It’s been a really happy weekend.

Friday I got back into the cockpit for the first time in 3.5 months and it felt wonderful. That night somebody asked me, “What’s it like for you up there?” The only way I could respond was, “Perfect.”

On our way back from the practice area, entering the traffic pattern downwind for runway two-seven left, I realized that not only was my instructor having me make all the radio calls in the pattern, but I was also doing all of the flying. He wasn’t on the controls. I’m pretty sure he knew that I had only landed once on my own, and that time I didn’t even know that I was on my own, and that time was three and a half months ago.

I tried to make my base turn when I came abeam of the numbers on the downwind. Corrected quickly, from there I did remarkably well, making base and final perfectly, making the runway right on glide path, holding it steady until, “Shit.” Not exactly the most friendly word to come out of a pilot’s mouth when feet above runway in a descending airplane. I managed, in a move taught to me by Rick Fuller, to literally bounce the airplane off the runway back into the air by landing nose wheel first and hard. Whoooops. I recovered nicely though and touched down smoothly almost immediately after and made the intended runway exit.

I’m pretty stoked about flying. I’m making it my goal to have my license finished by the end of the year. Remember the incredible journey to Canada via motorcycle? How sweet would the road trip be via airplane? O man I’m excited :-).

That night I headed to the Bellagio to meet Maria, Christina, and a couple of their girlfriends. Apparently the night before they were at Caramel, and the host told them that he’d comp them a bottle every night they came in. MBN2BEMaria.com. Free upgrades to the presidential suite, free bottles…

… however, the host wasn’t happy. What was once 4 beautiful women was now 4 beautiful women and me. Not a beautiful wo-man. Christina looks at the host, says to him, “You don’t know who that is? That’s Devo, he’s probably the most famous poker player in town.” LOL. I’m obv completely oblivious to this, but that’s the story given to me by giggling girls. The guy is like, “Really? Sweet. I’ll tell the waitress to hook it up.”

Now wtf. People wonder why I don’t like poker - and this is the reason. It’s the effed gambling culture really. The society of people intoxicated with money, fame, and image. Clubs. Etc. Hate it.

It is more fun to be Danny Masterson (whom until recently I’ve signed more autographs as than as myself) anyways. Too bad I don’t have the curls and/or beard to pull that one off anymore.

I left after two drinks, went home, and set my alarm for… uggggghhhh… 7:30am. Officially the earliest I have willingly woken up in Las Vegas. 2.5 years. I got to bed (and slept) by 1:30, and actually made it up and to the MGM by 8:05am. I was there for a WPT boot camp. I’ve been wanting to do these for a long time and finally decided to get the ball rolling. I loved it. I was stoked to be invited, and I loved teaching and speaking so much. I really do think that I’m a better teacher than a player, plus I get way more out of teaching than I do out of playing life-wise. I just thoroughly enjoy working with and helping people.

I left the MGM at 4pm and drove to San Diego. It was a great drive - the desert was beautiful and driving with the sun setting is always amazing. Oh, yeah… when driving from Vegas to or from LA/So-Cal, you should NEVER be passed on the right when it’s a two lane road. If you do, then it means that either you’re going too slow, you’re too ignorant to notice the car coming up faster behind you, or you’re too much of an asshole to care to move over. I’m not a speed freak or anything, I usually cruise at about 10 MPH over the limit, so I was going 80 most of the time. I probably passed 25 cars on their right. So, if you were passed by a green mustang headed south on the 15, I hope you break down 5 miles south of Zzyzx road on your way back to Vegas. /rant.

Saturday night I went to visit a friend of mine and share a bottle of wine. We ended up sitting there and doing nothing but chatting for four and a half hours. A good two and a half longer than I had anticipated being the conceivable maximum. It was amazing. It’s been a really really long time since I’ve done that and I really enjoyed it. I think that we as a culture don’t spend enough time connecting with people and building relationships in conversation. We manage to keep things on the surface and avoid getting intimate, heart to heart, and I bet if people just talked together more that there’d be way more strong relationships.

