Texas Holdem- Texas Rides - Cob House

A lot to catch up on from the weekend. Played poker Friday night with some "good ole Texas boys"...actually they were middle aged guys, mostly lawyers and other professionals. I had a great time.  The buy in was larger than my usual....$200 to play the tournament.  Because of this size buy in, I expected a different sort of game.  Usually the larger the buy in, the better the players.  Now don't get me wrong, there were a few good players there.  But for the most part, they were what I describe as weak.  Limping in, very rarely raising or re-raising, calling too much, playing out of position, playing too many hands.  These are the players you want sitting at your table.  But I had a few players at my table who were pretty good.

Latin Young Dude (LYD) directly to my right was very aggressive.  I took half his stack in the first 30 minutes of the game.  He was on a draw and kept raising to get me off my hand.  I would re-raise, and LYD didn't like getting re-raised by a girl, in front of all his buddies.  (did I mention I was the only girl playing in the tournament of 20 players?)  I knew he was on a draw, and figured re-raising would get him to fold. Finally on the river, when his draws didn't pan out, he folded. He showed his cards, but I never showed my aces and that really pissed him off.  After that, he was steaming for a good hour or so.  Never would talk to me, etc.  I had him right where I wanted him.

I had doubled my stack in the first 3 levels of the game, and was chip leader at my table.  Then everything kinda went to mush.  Completely card dead, not hitting any flops AT ALL when I had AK, AQ, suited connectors, etc.  In fact, I never once hit a flop, and had to fold to some high bets.  The thing was, I had a super tight image at the table because I was not playing many hands at all, so I was able to steal blinds against the weaker players, and bluffed a few pots.  This kept me alive for another 3 1/2 hours.   Finally towards the end, I got down to about 12 big blinds, which is very low.  There were several other short stacks at my table too.  These guys were also weak, would limp in and then fold to a raise. This is a huge mistake when you are short stacked (for those of you who don't play poker).  So I was on the button, had 1 weak limper, and looked down at A5os.  This is normally not a good hand to play, but from the button and when you are short stacked and the other player has folded to raises before, I thought it was a good opportunity to shove my stack all in.  I did so, got called by the BB and the limper.  Big blind woke up with AJ, and limper had AQ.  Flop came down AJx, and I'm out...good game though.  I was proud of my play.  When I got up to leave, I shook everyone's hand at the table, the first being LYD.  He did not want to shake my hand...it was so funny, but finally did so cause I insisted...everyone else was really cool and invited me back to play.

BTW, I played a tournament online last night (at one of the few online poker sites left for American players, Bodog), and took first place out of 25 players. $80 win, helped make up for my $200 loss Friday night.

So I rode the motorcycle over the weekend.  A few months ago, I got inspired by Ara and Spirit, a guy and his dog, who ride together in Terlingua, and  all over the US in fact.  Here is a cool video of them:

So I got inspired to set something up for Pogo, my three legged rescue poodle.  Pogo is a very cool dog.  He is always up for anything.  I ordered an expensive motorcycle dog carrier that fits on the back of the bike.  It came in last week, I tried it, and somehow he just didn't seem comfortable in the thing.  It is rated for dogs up to 30 lbs, and Pogo is 16 pounds, but the way the opening for the head is placed in the middle of the thing, just didn't work for Pogo because he was kinda twisted to get his head out.  Here is a pic of it, you can see that it would work great for a very small dog, but how is a big dog gonna get his head curled around to the middle?

Had to go to plan B, the "ghetto" plan. A few years back at a motorcycle rally, I saw a guy  with a milk crate bungied to the back of his bike, with his dog in the milk crate. It looked pretty ghetto, but worked great.  So I went to Target, found a black milk crate (matches the Harley), and this is what we came up with, and this is our first ride together yesterday !

Just so you know, he has a harness on and is tied down so he can't jump out.  We started out slow around the neighborhood,  stopped often and got lots of treats along the way.  He seemed to really be enjoying it.  My pipes are pretty loud, so I was more concerned about that scaring him, but it didn't seem to phase him the slightest.

