Stone Tower

A Decade of Nachos, With a Side of Awesome

March 1998

"Do you like nachos?  They have like the best nachos here.  The. Best."

I shift in my seat--a bit uncomfortable in the suit I am uncharacteristically wearing--as I read the description of the nachos in the menu.  I wasn't quite sure sharing a plate of messy nachos during a job interview would make the "do" list in the career counseling office back at school.  Still, I didn't want to be rude.

"Ah, sure, that sounds good," I say.

As I sat in Newport's Brick Ally Pub for the first time, I was about two months shy of graduating college and on my first real job interview.  The Portsmouth branch of Raytheon had brought me down for a full day of interviews and put me up in a local hotel for two nights.  I had taken the interview mainly for the free trip.  The company where I had been working as a co-op up until that time had all but offered to turn my part time position as a super-intern into a full time role on the next project ramping up.  I had sent my resume in to Raytheon mainly as a safety move.  A free trip to Newport, RI was just a huge bonus.

"What do you think of downtown?  Isn't it great?" Lindsey asks.

Out the picture window just a pair of steps away from our table, the cobblestone road is packed with little shops and restaurants, looking amazingly like those old seafaring towns that I've always promised myself I'd write about in my novels one day.

"Yeah, it's awesome," I tell him.  "I've never been down here before.  I had no idea what to expect."

When the HR woman had handed me a copy of my interview schedule that morning, my eyes had immediately locked onto the distinctively female name slated to take me on a two-hour lunch and tour of the area.  A free trip to Newport and an extended lunch with a cute engineering girl?  This place really knew how to woo a guy!

Unfortunately, I discovered that my first lunch in romantic Newport was not to be with the cute, blond, be-speckled math major turned programmer I had envisioned.  Lindsey, as it turned out, was a six-foot-six Jamaican man about a year older than I was.  That disappointment aside, I was still having a good time.

"You know this could be where it all starts for you," he goes on, using a fork to take half a dozen of the most delicious nachos I had ever seen onto his side plate.  "Right here, this could be your beginning."

I look at him confused.  These weren't the typical interview questions I had spent the bulk of the night before practicing answering in the hotel mirror.

"Um, I guess that's true," I say.  "It's hard to believe in two months college will be over."

"And this could be it, couldn't it?  This time next year you could be sitting in this place with a whole new group of friends and a whole new life.  The girl you are going to marry could even be waiting around here for you.  And it all starts right now."

Lindsey spoke with such enthusiastic optimism that I found it impossible not to smile at the thought.  Driving down to Rhode Island for that interview, I had had no intension of even considering the job.  Truth be told, I had my dream job waiting for me back home.  There was no reason to be considering working for a major government contractor like Raytheon.  Still...

As I sat there looking around the restaurant, the thrill of the adventure Lindsey spoke of began to fill me.   I wondered who I would meet what kind of people I would come to call my friends.  How would it feel to move so far from home; to make a completely fresh start in place like this?

"Maybe this is God's plan for you," Lindsey went on.  "Maybe it's time to begin your life here.  Like really begin something,"

I take my first bite of Brick Alley's chicken nachos as I consider the words, marveling at how good they are.  

"You know something," I say.  "I think you might be right."

---

July 1999

"Can I ask you something?"

The cute girl across the table looks up from her menu, smiling warmly.  She has amazing blue eyes.  Had I noticed that before?

"Ah, sure."

"Okay, I know this is only our second date and everything, but do you think our relationship has reached the point where we can order something messy like nachos?"

She laughs out loud, and I give myself a little mental high-five.  Making pretty girls laugh is one of those things guys like me always take great pride in.

"I think we can handle it," she says.

I've known Kim less than a week.  We'd met a few days ago, bumping into each other online and then spending the better part of a night chatting on the phone.  After a pretty typical movie first date a few days before, I had invited her to come down and spent Saturday in Newport with me.

"You've love these," I tell her.  "They are the best!"

"This place is amazing," she says, turning back to her menu.  "I can't believe you live down here."

"Yeah, it's pretty cool.  I like it better in the winter, though.  All the tourists are gone, but all the restaurants and clubs are still open.  It's like our own private playground."

"Well, I think a summer hanging around down here with you sounds pretty good," she said.  "My friends are going to be so jealous."

"You should bring them down sometime.  We can get together with my friends and all hang out."

She smiles at the thought, seeming to make quiet plans even as I made the offer.  Kim and I had decided that we were going to have a summer fling together.  Nothing serious.  Just hang out together for the summer and have fun.  After arguably the best year of my life--spent goofing around southern New England with a group of new friends--a summer spent with this pretty girl at my side seemed too good to be true.

Still, since taking the job at Raytheon and moving down here, I was getting pretty used to things feeling too good to be true.

"After we eat, do you want to walk around a bit?" I ask.  "They have all kinds of shops and stuff.  It's pretty fun."

"Yeah, I'd like that."

"And then maybe tonight we could hit a movie or something," I added.  "There is a really cool old fashioned movie house around the corner from here."

"Or we could just rent something and go back to your place," she suggests, putting down the menu and taking a sip of her water.

I do well to keep my face casual and impassive at the suggestion.

"That could be fun, too," I say.

---

February 2000

"Guys, were you planning to order nachos as an appetizer?  Because I was thinking of getting them as my meal."

"Oh I was going to do the same thing," Jeff says.

I share a knowing smile with Jeff.  He understands the importance of nachos as well as anyone I have ever met.  Over the two years we had been friends, we had shared a bond in that.

"I can't believe you are finally leaving," Chris tells me.

"And I can't believe we finally got you to come out to lunch," I tease him.

Over the past year or so, Chris had made a daily habit of stopping by our cubicles at about 11:25 to check on our lunch plans.  Despite our wide variety of lunch destinations, though, he had never once opted to come out with us.

"Well, it's your last day," he says, looking over the menu.  "How could I say no?"

It is more than just my last day at Raytheon, it is also my last day of having a real permanent tie to Newport.  A few months back, I had moved in with Kim.  Our summer fling had ended--as these things so often do--with a fancy dinner in Providence and a shiny diamond ring.  Living a little over an hour north of the island had put something of a strain on an already less than ideal job.

"Hey when we get back, can I have the bridge?" Jeff asks me.

I smile wide at the question.

"It's all yours, man."

Another of our friends, Todd, had build a model of a bridge using drinking straws and scotch tape in his office in the weeks before he finally left Raytheon.  He had given it to me as a farewell gift--a sort of thank you for helping him with a trial project that earned him, in part, the awesome new job.  The idea was that the "magic" of the bridge would bring me luck in my own job search.  The fact that I had landed what was close to my dream job at a small analog design company about twenty minutes from my house increased the legend of the bridge tenfold.

"Can I have it after you?" Rens, the other guy out to lunch with us that day, asked Jeff, drawing a laugh from all of us.  He had been with Raytheon only about a year, but he, Jeff, and Chris seemed to be all that was left of our old group.  It seemed that my time at Raytheon--and Newport in general--was just about over.

