Lava Butte
Wednesday, November 04, 2009 @ 2:48 PM
The first time I tried to scale this little hill, I approached the hill from the south. I started trying to find a route up the hill as I neared. I finally decided on the approach that looked the easiest from the bottom. It turns out that I chose badly, but I wouldn't know that until a week later.
My second trip up the hill went much easier...
I approached the hill from the north. Fron this angle, I easily spotted a route that looked like I might be able to make it to the top - without all of the unwanted sledding on loose rock. It still looked steep but not nearly as bad as the way up I had chosen the previous week. Looking at both routes as I neared the hill, I was dumbfounded that I had even attempted the route from last week.
It reminded me of a conversation I had recently with the wife:
Her: Be safe.
Me (with a smirk): When would I do anything unsafe? When am I anything but?
Her: Anytime you're awake.
Touche! Back to my second attempt at the hill.
I parked a little south of the hill, and headed towards a saddle between my objective and a smaller hill to its north. My idea was to gain the saddle and then scramble up a ridge towards the peak. From the car, I descended into a wash and followed it up the hill. Once I reached the saddle, I could see that I had a few choices so far as which route to take.
My first choice involved the ridge I thought I would take up. From the vantage of the saddle, it looked as if I had three options: climb a short but steep embankment and then boulder hop along the top of the ridge, descend into the wash on the east side of the saddle and follow it up the side of the hill, or cut a more direct path across the middle of the slope between the two. All three options would get me to the same point, or so it seemed.
I chose the more direct approach, one I would not recommend to anyone else. The rock and gravel on every slope near that hill is loose and slippery. Walking across one of those slopes is an exercise in balance and perserverance. It felt as if I slid down one foot with every step I took. The wash looked more inviting the farther along I got, but I stayed the course and reached the point where the wash and ridge joined each other on the north slope of my objective.
At that point, it was a matter of boulder hopping my way up the hill. There were moments of actual rock climbing as I made my way up and over some of the bigger obstacles. Sure, I could have walked around them, but where's the fun in that? At one point, my foot lost purchase on the rock I stood on. This resulted in my grabbing hold of a cactus - the only option I could see - to keep from falling ten feet. My arms now have interesting markings up and down them. Nice.
I finally made it to the peak without further problem, following a very faint herd trail that faded in and out of existence on the way up the hill. The views were amazing - Lake Las Vegas and Lake Mead to the east, the Strip and Red Rock to the west, the Muddy mountains to the north, Rainbow Gardens and the Wetlands park to the south. 360° views worth the climb (photos to come if I ever get around to edit them).
On my descent, I opted to follow the ridge - best choice I made all day. When next I ascend this particular hill, it will be via the ridge as opposed to the more direct "shortcut" across the face of the slope. I much prefer boulder hopping to slipping and sliding on loose rock!
This route was still steep and served as another reminder of how out of hiking shape I really am, but I can live with that. It's just a matter of time before I'm pushing my limits once again!
ps: I really want to do that hike again. In retrospect, it was a lot of fun. Scared my parental unit to death, but I made it ;)
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Short stories
Tuesday, November 03, 2009 @ 12:33 PM
I have nothing major to write about this week. Sometimes, though, I remember little things that happen but that don't really warrant me trying to write up a whole story or trying to dig up the details from the depths of my brain. These little things are usually something that amused me while I was working. I decided to pass some of them along.
Most are probably only amusing to me, lacking context such as they are...
The game was $2/4 limit, 5-handed. The flop was 2-2-K. I don't remember the turn or the river. I remember the bet on the flop. The 5-seat glances around nervously before hesitantly putting in two chips. He is called by the 7-seat and they both check the turn and river. The 5-seat shows pockets Deuces.
So began the Pyramid of Quads promotion this week.
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The 6-seat and the 9-seat are mother and daughter.
9-seat: What gum are you chewing?
6-seat: This one. Do you want it? (as she pulls the wad of gum from her mouth)
It was one of the funniest things I saw all night.
