Google Reader and other good tools

There's a reason why Google is awesome. Every time I think of a feature that one of their tools needs, shazam, there it is just a few weeks later.

I really like Google Reader. I was reading about 20 blogs regularly, and it was hard to keep up. I can't believe I wanted so long to use a reader/aggregator. I just wish more sites would feed their entire post. Some only feed summaries or even just headlines. But still, it's a great tool for reading many blogs. It's even better when people include a few photos in their blog. Those are like a nice little surprise in the blog reader!

Google Mail (Gmail) is a great mailer. It's free, there's a ton of disk space (more than 2 GB, the spam filters are great, forwarding, etc. etc.

I'm experimenting with Google Groups for our cub scouts. I think it's going to work nicely. I've also starting using Google Calendar - you can share your calendar with others, so my wife and I can post appointments and view each other's calendars.

Don't even get me started on Google Maps. This (mapping on the internet) is clearly one of the most useful tools of the internet age. One of the features that I wanted has been implemented - you can actually change the route between two points. Google Maps determines the route for the two points that you enter, but suppose I want to avoid a certain road. Now you can just drag the route to another road, and you can add multiple destinations.

I'm also using Google documents to share spreadsheets and docs. Works fine although it hasn't been that useful so far.

- schneid

WPT Satellites

I'm hoping to play some live single table tournaments for entry into WPT satellites. They have $40 STTs for the Foxwoods World Poker Finals and $50 STTs for Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic on Sundays at Resorts East Chicago Casino. They've got single table qualifiers for the WPT World Championship daily for $35 at Four Winds Casino in Michigan. One of these weekends I'll have to head over there and give it a shot.

Last year, they had Sunday STT qualifiers for some WPT tournament at Hollywood Casino in Aurora. I never tried it, but if they come back, I'll definitely give it a shot. It's about 4 miles from my house.

- schneid

Visiting the old farm

Things were a little, let's say, hectic around Ben's birthday. The previous Saturday, Ben's friend Larry had a pool party. The party was at 1:00, so I assumed there would be no lunch, and it would last a few hours. The kids had a terrific time splashing around in the pool, and I didn't know that Ben was such a good swimmer. He can swim around, take a breath, and swim some more. He's much more confident when he can touch the bottom, but he did really well. Anna swims well with her floaties. They rented a big moon walk bouncy thing and it amazes me how much time the kids can spend in there. There was a pinata and they served food around 5:00. I hadn't realized it was that late. Suzette arrived (she had been buying Ben's birthday presents) and I left to pick up our new babysitter. She is the 14-year old daughter of a friend of a good friend and doesn't live nearby. So I picked her up and brought her back. She was very friendly and could converse like an adult, which always surprises me with teenagers. I was glad to hear that she has 3 younger brothers. We've had good luck with babysitters who are the oldest.

We had dinner with Kim and Dennis at a restaurant in Aurora called Andrew's Open Pit, which had been Jimmy's Charhouse and still had the same management, I think. I guess Jimmy's was pricey, and this new incarnation was very inexpensive. There were things on the menu like 1 lb. of pork chops for 6.99. I had a sirloin steak for 9.99 and it was very good. We didn't have reservations, and I couldn't believe that a decent restaurant in the Naperville/Aurora area (it's just west of Route 59) was half empty on a Saturday night. At least 1/2 of the patrons were families with kids.

My sister was in town and we hadn't seen her yet, although we had just seen her the previous week in Boston. My mom was having us over for a BBQ, and Debi wanted to bring her boyfriend David to the farm where we grew up. Mom dropped Debi and David off at the farm, and we met them there. We have visited the farm about twice in the last 15 years. It's a horse farm with about 50-60 stalls; they have about 30 horses on the farm now. The owners raise reining horses and rent out 1/2 the stalls. It's neat to show the kids, pet the horses, and smell the smells. It's amazing how powerful memories can be triggered by scent. Memories came flooding in with the smells of the horses, wood shavings, manure, lime, hay, and leather. Some horses made funny faces while we tickled their noses. We also pet some cute Australian Cattle Dogs.


