So little to talk about,

So much to say.  I just realized my last post was number 100.  Wow.  Some people do that in a month, only took me 3 years. 

To continue my vacation saga, such as it is.  Saturday we were up bright and early.  We had a mission, to visit Pensacola.  Not for ourselves so much as we were going to visit the college our niece will be attending in a few months.  She and her family just got back from freshman orientation last night but we were there first.  So we drove on over to Univ of West Florida. 

What a beautiful campus.  Hilly, a lot of trees and located pretty close to Escambia Bay.  It's a pretty good sized campus but the enrollment is not much over 10,000 which for a state school in Fla is pretty low.  UF has about 50,000, USF has over 45,000 and UCF where my daughter is has over 55K.  I think my niece will really enjoy being away from home at a place like that.  And she'll get a good workout just traversing those hills around campus. 

After leaving the school we saw a Whataburger while heading toward the beach.  That was an automatic stop for us.  Yummm.  Got me a chocolate malt which you just can't get around here very much and for desert, a pineapple pie.  The PQ was very disappointed they didn't carry lemon pies anymore as she really had a hankering for one.  It's not nice to disappoint my wife like that but we forgave them since the chocolate malts were sooo good. 

While we were eating lunch the skies just opened up.  Rain poured down for a good while, so much so that the next day they posted flood warnings in Pensacola.  When the rain let up a bit, we started heading down to Pensacola Beach.  We crossed the Pensacola Bay Bridge over to Gulf Breeze.  Gulf Breeze sits on the western tip of a peninsula that extends westward in front of Pensacola creating 2 large bays, Pensacola and Escambia.  Gulf Breeze was pretty nice, kinda built up with shops and a marina and stuff, kinda like Clearwater Beach, except it's not directly on the Gulf.  There is a barrier island south of the peninsula and that is where Pensacola Beach is on Santa Rosa Island.  Santa Rosa Island is about 40 miles long from Ft Pickens state park on the far west tip to Ft Walton Beach on the eastern end.  Pensacola Beach is just east of the state park.  We really liked Pensacola Beach.  Not nearly as built up as the beach communities around here (or further east as it turns out) with a lot of single houses, small townhouses etc.  It looks like how the Sand Key area around here looked 25 years ago.  Now it's full of huge 15-20 story condos, some big houses, and hotels. 

We drove down Pensacola Beach to the east toward Ft Walton Beach.  A few miles east of Pensacola Beach the houses disappear and we entered Gulf Islands National Seashore.  The Seashore is on parts of barrier islands in Mississippi and Florida including about a 5 mile long stretch of Santa Rosa Island.  It's beautiful and the speed limits were temporarily lowered to 20 as there were thousands of nesting birds in a large section.  The beaches were near deserted due to the intermittent rain but there were parking areas every mile or so.  No other facilities, shops, etc, the place was meant for beachgoers and birdwatchers to enjoy nature.  It's too bad none of the communities around here did something like that but then again, empty land pays no taxes. 

The road headed into Navarre Beach and then ended at the bridge to Navarre on the mainland so we followed it across.  There was a bike path that continued down Santa Rosa Island but no cars were allowed down there.  Eglin AFB also owns a big chunk of the island east of there so we wouldn't have access to that anyway.  Eglin is huge basically surrounding the city of Ft Walton Beach on the North, West and South sides.  Eglin is where the members of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo first practiced short take offs to prepare for flying medium bombers of the Army Air Corps off of aircraft carrier decks.  No one had ever done anything like that previously and though the damage they inflicted was minimal, their impact to the morale of the American people cannot be overstated.  You also cannot fail to mention how they forced the Japanese to retain many more air units for home defense than they had previously, cannot be overstated.

It was another pretty drive down the coast until we got to Ft Walton Beach.  All of a sudden we are in bumper to bumper traffic heading toward our ultimate destination of Destin.  We roll through this for about 40 minutes getting maybe 4 miles until we get into Destin.  The road opens from 2 to 3 lanes in each direction there and though still busy, it's not gridlock at least.  Destin reminds me of what's wrong with so many beach communities around here.  It's like Clearwater Beach on steroids.  For one it's a lot bigger but they filled up  all that extra room with shops, restaurants, bars, outlet malls houses and golf courses.  All in an area that is maybe 2 miles or so wide and 6-8 miles long.  So on a Saturday afternoon it becomes party central to all of the tourists and many of the locals as well.  You can only come in from east or west along US 98 or bridge across Choctowatchee Bay on the Mid Bay Bridge. When a lot of people want to get there or (when a hurricane comes) get out, it ain't pretty.   Cars were everywhere and it was getting worse as the day went on. 

We stopped at the Bass Pro Shop there.  It's a huge outdoors shop catering to the hunting, camping, fishing and self defense folks.  And was it busy.  Checked out the fish tank and some guns as I am going to pick up one before too long.  PQ just kinda rolled her eyes at me but she has come to accept that I want to arm myself and get a concealed weapons permit. We had to cut short our visit though because all the traffic had slowed up our day and we had an appointment to get to that evening.  So we trooped out of there and grabbed the bridge across the bay.  Wow what a lot of traffic was backed up coming in to Destin that way.  I don't know where they were gonna put em all but it looked like a big party night was going on.

