Go Bulls

Really the only thing that has been keeping me preoccupied lately is the NBA and NHL playoffs. Only one of my teams is in the playoffs this year. The Chicago Bulls. My hockey team, the St. Louis Blues, started the season off great but ended it terribly due to injuries and us trading away all of our good players. Hopefully we are able to pick up a lot of good talent for next year otherwise we may have another disappointing year. Needless to say, I will be extremely pissed if they do not get their stuff together and pick replace all the players they released.
The Bulls on the other hand are doing really well. Finally. Took them long enough. I was a little afraid when they lost the first game at home but they were able to rebound and take the lead on the series. They lost tonight in Atlanta, the series is now tied, but they should be able to bounce back in Chicago and put the pressure back on the Atlanta Hawks. D Rose is still beasting though. He had 30+ points tonight but that was not enough to pull out the win. However, being the MVP he should be the person to take charge this up coming game.

not good

Well after all the trips to the hospital, my dad found out Wednesday that his tumor was indeed cancerous. He ended up having surgery on Thursday to help fix his bone cancer. I went up to the hospital and skipped my first class to make sure he was going to be alright. After the surgery he was pretty much worn out (plus he did not get a whole lot of sleep the night before) so he ended up sleeping. I left the hospital and went to my last class of the day. My step-mother was sending me updates so I would not have to worry so much about not being there. Right after class I headed straight back to Barnes Jewish Hospital. He was sleeping when I got there. My step-mother, her parents, my godfather, and my grandparents were all still at the hospital. They were able to remove 98% of the tumor and are planning on giving him chemo for the rest of the tumor. He should be ok. This was a huge relief to me because the day before the surgery he was telling me how the life expectancy for bone cancer is around two to five years. Not exactly the statistic a son wants to hear about his father.

Yadi vs Philips

This year I have gone two Cardinals game. We lost the first one to the Pirates and this next game was against the Reds. It was also Stan “The Man” Musial bobble head day at Busch Stadium. We left early to make sure we got a bobble head and after that we went out to eat. We ate at bar that cooks their food outside. Options are beer, burgers, beer, cheeseburger, beer, hot dog, and beer. After we ate we headed back towards Busch Stadium. One of my buddies was at the game as well but was a few sections down. There are about five people I know that always manage to be at the same games as me. I usually get nachos at Busch Stadium along with drinks and other items, but today I only had the water and soda I brought. The day seemed like a wonderful day for baseball game. One of the Red’s players is Brandon Philips. He started a scuffle last year and started trash with Yadi. Everytime he came up to the plate he got boo’ed hard. I believe he was like 2-4 for the game with two doubles. However, the Reds were unable to score. It also began to rain somewhere in the 5th inning. I was unable to see due to the people in front of me holding their damn umbrellas too high. Luckily there were nothing but free seats to my left so I scooted down so I could enjoy the game.In the 6th inning, Yadier Molina came up to bat with two people on base. The pitch is thrown. Yadi swings at the ball. An audible pop of a baseball hitting a wooden bat. The ball is gone. Yadi hit a three run home-run for us to take the lead. That was enough for us to win the game. Suck it Philips. Yadi ftw.

One Long Tuesday Part 3

I arrived home around 6:15 p.m. I had spent nine hours at school and finally was able to lay in my bed to relax. After about a half-hour I was about to go grab something to eat considering I had not ate since earlier in the afternoon. About the time I was going to get out of bed, my sister comes running into my room saying I have to take my dad to the emergency room. He had found out a few days earlier that he had a tumor in his arm; he did not know if it there was only one or if it was cancerous. Apparently he managed to hurt his arm more this particular day. He was moving items with my sister(not the smartest idea he has ever had) and went to pick up only one item. To his surprise his arm let out a loud pop. He believed he broke it to go along with the tumor in his arm. The ambulance came and picked him up to take him to Barnes Jewish Hospital. I had to pick up my grandma and head towards the hospital as well. I managed to be only a minutes later than the ambulance. To my dismay, we were put in a waiting room. We waited and waited and waited and waited. It took two hours for them to register my dad and another two or three for him to finally get a room. The hospital experience did not get much better after that. They were not giving my dad enough medication to control the pain and they were taking too long moving him about. They even had to redo x-rays before finally determining that his arm was fractured. Then they tried to set-up a plan to make sure they would be able to operate and set-up an appointment time. We finally left the hospital around 7 a.m.. As soon as I got home, I made sure my dad was fine and comfortable then I took myself to bed and crashed hard. I ended up waking up around 8 p.m.