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The game is $1-2 NL. The 9-seat has been on a bad run for a while, complaining about getting abused nearly every hand he loses. He finds himself in a hand with the 7-seat, who makes a large bet on the river after the 9-seat has been controlling the entire hand.
9-seat: Do you really have a hand? Are you just abusing me?
7-seat: Everyone else has been.
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Why are the talkative players also the loud players? I'm not talking about the social conversationalists. I'm talking about the players who cannot shut up no matter how hard they try, the ones who simply are unable to sit for more than sixty seconds without hearing themselves speak?
For that matter, why do those players always seem to be in the 1-seat or the 10-seat?
Sometimes I wish I had earplugs when I was in the box...
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The game is $1/2 NL, 3-way action. On the river, the 2-seat leads out, the 8-seat raises, and the 1-seat reraises. The 2-seat thinks for a while, and finally calls. The 8-seat thinks out loud for a bit, shows pocket Kings (for a set), and eventually folds.
2-seat: Well, I can beat what he showed.
1-seat: So can I.
8-seat: Holy crap, you have to be kidding me. No flippin' way!
1-seat shows the King-high straight, beaten by the 2-seat's Ace-high straight.
8-seat: At a 4-handed game, I have a set with the first pair I've seen in an hour, and you can both beat it? This game is rigged! I should play online instead.
I like ironic people ;)
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The tunnel by the airport is completely screwed up. It sounds, from news reports, as if that might be the case between now and the second coming. Traffic that wants to go north through the tunnel seems to back up all the way from the tunnel across the 215 over to the 15. This necessitates me finding a different route home whenever I work longer than 5 hours so as to avoid the stop & go hell that is created by 'normal' people trying to get to their day jobs.
Eastern is overcrowded.
Pecos would be preferred, but is also under construction.
GV Parkway speed limit is too slow. Not that it really matters since most everyone seems to be crawling along in the morning hours anyway.
Starting to think my best option is to stop at the Blue Hawk right after work and enjoy a drink and some video poker while waiting for the traffic to thin...
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Never had so many negative people visiting the blog as I have recently. A former boss once said I frequently came across a bit supercilious (that is my favorite word - I use it a lot, especially when referring to myself). He was right. Add to that the fact that I am a very sarcastic pain-in-the-ass, and I guess you have someone who is easy to not like ;)
Took a personality profile test for work once, back when that was the 'in' thing to do in order to learn how to better form cohesive project teams, etc. I wish I could remember which test - I don't. I only know that is was not the Myers-Briggs test.
The test graphed your responses in four categories with lines extending left and right of an axis that represented zero, zero being the norm for the majority of people. My graph had a single line that extended to the right of the axis. It extended so far to the right of the axis that the exam proctor called in reinforcements to help analyze its meaning. Every other line was about half as far to the left of the axis.
We were called in individually to go over the analysis. Her first words to me:
"I have never, and I mean never, seen so polarizing a Type-A personality as you have."
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Done. Time to go write up the hike I took yesterday. Got into an argument with a cactus. Lost. Arm looks like a drug addict's or something :)
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More details
Thursday, October 29, 2009 @ 1:13 PM
The other day, I wrote a little something about a game I had dealt into the wee hours of the morning. This has created a bit of discussion over on 2+2.
Thanks, by the way, to someone from AVP on pointing out the discussion to me
Here's a bit more...
That game was actually a lot of fun to deal. The very last hand, as somewhat detailed over on 2+2 was awkward. The reaction by ORG was so far out of line it caused the night to end on such a sour note. BHK was the perfect gentleman in the face of all the epithets being thrown his way. He never said one negative thing, which I found amazing. I'm not at all sure I could have controlled myself in the same situation :)
All in all, it was a great night. On a night when I expected to be home by 4:00am, I got to deal an extra four hours. I got to deal a game other than low-limit holdem for the first time in over a year. It's always nice to break up the monotony, and dealing nothing but $2/4 and $4/8 limit, and $1-2 no-limit can get very monotonous.
