Note to self: when you say happy birthday to a software product more often than you wish happy birthday to your family, either your priorities are wrong, or you're really really paranoid about your family's privacy.

Advice? Claim it's the latter and pat yourself on the back.

Last night, we had eight people playing poker, just like last year, at the annual UPA board meeting. We had a mini game on Friday night, but I can't say I was particularly interested in that game, as I had to leave. I'm noticing that when I care and can stay in a game, I do fairly well. If I have to leave, or am distracted, man, I might as well hand $20 to the person to my left.

Joshua, David Raflo (who moved to National Masters Director), Ricky (new board member), Tommy, Paige, Jeff Dunbar, and Adam (new National Open director) were there playing, too. Mike Payne, the biggest advocate for nightly poker, was absent, trying to catch up on his sleep (averaging all of 4 hours a night for the last 4 months -/+). When I walked in, I made some comment to someone that he didn't want to sit to the left of Joshua, because that put him in a powerful position, so we drew cards to specify what order we'd sit in. I drew to sit third, but switched to sit fourth to sit left of Joshua. He commented that I just put him in a powerseat, but well, entertainment is more important than the $20 I'd be gambling.

Besides, I hadn't lost to him yet when I've cared.

After four hands, David was excited he was still in the game. Last year, he was out in four hands, so five was an accomplishment.

Ricky spent the evening writing entertaining Notes-to-Self about everyone's game style. Jeff received a "Jeff is chicken" early in the evening, only to have a post-script of "which isn't always bad." later appended after he had a brilliant fold.

I can't say I've figured out the style of these guys. I went down to very few chips fairly quickly, and hovered as the short stack for more than half the game. I wasn't the first out, as Joshua called a hand that probability screamed he should fold, and went out first. David was second, followed a while later by Paige.

Just as Paige left for the night, Adam pushed all in with a pair of twos. He had a short stack (yet more than I), but hadn't played a hand in two hours. Jeff called, and turned over an ace and three. As Joshua, who was now dealing to keep himself entertained and engaged in the game, threw the burn card after the flop, we all jumped at the color of the back of the card: red. We were playing with the blue deck.

Joshua grabbed the red card, handed it to David to shuffle, burned another card, and turned over the next card. Lots of discussion ensued, but it was nothing compared to the uproar when the last card turned matched threes for Jeff, and Adam was out.

Loud voices, discussions, what do to? Jeff initially offered to split the pot with Adam, since he lost on the last card. I immediately shut that offer down, because I had not only put in the big blind (and as the short stack, that was a painful amount), but I had also bet in the first round, so I was losing out. And as short stack, that would have been the difference between going out in fifth, and being in the money.

After Adam pushed all the chips in a huff and stood up to leave (also in a huff), we decided that a redo was the correct solution, and everyone removed the chips and we played on.

The ironic part of the whole situation was that the last burn card was also a three. So, Adam would have lost even if we had kept the red card.

Adam went out shortly after that. I missed a chance to take Ricky out later, but did double up on Tommy a few hands later with an A-2 diamond hand that flushed on the turn. Ricky went out a bit later, and with three of us left, the hands were quick.

I adopted the strategy of pushing all in after the flop if I had anything remotely good. After few all-ins, Jeff went all in, expecting me to call. At that point, I had an 3-8 hand, I folded, but Tommy called. Jeff exclaimed, "Kitt! You were supposed to call and Tommy was supposed to fold!" Tommy won with a flush on the river, putting me into a payoff position, and Jeff out.

We played a few hands, with my worst being calling Tommy when I had a pair of twos. I didn't have enough chips to bully him, and I lost a good deal of chips before I bailed.

I went all in for the final hand with an A-something hand (4?). Tommy called and turned over a 10-K. The flop was an 8, 10 and A, but I knew better than to be excited. Sure, I had top pair, but two cards were coming. The river was a K and I was out.

Out, but still up. I was up $30 for the night (after my $20 buy-in was returned), $25 for the weekend, and around $80 total for my board games.

Heh.

When I was in Los Angeles, I decided I wanted to buy a house. Actually, I had wanted to buy a house since high school, and not being able to buy a house was a constant, dull ache in my heart. At some point when I was living in L.A., however, I decided I was going to buy a house, the high housing prices be damned, and I was going to do it soon.

So I made a budget decision. That decision was to live on one third of my salary, pay taxes with one third of my salary (well before I had any good tax deductions), and save the last third of my salary. The decision required some sacrifices.

I moved out of my single apartment and into a room at Kelly Johnson's house. It made a longer commute, but reduced my monthly rent from $800 to $350. I was already maxed out on my 401k (I'm a huge fan of 401k programs, regardless of employer matching), so that was 15% down. I set up an auto-investment program, putting $1000 a month in investments with no effort. Any bonus or increase in pay was immediately funneled into investments. Taxes were automatic. The living expenses were more difficult.

Rent was included in living expenses, as was gas, insurance, car repairs, food, movies, and books. I would have said "clothes," too, but at the time, I didn't really buy clothes, so those expenses were negligible. Well, maybe cleats and sports bras, but that's about it.

Two years later, I had enough money for a downpayment on a house. Because of circumstances, I bought a condo (story there, one I'll tell at some point when I've run out of other stories), instead of a house, but I bought a place to live. Instead of just a downpayment, I also had 25% of the purchase price, with funds leftover for repairs.

It worked well. As I ponder the list of things I'd like to purchase or have done to the house, I'm inspired to do it again. It's not a new year's resolution, more of a guideline. It means, in contrast to the end of last year, I now pause before I pull out the credit card. Can I get this at the library? Could I borrow it from a friend? Do I really need this?

Since I'm trying to get rid of stuff, this'll help ensure I don't bring in as much as I send out.

In Colorado for the UPA Board meeting: menstruation 1, migraine 0.

"Why does burned hair smell so bad?"

"Maybe to tell you not to burn it?"

Okay, this pink theme is going to make me puke. It's lasted all of what? A week? Yeah, not a pink person. Maybe if no one's looking tomorrow, I can change the site to yellow, green or even blue. Not pink. Good lord, not pink.

So, my other site, the one that doesn't request search engines stay away currently lists me as the top Hodsden on Google and MSN, but, oddly enough not on Yahoo.

So, yes, those websites are honoring the robots.txt file, as are the other major search engines.

I was going to write that, as long as I'm at the top of the Hodsden list with the list of Hodsden geneology sites, I'd be content to hide behind my robots.txt and stay out of the public eye and the search engines. Do I really want a complete stranger to know about my dogs, garden, blog, ultimate games or neighbors? Not really.

But then I went to Mamma, the search engine that summarizes what other search engines list.

Crap.

I'm not listed until 10 and that's after James (the doctor), Richard (a finance director), Carey (a pro golfer) and Hodsden's Upholstery shop in Knoxville (they have to be pissed I have all the good hodsden.* domains, and all the hodsen.* ones, too, for that matter).

Good lord, part of me is thinking, "But... but... I don't care about that!" and the other part is thinking, "No way. No freaking way am I going to let a bunch of men have the top Hodsden spot. Not gonna happen, boys." It's then I realize that the competitive streak is still there, and, well, yeah, maybe I can care about it a little bit. Crap, what has become of me?

I blame the pink.

The real question is, of course, can I beat out Knight Industries Two Thousand and Eartha for the top Kitt spot? That would be a real coup.