Sunday, effing Sunday. I made my deepest run in the Sunday Mirrion ever, ended up finishing a really disappointing 64th. I was seriously in the top 20 in chips from like 2000 runners out. I made a retarded mistake by not noticing that the player in the 7 seat was different than the player in that seat 10 hands earlier, and it cost me a bunch. in standard silly tournament fashion it managed to not matter, and then my crippling came in a bvb spot when I shipped it on his open with Q7dd for my first re-steal of the tournament basically, he called with AJ, I turned a Q and he rivered an A. I’ve been thinking about that tournament (and the one I played the next day… get to that in a sec) a lot, and I’ve learned much about the current state of poker and what is optimal, and I definitely think I spewed in those pre-flop spots too much. People simply aren’t folding anymore, nor are they opening light as much anymore.

So, small winning session Sunday, won some in cash games Sunday night, and then played one tourney and some cash games Monday. I 3-tabled 2-4 PLO, made about $500, and made the final table in the tourney. I think I spewed on this one again, re-stealing BvB, in a spot that I just didn’t need to do. What used to be good spots aren’t good spots anymore imo. So I took 6th, but it felt good to make a FT for the first time in literally months.

Last night I drove up to La Jolla for some dinner and got lost on the way. We ended up driving around the hills south of the cove, lost amongst beautiful houses as the sun was setting. We kept making our way down towards the ocean when we popped out at this spot that apparently is the cool place to watch sunsets in San Diego. There were probably 100 people standing on the cliffs watching the sun dip below the horizon. The car in front of us stopped. The lifeguard vehicle behind us stopped. The car going the opposing direction stopped. I wish I had a camera, because as we sat there with the top down, silently watching the last moments of a dying sun, ocean breeze blowing across our cheeks, I watched an old couple on the bench take in the same moment and wondered what they were thinking about in that moment. The image was beautiful.

That night at our 2nd bar we discovered the “World Series of Poker Heads-Up Challenge.” It’s a video game that basically runs a turbo heads up freezeout, and boy is it fun. The interface is excellent and very easy to use and we basically played it for $100 a pop for the rest of the night (Billy is the best). Stumble home, Dave and I stay up latest, and then manage to be first ones up too.

Go Twins today… big game.

I head back to Vegas tomorrow and then start the Festa al Lago prelims at the Bellagio Thursday.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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So after the dismal weekend, I really didn’t have much of a desire to play teh pokers. I’m taking Mondays off this fall anyways to play on the Half Shell softball team, which, well, after out back to back whippings this week, I think is officially our beer drinking team that occasionally gets dirty. I really don’t care if out team sucks, becuause I actually like spending more time in the field, making plays, getting dirty, etc. However, when players are griping about this and that, that’s when I don’t have fun, and it really rattles me when one player who sucks/has made bad errors yells at somebody who just sucked/made an error. STFU and play the game man. This is softball for Pete’s sake. I’ve always wondered who Pete is, but for his sake, everybody on the planet Earth should chill more and be gooder to people.

The night before the boys and I went to Stony’s, this awesome country bar that formerly was Gilley’s in the Frontier, home of the infamous bikini bull riding and bikini mud wrestling. Country bar. I’m wearing Lucky jeans, a mostly solid baby blue button up short sleeve, white cowboy hat. I fit right in. Buck is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, he’s in. Jared, Jake, and Nick, they’re wearing jeans and a t-shirt. They’re out. Why? “No plain white t-shirts.” Ahhhhhahahahaha. No plain white t-shirts at a country bar? What’s next no plain white cowboy hats? Seriously. Jared came back in a dirty white t-shirt that said “Hurley” on the front of it and that was OK.

In the bar, although this part gets a little fuzzy as the night goes on ($20 all you can drink beer, and unlike buffets, I drive the price up on this all you can eat special). The fellas meet a couple of smoking hot bartenders there. Turns out they were regional champions blah blah blah in softball a few years back, they come to the game. Bout halfway through the second game the girls make it on to the field, and by the end of the game, the only guys on our team that hadn’t made an error all day were girls. LOL. This one dude muffed a fly ball in left-center field, and the pitcher (who happens to own the restaurants that everybody on the team works at) yanks the guy mid inning and sends out one of the girls. Hahaha. I had fun that inning.

I tried to get back into golfing this week. That failed miserably. I have a serious case of the shanks. After failing at golf, my friend and I went to the bowling alley where at one point we were the only one’s in the joint. I bowled so much that by the time I left I was quite drunk (and even had a blister on the inside of my right thumb).