This game is a large part of why I love working the shift I work. Graveyard is very unique. Of course, it is also usually fairly boring, but there are days :)
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Somewhat related:
Yesterday, Vegas was dead. Driving to breakfast with the wife was akin to driving in a ghost town...complete with rolling tumbleweeds thanks to the 60mph winds blowing away everything not tied down. Twitter messages told me Bally's was dark - no games at 10:00am. A couple phone calls told me the rest of the city was fairly slow as well.
Hopefully, it was just a lull before the storm. With Halloween falling on a Saturday night, I think we ought to have a big weekend in the valley. If Mother Nature cooperates and quits trying to blow down buildings, it should be a great weekend.
Hopefully the room will be packed. Saturday will be the last day of the $1000 Flopped Quads promotion (I think - Tuesday might be the last day). Come get your free money!! :)
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Completely unrelated schtuff:
Stopped to gas up the Jeep. Lady in a minivan pulls into the gas station from the other side of the parking lot and approaches the pump in front of mine. She puts her van at a 45-degree angle to the pump, nose in. I've never seen a fuel pump hose that would reach to the back of that van the way she had it parked.
She didn't get out of the van, however. She sat, staring at me as if I was in her way. She then performs a 15-point turn to get the opposite side of the van (the side with the fuel access) next to the pump. A well-executed 3-point turn would have sufficed, but....who knows?
She hops out of the van and proceeds to stand in front of the gas pump, staring at it. She stares at the pump for what had to be at least 60 seconds, if not longer. She then glares at me, hops back into her van, and drives away.
WTF, over?
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The Home for Wayward Poker Dealers is thinking of getting a gaming console. We're leaning towards the Wii. I hear more good things about it than anything else, and the wife thinks she wants to play with the Wii Fit thingy.
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I know there was something else I wanted to post...can't remember what. Getting old sucks...
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Flopped quads almost over
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 @ 11:21 AM
Rumor has it that our flopped quads promotion is coming to an end. There is an interesting promotion taking its place, but I don't understand it well enough yet to describe it. I think instead of us running 10-12 tables on three days of the week like we do now, the new promotion will spread the business out through the rest of the week. Probably a good thing.
I do like the sounds of the new promotion...
Thirteens ranks of cards give you thirteen possible Quads that can be hit. There's a pyramid with each level being worth more than the previous level. As quads are flopped through the week, we will move up the pyramid. Any particular hand can only be paid off the pyramid once per week (but will still be eligible for the normal high hand payout after the first time it is hit for the week). By the time we get to the top of the pyramid, we will be paying a decent sum. I've heard numbers everywhere from $5000 up to $7500.
I'm working on getting more details, as well as a start date for the new promotion.
Talked to some ex-coworkers from Colorado. Things sound bleak there. Business has apparently picked up at the casino I used to work at but dealer tokes are way down from where they used to be. The Lodge, which was the room to work in before the limits went up, has lost the majority of their business for whatever reason. The Ameristar has become pretty much the high-limit room for the hill. Sounds very different from when I was there.
It also makes me appreciate even more moving back to Vegas. Landing in a room that is as good as the one I am in is just like icing on the cake. We have great customers who are there every night. I'm having a great time working there. Dealing to locals is...different.
I spent four or so years on the Strip dealing mainly to tourists. That was fun and started my addiction to dealing. Yes, it's an addiction. I love the fact that my 'job' is to hang out with ten people for half-hour increments and just have a good time.
After the Strip, I mistakenly headed to the Land of disEnchantment. That place and I had issues :)
After that, we headed to Colorado. While I didn't sit in the box in either location, I still got to know the customers. There is a huge difference between dealing to locals in a smaller gaming market and dealing to locals in Las Vegas.
My guess as to the source of some of the attitude differences is that the players in the smaller markets have less choice. If there are only a couple rooms to choose from and you don't really like either room, you aren't going to really enjoy playing in either location. Vegas locals, on the other hand, have tons of choice. It is easy to search and find a room in which you are comfortable playing.
I also think that's why I like where I work currently. We have great customers who actually enjoy playing in our room. The mood at the tables is almost always light, fun, entertaining. I've been there less than a month and already developed some good relationships with some of the regulars.