"You know what I am going to miss more than anything?" I asked, closing my menu having long since decided on my own order of nachos.

They look at me with half smiles, waiting for the inevitable punch line.  I only begin to realize in that moment how much I am going to miss spending every day with such good friends.

"Lunch," I tell them.

---

November 2002

"Babe, just order your own nachos as a meal, and we'll get a couple orders for the table," Kim said, pulling the menu from my hands and ending my pointless mental debate over what to order.

"I don't want to be a nacho hog."

"It's your birthday!" she said with a wide smile.  "You get all the nachos you want!"

Eight of us are sitting a> long table in the back of Brick Alley.  Kim was three month pregnant that night, but she didn't let it stop her from throwing me a crazy birthday night out in Newport with stops at all of our favorite old haunts.  We'd gotten tattoos at our favorite shop in Middletown--well, Debbi and I got tattoos, everyone else had chickened out--gone for drinks at Coddington's, and now we were all grabbing dinner at my favorite restaurant before heading out to the Blues Cafe--Newport's answer to Dan Aykroyd's little place.

"All right, nachos it is!" I said, lifting up my shirt sleeve for the dozenth time in the last hour to look at the new tattoo on my arm.

"Still glad you got it?" Kim asked me.

"Oh god yes.  I am having the best night.  Thanks so much for all of this."

She simply gives me a quick kiss and smiles before returning her attention to her own menu.  Thankfully her appetite had returned with the start of her second trimester and eating out at awesome restaurants was a bit more fun for her.

"Jason, what did you say you were this year again?" Ginger called out to me from the far end of the table where she and Crystal are talking with Todd and Jesse.  "A binomial number?"

The girls giggle as she asks the question, both still not quite used to life with a certified math geek married to one of their best friends.

"No," I correct her, "my birthday is a binary number--November tenth, one-one, one-zero.  But as of tonight, my age is a perfect cube."

They burst out in a fit of laughter, clearly not sure what a perfect cube is but decidedly amused that I am so excited by the prospect.  They look to Todd and Jesse, expecting them to find my explanation just as entertaining.  But my friends--as fine math geeks as I have ever known in their own right--just nod along with wry smiles.

"Dude, you are twenty-seven this year?" Todd asked, drawing a loud wave of laughter from the whole table.

I laugh along with them, feeling happy and justified in my exponentially significant milestone birthday.  And I also feel so tremendously lucky to be sitting with so many friends in what has to be my most favorite spot in the world as I mark it.

---

August 2008

"Babe, are you drinking?" Kim asks me as we slide into a small table deep inside Brick Alley.

"Ah, if you are driving back to the place I am."

She just smiles as she slides the drink menu over to me.

"All right, then," I tell her, "let's get this vacation started!"

We've officially been on vacation for a whole hour, having had just enough time to drop our bags off at the bed and breakfast and head downtown for a drink.

"This is probably the last real vacation you're going to have for a while," Kim says, "I want you to live it up!"

I nod as I look over the drink menu, having no trouble taking her advice.  I've just started a new job--an entirely new career, actually.  It's an amazing opportunity and I can't remember a time in my life when I've felt better about what I did for a living, but the one downside is my vacation time over the next few years will be severely limited.

"I can't believe we are finally here," I say, handing the menu back to Kim after deciding on the triple-shot chocolate martini.  "It's been way too long since we've been down here."

"Well you've got four whole days to soak it up," Kim says, looking over the drink menu herself.  "Let's enjoy it while it lasts."

We had rented a small beach house--a beach house located about three miles from the actual beach, but a beach house nonetheless--for the week with some friends.  I was only staying for the first half of the week, though, heading to New York City midweek for a writing conference.

"How many times do you think we can eat here this week before we get sick of it?" I ask.

Kim gives me an amused look over the top of the menu.

"I'll come as often as you want," she tells me.

Looking around the familiar restaurant, I feel at home.  So much has happened to me since the first time I sat in here.  I've made friends I never expected to find, found a career I never knew existed, and come to understand what I wanted to do with my life with a clarity that I had never thought possible.  The last decade had brought me a wife, a daughter, and a better, stronger, happier version of myself.  And through it all, there had been delicious, wonderful nachos to mark each and every step on the path.

"Are you two just having drinks today?"

I pull myself from my thoughts and find our waitress standing over us, her pad and pen ready to take our order.  Kim and I lock eyes across the table and share a wide smile.

"We're going to have some nachos, too," we tell her together.

Grandfellas

One of the really strange things about my adolescence is that I never became "too cool" to hang out with my grandparents.  My parents I feared being seen with like any normal kid.  I remember having a panic attack one night in the tenth grade when my mom decided it would be fun to eat dinner in the food court of the mall.  I imagined the place filled with my fellow students, all out on their own doing really grown up stuff and talking to girls and...and there I was eating a slice of Sbarro with mommy and daddy.  It was mortifying.  I nearly passed out.

But with my grandparents (my mom's parents, just to catch everyone up), it was different.  I think it had a lot to do with the fact that around the time I entered high school my grandfather basically decided I was awesome.  I have no idea why he came to this conclusion, but from about age fourteen on, I was the heir to the throne.

This wasn't the typical doting of a grandparent.  My grandfather was never one to dote.  Until I hit my teen years he treated me like the goofy little crybaby that I was.  He was never mean or anything like that.  He was just a man who made his feelings clear.  I was a decent kid, but it’s not like I was about to set the world on fire.

But all of that changed as I got older.  Suddenly I was brilliant, clearly smarter than anyone in the family (aside from him, of course).  I got a job at the local supermarket, which seemed to gain me several levels in manliness in his eyes.  He had owned a grocery store at one point in his life, so I think he had a special respect for it.  Truthfully, the supermarket was the only place I could find work when I turned fifteen.  But if he saw it as a special bond between the two of us, so be it.

I started becoming a math and science guy about this time too, which my grandfather saw as the wave of the future.  While the rest of the family (my parents, my uncle, and my sister) wallowed in silly things like teaching and sales jobs, I was about to make my mark and change the world.

"Hey, Jason, I had an idea the other day," my grandfather said to me one night I was over his house for dinner.  "You know how a car engine turns the wheels?"

"Um...yeah, I guess," I said, taking a bite of my third cheeseburger.  I loved cheeseburgers--still do, actually--and my grandfather made it a mission in life to make sure I was well supplied at any meal.  If I ate less than four in his presence, he took it as a personal insult.

"Yeah, well what if you hooked a belt onto the wheel and fed it back to the motor?"

Oh boy, I knew where this was going.  I tried to interject, but my mouth was full of juicy burger goodness.

"You see?" he went on, smiling at his own cleverness.  "This way you don't need gas!  The car just runs forever!"

"Um, you can't do that," I said, washing down my burger bite with a sip of warm soda. 

