THE PASSING OF A GOOD FRIEND

Well, I got home from Vegas on Monday and was feeling really good about things. Basketball is going GREAT and my family and I are pretty darn happy. Tuesday I woke up and did some work before going to get the kids from school. My son had a homework project where he was to go and find out the dominant hand of everyone in our family. After asking my wife,Caytie and I which hand we were he said he was suppose to go and find out which leg our 14 year old lab used the most. They had some ridiculous formula to tell which leg the dog would use if she was to get into a hot game of kickball. My son returned from the backyard and said "dad, I don't think I am going to be able to tell which leg Kitty the dog uses." I said " and why is that son?" " Kitty dog looks dead to me." he replied. After I went to check, I told him that although I wasn't a veterinarian, I also believed Kitty the dog was dead.

My wife and I got Kitty the dog as a "test child". Like a lot of people we thought we should take care of a dog before we jumped into parenthood. Kitty has seen us as poor college students, she saw our joy when we bought our first home and was there when we brought home both of our children. She has seen most of my wife and I life together and what most would describe as a true love story. She was as much a part of that story as the rest of the people in our family and she will be sorely missed.

Thank you Kitty The Dog for being a good baby and making my life a better place. RIP

REINDEER GAMES IN VEGAS

 Well, I am back from Vegas and it was everything I thought it would be. Here are just a couple of stories..

1. I was playing in a 1 table satellite. This are basically tournaments that 10 players all put in 550.00 and the last one that doesn't go broke gets 5100.00.  It was about 11pm @ Caesars and the cash games were slowing down so I decided to play in this event. The problem with these satellites is ANY idiot with 550.00  can get in and pretend he is Kenny Rogers for a couple hours.  We started playing and immediately a fat Indian started drinking. The more he drank the louder he became. At first everyone didn't think much of it because we were sure he wasn't going to win but as we went along we was knocking players out. Mostly by luck and good cards but nevertheless, the more chips he got, the louder he became. He also had a bad habit of when he would win a hand he would wait until the last second to show his cards and act like he had lost the hand. This started making the other players VERY angry and as they would get knocked out they would leave yelling at him. @ guys asked him to take it outside they were so mad. I sat there for the most part and minded my own business and collecting chips. About 2 hours in, we were down to 4 players and he was REALLY drunk. He had gotten into the habit of every time he won a pot he would yell " SHIP THE BREAD TO FRED !!!! SHIP THE BREAD TO FRED!!!!"  I started getting a headache. When we down to just Fred and I, he turned to me and slurred " hey , I will give you 2k and I will take the rest."  I laughed and said " Fred, I have a 2 thousand dollar headache!!" "How about you just give me the money and I will save you from having to sit here for the next hour losing to me? " Fred said " its on!!!!"  5 hands later Fred was broke and staggered out of the Caesars poker room.

2. On Sunday,I was down about 3k on the trip. Some bad beats and 5k in tournament entry. I was waiting to start the next event and I say a horse @ Aqueduct that had "cat" in its name. I decided to bet a 100.00 exacta  1-4. The 1 was 2 to 1 and the 4 "cat horse" was 59 to 1.  The 1 won easily and after a photo finish my 4 horse got 2nd!!!!! $2.00 exacta paid 187.00. My ticket returned $9800.00!!!!!!  I took a picture of my ticket before I cashed it so look for it on the website. Kind of fun for a Sunday afternoon.

Oh, I also went 4-0 on Sunday in the NBA playoffs and had another winning week! YEE HEE!!

Next up, my 9 year old is starting baseball this week. Cant wait for the parents in this sport!!

HEADING TO VEGAS FOR WPT EVENT

 I am leaving for Vegas today. I missed the Five Star @ the Belliago because I hosted a poker tournament @ the Lucky Star so I am going to Caesars World Poker Event. These trips are normally either VERY good or VERY bad so I will most likely have an interesting update on Monday. I am taking my family so the meals will be good and they spend the entire time @ the pool so everyone wins. Have a great weekend and let the mayhem begin!

THIS WASNT IN THE HANDBOOK

 When my wife and I found out we were pregnant, we decided to do the responsible thing and enroll in a parenting class. The first day of the class, I walked in turned to my wife and said " stupid people have been having children for 100s of years. We don't need a kid raising class!." We went and got some ice cream and went home.

Even if we had stayed in class, I am not sure they could have prepared me for lunch today.

