The Pokerstars Monkey Competition

Ok here it is...

Back in January I logged in to play a little poker on Pokerstars.com. Every time you log in there is a quick pop-up letting you know what's new on the site. Well there was a pop-up talking about a promotion that stars was running that involved purchasing a stuffed monkey for 1,000 FPPs. (For those that don't know. These are Frequent Player Point not unlike VIP clubs at casinos. Points are earned for certain amounts of gameplay which in turn can be turned in for merchandise. To this day I have bought 2 Ipods, 13 Poker books, a Bose Sound Dock, Poker Chips, and a $1,000 Cannon Digital Rebel EOS camera.)

This promotion was that if you bought one of these 1,000 pt monkeys you were to go out across the world and take pictures with it. The most creative photo would win 100,000 FPPs. 50K to second and 25K to third. I had been saving up points for nearly 7 months and was up to 96,000 FPPs. My goal was eventually to get the LG 50" Plasma TV for 150,000. I was getting very close when this promotion came up.

I ordered the monkey and received it in late January. As most of you know I was still not flying due to my snowboarding accident at Big Bear the day after Christmas. The deadline for the photo competition was March 1st so I was running out of time. Fortunately I flew the third week of Feb and took the stuffed Monkey along for a ride with me. I took a couple pictures with the damn thing and then took one last one on the deck outside the jet so they knew it was me that took them.

I honestly forgot about it but saw that they were announcing the winners shortly after I got back from my marathon trip to Key West. Here was how I found out initially.

http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/store/promotions/monkey/



Absolutely ridiculous that I won after 4,800 entries from all over the world. So... now I had almost 200,000 points in my account and it was time to get a badass TV. Well I looked into the TV that was being offered for 150,000 points. Turns out that was a 2007 TV from LG and was only a $1,700 Plasma. I remember seeing that there was a way to get certificates and looked into it. There were $1,000 certificates available for 62,500 FPPs a piece so in the end I got three of them with my points and bought a Samsung 63" Plasma. It just came out on the 1st of June and is being delivered to my pad in DC. Yes I will have to write more on that soon. Very excited to say the least on that topic.

Well to wrap this up.... I was contacted by someone from Pokerstars and he wanted to interview me for an article on the Pokerstars website. I was really happy with how it turned out. Check it out.

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/2009/maverick-monkey-nets-pilot-100000-fpps-040010.html

Finally getting back...

Well I finally made it back to Key West on the first of April. We ended up being drunk late into the second of April as it turns out. Turns out the entire month of April was much of the same once the entire squadron made it down to the keys. We were scheduled to complete 144 sorties over the following 18 days but we only ended up getting about 70 max I think. I was only scheduled to fly like two times but ended up getting to fly six times. All six times I took a young wingman up to West Palm beach down through Miami where we jumped on the IR 053. The 053 is a low level route where we get to drop down to 500 feet and 500 mph and fly the length of the Florida Keys. Each and every time it got more and more fun as we got to buzz over fleets of fishing boats. I have always wondered what it looks like from their perspective. I imagine most of them are used to it and it is no longer cool to them. Here is a look at the shallow, clear water of the keys from above.



Most of the jets ended up leaving around the 22nd of April except for 2 that were having major maintenance done on them. I was picked to stay behind and bring one of them back as well as our XO, Maj Tre "Cheez" DelPizzo. At this point the last thing I needed was another week down there but I knew there would be a couple more fun times to be had. I really wish I was able to recap some of the more fun moments from the trip but those who know me know that I black out after about 3 drinks. Key West was no different. This picture defined our trip to Key West that is for sure!




Well it was finally time to get out of FL. One of jets were ready to be flown to make sure it was good to fly back to AZ. I took the jet up to Tampa and across to Miami and back to Key West and it performed as planned. Cheez took the other jet up and it was ready to take back as well. We left on the 29th after a solid 35 days in Key West and I could feel my liver rejoicing as I left the ground. I think my Iphone was as well after I lost the first one on April 5th and had to fork over another $500 for a new one. (Thank God ITunes saves all of your contacts!) We flew one leg and decided to stop in Pensacola for the night. When I was a student in flight school there was a place called The Fish House downtown that was an ok place for dinner but not much nightlife. Turns out this is now an amazing place. Wednesday night at The Fish House will be a night I hope to experience many more times.

We left the next morning and planned to make a stop in Midland, TX for gas and lunch and then we would finish the trip to Yuma. After a quick trip to TX we ate some lunch and were getting ready to make the final leg. About 8 minutes after takeoff I realized I proved once again I was an absolute idiot! I left my Iphone (Less than 25 days old) on the fuel tank of the jet when I took off. Though this was not the first time I had lost a phone (obviously) it was the first time I had lost a phone completely sober. Turns out I dont need a drop of alcohol in my system to be a complete moron. My phone was found 4 days later. At least half of the screen was on the runways anyways. Apple will officially never go out of business as long as I own an Iphone.

