Friday, September 30, 2005

Updates:

Well, I've grown lazy with my blog, and that probably due to the current state of affairs in my life. As I get things orgainzed in my life, I tend to want to get my blog organized as well.

Oliver:
He's doing better and he should make a full recovery. I guess I really messed him up by not brushing him well for about 6 months or so. I believe in my last blog I said that I brought him in on a Sat. On Tuesday, I had to bring him in b/c he wasn't eating much and didn't seem to be improving. The vet ran some blood tests and perscribed an appetite stimulator. By the next Sat, Oliver had shown definate improvement. He had gained most of the weight back that he had lost and he was eating well. Wednesday, he puked a huge hairball, but otherwise he seems to be fine. The fact that he was able to cough up such a large hairball really shows me how much fur he must have ingested. I've been combing him everyday since he got sick, and I've been giving him the Laxatone treatment. His feces had a bunch of fur, so I figured he was expelling it, but I had no idea he had a huge hairball left in his stomach. With combing everday, and with me giving him hairball prevention treats weekly, he shouldn't have any future problems.

Stupid laptop:

My desktop busted this week. It reboots within 5 minutes of me turning it on and then reboots within minutes after that. I believe the memory is busted. I had to switch some files to my laptop and I had to hook it up to the DSL line. The location of the touchpad just caused me lose about a paragraph of this blog. My thumb hits it sometimes and this blogger doesn't have an undo button :(

September 28:

Wednesday was my 28th birthday. As my introduction to this entry implied, my life has been offtrack again. I'm sure that my birthday is partly to blame for my current state of depression. Also, add to that the fact that I was unwilling to maintain the status quo and wanted to be impatient with my work, and you have a recipe for disaster. Well, things could be worse, but lately, I'm not just as resiliant as I have been in the past.

Persistence:

I know this lesson, but Sidegames reinforced the lesson to me today in a phonecall. Apparently, he had dropped like 20K trading earlier this week, but he still forced himself to go to work the next day. In contrast, I made a significantly large mistake ( for my bankroll) two weeks ago, and I still haven't recovered mentally. Times like this again make me question my career choices. Part of me wants to get a real job so I don't have to go through this pain.

Sidegames did tell me that he talked to his boss about his huge loss. The boss said that "tilt" and the poor choices that lead to big losses never disapper. Apparently, the boss has been trading for over 30 years and still experiences tilt and bad decision making. I guess the boss told Sidegames that you basically just have to be able pick yourself up after it. I hoping I can do that this weekend.

Desperate Housewives:

I've been abusing Netflix & blockbuster online since I haven't been working. I'm on Disc 6 of the first season of Desperate Housewives. This really is a great show. When I first saw the show, I was attracted by the hot women, but then I soon realized the story is intriguing and I've been hooked ever since. BTW, the first show I happened to watch was the one where Juanita wants
Carlos to fire the maid. I would have kept flipping channels if I hadn't seen Eva Langoria in lingerie in the next scene. That kept me watching long enough to realize that the show is also funny and well-written. I know I'm going to want to watch Season 2 every Sunday, but I'll probably just wait for it to come on DVD next year as NFL football will prevent me from catching the show every week.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Oliver is sick:

My cat of five years has been sick for the last few days. I believe I first noticed vomit stains on the rug on Thursday. Cats occasional vomit because they licked a dirty plate or dug through the garbage. Both of my cats have vomited in the past but were fine afterwards. On Saturday, I finally caught Oliver in the act of vomiting. Prior to that, I wasn't sure whether it was Misiu or Oliver. I decided to bring him in to the vet's office because he had vomited 3-4 times in a two day period which is a cause for concern.

I told the vet that I found some hair in one of the first vomitus, so I suggested that it might be a hairball. The vet said that Oliver was still well hydrated so he gave me a some pills and some Laxatose. Laxatose helps move hairballs, and I learned that the pills were meant for surpressing vomiting and diarrhea, and to increase nutrient absorbtion. I had a hard time giving both to Oliver and even caused him to vomit once because I hadn't yet mastered the method of administering the pills to Ollie.

