By Nicholas on 4/27/2006 9:56 AM

So I skated on Jury duty, perhaps the Solano County courts read here and changed their minds. Regardless, I'm a free man and noone got offended which is a victory of sorts. Then again, I was going to have to be excused one way or the other since I was booked to speak at a SQL Server Protection Seminar with over 400 attendees. I think that's my largest audience to date. If not, it has to be close. I've done a couple of 300 person public speaking engagements in the past. No, I don't have a problem doing public speaking. I do get extremely nervous and paranoid that I'm forgetting something in the 5 minutes prior to starting. Then I'm fine and relaxed after the first slide pops up on the screen. I fall right into the groove. Just that last 5 minutes waiting that gets to me; weird. I've been asked over the years by a number of people how I learned to speak so comfortably with an audience staring at me. I never took any training so I guess that it is all natural ability or what is probably more the case, lack of concern. I think that the first key is to know what you're talking about. Next, you have to believe in yourself and your abilities. Next you have to speak up, I usually try to slow down my speaking since I normally tend to talk fast. My last bit of advice is to practice, practice, practice. Once you've been doing this for a while, you don't even really need to practice or warm up. About 7 years ago I was with one of my sales guys at a hotel for a small seminar, my side of the conversation went something along these lines: "Remind me again, who are we here to see? Me? I'm presenting? Ok, what's my topic? Ya, no problem, just introduce me I'm all set."...

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By Nicholas on 4/19/2006 1:15 PM

 

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By Nicholas on 4/10/2006 12:38 AM

Home at last! Long road trip. The Indy meetings were really good from my perspective so there's a bunch of good upside for my territory which means, Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo Money!!! On the family front, I made it back to Ohio for the rest of the week until today (well it was Sunday). I just got settled and thought I'd do a quick recap. I got to see White Bread's kids, which is always fun for me. I also got to meet his boys for the first time, they're 4, but I don't get back to Ohio very often. It's a huge pain in my ass to travel for pleasure and I know that the Poker action is few and far between. I got to spend Thursday night getting all liquored up and silly (ya, I know, you're shocked) with White Bread. Then I crashed on his couch. Apparently the kids were talking loud in the morning, but I never even noticed, I was out cold. It was WB's day off on Friday and when I finally awoke it was just me, him and the boys. So Uncle Nick got some catching up time. First off, they wanted to watch a movie so we checked...

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By Nicholas on 4/8/2006 9:03 AM

The next day I got to wear fresh clothes thanks the baggage jerk-offs finally removing their head from their asses. Today is Wednesday, so we have a couple of quick calls in the A.M. then we're off to Calgary for the remainder of the week. The Marriot: We arrived in Calgary in the late afternoon. I even managed to retrieve my bag from the carousel, although they did make me wait a bit; just enough to get me nervous. I had heard nothing but good things about the Poker games in Calgary, I did some scouting ahead of time and got directed to the Elbow River Casino. What with there being so much oil money flowing through Alberta I wasn't about to miss a Poker game. We checked in and then got a cab. I got right into a 15/30 and BD went on the list. He'd been asking me for months about playing Limit, since he'd never play anything other than No-Limit. I told him that he wouldn't like it and he'd be bored almost instantly. He initially got on the board for the 15/30, but I talked him down to the 4/8 to minimize...

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By Nicholas on 3/28/2006 9:45 AM

 

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By Nicholas on 3/20/2006 9:01 AM