One Long Tuesday Part 2

My alarm clock went off several times. My little sister(she is a freshman in high school) came into my room and tried to get me out of bed around 7:15 a.m., but I was not waking up. Finally I crawled out of bed into the bathroom to take my morning shower. I got dressed and jumped in my car to start my journey to school. I sometimes choose to stay at my mom’s on Monday and Wednesdays because she lives closer to the Belleville campus so I get to sleep in an extra half-hour. Not much but I enjoy it. I arrived to class fifteen minutes pass eight which would make me usually late, however, our professor does not really begin lecture until quarter after. I went about my normal school day and grabbed a bite to eat with my buddy Todd at Jimmy John’s. We have ate at nearly every place you can in the Belleville area. After we eat, I still have about a two hour break until my next class. This is time spent doing homework or socializing with friends if there is nothing else to do. This particular day held no special significance as far as Chemistry goes besides the fact we had a test on Thursday. Lecture and lab went on as usual and I finally was able to leave SWIC and head home.

One Long Tuesday

Last Tuesday was a horrible day. The day before I decided I was going to go stay at my mom’s house in Troy, Illinois to see my little sisters and such. While I was over there, a few of my poker buddies who I had not played cards with in over three weeks gave me a call and said they were going to start a cash game down the road from my moms. I had not played in awhile due to Full Tilt being shut down and me being busy with school so I decided I would go ahead and play. I bought in for $20, lost that. Borrowed $20, lost that. Borrowed another $20, and was able to win enough while paying off the person I had borrowed money off of to still walk away up $94. Not too shabby for being negative $60 at one point. Then I went home. I arrived home somewhere around 1:30p.m. Sometimes it is very hot in my room at my moms house and the bed is not as comfortable as my foam mattress at my dad’s house. I found a fan and turned it on full blast. I still managed to become hot underneath the blankets. After about three hours of discomfort, I changed blankets. I layed some more still unable to get comfortable. Stared at the bright red numbers on my alarm clock. I somehow managed to fall asleep somewhere around the time of 5:30 a.m. Unfortunately, the next day my class began at 8 a.m.

online poker= DEAD

On April 15, 2011, the U.S. government banned online poker in the states. They also pretty much shut it down everywhere else. The FBI seized the top 3 online poker gambling sites’ owners: Full Tilt, Poker Stars, and Absolute Poker. The FBI is trying to get the companies for money laundering and fraud. An estimated $3 billion in money laundering. "These defendants, knowing full well that their business with U.S. customers and U.S. banks was illegal, tried to stack the deck," said Janice Fedarcyk, FBI assistant director-in-charge. "They lied to banks about the true nature of their business. Then, some of the defendants found banks willing to flout the law for a fee. The defendants bet the house that they could continue their scheme, and they lost."
This has many professional poker players debating if they should leave the United States. Honestly, I'm mostly thinking about it because of being disgusted about living in a country that would ban online poker," Gallo said when contacted by ESPN.com. "I'd rather play poker abroad than do something else in this country at this point. I feel like my country is trying to make money in the guise of holding my hand." There are a few other sites players could play on but none of them feel safe using a sight that is not Poker Stars or Full Tilt.
There is also a World Series of Poker that is the biggest tournament in poker which occurs naturally in Las Vegas every year. Ever since a rookie accountant, Chris Moneymaker, won the whole tournament and took home $2.5 million, the WSOP has boomed. The result is more and more people going to the WSOP to try to be the next Moneymaker. The 2010 tournament awarded the winner with a little under $9 million. Now with the ban on the most popular site in the US, the WSOP may lose attendance due to the fact the websites held tournaments to pay for people to go to the WSOP.