Having fun at work is paramount, in my opinion. I worked for thirteen years in an industry I hated. Now I work in a job I enjoy. Life is good in the high desert :)
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In completely unrelated news, what the hell is up with this weather? Usually, October/November is my favorite time to be in the valley. With temps in the upper 70s and little or no rain, it's the most temperate that Vegas gets. Not today...
Currently only 64° and 20mph winds, it's difficult to see the mountains to the east. From my point of view, they are obscured by the giant dust cloud that is floating over the city. Blech.
When we last lived in Vegas, it was Yardhouse happy hour every Friday. That was our release. This time around, it's turning out to be Tuesday afternoons. We like to sit on the patio, though, and I'm not too keen on having a crust of sand on the top of my beer. We'll see if we make it today.
In the meantime, I have a couple hiking routes to plan out - a little continuation of some things I was working on a year ago. Last week's hike got me back in the groove. Since the wind killed all hopes of climbing anything today, I'll just work on mapping some routes for later.
My only other option is to go buy a Wii and entertain myself that way...or work on finishing my book...or vacuum the house... Right.
Time to enjoy my weekend ;)
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The 8-handed heads-up game
Monday, October 26, 2009 @ 11:08 AM
First, I want to start by saying that if you don't have the stomach to deal with losing $15,000 in one day, do not come to my poker room and proceed to do exactly that. I promise you that I will be annoyed with you.
Second, if you are incapable of determining that you are the worst player at the table and there is absolutely zero chance of you winning any of your chips back, do yourself a favor and stop playing. It really is bad for your seemingly bottomless pockets.
Finally, after you have donked off nearly half the yearly salary of most people in a mere seven hours, do not then spend thirty minutes of my time trying to blame anyone and everyone other than yourself for your losses. Again, I can promise that I will be annoyed.
Now that the Public Service Announcement is over, on to the story...
I walk into the poker room 30 minutes before my shift is due to start. I check the waiting lists, scan the room to see who's playing, etc. I don't even get a chance to wave at anyone before the 7-seat on table 8 starts flailing his arms to get me to come over there. Fine.
I ask what I can do for him and he pleads with me to allow him and the 1-seat to start a heads-up $10/20 no-limit game. Yeah, I'll get right on that...
I tell him I will get the floor. He informs me the floor has already said he couldn't do it until he got another dealer. Since he hadn't seen my face before this moment, he thought I was the new dealer for his special game. Errr....no.
The floor tells him that I am simply replacing a dealer who went home and he still doesn't have enough dealers. Since the floor is off shift in fifteen minutes, I know he is just pushing it off so his replacement can deal with it. I try not to laugh.
The new floor informs him that the earliest he will get the game is 1:15, about an hour wait. The floor is responsible for escorting security while they do the money drop and the extra dealer has to watch the floor during that time. Once that is complete, we will gladly accommodate your game request. Yippee.
When I finally get to deal table 8, I quickly figure out why the 7-seat is so eager to get into a heads-up match against the 1-seat. This is a $1/2 no-limit game and both gentlemen have roughly $2,000 in front of them. They butt heads nearly every hand.
7-seat: I wish they would hurry up and get us that heads-up game.
8-seat: You guys don't need to leave. This is fun.
1-seat: I don't want to do it if it will break the game and these guys can't play.
7-seat: You and I have been going at it all night. We should get to do that without the interference.
8-seat: There's no interference. Nobody else is playing. We're all just having a good time watching you two.
The 8-seat was correct. By the end of my down, the 1-seat had $3200 in front of him and the 7-seat was under $2000. The floor returned and we combined no-limit games, freeing up a dealer to start up the heads-up grudge match. The 1-seat brought his entire $3200, the 7-seat bought $2500, and the game commenced.
If there is one truism in poker rooms, it is that juicy games draw interest. This game proved to be no exception. Across the room, the $1/2 game was buzzing with talk about the $10/20 game. One player decided he would rather play $10/20 so he requested that the floor ask the two players if they would mind him joining them.