I played poker with this young man that has opened a cajun seafood restaurant. We were talking about how much I love that type of food and how tough it is to get in Oklahoma so today,after another painful 2-2 soccer tie, I decided to load up the family and give it a try. We sat down and immediately the meal took on a fast pace. The waitress came over and we ordered something to drink and some starters. The food was GREAT! It seemed like I couldn't eat it fast enough. I was really enjoying the craw fish when I saw out of the corner of my eye that my 5 year old daughter wasn't eating anything. I asked what was wrong. She said nothing but she might need to go to the bathroom. I was so happy about the food, I gladly moved out of the booth to let her out. As she was getting out she knocked her water all over the table, ruining the craw fish and the bread!! She is 5 so it was hard for me to yell at her and I tried to shake it off ordering her another water. While sh was gone, the food came. I told her not to move back in the boot in fear the same thing might happen again and we pulled up a chair  at the end of the booth. She asked for her water saying she was thirsty. As I handed her the water,she lost her grip spilling the second water all over lunch. I jumped up, tried not to yell and she started crying. I got things cleaned up and removed the damaged food. Thankfully the owner of the restaurant knew I loved the food and might talk about his place on the radio so he brought us some more catfish. Just as I begin to forget the earlier problems and enjoy the great tasting food, my daughter THREW UP ALL OVER THE TABLE!!!!!!  Hard to overcome that one.  My wife tried to stop the vomit but as most of you parents know, when the body says it is time to throw up, there is nothing you can do to stop it.  So my wife hurried my daughter off to the car, I paid the bill and left.

These are the things they don't tell you when you are expecting. Oh well, I am not sure what they could have said that makes the lunch any better and we did get a 100.00 memory out of the afternoon.  The restaurant is called CRAW DADDYS. It is @ 32nd and N Classen in Oklahoma City. I highly recommend it if you like cajun seafood and not just because we threw up all over their restaurant.

IF YOU THINK IM OBNOXIOUS ON THE RADIO, YOU SHOULD TRY LIVING WITH ME

 This is the time of year, I get to evaluate my seasons. I look at the money I spend on advertising, I look at the markets I am invited to be a regular guest in, I look at the trips I have taken to go to see clients in different parts of the country. The truth is I can only do so many things during the football season and still put most of the priority on WINNING FOOTBALL GAMES. Because of this, it is important I make good use of my  time. Each year I realize I do  A LOT of radio. I am a regular guest on apx 20 radio shows around the country and of course, The Fat Jack Sports Hour airs in 15-20 markets. The point to this is I feel like I have had a lot of time on the radio to see what works and what doesn't.

I was surfing the internet today and came across a website. They had a topic called "Fall sports talk radio final exam" . It then listed a bunch of questions making fun of a lot of people involved in sports radio. Here was question 7

List the most obnoxious radio guests starting with the most obnoxious and ending with the least obnoxious. THen they say we have filled in # 1 to help with your list.  Well you can guess who they think is the most obnoxious. ME!

Even though they said I was the best at something, I was a bit sad at first.  I thought about ALL of the people on the air I consider more obnoxious than me. Then I started thinking about the things I say on the air in hopes to come up with a list of things I might not want to say next season. I am always trying to improve my shows. It then dawned on me that I don't really have an act. When I am on the air , I basically say what pops into my mind. In fact, that is sometimes what gets me in trouble. Last season I got in trouble for talking about midgets. All I said was that if I was a midget, I would sue Major League Baseball for discrimination. A midget would make a great lead off hitter and I think MLB is taking food out of the mouths of midget children everywhere by not letting their parents play major league baseball. I got in trouble for not only talking ABOUT  midgets but also calling them "midgets". Apparently, that is a bad term, they prefer "little people" which ,to me , is much worse than midget. 

So basically, its not what I say on the air that is obnoxious, it is ME  they consider obnoxious. OUCH!

So I went to my wife and told her what I had figured out and asked her if I was obnoxious. She said YES, in fact I was obnoxious!  THAT CUT DEEP!!    She went on to add that me being different and looking at life in that manner was also what made me entertaining and attractive to her.(I always thought it was my washboard abs). She said if I was normal, it would be boring to listen to me and that would have been the true insult. To be called boring.

