A change then a vacation

First the change. I'm back in Orlando for a week. We left around 1 pm on Friday when Connie finished work for the day and started driving. She really wanted to get to Orlando in time for a home poker game some friends were having on Saturday night. She likes poker but not enough to want to drive that long all at once. She likes the people too and I suspect the chance to get together with them for what is rapidly turning into a diminishing number of opportunities was the key for her. Whatever the reason we ended up driving straight through and got home just before 4 am on Saturday morning.

I know it sounds insane but I'm coming to like to drive this way. Being on the road all night is not that bad. I seem to have no trouble staying awake as long as I have a goal in sight. Also if need be I can cat nap at a rest stop. The traffic is non-existent and driving is very easy. She pointed out to me that a lot of why we seem to like it is that it no longer feels like we are wasting a day driving. We use the same amount of TIME of course but we got plenty done on both Friday and Saturday and STILL drove from Hernando to Orlando. Normally we'd have used up all of our waking ours on Saturday sitting in the truck.

She got right around six hours sleep on Saturday and I managed about four but felt pretty good. We did get to our friend's house and played both of the tournaments that night. They're just little $10 buy in things between friends. No big stakes involved here. The people are fun though and the poker is not bad. I feel a little awkward playing these tournaments because I cash well over 50% of the time. This past Saturday I won the first tournament and was second in the second one. I guess if it really bothered people how often I take home the money they'd stop inviting me. It may help that I'm not in Orlando that much anymore so it probably doesn't feel to them like I win that much. This is kinda too funny....a poker player with a conscience. I love to win and I play to win...always even against friends. The thing is they ARE friends and I guess I do worry I will piss them off. Not much I can do. I just have never been able to throw a game of any sort. If you play with me and beat me then you know you beat the best I could give it.

Now that the weekend is over I'll spend the week working on the flooring I'm installing as an ongoing project and also doing a few odds and ends toward moving in January. There are things I can pack up now because I know I can do without them for the next three months. I'll probably take the truck back to Hernando when I go in around two weeks and take a load of stuff even though I realy don't need to. It's going to be too cold up there to enjoy the Miata with the top down anyway so I might as well take the truck and a load of 'stuff' with me.

Before I go back though we've got a long anticipated vacation coming. Around nine months ago we booked a cruise and have been asking ourselves "is it time yet?" ever since. Well it's almost time. We leave Saturday for a week cruising around the Carribean. I'm really looking forward to it. It's the most relaxing form of vacation I've ever found. I just enjoy the sun and fresh air and sit around reading and people watching. If I take a vacation on land I usualy end up planning some way to play some poker on it, or theme the whole thing toward poker. This cruise will be poker free. They do HAVE poker available but it's one of the horrible PokerPro tables. It's like playing online, you play against live players sitting around a table with a computer screen in front of them. Horrible idea. If I'm going to play on a computer I want to do it in my living room with a tee shirt and gym shorts on and my feet propped up. I won't have any trouble not playing.

Now it's time for me to get to work. Lots to do here before I go on the cruise. I'll probably write another entry before then but probably will not write from the cruise. I'm taking my laptop so I can write but plan to have very close to zero time spent online as well. We're not even planning to buy one of the plans where you get cheap (well cheaper) minutes on the ship. I'll probably check email a few times so if somebody writes I'll write back but I'm not going to be online long enough to write journal entries.

I'm amazed at how much I have been writing here. Especially after not having written for so long on AOL and being sure when I moved here that I wouldn't be changing that here. Oh well I do enjoy writing so it's working out. So is our new home here I think. I'm really liking it here. I was always sort of on the fringe of J-Land on AOL, sort of like the guy at a party who hangs around watching but not really being part of the party. That won't change a whole lot here but maybe it will change a little...just maybe.

Ok NOW I'm going back to work...I really am...maybe :)