About six years ago, my car was broken into at Riverwind Casino. The perp snatched a few personal effects, the change I kept in the ashtray, and a company laptop belonging to the Lawton Constitution (sorry boss!).
Two years ago, I had some Beats headphones stolen from the food court at Riverwind Casino.
I had accidentally left them there for about 5 minutes after eating and someone grabbed them before I could return. I figured it was mostly my fault and bought some smaller, more easily transportable and cheaper headphones. Life goes on.
These events, while mildly disturbing, were not surprising. A casino full of degenerate gamblers is probably not the safest place to keep things you don't want stolen. And when you go to said casino multiple times per week for seven years, you're bound to have something stolen from time to time.
More perplexing, however, is that I've now had my stuff thrown in the trash can by casino employees the same amount of times I've had my stuff stolen.
I got a small bag as a giveaway at a Thunder game a couple years ago. It looks like a small Thunder jersey but the shoulder straps are the handles. Basically, it's a purse. I carry snacks, gum, headphones, a phone charger and the occasional miscellaneous item in there. I usually keep it under my seat or on the bottom of one of the food trays.
Shortly after the Beats theft, I was playing at Riverwind and decided that a stick of Winterfresh gum would surely hit the spot. But when I looked down to grab my bag, it was gone. I looked all over the surrounding floor area, to no avail. I was quite stymied.
The only person I remembered even being in the area was one of the dealers. So I saw him walking by a second later and asked if he had seen my bag.
"Yes," he said. "I threw it in the trash."
"Why would you do that?"
"Looked like trash to me, just sitting on the bottom of the food tray." This message was conveyed with less than zero percent remorse. Not that I was expecting a teary-eyed apology, but...
"I have quite a bit of stuff in there. It weighs a lot more than a couple of Burger King wrappers. Could you please remove it from the trash can and give it back to me?"
It was right on the top of the trash, much like the eclair that George Costanza ate out of the trash on Seinfeld. The dealer probably wasn't happy about retrieving it from the trash, but then again I also wasn't happy about him retrieving it from the trash. Fortunately the bag saved any of the items within from touching other garbage.
On Tuesday I was playing at Riverwind, losing pot after pot while Rychy made fun of me as usual while he stacked his chips up to the ceiling. I had hoped that a chicken tortilla soup from Taco Bueno would cure my hunger pangs and fuel me on to a comeback. As I ordered the soup, I felt an equally primal urge, an urge to urinate. However, there were already a couple of guys up from the table so I decided I could hold it til they came back.
They were gone for about 15 minutes, and then my food arrived. I was pretty hungry so I went ahead and ate half the soup, but when the other players returned I decided to make a quick trip to the can. I might have been gone for a total of 90 seconds, returning to find the food table completely empty. I assumed this was some sort of hilarious prank so I asked where my soup was and everyone burst out laughing. I didn't understand the fifth-grade humor (plus when you're losing even things that are kind of funny become un-funny), so I asked again.
Obviously, it was in the trash can.
Turns out, legendary poker professional Tony Lay had ordered two beverages. Although these beverages had not yet arrived, he wanted to secure room on the food table sitting between us. This food table would probably hold 20 such beverages, and my bowl of soup was occupying roughly three beverages worth of space. He assumed that since I got up from the table I must be done eating so he asked one of the dealers to throw it away, which the dealer did. The fact that it was half full, still hot, and that I had taken a bite five seconds earlier and made no mention that I was done was evidently of no concern.
It really wasn't a big deal, but it was funny that when Tony got his drinks, he had both of them in the very corner of the tray, nowhere near where my soup was, while the rest of the tray was completely empty and my soup was in the trash.
A couple hours later, I took a break and talked to Missy. Before I could start complaining, she told me that while the two girls were playing outside, Addison decided to dump dirt all over herself and our foster child. So Missy has to drag them into the bath. While in the bath, our foster child decided to poop, and Addie decides to pick up the poop with her hand and show it to Missy.
Kinda made me glad to be at a poker table getting half a bowl of Taco Bueno soup thrown in the trash,
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Buddy
Today, I watched Buddy Williams' fourth-place finish in the 2003 WPT World Poker Open . In it, there's a nice feature (starting at about 37:30) on Buddy where he talks about getting his start in the game.
He said he went to a private poker game as a young man and noticed that a particular player won every time, so he sat next to that player and watched what he did. Soon enough, he was becoming a winner in the game.
A year after Buddy gave that interview, a different young man walked into a different private poker game, hoping to learn as much as he could from the best poker player in the room. Luckily, Buddy let me sit next to him, and his graciousness and knowledge has without a doubt changed my life.
It sucks that the world lost Buddy Williams on Tuesday. But there's no doubt that he left a legacy (as well as a lot of fond memories) that will last a long, long time.
I got swept up in the poker boom of 2003 just like a lot of people did. I was barely out of college, living in a new city (Lawton) with a lot of free time and not much else. I started playing micro-stakes poker with my friends and immediately fell in love with it. I had a pretty good card sense and started winning a little bit, but I didn't really know what I was doing. After a year my entire poker bankroll might have totaled $800.
One of the guys I played with, John McGavic, said I should go to Buddy's game. Buddy was already a poker legend in Lawton (you get automatic poker legend status when Phil Ivey stacks your chips for you), and I was brimming with excitement at the prospect of playing with him. I asked John what the buy-in was and he said $200. So I showed up at Buddy's game with exactly $200 in my pocket and soon realized that $200 was the absolute minimum buy-in. In fact, it was common for people to win or lose a couple thousand dollars in the game. Common sense would dictate that it's unwise to buy into a game for 25% of your entire poker budget with no backup money, but at that time in my life I listened to common sense about as often as I obeyed the speed limit.
I can still clearly remember having my entire $200 at risk about 30 minutes into the night. I was all in on the flop with top pair, trying to dodge Jim Shaw's flush draw. My heart was beating through my chest. Had I lost that pot, I have no idea what I would be doing today, but it very well might not involve poker.
Not only did I win that pot, I got several other really good hands and wound up winning about $800 -- basically doubling my entire bankroll. I still remember calling my future wife Missy the very second I hit the parking lot to share my excitement.
That night, I had gotten the last seat at the table, which just happened to be right next to Buddy. I was thrilled to be next to him and had hoped that my play was impressing him. I absolutely couldn't get enough of his old-time poker stories involving Stu Ungar, Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim and all their crazy antics. I kept prodding him with questions, and he never seemed to grow tired of answering them.
The thing that surprised me, however, was that Buddy loved to talk strategy at the table. Not in the way that most of today's pros talk strategy, where they ridicule the bad players and hurt the game. Buddy had a way -- which is hard to describe -- of making everyone at the table feel like equals. If someone put in a lot of money on a weak draw, Buddy might say, "We'd be having a totally different conversation right now if he'd hit it. Besides, Jimmy's got so much money it don't matter to him anyway."
I decided that from then on, I was going to be the first one at the game, so that I could choose the seat right next to Buddy and learn from him, just like he did all those years back.
Buddy immediately recognized that I was someone who had a passion for the game, and maybe some potential too. He would talk differently to me than he would to the rich guys constantly chasing bad draws. He'd ask me for my thought process during a hand, then share his. When two other players were in a big pot, he'd ask me what I thought they had, or he'd ask how strong a hand I would need to call in that particular spot. He would lean over and whisper to me, so that the guys who were actually in the hand wouldn't hear us and it wouldn't affect the outcome. I could have read every poker book ever printed up to that point in history, and it wouldn't have been as educational as sitting next to Buddy once a week for two years.
Think about this from Buddy's point of view. He had absolutely nothing to gain by helping me. I was a young nobody showing up at his poker game once a week. I didn't have any money. I wasn't a customer at his full-time business, like most of the other players were. I could either lose a little money in his game and be gone forever, or I could win a fairly significant amount of money from his business patrons. Not to mention the fact that he was playing against me with his own money.