My grandparents always kept their house stocked with soda just for me, but refused to put it in the refrigerator.  It wasn't a space issue.  There was always plenty of room in the fridge.  They just preferred to keep two or three two liter bottles sitting on the counter by the stove in case I happened by.

"What do you mean you can't do that?"  He started getting a little angry now, as was his habit when questioned.

"Well...what you are describing is a perpetual motion machine," I told him, quite sure he had never heard the term before.  "It's physically impossible to construct a device that is one hundred percent efficient.  It would violate the laws of thermodynamics."

He went quiet for a second, thinking over what I had just explained.

"Yeah, but you could do it," he said, nodding his head in excitement.  "You're smart!"

That's how my grandfather saw me.  An eager young kid who worked hard, loved his cheeseburgers, and was too smart to be limited by the pesky laws of thermodynamics.  I dare say that no one in the world had--or likely will ever have--as much (admittedly misplaced) confidence in me as that man did.

On the other side of the coin, I had to admit I thought my grandfather was pretty damn cool in his own right.  He was a giant italian guy who could--and often did--crush walnuts in his fist while playing cards.   He was a day trader more than a decade before there were day traders.  He had a Wall Street Journal delivered daily, and every day he would pour over the listings on the dining room table with his broker on the phone--a rotary phone, mind you.

And there were romantic--and likely wildly exaggerated--tales of his, shall we say, less than respectable youth.  There was something about a fish truck that doubled as a rolling casino on Saturday nights up at the beach--those stories were always halted quickly by my mother just as they were getting started.  My grandmother liked to tell me the story of how he came to her rescue when they were in high school and some guy planned to stand her up for the prom--something about just using her to make some other girl jealous.  I guess my grandfather was on to the guy and swooped in to fix things, opening the prologue to our family in the process.

So I guess my grandfather and I had a real Ray Liotta / Robert De Niro thing going on...but early in the movie, before Joe Pesci gets killed and all the cocaine stuff.  Actually, come to think of it, I guess our relationship eventually did end the same way as in the movie--but that's another story.

Anyway, because of all of this, even in my adolescent too-cool-for-the-world phase I never thought twice about hanging out with my grandparents.  We'd go out to eat, I'd come over to help them fix the VCR, and they'd routinely call to check in.  It was all very cool.  And when they decided to take a four day road trip to sightsee in Canada--the spring of my junior year in high school--I didn't think twice about tagging along.

We hit Montreal and Quebec (roughly about nine hours north of where we lived) and did all the touristy things.  I had five years of French under my belt, so I knew enough to read the street signs and annoy the hell out of waiters.  My grandparents were thrilled to have me along.

On our last night in Quebec, the concierge at the hotel told us about a special medieval style dinner show that he had tickets to.  My eyes lit up at this instantly.  I loved--and still love, quite frankly--anything medieval.  This, of course, meant we were going.  If it was something cool that Jason would enjoy, then sign us up.

My grandfather was also very excited that he was getting a deal on the tickets through the hotel.  The man loved getting a bargain.  He'd go to three supermarkets a week, just to hit all the sales.  And here we got a show, dinner--dinner without forks, but dinner--free refills on soda and wine, and a bus ride to and from for one low price.  There was even a two hour shopping excursion after the show where we got to hit all the little shops with coupons from the hotel.  How could you go wrong?

(side note, I bet Kim just picked up on where this is going...)

And so, after going up to change, we headed outside to wait for the bus.  It was just the three of us and about thirty college kids, out for a Saturday night of fun.  We all boarded the bus and began our thirty minute ride to the theater/restaurant.  My grandmother--ever the friendly type--happily chatted with the college kids the entire way, much to my grandfather's slight annoyance.

The show was fun...and all in French.  I sort of translated for my grandparents for most of it--though inferring a lot more from body language than any mastery of French.  Still, I could tell my grandfather was impressed.

Neither of my grandparents drank wine--and I was too young, even by Canadian standards--but, much to my grandfather's delight, I easily drank our ticket price in soda to make up for it.  I would imagine the rest of our group enjoyed the show a lot more than we did judging by the frequency the "bottomless" pitchers of wine were being replaced around us.  By the time we got back on the bus, the happy college kids were significantly happier than they had been on the trip over.  I mean way happier...like, maybe a few of them should keep a bucket on their lap on the ride back just in case happier.

Thinking on his feet, our bus driver made a command decision.

"Ok folks," the driver said over the loud speaker.  "I think we are just going to head straight back to the hotel.  We'll skip the shopping thing."

A half cheer / half moan of approval slowly made its way up from the back of the bus.  My grandfather, however, was decidedly unamused.

"Excuse me," he said, moving up to the front of the bus, "Can we at least have twenty minutes?"

My grandfather had paid for a shopping excursion and--drunk spring breakers be damned--he was getting a shopping excursion.

The poor bus driver turned back with a pleading, hopeful look that quickly withered under my grandfathers unamused stare.

"Well, ah...I guess we could stop for a bit, sir," he said.

Even at the time, I felt for the guy.  He clearly had a situation here.  I am sure there is a whole course in bus driver school about avoiding just this kind of thing.  The last thing this guy needed was a retired couple and their goofy grandson keeping him from getting these kids home before things got out of hand.

And so the bus stopped in old Quebec, amidst a chorus of decidedly unhappy grumbling.

"Ah, we're just going to stop for a few minutes and let these folks have a look around," the bus driver nervously announced. 

I did my best to ignore the groaning protests behind me as I followed my grandparents out of the bus.

"So you folks just want to take a quick look around, right?" the driver asked as we stepped out.

"Just give us fifteen minutes," my grandfather said without really looking back.

We took a quick walk around one block, mostly window shopping the little souvenir shops.  Despite my grandfather's repeated assurances that we had every right to be out there, the little shopping trip was anything but relaxing.  As we came back out to the main street, I caught sight of the bus driver frantically peering through the crowd for us.

"All right folks, are you all set?" he called once he saw us.  His question had a panicked yet hopeful quality to it.  My grandfather--seemingly having proved his point--let the man out of his misery.

"That's fine, we'll head back," he said as my grandmother and I exchanged relieved looks.

So after our three minute jog around the block, we made our way back to the bus.  And by this point, the friendliness of our college friends had completely evaporated.

"Assholes!"

I froze mid-stride in the narrow aisle as I heard the taunt.  I felt my grandfather--just a step behind me--tense with rage.

"What did you say?" he asked the crowd in front of me over my shoulder.  "Did you say 'assholes'?"

At this point I was fairly certain I would be ending the night in a Canadian hospital, recovering from a stab wound I took defending my elderly grandparents. 

Seriously, what was he thinking?  I’d spent my entire childhood riding busses and learning the rules.  When you are a tall, lanky math geek in thick glasses, you don't make a fuss.  If the cool kids scream insults at you, you quickly sit the hell down and pretend you never heard it.

