I wrote just over 2500 words yesterday. That felt great! It was nice to get back on track with writing once more. Only a little bit was fiction, but I intend to write a lot more fiction today. More fiction than you can shake a stick at. Well, I don’t know why you’d be shaking a stick at fiction, but it makes for an interesting mental picture. No?

I will attempt to perform the same feat today and write around 2500 words. I’ve fallen behind, but I can get back up. I just need to sit and write. I had intended to watch a movie and then write. I managed to fall asleep for a couple of hours. Last week took a lot out of me mentally, physically, and emotionally. I feel refreshed now and a-writing I will go.

The movie I watched earlier was the 1958 sci-fi movie Terror from the year 5000! I won’t call it a classic. I’m not even sure it should be called sci-fi. The plot was weak, the characters motivated by things other than the science, and other than a little time travel speculation, wasn’t very thrilling. I’m glad it was just over an hour. I don’t think I could have watched much more of it.

Yesterday the Millican and I had decided to go to the casino to play some poker. Skip ahead a bit if you’re not that much into poker. I’m about to get poker geeky here.

<poker>

This was a bounty tournament. $40 buy in ($6 fee) and $10 bounties. A bounty is the money you collect for knocking someone out. I got half a bounty. Not too thrilling, but some of the hands were. Here are the big hands. I had Jh8h against five other people. Two people were all in and I was in the big blind and it wasn’t much more to call so I stayed in. Pot odds and all that. Flop came Js 10c Jc. Another person shoved all in, a second shoved all in. I tanked. I had to think about this. One person was already all in. I had the other two covered. I figured, why not. 3 bounties would be awesome. The first all in had 10 10. Another had KQ. Another had AA. And me with my J8. Turn came an A and the river a blank. I got beat by everyone else in the hand and went from 12K down to 1200. That hand really hurt. I got AA the next hand and shoved with one caller (the big blind) and doubled up. The next hand I picked up AQs and figured, why not? I shoved again. I got called by the following hands. KQ, KQ, KJ, K9. Yes, 4 callers. I was golden. The board came all low cards and I quadrupled up. I lost a limp bet, I picked up KK and picked up someone’s raise when I shoved. I made it to the final table with around 21K in chips.

There were no spectacular hands on the final table. I picked up AA again and shoved from the button. The small blind grumbled and folder. The Big Blind called with JJ. It was a nice double up that helped me get down to three players left. We chopped and each of us took $331. The big stack wanted to chop rather than take a bad beat which I was good with as well as the short stack who had been almost crippled during the play. The two I made it to the end with were at my table the entire time and we talked, smack talked, and generally had a good time. We each showed some hands just to have a good laugh and show a bluff here and a great hand there. It was the most fun I’d had playing poker in some time and not just because I made a little money at it. I was relaxed and on my game. I read players well, I made great calls, and I want to go back and do it again soon.

</poker>

Tonight I’m going to do some writing. The Action Pack is taking a month off due to many vacations by all the writers involved. I’ll write up a post for that soon. We will return on the 1st with more stories. I want to get ahead a couple of episodes so I’ll be taking a short break from Of Gnomes and Dwarves and work on Golden West for a few days. I’ll be happy to get back to working on Of Gnomes and Dwarves. Maus and Willie are waiting for me. Slick probably is too, but he’s a problem child.

Sputtery Truck is being annoying once again. I took him to a ship today, but they won’t be able to look at him until Monday. I’ll be dropping him off early Monday Morning and hopefully it’s not bad news. I’m losing oil pressure and it could be either engine sludge (I just dropped a new engine in there so I hope it’s not that) or it could be the oil pump. I doubt it’s anything cracked inside the engine because I don’t lose pressure when the engine is revving (only lose it when idling) and I’m not losing any oil at all. I’m hopeful that a flush or a new oil pump will take care of it.

Speaking of getting it taken care of, I need to get some writing done. And some pictures of ducks to download.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!