Well we made it back to Yuma at last and I couldn't wait to finally sleep in my own bed. I got home, took a shower, and laid down on the couch to catch up on TV. WAIT.... remember I am a complete moron. I never paid my cable bill while I was in Key West so my cable was turned off. Yes this means internet as well! So here I am laying on my couch with NO phone, NO cable, NO internet... I thought to myself this is a good chance to get caught up on my prereq reading for Expeditionary Warfare School. I grabbed the book Landscape Turned Red about the Battle of Antietam and turned to page I. Wait a second no page one? I haven't read a book in like... maybe 3rd grade. What is with page I, II, III... to damn XIVX or some shit??? Apparently at some point since gradeschool it became important to write a 600 page preface to the book thanking everyone from your Grandma to your pet toad. Needless to say I never even made it to the "actual" page 1. I only made it to like XII before I passed out on the couch. I woke up about 9 hours later at 4am and was able to get 30 min of sleep in my bed before going to the rifle range. Yes I am a Marine Captain going back to the rifle range so I can get one last Expert Rifle Award for my uniform. I would have to wait until Friday night before I would get to sleep in my bed finally.

I spent the next week of work with 3am alarm clocks so that I could be at the armory by 4am everyday to draw my weapon. The idea of trying for a 4th Expert Award seemed worse and worse everyday. At least now I had yet another Iphone and cable coming once again. Amazing how relaxing that weekend was though without any modern technology whatsoever except for running with my IPod. It was a ridiculously long week but worth it in the end as I secured my final Expert Rifleman award of my career.


On May 6th I received an email from Pokerstars that I will talk about in my next blog. This one has been ridiculous enough as it is. I guess that happens when you wait two months in between posts.

Now I am sitting in Raleigh visiting two old roomies from college, Greg and Lindsay. Tomorrow I will be heading up to DC to start the search for a place to stay for the next year while I attend school in Quantico and party it up at Jon Schaafsma's wedding in VA on Saturday. I only have about 3 more weeks left in Yuma when I get back and prob about 1 or 2 more flights left as well. It has been a great time but I am SOOOO ready to get out of Yuma.

Much overdue!

Ok a new blog is coming very soon. I am back from my month long booze coma in Key West and have a lot going on these days. More soon....

Spring Break Retirement Party

Ok, am I officially too freaking old for Spring Break? Nate Lie you are most certainly right "As I get older..." Lake Havasu was an absolute blast that I will never forget. Details will be saved for drunken nights with my friends but it was pretty crazy. Four days there had my liver screaming at me to stop.

Did I listen....

Of Course not. It got back to Yuma at 7pm Sunday night with my alarm set at 4am for a 6am flight to Key West. This time for another 4 days. Hands down one of my favorite cities on the face of the earth. This was like my 6th time back and one of the best for sure. Couldn't have been a better time to be down there either as it was St Patty's Day on the second day in town. Irish Kevin's and Finnigan's Wake were rockin a little harder than usual. Lots of Green and Lots of hours of blackout. It is a shame I have to go back for 26 days starting on April 1st. (My Liver will pray I am saying April fools that day as I board my flight)

To keep this short.... I am absolutely NOT too old for Spring Break just too old to start drinking from noon to 3am for 6 of 7 consecutive days. jesus

Cant wait to tell you all about it sometime... out

Lake Havasu

Am I too old for Spring Break? I will find out this weekend!

So much for that....

Well that 5-0 streak came to a crashing halt tonight when I dropped $1,500 in less than 3 hours at the casino. A mix of bad plays and unlucky scenarios meant time for me to get the hell out of there before it became worse... A minor setback but not too bad at all.

Been a while...

It has been nearly two damn months since my last entry. A lot has certainly happened since then though. Unfortunately there haven't been any crazy trips to Las Vegas but I am working on that. Things didn't go to well at Viejas back in January. I played great poker in the tourney but things just didn't go my way. All I can ask is that I play my best game and let the cards falls how they may. Fortunately I was able to clean up in the cash games that followed rather nicely. After gas, food, hotel, and two full days of poker (including a $1,050 buy-in), I left San Diego down about $300. Very successful trip believe it or not.

My life in Yuma has changed quite a bit lately as well. A couple months ago I found out I was selected to attend Expeditionary Warfare School in DC this summer. I have been looking for a place to live so if anyone has friends in DC looking for roommates hook a brother up. It is going to be an amazing break from everyday squadron life and give me a chance to think about what path I want to take with my career. I really have two options. 1. Come back to the fleet in the spring of 2010 for another 3 years. 2. I could go to Meridian, MS as a flight instructor for 3 years and basically have a jet at my disposal every weekend I want to use one. We shall see on that one. Just looking forward to getting to the East Coast for a little while.