The best part is that we stopped by the house, and Gwendy, the owner, let us take a look around. We hadn't been in the house for 23 years. They built an addition on the back for a nice laundry/mud room, and did a terrific job remodeling the house and decorating everything in a very horsey theme. It was amazing to see what a small house it was. The kitchen and bedrooms were tiny. They knocked out the upper part of the walls between the kitchen and dining room and living room, which made it much more open. They replaced many of the doors with beautiful doors with images of horses carved in them. They really completely redid the house. It was probably built in 1970 but looked really new. It turns out that they are putting it up for sale and semi-retiring.

Then we drove around the hills of Bull Valley. As a kid, I rode my bike up and down these huge hills to go to friends' houses. Fortunately, those friends had swimming pools, which was a good incentive for the hard work. Then we went back and had dinner at Mom's, plus a birthday cake and presents for Ben (and Anna too - Mom and Debi are good about giving something to the sibling when it's someone's birthday).

- schneid

Police concert at Wrigley Field

We dropped the kids off at my mom's and drove to Barrington to take the Metra. I hadn't taken the train in years, but it was exactly as I remembered. Some kids (could've been anywhere from 18 to 22 years old) were sitting near us, and the 4 of them polished off a case of beer in the 45 minutes we were on the train. Drinking alcohol on the train is against Metra rules, but it's fairly common, and the conductors didn't seem to care. It was the Taste of Chicago that week, and the train was full of people heading into the city.

We got off at the Clybourn stop rather than go all the way downtown. Clybourn is near Ashland and Armitage, maybe 2.5 miles from Wrigley. We looked for a cab, but there were none to be found. So we started walking and would grab the first available cab that we saw...but we never saw one. We walked through some nice neighborhoods, which I forget that Chicago has. After about 2 miles, we could see Wrigley but had enough walking, so we stopped for dinner. I had wanted to go to Goose Island, which is near Wrigley, but we didn't feel like walking a few extra blocks to get there.

We ate dinner at Pompei, which is on Sheffield. We both had a yummy ravioli with tomato-vodka-cream sauce that was excellent, and tiramisu for dessert. The focaccia wasn't that great, kind of chewy. But that didn't stop me from mopping up all the extra sauce with it. Yum!

After dinner, we headed to Wrigley, and the closer we got, the more crowded it was. I hadn't been to Wrigley since the Reality reunion which I think was in 1995. I may have been there with Tellabs summer interns once after that. Needless to say, it had been a long time. It's a beautiful park. We arrived around 6:00 with the concert scheduled to begin at 7:00.

We got right into the park and didn't have trouble finding our seats, which were on the field. I'd say we were about 45 degrees and 150 feet from the center of the stage. A friend of mine who was in the stands said that the sound wasn't good, but from where we were, it was great. We had a great view.

The outfield was covered with something like a Sport Court, a hard, plastic, interlocking flooring, and there were (cheap) chairs. So it wasn't lawn seating. The chairs were not wide and they were all tied together with plastic ties, so there wasn't much room for a big person. The infield was uncovered and had a rail around it, so you could actually see the infield.

Fewer than 10% of the seats were filled with an hour to go before the opening band. We walked around, checked out the vendors, and bought two cool t-shirts. They were $35 apiece, which seemed like a good deal since I paid that much for Eagles shirts 12 years ago. The beer selection was pitiful...they only had Budweiser products (blech) and Old Style (BLECH!) on the field, so we walked around inside the stands in search of decent drinks. It was cool that there were beer vendors on the field, so you could get a beer and still watch the concert. You could also stand in some areas that were much closer to the stage.

Inside, there were plenty of food vendors with the usual baseball game food, and a lot of beer vendors. We were able to find wine, frozen drinks (daquiris and margaritas), and a couple semi-drinkable beers (Heineken and Amstel light, I think). Oh well. You'd think that they could have a good Chicago beer, like Goose Island, at Wrigley Field.