Our appointment involved cards and a dog track poker room in the little town of Ebro, Florida.  The ride from Destin was really nice.  Started out right along the shore of Choctawatchee Bay.  Again at times we were driving 15 feet or so from the water.  The land slopes up pretty well from the bay so unless your house is right on the water, it would take a pretty fearsome hurricane to flood most of the homes along there.  Of course there are always the idiots who have to be right on the damned water.  Saw a couple of homes built between the road and the water, some on stilts right over the water.  Now being a propenent of freedom choice I am all for people building homes and living where they want to live.  But having said that, how many of those people own those homes outright?  If they are mortgaged who insures those homes?  I can just about guarantee any mortgaged home near the water is not insured through any private insurance company.  Instead its covered by Citizens Property Insurance Corp which is a state backed insurance pool created by our wonderful state legislature in 2002.  So my tax money goes to insure homes on beaches that I have no chance of affording to buy.  I'll touch on this later or maybe in another post.  I have some rather pointed things to say about this.

Anyway we left the bay area and traveled through almost uninhabited north Fla.   Beautiful land and considering how many people are in this state, surprisingly lightly inhabited.  Then again, if you lived in Fla, how far from the coast would you live?  There was a fair amount of land for sale and I would love to buy some but doubt I can afford it.  Another eye roll from the PQ on that as well.  I would like to pass some land down to my kids at some point.  Even just a chunk of North Florida forest with out much value. 

About an hour from Destin we got to the dog track/poker room in the little town of Ebro.  In the middle of nowhere when you come down to it, at least an hour or two from every major city.  And yet it was busy as hell.  The poker room was pretty full.  There was a tourney at 7:30 that the PQ wanted to play.  3000 chips for $30 and 1500 for another $5.  Unfortunately blinds were pretty quick at 15 minutes.  Since we had an hour before the tourney we decided to grab a bite there.  Nice little restaurant and since I wasn't very hungry, I just had a salad.  The PQ had a cuban sandwich with a side of black beans and rice.  The service wasn't that great but the food was good.  And we passed the time until the tourney eating and betting the dogs a bit. 

The tourney did not go well for either of us.  I started well, pushing from position and picking up some chips.  I did get into one hand with the guy next to me when I had AA and flopped a set.  I put in a continuation bet on the flop and he folded so I showed the hand.  Which got me some play in some later hands.  Then I goofed a hand badly.  And with the escalating blinds it did cost me.  I was sitting on about 5K and blinds were 75-150.  I called from the small blind with A3 of clubs as do 2 people before me.  The big blind raises it up to 500 and I am the only caller.  The flop is 10-10-3 with one club.  Had to figure it missed the raiser unless he has a big pocket pair.  I bet about 1/3 the pot and he hesitated then called.  That should have been enough tip off for me to push but I'm an idiot and maybe a little tired too.  Turn is a 7.  Here is where I goofed.  I push hard here and he has to toss it.  I'm getting too invested in this pot as it is, this is push or check time and I do neither and make another smallish bet.  He calls, the river is a queen and I can tell it hit him so I check and he checks and flips over AQ.  I didn't lose too much but at that point, I needed not to lose that pot.

I lose another pot when my AK completely misses and the out of position caller bets out on the flop.  Blinds go up to 100-200 and I'm now sitting on 15 big blinds.  I get 7-7 in the cutoff and one person min raises in early position.  I got 3 opinions on this.  Some people do it for any raise at this point, some do it to not invest much with a marginally good hand like 55 or KJ.  And some have big hands.  Usually the big hands are people who aren't that great.  This guy is a pretty good player so I'm putting him on an ok hand.  I don't have time to screw around anyway so I push all in.  Everyone folds to him and he calls with of course AA.  Good bye to me.  I still think I played that hand right but I certainly screwed up before.

I went to play some 1-2 no limit while waiting on the PQ.  She was not doing well but was better off than I.  I started out pretty poorly there.  Dodged a couple of bullets when I decided to dump a flush draw to a good sized bet on the turn and though the flush hit on the river, the other caller had a much bigger one than I did.  I read that one right.  I made a mistake chasing another hand and lost another when I was outkicked.  As I was getting short I decided to come over the top with AK of spades over a small raise.  Got called by the a big stack across from me (with K10 off???)  and the original raiser.  Flop is king high.  Original raiser looks pissed especially when we both flip over a king and I rake the pot.  A few hands later I get JJ on the button.  I call a raise for Mr 88 as well as one other guy.  Flop is 7 high but suited.  I had the J so I felt even if one of them flushed, I'm probably good.  I bet out and one guy folds but the raiser comes over the top all in and I have to make a decision.  It's most of my chips but I just cannot put him on that big a hand unless he had 77 and if he did I still have a flush draw.  He flips over 10-10 and is PISSED when I flip up JJ.  Cleaned him out and got back to even. 

A little later the PQ comes by as she busted.  I had lost a little but was relatively happy I got back almost to even.  I enjoyed the poker room up there and the people were nice.  If I lived up there I would definitely be playing there.  The tourney was mostly soft at my table ( I had a great read on two of them) but I had the misfortune of going up against a good one when I went all in.  And he had a hand which also cannot be discounted.  I thought he was better than min raising a big pair like that.  Which is why I discounted that possibility when I went all in.  Oops.  

Wow just saw that Amy Winehouse died.  Not shocked but still she was only 27.  Then again her well documented drug issues led to me telling my wife last year I doubted she would make 30.  Sorry I was proven right.  Some DJ on BBC radio wrote "Can not believe the news"  Really dude???  All the drug issues, the rehab, the fact that she checked herself out of rehab, too drunk to sing in Serbia.  I mean how shocking is it?  I doubt too many are shocked though a number are saddened.  She never got the chance to hit rock bottom and come back but for some, they die before they hit rock bottom.  Then again maybe it wasn't drugs at all.  Maybe she had a freak aneurysm or heart problem.  Unusual in someone her age but not unheard of.  A guy I knew died of an embolism at 44.  Freak thing.  It does happen.

Anyway enough ranting for today.  Gonna hit the showers and get ready to play at Derby Lane.  Maybe I'll actually play well this time.  Hope everyone else does.  Stay lucky you nuts.