utter contentment

This weekend was an interesting one for sure. On Friday, I woke up early and my dad and I went to his buddy's house to get ready for the scramble. After bs'ing around there for awhile, his buddy showed up and we headed out to the golf course. We were clearly the underdog going in because we were up against 17 other groups and at least half of them had former amateur players. We started on hole 12, and bogeyed it after a decent effort. As the holes went on, our play steadily improved. Since we figured that we had no chance to win, we decided to have as much fun as possible with the day. Gibby and Pete were downing buds like they were huggies while my dad and i were drinking coors lite. By the ninth hole(which was actually like hole #16 for us) we were about +5 and had no chance of coming in anything but last. I popped up my tee shot, and my dad came up. He muttered something like "here comes a 260 yard drive". I said to him that if he hit it 60 yards we'd be happy. Then he said something that made my day. He said to me, "If I hit as far as you did, I fucking quit." Quite funny. We finished up the round and went to hamilton park for a buffet and for them to hand out prizes. I think it ended up that we won two prizes as a group in the raffle. It really didn't matter though that we only won two prizes or came in 18th place with a +5 score. Gibby said something like "we aren't at work so obviously our day is better." I realized at that moment that most adults hate work as much as kids do. Long ago, they had figured out that work sucked most of the time and that those precious hours that you get to spend with people that you have fun with or care about is the thing that drives you to be able to get through the day. I always wondered how my dad was able to work 15 hours and come home with a smile on his face. I understand why he was smiling, and I'm not sure why it took me so long to figure out something as simple as that. Later on, nayhouse and I went up to the high school to run this race that we had been planning to do for a long time. I bet that I could beat him in a 2 mile race. I was wrong. After six laps I gave up and he won. Subsequently, both of us and bradburn and rossi went to eat n park to celebrate my loss. It was a good time. Saturday at work wasn't bad at all. I don't work with mindy anymore except for saturday mornings and that is disappointing because we always used to find ways to make the days go faster. Nothing exciting happened and I left at five. At about 6, my mom and I went over to my grandma's because we were having a family gathering for my cousin and uncle from florida being in town. It wasn't one that I would soon forget. There are two moments that sharply stick out in my mind. The first is when my cousin came running inside the house saying that he isn't hungry. He is probably my brother's age(12) or a little older. He's known to be a little bit odd and my brother had a good time(supposedly) telling him how weird it was to wear a headband with a japanese cartoon character on it. So he comes inside and my uncle tells him, "either eat your food or I'm gonna punch you in the face." I couldn't hold back the laughter; and when I did, everyone looked at me. I glanced over at my parents and you could see that they were having trouble not laughing at this as well. Who tells their son that they are going to punch him if he doesn't eat the meal? Second, I went outside to catch football with my little brother and left my phone inside. Of course, my uncle dave has to stir up the masses, so he takes my phone and calls mark's phone. Whenever I heard the howling coming from inside, I ran in to see what was going on. All I heard was, "This is matt's uncle...he might have mentioned me to you before." Sounds like something he would say. An enjoyable night to say the least. I came home, played some online poker, and sweated ben's PLO final table finish. This morning, I woke up at 9 AM sharp and got ready for work. Work was so so and afterwards I was finally given the chance to catch up on some rest. How about the World Cup so far? The trinidad and tobago performance was incredibly shocking. I always root for the underdog and I was extremely downtrodden when angola lost to portugal 1-0. After napping for awhile, I went to skyview. They just started a 1/2 NL and I was able to get a seat. For the first 3 hours, I teetered and tottered right around my original buyin. Then, I got lucky and rivered a set against ali. Magically, some draws started to come alive for me. It wasn't so much that I couldn't miss, it was more that I was hitting cards when I needed to hit cards. After six hours, I went up a decent sum for a 1/2 game. I was pretty happy with the way I played because I played well and was lucky to hit some draws to win some big pots.

I think this weekend can best be summed up by saying that I am extremely content with myself right now. In the past, I have allowed my emotions to get the best of me in cases, but adding balance to my life and playing cards for long periods of time has helped me to become a much more patient person. I learned(not just from this weekend) that a lot of outside things are going to hamper your path to success, but that the strength you have inside of you is much greater than that. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "What lies behind you and before you are tiny matters compared to what lies within you." That is incredibly true. No matter what is going on on the outside, you will always be you. This weekend has taught me a lot about who I really am as a person. For most of my days, I spend time around people who could be my parents or grandparents. Their lives are incredibly simple and it seems as though they don't have a care in the world. I've realized that they usually don't have a care because they have experienced all of the things as younger people and have come through all these challenges successfully. I'm just going to stop right now because my words are getting sloppy.

Until next time,
mh