+Back from Aruba!
I just got back from my yearly trip to Aruba to play in the UB.com Aruba Poker Classic. This year the event was bigger than ever with nearly 550 entrants. To give you an idea of how kick ass that is, the WPT ran an event the week before in Turks and Caicos and only got a little over 100 people in it. It is always nice to kick the WPT’s ass! Makes the week a little sweeter 
So, this year I only brought Nelly and Lucy with me because Maud and Leo are just at the point in school now where I can’t really justify taking them out for over a week at the beginning of the school year. Man, Leo in particular was pretty pissed about that. He whined and complained and I had to give him a big talking to about the fact that he had been to Aruba 4 times and he should be grateful for what he has instead of complaining about missing his 5th chance. The last thing I want is to raise children with a sense of entitlement and I told him that he should be grateful that he is in the kind of circumstances where a discussion about his disappointment about not going to Aruba even made sense. Mind you, if he had just said a little something about it I would not have gotten on his case as I can understand his disappointment. It was that I heard about it like every night for a week. My kids are not that spoiled! Please believe me.
Anyway, I went and got a spray tan before going down there this year since I am so ghastly pale. I think I was the only person there who got LESS tan during than week as my spray tan wore off. In fact, I mosty just turned from tanned to red from sunburn!
I made sure I got a lot of pool and ocean time with Joe and the kids by getting knocked out the first day. I have become very good at that down there. Now I swear I am not trying to get knocked out. I really would like to have a good result one of these years. It is more that I don’t ever feel motivated down there. I know that if I do well I will lose a day outside with my kids and so I don’t think through as well. What I realized this year was that if I am in a close situation between call and fold I just auto call in Aruba thinking well if I am right I will have a lot of chips and if I am wrong who cares I will get to the beach sooner. That kind of laziness of thinking is not a good recipe for successful poker, so kids, don’t try this at home!
But it kind of worked out for the best because I did get to maximize my time just hanging with the kids. Tubing was by far the best activity. I got bounced off a wake and flew into the ocean doing a full on back flip on the way. I was laughing so hard at that I could hardly breathe and just kept screaming I want to do that again! Again! I felt like I was a little kid again.
On Monday, before the tournament, we did a WSOP Academy for all the online winners (www.wsopacademy.com) That was a really cool thing that UB did to provide that for free to its players. We got really great feedback on that and what was great was that it meant Brandon and Jeff, who run the camps, were down there too and we got to hang out a bunch. Glen, my manager (remember the sprinkles cupcake incident on the cleanse? yeah…that guy) came too so we got a lot of time together. He worked out with me almost every morning and we got in a couple of really nice hour long power walks along the beach. It is always nice having social time with Glen cause I feel like it is so much just business with us a lot. Oh, and too be fair, even with the cheating Glen did lose 10 pounds on the cleanse so it did work well. He is looking pretty hot!
On Saturday I got to commentate the final table with Nick Geber for Bluff. We commentated live and Poker Ho, Shawn Rice and Debo34 all pitched in and took turns commentating with us. All three of those guys are such awesome dudes and they really helped make the day fly by despite the impossible heat outside (yes, the final table was outside complete with sun AND hot TV lights to sit under!). Nick is such a pro and makes commentating for 8 hours straight look seemless. Congratulations to everyone at that final table, particularly Travis Rice who not only won the thing (and $800K) but also gave a demonstration of how great, aggressive play can just take a table over. For nearly the only final table he was in complete control of everyone. It was pretty great poker to watch. Everyone, though, had moments of greatness themselves and it was clear that each and everyone of the final players completely deserved to be there. Matt Savage’s awesome, unbeatable structure gave so much play at the final table that it really allowed the poker to shine through. It was one of the more interesting and fun final tables I have seen.
We all trudged back on Sunday (3 hours to get through the lines in Aruba, thank you very much) and arrived in LA to find our luggage lost. Bleh. We did get it back the next day though. I am heading to Vegas today to meet with my brother and then Portland tomorrow. Then this will be my last weekend with Joe for a while since he is heading of to Portugal again to finish the music video he is directing there. I just saw some of the footage and I must say my boyfriend is pretty damn talented it is really beautiful. He is leaving Monday and won’t be back till the 24th when I will be gone that week, heading to DC to do some work with the PPA and then heading to Stanford for a Decision Education Foundation board meeting and conference. I won’t be back till that Sunday so I am really not going to see him for 2 weeks 
Bleh! I like my boyfriend and I like spending time with him. I miss him when he is gone.