Garnett21k

Wow, it's been awhile. Five months actually. I had an amazing Fall season at Tavern poker where I saw my rankings rise only to see it crash a fall during the Winter season. I blame it all on my nemesis, Alvin "The Great One". I got into a nice run where I knocked him out of tourneys a gew times and he branded me as "The Great One Killer". I thought it was hilarious so I added it to my profile and before I know it, I couldn't hit a flop to save my life. The name does have a mean connotation to it though, but it was more in fun and not mean-spirited. Either way, it threw some major bad poker karma. I'll save the bad beat stories though as nobody ever really likes to listen to them. Yesterday was the official start of Lent. I usually don't do the "I'm giving up..." thing, but this year I'm giving up poker and cussing. The cussing part may end up being more of a curbing instead of a giving up thing though since it's easier said than done. Hopefully I come back energized and have a change of luck. It's 9:33am and it's already 61F outside. Too bad I'm inside working...or rather ought to be working!

So it's Day 12 for WRGPT event. For those of you who don't know: WRGPT stands for World Rec.Gambling Poker Tournament. It is a FREE email-based poker tournament. There are no prizes nor are there any fees. The 15th annual version of this tourney will run from October 2005 to July 2006 or so. WRGPT predates online poker. WRGPT is run by unpaid volunteers on donated equipment and internet bandwidth. With that said, this is the first year in which I entered this tourney. It's a test of patience really. So far we are 10 hands in at my table. I have 12625 from the standard 10000 start. Good enough for 97th out of 1249. 1293 started the tourney so you can see that it's a slow moving tourney for sure.

Today I officially became an American Citizen. I moved here when I was 14. According to my math, I'd have been here for 16 years on Dec 17th, 2005. I've spent more than half my life here now, and it trully is my home now. I'm an Asian-American and gladly so.

My dad and I were sworn in around 10:30ish. It was a nice day. There was 100 of us that were sworn in. There was a dark, short man seated to my left and my dad was to my right. We were all very happy and grinning from ear to ear. The big chief that sworn us in was very funny and nice. He kept saying "For a nominal Fee..." It was hilarious. He had us rolling. It's definitely a great day. I just wished my mom was there with my dad and I. Hopefully her interview gets rescheduled soon. Interesting enough, this soldier was talking about how his citizenship got expedited so my mom's spot could have gone to him. Who knows! *lol*

I played Poker today. I dropped $20, but that certainly doesn't damper my day. Just the way things go. That's Poker!

What a good weekend of poker. I built my stake all the way to 134 from 50 bucks. I've been on a great run lately. UNC made it to the round of 16!

I GOT IT! My IPOD came today. It's 60GB too! I am so stoked! I dunno what the deal is, but for some reason it won't work. I think my USB is 1.0. It needs 2.0 to run. Bummer. I just have to get a firewire cable tomorrow.

No, I'm not still talking about the Photo Ipod---at least, not right now anyways. More on that later. So we drove to Charlotte today. Dad and I left at 6ish. We got there around 9am. It was snowing in Greensboro. I was thinking we might have to get a hotel and stay the night. Hopefully not. We were planning on going to IHOP for breakfast, but we couldn't find it. We settled on Bojangles. We had the steak biscuit combo with fries. That was ok, I think both of us would have been happier with the chicken biscuit though. We were wondering if Bojangles served lunch at breakfast time. I'm guessing no, but then again what do I know. We get to the INS office around 10 and the guard said we can't go in until 30 mins or so before our interview. I decided that we should drive around towards downtown and look for the Charlotte Colosseum. We got pretty far into downtown, but no Colosseum. We were heading back to Tyvola when my dad saw a sign that said Colosseum Area. Damn if it was on Tyvola Rd!*lol*

We couldn't go inside though. We might could have, but we saw someone at the gate and just figure we couldn't and besides it was time for the appointment. We saw this Filipino guy that was at the same fingerprinting appointment as we had a few months back. His appointment was at 10:30 and didn't go in until 11:40. We were thinking we would be there all afternoon. We weren't. The guy who was interviewing us was sharp and kept his appointments on the dot. We were in and out in 15mins. 12:50am we were driving back. We hauled ass and was back in Raleigh by 3:20pm. So by next Thursday Dad and I are going to be American Citizens! We're both excited! So this coming week will be short cause I work Monday to Wednesday and drive to Charlotte to be sworn in! Sweet!

What a game! Just when I thinking, "F***! Not again!", UNC pulled off a great come from behind win in the biggest rivalry in sports. UNC-Dook, it just doesn't get any bigger than that. College basketball's version of the great glory days Lakers-Celtics rivalry. With 3 mins left UNC trailed 64-73. Last year we would have folded, but not these Heels. These Heels have some fight in them. The freshman, Marvin Williams had been schooled all day by Duke senior Shelden Williams. But when it counted most, Marvin won the game with rebound and made the biggest shot of his life. It was one for the ages. Duke had 2 more chances as Reddick and Ewing both narrowly missed game-winning and game-tying shots. UNC 75 Duke 73. To come back and go on a 11-0 run to close the game is awesome! We got lucky, but luck is when preparation meets opportunity and we put ourselves in a position to win. Oh, what I would have given to be back at Dook to payback everyone who gave me grief during our 8-20 season. It's humbling to have to go through that, but even sweeter to make it all the way to the pinnacle of the basketball world.