And all I did for him was stack his chips when he won a pot.
I traveled north to Newcastle and south to Randlett just to play with Buddy and learn more. When I started branching out to a different form of poker (pot limit Omaha), Buddy was the guy I called after a session to ask about a tough hand. When I started considering quitting my job at the paper and playing full-time, he told me how difficult it would be and laid out many of the challenges. But he also told me he knew I was good enough to do it. As someone with an extremely conservative personality when it comes to money, I was at first easily flustered by the losing streaks that go along with playing poker. Many times, it was Buddy's encouragement and confidence that allowed me to keep my head.
Our friendship wasn't just about poker. When I bought Missy's engagement ring, he was the second person I showed it to. (His brother Ronnie told me I was stupid for buying it at a jewelry store instead of a pawn shop). I introduced Missy to him and they immediately hit it off. When Addison was born, I showed him new pictures on my phone every week.
After I moved to Oklahoma City, I used to love Tuesdays, when he would come up to Riverwind and I would get to play with him again. I still tried to snag the seat next to him and stack his chips. But soon, his health started taking a turn for the worse. I would call sometimes, not nearly as often as I should have.
I'm far from the only person Buddy impacted in a positive way. Several fellow poker pros have told me how Buddy helped them, and I can't think of one person who didn't enjoy being around him, whether at the poker table or away from it.
Rest in peace, Buddy. I owe you more than I could ever repay.
P.S. -- Random thoughts and memories
He said he went to a private poker game as a young man and noticed that a particular player won every time, so he sat next to that player and watched what he did. Soon enough, he was becoming a winner in the game.
A year after Buddy gave that interview, a different young man walked into a different private poker game, hoping to learn as much as he could from the best poker player in the room. Luckily, Buddy let me sit next to him, and his graciousness and knowledge has without a doubt changed my life.
It sucks that the world lost Buddy Williams on Tuesday. But there's no doubt that he left a legacy (as well as a lot of fond memories) that will last a long, long time.
I got swept up in the poker boom of 2003 just like a lot of people did. I was barely out of college, living in a new city (Lawton) with a lot of free time and not much else. I started playing micro-stakes poker with my friends and immediately fell in love with it. I had a pretty good card sense and started winning a little bit, but I didn't really know what I was doing. After a year my entire poker bankroll might have totaled $800.
One of the guys I played with, John McGavic, said I should go to Buddy's game. Buddy was already a poker legend in Lawton (you get automatic poker legend status when Phil Ivey stacks your chips for you), and I was brimming with excitement at the prospect of playing with him. I asked John what the buy-in was and he said $200. So I showed up at Buddy's game with exactly $200 in my pocket and soon realized that $200 was the absolute minimum buy-in. In fact, it was common for people to win or lose a couple thousand dollars in the game. Common sense would dictate that it's unwise to buy into a game for 25% of your entire poker budget with no backup money, but at that time in my life I listened to common sense about as often as I obeyed the speed limit.
I can still clearly remember having my entire $200 at risk about 30 minutes into the night. I was all in on the flop with top pair, trying to dodge Jim Shaw's flush draw. My heart was beating through my chest. Had I lost that pot, I have no idea what I would be doing today, but it very well might not involve poker.
Not only did I win that pot, I got several other really good hands and wound up winning about $800 -- basically doubling my entire bankroll. I still remember calling my future wife Missy the very second I hit the parking lot to share my excitement.
That night, I had gotten the last seat at the table, which just happened to be right next to Buddy. I was thrilled to be next to him and had hoped that my play was impressing him. I absolutely couldn't get enough of his old-time poker stories involving Stu Ungar, Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim and all their crazy antics. I kept prodding him with questions, and he never seemed to grow tired of answering them.
The thing that surprised me, however, was that Buddy loved to talk strategy at the table. Not in the way that most of today's pros talk strategy, where they ridicule the bad players and hurt the game. Buddy had a way -- which is hard to describe -- of making everyone at the table feel like equals. If someone put in a lot of money on a weak draw, Buddy might say, "We'd be having a totally different conversation right now if he'd hit it. Besides, Jimmy's got so much money it don't matter to him anyway."
I decided that from then on, I was going to be the first one at the game, so that I could choose the seat right next to Buddy and learn from him, just like he did all those years back.
Buddy immediately recognized that I was someone who had a passion for the game, and maybe some potential too. He would talk differently to me than he would to the rich guys constantly chasing bad draws. He'd ask me for my thought process during a hand, then share his. When two other players were in a big pot, he'd ask me what I thought they had, or he'd ask how strong a hand I would need to call in that particular spot. He would lean over and whisper to me, so that the guys who were actually in the hand wouldn't hear us and it wouldn't affect the outcome. I could have read every poker book ever printed up to that point in history, and it wouldn't have been as educational as sitting next to Buddy once a week for two years.
Think about this from Buddy's point of view. He had absolutely nothing to gain by helping me. I was a young nobody showing up at his poker game once a week. I didn't have any money. I wasn't a customer at his full-time business, like most of the other players were. I could either lose a little money in his game and be gone forever, or I could win a fairly significant amount of money from his business patrons. Not to mention the fact that he was playing against me with his own money.
And all I did for him was stack his chips when he won a pot.
I traveled north to Newcastle and south to Randlett just to play with Buddy and learn more. When I started branching out to a different form of poker (pot limit Omaha), Buddy was the guy I called after a session to ask about a tough hand. When I started considering quitting my job at the paper and playing full-time, he told me how difficult it would be and laid out many of the challenges. But he also told me he knew I was good enough to do it. As someone with an extremely conservative personality when it comes to money, I was at first easily flustered by the losing streaks that go along with playing poker. Many times, it was Buddy's encouragement and confidence that allowed me to keep my head.
Our friendship wasn't just about poker. When I bought Missy's engagement ring, he was the second person I showed it to. (His brother Ronnie told me I was stupid for buying it at a jewelry store instead of a pawn shop). I introduced Missy to him and they immediately hit it off. When Addison was born, I showed him new pictures on my phone every week.
After I moved to Oklahoma City, I used to love Tuesdays, when he would come up to Riverwind and I would get to play with him again. I still tried to snag the seat next to him and stack his chips. But soon, his health started taking a turn for the worse. I would call sometimes, not nearly as often as I should have.
I'm far from the only person Buddy impacted in a positive way. Several fellow poker pros have told me how Buddy helped them, and I can't think of one person who didn't enjoy being around him, whether at the poker table or away from it.
Rest in peace, Buddy. I owe you more than I could ever repay.
P.S. -- Random thoughts and memories
- That first night I played over there, I was worried about etiquette since I had never played in a private game before. When Buddy's helper brought me a bottled water and a cup of soup, I tipped him $10. Buddy threw up his arms and said, "You trying to make me find someone new? Robert's gonna quit me and go work for you if you keep giving him those red chips!"
- Ronnie was always telling Buddy he needed to get a newer and nicer wheelchair. The thing was definitely old and ricketty, but I guess Buddy liked it.
- The dynamic between Buddy and Ronnie was amazing. They had polar opposite personalities and poker styles, and if you heard them talk you might think they hated each other sometimes. But it was quickly apparent that either one would die fighting for the other one without batting an eye. I love Ronnie too.
- When I first started playing, I would never bluff. One time I won a pot with a bet and someone at the table said they thought I had bluffed. Buddy said, "You could take every penny Matt's ever won on a bluff and put it in your eye, and you wouldn't even feel it." He had a boatload of great phrases like that for everything and everyone.