Thursday, after running some errands, I decided to head into the Bellagio. I really enjoyed playing that 150-3 game at the Borgata, and have decided that I need to put a little more effort into cash games, especially since my positive cash flow has been pretty limited since the start of the WSOP. The games were somewhat dead, with a few 10-20 NL games going that didn’t look good, one 30-60 LHE, no mix, and one 30-60 O8. I sat in the O8, and within an hour the lineup filled up on my right in this order: Travis Pearson, super good buddy of mine, and this was good/bad news. Good because I was literally thinking of him that day and miss the guy, bad because now I was going to be drinking and playing props, and as y’all know, I’m really bad at neutral ev gambling. I am pretty sure that of the $1k I lost in the game, more than half of that was in props. LOL. $200 on my last hand lucky bastard. Then sits Marcel Luske, and then Cindy Violette. Was quite the surprising lineup for a Thursdy night game at the Bell a week before tournaments start. It does get better. Jon Turner sits at one point, and then this one dude who I recognize, knows me, sits and asks, “Did they close the internet tonight? Stars and tilt down? WTF are y’all doing here?” Hahahaha. I got a kick out of that. Also got a kick out of me being an internet pro. C’mon now, I was doing this way before. LOL.

I set a goal for the rest of the year, and that’s finishing my pilot’s license. I haven’t been up since day 1 of the series, but that’s no big deal really. It’s hot here in Vegas and the density altitude gets so effed with the heat that you can’t go up when it’s hotter than 32 degrees C or so. Since it’s that hot, like, all day, and I suck at 6am, plus the series and traveling everywhere, no big deal. But, I had my nose in a textbook for a couple of hours yesterday, go up today, go up tomorrow morning, and am going to make sure that I’m somewhat regular. I need like 30 hours before I’m eledgible to take the FAA test, so that means I need to get, like 3 hours a week in or so? No prob. I’ll be flying to LA for Christmas :).

Tomorrow I’m going to be checking out the WPT boot camp here in town, hoping that I might be able to teach with them in the future. Then I’m going to head to the money factory in San Diego, work my tail off Sun-Tue (party my ass off Sat-Tue nights), drive back Wed, and then start the Festa al Lago on Thursday.

Happy landings!

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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I had a really good day yesterday, and I lost about $10k.

LOL right?

That’s pretty much the reaction I got at the karaoke bar last night when my friends asked how I was doing. When I’m at home, most of the people that I spend time with are in the service industry. Normal people. My favorite kind.

This weekend has been a big one for online poker (for my makeup, for others’ bankrolls). Yesterday I played the $1k LHE and the $10k HORSE. I got really unlucky in the LHE, and was pretty unfortunate in the HORSE. I was surprisingly calm with the losses as I was super stoked for the events, but I really am getting better at controlling my tilt and frustration. Days like yesterday (and they way things are going right now, today also) are going to happen, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s a necessary element of the profession that I’ve chosen, and since I do thoroughly enjoy the freedom, $, excitement, and opportunities that are products of this profession, I have accept it. Not only do I accept it, I realize that it’s a good thing. If the winners never lost there’d be no game, no profession. Our game would be as dead as chess, pool, backgammon, gin, or bridge as far as gambling goes. There’d be no money.

So I bust from the $10k HORSE, and as I am in the hand that I’m doing it in, my roomie walks in, says, “Hungry?” I bust, say yep, and we go to get some Mexican food. Not pissed, not upset, and it felt good. Danny and I have a good dinner, and get to talking about something that we’ve been talking about a lot lately. Climbing. As in Rock. It was the cornerstone of my recreational endeavors (and the inhibitor of my online poker career) during my season in Colorado (Jan 03 - May 05). I could fill a book with stories of the climbing that I did, the places it took me and my dog Jake, the connections that I made with friends, kids, and random strangers. I remember being in pretty decent shape :).

Climbing is a sport that requires a partner. Furthermore it requires a knowledge of local conditions. I had neither of these Minnesota nor in Las Vegas. Turns out my ex-wife in Minnesota is an avid climber these days. How come we fail to find things like this in relationships that could have potentially saved said relationship? Or perhaps we try and be more like our ex’s wanted us to be after the end of a relationship? Example: me wanting to be domestic these days. I wonder if that’s the case?

