and there's candy, and Christmasy winter snow, snow, snow..." -Blue October- (For My Brother)

"And this is how you remind me..., this is how you remind me of what I really am, this is how you remind me of what I really am..." -Nickelback- (This Is How You Remind Me)

"Being polite is so rare these days that it is often confused with flirting..." -Spirit Science- (via Chris Abramski)




Good evening everyone.  We have a lot to cover on this Tuesday night, with the usual segues and stolen material from my friends showing up in force.  Let me start off by mentioning that my friend Chris brought his "'A' Game" to facebook this week, and that I'm stealing from him twice in this post.  That quote right above this paragraph was shared by Chris earlier in the week, and it was just SPOT ON...  I'm a pretty good guy (despite what you may have heard), and I've seriously had girls go so far as basically flipping out on me because I was nice to them, and I was just like "WOW..."  We'll get back to Chris later in this entry...

My friend George posted a Nickelback status today, and it reminded me (pun intended, but not initially) of the lyrics quoted above.  Back when I used to run (I completed three marathons back in the day - presently my brother and I let our sis Whitney do the majority of the running in our family), I'd often have the lyrics of that song playing in my mind as I strode around 'Bikini Hill' and the rest of San Marcos, America.  As it turns out, I may be able to hang out with George and an all-star cast (including, but probably not limited to, Jackie, Nick, Floyd, and Beau) this weekend at a crawfish boil as South By Southwest (SXSW) kicks off here in the ATX.  SXSW is a little festival held in Austin during spring break every year that includes a little music, movies, celebrating, etc...  Oh, and CRAWFISH, which I happen to love...

Speaking of spring break, the weather here earlier in the week had me recalling that set of Blue October lyrics above.  BOY did we have some rain here yesterday!  I have complained countless times about the winter weather in my hometown in New Hampshire, but I don't think that I'm cut out for living in Seattle either.  Rainy and dreary and rainy and dreary...  It's great when you want to sleep in on a Sunday morning, but it gets old pretty quick.  Well, I'm more than happy to inform you that the ten-day forecast for Austin has our highs in the low 70's and our low's in the low 50's...  :D  That should make for great weather as SXSW kicks off, and I'm ready to celebrate, only having my 'New Employee Orientation' to attend on Monday...

As poker players and sportsbooks throughout the desert cry, I'm probably not going to be moving to Las Vegas anytime soon because I received a job offer that was too good to resist.  The change in my job classification will have me attending the orientation on Monday, so some low-key partaking of crawfish with friends this weekend is probably in order.  While we're on the subject(s), we can't mention crawfish or new jobs without congratulating our friend Alyssa (remember, she's the one who doesn't peel crawfish quite as fast as me - that's my story and I'm sticking to it) on her new job.  Congratulations Alyssa!  :D

Okay, let's see what else my friends have done this week...  Well, we were talking about food.  My friend Claudia shared this little peanut butter cup the other day...

"Reese's who?" was all that I could think to ask, as this thing weighed in at 230 pounds.  Turning our attention to breakfast, my friend Susan shared this photo this morning...

Susan's description was "Something does not belong here.  #boys #dinosaursforbreakfast"  My immediate thought was "fossil fuel."  Do you see what I did there?  I can be semi, sort-of-clever every once in a while, kinda...  ;)  And then there's Brittany, who has probably managed to get herself in this blog almost as many times as Alyssa.  Although we don't have Brittany posing with Emmitt Smith this time around, she did share this informative photo about beverages...

And that's why we keep Brittany on the payroll...  ;)  I told you that we'd get back to Chris, and if you were wondering about the title of tonight's post, here ya go...

This is another photo that Terrell Suggs (Baltimore Ravens) posted, and I don't know who initially looks at this photo and comes up with that caption, but it did make me smile (however unfortunate that may be)...  :)

As Gonzaga just handily disposed of BYU in the West Coast Conference title game, let me take this timely opportunity to remind you about one of my other blogs.  You can find yesterday's post, 'Kentucky Is Going To Lose (& Gonzaga Will Too)' at 'Coach Goes Viral'  In this entry you can read my thoughts as to why Kentucky won't go unbeaten this season, and why Gonzaga shouldn't be a #1 or #2 seed (and will also lose).  Currently I'm chatting daily sports with my brother, but Joey and I will be back at 'Coach's Parlay Card' with basketball picks once the 'Sweet Sixteen' begins.  I'm actually making almost nightly picks there now, but visitors are still struggling to find my fledgling site...  :)

That's it for tonight, but I hope that all of you have a good one, and I'll see you soon!