The Bam-Bam alphabet....

Making my way back to the cave via the commute from hell yesterday, I started thinking about things that I’d tried to teach my daughter about life. Having her Grad just recently, I found myself looking at the person she’d become, rather than just my baby girl. I tried to step back and honestly analyze how well she’d taken to my “alphabet” lessons and see if I could recognize any of these qualities in her right now. I’m very proud to say, I certainly could.

It was me that called them the “alphabet” lessons. (you’ll see why in a bit) In fact, I’ve never let on to her that they were any kind of lessons at all. I just made sure she heard at least one of the 26 sayings every single day and it always made me feel better, if it was me hearing one of them from her instead.

A lways be true to yourself.
B argains seldom are. Be it a price or a handshake.
C hoose wisely. For true friends are family you get to choose.
D ecide immediately. First instincts are usually right.
E veryone deserves a 2nd. chance. No one gets a 3rd.
F ollow your heart. It will hurt sometimes, but make you stronger too.
G o with your gut. No explanation, but it’s usually right.
H elp those that need it, when you can.
I dentity is who you are. Not how others perceive you.
J ust be yourself.
K ids will learn from you. Teach well.
L ove finds you. There’s really no sense looking.
M ake mistakes. Learn from them, rather than fear them.
N o one’s perfect. Do not expect it of others or yourself.
O nly change something about you, if you don’t like it.
P lay a lot. It will always be the best part of your life.
Q uestions are a good thing. Answer when you know, ask if you don’t.
R emain calm. Someday, you or maybe another will be glad you did.
S chool is to teach you to learn from everything, not teach you everything.
T ell someone you love, that you do. Better yet, show them often.
U nusual is not weird. It’s just unique.
V ote. You only have a say, if you’ve used your say.
W ith the exception of the end of the World, nothing is the end of the World.
X never marks the spot. The best treasures are always stumbled upon.
Y in and Yang is a fact of life and well worth learning about.
Z oo’s are not the animal’s home.

So there you have it. The alphabet of life, according to Bam-Bam.

My sincerest thanks for dropping by….

Keeping up with the goings on....

Just a quick note to those that may not be regular readers of the G-Vegas gang. Take the time to stop by and read the last couple of entries. They're both by G-Rob and provide some of his review of the recent trip to Vegas. There's some comments about him "raising the bar" over there for the rest of the crew. I think once you take a look yourself, you'll see what they mean. (just be careful with any praise you feel inclined to bestow upon the man please! We wouldn't want his head to get too big for his hair!)

Also down in "A-Lister" territory, all the details of the Winter WBPT dates have been decided on, by the reigning champion of all things bloggable. I believe the dates were December 11-14 or something like that. I hear there's a Golf game in the works as well for those interested. That's something I can say I really look forward to this trip. The golf's being organized, (with the help of The Rooster!) by my man Schwabbles. This should be a blast!

The G-Okie crew are getting really close to Okie-Vegas weekend now. If you get the chance, stop by and let G-Cox know you're hoping he has a great time as always. With the crew he has attending this time, I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the trip reports from everyone involved. I wanted to make it this time, so I'm really hoping to live vicariously through some of those reports!

Last but not least and I say it all the time I know! But if you're not reading Pauly right now as he covers the WSoP in his own way, you just don't know what the hell you're missing. The style, the information and some of the best writing going in our little blogashpere kuh-myoo-ni-tee for certain. The man's got it all. The $50K HORSE coverage was some of the best reading I think I've ever done here and with the Main Event about to start, I can only imagine his coverage is going to be the best out there. It always is!

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

Happy Birthday greatest place on Earth....

So on her Birthday and in honour of this great Nation, here's some random crap you should know.

Canadian Myths de-bunked.

-Some Canadians say "eh" a lot. Yes that is a given. Sometimes I say it myself. However I don't see what the big deal here is. I know a lot of Americans that say "y'all" with everything and sometimes, that has a nice romantic ring to it. Don't even get me started on the nuh-uh's and uh-huh's.

-Canada does not have winter for 11 months out of the year.

My personal favorite!
-We are not a nation of "draft dodgers". Canada was one of the first countries to declare war in WWI, WWII etc. We even fought in the Gulf War along side many other countries. We are renowned the world over for our peace-keeping forces. Our military currently in Afghanistan, is doing an exceptional job considering the support they are getting from the rest of the world. Oh and Yes, there were many Americans who came to Canada during Vietnam to avoid the draft, but that was their personal choice - not ours.

-Canada's military history records, have been found to be the single most accurate source of military history in the world. From our burning of The Whitehouse in 1814 as part of the British Colony and in retaliation for the attack on our York. (Now Toronto) To the historical efforts of over 14,000 Canadian troops in Normundy on D-Day back on June 6, 1944. Currently, our Military Snipers are still being hired as the only "Can-do" specialists in Iraq. At last report they had 61 kills for 66 shots fired, all in the Mountains.

It just happens that by comparison to others, we have a relativly small army.

My "top ten" most asked questions, when travelling.

10) “Have you seen the South Park movie… Buddy?
9)“So…, it’s like cold there, right?”
8)“Who is your president?”
7)“You’re from Canada? Do you know (so-and-so) from (random Canadian city)?”
6)“Yeah, I saw something on TV about that Quebec thing a while back.”
5)“Do you have houses and stuff? You know, like we do.?”
My personal favorite.
4)“Do you like Bryan Adams/Celine Dion?”
(With some of the worlds greatest music being written and performed by Canadian Singers, Songwriters and Bands, why is the world listening to those two idiots?)
3)“Hey! I saw (random actor/singer) on TV yesterday! He’s Canadian right"
2)“Can you say aboot for me? Eh?”
and the #1 question is :
1)“So when are you guys going to join the US?”

Our National Anthem say's an awful lot about who we are as a people. Although sometimes, I wonder if that's not more like who we really should be these days!

O Canada! Our home and native land
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see the rise,
The true north strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada!
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

Funny! I was going to be very Canadian and also put the Bilingual and French versions of the anthem up here too. But you know what? When I hear the English version belted out anywhere across this great Nation, it sounds like they honestly mean it. IMHO, the same cannot be said of the other two versions so... FUG'em!

Happy Birthday Canada!
I've seen the world hun, and you really are the greatest place on Earth.

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

HORSE'ing around....

My new candy is the $5.50 8 player HORSE game on Tilt. To be honest, it's a bit of a dream game in many respects. Firstly, there's only eight players and three get paid. ($20, $12 and $8) Secondly, there's probably only three solid players at every table. This all makes for a pretty profitable opportunity, if you can weed through the early minefield and avoid the "real" horsies at your table. I've found in my first three attempts at the challenge, that once you've shown down a monster and got paid for it, your fellow 'fish-eaters' will leave you alone if they think you're on the good side of removing a player from the game. So far anyways, there seems to be an un-spoken code during the run to the money bubble. The gloves come off from there of course and I have no issues with that at all.

I only played three times like I said, but $16.50 out for entry with a first and two seconds to show for it so far. I'll take the $27.50 profit for what amounted to a total of a few hours of leisure time well spent. Seven more games to go in the challenge, before I get too high up on my HORSE.

I Donked it up Friday Night and played one more of those 90 player NLHE SnG's, despite my desire to stay away from Hold'em all together. The Donkament was for fun and friendship, (as always) and I actually managed a third place finish in my little 90 player excursion. After about 10 or 11 re-buys in the Donkament, the third place in the SnG helped net me a cool profit of $36-something for the night in the end. Meh!

(Quick reminder! The TuckFard Open NLHE goes at 7:00pm tonight on Tilt, and the TuckFard II HORSE game starts right after at 8:00 pm as well. The password for both as always, is Donkey)

There were only three games all weekend, because it was one of those weekends that can never come often enough for me. I spent a whack of time just lounging around out on the deck with my Peb's. Margarita's in the shaker and the odd drop in from a few good friends.

Saturday was the official Feed The Monkey day. Carson, Suzy_Q and mini_Q(?) all came over, and we walked across the road to take the money from our charity game to Mary at Bear Creek. It was a great afternoon and I'll have more to say about it, a little later on in the week.

Sunday was just me and Peb's. After a fantastic breakfast of homemade scones, we just sat there out on the deck. With Orioles, Goldfinches, Cardinals and Hummingbirds all watching on, I kicked her ass in Crib. :o) Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!
( I don't get to say that too often! )

It was a beautiful afternoon and even that little shower in the middle there, couldn't dampen the enjoyment we get out of our time together out back. Having every species of song bird stop by and put on a show for us, kept the radio off the entire afternoon too. As Peb's said, "we listened to real music all day." This was helped by the entire neighbourhood, (well, all 5 of them) as not one lawnmower, leaf blower, weed whacker or tractor was started all day long. Trust me when I say that's pretty rare out here. There's a ton of stuff to get done out on the country properties, but I guess everyone had the same idea at the same time.

Since Peb's went to all the work of making me the scones for breakfast, I put together a dinner for her. My famous Montreal Smoked Chicken thighs with stuffing and a real Greek salad, with some sweet red onion, the perfect grape tomatoes, cucumber, fresh Feta cheese and a selection of olives that were too yummy for words. I think she liked it. I was going to take a picture for
Chef-boy-R-EH but it looked so damn good, I just couldn't see wasting the time.

Like I said earlier, I have a bit more to say about our Bear Creek visit and the charitable donation we made. I'll try and get something together in the morning.

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....