Weekend warrior

Hello everyone. This past weekend really tested my endurance somewhat. Friday was my cousin's wedding. We all welcomed "Lobo" into the family and he is a welcome addition. The mass was nice even though we showed up super late. The reception was really nice. There was an open bar which equals trouble in more ways than one, and a pianist (did I spell that right)?

We could only stay for a few minutes at the reception because me and my wife had to go to the airport. We had a flight that night to San Jose to visit her dad who had a stroke. It was a different mind set coming from a happy celebration to a somber mood. We dealt with a similar mood shift earlier this year, but we didn't know we would experience it again, and soon.

We got to San Jose late and boy let me tell you, whoever invented GPS, thank you. TomTom was great at getting us to where we needed to go. We were going to see her dad later that night, so we did the tourist thing and went to Fisherman's Wharf.

Now, we used to live up there and went to Pier 39 often, but for some reason it looked MUCH different. We did the whole tourist thing and got on the big red bus and man, has it changed. A lot of childhood memories came flooding back. I tried visiting the old neighborhood, but that will have to wait.

Her dad was doing fine. We found out that it wasn't a stroke. It was Bell's Palsy. It wasn't as major so we were relived. After that, we finished by having dinner at this place called Sino in Santa Row in an Jose. My wife's co-worker suggested this place. It's an Asian fusion restaurant. The food there was very good and the people, when they found out who suggested the place to us, were very accommodating. It also had a lounge area which was very nice.

The net day we visited one more relative who my wife had not seen in years. Her cousin just had a baby and is the Asian Michellin baby. Very cute. We made plans to see each other again.

As we flew back home and got the kids, we went to have dinner at my parents house and to our surprise our relatives were over. Just having our family over is like a big party already. Cousins, aunts and uncles hanging out, drinking, gambling, bar-b-qing. It was great.

What a weekend.

4th of July

Once again my yearly trek to Vegas during the World Series of Poker (WSOP) has come. As you can tell from the heading of my blog, I am a huge poker fan. But please, don't confuse with me liking the game from being GOOD at the game. We will talk about my skills or lack there off at a different time.

From all the times that my little poker group has gone, we never took my brother. My brother is a much better player than I am, so I wanted to take him there to check it out. He did admit he was a little star struck in the beginning, but that all went away when we entered the poker playing area.

First we visited the Poker Palooza. It was more a convention than anything where vendors showed off what they had to offer to us poker players. One of these days I will buy that card shuffler!!!

Anyway, after that we went to the poker rooms or halls and just watched these poker players who invested $10,000 to play. I say good luck to them. Do I want to be there, of course. I thought I was ready too because I got to play in a cash game the night before with some professional players at the Luxor.

Well, needless to say my brother got to thinking that he's always wanted to play but he never thought he was ready. After this weekend, I think he's ready.

He wrote a very inspirational letter to all of us poker buddies of his, and I think, I THINK, we will be there very soon. Till next time.