But as I turned to look at my grandfather I saw a brief glimmer of the guy he'd been at my age.  In his expression, I saw a guy who was very used to taking control of the situation.  A guy who looked as though he'd be very at home behind the wheel of a fish truck.  And a guy who was never, ever called an asshole in front of his wife and grandson by some drunk-ass punk sitting in the back of the bus.

"Ah...nothing, sorry."  The faceless voice from the back of the bus held a lot less bravado now.

My grandfather just shook his head angrily as we finished making our way back to our seats.  It was as if we were letting those kids off the hook rather than narrowly escaping a potentially dangerous situation.  It was a strange twist on how things like this normally went in my experience.

We made it back to the hotel without incident, and by the next morning my grandfather was more frustrated that we'd missed out on the shopping trip than anything else.  Even though I still believe to this day I came pretty damn close to getting caught in a drunken bus brawl that night, I think I left Canada with a little more respect for my grandfather.

And, for better or worse, I've learned that when someone calls you an asshole on a bus, the last thing you should do is quietly sit down.

A First Time for Everything: Trading Pizza for Quarters

It's 1980...or somewhere there about.  Five year old little me is sitting happily in a pizza shop booth waiting for delicious, cheesy goodness to come out of the oven and onto his plate.  The rest of my family--seemingly less concerned with dinner--is huddled around some big machine next to the chip rack.  My mom holds my younger sister up to watch as my dad fiddles with the controls.  She is excitedly offering advice as she shifts the squirming two year old from arm to arm.

"Wait...wait...wait...jump!"

My dad's feet stay firmly planted on the ground, yet for some reason they all cheer wildly.

Unimpressed, my eyes wander back to the pizza counter, almost willing my dinner to be ready.  Five year old little me loves pizza possibly more than anything else in the world.  He and 32 year old me are a lot alike in that respect.

As I take a sip of my soda--this was the point in my life where adults began insisting I stop drinking half a gallon of milk a day and start drinking soda...those who know me well can appreciate the irony--my family lets out a collective groan.

"Let's give Jase a guy," my mom says, "I bet he can do it."  My mom called me "Jase" well into my twenties, which I guess was slightly endearing if increasingly annoying.  By contrast, my boss at my last job called me "Jase" around the office, often in staff meetings in front of other grown men.  That was significantly less endearing...and downright creepy, to be honest.

As they all turn to me expectantly, I slowly slide out of the booth.  I'm not quite sure what they are talking about--and in fact, I am quite sure that if my dad couldn't do "it" then neither could I--but I just shrug my shoulders and head over to join them.  Anything to help speed up the hellish purgatory that is the time between ordering pizza and actually eating it.

My dad drags over a plastic chair from one of the empty tables and lifts me up to stand on it.  As I come to eye level with the machine's screen I lock eyes with a cartoon monkey tossing barrels down a cartoon construction site.

"Uh, what do I do?"  I foolishly turn away from the screen as I ask the question.

"Move your guy, get him up the ladder!" my dad says, pointing emphatically at the screen.

Amid a chorus of excited instruction from both my parents, I take hold of the little black control stick and send the chubby little man running to the right, towards the first ladder.  In that moment, as my actions begin to control something that is happening on a TV screen, I feel a joyful buzz rush over my body which momentarily replaces all thoughts of warm, delicious pizza.

"Get ready...get ready...jump now!" my mom calls out.

"How do I jump?"

Even before I can get the question out, a now familiar chorus of disappointed groans fills the air behind me.  As I watch, my poor little man is demolished by one of the rolling barrels just steps away from the ladder.

"The red button," my dad tells me.  "You'll know next time."

"Twenty-six?"  A voice calls from behind us.

I turn to the counter to see our pizza--the up until thirty seconds ago number one obsession of my life--steaming on the counter.

"Come on, let's eat," my dad says, helping me down off the chair.  "We'll try that again sometime."

Strangely intrigued in a way I don't quite understand, I move back to my seat, my thoughts slowly--if less enthusiastically--moving back to pizza.

"Can we try that again after we eat?" I ask as my mom puts a way-too-hot-for-the-likes-of-impatient-me slice onto my plate.

"Well, we don't really have time today," my dad says, "but we can go to an arcade sometime if you want."

"What's an arcade?" I ask, carefully testing the different areas of my slice with my finger.

"A place with a bunch of games like that one," my mom says. 

My head swirls trying to grasp this new bit of information.

"You mean there are more games like that?"

My mom simply nods as she begins cutting up a slice of pizza for my sister.  She has no idea what has just happened; how this quiet night out for dinner has completely changed the world for me.  How the next decade of my childhood will be counted by high scores, extra lives, and levels beaten.

"Eat up, Sport," my dad says, pulling me out of my happy daydream.

My dad called me "Sport" for most of my childhood.  Unlike my old boss, however, he had the good sense to start calling me "Jason" after my twelfth birthday.

"You know," I tell them with my mouth full of now sufficiently cooled off pizza, "I think I like video games."

Oh, five year old little me, you have no idea...

Two Different Worlds

After I got home from work last night, Kim and I were hanging out with our daughter in the living room, just enjoying that it's-the-start-of-another-fun-weekend glow that seems to fill the house on Friday evenings.

"Hey Erin," I said, "do you know what weekend this is?"

She thought about it for a few seconds, happy excitement filling her face.

"Is it your birthday?" she asked, jumping up and running over to me.

"No, that would be nice, but we have to wait until the winter for that."

"Oh," she replied with a disappointed shrug. I was quick to lift her spirits again.

"This weekend is Batman weekend!"

"You love Batman!"

"I know!"

"Let's ask Mommy if we can go," she said, turing hopefully to Kim.

"Well, we don't have to 'ask' Mommy for permission," I said. "Daddies can make plans too you know."

My voice just trailed off as Erin fixed with me an impatient look.

"We can go," Kim said, giving me a reassuring smile. "Let me just look up to see if they have it at the drive-in tomorrow."

Erin and I started to plan our menu of snacks to load up the car with as Kim fired up the Macbook.

"We'll need to get Batman peanut butter cups for sure," I said.

"Do they have Batman M&M's?"

"Well, maybe we can get some regular M&M's and just pretend?"

"Yeah!" Erin replied, nodding happily.

"Oh no!" Kim said, pulling our attention away from our critical movie snack discussion. "Batman isn't showing at the drive-in tomorrow."

"What? That's impossible. It's the biggest movie of the summer. How could the drive-in not have it on opening night?"

"I don't know," she said. "They just have some horror movie playing. Weird."

"A horror movie? I haven't heard of anything opening--"

"Yeah," she said, "something called 'The Dark [K]night.'"

I love my wife dearly--and after nine years still easily count her as my best friend--but every so often I am reminded that we come from two very, very different worlds.

I Suddenly Feel So Less Alone

I am sure I am a little late to this, but I stumbled on to this song tonight.  In following a strange, meandering path of links I ended up at Jonathan Coulton's website where I got to hear his song Code Monkey.  Minutes later iTunes was diligently downloading it (and three of its cousins) for my listening enjoyment.  I believe I have a new favorite song.

