2010 Recap

A couple months ago I had a chat with my elderly grandfather about what it is I actually do, with my time in general, and in poker. It was a long meandering conversation that neither of us came out of with a great understanding of what had just been talked about. 2 things that I did come away from it with were, my grandfather accepts what I do for a living(weeee), and that it is imperative for me to document my life.

He was in awe as I mentioned some of my random misadventures, and stared at me with a slight sense of regret as he grabbed my hand and urged me too write all these things down.

"When you get old, you just won't remember them"

So, figured I might as well write them here for all of the internet to see.

I started 2010 with a vengeance in the poker world. I had set out to make 150k in the calender year and I would not be denied. Swiftly making 16k in the first month and a bit, well on my way to my goal. Then Valentines hit, plans with a random girl fell through and I managed to hit my yearly goal slightly early.

This victory was followed a couple months of inactivity, all while planning a massive trip through Europe and dealing with the great bitch known as taxes ughhh.

Went to Europe, spent a lot of time in spain. Met up with great people while traveling with a friend, managed to get stranded in Madrid because a volcano decided to erupt, what an asshole. Learned the finer points of finding vegan options at restaurants, in a language I did not understand. Had the unique experience of banding together with strangers in the closest thing to a disaster I've ever been involved with. And spent some time in Grenada.

Met up with two great poker players from Germany in a small town outside of Barcelona called Peralada to donk a tournament. Whole experience was pretty neat as the tourney was in a castle, and Dr Gre and 0vashork were great guys to hang out with. Awful wing men as was shown in Barcelona, which we visited after, but solid dudes who are going to be very successful in poker.

After those adventures, met up with a good friend of mine in Oxford to party with the best and brightest on May day, sloppy. Took off from there to Ireland for a couple weeks to discuss business, poker, and different types of rain with LAPPIN. It was before the end of Lost, and as fans we concocted some of the most ingenious possible endings for the show. We came up with these multi-layered interwoven possibilities that had betrayal and deep philosophy's at their high points. Thank god lost's writers had a better vision.....

Flying home from my vacation I was surprisingly drained. But after that the concerts and party's kept on going. A ton of them held or created by my brother, one of the co-founders of www.feelsgood.ca. There was a house boat party, feelsgood folly fest, Joel Plaskett, Sunseekers Ball, Cake, Delhi to Dublin, Girl Talk, Our Lady Peace, 3sheet a million times. All the while having the pleasure of dating a really cool girl or 2 to make it just that much sweeter.

During the days in this time I was making a run at being a pro video game player. Probably the best use of my time. In all seriousness, might have wasted a couple months of prime earning years of my life, which is just a shame. So I up and quit, planned a trip around the east coast of the USA and central Canada and started to drive.

On this roadtrip I got to Boston, Hartford, New York, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Fredericton. It was an insane amount of driving, easily over 48 hours in my car when you include small side trips, but I got to spend a lot of time with some of my favorite people. Lucky enough to catch 4 nba games, nfl game of the year, the blue man group, be in a casino for the weirdest mashup of american thanksgiving and asia possible, go to quite a few kick ass restaurants, and get drunk in so many different areas.

Also, probably best of all I got to spend some time in the best store ever. Max & Lily's Closet, the most happening fine childrens consignment clothing store in all of Connecticut. I had been to West Hartford a year previously, when the store was just a dream. It had come so far in that time and was looking incredibly impressive.

All in all this trip made me realize I had been setting my goals way to low. Spent a lot of the drives reexamining exactly what I was doing, and what I wasn't doing, and had quite a few soul searching convo's with friends kind enough to put me up for a day or two. This brings me up to my stellar end of the year as I take up poker again, rededicate myself to making money and creating opportunity's for myself. Frankly the most exciting part of writing this post, is imagining how much better 2011 will be.

So thats my year, skipping a lot of small details. Happy to have it hear, hopefully it will help me remember this in my senility. Also I know the empty void of the internet appreciates having it.