Mirage

I'm not going to lie. My mouth waters a bit when I head to a casino. Not figuratively either. Literally, my lips moisten. And don't get all worked up and call Bets Off. I can count on 1 hand the number times I've been to the casino in the past 12 months. Anyway, point being, I get a little rush when I see the "Live Poker" sign as I drive up to my local card club.

See, I've been 100% average at most things in my life. Sports, always made the B team. Never the A, never the C. In Band, I was always 4th chair in a section of 8. School, same thing, about a 3.0 average through high school. Heck, I weigh 185 pounds. Check the US census averages and I bet that's within 5% of the 50th percentile.

So when I found poker a few years ago, it was weird to think of myself as above average at it. I took to the game instantly and played pretty seriously for at least a couple years and actually studied the game. I had software that would track my play (when I played online) so I could go back and find mistakes later. I read forums discussing theory. In the end, I became a somewhat successful player at a specific kind of poker: limit holdem. And that was new experience for me.

That's part of why I get a rush walking through the card room doors. When sit at a table full of strangers, I feel like I can beat them. Never before in my life have I felt that. When I play poker with friends, it's fun and games. When I go to the casino, it's me competing seriously maybe for the first time in my life. I've always subscribed to the philosophy of competition that if you don't invest yourself, you don't really care if you lose. Somewhere, I invested myself in the game of poker, which brought out competitive impulses that were foreign to me.

Anyway, I explain this as a set up to the real reason of this post, I went to Vegas last week on a work trip. And yes, I did actually do alot of work. But my nights were free and the first night I was there, I went straight to Binion's Horseshoe.

If you aren't knowledgeable in the world of poker, let me explain. Binion's is basically where it all began. It was the casino that took poker from back rooms and made it into the World Series of Poker that you see on ESPN today. All of the major happenings took place there from 1970 to 2005. Basically, it's the Fenway Park, CBGB's, Mecca, etc for poker.

So with glee I headed away from the strip and towards the old downtown district of Vegas where Binion's was. I almost bounced through the front door anxious to play on the hallowed grounds. I traveled back to the back of the casino and asked the Poker desk for a seat on one of the tables.

My heart instantly drooped the second I sat down. Nowhere was the glory and history that I'd seen on TV. In it's place was the most depressing and dingy poker room I've ever seen. The table had stains on top of old stains. It was light enough to see the room, but dark enough to hide the shame. My opponents: all 65 year old grinders who hadn't smiled in about 5 years and were just waiting for the next bad card to come out so they could complain about it. I looked to my right and the guy next to me had the largest bulbous nose I'd ever seen. The dealer was a dead ringer to the guy in Sling Blade, right down to the underbite and weird "Umm hmmm" noises. I played for about an hour and left shell shocked. My Mecca was a shithole. I felt slapped in the face.

Looking back, I realize I like it better that Binion's is a dump. At the core, poker is a game of gambling (albeit a game of skill rather than luck), which spawned from the underbelly of society. It's only 40-50 years removed from having to carry (and use) a gun to protect your winnings. ESPN can glamorize it all they want, but that won't erase the roots of the game. Binion's reflects this.

Incidentally, the trip to Vegas did also let me know that the last couple of years of not playing seriously has slid me right back to average as a player. Something I'm 100% comfortable with.

The Value of Nothing

Feel free to skewer me as yet another victim of parenthood. When your nights are filled with tasks associated with keeping another human being happy/fed/not filthy, your ability to have clever thoughts to try and write about in a blog diminishes severely. Heck, even my shower time, which once was a fertile field that would produce a plethora of ideas to be cultivated, has transformed into producing a crop of one plant: "I wonder if Riley is sick/developing okay/etc etc."

The light at the end of the tunnel is that she is now going to bed at or before nine. Which, once her last whimper is let out and she's settled into a night's sleep, what used to be a race to get to sleep for Jessica and I has become time of confusion and bewilderment for us. Being so used to not having a moment to watch a TV show, having a full hour to ourselves before we have to turn in for the night is lost on us. We wonder through the house wondering what to do. We'll put away a toy and maybe check the weather online, but eventually we grow tired of trying to entertain ourselves and go to bed at 9:30. Hopefully, in theory, we are adjusting back to being used to having some free moments and be able to enjoy them.

That being said, I figured I'd try and kick start a will to write something by recanting a story that I was reminded of the other day. It is one of my favorite memories of highschool, which once you reach the conclusion, you'll pity me and my non-exciting 15-18 year experience.

Sometime mid-senior year, someone in my friend group found that our cafeteria sold "Vita Pups", which were exactly like "Slush Puppies" only the geniuses in the marketing department of Slush Puppies, Inc. thought that having "Vita" in the name would make it okay to sell ice water with sugar syrup in schools.
In case you are ignorant to difference between Slush Puppies vs. Icee's, allow me to explain. Icee's are premixed ice and flavor:












Whereas, Slush Puppies allow you to add your choice of flavor(s) to ice (and evidently contains flavors so intense they have to be frozen):



















For obvious reasons of being awesome, Vita Pups became the new fad of the group. Our table was filled with guys enjoying their candy in a cup every day.

This fad would have quickly faded if not for second discovery: the cafeteria would allow you to get 2 syrup flavors in your Pup. A quest was born. What was the best flavor combination? With 6 syrups to choose from, our group was currently looking at 21 flavors (plus the 6 original) to select as the ultimate Vita Pup flavor. The routine went like this: you'd select your flavors, arrive back at the table, present it to the group and detail your opinion.

Debate raged for weeks. The quest was further complicated by a week in which someone in our group has the balls of steel to walk up to the cafeteria worker and ask for 3 flavors. Stunned, the worker complied. With the flood gates opened, we all demanded the equivalent 3 flavor Pups until word got up to the cafeteria higher ups and the gluttonous practice was shut down. We were forced back to the "cherry/blueberry vs. Strawberry/purple" debates with an occasional mention of the time of "3 flavors."

It went on like that until a guy from our group came back from the cafeteria with a weird smile on his face. Upon someone asking what flavor he got, he replied "Nothing."

"Nothing."

I'll never forget that moment. It was as close to Zen as I'll ever be in my life. He we were, racing forward seeking the answer by adding 1+2, then 1+3, then 2+3, and for a time 1+2+3. And he comes back with a possible answer of 0. It was a powerful example of lateral thinking that probably taught me a more useful lesson than a full year of AP European History.

We all instantly put down our Pups, gave the Newton of slushies a jealous look wishing we'd thought of it, and went up to try our own.

I wish I could tell you that that Pup of nothingness was like eating enlightenment. That its sweet flavor was the joy of minimalism in syrup form, filling my stomach and soul with goodness. But it wasn't. It was awful. Imagine what you think unflavored ice that has been sitting in a machine for a week would taste like and that's about it.

Doesn't mean it wasn't a terrific idea.