Anyways. I’ve been on Danny for a long time about getting a harness and some climbing shoes so we can go climbing. He brought it up again yesterday, and I was finally like, we’re going climbing.

So we get home, look up the climbing gym, and head to the other side of town, Charleston and Cimmaron. We talk things like, on belay, belay is on, climbing, climb on, take, lower, rappeling. I even introduced him to advanced commands such as “rocking” and “tamping”. He had a little introductory class for liability reasons (insurance company doesn’t want non-staff teaching how to belay). I’m fine with this since it’s my ass hanging from the rope while he’s learning.

Danny learns everything he needs to know to get out on the rock, and we spend about an hour doing some routes. The technique and balance came back to me quickly. I was able to do this sloping 5.9 cleanly, and I was proud of this back in the day I never climbed higher than a 5.10c.

We drive home, right past the strip, right past down, top down on the mustang, and all we can talk about is getting out. Red Rock Canyon this week. A road trip to Joshua Tree. No, a road trip to Joshua Tree, then Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Moab, Zion, back to Vegas. Yosemite! Sleeping on the face of El Cap overnight. Sharing a banana on the face of El Cap overnight. Mmmmm.

The plans of future adventures, the hope of something old and something new, made us pretty stoked about life. Instead of the routine for both of us, we have something to do. A hobby if you will.

When we got home I dug up some literature for Danny. A Petzl catalog that reads more like “Freedom of the Hills” than “Sears”. A Falcon Guide for Red Rock Canyon. Freedom of the Hills, 7th edition. Danny, who failed every reading lesson in high school, spent the last 2 hours of his night before work with his nose buried in those books.

I fired up some internet poker. I played a cash session, sat in 5-10 PLO and 1-2 HU NLHE. I won like $1400 in the PLO, having AATJ ds hold over KKxx re-raised pre money goes in on the T66 flop and winning several smaller pots.

Heads up though is where I really had some fun. I’ve been working on my HU game a lot in the past several months. I’m pretty sure next time I get heads up it won’t result in a 2nd. Perhaps I need to work on getting heads up again. LOL. Anyways, I just plain tortured this guy. One sequence of hands goes I open, he folds. He opens, I re-raise, he folds. Repeat. I give him a walk, he opens button on the 6th hand of this sequence, I re-raise again, he calls this time. Flop Kxx, I check, he checks. Turn A, I check, he bets 2/3 pot, I call, river a brick, and I check/call 2/3 pot again. My QQ beats his QT. I would have felt superused if I was him honestly (he was bad and it wasn’t that difficult to run him over - I’m not bragging or talking about how good I am or anything). What I am talking about is that it was fun to play poker. Even though it was 1-2 NL. I enjoyed it.

In today’s WCOOP main, $5k buy-in, 10-million guarantee, pleasegodletmerunhotonetime-ament, I sucked at coinflipping again. I accumulated nicely and am really happy with how I’ve altered my style after getting Erick Lindgrowned at Legends. I lost a flip to Sub (Jeff Williams), he typed ‘ul’, and I was like, whatevs, doesn’t matter in the short term, and honestly meant it. Yes, I was disappointed, a little bummed. I am quite tired of losing. But there’s nothing I can do about it, and I’ve finally accepted the fluctuation (bitch that it is) that comes with poker. Jeff made some reference to Phil Jackson and zen, and I really don’t understand what he was talking about there, but this poker thing is a lot more fun when you don’t tilt.

Umm, in other news… I suck at fantasy football. I am 0-4 in money leagues and 2-3-1 in free leagues. It’s not looking like I’m going to play win any games this week. In no particular order:

FU to:

Ben Rothlisberger
Chad Johnson
Tom Brady’s ACL
The 8th draft pick
Matthew Berry
The Seahawks medical staff
LT
Addai until today
Brandon Cantu

Soooooooooooo…

That is all.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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As the Atlantic City skyline fades below the horizon behind me and the limo that is taking me to Newark airport right now, I can’t help but reflect at the stark contrasts in my life between now and then. Back in 2004, about 13 months after becoming unemployed/poker professional, I used the Borgata Poker Open as an excuse to come to Philly and visit this girl I met in Vegas on a random evening. We spent most of the trip at her parent’s vacation house in Brigantine, which is a small island about 3 miles from the Borgata, just up the road. I came with $1500 which was all the cash to my name, and lost it all in one eight hour session of 20-40 LHE, busted again.