Over the rest of the weekend, I noticed that Oliver was drinking, but he wasn't really eating. I estimated that he ate about 20 pellets of food over 4 days. On Monday, I tried buying a different flavor of Laxatose in the hope that he would like it better. He hated the stuff the same. Today, I called the veterinarian for consultation and after I told him Oliver's condition, he asked me to bring him in for bloodwork. I just got back from the office visit. The lab results should be in tomorrow. Oliver had lost 7 ounces since Saturday. They administered a fluid injection because of the weight loss. I'm really worried about Oliver and I hope it's nothing serious. I worried that I might lose him, but he shouldn't be that sick since he's so young and never had problems in the past.

The cliche` "when it rains, it pours" seem to be relevant here. I'm having problems with Oliver, and I made some poor choices this past weekend with poker. That should have been the subject of another blog, but I haven't felt like writing until today. Suffice it to say that I tried moving up to higher limits too fast and now I set myself back at least a month or two. I knew that the decision was a poor one, but I guess I was motivated by impatience and a desire to show Beata that I could really make some good money doing this rather than grinding along as I have been. The grinding along was actually good progress, in retrospect. Too bad I made the poor decisions because I'm now faced with possibly more veteranarian bills. Also, had I been in a better financial situation right now, I could have taken advantage of a cheap United fare to BKK that would have requalified me for Premier status on UA. Oh well, so goes life.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Adventures at Body Worlds:

I am slightly reluctant to post the following, as it describes a clearly illegal activity, but I'm assuming that I won't be prosecuted for such a minor thing. We were clearly willing to pay to get into the exhibit, and we had discussed that we were willing to pay more than face value for a ticket, but for some reason this was impossible. That's the reason the following happened:

The "Body Worlds" exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry ends on September 5. As I'd heard on Flyertalk, and from friends, that the exhibit is great, I decided that I wanted to see it before it closed. Ancipating continued popularity of the exhibit, the museum decided to open the exhibit for 24 hours a day starting Saturday at 9am and ending Monday at 6pm. I had checked for online tickets on Wednesday, and it appeared that the only tickets I could get were for Sunday and Monday morning between 2am and 6am. I called Colorado Dave that day and we decided to go to the exhibit one of those days. As the tickets seemed widely available at those times, I decided not to purchase any tickets in advance. I also figured that not that many people would go to the exhibit at those odd hours.

Dave and I decided to go last night. We had planned to go at 2am but we talked at 11pm and we decided we'd head out there once I was ready. (I had slept till 11pm after going to be early Saturday morning due to Madden addiction.) We met up and I rode down there in Dave's car. When we arrived, we were told at the front door that tickets were sold out until 3:30am Monday morning. I was disappointed but figured we could just go to Jimmy's Bar in Hyde Park. Dave didn't want to give up so easily. We briefly tried seeing if anyone had tickets, but found that to be fruitless. Dave then suggested that we try to sneak into the exhibit. The first step was to get in the front door as the person working the front said we needed tickets before we could even get into the building. We found a sidedoor were people were coming out, so we went in there.

I originally figured that we could see the layout of the Museum, and then worse case scenario, we'd buy the tickets for Monday as we did want to see this exhibit. We got in line at the ticket counter, and Dave said that all we had to do was get up this one escalator and we'd be in. We walked past the line and saw the unattended elevator. I quickly headed for a quick washroom break. We then went up the elevator and I walked out with a feigned limp. I wanted to make it look like I actually had a reason for riding the elevator. On this floor, we found another person monitoring the escalator up to the next floor. We tried to go past him, but he asked us for tickets. We lied that we were with the people above but he woudln't let us past. We then headed to the coffee shop there to plan our next move.

Dave found a map on an empty table. He was convinced that we could get in with a piece of paper, as his on-and-off girlfriend Caley had said that no one had checked her tickets when see had gone to the exhibit. Later, I learned that she had gone on one of the first days, and things were different tonight. After sitting and scoping out the situation, I suggested we head to the food court. On the way there, we saw a staircase that was blocked by a rope on one side, but open on the other side. When the guard was not looking ,we darted up the stairs. We saw two guards by upescalator, but walked to some benches near the entrance to the exhibit.

Here, we found a exit where people were coming out, and an entrance with a roped maze for people to go through. Two people were checking tickets there. Dave's idea was to sneak in through the exit. We had seen a few people walk back through the exit area, and we saw people hanging out there. Dave pretended to be on the phone and wandered towards the area. We then both got up and got closer by pretending to be on the phone. After a few minutes of surveying, we decided to make a move to the exit when we saw a large group of about 5-8 people showing their tickets to the entrance people.