I was sitting 4/8 in the 6s at Cache Creek. A nice loose aggressive table that paid the full amount, on solid hands. A bizarre thing happened, no not really if you play more than twice a year. One of the dealers thumped the table in front of the 1s after the flop to signal his action. The next 3 players all verbally checked and only then did the 1s make a bet. "Floor..." The decision came down correctly, that the bet couldn't stand because the dealer didn't call "Time!" while the remaining 3 players verbally checked. I.e. the thumping appeared to them and me too as the 1s hitting the table to signify his check. He's a pretty nice guy too, but nice has nothing to do with it. No tip for that dealer from me. Later, the dealing troubles continued. Helen dealt my first card and it literally rolled to me at an 89 degree angle, but didn't flip over. I was in the big blind and when she finished dealing in the button, I slid that card to her and said, "it flashed". Rather than just dealing me another card, exposing that card and using it for the burn she matter of factly said, "No, it didn't". Shock and Awe was an expression that immediately hit my face. "What? it was at an 89 degree angle. How could they not," motioning to the other 60% of the table, "have seen it." I'm starting to think about her tip situation......

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By Nicholas on 3/13/2006 1:22 AM

 

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By Nicholas on 3/5/2006 10:37 PM

Wow, nothing has been happening in what seems like ages! I'm still playing, but nothing exciting to report. I officially have nothing to bitch about! Trust me, I'm as depressed about that as everyone else is. Lately, I've been getting cold decked like I pissed on the Poker Gods shoes, but haven't really had any cool stories to share. It even carried over to the Bond Traders game last week, when I played for 4.5 hours and made a whopping $10. That barely covered the gas. I think the Greek made off with the cash and even Sponge made a little coin. Lots of laughing, but no harm or fouls committed. The Doc put on a quality meal as always, so I guess that count that as part of the lure to the game. I just started playing online at Ultimate Bet, but that's been somewhat of a mistake. Apparently they've recently made changes to the softs and can't seem to keep their act together. I keep getting disconnected, seemingly for no reason at all. The software claims that it's on my end, by my net connection is always smooth sailing. I've been playing 10/20 and 5/10, but the cards keep coming cold. Sitting 10 playersthe other night, I was only winning 6% of the time, which is to say I wasn't even winning my fair share. I got a little reprieve today, but no real action to speak of. The Limit games are pretty sparse above low limit with the same 20 players so it's kind of like real life at the card room. Hope that 100% bonus issue gets resolved, it's the only reason that I'm playing there. Then I'm moving my money somewhere else. Besides, the hand history functionality is terrible. How these guys ever get "Great Software" reviews is beyond me. Must be like all of the companies that put out Press Releases saying "Market Leader" when they just opened for business and have no referenceable customers....

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By Nicholas on 2/16/2006 12:49 PM

So much ado about nothing. That's my thoughts on this whole Dick Cheney hunting accident. It's apparent to me that at this time of the year, there is just nothing interesting to put in print or on TV, so even the most mundane things make the top story. I'm even getting flashbacks of the Lima, OH (born and raised, not by choice) nightly news where the local NBC affiliate's top story was frequently, "Tonight, the latest unemployment figures." The guys went hunting, accidents happen all the time. If it weren't the VP then it wouldn't have made the last page of the Crawford, TX high school newspaper. It's not like he donned war paint made a loud scream and hunted the guy down and plugged him. Dick didn't even go for the death blow or leave the guy for dead! They took the guy to the emergency room of all things! Teddy Kennedy on the other hand...not so much with Mary Jo Kopechne. Thanks to White Bread for sharing...

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By Nicholas on 2/9/2006 8:01 PM

Wow, I haven't seen/done anything worth writing about in quite some time! Here's quick recap of the recent past that seemed noteworthy. I promise to get into more hijinks ASAP. I got back from Lost Wages (Las Vegas for those not aware) on Thursday. The last two months seemed to have been tough for my bankroll, big swings but nothing that I'm not sure is just normal statistical variance. So it's just one of those hazards of the game that I've outlasted before and I'll outlast again. I ended loser $800 in Vegas, and that was a after a devastating run that lasted hours without having a single hand hold up. It just wasn't meant to be. Should have known since I started out the week winner by $600 on Sunday. The individual results really don't matter that much to me though because I've been playing long enough to know that the numbers work themselves out over time, so I just have to keep making the best investments at the best time. I also played recreationally for a while with White Bread and his dad (my uncle)...

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