It is important to note that had they said they did not want his involvement, he would have stayed in the $1/2 game. Instead, they said they didn't mind. In fact, the 7-seat openly salivated at the thought of another $3k on the table. Greed is everyone's ultimate downfall, isn't it?
Now we have a 3-handed $10/20 no-limit game. When the $1/2 game breaks, all of the players agree to allow one more person to join them, making it 4-handed. In the 6-seat is ORG (Old Righ Guy), in the 8-seat is BHK (Black Hat Kid), in the 9-seat is RSK (Red Shirt Kid), and in the 10-seat is OSG (Older Spanish Guy).
The original two players were ORG and OSG. BHK was the most skilled player at the table. His skill level so dwarfed ORG and OSG that neither stood any chance apart from dumb, stupid luck of beating him. OSG played for a while, played until he had felted ORG one last time, and then cashed out nearly $5k.
We were down the 3-handed play and I was locked in. Over the course of the next 5 hours, ORG went to the main cage and drew markers (or cashed checks or whatever) for $5k on three separate occasions. He put every dime of it into that game. When the situation got ugly and the game imploded, he was stuck to the tune of $17k by my rough estimates.
At one point, the running joke between the floor and myself was that every penny in the poker room main bank was going to end up on the table before the game broke. We could easily foresee $35k in chips sitting on that table with no more chips in the bank. I would have laughed, but I digress.
The reason things got ugly is that BHK had every one of those chips. For the last hour, the game had reached a point where ORG called BHK down nearly every hand. It was one of the sickest displays I had ever witnessed at a poker table. It was so bad, the casino decided to not serve ORG alcohol so that he could not use that as an excuse and say that the casino was negligent in letting him burn through $15k while he was drunk.
The final hand played out in typical fashion. BHK raises to $60 pre-flop and ORG re-pops to $160 pre-flop. ORG checks the flop. BHK bets $300. ORG raises to $700. ORG bets $600 on the turn and BHK calls. When ORG checks the river, BHK bets $2500. ORG goes into the tank for a while and starts mumbling about BHK only wanting to destroy him and not wanting to play, etc. He makes the call with top pair, no kicker. BHK had turned a straight.
At that point, ORG loses it and starts calling BHK an asshole and berating him for trying to take all the money, etc. His comments got uglier every time he spoke. Finally, BHK announced that the game was over. ORG turned three shades of red.
Earlier, sometime around the second $5k rebuy I believe, ORG had begged for a commitment to play until 10:00am. BHK and RSK had agreed even though I could see in their faces that they hadn't planned on that. When one is ahead to the tune of $10k, one can be a little generous and endure some personal suffering :)
At any rate, the fact that it was only 8:00am and BHK had ended the game had ORG going ape-shit. He pleaded with BHK to stay, even agreeing to not say another word for the next two hours - it was his insults and bad attitude that had led up to this point, after all. Of course, in the process of pleading with BHK to stay, he also continued to insult him and basically act like a whiny little girl. Ultimately, BHK left.
After that, things got somewhat amusing. He accused the floorperson and I of having called in the two kids because we saw a juicy game. He accused the floorperson of forcing the original two players to allow more players into the game. He accused me of allowing team play and allowing him to get fleeced. If there was anything or anyone that he could think of that somehow led to his losing night, blame was placed there.
Blame was placed everywhere except squarely where it belonged - on his shoulders. While ORG is a very nice guy and everyone in the room likes him, he is a horrible poker player. He plays poker for the social and entertainment aspects. When faced with someone who plays poker seriously, when someone isn't playing for fun, he plays back at them harder in hopes of snapping them off simply because they are ruining his fun.
What started as an 8-handed heads-up $1/2 game - 8 players, 6 simply watching the show put on by the other 2 - morphed into a 4-handed $10/20 game. One player steamrolled the table and walked away with a 5-digit profit. One player was unable to understand his role in the game and stormed out with a 5-digit loss.
I simply moved cards around the table and enjoyed the show...except for the fact that I really wanted a nap :)
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How to keep a game going
Last week, I wrote about how to kill a poker game. I figure it's only fair to talk about the other side of the coin - how to keep a game going. If the players are all talking about calling it a night, keeping the game going is more work.
