Well this post is only about 3 days overdue. But work and life have been so psychotic that this is the first that I've had the chance to. And so, without further ado...my awesome weekend!

On Friday our friend Raandi from ski patrol babysat for us so that Andrea, Josh, Julie, and I could go out to a movie. To let you know just how awesome this was, on Wednesday we were trying without success to find a babysitter and Raandi overheard us and immediately volunteered to do it. We had her come over a few hours early so that we could show her around Renee's room before she went to sleep so she could find things if needed. Since we had her over so early I cooked dinner for everyone. After, Raandi insisted on helping clean up and did at least half of the dishes. We then went out to see Pirates of the Caribean 2 at 9:30, and had no idea that the movie was so long that we wouldn't get home until 12:30. We get back, Raandi says Renee stayed asleep the whole time, and then flat out refused any thought of payment for letting us go out to see our first movie in a year. That was just such a great night, and we owe her big for it.

On Saturday, I got up early and headed out to play paintball at Apocalypse Paintball. We had 18 people total playing in a private group, and wow was that fun. We played on most of their fields, but spent the most time on their new castle field, which was just really awesome. Four levels, four secret doors through the walls, inside and outside of the castle access, there are just tons of possibilities for that field. Everyone had a blast, and that was one of the really cool parts. I invited a bunch of friends, and said to invite their friends as well. In the final group, I only knew half of the people there, and that was more than most other people knew since there were work, ski patrol, and poker friends invited, and most of them brought friends. Everyone got along and at the end were talking about how much they'd like to get this group together again sometime to play more paintball. And then after we were done we wandered up to the Moosejaw Brew Pub near the Dells for some food and beverages, and all the groups sat mixed up with everyone chatting around everywhere having a good time relaxing and laughing about various kills from the games. Luckily for everyone at the bar, when our group came in they decided to open up the top floor and sat us up there first, so we didn't completely stink the whole place out. 8-)

Sunday was Badger Poker finals. 184 people showed up at 2:00 to play, and this time instead of a trip to Vegas for the winner, Scott was paying out cash to the final table, $2006 total. To play in this series finals, you just needed at least 1 point from the tournaments leading up to it (20th place each night gets 1 point, first gets 20, you can figure out the rest). However many points you got was how many thousand chips you got. For example I had 79 points, so I started with 79,000 in chips. Here are some numbers from the event: 184 people started, 1 person started with 3,000 and 2 people started with 4,000. Only 1 person in the top 60 did not show up for the finals. Average amount of starting chips for the top ten players was 102,400. Highest being Fred with 198,000, and lowest, Bullis with 40,000. Total chips in play = 10,575,000. Avg. starting stack was 57,500. 52,875 big blinds at start of tourney. The tournament lasted 10.5 hours to be exact. (that's all quoted from Scott on the bptalk forums). I was up and down and all over the place that night. I hit some crazy suckouts to beat some people that had me just dominated, and I rarely got sucked out on. When the luck hits you like that, it's hard to do poorly. It also helped that I was making some great reads and managed to lay down some great hands when I figured out that they were beat and save myself a ton of chips. Long story short (too late, I know) just over 10 hours after the tournament started I finally busted out when my 77 didn't suck out on 99. I finished in fifth place and cashed for $150. First got $706 I believe, second was in the mid 300's, and the rest were clustered around me. Oh, and the blinds when I was eliminated were 100,000/200,000 with a 10,000 ante. Just a slight jump up from the 100/200 and no ante that you start with lol.

So that was my weekend. One of the best that I've had in ages. But now I'm back in the real world of crazy work weeks and ski patrol meetings and classes. Oh, well...at least next weekend is close! 8-)

On Monday morning, the ski patrol family suffered a great loss. Steve Bode, one of Cascade's candidates from last year was killed. He primarily attended Cascade's OEC class, but he came down to mine on several occasions, and so we all knew him. He was a really good person, very enthusiastic, always laughing and having a good time, and just quite obviously from the beginning a great fit with ski patrol. He had just completed the first step to being a ski patrol instructor, and was really excited to be able to help out future candidates. Keep Steve and his family in your prayers. Below is what appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about it:

A Sun Prairie man changing a tire on the side of Interstate 94 in the Oconomowoc area was killed about 9 a.m. when a pickup truck veered off the road and struck him, Waukesha Sheriff's Detective Steve Pederson said. Both eastbound lanes of I-94 in the Town of Summit remain closed while the accident is reconstructed, he said. Traffic is being diverted off on Highway F in Jefferson County. The man, 49, died at the scene, Pederson said. His name is not being released pending notification of relatives. The man's wife, 48, was sitting in the front passenger seat when the truck hit their family car and the couple's son, 10, was standing off the shoulder and in the weeds when the crash occurred, Pederson said. The woman and the driver of the pickup truck were taken to Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital. The pickup truck driver, 28, is also from the Madison area. The boy was not injured.

We had a pretty relaxing weekend. Got to hit Farmer's Market with Julie's sister Leslie and her husband Jonathan on Saturday which was very fun! They drove up from Chicago area just for that, so I hope they had a great time for all the driving involved! Renee certainly enjoyed seeing Aunt Leslie again. Renee also got some more attention on Sunday when we took her in to get her first set of nice pictures taken. Officially we're calling them her 6 month pictures even though she's closer to 7 months than 6. For as uncooperative as she was, they came out pretty darn well. We got a ton of them, since they had a really nice package deal going, so we'll be giving pictures of her to any friends that may want some.

Sunday night was the highlight of the weekend, when we went to Adam and Amy's house for a game of poker that they put together kinda last second. They had a very good turnout for it though, as 12 people total were playing, so we started with 2 tables of 6. I have to say, I played about the best that I have for months that night. Until we went into the final 6 and I had a monster chip lead, and then proceeded to lose every hand. Every race went to the other person, I had AA cracked by A9, you name it, it went wrong. I was down to two times the big blind left and 4 people in total...and then things turned around again. I suddenly won every race and in two hands where I was dominated (shared the top card, but their kicker was better), I hit my 3 outer both times. Reloaded with chips, I was able to actually play again instead of all in or fold. My reads were on, and a short time later I was heads up, and then 5-10 minutes later it was all over when I called an all in with Q2 mostly on pot odds (he could only just over double the blinds), and on the fact that I knew this guy was extremely aggressive and could push with anything. Well, I was right on both counts. He was hoping to steal with 34 offsuit. Queen high held up, and four hours after we started (and without breaks might I add) it was over and I had taken it all down. That was quite a good feeling after such a rollercoaster of cards! To make it even better, Renee played nice for us and slept in her pack and play in their nursery, and then we took her home and she went right to bed and slept the rest of the night too. Who knows, we might be able to have a life again! woot! 8-)

Last thought...PAINTBALL! I emailed everyone that I could think of last week about this, but if I forgot to put you on the list, or if you haven't replied yet, I need to know who's in by this Friday (8/11), so I can call Apocalypse on Saturday and make the reservation. Just as a reminder, we'll be going up on Saturday 8/26, and we do have enough right now for a private group, 11 have confirmed. But I'd love to make it bigger, so let me know asap if you can go! I want to give Apocalypse as accurate a count as possible so they have enough rentals held aside for us to use. Should be an awesome time! Email me for more info or to confirm coming.