- There was a cocky teenager constantly hanging out around Buddy's game, watching the action and telling everyone how bad they played. He wasn't old enough to play himself but was convinced he was better than all of us. Finally one night, Buddy says he's sick of hearing this kid squawk and tells him he can sit in the game. I figured the kid didn't want to go broke the first hand he played, and the kid was constantly talking about how I never bluff. So I bluffed him right off the bat. He showed his pair of kings and made a comment about how unlucky he is and how I obviously made my flush on the river. I complimented him on his fold and showed him a pair of 4s, which cracked Buddy up. Ten years later, Jesse McVicker is still the guy who thinks everyone else stinks at poker. But he was smart enough to learn a lot from Buddy too and I'm glad to call him a friend.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
The Night the Car Started Making Strange Smells and Ended up in a Ditch
The concept was simple enough.
I had a free room at Winstar Casino, about a two hour drive down I-35 from my house. The plan was to meet my friend Brian Ray (aka Lil Kat, B-Ray) at Riverwind Casino at 2 p.m. We'd make the drive, play poker for two days, and drive back. Easy enough.
At 2:10 I receive a text message from B-Ray. "Just woke up from nap. Will be late."
Really? The single guy with zero responsibilities needed a nap to freshen up for an evening of sitting on his butt playing cards? That's cool, I was hoping to sit in the Riverwind parking lot for an hour.
At about 2:50 I get another text. "I'm here." I text back, "I'm in the east parking lot, next to the hotel. Third row." He responds, "I'm out front."
At this point I'm just ready to go so I grab my bag, lock my car and start walking to the front. The casino faces Highway 9, which is right by I-35, so it would be convenient for him to be there so we could just hop on the road. But I get there and he's not there, so I call and ask where he is. "I told you I'm out front." I say, "I'm out front and you aren't here." He then clarifies that he is outside the poker room, which is at the back of the casino. So when he said he was "out front" he really meant that he was "out back." He also informed me that he couldn't find my car because he didn't know which direction east was. This is what an engineering degree from OU gets you these days.
I had asked him to drive because my car, an old Honda Accord, had its check engine light on a few days prior. It was driving fine and the light hadn't been on (in fact I had canceled an appointment to the car shop), but I didn't want to get stranded two hours from home. This would prove to be quite ironic.
About 10 miles down the road, Lil Kat's temperature warning lit up. The gauge was past the H and the car was obviously overheating.
At this point Brian thought it was a good time to let me know this his car had been also been acting funny of late. He told a tale of a drive-though encounter at Taco Bell, whereupon the cashier notified him that he was leaking a huge amount of anti-freeze. He figured the guy was an idiot since he worked at Taco Bell so the warning was ignored. Good thinking, let's just let the car blow up in Thackerville, Oklahoma.
We did, however, make it down to Winstar, where I lost the biggest pot I played. To Lil Kat. Good times.
The next day went better for me and I ended up having a profitable trip (alas, Lil Kat cannot say the same). At about 11 p.m., we decided to head back home.
Less than 10 miles into the 110-mile return trip, however, the temperature gauge lit up again. Not a surprising result since nothing had been done to fix it. But this time several other warnings lit up. Actually, just about every warning function on his piece of crap 2007-ish Chevy Malibu.
First, allow me to describe the current driving conditions. It was about 30 degrees outside with a rather dense fog. And we are the only car on I-35.
The check engine light came on. Then a warning that said, "Oil is at zero percent." Then something that said, "Energy saver mode activated." Brian couldn't get the car to go more than 50 mph and the heater wasn't working. More alarmingly, the car was making an awful clanking sound and smelled like burnt sausage.
Lil Kat asked what the chances of us making it home were. I estimated 40 percent.
Somehow, we plodded for over two hours at 50 mph but made it to the Highway 9 exit where Riverwind is located. We would have made it to the casino but, to quote our friend Tim Widowski, "Lil Kat is the worst driver I know."
First, he almost missed the exit. More amazing than that, he chose the wrong direction to turn after exiting the highway.
Riverwind Casino, where B-Ray spends roughly 70 hours per week, is a huge, bright building just West of I-35. The Highway 9 exit puts you on the east side of I-35. To get to the casino you have to cross over the highway. Or you can drive the opposite direction of the casino.
So after making a last-second swerve to exit the highway, Lil Kat then veers right at the fork in the road, taking us away from the casino and straight toward absolutely nothing.
I point out that we should be going the other way. To be fair to B-Ray, it was quite foggy and you couldn't see much. It did appear as if there was nothing but pavement in front of us, and there wasn't a clear designated area to turn around.
So B-Ray gets the car in position to turn around and then -- thump! splash! -- we drive over a small ledge into a puddle of mud. His back tires weren't totally off the ground, but we were stuck pretty good. After Googling "car in a ditch" I chose the image above to most closely correlate to the crappyness of B-Ray's car and the ditch we were stuck in.
When it became obvious that we weren't going to get out of the ditch, Brian called AAA. While he was on the phone, a McClain County Sheriff's car came by. The cop was really nice, asked if we needed any help, and even remarked about how easily someone could drive into the ditch because of the fog. When I told him we were calling AAA, he said he was going to leave but that we should call 911 if we need anything else.
AAA said the tow would be there in an hour, and Brian had to wait for them to get there. I decided to walk the quarter mile over the highway to Riverwind and head home. But as I was leaving, another McClain County Sheriff's car pulled up. This cop was not as cool.
"How in the hell did you get in there???" he yelled after jumping out of his car. He made it sound like we had damaged his personal property or that he would in some way be helping us out of the situation.
Brian explained the wrong turn and the fog, but this guy wasn't interested.
"All I care about is whether you guys have been drinking," he said. "Have you been drinking?"
"No," Brian said. "Not one drop actually."
"Okay, well I still don't see how you ended up in that thing but all I really care about is whether you've been drinking."
As he walked back to his car, I tried to seize upon the opportunity for a free ride back to my car.
"Any way I can get a lift back to Riverwind?" I asked.
"I'm not going that way," he said, driving off.
As I walked across the highway in 30 degree fog, I thought about how much money my family could get from McClain County if I got ran over because this jerk wouldn't go one minute out of his way to drop me off at Riverwind.
It all just goes to show you that Brian Ray is a terrible driver.
P.S. The tow truck Brian called drove into the same ditch, which is pretty funny. But it got out and got B-Ray's car back to his place. He took it to a shop, where it got some much-needed anti-freeze. According to Lil Kat, that was all that was wrong with the car. But coming from someone who knows less about cars than a Taco Bell cashier, I don't think I'll be rolling the dice in that thing for quite some time.
I had a free room at Winstar Casino, about a two hour drive down I-35 from my house. The plan was to meet my friend Brian Ray (aka Lil Kat, B-Ray) at Riverwind Casino at 2 p.m. We'd make the drive, play poker for two days, and drive back. Easy enough.
At 2:10 I receive a text message from B-Ray. "Just woke up from nap. Will be late."
Really? The single guy with zero responsibilities needed a nap to freshen up for an evening of sitting on his butt playing cards? That's cool, I was hoping to sit in the Riverwind parking lot for an hour.
At about 2:50 I get another text. "I'm here." I text back, "I'm in the east parking lot, next to the hotel. Third row." He responds, "I'm out front."
At this point I'm just ready to go so I grab my bag, lock my car and start walking to the front. The casino faces Highway 9, which is right by I-35, so it would be convenient for him to be there so we could just hop on the road. But I get there and he's not there, so I call and ask where he is. "I told you I'm out front." I say, "I'm out front and you aren't here." He then clarifies that he is outside the poker room, which is at the back of the casino. So when he said he was "out front" he really meant that he was "out back." He also informed me that he couldn't find my car because he didn't know which direction east was. This is what an engineering degree from OU gets you these days.
I had asked him to drive because my car, an old Honda Accord, had its check engine light on a few days prior. It was driving fine and the light hadn't been on (in fact I had canceled an appointment to the car shop), but I didn't want to get stranded two hours from home. This would prove to be quite ironic.