Fiction Plane, the opening band, started playing. They were led by Sting's son, Joe Sumner, who also plays bass. He sounds just like Sting, and looks quite a bit like him too. The band had good technique and a decent sound, which reminded me of Coldplay and U2. They played for about 45 minutes, until 8:00.

The crowd filled out while Fiction Plane was playing. I didn't see a single person that I knew, until the seat immediately next to me was taken by Brendan, a guy I had just met at work. That was a pretty amazing coincidence. The rooftop seats of the buildings across the street from Wrigley were filled too; I wondered what the sound was like up there, since all speakers were pointed toward the infield.

The Police opened with Message in a Bottle and it was fantastic. It is really a fun song and the crowd enjoyed it. Quite a few of the songs had new arrangements, mostly slower in my opinion. Sting also slightly changed the arrangement of some of the lyrics, so occasionally it was hard to sing along. I wasn't crazy about all of the arrangements, but it didn't detract from the concert for me.

Andy Summers, the guitarist, looked terrible. Honestly, I thought he would keel over at any minute. Stewart Copeland, the drummer, looked old but kept pace with his frenetic drumming. They both played great and looked more comfortable as the show went on. Sting looked older but is still in terrific shape. And his voice, possibly the band's most vital instrument, was fantastic. (The next day, I heard Sting sing on Live Earth on TV, and he was hoarse from our concert.) There were no backup singers or musicians.

I would guess that 90% of the crowd was over 30. I really like older concert crowds, because it's not too crazy or noisy. It was a very well-mannered crowd. Unfortunately, a 6'5" guy sat in front of us. Fortunately, he didn't stand for the entire show. I meant to thank him afterwards.

The entire set list was:

Message in a Bottle
Synchronicity II
Walking On The Moon
Voices Inside My Head
When The World Is Running Down
Don't Stand So Close To Me
Driven To Tears
Truth Hits Everybody
Bed's Too Big Without You
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking In Your Footsteps
Can't Stand Losing You
Roxanne
King Of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take
Next To You

My favorites were Walking on the Moon, Message in a Bottle, Synchronicity II, Can't Stand Losing You, King Of Pain, So Lonely, Every Breath You Take, Wrapped Around Your Finger, and De Do Do Do De Da Da Da. The band played for two hours straight without a break and played two encores.

The weather was great, too. It was about 76 degrees the entire time without a cloud in sight. Which is fortunate, because we were sitting on the field and umbrellas were not allowed.

Afterward, we were able to get out of Wrigley quickly since we were on the field. We immediately headed east, since I assumed that any cab near Wrigley would be full. After a few blocks of working our way through the crowd, we hailed a cab. We had 25 minutes to get to the Clybourn station and catch our train; the station was 2.5 miles away. Well, the traffic was so bad that we ended up begin 25 minutes late. We could've walked there faster! (Of course, after already walking 2.5 miles TO the concert, we were NOT going to walk back too.) Then we had to wait 30 minutes for the next train.

A lot of people from the Police concert and the Taste of Chicago were on the train and it was hard to find a seat. We chatted with a guy from Cary for the whole ride. We disembarked at Barrington, got our car, then drove home, arriving around 1:30 AM. Then we slept in late and picked up the kids around 11:00 AM.

- schneid

Concert tickets

Well, I learned a valuable lesson (at least $300 worth) when buying tickets for the Police concert at Wrigley Field. I tried to get tickets for the first (and only) night, but they sold out within an hour, and despite my multiple phones and multiple Internet Explorer windows, I didn't get through. I was trying to get some less expensive seats in the stands.