This time I came with $450 in my pocket and a $10k check from the Bellagio. Turns out that if you put a check in your back pocket and your ass does a little sweatin’, the gum on the envelope will moisten and seal, and it happened to seal to the face of my check, and thus was no good at the Borgata. No problem though, I still manage to lose $32k of money that was not mine on the same trip that one of my friends becomes a millionaire. I stayed in a room that cost me $2k, changed a flight for $300, and am getting a $240 ride to the airport right now.

My how we’ve grown. Back then I sat in the audience for a special show of the cast of Trading Spaces and American Chopper and cherished the black WPT chip that was my ticket as a souvenir (I still have it). This year they didn’t even have Vince or Mike there for the taping, for the first time ever, and I sat in the front row and was interviewed, playing props on colors of the flop and key cards.

It’s been quite an adventure, and I think I need to embrace it more. I am very lucky, very blessed, and very fortunate to be sitting in the exact spot that I am sitting in. I have a skill in this game of poker that has granted me the ability to never again have a job, boss, or schedule, all while maintaining a decent income level. I have the freedom with my career to live anywhere I want, travel anytime I want, and work anytime I want. I know that many of y’all reading this live vicariously through this blog and would love to live the life as a professional poker player, yet I have been unhappy with what I’m doing for a while now.

I think I figured out why. I think that I’ve never truly accepted poker as where I’m supposed to be right now. I look back and think about how I got to where I am at, and it surely wasn’t by my choice that’s for sure. I ended up in poker in the first place because I needed to find a way to make rent money quick and somehow did. Then I somehow ended up in tournaments, somehow convinced somebody to stake me, somehow took 2nd in my first WSOP event, and somehow ended up here. I live my live very impulsively and in the moment, and five years later I’m 27, wondering what I’m going to do with my life.

This trip I accepted that this is what I am doing with my life, and that is good. I somehow felt that what I have been doing as a poker player is not a good thing for the world, that in certain aspects could even be possibly considered shameful. I’m sure you can imagine all those aspects, especially considering my background with the church.

A friend of mine said to me this week some quote that was really simple like, “Where you are is where you are,” or something silly like that, but the point is what made it’s way to my heart: I am here. Cool. Don’t worry about being somewhere else, cause you’re not there right now. Worry about there when you get there. Worry about tomorrow when it comes. I definitely see myself with at least another three years in poker full time, so time to start embracing it again. By embracing it I will therefore invest myself into it more, but in the ways that make my soul happy, not in the ways that make my pockets deep. I want to talk about matters of the heart and spirit more here and with the people that I spend time with. I want to consider daily how I may improve the lives of those around me first. I want to stop stressing over the things that I cannot control, whether it be the two outer for a scoop or the $50 comp that expires after 24 hours.

I want some normality to my life. I want to play softball every Monday night, even though there’s a good $1k tourney that night. I want to start grocery shopping and cooking, keeping a clean house hire a maid, and set up automatic bill pay from my checking account. I want to play cash games more, and on a somewhat regular schedule.

Speaking of cash games, there’s a 150-300 OE game at the Borgata that owes me a lot of money. I ended up putting 30 hours into that juicy ass game and lost in the neighborhood of $12k in it. I mean, that is only a 40 bet downswing in what was probably 1200 hands or so, something that is menial online, but when you don’t get the chance to play cash games very often, and furthermore when you only come to the east coast once a year, it’s quite deflating, especially after 3.5 months of getting killed. On that note I’m officially into my first $100k + downswing. My previous record was set Aug-Jan 07/08, when I lost something like 80k with only a small winner in November. Streaky ass game this poker thing.

Con-fucking-gradulations to Vivek Rajkumar, my FLOG (favorite little online guy) who won the Borgata main last night. He did it in quickest fashion ever, 48 hands and 3.5 total hours on set. He also ran like Chris Johnson, sucking out in the two biggest spots to win, although they were standard spots. The entire final table should be evidence of what a skill game poker is, as the best hand held up like one time and I think Vivek had it. We went to dinner, went to the B-Bar, and we drank the night into oblivion. 1.4 mirrion. So sweet.