Another reason I am ready to get away from Yuma is that some of my best friends, Greg and Suzanne York, have left Yuma and now live in Corpus Christi, TX where Greg is now a flight instructor. Yuma just isn't the same without them.

As of about two weeks ago I was able to get back in the cockpit and have been loving it ever since. I took Brian "Buck/Oprah" Mahoney on the road to Phoenix. We did some training flights that day but later landed at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport. Rob Bowen, the catch from the Oakland A's, came out to meet us and we took some pictures with the jet. He is a great freaking guy. We went out and partied all night long which made for a very rough Saturday of flying but Buck and I made it through. Rob picked us up once we landed back in Phoenix that night and treated us to an absolutely amazing steak dinner in Scottsdale at a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Highly recommend it for anyone who has never eaten there. Good luck to Rob as spring training gets going and thanks for the Jersey brother!



I came back and flew 4 of the 5 days the next week and am finally very comfortable being back in the cockpit. We will continue to fly quite a bit as we prepare for our Air-to-Air combat training detachment to Key West for the month of April. Even sooner than that, a couple of us are looking forward to partying it up on Lake Havasu for spring break in two weeks. I think Eddy is going to join us so it is going to be a great time. It's crazy to think about Spring Break since the good ol days with the boys from Miami. Panama City, Vail, and the Cruise. Great times.

As for poker, I am slowly getting back to playing after a small time off while I was getting started back in the cockpit. I have come out of the gates very strong and have put up a couple big wins. The new casino, Quechan Casino, that just opened up last month has a pretty impressive poker room. Fortunately for me, a much improved poker room doesn't mean improved players. I went by opening night and pocketed $900, went back the next day for a quick $450. Since then I have cleaned up rather nicely. Wins of $300, $1,100, and $2,500 without a losing session have made me come to love playing there as bad as the management is at times. I hope to improve on my 5-0 record there this weekend. (If I don't go to Vegas that is). Sunday I had decided to take the day off from poker so I hung out at the pool. Let me tell you that falling asleep poolside for someone as white as me was not a good thing. I have been in moderate pain since then. Better now than Lake Havasu I guess. Well I ran some errands after the pool and made it back to the house around 6pm. I couldn't resist and decided to play a tourney or two online. My play online has fluctuated madly with my account reaching $6,000 at its peak and was now back down to $1,200. Trying to stay within my means I played only two tourneys. One was a $100 ten man sit n go where the top five double there money and are done. They usually take about 30 minutes to complete one. Well I got knocked in 7th place in that one and pretty much just wanted to quit playing the other tourney I entered. It was a $27.50 buy in with 2,030 entrants. I ended up doubling up early and decided to give it my full concentration. 6 hours later, we were down to 15 players and I was the chip leader with $966,000. I had my eye on the first place prize of $8,600 but came up short when I finished 6th for $1,932. Although it may seem like small potatoes at this point, it was a huge accomplishment seeing what it takes to outlast a huge field like that for the the first time. Chalk it up to more experience.

Viejas Poker Classic

So not a whole lot has happened over the last couple of weeks. I have been laying pretty low trying to get my knee to start the healing process. Fortunately it didn't tear all the way through. I barely avoided surgery once again! Still not sure how long I will be out of the cockpit but hopefully I will be back sometime in Feb.

I have been putting in a lot of time into tournaments lately on Pokerstars. In 2009 I have already had more success than ever before. Not money wise but my results have been absolutely stellar. I have went very very deep in about 8 tourneys. Unfortunately I haven't been able to close the deal and score the big money in some of these. I have outlasted nearly 4000 entrants the last two Sundays to finish 35th and 44th for nearly $2,600 total between the two. The total buy in the for the two was $121 so not too bad. It pain me to think that if I had won both of them there would be over $200,000 in my account. I promise it is going to happen in 2009.

Maybe even this weekend! The first ever Viejas Poker Classic is this weekend Viejas Casino outside of San Diego. It is a $1,050 dollar buy in tourney that will pay $100,000 to first place. If I can get the cards to fall my way a couple times I feel I have a very good shot at this thing. A cash and possibly even a Final Table in this event would validate how well I have been playing lately and continue to push me to improve even further.

http://viejas.com/promo/images/ViejasPokerClassic.pdf

Any day now I am expecting to get the phone call to hear that I am a new uncle! My sister is due in the next couple of weeks so it is pretty exciting for the whole family. Especially considering my parents know there are probably no kids coming from me anytime soon. (Unless one knocks on my door one of these days and calls me daddy!) I never rule anything out.

Once more chance this weekend to live up to the name of this so called blog!