Without getting all Emo, I really needed the kind of smile this song put on my face tonight.  It really captures how I feel 75% of my day...I didn't think anyone else quite got that.  I foresee much quiet giggling at work for the rest of the week.

I know this is sort of a non-post, but I hope to get back to things here soon.  For now, Patent Monkey like Cool Ranch Doritos and 20oz bottles of Coke...

The True Meaning of New Years Eve

Growing up, New Years Eve was always a night where the rules seem to disappear. More than any other night of the year, I just have memories of that night being oddly liberating and all above-the-law. It probably has something to do with it being the one night of the year children are actually encouraged to stay up past midnight and--gasp!--make as much noise as possible.

For several years my "god-cousin" Amy (my godmother's kids and I came up with this term to define our relationship to each other) hosted a New Years Eve sleep over. The invite list would invariably be about a dozen of her "bestest" girlfriends, her brother--who was about a year older than me--my sister, and me. So if you do the math, that became more than a dozen grade school girls and two oddly out of place boys, all chaperoned by one very tired woman. Back then I could never understand why she seemed so frazzled and out of it by two in the morning as she was struggling to get us into bed. Wasn't she having as much fun as we were?

Drama always seemed to fill those sleep overs. Jonathan (Amy's brother) and I would enact our yearly competition to prove once and for all that boys were in fact better than girls. At least two of the girls would breakdown crying at some point and attempt to call home--attempts that were usually thwarted by Jonathan's Mission-Impossible-like removal of the mouthpiece transceiver from the house's only phone. And if you've never made Jiffy Pop on a gas stove and had the aluminum foil pan burst into flames...well, then you just haven’t had a real childhood.

There were other years where I got to stay at my grandparents all alone--well, except for my sister who would be snoring away in the guest room by nine--while the adults went out and did whatever it was that adults got dressed up in fancy clothes to do. I'd stay up well past midnight, watching the Three Stooges marathon on WSBK TV38, sneaking illicit peeks at the rated-R movies on HBO, and eating myself sick on the snacks and pizza my grandmother would leave for me.

The next morning I'd awake to find a stash of paper horns and plastic noise makers in a pile on the kitchen table. My sister and I would watch TV quietly in the living room until everyone got up, and then pester them for details on their night. We'd have a fancy dinner in the afternoon to celebrate the new year, and gradually life--complete with all its rules--would return to normal.

As I grew up into adolescence, the magic of New Years Eve seemed to dissipate. For whatever reason, the night became less about finding something for the kids to do than finding a way to include the kids in a family event. This changed the night into just another holiday, and I was a little sad to see it go.

I remember this most the New Years Eve of 1993. I was a freshman in college that year and had been invited to no less than three parties that night--including one at one of the unofficial frats off campus. Instead, though, I found myself in the back seat of my dad's Ford Explorer, driving up to have dinner at my uncle's place in Derry, NH. I was--I think understandably--less than thrilled with the plans for the evening.

My mom and I exchanged some words on the way up. I let her know how I was far too old for these silly family things, and she put me in my place in that practiced way she had. Nothing unusual really, but the fight made me realize for the first time just how much things were beginning to change. We made our peace in time to sit in my uncle's condo and eat chips and dip, and then later Chinese food from paper plates as we all sat around his big screen to watch Dick Clark. It was just another night, really.

This year I find myself celebrating New Years Eve back in the tradition of my childhood. As I write this, I've been off of work for nearly two weeks--a consequence of the holidays falling on Tuesdays this year combined with a nice backlog of vacation hours. Kim, Erin, and I have really just spent that time relaxing. It's been several days of sleeping late, way too much pizza, and a perhaps sickening amount of family fun--and a little non-family fun thrown in where Kim and I could manage it.

It's been a wonderful vacation, but tonight really marks the end of it. Tomorrow night I'll have to go to bed at a reasonable hour and get ready to get back to it. No more fun concerts, late nights drinking, or watching reality show marathons in our pajamas all day. I'm not really sad, to be honest. I'm ready for a new year, and the year's worth of challenges I've set out for myself (I'll stop short of listing a pile of "resolutions" here, don't worry). This time off has been a perfect way to recharge the engines, and now I am anxious to get back to it.

I guess what's really striking me today is what New Years Eve has meant to me over the years. I hadn't realized it, but this break from the rules on those years was such a well needed moment for me. Perhaps in a strange way I have learned the true meaning of New Years Eve this week.

It's not how drunk you get, really. It's how much fun you have once you are drunk...or something like that.

Where Have All the Good Shows Gone?

I've been astounded by TV this summer--and not in a good way. Over the last few years game shows and artificial talent competitions have taken over the major networks, leaving little room for anything with a semblance of narrative plot. It's frustrating, really. As much as we can joke--and probably honestly admit--that less TV is a good thing, I've discovered this summer that absolutely no TV, leaves a sad little void in my daily routine--well, some of my daily routines, at least.

A big part of the problem is that television, as an industry, seems to be working overtime to reduce all entertainment to the lowest common denominator. It's not about giving the audience a great, compelling story that reaches them individually and speaks to something inside them on a personal level. Today its more about selling discount furniture and the latest super drug than anything else. It's become more a matter of offering something that the largest percentage of the viewing audience won't absolutely hate rather than something a much smaller percentage will actually love.

Maybe it's always been this way, but it seems like nowadays the networks have dropped all pretense. We've had occasional glimmers of hope in the last few years, perhaps most notably the outstanding but short lived Rome on HBO--which, not coincidentally, had no interest in selling us Tempurpedic mattresses or Lipitor. But for every Rome, Lost, or Heroes, it seems there are a dozen fake reality shows, halfheartedly disguised as game shows, talent competitions, or docu-dramas, trying to do little more than keep us tuned in between the commercials with cheep, lowbrow gimmicks.

The buzz for the fall season seems to offer some hope--the Bionic Woman remake seems promising--and it would be insufferably cynical of me to believe most of the people working in the trenches of the television industry aren’t feeling the same pain I am. I seriously doubt anyone worked for years to break into the industry dreaming all the while of producing Fat March. Still, some of the offerings this summer seemed to redefine hopeless, and they leave me more than a little fearful that I'll find myself excited about a new show this fall only to have it stripped away in six weeks and replaced with Celebrity Tic-Tac-Toe staring David Lee Roth.

In light of this, allow me to present a few of the worst offenders offered up this summer in place of actual content; shows that had me so furious I honestly began to wonder if the money I handed over to DirecTV would be better spent picking out boxed sets at Best Buy. As you read these keep in mind all those struggling writers out there, with brilliant scripts and concepts wasting away in the slush pile--or whatever the television industry's version of the slush pile is--while some irrelevant old guy looking over marketing data green-lighted this garbage.