So after some thought and lots of soul searching I have decided to change nothing about the show for next season. After all, my success is determined by wins and losses not the amount of radio awards I win. (current total -zero)

SPRING POKER CLASSIC DAY 1

 Well, I just got home a long day at the Lucky Star. We had 2 tournaments today. In the noon event, I played very well. In fact, I think I only lost about 3 hands all day. The problem is, 1 of those hands took all of my chips. We were down to 16 people and I had 14k in chips( a little above average)  I had AK of spades. The flop came  Kh 9s 4 d   The guy to my right bets 4k, I call. The turn is a 7c. I feel good about my spot but the guy bets 7k, I call. I am thinking he might have AQ or possibly A9. The river is Kd. He bets the rest of his stack and I quickly call.He turns over pocket 9s and  I lose all of my chips!!!  If I have one flaw to my game, it is that I call too quickly in big hands like that. If you think about it, because he was betting with no regard for my hand I have to think he has a good hand so I should think "what can I beat?"  If he has K9,K4 or any pocket pair that hit on the flop. I lose. The only hands I could beat was KQ and AA. I didn't think about any of that, I just threw all of my chips in like an overweight idiot! Boy, I  love poker!! I did win 2k in the cash games AND have won every game I have released this week starting with Kansas on Monday night.  2 more tournaments tomorrow. I will check in tomorrow night. I normally get good stories from these events and they have nothing to do with poker. Tomorrows Friday so hopefully the crazys will show up to play. Have a great weekend.

I'M TRYING TO LIKE SOCCER....BUT

I know I said I would have another entry this weekend but I was very busy and simply didn't have time. My son turns 9 Tuesday and because my wife is sure he's the perfect child AND her dad was a jackass and didn't believe in birthday parties, we had a 3 day celebration of my sons birth. When you mix in my sons soccer game, you can see how it might be a bit busy. 

Out of all the things we did this weekend (dinner @ melting pot, medieval fair, laser tag)  his soccer game is the thing I can't seem to recover from. I really am trying to like youth soccer but it isn't easy. Here are just a few problems. First, the game is slow. A lot like adult soccer and hockey, a lot of movement and running around, ending in a 1-1 tie! Hard for me to fire up about a tie. This week we lost something like 5-3 and the only thing I could think about is "thank God that's over". I really don't care if they ever win, I just want them to shorten the length of the game. Second, the soccer parents are ridiculous! Norman has regular soccer, elite soccer, Celtics soccer. You get the idea. The parents are screaming and yelling as if it matters if they win. If you watched some of these people you might think they had bet on the game. I can't help to wonder why they care so much? I guess I can understand the football and baseball parents that somehow when they are falling asleep, dream of their future all pro player paying for them to quit their job. If I had little to look forward to myself, I guess I could see putting my hopes and dreams in the lap of my kid. With soccer, what is the dream? That their kid will grow up to be known as  "El Blanco Pele" and move to Manchester, England so they can only see them on Holidays and at the British Open? In the meantime, they get to spend all their free time (rain or shine) sweating out a 1-0 barn burner!

I find myself hoping my son isn't any good at soccer. If your kid is great, feel free to use "El Blanco Pele" just list me in the credits of the True Hollywood Story. Of course I will need European MTV to see it.

STARTING TO GET THE POKER BUG

Well, I am back from Florida. The NCAA hoops season is winding down and I feel great about the huge success we had this season. Football was good. We won 4 out of the 5 months of the season and the losing month wasn't that bad. Overall football was great. Basketball has been simply unbelievable! Everyone has made a lot of money. We haven't had a losing WEEK in over 2 months. That means even if you signed up for a cheap 7 day package, you made money and are happy. ALL GOOD.

I am now starting to get the poker bug. Similar to a golf bug, the poker bug is something that can hide for parts of the year but as we get into spring starts to creep in to my mind. The Belliago has a big tournament that started yesterday and I have done well in their events in the past. I will probably be heading out there around the 13th. Before that we have one of the poker events that I host at the Lucky Star Casino. This one is called the Spring Classic. These poker events have been very popular in the past and give me a chance to meet some of my clients and play some poker. One of the great things about my job is the chance to meet some guys that have similar interests that I do and put on some great events that everyone enjoys. My relationship with the Lucky Star has been good for both of us and has really helped educate and enhance the gaming experience for Oklahomans. 

NBA is heating up and that is normally a great time of season so April should be a great month. 

I will check in this weekend. Have a good day!