They immediately added another date. After looking over the seating chart, I realized that the Wrigley Field seats would be very far away from the stage, and decided that this one time, we would spend $$$ and get good seats on the field, which were $254 each. That's an outrageous amount to pay for a concert, but heck...this is The Police, a group that broke up 22 years ago, that I've always wanted to see in concert. I ended up buying 2 pairs of tickets for $550 per pair (includes service charges). I figured that I could sell the other pair to a friend or to anyone else, that matter, for at least face value.

I couldn't have been more mistaken. Many of the tickets on EBay and on ticket sites have gone unsold or way under face value. In fact, as of right this minute (27 hours before the show), you can actually buy tickets (albeit at face value) from tickets.com for very good seats - better than the seats I have. :( Of course, you could get tickets way under face value on EBay. Or if you were willing to risk not seeing the concert at all, you could go to Wrigley and offer the scalpers $100 for a pair of good tickets.

Needless to say, I won't be doing that again. Don't overestimate the popularity of a show, especially for the second night of the show. I was shocked that I couldn't sell the tickets for face value. I ended up selling them on EBay for $230.

- schneid

No-limit progression, plus last night's session

I played basically only limit hold’em for about 10 years, plus the occasional no-limit tournament. For about the past 5 years, I’ve been playing more and more single table tournaments, although not many in the past few months. Then about a year ago, I switched from limit to no-limit.

I didn’t play no-limit because I was uncomfortable with it. I didn’t know how much to bet, or what to do when someone pushed all-in. However, limit was becoming extremely boring and didn’t pay off. And if I was going to play tight, I decided that my good hands should get paid off. In limit, you might win a few extra bets with the nuts. In no-limit, a bad player will gift you his entire stack. So I switched to .10/.25 no-limit last year. I’ve been treading water since, but really learning a lot about how to play no-limit, at least at this low level. Mostly it’s about waiting for someone to do something stupid so that you can get their entire stack. I’ve greatly improved my knowledge of betting patterns, pot odds, implied odds, position, and stack size.

Last week, I started playing .25/.50. I know these limits sound miniscule, but I play 5-6 tables at a time, and you could easily lose several hundred dollars (again, miniscule by some standards, but that’s all I’d want to lose in one session) in a couple of hours. The .25/.50 table has a minimum $25 buyin, maximum $50 buyin. It’s surprising how many players buy in for less than the maximum. You want to have a big stack so that you can get paid off when you have a good hand.

I noticed immediately that there was a lot more preflop raising in .25/.50. The players weren’t really much better, maybe a little, but definitely more preflop raising. In .10/.25, several players routinely limp and there’s no raise. I liked that, because you could get in cheap and flop a great hand. At .25/.50, players are smart enough to “punish the limpers” by raising big after several players have shown weakness by just calling.

Last night, I played 4 tables of .25/.50 and 1 table of .50/1.00 simultaneously. Within an hour, I doubled on on 3 tables, lost 1/2 my stack on 1 table, and lost 1/4 of my stack on the .50/1 table. After another hour of the deck hitting me in the face, I was up about 50% on the .50/1.00 table. In 3 hours total, I had AA about 8 times and KK about 3 times. Twice with KK, there was an ace on the flop, I bet the size of the pot, and everyone folded. My AA and KK held up the first 10 times. It was amazing. It seems like every time I flopped a set, someone went all-in and I got their stack. So I was very happy with how it was going until the last hand of the night...

I had about $80 on a .25/.50 table and was dealt AhAc again. I was in middle position and there were already two limpers and I raised to 2.50. I could've raised more. There was one caller behind me who was a good player. There is now $6.75 in the pot. The flop came 3d8h9d. I bet the pot, and he raised to $15. Almost all players at this level would slowplay a set, although this player was certainly capable of raising here. It was more likely that he had an overpair or a draw or nothing. I thought about jamming, but I thought I'd see the next card before doing that. Maybe I could let go of AA if I really hated the turn. I called and now the pot is $36.75. The turn was Jh, so the board was now 3d8h9dJh. I considered it very unlikely that my opponent held TQ for a straight, and I wanted to shut out all draws so I bet the pot. My opponent went all-in for $20 more, and it was trivial for me to call, since I was getting better than 6-1. I called, the river was Qd, and my opponent tabled TJd for a flush. Ouch. I've replayed that hand over and over in my head wondering if I could have escaped.