There is one surefire way to accomplish the goal, though...
All you need is a really cute girl. You score bonus points for you if she doesn't know how to play poker. If she is openly flirtatious, you ave found the golden grail. So long as she doesn't run out of money, your game will go forever.
A few years ago, I was dealing at the Pink Chicken. There was an extremely attractive prostitute that used to walk through occasionally. If she wasn't busy, she would stop and talk for a while. On this occasion, she wasn't working. Wearing a white evening gown, she looked as if she had just stepped out of a magazine photo spread.
I was dealing a 4-handed $2/4 limit game. The players had been talking about breaking for breakfast. One gentleman had even racked up his chips. I asked if they wanted to take a break instead of leaving. I suggested if they stayed around, the gorgeous girl on the rail might play.
Of course they didn't believe me, but I convinced them to stick around for a few minutes. They headed off for a smoke break and I walked over to the rail to ask if she wanted to play. By the time the four had returned, she was seated in the 1-seat with chips ready to go.
They played for a while, another hour or so, before she grew bored and left. All four tossed me huge tips for talking her into playing, though. Fun.
More recently, I was dealing a $2/4 limit game at the M, also 4-handed. Once again, everyone was ready to leave. Before I pushed into that table, I talked a cute girl on the rail into joining us.
Openly flirtatious, she was driving the other players nuts. Whenever she lost a hand, she would accost the winner and call him a "dirty, naughty boy." She tried to talk one of them into becoming her "house boy" for a week. Predictably, none of them were going anywhere so long as she was there.
Once again, I kept the game going for at least an hour longer than it would have...and earned some extra jack in the process. It works every time ;)
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Back to old tricks
Thursday, October 22, 2009 @ 12:49 PM
Every day that I drive to work, I see Bridge Mountain in the distance. Standing tall on the west side of the valley, the peak taunts me. I had tried to scale Bridge before...and failed. Granted, it was mere days after deciding I was completely recovered from a torn ligament in my ankle, I can excuse the inability to reach the peak on that particular day.
I hate to leave things unaccomplished, though...
Every day that I look towards the west side of the valley, the itch to start hiking again grows stronger. Having not hiked seriously in the past twelve months, I am admittedly very out of shape. I am definitely not in the shape required to scale Bridge Mountain. This morning, I decided it was time to start fixing that issue.
After searching for all my gear and loading up the Jeep, I headed out towards Lake Mead. I decided to try for Lava Butte. I wanted a short hike that was strenuous enough to make me work for it. I chose well, considering that the route I picked included a 1000 ft elevation gain in just three-tenths of a mile - rough!
After getting the Jeep stuck in a wash and having to walk around searching for rocks to pile under the tires so that I would have enough traction to move, I finally reached the base of the Butte. One glance towards my goal told me that this wasn't going to be easy. The wall of rock looked like exactly that, a wall, and not so much a slope.
Three-quarters of the way up the "slope" I stepped on a rock that gave way, causing a rock slide that took me a good 45 feet back down the wrong way. Fun. I started my way back up the hill. I made the peak an hour after leaving the Jeep. My legs felt like rubber and I did not look forward to the descent.
On the descent, I stepped out on a cliff to take in a really great view of the Vegas Strip. I jumped four feet back when I heard a crack loud enough to be heard miles away. Seconds later, the cliff slid down the hill...without me, thankfully :)
It sounds dangerous, but it wasn't really that bad. If I had gone down with it, it would have been a slide of only twenty feet or so. It did get the blood flowing rather well though!
Time to dusting off the maps I made the last time I lived here. Lots of peaks to bag!
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Two questions
Monday, October 19, 2009 @ 4:55 AM
Very short post. Just 2 questions after watching TV all day yesterday...
Seriously, how bad are the Washington Redskins? Holy smokes.
Conversely, how good are the New Orleans Saints? Wow.
Maybe I'll quit being lazy and type something up in the next couple days. Don't hold your breath ;)
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