At the exit we found a gift shop area. At this point, I figured we had been worried about getting to this exit area for nothing. Clearly, we wouldn't have been challenged going to the gift shop area as there was a turnstile for people to exit the exhibit. At the gift shop, we also noticed that the entrance would be difficult to get through, as there was again a snaking line area (empty, but you'd have to walk under the line or along the line). There was a person carefully checking tickets there and the line went through this person.

I kept telling Dave to try get us through by asking the person monitoring the exit for "reentry." We knew that reentry was prohibited as the annoucement clearly said that reentry was forbidden. I knew from past experiences that people are often reluctant to say "No," so I knew our chances we good at this point. (I always remember my friend Sebastian frequently not paying cover fees by walking past the cashier. If he was stopped, he'd forcefully argue that he had already paid and had just stepped out to check for some friends.) Dave didn't seem like he was going to make the move, so I was forced into action.

I later told Dave that this situation was what we'd call a "freeroll." Within reason, no matter what I said, I'd been in the same situation I was now. I walked up to the guy and said, "I know you're not supposed to do this, but could you let us back in. We came out not too long ago but our friends are still in there and I'm getting bored sitting out here. I rather be back in there." He replied, "No, I can't do that." I pleaded, "Come on, this sucks waiting out here. Would you let me in if I gave you a few bucks?"

Dave and I had said we'd probably be wiling to pay up to $20 to get in. I figured a bribe would work if my mouth didn't, but before I could further contemplate the action, the guy said, "Okay, I'm not really supposed to do this, but go ahead. Don't take too long." He then let me in, much to Dave's suprise. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get Dave in, but I was in.

Dave then called me on my cellphone and told me to enjoy the exhibit. He said he would wait. I didn't want him to wait to long so I started rushing through the exhibit. After a few minutes, I decided to call him and suggest bribing the guy. Much to my surprise, I ran into him randomly next to one of the bodies. He had told me that he had gotten in through the entrance. He said he bought a few postcards from the giftshop to make it look like he had just come out of the exhibit. Then, with confindence, he walked through the entrance. A woman challenged him, and he said, "Hey, I'm just going back in to get some keys from my friend." She didn't question him further, and he was in.

The mission was a success and we even saved money. Again, we didn't mind paying and were even willing to part with more than the admission fee to get in, but somehow, the Museum decided that the exhibit could only hold X amount of people so we were forced to other methods. In a way, this experience was better the way in unfolded. It was a rush getting past all those people to get into the exhibit. It just shows what confidence can do. I do have to consider that "freeroll" idea further. I told Dave that meeting women would be easier if I could only apply what we learned to women. All attempted to pick up women are basically freerolls because rejection just means I end up back where I started. (Yes, all things in my life seem to gravitate towards women some how)>

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Addiction:

I rented "Madden 2006" for the PS2 Thursday night using one of my Blockbuster.com free store rentals. I didn't buy Madden 2005 last year because I found that I had played the 2004 version far too much. The online feature is just far too addicting for me. You can constatly get game after game which is great fun, even though I'm horrible at the current version. My defense has been pretty good as most people that I've played end up being predictable so I end up picking good defensive formations against them. With no offense, though, my record is just under .500.

Renting this game was a mistake because I played it all night Thursday and ended up going to sleep at 10am Friday. Then I woke up and played it into early Saturday morning. I had to stop to watch "Sahara" which I had also rented using a free rental coupon, and that was due Saturday at 12 noon. I didn't want to waste the rental so I forced myself to stop playing.

I knew I was addicted because my cell phone kept ringing, and I didn't want to answer it. Jake called me three times, and I answered the third time, telling him that I'd call him later because I didn't feel like talking. He asked me what the problem was, and I said I didn't want to talk and I had to go. He then asked me, "Are you going mental again?" The answer, is of course, yes, but fortunately I've decided to stop playing the game. I'm sure I'll play it a few more times before I return it on Friday, but I'm going to try to not have it take over my life like "World of Warcraft" did.

On a final note, I can't help but wonder if all this isn't related with me not running this week. It seems that my life has to be balanced or I end up messing up on all fronts. I haven't run, so I have been eating like crazy, and then I ended up being addicted to this game for 3 days.

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