Are You Feelin' It, Evel???

I certainly felt it!

So here I was, sitting at my desk at the Batch Pad in lovely Henderson Nevada, thinking I was having a bout of sudden-onset vertigo. I was surfin' the net and all of the sudden I felt like I was swaying--kind of like the one time in my life I got seasick.

Eddie W and I were on our way back from Avalon aboard a 42-foot sailboat with about six or seven other folks, having spent a long weekend out at Catalina earning our bareboat certifications. Anyhow, there was a long gentle rolling swell coming out of the west, and our course put us directly perpendicular to the waves, and after about a half-hour of trying to read while rocking side-to-side, I started to feel a little queasy. Never before or since have I ever gotten seasick, even while plowing through the edge of Hurricane Ivan on a cruise ship or fighting 25-foot seas off the coast of Alaska.

But here I was sitting on my ass at my desk and suddenly I felt like I was swaying and couldn't control it--and it lasted for more than just a couple seconds! At first I panicked a bit, thinking there was something seriously wrong with me. But then I thought that maybe I just need to grab a bite to eat and close the blinds. I hadn't had anything to munch on since 3:30 in the morning, and the wind was blowing outside and the trees were moving back and forth in my peripheral vision. I thought I might've just been dizzy or something. So I got up, grabbed a Coke from the fridge, ate a granola bar, and headed to the couch to put my feet up. I immediately felt better, but for a second there I thought I was losing my mind.

I vegged out watching an hour of Gene Simmons Family Jewels before heading back to the computer. As soon as I sat back down, I saw that my cousin had posted on Facebook about a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit in Baja. I thought there was no way I'd feel that here, but then clicking over to the news, they said it was felt as far away as Scottsdale Arizona. Well, I'm here to tell you that I felt it here in southern Nevada, too!

I've been in earthquakes before (lived in San Diego twenty-odd years ago and we had two of them while I was there), but this didn't feel like a 'normal' earthquake. There where no dishes clattering or stuff on the shelves falling over, and no dust rained down from the top of the ceiling fan blades, either. Then again, I was hundreds of miles away from the epicenter, so it was mild. On the other hand, it seemed to go on a lot longer than a regular earthquake.

So I guess that was the excitement for the day around here...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter, able to spend some time with family and friends. Easter, for me, isn't really a holiday I celebrate. When I was a kid forced to attend a Mormon church on Easter Sunday, it seemed more like the Kentucky Derby than a religious holiday. All the women wore ridiculous hats with lots of flowers and such, and I never made the connection between that and a hippie coming back from the dead to save us all. Pardon my boorishness--and I apologize to those I may be offending--but the truth is, I have no problem with religion and such, but I just don't get it. It's not something I can wrap my head around...

So enough of that...

Aside from getting shitcanned from my job on Monday, I've actually had a great week. Not only did I win a nice $400 jackpot while playing poker the other night, but I've actually had a very lucrative run. I budgeted $165 to play with this week, promising myself that if I lost that, I'd be done with cards until every obligation is met for the entire month of April. That didn't leave my enough wiggle room to play any no-limit, so I've had to sit at the kiddie table and play 4-8 all week. But I've played four nights in a row and all four have been winning sessions. (Ok, one was actually more of a break-even session--I was up five bucks at the end of the night, but I'd spent five bucks out of my wallet tipping the cocktail waitress...).

Last night was especially juicy, as I won my first three hands in a row as soon as I sat down at the table. Five minutes after I walked thru the front door, I was up $84. And then about ten minutes after that, I got pocket Kings, and won a huge pot when I beat a guy who had Tens full of Queens with my Kings full. That was a nice change of pace from Thursday night when I got pocket Aces three times and all three times the same guy flopped a set against me... Grrrrr.... (I was lucky to go home up $85 for the night, as that guy beat me like a drum the entire time--He raised every draw like a maniac and hit every time. But I got even with him last night. On Thursday, he cashed out with $600+ at the end of the night, but last night, I sent him home broke).

Anyhow, I played for just three and a half hours last night, but came home with a $350 profit--all from playing 4-8 limit. I didn't win any high hand payouts or hit any jackpots, it was all 'earnings' from pots I dragged. And it all goes in the bank on Monday morning. Like I said before, even though I've got no job right now, I've got enough on hand to maintain my current lifestyle for maybe three or four months before I start to sweat. But whatever I win goes right to the bank...