---

Just for Laughs
If you haven't seen this, then I envy you. At first the commercials didn't look so bad. They were made with this vibe of:

"Okay, you know those goofy video shows that are always on? Yeah, well we decided to make one that's actually funny. And by funny we mean painfully cruel to unsuspecting people we've set up in elaborate hoaxes. Oh, baby, are we taking this tired old hack hidden video stuff to the next level. Yeah, it's going to rock."

Oh those lying, evil bastards. It wasn't funny. It took nothing to the next level--well, unless they were shooting for the next level of suck. And it most assuredly did not rock.

What the show actually consisted of--oh wait, I'm sorry, I mean "consists of." Yeah, because this useless garbage is still on in prime time while Studio 60 was forced to tie things up into one season in hopes of creating a tidy DVD boxed set. That seems fair. And this is all new and cool because no one has ever heard of YouTube.

Anyway...what this show consists of are recycled European hidden-prank videos--some nearly a decade old if the age of the cars used in some of the pranks is any indication--repackaged over public domain muzak and an infuriating laugh track. And just to make sure the show is as insulting as possible each "hilarious" set-up is introduced by the actors showing the camera exactly how the prank works. You know, just in case a viewer at home actually thought that it was a real invalid old man in a wheelchair being shoved into a manhole thirty-two times. Clearly the audience is so stupid that the premiere episode would have shut down the 911 switchboard with people calling in for help. Ugh.

---

National Bingo Night
You know when Bingo is fun? Never. Sure the elderly flock to church basements to play Bingo, but that's because their only alternative is sitting alone in their sad little apartments, petting their cats and waiting to die. And even then they don't actually enjoy it. But, it gives them something to do and rakes in a ton of cash for Jesus. If there are two things that society needs to fear, it's the elderly with idle time on their hands, and an underfunded Jesus--seriously, do you expect Fr. O'Sullivan to drive a Honda Civic?

By the same token, do you know when a normal person--a normal person under 72, I should say--actually plays Bingo? Only on cruise ships...and then only while drinking heavily and waiting for the damn show to start in the Starlight Lounge. Do they want to be playing Bingo? No. In fact are they actively trying hard not to play Bingo? Oh god, yes. But, much like Jesus, cruise ships don't run on love and fairy dust. If you've got several hundred drunk vacationers locked in a room, passing out stupid little punch cards is a sure fire way to cash in. If they have to watch it anyway, they might as well play, right?

And have you ever watched anyone play Bingo? Do they look or sound happy? No. They hunch over their little cards, cursing the world, and unload streams of insults at the caller whenever his chipper little voice drops below some predetermined decibel level. It seems even when you force people to play this god awful game--be it for Jesus or for crispy Bingo cruise dollars--it only causes them misery and despair.

For some reason not available on their website, the good people over at ABC took this same analysis of the game of Bingo and created National Bingo Night. Hell, it's not like people were busy watching Studio 60 anymore, and while they're killing time waiting to watch Jerry Springer do the fox trot--after 23 minutes of filler, of course--why not pass out some Bingo cards?

So apparently the plan was people would fill up their living rooms, download Bingo cards from go.abc.com, and thrill to the excitement of a game no one actually wants to play made even more infuriating by commercial breaks and snappy host segments. Yeah, that's what we want. Thanks for that, ABC.

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America's Got Talent
Wow, Star Search! But really dumbed down Star Search with obviously setup "bad" acts thrown in so the "judges" can pretend to be mean! Yeah! And it has David Hasselhoff? Rock on! This has to be the best idea ever!

Oh wait...it's not 1986 anymore. And I have a brain; a brain that cries itself to sleep every night, longing for intelligent, complex narrative plots--not unlike those that we used to enjoy on Studio 60--to deliver me from this world of game show hell. Oh well, jugglers are cool, I guess, if by cool you mean something to have on the in the background while you search through the week's releases on iTunes.

---

Thank God You're Here
NBC: Get ready for improv comedy at its best!

Us: Really? We love improv comedy! This actually sounds like it could be good!

NBC: Well, okay it's not actually improv comedy. It's really just a disconnected series of poorly written sketches. But see what we've done is kept the script hidden from one of the performers.

Us: Okay, we get it. So basically it's a scene study where we get to see how a talented improv performer can wrestle control of a poorly written, hackneyed sketch, break it loose from its rails, and take it somewhere really cool? Wow, that actually sounds innovative and--

NBC: Ah, yeah...see what we're going to do is instruct the normal cast--the ones who are on our approved script--to awkwardly force the guest actors--the ones with no knowledge of the script--to stick to the amazingly unimaginative story line we've come up with. But don’t worry, there's plenty of room to make up lame puns, and we're actively going after guest stars who can really pull off unconvincing fake accents.

Us: Wait...that doesn’t sound like improv at all.

NBC: Um...well...you have us there.

Us: All right, this sounds like a horrid suckfest, but we'll bite if and only if you can get two players from the most respected sketch comedy troupes of the 90s to awkwardly host and for some unexplained reason randomly judge the train wreck performances each week and award a trophy at the end.

NBC: How about David Allen Grier from In Living Color and Dave Folly from the Kids in the Hall?

Us: Wow, now not only am I watching this insulting garbage instead of Studio 60, but now I've lost all respect for two accomplished comedians. And, as an added bonus, I think a little part of my childhood just died.

NBC: Boys, we've got a winner! Go ahead and cancel Studio 60!

Television Programming

For the last several weeks, I've been experiencing an odd phenomenon.  Every Thursday morning I am struck with the overwhelming feeling that it is Friday.  This has been happing consistently for the last two months, and the feeling persists all day, no matter how many times I remind myself that it is, in fact, Thursday.  Even as I am writing this I know that tonight I will climb into my bed and be struck with crushing disappointment as Kim reminds me to set the alarm.  Something in my brain is just convinced it is Friday.

At first I thought I was just working a little too hard and longing for the weekend a day early.  But as the weeks rolled on, it grew way beyond that.  This week, I finally figured it out:  my television is totally screwing with my head.

In years past, Thursday night was the major TV night.  Oh there were always plenty of shows to watch on other nights, but it seems that since the first moment a shuffling, shoe gazing paleontologist attempted to awkwardly flirt with an out of his league ex-cheerleader, Thursday night became an event.  Shows like Friends, Seinfeld, ER, Survivor--and even Frasier for the briefest of moments--generated Superbowl level excitement in all of us.  Well, in me at least.

I would sometimes start looking forward to Thursday night as early as Wednesday morning.  Often there would be pizza involved.  At times it got to the point where I'd tape--do you remember VCRs, kids?--shows on CBS in one room, while watching the NBC line up in another, only to hurriedly get the tape at 10:45 and play catch up.  Thursday night was a night you knew you'd be up late, biting your nails at Tribal Council, laughing till your were dizzy at the Hanukah Lobster, and crying--figuratively mind you, I'm still a guy here--as the guest star of the week succumbed to some disease you'd never heard of and suspected Michael Crichton may have just made up at dress.

