Further proof that AOL is the antichrist of internet service providers.

My class is officially over. Mostly. Kinda. Sorta. From 8AM until 5PM on Saturday, I was working on setting up, running, and tearing down for the practical final exam for Outdoor Emergency Care. And I am proud to say that we were able to pass every person that tested on Saturday. Of course, we had one guy who had to test early since he was going to be in Vegas that weekeng, and he failed the test, so we might have to retest him, but otherwise, what a great feeling to get them all done. Lots of very relieved and happy candidates went out drinking and partying that night...

...and the Tyrol Basin ones then had to be at the hill and ready to go at 9AM Sunday morning! 8-) The skiing was great, even if we only had one run. I had forgotten how much it sucks breaking in new boots, but once I could feel everything again, I was having a blast. My new skis are awesome! Fast, responsive, and really easy to manage. I'm loving them.

And after skiing, we went to a friends house to watch the Packers play, and play some poker. That was a very fun night. I made a whole $4! Woohoo! And in reading ESPN's page 2 today, one writer was highly amused by the Wisconsin Tuba section dissing Randy Moss.

Who wants to go SKIING THIS SUNDAY!!! Check the webcam, we have snow! Tyrol is looking very probably to be open! And I should get my new skis back from getting the bindings mounted today. This is very welcome news to me because...

The practical final exam for the class that I run is tomorrow. I'm sure all the candidates in the class think that they've been working their butts off, but I can almost guarantee that I've worked triple what any of them have to get this menagerie organized. I have 50 evaluators, patients, and assistants to coordinate, a trailer full of equipment, hell even lunch is taking some big efforts. Oh, and I just found out last night that the two oxygen tanks that I thought were full got emptied in practice session Wednesday night, so now I have to come up with more O2 tanks in less than 22 hours from now. I love working with this class, but wow am I ready for a break!

One very nice thing is that last night I said screw everything, I'm having a night for me to relax, and went out to play some poker. Lots of good stories and bad beat stories (most having me on the giving end!) . Only one I have to mention. What are the chances of getting knocked out of the main even twice in a row to identical hands? On monday, I had an inside straight draw and then made it for a 10 high straight, only to lose to a guy holding JQ. Last night, I get a cheap look at a flop with my 6d7d, and the flop came 10d 8d 10s, so I floped an inside straight flush draw. Lots of betting ensues, with me eventually going all in when I made the straight with a 9h on the river...only to lose to a guy with JQ. I nearly flipped out when I saw the red 9, and it was a bit of a letdown to then realize it was a heart and not a diamond, but it still felt good, right up until we flipped the cards over. Oh, well. At least I made $30 at a $5 buy in side game. Making money at a free event always makes me feel better 8-)

I heard a rumor earlier in the week that Badger Poker might have a high profile visitor last night. So after taking Julie out to dinner she let me go out to play for a while and see who shows up, as long as I promised to help her put her new shelving unit together when I got home. So I went out, played a few side games. Had a bunch of fun with it and broke even, so life is good there. I heard rumors that you shouldn't leave before 10:30, so I called Julie and told her as much. Well, around 11:00, I'm getting tired, and wondering about the shelf that I still have to help Julie with, when Wisconsin's own Phil Helmouth Jr. walks into our local poker game. Say what you want about him: whiner, poker brat, whatever. He's still a 9 time bracelet winner and former world champ, and that was pretty cool too meet him and get him autograph. He spent a while with us, talking about how he got started, and how much he loved seeing poker grow and leagues like ours running. Someone asked him if he had watched ESPN's tournament of champions, to which he immediately replied "What, you mean the one where I lost to a girl?" All in all a very fun and memorable night.

Unfortunately, since listening to him talk and waiting to get his autograph kept me there until 11:30 or so, I still had to help Julie build her shelf when I got home, so I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep right now. Getting started was a bit tough this morning, but one Mountain Dew Amp and 20 oz. Pepsi later, I'm at least getting a bit twitchy from caffeine type stuff, so that's a vague improvement. And now to try to function for the rest of the work day. 8-)

Last night was awesome! After work, I went out to play in the Badger Poker series and ended up playing almost 6 straight hours of poker, with just a few 5 minute breaks in it. I held the chip lead for about half of the night. I hit a huge rush early, then slumped for a while, and eventually pulled out some great plays to get the chip lead on the final table. A few hands really didn't go my way, and I did eventually get eliminated...but it was in second place! WOOT! Besides an evening of entertainment, I got a free T shirt, sweatshirt, and a $20 gift certificate to the Dry Bean. And after finishing play at almost midnight, I had to go home and try to get some sleep before my 7:00AM shift today. Yeah, that was real easy falling asleep when I was that keyed up. Oh, well. For some reason, I'm really not complaining. 8-)

This weekend was pretty fun. Julie went to spend a few days in Chicago with Andrea and Jenn. This was moderately scary...three women in Chicago fully armed with credit cards...be afraid, be very afraid. So, having full freedom to do whatever I want while the wife is gone... I went out with her brother. LOL. But we went to State Street and got in on some early Halloween fun. Got home a bit late, 'cause I'm a rebel like that, and life was good.

Saturday, since I was still a free man, I tried to go out and play disc golf with Andrea's husband Josh. The wind got a bit nasty, so we wandered back home and made some ribs and watched some movies. We had some great tasting bbq sauce that my mom gave me a while back that we used. The one problem we had found out a while ago is that it's too thin (of course, now I see on their website that they have a thicker sauce), and so we added some molasses and flour, and then some more spices to cut the sweetness of the extra molasses, and let it reduce on the burner for about and hour...and oh my my my...we had some AWESOME bbq sauce. About the only problem was that we were too impatient to cook the ribs a full four hours, and so we sauced them after 2.25 hours, and then pulled them out to eat at the 3 hour mark. Still fall off the bone amazing tasting goods. But I can't help wonder what they would have been like with a full four hours...mmmm. Oh yes, and since the women were gone, we got to entertain ourselves any way we wanted, which meant renting The Punisher and Badder Santa. The Punisher was awesome. Badder Santa...was just weird. It was like a train wreck. I wasn't especially enjoying it, but I also couldn't turn it off or look away.

Sunday was a nice sleep in with an extra hour of sleep day, followed by a great Packer game, and then out to Tyrol to work the cleanup part of the ski swap out there. I did some incomplete and unofficial counting of money, and with what I counted, which was missing 2 vendor's worth of sales, it looks like we still had a record year! That's really awesome, since this was the primary source of all of our funding for the year!

All in all, life is good. And now back to work... 8-)