Ever Have One of Those Stretches Where Everything Breaks Down?

Poker content somewhere in here... promise!

Wheee, what a fun couple of months it's been... talk about in one pocket and out the other. The litany of repairs needed in the last two months or so includes:

Car (twice), including complete new brakes
Refrigerator
Air conditioner
Bicycle
Laptop
Television

The television went a few days ago and was perhaps the most irritating, since it's less than a year old. Granted, it was a cheap junkbox from WalFart, but my last cheap junkbox from Best Buy --- paid for winnings from a small poker tourney, incidentally --- lasted nine years.

So, since I had a couple of off days, I used them to flee to northern Wisconsin to buy a nice, slightly-used TV from my sister and her husband. I stayed there a couple of days, sneaking in one round of beautiful fall-day golf (two birdies!) and a trip over to Lac du Flambeau for what was supposed to be their weekly $55 freezeout. On the way back from the golf at St. Germain (which is absolutely one of the most incredible, inexpensive, "municipal" golf courses one can play), I see a couple of wild turkeys on the side of the road. I am probably the only blogger who has ever hit a wild turkey while driving, as a few years ago one flew right out of the woods a hundred miles further south... and right into my windshield. Yes, dear readers, I have indeed biffed a wild turkey.

I've also hit three deer with cars, too; two were just little bumps but I once totaled a small Capri after hitting a six-point buck north of Stevens Point. I almost hit a deer up in Northern Wisconsin on this trip, as well. In October, the bucks are thinking about does and not much else, the does are thinking about the bucks, and between the two, the roads are hazardous.

But back to the casino and my hoped-for poker fun.

Bad beat #1: Unannounced, the casino decided to cancel the week's tourney to set up the room in advance for part of their festivities for some MMA fighter the casino is sponsoring and promoting. Meh. At least the prime beef at the buffet was good.

Bad beat #2: I get talked into dropping $100 at the $1/2 table, and the two obvious fish at my table go busto before I can access their funds, and they're replaced by a well-known semi-pro from the area and (immediately to my left), a maniac. The maniac goes busto but not before helping me go busto on my own short buy-in in the process. Just one of those nights, I guess.

On the evening I drive back down with the new TV, I arrive back in Illinois just in time to join a local private-game tourney. I hang around for a while but lose a race mid-tourney once the blinds force the action. Then I drop another $40 in the after-tourney cash game. Definitely not a good stretch for poker. The TV was so heavy, too, it actually cut into the leather of the back seats of my car. But it's a nice replacement TV, and the car is old and in the process of being driven into the ground anyway, so that's not an issue.

And I didn't hit that deer, after all. So the rest I can live with.