So for almost a decade, TV--driven by a seemingly self-defeating need to convince me to go to the movies over the weekend--has programmed me to think of Thursday night in a certain way.  Then, inexplicably, all of that changed.  Thursday night no longer seems to be the event it once was.  I think you could easily argue a number of root causes for this.  TIVO and the rise of reality TV certainly played their parts, but for me, I feel the biggest change is that I just don't care that much about anything they show on Thursday nights now. 

Survivor is still on and usually wins out as the show I actually watch on Thursday nights--after building a healthy TIVO buffer, of course--but I'd be hard pressed to tell you why.  Really?  Is that guy whose name I can't remember going to the run the ridiculously elaborate obstacle course faster than all those other people whose names I can't remember?  Oh look, a mildly attractive girl who hasn't bathed in three weeks just fell out of her top.  Hot!

ER has gone through so many changed premises, that I hardly recognize it anymore.  I don't just mean the characters; I mean the rules that originally governed the show.  Remember when it was hard to be an intern?  When Carter worked 18 hours a day and studied the other 10?*  When none of them had money for lunch, let alone rent?  Now they play in rock bands and furiously date each other?  I still like it, but it's just not the same show--and not something I need to stay up late Thursday nights watching.   It works much better on Sunday afternoons.

Then there are the few comedies still fighting for my attention.  The Office is fun, and I think Scrubs is brilliantly written, but neither of these shows demands that I watch them as soon as they air.  I look forward to watching them eventually, but if I miss an episode, I'm not going to furiously scour youtube for a bootleg.  Is that because the shows just aren't as good as Friends and Seinfeld were?  Have I reached some arbitrary point of emotional maturity where the comically retold love-lives of fictional charters--as clever and well written as they might be--just aren't that important to me?  Who are these people?  (That one's for the readers who remember VCRs, kids.) 

There are only two shows left on TV now that I am actually emotionally invested in: Heroes--safely anchoring Monday nights for NBC--and Lost--now, somewhat confusingly, playing at 10PM on Wednesday.  I look forward to both shows every week with the same fervor I once held for my Thursday nights.  Passing these shows off to the next day--let alone the weekend--seems unthinkable.  In fact, I make a point to watch both shows the minute I have enough TIVO buffer to ensure I won't be sitting through any infuriating Kia commercials wondering if Locke is really dead.

Part of it is really just how much I love the shows.  Part of it is their sheer popularity--try to get through a Thursday without hearing from someone what happened on Lost the night before.  And I am sure part of it is the excitement that we have some quality science fiction and fantasy sitting on major networks in prime time.  How ever you add it up, Monday nights are about Heroes (oh Vegas Whore Girl, you are my favorite!  What, you don’t make up cool superhero names for all of them?)  And Wednesday nights--well, perhaps I should just say Wednesdays--are all about Lost.  And, sadly, I've found the root of my day shifting problem.

For the last several weeks, I've spent all day Wednesday wondering what will happen on Lost that night.  I'll get snacks ready, dim the lights, put out the cat, and stay up till 11:25 (thank you TIVO buffer) on the edge of my seat--er, couch.  And because I go through this ritual, my body just assumes it is Thursday and tosses me into a Hooray-It's-Friday process loop--a process loop whose only exit conditions seem to involve large amounts of Scotch and sleeping late.

Yes, my television has slowly programmed me into its bitch over the entire course of my life.  I am its TIVO.  Choke on the irony, sociologists.

*If you are thinking of posting a comment correcting my math here, you are dead inside.

Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?

I stopped at the Waltham Hess last week to pick up a soda, and I overheard the following conversation between two guys behind me:

"Hey, man!"

"Hey, what's up, dude."

"Did you catch me in the paper last week?"

"Nah."

"Yeah, I was in the police blotter. Figured you would've seen it."

"Nah, didn't see anything. What happened?"

"Got into it with my girlfriend and her roommate."

"Oh man. Yeah, I know how that goes."

"I didn't hit her or nothing. She came at me with her keys, and I pushed her down."

"Psycho bitch."

"Yeah, scratched the hell out of my face. Then she calls the cops on me!"

"Of course!"

"Man, you'd think the cop would be cool or something."

"Nope."

"Yeah, total asshole. I was like, 'Dude, look at my face!' But she started all that crying shit, and
I was done."

"They take the chick's side every time."

"Yeah, and I'd had a couple that night too, so I let him have it."

"Oh yeah?"

"I was all, 'Give me your badge number! I'm going to have your job!'"

"Whoa, really?"

"Yeah, I'd love to have the security tapes of me in that cell, man. Classic stuff. I'd make a fortune."

At this point, I got my change, took my soda, and slipped out. I only wish I'd had a camera phone on me--well that and the guts to actually snap a quick shot of a guy who views getting tossed in the back of a police car for beating up his girlfriend as a minor inconvenience on par with getting his phone shut off.

Walking Back to Reno

I feel I should make two disclaimers for this story. First--as fellow blogger Wil Wheaton discovered this summer--to those readers not interested in poker, this might come off as a bit boring. I am the furthest thing from a poker expert, so I don’t think I’ll be using too many poker buzz words, but still, if you find the poker details dull, feel free to skip this one. On the other hand, if you stick through it you might just catch a bit of the poker bug yourself (as I did through Wil’s segment last summer). In that case, give me a call and I’ll meet you over at PokerStars.net.

Secondly, to those who are well-versed in poker, this story will undoubtedly come off as infuriating. As I said, I am pretty much a "newb" when it comes to poker, and while my wife and I are tearing it up in the low limit rooms on PokerStars, we have no business at a real table just yet. If you continue reading, you may lose all respect for me. You have been warned.

That being said, I wanted to include this story in the my Vegas series because I am so excited to actually have a poker story now. And to my thinking, the fact that it's not a particularly flattering poker story just makes it all the more endearing. It feels like some sort of right of passage, and while Kim and I both lost about $45 for the day, it was money well spent since we walked out of the casino with this story.

It all started on our second afternoon in Vegas, when we decided to spend the remaining daylight hours doing a little gambling before hitting the strip that night. Taking a friend's advice we hopped a cab down to "Old Vegas" (downtown, I guess, if you are not a tourist) and hit up one of the--shall we say--less flashy casinos. After warming up with some $5 blackjack--I won $25 and Kim lost $10--we were ready for Freddy, as they say, and headed over to the Golden Nugget.

I was hoping to find a $0.50/$1 table for some limit hold em, but the best we could find was a $2/$4 table. That seemed a bit steep--especially since we were sure we'd be leaving all our chips behind by the day's end--but I emptied my wallet ($90) and Kim and I hit the table with two stacks of chips. It was a rough start. Between the two of us, Kim and I tried to work together to at least not look like complete morons. We were almost successful. Poker is a lot easier when the friendly computer prompts you when and how to bet, but after a couple nerve racking hands--with both of us folding before the flop--we sort of got the hang of it.

