Friday, October 29, 2004
You say it's your birthday?
Happy freaking birthday to me.
How’s that for an opener? Today is my birthday and the birth day of my blog. I’m (wait, I have to figure this out)…36 years old today. Cripes, that’s getting up there. When I was a kid I thought I’d be lucky to live to see 40. I better make it a hell of a lot longer than that or the wife will be saddled with some nasty debt. Of course there is that insurance policy…
I don’t know if you can train a monkey to set one of these things up but I sure don’t seem to be getting the hang of it. I’d like to blame Chris Halverson for that but that wouldn’t really be fair. If I knew what the hell I was doing I’d have a nifty link in his name to steer you to his site. Obviously I don’t have a clue. Anyway, Chris was nice enough to steer me to this site when I asked him for some info on setting up a blog. Truth be told, it’s entirely Chris’s fault that I’m even doing this. I didn’t really know much about blogs before I met him. I always thought they were things that super computer geeks were into (I’m old, remember?) and cost a bunch of money to run and were super complicated (thus requiring you to be a super computer geek to run one). Now I’m not saying Chris isn’t a geek, but he certainly seemed to be a fairly normal guy the first time I met him. He was taking my money at the time but I didn’t let that color my opinion of him. During this drubbing he shared that he had a blog. I took the time to look it up and enjoyed reading it. I also checked out some of his links to other bloggers and decided to give it a shot myself. I’ve always been very “social” and love to share my opinions.
First, some background info. I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana 36 years ago today. I have no siblings as I pushed my parents into poverty with my voracious appetite. I spent my formative years there and developed a nasty addiction to Indiana University basketball. While it’s under control now, no addiction is ever eliminated and this one still strikes once or twice a winter. If I’ve achieved legendary status in anything it would have to be for my “outbursts” while watching my beloved Hoosiers go down in flames. Al can testify to this as he witnessed a classic evening in 1992 when I.U. lost to Duke in the semi finals in Minneapolis. I was in rare form that evening.
I ventured to Minnesota to attend Macalester College in St. Paul. I spent four fairly uneventful yet expensive years there. I began working for Norwest Bank (strangely enough, a bank that no longer exists due to a merger) while in college and spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 years working there. During that time I suckered Jennifer Klein into marrying me after an interesting 10 year relationship. When we had children (Jordan, now 5 and Nicklas, now 21 months) I volunteered to be a stay at home dad. That is what I’m currently doing with my life, along with some part time accounting work for a local non profit organization.
Now, on to my true motivations for creating this blog, poker and hockey! Poker is currently my favorite “activity” away from family responsibilities. When I say “poker” I mean Texas Hold‘Em which is my current game of choice. I spend at least 20 hours a week playing online at Empire Poker and Party Poker. I started at Party but set myself up with an affiliate after a while so I had to open an account at Empire as well. I return to Party to play in the 1,000 + player 30 + 3 NLHE tournaments once or twice a week but pretty much live on Empire. I also run tournaments at my house about every other month which is how I met Mr. Halverson. My fourth tournament will be tomorrow and I’m expecting my largest field yet of around 16 players.
Growing up in Indiana basketball was the winter sport, not hockey. The 1980 winter Olympics provided my first extensive exposure to the sport and I was hooked. I can’t skate a lick but I love the game. With the NHL in the midst of a lockout with no end in sight hockey has become a painful topic for me. I have lots to say on the labor situation and will do so at a later date. I also follow U.S. college, Canadian major junior and Minnesota high school hockey so I do have some other options during the lockout. In particular I’m a huge Minnesota Golden Gopher hockey fan and am lucky enough to be able to see them twice a week on TV most weeks. I’ve also stepped into the realm of hockey parent as my daughter Jordan has laced up the skates for the first time this year. After half a dozen or so practices she can actually skate without assistance but hasn’t mastered the concept of pushing off so she’s super slow. It’s expensive and time consuming but as long as she’s having fun we’ll continue to participate.
I’ve got a million things that I want to write about bouncing around in my head but I’m calling it a night. When it comes to sports radio my favorite guys are the ones that work in a variety of subjects, both in and out of the sports world. I’ll try to do that in this blog, not just hammer away at poker and/or hockey every time.