Since this went over so well, it was time to get some "doggles"  to protect his eyes.  After a trip to Petsmart, this is what we found:

He seemed to tolerate those really well too!  OMG, this has been too easy.  I always say, rescue dogs are the best!  Today we are going to go out and ride again, and the hubster is going to film a little video of us on the road. I'll post it later.  Who knows, maybe we'll become as famous as Ara and Spirit some day !

I also spent more time this weekend on looking up info for building my "green" cottage down in Terlingua.  I have found some interesting info on cob (house made of dirt), and am considering attending a workshop in California to learn how to build using cob.  Here is a very cool video from the guy who I plan on taking the class with:

Back to Reality

Today was my first day back from the trip to Terlingua on my motorcycle.  I went down there last week with 3 other women that also ride their own motorcycles.  Most of the trip was spent riding our bikes all over Big Bend, eating like crazy at all the cool restaurants, and drinking with the locals every evening. I met some really neat people from the area. 

The trip was  a blast, and I was even able to go out to my 40 acres with the real estate agent.  He was nice enough to help  me locate the property lines.  I just bought the property last month, and it had been surveyed a few years back.  The property is located about 1 mile off the paved Terlingua Ranch Road, so is fairly easy to get to, and yet still private enough where I won't have vehicles driving by all the time.  The dirt road actually dead ends into the middle of the property, which is perfect, as I won't need to build a road into it. 

Now that I have it, I keep wondering what to do with it.  Should I just buy an RV for now, move it onto the property so that at least I'll have a place to stay when I go down there?  This seems most practical, as I don't relish the idea of staying in a tent without at least a place to take a shower that isn't miles away. I know a lot of people do it, but I will eventually need a place to stay when I am down there building a house.  So with an RV comes the need for a metal roof to cover and protect it, more $$$.  But this can be used later for water harvesting, etc., so it will still improve the property.  A lot to think about.

Back to the road trip. I had meant to meet up with some of the locals who live in the area where I bought my property.  For one reason or another, I just couldn't make it work out.  I did run into John Wells who has the Field Lab...If you want to read about someone who is a very interesting and amazing person, check out
http://www.thefieldlab.org/  He is doing  research on sustainable living in the desert.  The New York times did an article on him a month or so ago, and now he is a rock star....So I ran into him at the Big Bend Motor Inn store, and was invited out to the Field Lab for a tour.  Of course the ladies I was riding with had no clue who he was, or why going out to his property would be so interesting.  So I just didn't push the trip with them.  Next time I go down there, it will be me and the 3 legged dog,  in my truck and we can damn near do what we please.  When I got home, I found out from one of the other locals, David (Terlingua or Bust), that I could have met up with all of them at the Legion one night. That would have been a blast..oh well, next time.

But overall the trip was fun.  It was hard dragging back to reality today...but I guess I will get back into the swing of things as the week goes on.  I really love owning my own business, my employees, etc....but I can't wait for the day when I can at least live part time down in Terlingua...

All Things Texas - First Blog

I guess the first blog is the hardest to write, however I find myself blogging on other people's blogs, so I guess I need to get started with my own :-)   I struggled for a while just trying to figure out what to name my blog.  Then it occurred to me that just about everything I enjoy doing, goals I set etc., involve Texas in one way or another..Let me also say that this first blog is REALLY LONG, and I promise that after this, they will be much shorter and easier to read. 

First a little about me I guess....born in Killeen, Texas when my dad was stationed at Fort Hood, however mostly raised in San Antonio, Texas.   I am 49 years old, female,  however very much a tomboy...married to the same man for 25 years, pretty much because he puts up with me in so many ways.  But this isn't very interesting, is it?  Soooooo.....I guess the things that people find interesting about me are the following:  I ride my own Harley Davidson motorcycle (Softail Deluxe), love riding in the the beautiful Hill Country north of San Antonio.  I  am an avid poker player, a game that I take very seriously. My game of choice is "Texas" Holdem (see I told ya everything on this blog was related to Texas in one way or another)...I love playing so much that it has become one of my goals to play semi-professionally at some point when I retire from my real job. But more about that later.