Unfortunately, we were the small stacks at the table right from the start. Despite the advice of the friendly pit boss who cashed us in, $45 was not nearly enough for a $2/$4 game. Everyone else at the table had at least $200 in chips in front of them. That put us at a severe disadvantage from the very first hand. Even worse, we seemed to be the only beginners at the table. The woman next to Kim sported a pair of headphones (never a good sign), and the three players at the far end of the table were locals and spent their time in between hands complaining about all the tourists in the strip casinos. We might as well have been sitting at a table of pros. No doubt about it, Kim and I were the fish.

We hung in for the first several hands. I played ultra-conservative, trying my best not to show my terror on the few hands I went in on to at least see the flop. Kim was a little more daring, but lost half her chips pretty quickly banking on a couple low pair hands and chasing a straight. Looking over at Kim's dwindling stack, I started to realize how limited our time might be here. We needed to make something happen, or we were heading back to the buffet quick. Just when things look desperate, though, I caught a break.

The dealer tossed me AQo (an ace and a queen of different suits). This was a hand worth playing. Kim checked to me, and I bet $2. The table called down the line until one older woman at the end of the table--one of the locals--raised me. I fought to maintain a poker face, but I doubt it fooled anyone. A few others folded, including Kim, and a few called as the raise came around to me. I thought about it for a few seconds, trying to remember all of the advice web pages I'd read. Then, trusting my gut, I called. I was in for $4.

The flop came out: 7QQ (a seven and two queens). Three queens! I had three of a kind! My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I saw the cards turn over, but I struggled and quickly regained my composure. Bluffing was clearly out, but it hardly mattered. This was my hand. I bet right away, and again the table called down the line, right up to that same woman. Again she raised me.

Fool, I thought. She was playing right into my hands. Couldn't she see I had the nuts? I re-raised, and the table folded down the line--right to her. She raised me again. Everyone folded right back to me. It was just her and I, now. Without even a thought, I called. I was in for $10 now, but this was my hand.

The turn and the river came out, but they didn't help. I forget the cards, but I had the presence of mind to make sure they didn't give the possibility for a straight or a flush. On both the turn and the river we bet and raised to the max. My heart was pounding. Why was she still in it? What did she have? The other queen? Maybe, but I had an ace. I'd still have the better hand. She was over playing her hand, I decided as I called on the river for the final time. I had her right where I wanted her. It was time for the showdown.

I winced as I saw her cards: pocket sevens. She had a full house, and I was done. My heart sank as the dealer pushed the chip pile to her end of the table, and with my excitement drained, I saw how badly I had overplayed my hand. It was a mistake I would never have made at home. Now even shorter of a stack, I resolved to be more careful, but just two hands later, I got another chance to play.

The dealer tossed me 87s this time (an eight and a seven of the same suit, diamonds in this case). Not a great hand, but I knew I needed to make something happen here. I had a chance at a straight and a flush if I hit the flop, and with my chips dwindling it might have been one of the last chances I got.

I made it to the flop only having to call one bet (in for $2), and as the dealer drew the cards I hoped for a break. I got it. The flop came out 287 (a two, an eight, and a seven), and I had two pair. I bet, and the table folded down the line, right down to my nemesis, the older local woman at the end. She raised.

The rest of the table folded back to me. I wasn't ready to go head to head with her again after such a bad beat, especially not with such a meager had. I picked up my cards to fold, but hesitated for a second as I felt Kim's eyes on me. Kim typically plays a lot looser than I do--and she usually wins more because of it. In that moment, I realized that if Kim were playing my hand she'd call. Trusting her gut, I put down my cards and tossed in two more chips. It was me and local woman again, round two.

The turn came out--I have no idea what it was. All I know is it didn't help me. I kept my eyes on the felt, and tossed in four chips. She called, but didn't raise. Intriguing. The river came out, and again I don't remember the card. It didn't help my hand, though, and so I was there with a pair of eights and a pair of sevens. Sure I was about to lose again, I tossed in four chips.

I felt my heart pounding as the entire table turned to see what she would do. It felt like she was thinking it over for twenty minutes (in reality it was probably only 10 seconds). And then, just like that, she tossed in her cards. I had won the hand, no contest. It took all my effort not too let out a squeal of glee as the dealer pushed the chip pile over to me. With shaking hands, I struggled to stack them before the next hand came out, trying to get a sense of how much I now had in my stack. Even as I heard Kenny Rogers in my head scolding me not to count my money while I was sitting at the table, I was able to figure that my win brought me almost back to even. Things were looking up.

Now I’d love to write that Kim and I took that win, left the table with most of our money, and went out to enjoy our night like winners. But, that’s not quite what happened. Fueled by our excitement, we played far looser than we should have, and our chip stacks steadily shortened. Before I knew it I was back down to less than half what I started with, and Kim was getting close to zero. Excitement or no, our time was just about up. That’s when it happened. The dealer tossed me the Walking Back to Reno hand.

I should have walked away. I should have just folded and went to cash in the twenty or so dollars in chips I had left. But they don’t call it the Walking Back to Reno hand for nothing. Looking at my pocket king and ace I believed. This was it. This was my hand. I was going to double up and be right back in the game. Take that headphones girl!

I bet and raised before the flop, trying to scare everyone off. They weren’t exactly terrified. Most of the table was in for $4 by the time the flop came out, and that’s when the wheels fell off my doomed trolly. The dealer put a pair of jacks and a nine down on the board. I knew it was over. I needed a queen and a ten on the turn and river to pull my straight (a less than one in twenty shot) or sudden flurry of aces or kings to at least give me something to work with--though with two jacks on the board it was almost a guarantee that someone had three of a kind.

“Know when to hold em, and know when to fold em!” Kenny screamed in my head. But the gambler wasn’t sitting there in that seat. He hadn’t just tried to play like a big man and scare everyone off by foolishly over betting. I felt like my very manhood was at stake. When the bet came around to me-though I had no hope of winning the hand--I raised.

No one was fooled. Everyone called and stayed in to the end. Needless to say, the turn and the river were not the queen and ten I was hoping for, and by the last round of betting I had nothing. I bet anyway, like the fish I was. My pride just wouldn’t let me fold under their smug, condescending stares.

I didn’t even look to see what the winning hand was at the showdown. I just knew it wasn’t mine. Kim and I picked up our remaining chips (somewhere in the four dollar range) and slunk away to cash in. The reality of my last hand--the Walking Back to Reno--made us laugh out loud as we searched the casino floor for an ATM machine. I didn’t have enough cash left for the cab ride back to our hotel, and we were almost literally walking back to the MGM.

Still, though our first poker outing ended on a foolish note, I was smiling as we left the casino. We’d had fun, earned a couple stories, and I’d even taken one from the pros--all for about the price of a couple rounds (hey, Scotch and top shelf vodka is expensive). Looking at it that way, I’d say we came out ahead.