First, I'm pissed that my opponent called my preflop raise with TJ suited, but I might do exactly the same thing with deep stacks, hoping to hit a great flop, which he did. Also, I could've raised more preflop, but I intentionally didn't raise the pot because I didn't want to scare everyone out. So I only raised $2.50 instead of $3.75 and offered my opponent better than 2:1 odds. Perhaps that was the biggest mistake of the hand. I do believe that he would've called a $3.75 raise anyway. What I was hoping to accomplish was to knock out everyone behind me and have one of the limpers call or reraise, and then I would have position.

Now with a straight draw and a flush draw plus two overs on the flop, my opponent is the favorite to win the hand. Of course, the overs are no good, but he is still a favorite without them. I bet the pot, giving him 2:1 pot odds, but he is 1:1 to win it by the river, so he of course can raise with impunity. He raises $15, giving me 3.5:1 pot odds, an easy call. However, since he called my preflop raise, I put him on a hand like an overpair or a suited big ace. I probably should've jammed right there. But the raise threw me off, so I called. Not jamming was probably a mistake, although he would've called and I would've lost anyway.

Now of course on the turn of 3d8h9dJh he also hits top pair - he has top pair, a straight draw, and a flush draw. He can catch any 7, Q, diamond, J, or T to beat me. That's 20 outs, so he's 1.4:1 against winning on the last card - note that he still doesn't have the best hand and he's not the favorite to win - but the pot odds dictate that he must stay in the hand. So the river made his hand and I lost.

Then I couldn't get to sleep and spent the next day agonizing over the hand. But analyzing it is making me feel better. Most of the time, I'm going to beat the pants off that guy with my AA. I want him to call me with JTs. I just got unlucky that time. My preflop raise was intended to get a caller, and it did. I just got outflopped. Could I have folded to his raise on the flop? I don't think so. I certainly couldn't fold at any other point. Could I have checked the turn? Maybe, but I sure didn't want to give a free card with all the draws on the board.

At least I didn't lose to a huge suckout - this is not a bad beat story. My opponent played the hand well and had a great draw that hit.

The funny thing at all lower levels of poker are the players who berate the other players – “you suck, you didn’t have odds to call that, what a donkey, etc. etc.” Well, this is the lowest level, what do you expect, professionals? Bad beats happen, and the reason that they happen is because bad players get their money in with the worst of it. The bad player is doing EXACTLY what you want them to do – play badly. But there is some luck, so of course they win sometimes. And if bad players didn’t occasionally win, there would be no game anyway. At least not a fun game.

- schneid

Florida Keys

From June 7-13, 2007, we visited the Florida Keys. There was a celebration for Hank's 75th birthday and 50th anniversary of being ordained as a minister.




We took a limo to O'Hare and flew to Miami. At one point, the flight was very bumpy and Ben was scared but Anna loved it. Despite chewing gum and other things, Ben had a lot of trouble with the pressure and was in a lot of pain for a few minutes. We learned after the trip that he had an ear infection. When we arrived, we picked up the rental car and drove to Key Largo. We had rented a townhouse there at Kawama Yacht Club, which was a really good deal and we enjoyed it.

We arrived pretty late and it was dark. There was a lockbox and we had the number code, but you couldn't see the numbers. It took a few minutes to figure out how the numbers were laid out and to get the box open.


The townhouse was nice and we would rent there again. The bedrooms were a little small which didn't really matter. There was a pool just steps from our door, which the kids enjoyed a couple of times. There were also a couple of dozen feral cats living there. You can't get close enough to pet (and don't, yuck) but they are always hanging around looking for food.

