So, once the new phone arrived, I put it on the charger and called up AT&T to give them all the magical codes they need to register it in their system, and I spent an hour messing around with it. I went out and grabbed some Taco Bell for dinner, watched the last of the stuff on the DVR, and fell asleep around midnight. I was scheduled to go in at 5:00 am on Tuesday, but they told me to call in before I came in and maybe I'd get some extra sleep. So I set my alarm for 3:45 am, called the poker room, and they told me to go back to bed. Instead of coming in at 5:00, I went in at 7:00 instead.
I worked the entire shift, making decent, if not excellent money. Once my shift was done, I drover over to the Orleans to check out their upcoming series of poker tourneys, but the cheapest ones are $200, and they really don't have that many good ones. So that turned out to be a bust, kinda. While I was there, I started talking to this pretty hot red-headed chick named Jamie who was also lurking around by the poker room getting tournament information at the same time I was. We hit it off pretty well, started chatting, and eventually exchanged phone numbers, and she told me to call her later that night.
Score!
I wanted to hang around and chat some more, but I had shiat to do. There was a auto-repair shop over there by the Orleans that I used to take the Ghetto-Sled to on occasion, and I went in there to see if they could give me an estimate on my truck fender. They said "Sure, just have a seat, we'll get right to it."
Forty five minutes later, nobody had looked at it, so exasperated, I left--just in time to hit rush-hour traffic on the 215 back to Henderson. Grrr...
I was just beat by then, it was a hot day, which saps the energy out of you anyways, but my lack of sleep was catching up to me. So I collapsed as soon as I got home. I must've slept for about three hours, and I woke up feeling all confused and out of place. It was still kind of light outside, but I had that momentary lapse of reason where I wasn't sure what day it was or if it was am or pm. Eventually, I figured it out. I was starving, so I grabbed a book and headed out for some Chinese food at my buddy Kenny's restaurant. When I walked in, I saw a couple of other guys I know, so I joined them. Kenny came out of the kitchen with an armload of icy cold beers, and I spent the next hour or so hanging out with those guys eating Kung Pao and telling casino stories.
I think it was about 10pm when I got back to the house, and Rob and the Geek Squad were there loading up the U-haul. I worked on my room and my closet, while they moved furniture and cleared out the living room. Once they left, I did a little vacuuming and took a shower. It was almost 11:00 by then and I remembered that I was supposed to call Jamie. Of course--there was no answer, so I logged on to the chatroom at T2V and socialized with those degenerates for awhile.
About a half-hour later, my phone was ringing--it was Jamie calling me back. We talked for a few minutes, and seizing the opportunity of having the place to myself, I took a shot. I just said Hey, you wanna come over? and unbelievably, she said Sure, let me take a shower and such. I'll be over in an hour...
What's that word again? Oh yeah-- SCORE!
So I found some candles, changed the sheets on the bed, and made sure the bathroom was clean, the seat was down, and that there was a fresh roll actually on the spindle, not sitting there bachelor-style on the back of the tank.
An hour later... Still no Jamie. Another half hour passes... still nothing. I call her. Of course it goes to voicemail. I just hung up without leaving a message, thinking she flaked. About fifteen minutes later, I called again, this time to leave a message, kinda with the idea of telling her to just forget it. But she answered that one, and said she was five minutes away. I guess it took her longer to shower and such than anticipated.
So I lit up the candles and set the iPod to the Dean Martin playlist. She showed up a few minutes later, and well, we had a pretty good time together. But she was a little kooky and hippie-ish, and she suffers from that curious malady of being 'Not Kimmy' so I really don't see myself hanging out with her in my spare time. Of course, we both had places to be in the morning, so she did the Guy Thing and scooted out around 4:00 am, trying to avoid doing her Walk of Shame in the daylight.
Two Ships, I think, is the term I'd use to describe our encounter...
Anyhow, it felt like I'd been asleep for five minutes when that alarm went off, forcing me to get up. I had that meeting at work at 9:00 am, but I didn't have to shave or anything. It was just shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops for me.
The meeting lasted about an hour, just a bunch of procedural stuff and departmental policy stuff, but since nobody told me anything about anything when I made the jump over to the poker room, it was all brand-new info to me.
After the meeting ended, a bunch of us had breakfast together, then a few of us decided to play in the 11:00 am poker tournament they put on in our poker room. Yep--out of three tables, half the people playing were dealers. Anyone wanna guess who lasted longest?
Oh yeah, it was me.
I made it to the final table, but man, it was a tough crowd. I was lucky to get 9th place. No money though. This was one of those "I was in it for the experience" days. Just the fact that I outlasted all of my co-workers was compensation enough.
Once I busted out of the tournament, I stuck around for awhile to play some 4/8, but it was just a card-dead grind. I was on a loosey-goosey table, and the one and only time I got pocket Aces, I was on the big blind, everyone folded, and the small blind asked if I'd be willing to chop. Damn.
It was pretty much a waste of an afternoon, poker-wise.
So I took off from there, ran a few errands, hit Wal-Mart for some more Rubbermaid storage totes, and then came home to do more packing. Rob was here, getting more of his small stuff out of his room and the kitchen, while I packed up all of my books, DVDs, CDs, and half the crap in the storage closet. Once the truck was fully shaded by the building, I started loading it up.
Behold, the emptiness of the Man Cave:
Well, this side isn't so empty:
The first load of junk prepares for departure. Two of those blue things are full of booze. If you click on the picture and make it full-sized, you can see the damage to my front fender:
Once the bed of the truck was full, I headed over to my new place and dropped it all off in the garage. By then, I was hot, tired, and sweaty, but felt pretty good--it was like a crazy workout, lifting weights while walking on the treadmill. I swear, I must own about 800 lbs. of books, and another 200 lbs. of ammunition. Only god knows how much the booze weighs. And I still have all that damn cast iron from the kitchen to move, too.
Luckily, I had the foresight to remove a bottle of Captain Morgan Silver from the stash and leave that behind at the almost-vacant Man Cave. There's a case of Coke and a couple of limes still in the fridge, so my relaxation is fairly complete. In fact, I think I'm gonna head down to the jacuzzi again once the temperature finally drops below a hundred tonight. It's gonna feel good on my tired muscles.
Mikey
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