Lover of trading, tacos, 3D/AR/VR, cryptos, and most things Japanese

I had trouble falling asleep last night. I think it was because I was too stimulated going to bed and just needed some down time between my activities and going to sleep. It’s probably not realistic to think that I’ll fall asleep as soon as I hit the pillow, though historically that holds pretty true for me.

I awoke naturally at 6:11 this morning, but thought that was “too early” to get up and get started on the day, so I slept in until my alarm went off at 7:30. This was a mistake, as I’m in a bit of a funk because of it. I also didn’t go straight to the gym this morning. I’m meeting my sister for coffee this afternoon and will go when I do that. Plus, today I’m doing cleans, which requires my full body to be awake and warmed up. For those who don’t know, cleans are a barbell exercise. You start with the barbell on the floor, squat down, pull it up to your shoulders in one move, then stand up. It is a full-body exercise, using some pretty heavy weights. I’ll be starting with 95 pounds and see how that feels.

I’m feeling tired and lazy this morning, but I’m not letting that stop me. I’m chugging and plugging away, reading emails, posting to Twitter, sharing on Facebook, and doing my daily writing practice here.

My interview with the placement firm went well yesterday. Josh and I seemed to hit it off, and he offered some suggestions on how to improve my resume and make it more SEO friendly. Interestingly, now that resumes are digital, their length isn’t such a big deal. This is a good thing, because mine is 2.5 pages long right now, and he wanted me to flush it out some more, add more skills and keywords, things that will show up in the scanning software they (and other firms) use. When he asked me about my time in Pueblo, I panicked a bit and said I was in school. This was part of what kept me up last night. How does one encapsulate what I’ve been through these past three years? What do I share, what do I keep private? After reflecting, I recognized that transparency is the best policy, and I will be calling him this morning to explain that I’ve been in the hospital. It’s a weird space to be in, knowing I have all these skills to offer a company, wanting to get back to “real” work again, and having this specter of mental disorder hanging over my head. I don’t usually have a problem sharing what’s happened, but I think I wanted to impress him and that’s why I didn’t mention it. I was also caught up in the moment, things were progressing nicely, and hey, I’d just met the guy too. Still, it doesn’t feel right that I wasn’t completely forthcoming about my situation, and telling him is the right thing to do, so I will make that call.

Deb and I are having tea and coffee this afternoon, and it will be good to get some brother/sister time in. We haven’t had that one on one time since she took me out to lunch maybe a month ago. It will be good to have some alone time with her, catch up, and just chat while we sip on our beverages.

Much of yesterday was spent in meetings and waiting for my client, so I played a lot of poker. Talk about some wild swings! At one point I was down almost two million on the day, before rallying back in the evening session. The downswings came from losing some big pots that I got rivered on – there had to be at least 10 times that I had the best hand, was ahead all the way, only to lose it when that river card came. I went on tilt a little bit in the middle of the day, losing pot after pot for some time, before getting away and taking a break. After regrouping and coming back fresh, I went on a massive win streak and had my best session yet, getting up 1.8 million before cashing out with over a million in chips. These sound like big swings, and they are to some extent, but that’s the nature of the game. It’s also why bankroll management is so critical – you have to have the bankroll behind you to be able to ride out the tough times, the unlucky times, and not be crippled going forward. Arguably, I’m playing at just the right level for my bankroll. I never dropped below 1.2 million in my account, but if I had hit my stop at one million left, I would have stepped down to a lower limit game to build it back up again. I was also multi-tabling and I did great on one table and the other one was a constant loser, so I closed the loser and focused on the winner. I’m really enjoying the challenge of playing at the 1000/2000 level. I buy in for 200,000 and work at building it up. The players are much better at this level, it’s harder to get reads on them, and there are a few regulars that I see night after night, and the table chat is starting to get more frequent – which makes the whole game more social and fun. I can hang with these guys. I’m good enough to play at this level. I’m learning every time I do. Sure, you still get some clowns – like “ezmony555” – who go all in almost every pot. He was my nemesis yesterday. I picked my spots, and always called him with the best hand, but over and over he kept hitting something to end up winning. After about six losers like that, I just stopped playing pots he was in because I didn’t want to put that much at risk any more. He was running hot, had no fear, didn’t place any value on his chips, and therefore was very difficult to play. I try to play as if I was playing with real money. I take the game seriously, work hard to improve, and expect that this practice will serve me well when I finally get to the real tables. I’ve seen thousands and thousands of hands, seen just about every possible outcome happen, and have no illusions about the game. It’s funny to me when people whine or moan about how “unfair” it is or how it “must be rigged” because they lost a hand. The simple fact is that any two cards are going to win some percentage of the time and that, even if it’s only a one percent chance, if you see enough hands you’ll see it happen eventually. It’s all about mindset, perspective, and keeping focused.