About 10 miles down the road, Lil Kat's temperature warning lit up. The gauge was past the H and the car was obviously overheating.
At this point Brian thought it was a good time to let me know this his car had been also been acting funny of late. He told a tale of a drive-though encounter at Taco Bell, whereupon the cashier notified him that he was leaking a huge amount of anti-freeze. He figured the guy was an idiot since he worked at Taco Bell so the warning was ignored. Good thinking, let's just let the car blow up in Thackerville, Oklahoma.
We did, however, make it down to Winstar, where I lost the biggest pot I played. To Lil Kat. Good times.
The next day went better for me and I ended up having a profitable trip (alas, Lil Kat cannot say the same). At about 11 p.m., we decided to head back home.
Less than 10 miles into the 110-mile return trip, however, the temperature gauge lit up again. Not a surprising result since nothing had been done to fix it. But this time several other warnings lit up. Actually, just about every warning function on his piece of crap 2007-ish Chevy Malibu.
First, allow me to describe the current driving conditions. It was about 30 degrees outside with a rather dense fog. And we are the only car on I-35.
The check engine light came on. Then a warning that said, "Oil is at zero percent." Then something that said, "Energy saver mode activated." Brian couldn't get the car to go more than 50 mph and the heater wasn't working. More alarmingly, the car was making an awful clanking sound and smelled like burnt sausage.
Lil Kat asked what the chances of us making it home were. I estimated 40 percent.
Somehow, we plodded for over two hours at 50 mph but made it to the Highway 9 exit where Riverwind is located. We would have made it to the casino but, to quote our friend Tim Widowski, "Lil Kat is the worst driver I know."
First, he almost missed the exit. More amazing than that, he chose the wrong direction to turn after exiting the highway.
Riverwind Casino, where B-Ray spends roughly 70 hours per week, is a huge, bright building just West of I-35. The Highway 9 exit puts you on the east side of I-35. To get to the casino you have to cross over the highway. Or you can drive the opposite direction of the casino.
So after making a last-second swerve to exit the highway, Lil Kat then veers right at the fork in the road, taking us away from the casino and straight toward absolutely nothing.
I point out that we should be going the other way. To be fair to B-Ray, it was quite foggy and you couldn't see much. It did appear as if there was nothing but pavement in front of us, and there wasn't a clear designated area to turn around.
So B-Ray gets the car in position to turn around and then -- thump! splash! -- we drive over a small ledge into a puddle of mud. His back tires weren't totally off the ground, but we were stuck pretty good. After Googling "car in a ditch" I chose the image above to most closely correlate to the crappyness of B-Ray's car and the ditch we were stuck in.
When it became obvious that we weren't going to get out of the ditch, Brian called AAA. While he was on the phone, a McClain County Sheriff's car came by. The cop was really nice, asked if we needed any help, and even remarked about how easily someone could drive into the ditch because of the fog. When I told him we were calling AAA, he said he was going to leave but that we should call 911 if we need anything else.
AAA said the tow would be there in an hour, and Brian had to wait for them to get there. I decided to walk the quarter mile over the highway to Riverwind and head home. But as I was leaving, another McClain County Sheriff's car pulled up. This cop was not as cool.
"How in the hell did you get in there???" he yelled after jumping out of his car. He made it sound like we had damaged his personal property or that he would in some way be helping us out of the situation.
Brian explained the wrong turn and the fog, but this guy wasn't interested.
"All I care about is whether you guys have been drinking," he said. "Have you been drinking?"
"No," Brian said. "Not one drop actually."
"Okay, well I still don't see how you ended up in that thing but all I really care about is whether you've been drinking."
As he walked back to his car, I tried to seize upon the opportunity for a free ride back to my car.
"Any way I can get a lift back to Riverwind?" I asked.
"I'm not going that way," he said, driving off.
As I walked across the highway in 30 degree fog, I thought about how much money my family could get from McClain County if I got ran over because this jerk wouldn't go one minute out of his way to drop me off at Riverwind.
It all just goes to show you that Brian Ray is a terrible driver.
P.S. The tow truck Brian called drove into the same ditch, which is pretty funny. But it got out and got B-Ray's car back to his place. He took it to a shop, where it got some much-needed anti-freeze. According to Lil Kat, that was all that was wrong with the car. But coming from someone who knows less about cars than a Taco Bell cashier, I don't think I'll be rolling the dice in that thing for quite some time.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Tournament Co-Co-Co-Co-Champion!!!!
Anyone who knows me knows that I love poker and hate poker tournaments.
Anyone who knows poker knows that only cash games are true poker and tournaments are stupid. This is science, don't argue with it.
Anyway, over the past five years I have steadily lowered the number of tournaments I play in. I used to play maybe 5-7 per year, but this year I played one in Vegas this summer and decided I would be a non-participant for the rest of 2013 and possibly forever.
I broke my oath the other day, made a couple thousand bucks and met some d-bags worthy of a blog.
On Thursday I drove the two hours to Winstar Casino, home to the biggest poker room in Oklahoma, arriving at 12:30 p.m. This is typically about the time that the cash game I play in begins. On this particular day, however, there were only a few names on the list and it looked like it might be an hour or more before it began.
A few tables away, a tournament had begun. There was a small weeklong series of special tournaments going on, and Thursday's tournament was half no-limit hold em, half pot-limit Omaha. The tournament was only $230 and I enjoy Omaha, so I came up with a plan. I would enter the tournament and try to win a big pot within the first hour. If I lost it wouldn't cost me much and I could still play the cash game, but if I won I would have a chance at making some good money in the tournament.
The timing worked out perfectly. Just as the cash game was about to start, I was dealt a strong draw and moved all in against two other guys. I made my draw on the last card and now had three times the tournament starting stack.
From a starting field of 54, I coasted into the final table. The tournament was only set up to pay 6 places, but as soon as we got down to the final 9 everyone wanted to change the payouts so that 9th, 8th and 7th got a little money. This is reason #2213 why tournaments are stupid. There's always going to be someone who is the first person not to get paid. Why not just go with how the tournament was set up? Yet this is standard tournament fare.
Changing the payouts like this requires a unanimous vote. Someone suggested it, everyone else loved it, and then I voted against it. The whole table turned on me like I was a leper who said bad things about their mommas.
"That's fine. This guy doesn't wanna do it. We'll just bust him," one dude said.
"You're gonna regret that when you get busted and get nothing," a lady said.
"We've played for 6 hours now, we all deserve to at least get our money back," an old codger said.
"Blah blah blah tournaments blow," is what I heard.
I had an average chip stack at the time, so it wasn't like I was guaranteed to even make the money, yet everyone seemed to assume I was being a selfish jerk by wanting to play by the rules they set up. Every few hands, I was again offered the chance to pay everyone at the table. I continued to decline.
One guy folded a pot and said, "I would have played that hand and probably gotten busted, but this guy (pointing at me) must not like action so I guess we'll all keep folding."
Whatevs bro.
Someone got knocked out and we were down to eight, and they started it up in full earnest again.
"You still gonna be heartless and not let everyone get their money back?" one guy said. To prove I didn't care about the money, I moved all in on a bluff and showed my hand. This only proved to the rest of the table that I was stupid. They promised I would regret the decision.
They were right, I regretted my decision to enter a tournament.
Someone else got busted and we were down to seven, and now the urgency was like we were on the Titanic and there were seven spots left on the last lifeboat.
"Please, sir, just $200. Let the guy get his money back. We've been playing too long to walk away empty-handed."
At this point I figured saying yes would be as close as I'd ever get to the feeling of curing cancer or achieving world peace, so I finally acquiesced and one guy literally let out a huge sigh of relief.
Just as soon as I had them on my good side, I lost them with a snide comment I couldn't help but make.
"It seems like you probably shouldn't be playing a $230 tournament if $200 is such a big deal to you."
Cue silence, dirty looks.
