Crunch Time!

I really don't have a whole lot to blog about these days other than my leagues, so sorry if it gets redundant.  I have trips planned later this year, but I made a commitment to these leagues when I signed up as captain, and namely the StarCraft one has been hindering my abilities to travel since I need to be at my home computer every Sunday.  Nevertheless, the leagues are coming to an end as we lineup for the final rounds of playoffs!

Pool:

First up is pool league this coming Tuesday.  The "Cereal Killers" had a 1 point lead going into the final week of the session last Tuesday, but unfortunately the 2nd place team had a huge week against a disinterested team and we were bounced from our 1st place standing. :( We're now entering playoffs, which will span the next two weeks.  Missing out on 1st place sucks because you are guaranteed a plaque, $300, and a spot in the Big Money tournament.  Now we have to win the two playoff weeks to earn ourselves a plaque, $200, and a Big Money spot.  Wish us luck!

Basketball:

IBM Basketball League is entering the championship match, which is scheduled for this coming Wednesday.  My team has played great all year and we have a chance at a perfect season, something that hasn't been done since 2005, the year before I tore my knee.  The team we play in the finals will have to beat us twice in order to take the championship, while we'll be looking to end it all after game 1.  Hoping for my 3rd championship title in 5 years!

StarCraft 2:

Team IBM is one win away from going back to the AHGL finals in Santa Monica.  Standing in their way will be yet again the very tough team Microsoft, who defeated IBM in the semifinals last season.  Neither team has improved much since last season, so it will definitely be a challenge for IBM once again.  Here's hoping we can pull off the victory and have a chance to play at Red Bull HQ!!!

Other than these leagues, life has been pretty steady.  Work at IBM is still going well, I hit the gym a few times a week, I watch stuff on Netflix (just finished the entire series of Dexter), and I get my video gaming in.  I still make it out on a regular basis as well.  There seems to be a birthday to celebrate every week, so there's almost always a reason to go out.  Anyway, life is chill for now, so hope all is well with you too!

March Madness!

I actually will not be talking about March Madness in this blog entry - although I did start out of 15/16 with my picks after the first night and put $60 on Arizona to win it all with 15:2 odds.  No, this post will be mostly to get my minimum one-post-a-month in!

Bowling:

Last Thursday marked the end of IBM Bowling League.  Unfortunately, my team didn't make the 4-out-of-8 team playoffs. :( The last night of the regular season we needed to win at least 2 points.  I had already botched a triple-score by throwing a fucking gutterball on a possible turkey in game 1 (OUCH!).  Come game 3, with the season on the line and down to the last frame, I needed a double to win total points.  I get the first strike, then possibly the biggest adrenaline rush of the year, my 2nd ball misses and leaves a 6-10 split...  UGH.  Clutch Andy didn't show up that night, and we lost total pins by 7 and missed the playoffs by 0.5 games. :'(  The only good news of the year is that I ended up with a 193 average, which was above my 192+ target.  At least I'm still improving every year!

Vegas:

Over the weekend I traveled to Vegas for a couple friends' birthdays.  While Tina and Tyler had been there all week already, I got in on Thursday at midnight.  I gambled with Anthony for about 6 hours and won  $300 in Pai-Gow and Craps, a good start to the trip.  The next day we watched U of A in the NCAA tournament, then headed out to Hot 'n Juicy, which is a seafood shack off the strip.  I got a pound of clams and a pound of crawdads and it definitely didn't disappoint, but I still think the crawdads I had in New Orleans were better, rightfully so.

That evening we walked north up the strip, making an impromptu stop at Tacos El Gordo.  I've never eaten here before, but there was some pretty legit meat in there!  I got three tacos: de Cabeza, de Lengua, and de Buche.  You can look those up in Spanish if you want, but I basically tried all the cool stuff. :) The Cabeza tacos were amazing and definitely the best of the 3.  After the snack, we went to Circus Circus for the Midway games.  I hadn't been since I was a kid, but my parents used to take me here once a year, for several years.  They still had all of my old favorites, and I won a few stuffed animals for Duncan.  After the carnival games, we were hungry again and decided to try the All-You-Can-Eat Korean BBQ at Kimchi Time for $30 a person.  It was a ton of food and the best part is that they supply a server to cook the food for you, which is a relief if you're like me (always cooking the BBQ for everyone else; it does get tiring).

The last day of Vegas was spent at the pool at the Flamingo (where Anthony got us a room comped for free).  The trip ended with me winning $100 in $1-2 NL Poker, which would be all I would win for the weekend since on the second day I had lost the $300 I had made the first night.  Still, leaving Vegas even or ahead is always a good feeling!  And so concluded a relaxing weekend in Vegas, which was perfect for my tastes.

Pool:

Tonight we are 12 weeks into our 16-week regular season and we have a key matchup against the 2nd place team.  This is the team that "dethroned" us last session by finishing 1st place while we were trying for a three-peat.  Earlier this year, I made the mistake of not playing my best squad against them and they beat us 9-5.  I am not making the same mistake.  Tonight I will play my best lineup so that we can try and extend our 3-point lead on them!

Basketball:

Ironically, tomorrow's basketball matchup in the IBM Basketball League also features the #1 vs #2 teams in the league.  My team ranks #1 and will be facing off against the #2 team in the league in the last week of the regular season.  A loss would give them the top seed in the playoffs, so we can't let that happen!  It should be a very good game and may end up being a preview of this year's finals.

That about wraps up the major updates for me. With no big trips planned for a while, I will just be focusing on my leagues.  'Til next time!

Road Revenge? Or Road Rage?

Everyday driving into the office there is an exit off the interstate that just drives me nuts.  The area I'm talking about is I-10 and Kolb, which is on my way to the IBM office.  I'll be driving north up Kolb Rd and people from the east will be exiting the I-10 and trying to turn north onto Kolb as well.  In their defense, it's a little hard to judge the speed of incoming traffic on Kolb since you can barely see past the top of the hill where I am coming from, and it may appear that cars are coming in slower than they really are.  Nonetheless, people still try and turn right onto the road and into my lane as I'm going near 55 MPH.  This is where the Road Rage/Revenge begins...

I'll be driving straight in the right lane, getting ready to make my eventual right onto IBM Rd.  I clearly have the right of way and should not have to change my speed to allow incoming traffic.  They must yield to me, however, so many do not.  Kolb is a 2-lane road and I feel if you're going to try and turn on Kolb with a fast car coming behind you, you should at least go to the left lane and get out of my way if you can't get to my speed in time.  You'd be surprised how many people don't do this though, they insist on staying in the right lane.  Not only that, they drive fucking shitty ass cars with no acceleration...we're talking 0-60 in like 10 seconds.  At this point I'm always presented with two options:
A) Do I stay in the right lane and slow down to their speed so I can make my eventual right turn?
B) Do I switch to the left lane and pass them, cut them off and make my eventual right turn?

The answer I almost always choose is B.  However, because I'm pissed off at them for cutting me off in the first place, I will usually slow down to almost a complete stop before taking that right turn on IBM Rd.  This forces them to either slow down as well or go around me. :D Here is a map of what everything looks like:

This exit has bothered me so much that I've actually contemplated making a sign that reads "Traffic on Kolb may be faster than it appears. Please yield for existing traffic." and staking it into the ground for all the people trying to make a right onto Kolb.  Anyway, I'm not sure if this classifies as Road Revenge or Road Rage, what do you think?

Leagues!

It was an eventful week for me in the world of extracurricular activities.

Season 4 of After Hours Gaming League officially started this past Sunday.  I returned as captain of the IBM team in their 3rd season, but this year I decided to make cuts to the team whereas in past years we would allow almost anyone to play.  I wanted to field as small a team as possible, to not have to worry about everyone's playtime and playing players of lower skill level.  There is no handicap in the AHGL, so why handicap ourselves?  So this year, I decided to run with only 7 master league players.  Here is a snippet from an introductory e-mail I sent to followers within the IBM company:

This season there are over 50 teams signed up and IBM entered as the #2 preranked team coming in.  Companies are able to enter multiple teams and most have both an A-Team and B-Team, sometimes even a C-Team.  IBM's first match was a doozy, a rematch of Season 2's finals against Epic Medical Systems.  It might've also been IBM's toughest matchup of the regular season with the new Swiss format.  Theoretically, matches should only get easier from here on out.  So a victory over #3 Epic was huge for us, woohoo!  It's gonna be a good season and I'm really eager to try and lead us back to the finals in California!

IBM Basketball League also started up this week, with our first games being held last night.  This was my first year officially taking over as sole commissioner of the league following Dale's retirement from IBM.  Two weeks ago I was pretty concerned there might not be enough players for a full league, as only 38 people had signed up and 56 was the target.  Also, my intentions of recruiting new players around the site were thwarted when I was told to take down fliers that I had put up.  Apparently since IBM is no longer sponsoring the league, we're not allowed to solicit it.  I was pretty depressed about it, but I think next time I will push back and try and talk to the site VP at least.  It just seems silly to me that we have to take down fliers for a league that would only build morale for a company whose morale is in the tank lately.

Unfortunately, my usual core of players (me, Ryan, and Cooper) has been broken up due to Cooper moving to Phoenix and Ryan having a newborn to take care of.  However, I'm loving the new team I drafted.  I invited Evan back as a guest (he was a good replacement when Ryan got injured last year) and I drafted my friend Anthony who brought two guests.  The team is by the quickest in the league and everyone is a baller.  Most teams in IBM league will have a few players who are more liabilities then additions, since some of them are clearly not basketball players but just want to go out and get some exercise.  Here is a look at this season's teams:

If you add up the PPG averages of myself, Evan, Anthony, and Dezi from last year, it would equal 56 PPG.  Add newcomers Ryan and Chris (projected 15 PPG and 4 PPG respectively) and you're looking at well over 70 PPG, LOL.  However, last night we played Team 8 and got off to a really slow start.  Maybe it was rust, maybe it was a drought, or maybe it was getting used to playing with each other, but we only scored 14 points in the first half and found ourselves down 14-24. :/ However, things started to come together both defensively and offensively in the second half, where we outscored them 31-14!  That's more like it!  We ended up winning our first game of the season...and that was without Evan too. :)

So all in all, always excited for leagues to start back up.  I especially look forward to basketball league since I'm in control of it, I know everyone in the league and everyone knows me.  It's just a lot of fun when everything comes together and you know you were a big part of it's success.

Wish me luck and there will be updates to come!