Speaking of focus, I’ve rambled on enough for now. Gotta get focused on kicking some butt today, so off I go. See you tomorrow! 🙂

I awoke naturally at 7:11 this morning, so it seems like my body clock needs me to go to bed at 11pm. I cheated and snoozed a bit, knowing that my alarm would go off in 20 minutes, I grabbed a few extra zees. 🙂

I had a little trouble going to sleep last night. I was excited about getting up and going spinning in the morning, plus I have an interview with a tech placement firm today, and I had had a particularly good evening play poker. That’s what I do in the evenings now. After a full day of work and working out, it’s nice to be able to kick back, relax, and challenge myself at the same time. Poker is very meditative for me, as I fold most of my hands, so there’s a lot of time for reflection while I wait for optimal spots to play. I’ve also stepped up my game, playing at the 1000/2000 level, and I find the players at that level are much better than at lower levels. It requires me to think, to calculate odds, to be mindful of when and where I choose to bluff. And I’m adapting to it – my game is getting better, more solid. If I were playing for real money, I would have made a million dollars last night. 🙂

This morning was all about getting on the spin bike. I got up and went to the gym, walked to the spin room in my socks, and set up the bike to fit me before putting on my new cycling shoes. (They have solid plastic soles with cleats and are very slippery to try and walk on floors in.) I had the spin studio to myself and fired up my new workout playlist to listen to while I started cranking away. I did foundation training, spinning at a steady rate, for most of the 30 minute session. I did do a couple standing climbs/intervals, just to get the feel for standing up and pedaling again and get my heart pumping a little harder. I considered taking the 9:30 spin class, but have that tech interview at 1pm and need to run an errand at noon, so I didn’t want to push things this morning.

Yesterday was about doing a bunch of client work, getting back up to speed on the site. I discovered an error in the code installation that requires me to set up FTP access for the developers to log in and investigate, and it took several hours to get the information I needed from the client, so much of yesterday afternoon was spent waiting. We finally connected and got the necessary info around 9pm last night, and today I get to deal with support tickets and that sort of fun before my interview. I also spent some time watching writing vids by Natalie Goldberg and a Creative Writing Master Class from Oxford University. I think I mentioned that I reconnected with the author, Barry, who’s going to collaborate with me to write the story of these past few years. Oh, and I’m going to be digging into code and getting those skills current after my interview later today. Working and learning is where it’s at these days… 🙂

A good day yesterday. I was able to get in a cheater workout in the morning (soak and steam). Then I went downtown to have lunch with Dana at our favorite pizza place: Two-fisted Mario’s. It totally reminds me of the place upstairs in The Garage at Hahvahd Sqwayah, by Newbury Comix, but I can never remember the name of it. C-something? Mass peeps, a little help?

Dana and I enjoyed our slices. Same slices we always get there. He gets two cheese, I get two with no cheese, pepperoni, and sausage. We reminisced about old times, how happy we both are that I’m out, talked about our kids and how difficult it is to be parents of teenagers at times. We talked about getting older, how it was 22 years ago that we sat on his porch in Boulder, discussing IRAs and how 10 years before that we could never have imagined doing that. We talked about travelling the world, and when that may become a possibility again. We also made plans to go on some regular bike rides once summer rolls around and his son’s hockey schedule eases up.

For those who haven’t seen him lately, Dana has become a quite the stud. He is rocking the world at about 8% body fat – totally ripped. His wife is an amateur triathlete and they do a lot of bike rides in the summer. Our regular rides will be nice little 30 mile loops, and I’ve vowed to do a century (100 mile ride) with him this summer – he tries to do one every year.

Last night I made my second real purchase that didn’t require permission from somebody, which marked a sort of milestone: I bought cycling shoes. I’ve tried spin class in my skater sneaks, but I’ve gotten so used to pedaling with my heels (proper form) that the soles of my sneaks bend and really flex my foot uncomfortably when pedaling. So I invested $100 in some real cycling shoes. My other pairs are in storage and I won’t have access to them until I move out of Mom’s and get my own place. It felt good to invest in myself. To date, my expenditures have been around fitness and self-improvement – my first unqualified purchase was the gym membership, and now the shoes. 🙂

After I bought them I went to the gym again last night. My bod is sore from Monday’s workout and I couldn’t get motivated to do anything but sit and soak. It’s become part of my routine. Even if I don’t feel like training I go sit and soak and hit the steam or sauna. I call these my “cheater” workouts because, while they don’t involve much muscle, the heat does accelerate my heart rate to the low intensity aerobic zone, so it still counts as a workout. 😉

It also seems that my going to bed early is starting to pay off as I adjust to living here full time. The meds I take seem to require me to get eight hours of sleep a night or I’m a wreck in the morning, so I’ve started going to bed at 11pm. Ugh. It seems SO early to go to bed then, but getting up early is a priority and so I do it. This morning I woke up naturally at 7am, after about 7.5 hours’ sleep. I was stoked to have woken up early, without an alarm, and scampered eagerly off to the gym. I was going to do cleans today, but the bod is still sore from Monday, so I lifted back and shoulders and grabbed a 10 minute soak. If my schedule allows it, I may go back and hit the spin bike for some cardio this afternoon. I can feel my bod adapting, adjusting to exercise again, and even though I’m pitifully weak right now, progress is being made. And I’m all about progress. 🙂

Today is about getting back up to speed in the web world. I have a client meeting this evening after group and I need to re-learn the intricacies of this client’s site that I’m building but haven’t touched in about a month. It consists of a basic WordPress site with a very convoluted third-party plug in to manage subscriptions and reviews. There is no clear documentation, so much of today will be spent futzing around with it and watching YouTube vids to learn how to make best use of it. And I’ll be doing some design work, logos and header images mostly. Off I go…