Birthday Goodness

So I asked for a Blizzard on my birthday. I meant the kind from Dairy Queen but nature gave me the all natural kind. Aside from a huge freak snow storm the day before my special day...it was a great birthday.

I like things laid back and quiet. I played in a poker game Friday night and won some money and found a great brand of cigars. And that was a great weekend for me!! I had lunch with friends on Saturday and lunch out at Red Lobster with my Family on Sunday (When other people pay for lunch you have to eat lobster on your birthday!!!). Saturday night I went to a friends place and Karokeed most of the night away.

No loud parties, no large groups of people. Just me hanging out on my special day. I like it that way!!

Poker

I will never be in the hole hundreds, thousands, or millions of dollars over this game. I don't play cash games. I play tournaments. With a tournament you put in $25 - $40 and play cards for a few hours. For about the same amount of money most people easily pay for dinner & movie or a pair of jeans I can enter a poker game with the potential to will my money back and make a lot more. I keep kicking around the idea of being in the world series of poker. I kick it around because I do have a dream about sitting at that final table but who knows what the future holds. Maybe yes, maybe not right now, maybe no, maybe never?

Last Saturday night I played for a spot in the Larry Moore Poker Tournament. It was my second year in a row playing & making it into the finals of this tournament. I have this habit of getting short stacked and playing well from a low/difficult position. I almost always mount a come back and I usually win money. All it takes is patience, timing, and lots of letting go of potential opportunities for ones that I know will pay out. If how I play poker is any indication of how my life is unfolding then I will be grossly successful in the coming years. Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe never...but I like to think so.

Destiny

The Ironic thing about the night I stopped off to check up on a vehicle that crashed into a light pole was I had just finished watching a movie with destiny as one of the major themes. It isn’t too surprising that from time to time to find me wondering about destiny and also going out of my way to help people. What is crazy is you never see these events coming, you don’t know when they will happen and when they do you always get to choose how you respond. So did I choose to help her or was I destined to do so because I’m a compassionate person & don’t mind going out of my way to help people.

It is funny how many thoughts race through your mind when you pass by a crashed vehicle at night. Are there people in the vehicle? Did it just happen? Has the police been called? Is anyone hurt? The answers to the questions don’t even matter because I know I’m going to pull over to offer assistance. The only real question is where to park my car?

By the time I have walked up on the mini van two trucks have pulled over blocking the lane nearest the mini van. The couples are nice & concerned but not near the mini van so I’m wondering what awaits us in the van? Bloody gore, a belligerent drunk, people that are okay but in shock? It doesn’t take more than a minute of talking to the driver to realize she extremely drunk with three kids in the car. Thank god no one was seriously hurt and she wasn’t trying to leave the vehicle. But it was sad that she refused an ambulance. (It wasn’t until I was driving home I realized she may have taken the kids, maybe there was a divorce and this would look bad for her case, maybe she had an outstanding warrant.)

I waited there with two couples talking with the 911 operator and talking with the kids. I reassured them it would be okay and looked at one of the kid’s ankle as it was sprained. I remember taking the initiative to call 911, approach the vehicle, and talk with everyone inside. I didn’t wait for permission, I didn’t wait until I felt comfortable, I didn’t wait until someone asked for help (Years ago I may have waited for all those reasons). I remember how helping them felt right on so many levels in ways I can’t explain. It was almost a more holy & uplifting experience then being in a church service. Maybe I was just in the right place at the right time for God to use me. Maybe it’s a part of who I am and I happened to come across people who needed help. Maybe I’ll never and maybe it isn’t important. Maybe it was my destiny.

Slumdog Millionaire - Love story & more

Sometimes it takes me a few times watching a movie to catch everything that goes on in the movie. I always notice that it never feels like how it feels the first time, maybe that is the newness of the movie wearing off as I know what to expect the second time I watch it. Slumdog Millionaire is different in that it felt the same. The story changes as far as what I look at and what jumps out at me but not the feeling of the film.

The film exudes many things that resonate with me. The invincibility of youth, of being an underdog, the cruelty of life, the bonds of family surviving through any struggle, the sense of urgency & passion in chasing dreams & adventures, the power of belief in self, life, even in the idea of destiny. The feeling that this film seems to capture most is love. How wild and reckless the pursuit of love can be and how fulfilling it is to find love and it means more then all the money in the world.

It was so easy to believe in love as a child. I remember thinking there was someone out there for me. Someone for me who I would be crazy about and want to spend almost every waking hour with them or pursuing them every waking hour. I don’t know if I can count all the women I have wanted to spend time with over the years (Good grief I am fickle). I didn’t always date but I was friends with many women that I would have given anything and everything to end up married to them and live happily ever after.

A certain amout of what I have described in the last few paragraphs could be easily dismissed as unrealistic romantic mumbo - jumbo. There is way too much of that going around these days. I am talking about unhealthy expections or unrealistic hopes from a person or a relationship. I am talking about more then the feeling. I am trying to get at the connection, the unique bond we share with one person who gets us & accepts us like no one else can. Despite all our hang ups and imperfections another person would find us acceptable enough to share live with us.

I loved this movie for how it took something that is complicated and made it so simple and child like. Granted the movie was a romance story without alot of the ugly parts of real life coming out it was a production I did enjoy & highly recommend this movie. Movies like this make you believe that love is the coolest thing out there worth believing in and living one's life pursuing.