I own my own business, 2 successful skincare clinics in San Antonio. We mostly specialize in waxing. .Yes folks, we rip your hair out, and you pay us to inflict this pain.  You pay us very well.... I also specialize in cosmetic tattooing (permanent makeup). I've been doing this a lot of years...with a 4 year stint owning my own tattoo shop. That was fun, but hard to manage, so I dumped it after 4 years.  I seem to do well with the 2 waxing salons and some permanent makeup thrown in  now and then.  I also teach permanent makeup classes. I have people fly in from all over the U.S. and Canada to learn how to do this.  It's not easy teaching people, however I enjoy it to a limited extent.  Let's be honest...I like the money, and the freedom it gives me to do all the other things I love.

Now for the third thing I'm passionate about....a far away land called "Terlingua, Texas". Terlingua is located in far West Texas in Big Bend Country. Many people from Texas don't even know about Big Bend.  This is a land made up of  mountains and desert, all in one. In is remote, beautiful, wild and rugged.  And the few people who are able to live there, are  wonderful and crazy, choosing to walk  to the beat of a different drummer,  altogether.  "Ter" means earth, and "lingua" means tongue. Well, that's just cool.  And I have chosen to "bite the tongue", and bought 40 acres of this beautiful place.  The back ground picture on my blog is a shot of my raw land...yes, it's all mine.  Some day I will build a little house there, completely paid for, off-grid living at it's finest.  And the original plan once I got there and built the house, was to make my living playing online poker...that's it in a nutshell...until April 15, 2011 aka "Black Friday" to poker players all over the U.S.  This is when the US Department of Justice decided to shut down the top 3 online poker sites and issued indictments against owners of these sites.   The big scare now is whether we can legally play online poker any more, what could the repercussions be, etc.

Why, you may ask, was online poker so important in achieving my goal of playing professionally?    Well, it's like anything else. The only way you get good, and I mean REALLY good, is by practice.  We're talking millions of hands played over a successful pro's career.  The really good players such as Jon Turner (known online as Pearl Jammer), we're playing anywhere from 10 to 40 tournaments and more, EVERY DAY, online.  This isn't casual play. And yes, they were making an incredible living at it, 6 figure income every year, and more.  But it didn't come easy for them. It involved a lot of work, study, and most of all, time playing.

  A gentleman by the name of Phil Ivey is considered probably the best poker player in the world right now.  He's the "Tiger Woods" of poker, and in fact, looks a little like Tiger.  But in many interviews he admits that he eats, sleeps, and breaths poker.  He is constantly going over hands in his mind, how he could have played a specific hand better, etc.  This is how you become successful in poker. Well, since online poker has been "outlawed" in the U.S. this goal has suddenly been pulled out from under me. And not just me, but other poker players all over the U.S. who were making their living this way, and  were suddenly left  trying to figure out how they were going to feed their families.  It's that serious...And it's funny that a few weeks before "Black Friday" , we were worrying over certain government services shutting down because of the lack of funds to run this country, yet we have money to spend on investigating and prosecuting online poker sites. If you want a good laugh, take a look at the video produced by the Poker Players Alliance...it is true in so many ways, how we have drug cartels in our neighborhoods and can't control illegal weapons, yet we can bust the local kid playing poker online.  Check the video out, it's really funny,  and  puts things in perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c1M0HhLnLQ

Ok, so back to my whole point of this first blog. Casinos in Texas are virtually non-existent, so that left online poker for those of us wanting to play.  Now that it's been taken away, my goal of bettering my game has been shot down. I can't play enough live home games to really make a difference....My Terlingua home in the desert is still going to happen, and I promise, most of this blog will be centered around that journey and the pursuit of off-grid living.  But I wanted to play poker in the desert, and now that is not possible, unless of course, online poker is legalized and regulated. 

Whew, that was a long story...here are a few pics I love...my desert land, me at Contrabando in Big Bend, my 3 legged dog and my 3 legged cat: