Winning in Afghanistan

I thought this blog post was interesting
from voyages of the bloody, snake, chariot Blog, Bring back the king:

Once upon a time (from 1933 - 1978), in the Hindu Kush Mountains,
Afghanistan was a relatively peaceful, stable, amazingly beautiful
country.

Until 1973 it was ruled by King Mohammad Zahir Shah, a beloved,
pro-cannabis monarch.

That year, while the king was visiting Italy (for eye surgery and to
treat his lumbago), he was overthrown by a jealous, resentful, evil
cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan (the Villain Daoud), who was backed by the
C.I.A., Richard Nixon, and The War on Plants.

When we first went at war with the Taliban, I always thought that the only way we'll know the war is over is when we started to see 'Grown in Afghanistan' on agricultural goods. Afghanistan was once known for the fruit that was grown there.

Perhaps if they legalize Cannabis in the US, we will know if we've won the war when we are smoking afghani pot.

Blackhawk Poker Trip report.

After a full day of cleaning up the house and playing with the kids. I thought it would be fun to go up to Blackhawk for the day. So I made the kids breakfast, kissed my wife and when up to Blackhawk on the 9:35 am bus out of Downtown Denver.

I visited a few casinos. The Golden Gulch Casino has a Heartland Poker tour going on and the Lodge was almost empty so I went over to the Ameristar Casino. They had a $450,000 bad beat jackpot, so I thought "why not?". I knew me hitting the bad beat jackpot was next to nothing, but it's worth a try. I knew other people would be trying it to, so there will be more loose players.

I played from about 11:30 to 7pm and then I had to make the bus back down to Denver.

I played alright. I came out about $250 ahead starting with $140 and I didn't have to rebuy the whole day. I felt like I left some money on the table thought without some value betting and some more aggressive moves, and some draws I should have taken.

Position is key, I had this aggressive good player to my left and I should have move on the table to his left or got a new table at some point, because my EV would have been better in position.

I did let a few people draw out and I should have pushed more when I flopped had a straight flush draw and someone beat me with a higher straight. Also, I should have drawn out a little more with two other players.

I do like the spread limit better than no-limit. The games plays more like a Pot-Limit game and it less push/shove.

I can't wait to go back.

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Don't forget to use Bonus Code "Blackhawk" when you sign up to play poker at Full Tilt Poker and I'll send you some love. :) Plus you'll get 100% Poker sign up bonus up to $600.

Sick Bastard: Take 2 Promotion on Full Tilt Poker

I'm a sick bastard. I completed the Take 2 Promotion on Full Tilt Poker and got myself one of these. It was a pretty simple deal, instead of the Iron Man challenge where you had to play a lot and at higher limits.. All you had to do was to play poker on two tables during September for each day.

There is still time to earn a $5 this month. I think it'll be a popular promotion and it'll be back soon. Especially if other sites run big tournaments.

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Don't forget to use Bonus Code "Blackhawk" when you sign up to play poker at Full Tilt Poker and I'll send you some love. :) Plus you'll get 100% Poker sign up bonus up to $600.

Move Daily Show back to the regular time.

I'm going to start a petition.

"Move the Daily Show/Colbert Report back to its regular replay time at 9PM MT/8PM ET."

I live in Denver and get Comcast Cable. They show Comedy Central on the Pacific time schedule so that the new Daily Show/Colbert Report is shown at Midnight and not 11PM as it is in the East Coast. The replay from the night before used to be at 9PM which was great for us, because the kids went to bed and we could watch it before we went to bed. But this season, they've switched the replay to 8PM instead of 9PM. This has messed up our scheduled. The Daily Show/Colbert Report dovetailed nicely with our nighttime schedule. Most of the other shows we watch (Project Runway, Top Chef, ESPN Poker) have new shows at 8PM and so we no longer watch Daily Show/Colbert Report any more.

Please write your Cable Provider, Comedy Central, and your Congressmen.

Political masturbation

Bringing your gun to a health care town hall is the political equivalence of masturbation in public.

06/30 @215

I gained a pound this week. I'm not too happy about that. I haven't been eating as well as I want to. We went to the Renaissance Fair this week and I had a turkey leg and some ice cream. And last night I ate too much for desert (fruit and fudgesycles), but that was just my normal eating during the week. I also had pork ribs last week. So, not good.

I'm happy with my exercise, I'm able to run almost 6 miles in a hour and I feel really good about that. I burned 1000 calories on Sunday by just running for an hour.

I've adjusted my goals. I think 175 is probably too low of a goal, so I've adjusted it to 185. If I hit 185, I would be 4 lbs less than overweight. Based on my projections I would hit that goal weight in mid-November. I think my HDL's would be good as well.

Current Weight: 215lbs

06/23 @ 214

I lost 2.5 lbs last week. I was pretty good. I'm running a lot more now about 5.2 miles in an hour 4 times a week. My eating has been pretty good as well. I'm going to need to buy more clothes. When I run, I set little goals in my head: Can I reach 20:00 at 5.5 MPH 2.0 incline? etc.

So my next immediate weight lost goal is to get to 210 lbs so that I can buy some new pants and some shirts. I think I could do that over the Fourth of July weekend.

Current Weight: 214

06/16 @ 216.5, LDL good, HDL needs work.

I managed to lose 1 lb last week. An amazing feat considering that my Mom came to visit, we ate out a lot (Root down restaurant, breakfast, ice cream, etc). It's not too bad. I'm still under my target weight.

Current Weight: 216.5


I went to my cardiologist last week and I got a lipid panel done. The above busy chart represents my Total lipids, LDL (Lousy), HDL (good), and triglyserides, plus my targets for each. I have two goals, To lower my LDL levels to less than 70 and to raise my HDL to over 60. I've managed to lower my LDL's, but I have to raise my HDL to 60. I did increase it from 43 to 50 in 6 months, but it has to be higher.

According to this article on the Mayo Clinic website. I should be able to raise my HDL 1 mg/Dl for every 6 lbs of weight lost. So if I have 40 lbs to lose (216.5-175 = 41.5), I should increase my HDL to about 56 ( 41/6 = ~6 mg/Dl , 50 + 6=56). It's not 60, but it'll be close. My next lipid panel will be in December.

Lipid Panel: Tot: 123, LDL: 63, HDL: 50, Tri: 55

On Edit: When I did my last lipid panels in December, I weight 240 lbs and my HDL was 43. I weighted 217 when I got my lipids done and my HDL was 50..

So for 23 lbs of weight lost translated to 7 points in HDL lost.. So if I continue on that track and assuming the same weight/HDL percentage, 40 lbs weight lost would translate to about 12 poins. So my HDL could get up to 62 if I reach my ideal weight of 175 lbs.