We kept playing and soon we were down to four people. All four of us had relatively equal chip stacks, so naturally someone brought up the idea of chopping (splitting the remaining prize money equally).
The same guy spearheaded the $200 payout and the 4-way chop. He was the definition of a tournament drooler d-bag, about 40 years old with sunglasses he wore every time he was involved in a hand, a crew cut and an attitude that made it clear he thought he was better than the rest of us in every aspect of life.
I was hoping that by caving in on the $200, I would be able to get out of the chop scenario more easily. Wrong.
This dude gets out his phone and says, "I just did the math. It's $2200 for all four of us to just walk away right now. Let's all win."
The other two players immediately agree, leaving me to be the jerk again. Evidently when you enter a tournament, you are not allowed to choose to actually play the tournament out until someone wins. You go cut-throat until you get down to half a dozen, and then you are required to turn into a Communist and make sure everyone wins the same amount.
"I guess you guys make these final tables all the time," I said. "But this is new to me so I kinda want to play it out and see what happens."
That excuse didn't fly, so Douchey McGee kept at it. After saying no six times, I started ignoring him, which only made him madder and madder.
Out of nowhere, one of the other two guys says, "So, did we all agree on the $2200 yet?"
Serenity now.
McGee got more aggressive in his tactics. First it was, "You're going to regret it when you walk away with $1000 when you could have had $2200." Then it was, "I'm just trying to be nice. No matter what, I'm going home to great job and three kids and a great life. I win no matter what. I don't know if you can say that, but I'm just being friendly." Then finally, "I'm going to make you regret not chopping. I'm gonna bust you and then the three of us can chop it."
When that didn't work, he went into terrorist mode.
"OK buddy, here's the deal. This is your last chance. If you don't agree to the $2200 right now, then I'm not doing any deals at all. Don't even talk to me about it."
I just rolled my eyes at him. Then I tried to bluff him in a pot and that didn't work.
So now I have less chips than anyone else. McGee has the most, but not much more than the other two guys. He immediately reneged on his promise of non-negotiation.
"OK guys, I have the chip lead now. I'll take $2600, and the three of you can chop up the rest of it." I suppose in theory this would have been a good deal for me, but the other two guys would have been getting screwed. Besides which I would rather get 4th place and less money than cave in to this dude.
So we kept playing, and soon I found myself all in with about a 20% chance to win the pot. When we turned our hands face-up, McGee yelled, "We're down to three! We're down to three!" Unfortunately for him I got extremely lucky on the last card and won the pot. Without saying a word, I gave him a nod and a wink as I scooped the chips.
We played some more, and nobody busted out. Finally around midnight the blinds got so high that there was virtually no element of skill left. We all four still had roughly the same amount of chips. After several hours of saying no to these same three guys, I finally said, "OK boys, I give up. I'll chop it."
Douchey McGee says, "Hold on now. I want to see if that's a good deal for me. I think I'm still the chip leader."
So he makes us all count our chips. Turns out, I had the most chips, but just barely. Still, I made him acknowledge my chip lead when he agreed to the deal.
Thus ends the story of my final tournament of 2013. A free $100 to anyone who catches me playing one before then.
Anyone who knows poker knows that only cash games are true poker and tournaments are stupid. This is science, don't argue with it.
Anyway, over the past five years I have steadily lowered the number of tournaments I play in. I used to play maybe 5-7 per year, but this year I played one in Vegas this summer and decided I would be a non-participant for the rest of 2013 and possibly forever.
I broke my oath the other day, made a couple thousand bucks and met some d-bags worthy of a blog.
On Thursday I drove the two hours to Winstar Casino, home to the biggest poker room in Oklahoma, arriving at 12:30 p.m. This is typically about the time that the cash game I play in begins. On this particular day, however, there were only a few names on the list and it looked like it might be an hour or more before it began.
A few tables away, a tournament had begun. There was a small weeklong series of special tournaments going on, and Thursday's tournament was half no-limit hold em, half pot-limit Omaha. The tournament was only $230 and I enjoy Omaha, so I came up with a plan. I would enter the tournament and try to win a big pot within the first hour. If I lost it wouldn't cost me much and I could still play the cash game, but if I won I would have a chance at making some good money in the tournament.
The timing worked out perfectly. Just as the cash game was about to start, I was dealt a strong draw and moved all in against two other guys. I made my draw on the last card and now had three times the tournament starting stack.
From a starting field of 54, I coasted into the final table. The tournament was only set up to pay 6 places, but as soon as we got down to the final 9 everyone wanted to change the payouts so that 9th, 8th and 7th got a little money. This is reason #2213 why tournaments are stupid. There's always going to be someone who is the first person not to get paid. Why not just go with how the tournament was set up? Yet this is standard tournament fare.
Changing the payouts like this requires a unanimous vote. Someone suggested it, everyone else loved it, and then I voted against it. The whole table turned on me like I was a leper who said bad things about their mommas.
"That's fine. This guy doesn't wanna do it. We'll just bust him," one dude said.
"You're gonna regret that when you get busted and get nothing," a lady said.
"We've played for 6 hours now, we all deserve to at least get our money back," an old codger said.
"Blah blah blah tournaments blow," is what I heard.
I had an average chip stack at the time, so it wasn't like I was guaranteed to even make the money, yet everyone seemed to assume I was being a selfish jerk by wanting to play by the rules they set up. Every few hands, I was again offered the chance to pay everyone at the table. I continued to decline.
One guy folded a pot and said, "I would have played that hand and probably gotten busted, but this guy (pointing at me) must not like action so I guess we'll all keep folding."
Whatevs bro.
Someone got knocked out and we were down to eight, and they started it up in full earnest again.
"You still gonna be heartless and not let everyone get their money back?" one guy said. To prove I didn't care about the money, I moved all in on a bluff and showed my hand. This only proved to the rest of the table that I was stupid. They promised I would regret the decision.
They were right, I regretted my decision to enter a tournament.
Someone else got busted and we were down to seven, and now the urgency was like we were on the Titanic and there were seven spots left on the last lifeboat.
"Please, sir, just $200. Let the guy get his money back. We've been playing too long to walk away empty-handed."
At this point I figured saying yes would be as close as I'd ever get to the feeling of curing cancer or achieving world peace, so I finally acquiesced and one guy literally let out a huge sigh of relief.
Just as soon as I had them on my good side, I lost them with a snide comment I couldn't help but make.
"It seems like you probably shouldn't be playing a $230 tournament if $200 is such a big deal to you."
Cue silence, dirty looks.
We kept playing and soon we were down to four people. All four of us had relatively equal chip stacks, so naturally someone brought up the idea of chopping (splitting the remaining prize money equally).
The same guy spearheaded the $200 payout and the 4-way chop. He was the definition of a tournament drooler d-bag, about 40 years old with sunglasses he wore every time he was involved in a hand, a crew cut and an attitude that made it clear he thought he was better than the rest of us in every aspect of life.
I was hoping that by caving in on the $200, I would be able to get out of the chop scenario more easily. Wrong.
This dude gets out his phone and says, "I just did the math. It's $2200 for all four of us to just walk away right now. Let's all win."
The other two players immediately agree, leaving me to be the jerk again. Evidently when you enter a tournament, you are not allowed to choose to actually play the tournament out until someone wins. You go cut-throat until you get down to half a dozen, and then you are required to turn into a Communist and make sure everyone wins the same amount.
"I guess you guys make these final tables all the time," I said. "But this is new to me so I kinda want to play it out and see what happens."
That excuse didn't fly, so Douchey McGee kept at it. After saying no six times, I started ignoring him, which only made him madder and madder.
Out of nowhere, one of the other two guys says, "So, did we all agree on the $2200 yet?"
Serenity now.