We had breakfast at Mrs. Mac's Kitchen which was a cute little place. I would describe their decor as early license plate. The walls were plastered with them. They had great food, and plenty of it, at reasonable prices. After breakfast, we drove to Hank and Grandma's church to help with some preparations. Then we came back and had lunch at Mrs. Mac's again!


Friday night was a dinner that had been arranged by Hank's daughter Debbie. It was held at a restaurant where she had worked, I think. Beckie and Scott had arrived, and we hung out with them at dinner, and met Hank's family and friends. One of the guests was a special visitor. I guess we know where Santa goes during the summer now.


We went to the Theater of the Sea, which is an animal park/show. We saw a parrot show, a seal show, and a dolphin show. We also saw some alligators, fish, and birds. The kids really enjoyed it.

On Sunday, we went to church and enjoyed a nice service and then Hank's celebration. The church was packed, about 100 people. Normally they have less than 20 people at a service during the summer. Every family took turns introducing themselves, and explaining how they knew Hank. Then there was a nice lunch and a roast of Hank, which I mostly missed because we were entertaining all the kids.

We visited the Miami Zoo and I have never seen a zoo so deserted. Grandma, Hank, and Debbie's kids, Erica and Jonathan, came with too. It was about 95 degrees and a weekday, which is why no one was there. The kids were only able to last for about 2 hours, but everyone enjoyed it.


We took a glass bottom boat tour and it was great, but seemed kind of short. The trip was to a live coral reef. The view at the bottom of the boat was great. We saw a lot of neat fish and coral. I expected that when we arrived at the reef, we would hang out awhile, but we were only there for a very short time and then came back.



- schneid

Didn't eat a cookie

I didn't eat a cookie this afternoon. That's quite an accomplishment. You see, I'm getting quite fat which is an impediment to playing decent volleyball this summer. Granted, it's a recreational league, but I'd still like to play decently. It's also an impediment to living a healthy life which isn't horrible, but some recent bloodwork shows that my blood pressure and cholesterol are a little high. Plus my weight, which at 200 lbs. might be a wee bit high for a 5'7" man. That weight puts me in the highest risk category for our health insurance, as bad as a smoker. Ouch.

So back to the cookie. There are free cookies every afternoon at work - you can see why I'm fat. I actually got up from my chair and headed upstairs to get one, but stopped myself and instead had some yummy, refreshing water.

I'm planning on getting my bicycle tuned up, since it hasn't been used in (hmm, how old is Ben? Almost 7?) almost 7 years. I live near the Prairie Path which also runs very close to work, so I have a safe 7-mile ride to work. I intend to ride to work a couple times a week along with some volleyball and basketball, so you see that it's actually possible for me to get into shape. We'll see. Everyone should feel free to give me a hard time if I have a cheeseburger in my mouth or if I'm still obese in August.

- schneid

Min-raise

I haven't decided what I think about the min-bet or min-raise. This is when someone makes the smallest bet or raise allowed. With the min bet, it's almost always a poor player who is trying to make a "pre-emptive" bet, to prevent someone else from betting, and it often works at the low limits. The usual scenario is that there are a bunch of limpers, someone min-bets the flop, then someone else bets the size of the pot and everyone folds. Occasionally this is also a skilled player who doesn't really like his hand, like top pair bad kicker. It's actually a decent play. God knows that I've paid off this hand enough times. The good player probably figures that if his opponent doesn't raise the flop and turn, they must have a worse hand than top pair, bad kicker. Inevitably they make a bigger bet on the river and win. The action goes flop-small bet, turn-small bet, river - 1/2 pot or pot-sized bet. When this bet is 1/2 pot size, they often get paid off by a player with middle pair. And it's smart that they don't create a big pot during the flop and turn when they really don't have much of a hand.

