Poker party!!!

I got up and into the office to have our meeting with the dev group. We are figuring out our new development roles for the new service pack. After the meeting I left for Colfax. I was going to do some work for the county. I got my contract extended.

I was cruising along. And like a typical man I hate to stop for anything. I want to just go. About one hundred miles from Colfax I knew I was going to need to go to the bathroom pretty soon. As time went on it got worse and worse. I passed up two rest areas because I wanted to make good time. Plus I did not want to have pass up all the cars that I had already passed once. So I finally arrived at the office doubled-over in pain and needing to make it to the bathroom. Ahhh... relief, plus I didn't have to stop along the way.

I worked on a database that was not working properly. I looked at some of the coding for it. I couldn't see the problem. What is more weird is that it just started to have problems all of a sudden. So after doing some testing, I grabbed the original Access database that worked and imported the data from the old DB and life was good. I called Pete and took on call status for the Coroners office for the weekend.

I took off from there and went to my house. I got my mail and went through it. There were a couple checks. I like to get money. I went to my friends house who as been collecting my mail. He called and said he would be home. I told him I would be there in a few minutes. When I got to his house I heard the music playing and I rang the doorbell. Within a few seconds my phone rang and it was him. I figured he was going to say that he was upstairs and that I could just come in. It turns he had to leave and he was calling to tell me. I thought the timing was perfect. I decided to leave and head to Pullman. I went to my office and got a few checks processed and ready for deposit. I also wrote a few checks to people who I owe money. I delivered the boxes from the Dell service jobs to Pat so he could send them back. I went and got some pizza and pop then headed to John's house.

We were going to have a poker party. Dan, Twiggy, Lister, John, and I were going to play. I got there about thirty minutes before anyone else. I had some pizza then John and I played some heads up Texas hold'em. Dan showed up and then we all played some cards until Twiggy and Lister showed up in Rescue. They were on call and responding from there.

We played a tournament style game. Each person anted five dollars and then we got forty chips. Winner takes all. The first game lasted quiet a while. It came down to Twiggy and me. I only had a few chips compared to that huge stack Twiggy had. I lost pretty quickly.

We started a second tournament. In the middle of that one the Rescue boys had to go so Dan, John, and I played poker on the side waiting for them. We play just our normal games with coins. During play I got a call from Gabe. It was great to hear from him. I had left him a message a while back. He is still working for loss prevention and the Fire Department. He was telling about some of the calls he was on recently. He said that we should get together and have a beer. He is a cool guy.

We first met in ninety-nine while I was working at the jail with Joe. Gabe came in with his roommate Dave. There were out bounty-hunting and had a prisoner. It was a little while after that when we went to Denny's. Joe and Gabe were in the reserve academy together at the same time I was in the reserve academy for the fire department. Gabe threw a lot of parties. We started to become friends as I would hang out with him more.

One night Gabe, Dave, and I were at Valhalla. We went there for the comedy show but we got there late. We were sitting at a table chatting. Gabe went to the bar to get something and Dave and I were talking about the women in the room. Dave said he doesn’t have a chance with them. I was shocked to hear that from him. Dave and Gabe are both ten-six-seven. So I told Dave that he was a good-looking guy and he should have no trouble bagging a woman in the room.

He looked at me and said “Are you gay?” At this time I was not out to people. I would sometimes gauge reaction by joking about it and seeing how people treated the joke. So I was doing the same with Dave, but I wanted to push it further than a joke. So I said “yes”. And quickly walked away. I knew if I had waited in the area I would have laughed and brushed it off. But I wanted to see how he would react to it. I was using the telephone. When I returned to my chair I was sitting next to Gabe.

He put his arm around my back and put his hand on my shoulder. He said he is my friend and always will be and that he is cool with everything. I was very surprised by his gesture. I should say I was happily surprised. At the time the song Fly Away was being played. I still hold a special place in my heart for that song.

After Gabe and I were done with the call I told John and Dan the above story while we played more cards. Finally the rescue boys showed up and we continued the tournament where we left off. Lister was out pretty quickly and Twiggy was out quicker. So they left and Dan, John, and I played for the final win. John took Dan out. I had less than forty chips. John had about one hundred and seventy chips. So I was highly out numbers. I knew if I were to grind with John long enough I would beat him.

That is exactly what I did. I started to grind with him. The problem I would run into is the blinds would double every half hour. We were at an eight-sixteen blind. I had twenty-four dollars. That made it rough on me. I would call all in from time to time and I would pull one out of the fire. I won every time I went all in. After about thirty minutes I was finally even with John. From that point he was upset and I started to play better. Finally I ended up beating him. I won all the money from that pool.

After we were done playing card we talked about Cougar football and then I headed home to get to bed. I had to be up nice and early for a softball tournament.