McGee got more aggressive in his tactics. First it was, "You're going to regret it when you walk away with $1000 when you could have had $2200." Then it was, "I'm just trying to be nice. No matter what, I'm going home to great job and three kids and a great life. I win no matter what. I don't know if you can say that, but I'm just being friendly." Then finally, "I'm going to make you regret not chopping. I'm gonna bust you and then the three of us can chop it."
When that didn't work, he went into terrorist mode.
"OK buddy, here's the deal. This is your last chance. If you don't agree to the $2200 right now, then I'm not doing any deals at all. Don't even talk to me about it."
I just rolled my eyes at him. Then I tried to bluff him in a pot and that didn't work.
So now I have less chips than anyone else. McGee has the most, but not much more than the other two guys. He immediately reneged on his promise of non-negotiation.
"OK guys, I have the chip lead now. I'll take $2600, and the three of you can chop up the rest of it." I suppose in theory this would have been a good deal for me, but the other two guys would have been getting screwed. Besides which I would rather get 4th place and less money than cave in to this dude.
So we kept playing, and soon I found myself all in with about a 20% chance to win the pot. When we turned our hands face-up, McGee yelled, "We're down to three! We're down to three!" Unfortunately for him I got extremely lucky on the last card and won the pot. Without saying a word, I gave him a nod and a wink as I scooped the chips.
We played some more, and nobody busted out. Finally around midnight the blinds got so high that there was virtually no element of skill left. We all four still had roughly the same amount of chips. After several hours of saying no to these same three guys, I finally said, "OK boys, I give up. I'll chop it."
Douchey McGee says, "Hold on now. I want to see if that's a good deal for me. I think I'm still the chip leader."
So he makes us all count our chips. Turns out, I had the most chips, but just barely. Still, I made him acknowledge my chip lead when he agreed to the deal.
Thus ends the story of my final tournament of 2013. A free $100 to anyone who catches me playing one before then.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Postscript to the last Focking Blog
A few things have happened since the last blog, about a week ago.
There's a fair amount of good news.
Twice last week I called our warranty company, American Home Shield, and asked to speak to a manager about our ongoing A/C troubles. Twice they said one would call me back in 24 hours or less, and twice that didn't happen.
The third time I gave the receptionist a fire and brimstone speech, telling her the next call would be coming from my lawyer. This was kind of a bluff, since I had contacted two lawyers and they didn't see enough money there to mess with it at this point. Nevertheless, it did have the effect of getting me a prompt call back from a manager, who was quite courteous.
In fact, once I dropped the L bomb on them their tone changed 180 degrees. I have received a call from the supervisor at AHS for three straight days, asking if the A/C was working properly. Each time I said the same thing -- it's working much better than before, but the house temp during the afternoon is still 3 to 5 degrees hotter than what we have it set on. I understand that it's very hot outside but I would like to have someone confirm that it is functioning as best it can and that there isn't long-term damage from the terrible company First Time Heat and Air's incompetent work. And if there is, fix it.
Evidently, AHS called our second A/C company, All About Comfort, after each of their three calls to me. AHS wants someone to come out to our house, but AAC is surely sick of having to come to our house four times to re-do First Time's crappy work, so they blew them off. Finally I got a call from All About Comfort, and it was pretty funny.
AAC receptionist: "Hello, Mr. Franklin, I've received several calls from AHS about your A/C service but I haven't heard any complaint from you directly so I just wanted to confirm that everything is working OK.
I repeated what I said above, said I was happy with their service and sorry that they had to cover for First Time, but said I would like someone to come out and double-check everything since the warranty company was paying for it and since there was the 5 degree discrepancy on the temp.
Receptionist: "Well, you know it's very hot outside. Do you have the blinds open? The sun coming in can make it very hot inside."
Me: "Yes, we've kept them closed during the day."
Her: "Because, you know, here in our office we have the temp set at 70 and it was 81 in here the other day until I put a curtain up and now it's fine."
Me: "You work at an air conditioning company and they can't get the temp under 80 in the office?"
Her: "Ummm...It's much better now that I've put the curtain up. That's why I asked you about that. Maybe that's all you need."
One of their supervisors is coming to check on our unit tomorrow.
While things on the A/C front are hopefully (fingers crossed) looking better, our bad luck has not run out quite yet. I'll rank these new developments from least serious to most serious.
There's a fair amount of good news.
- The laptop needed only a new power cord
- Poker be good
- The doorknob has remained intact
Twice last week I called our warranty company, American Home Shield, and asked to speak to a manager about our ongoing A/C troubles. Twice they said one would call me back in 24 hours or less, and twice that didn't happen.
The third time I gave the receptionist a fire and brimstone speech, telling her the next call would be coming from my lawyer. This was kind of a bluff, since I had contacted two lawyers and they didn't see enough money there to mess with it at this point. Nevertheless, it did have the effect of getting me a prompt call back from a manager, who was quite courteous.
In fact, once I dropped the L bomb on them their tone changed 180 degrees. I have received a call from the supervisor at AHS for three straight days, asking if the A/C was working properly. Each time I said the same thing -- it's working much better than before, but the house temp during the afternoon is still 3 to 5 degrees hotter than what we have it set on. I understand that it's very hot outside but I would like to have someone confirm that it is functioning as best it can and that there isn't long-term damage from the terrible company First Time Heat and Air's incompetent work. And if there is, fix it.
Evidently, AHS called our second A/C company, All About Comfort, after each of their three calls to me. AHS wants someone to come out to our house, but AAC is surely sick of having to come to our house four times to re-do First Time's crappy work, so they blew them off. Finally I got a call from All About Comfort, and it was pretty funny.
AAC receptionist: "Hello, Mr. Franklin, I've received several calls from AHS about your A/C service but I haven't heard any complaint from you directly so I just wanted to confirm that everything is working OK.
I repeated what I said above, said I was happy with their service and sorry that they had to cover for First Time, but said I would like someone to come out and double-check everything since the warranty company was paying for it and since there was the 5 degree discrepancy on the temp.
Receptionist: "Well, you know it's very hot outside. Do you have the blinds open? The sun coming in can make it very hot inside."
Me: "Yes, we've kept them closed during the day."
Her: "Because, you know, here in our office we have the temp set at 70 and it was 81 in here the other day until I put a curtain up and now it's fine."
Me: "You work at an air conditioning company and they can't get the temp under 80 in the office?"
Her: "Ummm...It's much better now that I've put the curtain up. That's why I asked you about that. Maybe that's all you need."
One of their supervisors is coming to check on our unit tomorrow.
While things on the A/C front are hopefully (fingers crossed) looking better, our bad luck has not run out quite yet. I'll rank these new developments from least serious to most serious.
- I was mowing our lawn and stepped on an uneven spot in the land. I've had a lot of ankle problems in the past, so this small bulge in the ground was enough to roll my ankle and send me right to the ground, where I took a couple of full-body rolls toward the street. The mower slowly starting coming down the hill toward me, but it hit the same bulge I rolled my ankle on and stopped. It would have been a pretty hilarious scene for someone driving by.
- After a successful poker session, I was feeling pretty good as I left Riverwind at 1:30 a.m. Those good feeling were replaced by angry words when my car wouldn't start and I realized I was trapped at Riverwind at 1:30 a.m. Luckily my friend and superior poker player James was there to help. We tried jumping it but that didn't work. He gave me a ride home and tomorrow we will have the car towed to a garage where it will hopefully be fixed.
- Missy was fixing dinner the other night when she noticed that the gas oven she had preheated wasn't heating at all. She opened the door and stuck her hand in to gauge the temp when a fireball jumped out at her and slightly burned her arm. It also filled the house with gas odor. This despite the fact that the oven was not hot at all. More than anything, we were just scared. A guy came out but couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, so someone else is coming on Friday. Luckily, this is covered by our fantastically crappy home warranty.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
What a Focking Week
One of the first movies I ever watched with Missy was "Meet the Parents," the Ben Stiller/Robert de Niro comedy about a young man trying to impress his soon-to-be father-in-law (lot of hyphens there) with plenty of comedic obstacles getting in the way.