So, still headed north on the Garden State Parkway, gonna get home this evening, have to retrieve my car from the Palazzo without a valet ticket, and then I’m playing the 10k HORSE tomorrow and 5k main on Sunday on Stars. I’m psyched for both - sweat badbeatninja in sometime this weekend if you get bored.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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Truly sorry that I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been somewhat meh for a while and simply haven’t really felt like it. I have played 12 hour days of poker every day for the past five, and every single one of them have been pretty disappointing. Today I sat on a table with chips being spewed all over the place, and I ended the day with 42k after starting with 40k. Better than being bust via suckout of course. Yesterday I played the best cash game I have seen since April of 07 for 12 hours. 150-300 Omaha8/Stud8, they were HORRIBLE, I lose $400. Kinda feel ripped off, but also was stuck $6k 30 mins before I had to quit. That was after I made day 2 of the $5k, 36 left, 27 pay, we bust on the 5th hand in a totally standard cooler where I ended up with AJ

I did have a realization during the 200r that has helped my psychological state in this roller coaster of tournament poker, and that’s that anything can happen/it just doesn’t matter. I mean, how many chips you have or don’t have just doesn’t matter as far as your psychology should be. You have what you have, do the best that you can with them. Results don’t matter as long as you do your best, because so many things need to come together to win these things, and most of the time it’s completely out of your control.

Back at ‘em tomorrow at 11am EST (which really is brutal being from the left coast. I heard that Foxwoods starts at 10am… if that’s true I’m not going to go this year when I was totally planning on it lol).

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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This evening the brakes on my motorcycle squeaked to a halt behind the white stop line at the end of my street. Desert in front of me all the way across to the university. Left, or right. It took me about three minutes to decide. It wasn’t so much as deciding where to go as it was deciding what to do. It gave me an amusing image of where my life stands right now. Here sits Devo, in the saddle of the motorcycle he bought after his first tournament victory in 2006. He hasn’t ridden it in weeks because he’s been out of town. There’s a big piece of him who wants to turn right, head straight for the highway, and ride. Perhaps to Berkley, immediately, to see Dave Matthews and Michael Franti with Seebs this weekend. Perhaps to see Court in North Carolina, then to Borgata, up to Minnesota, and then back to Vegas. Perhaps south to Patagonia via the Pan American trail.

Then there’s a little piece that wants to go straight to Fausto’s, get my carne asada burrito, and come back home - because I haven’t been home in weeks.

I’ve been feeling really unsettled lately. This one is deeper than my usual desires for spontaneous travel. I’ve been in a funk for quite a while and haven’t really known how or what to write about. I’ve been much more quiet and contemplative lately, for almost a month now.

The 10 year anniversary of my father’s death was August 10th. I did a really good job of hiding it from conversation and thoughts - but I think they’re poisoning my moods lately. Between that and looking back over the summer, wondering where it went and what I did with it, I’m pretty displeased in myself.

I’ve been wandering nomadic ever since my father passed. From group to group to group of friends to college, to Colorado, to Minnesota, to Vegas, and to all the random places I’ve since I’ve been here. Behind me a wake of failed relationships; with a wife, a church, and many others.

For the record, this isn’t a depressing list of regrets or even a depressing blog. I’ve just been thinking a ton lately. I can’t blame myself - I’ve honestly tried to do the best and be the best man that I can possibly be in those ten years. I’m very proud of the story that I’ve put together, of the life that I am leading, of the opportunities that I have had in the past and will have in the future.

But, I feel older. I went to Laughlin with all the boys two and a half weeks ago. 6 of us went down, went out first night, all of us lost all of our money ($2500 here, $2k in another spot, and another $2k between the rest of em). We had like $300 for six of us day two. It didn’t keep them from drinking until 8am, but I only made it to 2:30am. I wasn’t ever really in the swing of the party.

The next day though, I woke up chipper and entertained laughing at the five of them hating live in the room next door to mine (they lost the room keys to my room). So happy they didn’t pour into my room at 8am. Since we were on limited funds, Buck and I went to the bowling alley, played 6 games, and drank 24 dollar beers. He knows how to throw curve balls while leaving your thumb in, and I decided I wanted to learn how to do that too, so I went to the pro shop and bought a ball, bag, and shoes for like $170, and aparrently I got a really good deal. I told the guy in the shop, “Man, y’all suck at negotiating. I would have paid like $500 for this stuff right now.” He laughed.

