Hey, kids, welcome back to what is commonly called "reality" following that extended 4th of July holiday weekend...Hopefully, everyone had a safe and enjoyable celebration of the birth of our nation (229 years young, baby) filled to the proverbial brim with barbecued meats, freely-flowing booze and things which "light up and go boom." Oh, yeah, also "togetherness with friends and family" and stuff like that...For the most part, I had a good time over the aforementioned "weekend," despite having to work in the morning at the radio station on both Saturday and Monday...Admittedly, radio ain't manual labor, but just "getting out of bed" at 10 'til 5 on Monday morning turned out to be a bit of a challenge for me, not to mention trying to "stay awake" and "speak clearly" for 6 hours after having stayed up late on Sunday...

But that's neither here nor there...Where were we?..

Oh yeah, so on Saturday, after I got home from "the work," I assisted my wife in finishing up the "cleaning of the garage," a project which was just BEGGING to be done...I have to say, it's amazing how much space you suddenly have once you just start "throwing crap away" and/or giving said "crap" to Goodwill...There's room to move in the garage now!..I'll readily admit that my wife did the bulk of the work related to said "garage project," but, c'mon, what could I do? While I was all at "work" and stuff, she got all "motivated" and stuff and did a lot of...Well, "stuff."

And then, after that stuff, it was time to prepare for the poker tournament...stuff...

See, kids, on Saturday evening, we hosted the (second ever) "Dead Money" Texas Hold-'Em Tournament at our humble abode...Due to that whole "holiday" thing which we already discussed (oh, we did), some of the people who would've otherwise jumped at the chance to play some cards ended up "not being able to play" due to their being "out of town." At least one "player" had to work on Saturday evening and a couple others simply had too much "stuff" to do...As such, we ended up hosting a smallish tournament (9 players total), but it was a whole lot of fun, nonetheless...The tournament field included myself, my wife, my mom, my dad, my sister (who was the big winner of the first tournament back in September), Collin, Justin, Justin's wife Jen and Joe, who went to high school with my wife...Play began on two separate tables and, after three players were eliminated between those two tables, we merged into what is, of course, called the "final table." With the blinds steadily increasing and, conversely, my chip stack decreasing, I figured that it wasn't long before I was finished...

Then came those 4 jacks...

I went "all-in" and pulled back a tremendous amount of chips on a single hand where I was lucky enough to hit 4 jacks...Suddenly, I went from being on the brink of elimination to "sitting pretty." After some whittling away of players' chips and, at the same time, the players themselves, eventually there was just me squaring off against my dad...Once we started "heads-up play" for the championship, I was facing a near 3 to 1 chip deficit, despite winning the big hand which I elaborated upon earlier...A few hands went by and I decided that I should start playing a tinch more aggressive, so I went all-in, pre-flop, with a suited jack-4...Dad called my all in...We flopped...

The flop came Jack, 4, 4...Dad, in effect, was suddenly "drawing dead."

That hand took a big fat chunk out of his chip stack and, a couple hands later, roles reversed...Dad went all-in, pre-flop and I made the call. Dad showed unsuited king-queen, I showed suited Ace-4. No one paired up on the resultant flop-turn-river and, as such, I won the hand (and the tournament as a whole) on nothing more than a stinkin' ace high...Yay me...So, after divvying up the prize money pats on the back and vats of pride, I fired up the audio equipment and, with only a couple exceptions, the tournament participants stuck around to finish off the fun by singing some karaoke...All in all, it was a great time, one which I hope we can have more often than "every 9 months" or so...

After packing so much "fun and frolic" into Saturday, Sunday was pretty much a wash...Slept in, did yardwork, played video games and lounged around...Stayed up late, though, like I mentioned...

So, after working Monday morning and, afterward, taking a nice afternoon nap, my parents came over for dinner and fireworks...I had spent 50 bucks on a big-ass "family assortment" at Collins fireworks and was prepared to dazzle everyone with a display of fountains, crazy jacks and these things called "crackering balls." As the festivities got goin' last night, though, it was painfully obvious that I was the only one in the neighborhood that "didn't get the memo," so to speak...Whilst I set off my weak-ass "legal" fireworks, pretty much everyone within a 2-block radius was busy setting off thousands upon thousands of dollars of high-end (and completely illegal) fireworks pyro-friggin'-technics to everyone's amazement and awe...Don't get me wrong, I love the stuff that flies and explodes and is generally "dangerous" and that has been deemed "outside the law" in our state (face facts, it's COOL), but I haven't actually been in possession of such things for many years now. It seems, however, that everyone else in the neighborhood saw fit to make the trip to wherever (Wyoming or New Mexico, both are easy to get to from here and both sell the stuff) to pick up "the good stuff" as it were...One particular family MUST HAVE spent close to $10,000 on the fireworks which they set off, I'm not kidding. From late afternoon until 10pm, Friday until Monday, these people were putting on one Hell of a show, firing off everything from roman candles and bottle rockets to the larger, cannon-fired "mortars" which you see at the large, commercial fireworks shows...

the concussion from these things shook our windows...Seriously...

We really did have the best seat in the house, so to speak...All in all, we got to see some amazing pyrotechnics from the neighbors and I got to have fun lighting my lame crap on fire...I'm utterly flabbergasted that the Sheriff's department didn't show up...Not even one deputy rolled down our street during the nearly 3-solid-hour "boomfest." The lack of law enforcement presence through all of that makes me feel real safe...Almost safe enough to get me some bottle rockets for next year...We'll see...

Well, kids, it's back to work for me...You all have a fine Tuesday!..Don't blow anything up...

Labels: holidays, lame stories, poker, radio stories, tales of triumph