Missy hated it. She kept saying it was stressing her out and totally unrealistic because all of this stuff could never happen to one person on one weekend and if it did, they would boot Mr. Stiller out of their lives forever instead of giving him 32 second chances.
Not that I thought it was cinematic genius, but I thought the movie was decent. Hard to go too wrong with de Niro. My only problem with it was that was that Stiller's character's name was Gaylord Focker, which they exploited for its resemblance to dirty words for about 50 cheap laughs. They followed that up with sequels called "Meet the Fockers" and "Little Fockers" so people could be cracking up just seeing the title on the marquee. It was funny the first time I heard it, after that not so much. Surely we can do better than relying on one half-witted name to make an audience laugh these days.
(An aside: Missy and I rarely watch movies together because I only like about 10% of them and I make fun of the rest of them, which annoys her since she likes 90% of movies. So it's ironic that I found this one bearable and she didn't. Also, I find it funny that she thought "Meet the Parents" was totally unrealistic but she's watched every episode of "Charmed" more than once. Love you honey!)
If Missy and I somehow decided to watch that movie today, unfortunately I would have to predict that she might find it a lot more realistic.
Ever since we moved into our new house in February, we've had quite a bit of trouble with our air conditioner. Before we even moved in, the compressor was busted and it had to be fixed. It was (supposedly), and we also got the standard one-year home warranty.
About two months after we moved in, the A/C started acting up a little. It functioned, but the house would be about 75 when we wanted it at 70. So we called the warranty people and they sent out the same company that had replaced the compressor, and they seemed to fix the problem.
That worked for about two more months, until it didn't. Again, it would be like 75 in the house. So they sent this company out again. The Focker they sent out this time tried to tell us that the problem was our air filters, which were only four months old and not overly dirty. I found this hard to believe but we replaced them anyway. He also said there were some burnt wired in the unit and replaced them. I guess the air filters snuck out at night burned up some wires on our outside unit. We had a spate of cool weather and didn't need the A/C much over the next two weeks, but when we did need it, it couldn't seem to get the house under 75 if it was over 90 outside. Also, the unit started making a loud screaming noise when it was running. This started immediately after he "repaired" it.
I called the Fockers over at our fine warranty company, American Home Shield. They send the same dude out, from First Time Heat and Air (which seems like the Gaylord Focker of heat and air company names). Now he tries to tell me there must have been some kind of brownout in the unit that happened after his last visit, causing the screaming and the inefficiency in it. I told him the inefficiency was just the same as always, so it was quite unlikely to be the magical brownout that occurred after you Focked up our unit the last time you showed up.
Showing quite a bit of nerve, he proceeds to tell me that he thinks our compressor just isn't very good. That it's running the best it can but it needs to be replaced. He says he can install a new one for us for the bargain basement price of $1500, but I shouldn't bother trying to get the warranty to cover it because he doesn't think there is anything mechanically wrong with it and that's what his report to them will say. (My report to the Better Business Bureau will read a little differently, but I'll screw with that after we have some air conditioning in our house).
I told him that his company installed the current compressor a mere five months ago, and if they can't stand by their work or install a compressor that lasts more than five months, I think it's time to move on down the road.
I called the warranty people back and said I wanted someone else to come out. Of course, every time you call the warranty company, you sit on hold forever and then they tell you they can't get anyone out until the next day, which means another day of it being 75 in the house. One day it was particularly hot and the house got up to 81 so we got a hotel room. That might have been a fun and cool experience if it only happened once and our A/C got fixed the next day. But it didn't.
Just as Mr. Focker at First Time Heat and Air had said, his report stated no mechanical failure with the unit. So the warranty company said they'd send someone out for a second opinion, but if they didn't find a problem we would be billed for the visit. Fine. Go.
So they send us All About Comfort, and their repairman seems to know his stuff. He says First Time used a wrong part and botched the initial compressor installation. He also said the brownout and air filter theories were total crap. He said he'd send his report in and then the warranty company would call me back and we'd proceed from there because he couldn't actually fix anything until they approved it.
Of course, you never hear back from the warranty company. You have to call them if you want anything to happen. I gave them a generous 24 hours and then I called. "That report just hit our desk 15 minutes ago! We were just about to call you!" Sure. Of course they can't get the guy to come back out until the next day.
So he shows up with a disappointed look on his face. "I told them I thought the compressor needed to be replaced, but they only authorized me to change the bad part First Time installed. That should at least stop the screaming sound and hopefully your unit will work better, but I wouldn't expect this to be a long-term solution."
Whatever, not surprising that these jerks want the cheapest way out every time. I figured I'd let him get the screaming stopped and then fight their decision. But 15 minutes later, the repairman knocks on the door and says that during the process of trying to replace the bad part, the whole compressor is now broken. In other words, no A/C at all. This is Tuesday.
So as our house temp climbs into the mid-80s, we pack our stuff and get another hotel room. At the same time, we drop our car off to get an oil leak fixed. We'd just bought a used car with high mileage and at the pre-purchase inspection the mechanic said it had an oil leak that would cost $175 to fix. So we took $200 off the purchase price, closed the deal and now two weeks later I was finally getting around to fixing the leak.
We take care of that and I decide to head to the office and try to win enough to pay for some of this BS. Long story short, I lost enough to buy a compressor from First Time Heat and Air. I'm much happier that I lost it in a poker game than if I would have given it to them.
The next day (Wednesday) I get a call from All About Comfort.
"Hello Mr. Franklin, I'm calling to let you know that your compressor has been ordered. It will be here Friday morning and we will install it then."
I'm not happy but there's no use arguing with this dude. I figure I'll call American Home Shield as soon as I hang up with him and let them know that this is not acceptable.
"Now, Mr. Franklin, while I have you on the line I'd like to give you another option to consider. This is going to be your second compressor in five months, and your condenser likely has been damaged too, but your warranty isn't covering that right now. Now, you can keep calling us every five months and go through the hassle of calling your warranty company and paying $75 every time we have to come out and fix it. Or you can purchase a new compressor and condenser from us that will be guaranteed for five years. This would normally cost $5999 but I'm offering it to you for $2500."
Me: "This is almost as fun as being upsold by the other company that screwed me over last week. I'll pass." Hang up.
I call American Home Shield. After being on hold for the standard 20 minutes, I immediately ask to speak to a manager.
"Hmmm....(pause)....my supervisor is off today."
"I don't care whose supervisor it is, I want to talk to one right now."
"Hmm....(pause)....well....he got off at 4 today (I look at my watch, it's 3:05 p.m. central, 4:05 on the east coast where I presume they are located)....hmmm.....this one also got off at 4.....hmmm......she got off at 11 a.m......hmmm....this one was off the entire day. I'll send out a message to have the next available supervisor call you."
About 30 minutes later, my phone rings. But it's not American Home Shield, it's the Fockers at the car repair shop.
"Mr. Franklin, we've fixed your oil leak, but we want you to know that there are actually two separate leaks. Repairing the second leak would require removing your transmission, so the labor on that would run you about $1200. Would you like us to do that?"
Of course not. Goodbye.
Later, I pick my mom up at the airport and we move all our crap into her house for the night. Just what she was hoping for after a long day of air travel, I'm sure. After mom and the girls go to bed, I open the laptop. It won't fire up. Says it's not getting any power even though everything is plugged in. I seriously almost just started crying.
I have no idea what's up with the laptop, it's still broken. Maybe the old air filters got it.
I still haven't heard from American Home Shield, and this is 8 hours later. I decide to go to our 87 degree house and grab a couple items for the next day, and I call them back on the way.
"Can I get your account number?"