From there we went to dinner and met the rest of the guys. We sat at the bar at the Mexican restaurant, ate chips and salsa, and drank more beer while watching the Olympics. Did that for hours, then went to the gift shop to buy canned beer. We put it on ice in a trash can in my room, which is spick and span since one soberish dude with no luggage slept in it the night before. We play $5 sit-n-goes, more booze/olympics, and Buck passes out on the only made bed between the four that we had been comped 24 hours ago. About 90 minutes later, Buck goes to the restroom and doesn’t come out. Turns out he passed out on the bathroom counter. Out. Sleeping. On. Counter. Highlarious. I take some pictures, and go on a beer run.

I get a phone call that says, “DEVO! DEVO! BUY A SHARPIE!”

“Why?”

“Cause Buck passed out with his d&$# poking out of his boardies and we’re gonna color the tip black.”

Man I wish they had a sharpie. To hear him scream in the morning when he got up for his morning piss.

I had a great time on the trip, but I just couldn’t hang like I’ve used to be able to and I didn’t have as much fun as I used to. Same scenario this weekend for the annual Labor Day river trip. First time I’ve ever considered coming home from one of these things early. I ended up getting to the river on Saturday after spending the week in San Diego with the boys after sucking it up at the WPT Legends Main. When I got there, I was informed that, “Yo, Devo, so, I guess when the guys took the boat out last week that they bent that front part on the pontoon really badly, so much that when we drove it was spraying water into the boat. So Gil and I straightened it out, carefully, hoping that we wouldn’t put any holes in the aluminum. Well, we did, but it’s on top.”

“Please tell me you fixed it with duct tape.”

“No, that’s the next step. I covered it up good with liquid nails.”

“So, Jared, you’re telling me that you fixed the hole in the Piece of Ship with your caulk?”

Turns out that afternoon when we try and take the Private Yacht out on the river, they didn’t see the hole on the bottom of the fold. Jared explained to me that he checked for bubbles on the bottom and everything and it looked good. I didn’t realize at the time that a hole on the bottom of the pontoon while in water wouldn’t have bubbles coming out of it, cause all the air inside would rise to the top of the pontoon, and it’s the Piece of Ship, meaning that there’s holes on the top of the pontoon as well, including one with Jared’s caulk in it, and all the air would leak out as the water came in.

We sank one pontoon.

First time in the history of the ownership of the Piece of Ship that it’s ever failed to be able to be used on a trip. Sad on so many levels.

That night we went to the Avi, and I got handicapped. I wandered to the restroom, saw an abandoned wheelchair, went to the bar to scope it out and make sure that it was truly unused, and sat down in it. I ended up spending the rest of the night in that wheelchair, deciding to give it my best shot at really trying to not use my legs. Here’s what I learned.

1) I failed at the handicapped stall. I am not sure as to whether it was my intoxication level, extremely weak upper body, or lack of knowledge of style, but I couldn’t do it.

2) People are really nice to you when you look like a slapdick and are with a bunch of slapdicks but they think you’re handicapped.

3) Bartenders serve you beer really quickly.

3a) And nicely

4) People don’t know how to talk to you often.

5) Those people really appreciate it when you make fun of yourself and your condition in a way that lets them know its no big deal.

6) I’m really good at wheelchair wheelies. I bet $100 on the don’t while doing a wheelie at the craps table (for the historians, I won a bet during the 2007 series that I could do a wheelie across the Pavilion in a wheelchair).

All good times, really fun stories, but throughout it all I felt a bit distant. I kinda feel like I’m at a point where the whole bachelor pad thing is really driving me nuts, but I’m not ready to settle down. A big part of me wants to go on an adventure, something really insano silly - I’ve considered a ton of options - but then the bigger part of me knows that “happiness is only real when shared.” It’s tough to find traveling partners these days.

So, yeah… WCOOP’s starting up soon, going out for Borgata… I really am gonna put in the hours this Fall, make a late stage comeback and win the POY :).

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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