How’s that for an opener? Today is my birthday and the birth day of my blog. I’m (wait, I have to figure this out)…36 years old today. Cripes, that’s getting up there. When I was a kid I thought I’d be lucky to live to see 40. I better make it a hell of a lot longer than that or the wife will be saddled with some nasty debt. Of course there is that insurance policy…
I don’t know if you can train a monkey to set one of these things up but I sure don’t seem to be getting the hang of it. I’d like to blame Chris Halverson for that but that wouldn’t really be fair. If I knew what the hell I was doing I’d have a nifty link in his name to steer you to his site. Obviously I don’t have a clue. Anyway, Chris was nice enough to steer me to this site when I asked him for some info on setting up a blog. Truth be told, it’s entirely Chris’s fault that I’m even doing this. I didn’t really know much about blogs before I met him. I always thought they were things that super computer geeks were into (I’m old, remember?) and cost a bunch of money to run and were super complicated (thus requiring you to be a super computer geek to run one). Now I’m not saying Chris isn’t a geek, but he certainly seemed to be a fairly normal guy the first time I met him. He was taking my money at the time but I didn’t let that color my opinion of him. During this drubbing he shared that he had a blog. I took the time to look it up and enjoyed reading it. I also checked out some of his links to other bloggers and decided to give it a shot myself. I’ve always been very “social” and love to share my opinions.
First, some background info. I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana 36 years ago today. I have no siblings as I pushed my parents into poverty with my voracious appetite. I spent my formative years there and developed a nasty addiction to Indiana University basketball. While it’s under control now, no addiction is ever eliminated and this one still strikes once or twice a winter. If I’ve achieved legendary status in anything it would have to be for my “outbursts” while watching my beloved Hoosiers go down in flames. Al can testify to this as he witnessed a classic evening in 1992 when I.U. lost to Duke in the semi finals in Minneapolis. I was in rare form that evening.
I ventured to Minnesota to attend Macalester College in St. Paul. I spent four fairly uneventful yet expensive years there. I began working for Norwest Bank (strangely enough, a bank that no longer exists due to a merger) while in college and spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 years working there. During that time I suckered Jennifer Klein into marrying me after an interesting 10 year relationship. When we had children (Jordan, now 5 and Nicklas, now 21 months) I volunteered to be a stay at home dad. That is what I’m currently doing with my life, along with some part time accounting work for a local non profit organization.
Now, on to my true motivations for creating this blog, poker and hockey! Poker is currently my favorite “activity” away from family responsibilities. When I say “poker” I mean Texas Hold‘Em which is my current game of choice. I spend at least 20 hours a week playing online at Empire Poker and Party Poker. I started at Party but set myself up with an affiliate after a while so I had to open an account at Empire as well. I return to Party to play in the 1,000 + player 30 + 3 NLHE tournaments once or twice a week but pretty much live on Empire. I also run tournaments at my house about every other month which is how I met Mr. Halverson. My fourth tournament will be tomorrow and I’m expecting my largest field yet of around 16 players.
Growing up in Indiana basketball was the winter sport, not hockey. The 1980 winter Olympics provided my first extensive exposure to the sport and I was hooked. I can’t skate a lick but I love the game. With the NHL in the midst of a lockout with no end in sight hockey has become a painful topic for me. I have lots to say on the labor situation and will do so at a later date. I also follow U.S. college, Canadian major junior and Minnesota high school hockey so I do have some other options during the lockout. In particular I’m a huge Minnesota Golden Gopher hockey fan and am lucky enough to be able to see them twice a week on TV most weeks. I’ve also stepped into the realm of hockey parent as my daughter Jordan has laced up the skates for the first time this year. After half a dozen or so practices she can actually skate without assistance but hasn’t mastered the concept of pushing off so she’s super slow. It’s expensive and time consuming but as long as she’s having fun we’ll continue to participate.
I’ve got a million things that I want to write about bouncing around in my head but I’m calling it a night. When it comes to sports radio my favorite guys are the ones that work in a variety of subjects, both in and out of the sports world. I’ll try to do that in this blog, not just hammer away at poker and/or hockey every time.
