Apologies...

Hey everybody...

Finally, some free time on my hands! I worked the full 8 hours last night--not part of the 'toke crew' that gets the last twenty minute break, collects and empties all of the toke boxes, then gets out early. Nope, I was on my game until the bitter end, damn near the last person on my shift to leave the casino again. I don't mind that so much, but when it's my 'Friday night', of course I'd prefer to be home chillin' by 4am, instead of dealing that last hand of Pai Gow and secondhand chain-smoking.

Anyhow, it was the usual routine--I stayed up to watch the latest exploits of Tony Soprano and Jack Bauer, so I didn't get to sleep until after 6am, then that alarm was ringing three-and-a-half hours later, telling me I had to get up and go to school.

A few words about poker school--first of all, my time is extremely valuable these days--there just aren't enough hours in the day for me. So school is kind of a disappointment for me. The first few days going back were wonderful--lots of good info, but once you've got the basics, it seems that all you do is sit around playing mock poker games, getting twenty minutes of dealing time in the box, then just sitting around all day playing a pointless game where nobody folds because the chips are fake. Getting one-on-one instruction from the teachers is like pulling teeth. There is no course syllabus (if there is, I certainly haven't seen it), and all of the technical stuff I've picked up is because of my experience in card rooms has taught me to ask the right questions. For instance, side pots. I'd have no idea how to do them unless I specifically asked about them, same for obscure stuff like the 'complete the bet rule'. I go home every night and think about stuff I want to learn the next day, then sit by myself at a practice table, and flag down instructors whenever I can.

For $800, I don't think it's money well spent. Of course, I'm a smart guy and one thing I've realized is that I'm pretty good at this casino business stuff, so I'll get by and find a job, but if I were in charge, there would be a little more structure. I think I'm gonna have a sit-down with Nick on Thursday and let him know my thoughts. He's on top of the instructors all the time, making sure he's putting out a quality product, but his poker school, for being the most expensive one in Vegas, seems to fall short at least as far as I'm concerned.

Of course, since my time is so valuable, and I learn about ten times faster than the group of doofusses I was first paired up with, my patience wears very thin. Like I said, I want to get in, get done, and get paid. Half of the clowns in there are just thrilled to sit around in class all day and play fake games and shoot the shiat. Not me--I want to finish up and if I never see any of them again I'll be just fine with that.

It reminds me of the time about six months ago I stopped by the Western one night. While there I saw three dealers who I went to school with last year. There I was working a great job at an upscale casino, and these clowns were still at a break-in joint making $30 a day in tokes. I was shocked that they've settled for such a crummy job. I've never been one of those driven success-at-all-costs types, but damn, I have a little motivation to improve my lot in life. Get a move on, people. Every day spent in school is another day I'm not making money.

Just today, one of the guys came in wearing his black & whites, obviously having had an audition. He told me that he'd just come from auditioning at Sam's Town out on Boulder Highway. While I hope he did well and gets the job, part of me couldn't understand why he would try to get in there right away--there are dozens of better poker rooms in this town, and this guy is a good-looking kid, well spoken, and a great dealer. Why he's not auditioning at better-paying rooms is beyond me.

I'm guessing that most people, however, are more shy than I am and prefer the low key approach. For good or bad, confidence is not a quality I'm lacking. Also, I don't need a poker dealing job, I just want one. I can hold out for a good one, which is a nice position to be in.

Anyhow, once I realized that the learning portion of my day was over, I skipped out of school and headed downtown. First of all, I had to go back to the Golden Gate and pick up a copy of my W-2 form, which never found me after I moved last year, and taxes have to be filed before the weekend is up.

I had to laugh when I opened it up and saw that in the eight weeks that I worked there, I made about $1800. There are a lot of terms I could use to describe my experience at the Golden Gate, but 'financially rewarding' is not one of them. After popping in and out of there--and wishing I had some cash on me instead of just a debit card (they only take cash in the snack bar, and a deli sandwich, a shrimp cocktail, and a beer were sounding especially good today)--it was off to the Gamblers General Store just a few blocks further down Main Street. I wanted to pick up a copy of Dan Paymar's Professional Poker Dealer's Handbook and a set of KEM cards to practice with.

For those of you not familiar with the poker world, KEM cards are the near-indestructible professional plastic cards that they use in poker rooms. They're a little narrower than blackjack cards, feel a little different, and cost about $15 per deck, although GGS offers a 2-pack setup box for $20. So I dropped a little scratch in there, browsed a bit, and headed back to school, thinking we'd be doing our weekly 'tournament'.

Unfortunately, they weren't starting that until 3:30 this afternoon and I was just too tired to hang around, so I came back home, microwaved a can of mini-ravioli, and took a nap. And I've never been so happy to have the evening off, thrilled with the knowledge that I can sleep in tomorrow, too. If it's sunny again, I'm gonna spend a good portion of my day snoozing in a chaise lounge out by the pool with a rum drink close by. I'm not having my official evaluation at school until Thursday, so I'm taking tomorrow off from that obligation, also.

Before I forget, I wanted to make a group apology to everyone who's emailed me in the past couple of weeks who I haven't answered--believe me, I read every one of the emails and comments I get, eventually, but I just don't have the time to reply to all of them. Adding insult to that injury, my Outlook Express has contracted some sort of bug where it will not allow me to delete anything directly--I have to manually drag and drop each email I want to get rid of into the 'drafts' folder first, then I can delete them from there. It sucks, and the real bitch of it is that I've got about 800 messages in my inbox, so it's a real pain in the ass to cherry pick through the junk and spam and answer everyone.

Just like the Ghetto Sled, I don't feel like putting the effort or the expense into fixing anything that goes wrong with this computer anymore--it will be replaced shortly, so I'm just dealing with any known issues until the day that the UPS lady drops off my new Dell. If it can't be fixed by a can of compressed air or rebooting, it just ain't gonna get fixed. And if any of those geniuses on the engineering team at Microsoft who are responsible for Windows ME ever show up at my table, I'm dealing them nothing but 16s or Jack-high Pai gows for their entire visit. Bastards.

But that's why a majority of emails have gone unanswered lately. Again, my apologies to everyone--it's not my intention to ignore anyone.

More later--word around the campfire is that there will be some nudity later tonight on Skinemax, so I've got to go program the ol' Tivo!

Mikey