The other scenario is a min-raise. This is scarier. The min-raise is always a bluff or a monster hand. Period. OK, it might rarely be a semibluff, but that's a bluff anyway. You often see a min-raise when you've raised preflop, and make a continuation bet on a ragged flop, and that one is almost always a bluff. If you've got a draw, it's an easy call since you have good odds; but when you have completely missed, even though you know the guy is bluffing, you can't call. Unless you have a lot more guts than I do, which is true of many no-limit players. When you do have a good hand, and you re-raise the min-raise, they almost always fold or go all-in. The folders are almost always bluffing and the all-iners almost always have a monster, so your course of action is pretty easy, unless you have great pot odds to continue.

Tonight was a good night. I played .10/.25 no-limit with $25 max stacks on 5 tables, and almost doubled my original buy-in. I hit more than my fair share of draws and flopped some nice hands. I bailed (or was bluffed out) on a couple of mediocre hands when my opponent made a big bet on the river. I was dealt AA on one hand, there were already 3 limpers so I made a big raise and there were 4 callers! The pot was already about $7, the flop was all rags, I bet the pot and took it down. When I stacked other players, it was almost always when I had the nuts or damn near, and they went all-in.

I had a guy ask "it took you that long to call" when he raised big preflop, I called with AQ, the flop was A33, and he went all-in about the size of the pot. I thought about it for a minute, because I really thought he had AK; however, I decided he was capable of making this play with a lot of aces. Turned out he also had AQ and we split. I was getting 2:1 so I think it was a decent call. This guy gifted me his stack at least once; this was when I raised preflop and he reraised; the flop came a beautiful AQT, giving me a set; yes, he could've had a straight which I considered but which was pretty unlikely. He bet about the size of the pot and I just called. I really wanted the board to pair and would have been really disgusted if a K or J fell on the turn. The turn was a sweet T, giving me quad tens. He goes all-in about the size of the pot and I called. There is no better feeling than when your opponent goes all-in and you have the nuts. Turns out that he had AK. He whined less than the usual player. But he was beat by so many hands...including AQ, KJ, AA, QQ, or any ten. Another player, Freudian Knot (I love that name), told the guy "You should've known he had a good hand" (referring to me). He said something like "He called your preflop raise and called on the flop, you should've known he had something, and you know how mschneid plays". That was somewhat flattering so I asked "How DOES mschneid play?" and he replied "tight". I assume this guy uses tracking software or takes good notes. He was right, I play pretty tight, and he plays the same. I don't bother with tracking software; I tried it for awhile and it's nice, but there's no way I can play 5 tables and also use the monitoring software - it's hard enough just to keep up with 5 tables. I could maybe manage 3 tables absolute max while using the software, and it's just more profitable to play 5 tables without it.

- schneid

Crazy Summer

It's going to be a crazy summer. My dad and his wife were just in town for a cousin's bat mitzvah. Those events lasted all weekend. Here's our crazy schedule for this summer:

• Memorial Day - bat mitzvah weekend
  
• June - Key Largo for a week's vacation with the kids (flying to Miami, it was really cheap)
  
• July - we're going to drive to Boston with the kids (yes, we are insane) to visit my sister, and we will also visit my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Terry in Virginia and possibly our friends Bob and Aili in New Jersey. It will take 2 days to drive out, we'll spend Monday-Friday on the east coast, and it will take 2 days to drive back. Whew! (Did I mention that our longest drive so far is 5 hours? Did I mention that we're insane? Can you say "DVD player"?)
  
• August - I'm going to the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison for a day with Westy and maybe some other friends.
  
• Labor Day - driving to Minneapolis for another Bar Mitzvah.
  
• September - driving to Bloomington, IL for my cousin Jason's wedding
  
• Thanksgiving - fly to North Carolina to visit my dad and his wife

OK, technically Thanksgiving isn't in summer but it just shows what a busy travel schedule we have this year. It's all going to be fun but very busy.

The kids also have a lot of activities scheduled all summer long which should keep them happy. As for the long car trip, we'll make frequent stops, try to stop at Children's Museums or something fun, and swim in the pool at the hotel at night.

- schneid