Megan’s First Recital

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My sister held her first paid ticket recital today in Rimbey, Alberta for mothers day this year. It was, I think, an unqualified success. Megan was in good form playing through a couple hour set of a variety of different styles of music. We sold 33 tickets at $12 a piece, plus a number of donations -- all of which is money that will be helping finance her upcoming trip to Ireland later this summer. Why was the recital in Rimbey you ask? Well my grandparents moved (back) there a month ago or so and they are really quite good about getting word out about Megan's upcoming gigs. So they helped organize Megan's first ticketed recital. I'm glad that it went well for her! So she was able to play through her pieces to a captive audience. Afterwards we went out to dinner as a family to celebrate mother's day (and the successful recital).

If you're interested in seeing Megan play, she has an upcoming recital in Edmonton sometime soon. I don't have the date just yet, but if you want to know when it is leave me a comment or an email and I'll make sure I get the chance to sell you a ticket!

Heraldk

Linkety-Link-Link

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Here's a new idea. I'm gonna try and collect a list of neat stuff I find on the internet and post them in a spew of links on a semi-regular basis. There might be some brief discussion, but mostly it'll just be a spew of links for you to check out if you're bored. Lemme know if you like it or not. Clever AACS Tshirt Canon in D improv I'm a Marvel ... and I'm a DC How to kill a President

Heraldk

Spider Man 3

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Last night I got the chance to see spider man with Diane and most of her family. I didn't really know what to expect. To be honest, I don't actually know very much about the spiderman series. What I *did* know has already been covered in the first movie. The first two flicks were pretty good though so I was quite willing to go see the third one. All in all, I thought the movie was very good. If you haven't heard, they really crammed a lot of stuff into the show. With 3 different enemies to fight over the course of the movie, the action doesn't really stop - which I suppose is a good thing for this type of movie. It did feel like you were getting a whirlwind tour of spidey's enemies though.

Potential spoilers follow.

There's a couple of complaints I did have though. First, does anyone else think that the Sandman's defeat at the end of the movie seemed a tad random? It seemed like he was able to recover from every hit and bomb and everything that was thrown his way until he inexplicably crumbles after taking a couple more bombs. I don't get it. The second complaint is that for a movie promising to showcase Venom as Spider-man's main nemesis, you really didn't get to see much of him. Venom really existed for a span of about 15 minutes of movie time - and most of that was the final battle sequence. Hmmm.

The movie was very formulaic, though I suppose you can't really fault them for that. It has the typical movie-romance difficulties including Peter Parker being totally stupid with MJ. *sigh*. I really don't like watching that sort of thing go on. I know it's hard to come up with scenarios that don't make the main characters look dumb but still put them into a difficult positions... but why can't you at least try?

So, that's what I thought anyways. It was good, but as expected it wasn't very deep. What'd you think?

Heraldk

24 Hours of Flickr - Candidates

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I need your help! The 24 Hours of Flickr day has passed and I took a handful of photos which I must now choose ONE to enter into the contest. A set of photos will be selected from the submitted photos and will either be printed in a book or used in future Flickr events during the summer. I was rather excited at the opportunity to submit a photo, so I took a few photos in and around the poker tournament yesterday so I could submit a photo. I've narrowed the selection down to 5 photos and would like to garner any opinions on which one I should select. Here, in no particular order, are the 5 photographs:

487558797.jpg
487557431.jpg
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487524774.jpg
487523798.jpg

If you have an opinion, please leave me a comment here or on the appropriate photo's flickr page within the next couple of days. I'd like to submit a photo fairly soon.

Thanks! Heraldk

Card Dead

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Well this has been a busy weekend so I haven't had a chance to talk about my CPT experience yesterday. In a word ... frustrating. The level of play was definitely stronger than at the satellite, which was to be expected. That being said, I didn't feel all that uncomfortable. The trouble was, I just couldn't catch any cards. Fairly early in the tourney, I played KQo in early position, got a single caller from the player to my left. Flop is ten high and pretty dry. I continuation bet and get called. Turn is a queen giving me top pair. I make a pot sized bet and get called. River is a blank, but I'm not too happy with the call so I check intending to call a small bet. He checks behind and shows me ... KK?? Huh. He missed a value bet.

After winning a couple small pots (a raise collects the blinds and a walk in the big blind... weee!), I get dealt 85o in the big blind. There's a min-raise, followed by a couple callers so I call in the big blind getting 7 to 1 immediate pot odds. I flop 88Q. I check, to the aggressive player on my left who bets a small amount. The other players fold and I smooth call. I check the turn (a ten, if I remember correctly) intending to check raise (this was a mistake I think). He checks behind. The river is a deuce, finishing a 3-flush on the board. I make a pot size bet and get raised ... uhoh. I think for awhile, but call and he shows me ... 22. Hrm. I think I may have played that hand badly ...