My favorite part of every call. It means I am not on hold any more. I give it to her.
"I'm not seeing an account under that number."
"Well, I've probably called in 20 times this month so I'm confident that this is it."
"Hmmm...I'm not seeing anything."
After five minutes, we realize that she had accidentally typed an extra digit onto the end of my actual number. Hallelujah, I do in fact have an account with one of the worst run companies in America. I tell her I need to speak to a manager. She says my request has been submitted but it sometimes takes up to 24 hours to receive a call back, so I just need to be a little more patient.
Deep breaths, deep breaths.
I grab the items in the house I came for and head back to the car. I attempt to open our front door and the door handle comes flying off entirely. I wish I was making that up. It seems unreal, like the Focker burning his in-laws house down and then marrying their daughter a week later. But it happened.
I did manage to get my door knob back on (at least for now). And I realize that compared to many, many people in the world, my problems are microscopic. My family is healthy and I can't even count all the ways God has blessed us.
But, Lord, I would really prefer to have air conditioning. Love you :)
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
The Most Underhanded and Conniving People You'll Ever Meet
Why did I let my daughter have ice cream and a snow cone on the same day? Why did I let her watch back-to-back episodes of Octonauts when she needed to be cleaning her room? Why did I let her kick me out of my own bed at night so she could sleep with her mom while I was slept in the recliner?
Because 4-year-old girls are who's being described in the title of this blog.
Seriously, does God expect you to ever say no to the girl in the picture atop this page? I don't see how. I just played consecutive games of Memory, Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, and that was after being convinced that Chick-Fil-A would be a much better lunch than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had planned.
If Addison had it her way, she would never sleep in her own bed. One night, I was working late and Addie called on Missy's phone to ask if she could sleep on my side of the bed until I got home. I might as well have powdered some crack cocaine onto her Lucky Charms. Now it's a daily battle to get her to enter her own bedroom for any reason other than to try on every outfit she owns and leave the clothes in a 3-foot pile of destruction all over the room.
A few days after getting her first taste of Tempur-pedic, Addie called and asked again. There's no saying no to these requests. You would have to be Satan himself to refuse a "Daddy? I love you soooo much. Can I please sleep in your bed until you get home? Pleeeassse?" If I did say no, it would mean leaving my wife with an over-tired, screaming 4-year old while I hurry back to play a game of cards. This would seriously diminish the chances of ever having another 4-year old girl in the near future.
But after I said yes a few times, Addie knew she would get what she wanted, so her calls became slightly less adorable. "Daddy? I'm gonna KICK YOU OUT OF THE BED!!!!!!!" followed by an evil laugh.
Finally, Missy and I decided Addie needed to stay put in her own room. So she changed gears again. One night when I was home with the girls and Missy was at work, Addie asked if she could sleep on Mommy's side of the bed until she got home. I said no. She then thought for a minute with that cute puzzled look on her face that you know means she is seriously grinding the wheels in her head.
"Can I call Mommy at work and tell her good night?" I said, "Are you going to ask if you can sleep on her side of the bed?" She again got that look on her face while deciding whether or not to lie. Finally she scrunched her face up and said, "Yeahhhhhhhhhh"
I didn't recognize it when Addie was younger, but I now realize that little girls begin developing their manipulative qualities very early in life. We are doing foster care for an 8-month girl. The adoption process is underway and we hope to have good news in the not-too-distant future, but until then we aren't allowed to post her picture or her name in a public forum like this.
All she can do at this point in her life is eat, sleep, roll around and put everything in our house in her mouth. And yet she is already something of a diva.
During the day, she is the most pleasant 8-month old you can imagine. She smiles and giggles and doesn't even fuss when she's hungry or has a dirty diaper. But in the evening, when she is starting to get tired, she often gets in these moods where she is only happy when she is being held.
This can be annoying when I am trying to make dinner or take care of Addie, but our little infant sometimes gives me zero options. A blanket on the ground with some toys -- not good enough. Her bouncy horse thingy, which she usually loves -- no bueno. She will scream and cry at the top of her lungs until you pick her up and hold her, at which point she immediately quits crying and usually breaks out a smirk.
Occasionally there is a less severe occurrence of this phenomenon, one I like to exploit for comedic gain. Sometimes I'll put her in her horse-bouncer thingy, and she'll be fine as long as she can see me. But if I turn a corner it's Armageddon. When that happens, I like to pop in and out of the room every two seconds to see her go from giggly to my-world-is-ending over and over again. Moments like these either keep me sane or prove that I've already lost it. Hard to say which.
Anyway, I love my family and have every intention of being easily manipulated by these ladies for at least the next 20 years.
Because 4-year-old girls are who's being described in the title of this blog.
Seriously, does God expect you to ever say no to the girl in the picture atop this page? I don't see how. I just played consecutive games of Memory, Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, and that was after being convinced that Chick-Fil-A would be a much better lunch than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had planned.
If Addison had it her way, she would never sleep in her own bed. One night, I was working late and Addie called on Missy's phone to ask if she could sleep on my side of the bed until I got home. I might as well have powdered some crack cocaine onto her Lucky Charms. Now it's a daily battle to get her to enter her own bedroom for any reason other than to try on every outfit she owns and leave the clothes in a 3-foot pile of destruction all over the room.
A few days after getting her first taste of Tempur-pedic, Addie called and asked again. There's no saying no to these requests. You would have to be Satan himself to refuse a "Daddy? I love you soooo much. Can I please sleep in your bed until you get home? Pleeeassse?" If I did say no, it would mean leaving my wife with an over-tired, screaming 4-year old while I hurry back to play a game of cards. This would seriously diminish the chances of ever having another 4-year old girl in the near future.
But after I said yes a few times, Addie knew she would get what she wanted, so her calls became slightly less adorable. "Daddy? I'm gonna KICK YOU OUT OF THE BED!!!!!!!" followed by an evil laugh.
Finally, Missy and I decided Addie needed to stay put in her own room. So she changed gears again. One night when I was home with the girls and Missy was at work, Addie asked if she could sleep on Mommy's side of the bed until she got home. I said no. She then thought for a minute with that cute puzzled look on her face that you know means she is seriously grinding the wheels in her head.
"Can I call Mommy at work and tell her good night?" I said, "Are you going to ask if you can sleep on her side of the bed?" She again got that look on her face while deciding whether or not to lie. Finally she scrunched her face up and said, "Yeahhhhhhhhhh"
I didn't recognize it when Addie was younger, but I now realize that little girls begin developing their manipulative qualities very early in life. We are doing foster care for an 8-month girl. The adoption process is underway and we hope to have good news in the not-too-distant future, but until then we aren't allowed to post her picture or her name in a public forum like this.
All she can do at this point in her life is eat, sleep, roll around and put everything in our house in her mouth. And yet she is already something of a diva.
During the day, she is the most pleasant 8-month old you can imagine. She smiles and giggles and doesn't even fuss when she's hungry or has a dirty diaper. But in the evening, when she is starting to get tired, she often gets in these moods where she is only happy when she is being held.
This can be annoying when I am trying to make dinner or take care of Addie, but our little infant sometimes gives me zero options. A blanket on the ground with some toys -- not good enough. Her bouncy horse thingy, which she usually loves -- no bueno. She will scream and cry at the top of her lungs until you pick her up and hold her, at which point she immediately quits crying and usually breaks out a smirk.
Occasionally there is a less severe occurrence of this phenomenon, one I like to exploit for comedic gain. Sometimes I'll put her in her horse-bouncer thingy, and she'll be fine as long as she can see me. But if I turn a corner it's Armageddon. When that happens, I like to pop in and out of the room every two seconds to see her go from giggly to my-world-is-ending over and over again. Moments like these either keep me sane or prove that I've already lost it. Hard to say which.
Anyway, I love my family and have every intention of being easily manipulated by these ladies for at least the next 20 years.
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