Speaking of the job search, I'm kind of in a holding pattern on the Vegas search right now. I'm heading back east in two weeks and I'm going to be there for eight days, so I don't really want to get auditions scheduled before then and have to explain to any potential employer that I'm going on a 'vacation'. Besides that, I'm also heading to Phoenix and maybe San Diego/L.A. between now and then, too. So even though I'm not giving it my full-on hard-core effort, I'm still getting a few opportunities. I've put in a couple of applications and I've got interviews and auditions scheduled very soon, but now that the word is out that I'm unemployed (his folks are overjoyed...), I'm amazed at some of the things coming my way.

I've got a pretty big network of contacts out here now, and several people have offered to put a word in for me around town. And then, last night, out of the clear blue, I ran into a friend of mine I haven't seen in a couple of months. She deals at one of the nicer rooms in town, and she came over to talk to me. She had no idea that I was out of a job, but she took me aside and asked if maybe I'd be interested in working at her joint on a temporary basis. It seems that her room is doing some expanding, unannounced, and her boss asked her if she knew any good dealers around town who may be interested. Well, she came down to Sunset looking for me, and of course I said I was interested. So she's giving my name and number to her boss, and I was instructed to go online and submit a general application as soon as I got home last night. So I did.

We'll see how that works out. It's not a permanent job, but it's a foot in the door... At the very least it'll be a month or two of income.

Speaking of that, yeah, I'm fully aware of the unemployment that's available. Hell, the lady in the HR department who actually gave me my official walking papers gave me all the unemployment forms to submit. I'm eligible for it--I didn't do anything out of line or anything like that--hell they even told me I can re-apply to be re-hired in 30 days. But based on my part-time minimum-wage 'reported' income over the past two years, the weekly unemployment benefit would barely be a hundred bucks. And the 'stimulus' money that was put into the system last year runs out this week, so new claims don't get any of that, either.

But that's the least of my worries. If shiat goes downhill and stays downhill, we'll explore those options. Right now, I'm all about taking it easy for the next couple of weeks and choosing my spots. I'm only applying for jobs that I want right now. If, by the time I get back from Tennessee, I don't have a decent offer in hand, then I'll start applying for acceptable jobs. If I can't find one of those, then I'll look at last-resort jobs. If nothing comes of that, I'll go back to donating plasma and collecting aluminum cans. After that, I'll just sell all my shiat and move back to my parents basement, blogging about all the people in the drive-thru who piss me off.

Let's hope it doesn't get to that point.

Oh, before I forget, there's a bit of housekeeping I forgot to mention. Everyone who has emailed me over the past few months and never got a response, I have an excuse. It's not that I was being lazy or ignoring you, but awhile back I upped the security settings on my system, and any email that had a hyperlink in it got spam-canned. Well, all except those from 'trusted' sources--like Amazon and some other companies that I do business with. Basically anything from Yahoo mail or Hotmail or anything like that where they put a hyperlink in the footer got knocked out. I just figured this out last week when I heard from some of my friends that I never responded to some of their emails. So I've since fixed it and the inbox isn't so sensitive anymore. My apologies to everyone who went unanswered.

Also, while I'm apologizing, I want to thank the folks who hit the tip jar this weekend. That was very nice of you and I appreciate it. It'll get used on gas and groceries and such. Picture frames, probably not...

As far as the rest of my Sunday goes, it's been a pretty damn lazy one. I did, however, put in that one application from my contact last night, but after that, I haven't done a damn thing all day. I spent my afternoon watching 14 episodes of Entourage back-to-back-to-back, and right now I'm watching the Yankees-Sox game on ESPN2. As far as I'm concerned, and I know I'm in the minority here, but the American League is Pepsi compared to the superior goodness of the National League Coca-Cola. I'm setting my alarm to get up at 10:00 am tomorrow to watch the *real* opening day--Cardinals versus Reds.

After the game tonight, I'll watch the latest episode of Pacific, and then I plan to head out to my 'part time job' and try to earn a few more bucks in the poker room. But I've got no plans for tomorrow. I guess that's the blessing of having no job to go to--Mondays don't bum me out.

I hope yours is good, though!

Mikey