The dinner break was almost upon us so I limped my way into dinner with 6600 in chips (after starting with 10K). The blinds after the break were going to be 150/300 with 25 antes. Not something to immediately be concerned about, but certainly getting significant for my stack. When I got back from dinner I just couldn't get any hands. The couple of times I picked up hands I didn't like the situation I was in - a raiser from early position seemed to be the rule when I looked at the couple decent hands I saw (and by decent, I mean KQo and QTo). Finally, with my chip stack dwindling to 5500 or so, I got moved from my initial table and got seated at another just in time to get the big blind again (now at 400 chips). A few hands later, I see an open limper, and folds around to me in the cutoff. I decided to push with A9s, hoping to just pick the pot up because I needed to try and reverse my downward trend. I didn't like being so tight as I'd been playing so far, but I didn't really want a lot of action with my shortstack. Anyways, I get called by the open limper who has JJ and I whiff on the flop. *sigh*.

So my day was pretty frustrating. The best hands I saw all day were: 44, ATs, and KQo (twice). Other than that, I certainly remember seeing Q2o, 93o, and 94o a lot more than I cared to. Sometimes, variance sucks.

Still, it was good to be back in the casino playing a big tournament. That was my 3rd big CPT event. Those of you who know me might recall that I finished 6th in the first $500 CPT event I played in. I entirely realize that that first time was a lot of luck combined with a little insight that Darse helped me with. But mostly the whole ride was a huge upswing in variance which is the only reason why I made it so far. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't put in a repeat performance this time. It would've been nice, the top prize at this tourney was $51K. Oh well - there'll be a next time I'm sure!

Heraldk

CPT Satellite

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My friend Curtis and I played in a $105+$10 satellite tournament at the Yellowhead casino last night. The satellite was for a $1000+$50 tournament that will run on Saturday, also at the Yellowhead. The tournament started at 4:00, and it didn't take long for the action to go wild. 2 people were knocked out at my table on the very first hand of the tournament when KK and A2s lost to QQ when a queen + flush draw landed on the flop. A few hands later, I managed to double up when my turned nut flush beat the second nut flush. w00t! I managed to get myself into a little trouble after the dinner break. The guy to my left was rather clueless, but got really lucky so he built himself a huge stack. He was willing to call down in pots with 2nd pair ... and I had little respect for him being a good player. However, because he had position on me for most of the time I didn't really feel very good making raises and having him call me. When the table got broken up, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I got to my new table shortstacked... so I needed to make some moves quick. Luckily, I hit a decent selection of face-card quality hands and was able to steal some blinds (the blind structure was super fast, as I kind of expected). I lost one hand against a shortstack who pushed on me with TT when I had AT. Nevertheless, I managed to steal some more blinds with a few all-in bets and then doubled up with AJ over TT when I spiked an ace on the flop.

At this point, everyone was shortstacked, but people continued their tight play style so I was able to make more from blind steals than I paid myself. The 2nd table I was at broke up in a little while and I got moved to a 3rd table. At this point there was less than 40 people left with the top 19 places being seats in the Saturday tourney. I felt rather comfortable at this point - my stack was above average and I continued being able to add to my stack slowly, but surely.

I got moved again, this time to table 1. I think, after thinking about this a bit, that this table was rather an unfair table for a number of reasons. This table never got broken up. The only time people left was when they got knocked out. So chips never left that table. *shrug* - maybe it isn't incredibly unfair, but I'm wondering whether it makes a difference or not.

Anyways, I get to that table as a mid-sized stack. A couple of my pf-raises get called and I'm starting to hurt a little. Then I get these hands: In 2nd position, I pick up AKo. Raise and pick up the sizable blinds. UTG I pick up TT - raise and pick up the blinds again. Then, I'm in the big blind. Guy in 2nd position min-raises and everyone folds to me. I look down at AA (sweet set of 3 hands in a row huh?). I re-raise about half my stack. They guy pushes and I call. Turns out I've got him covered and my AA holds up over his AQo.

At this point, I'm golden. I held almost 90K in chips with the blinds just entering 4K/8K. There was about 23-24 people left in the tournament which meant that a few knockouts at the other tables (where there was a lot of shortstacks) gave me a seat. So I played ultra-conservatively from that point on (I don't think I actually played another hand) and waited out the last few knockouts. So I get to play in the upcoming tourney on Saturday! Woohoo!

My friend Curtis also placed so we'll both be playing for a pretty decently sized pot on Saturday. Hopefully we can repeat our performance from last night and place somewhere deep in the money!

Heraldk

Time Flies

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Yup, it sure does. This weekend was here and gone in record time (or so it seemed). On Friday night, Diane and I joined our friend Paul - whom I haven't seen in forever. We went out and had a few drinks -- fun times! On Saturday we had a couple of friends come over. Apparently there wasn't many people interested/able to come out so we had a relatively small gathering at my place. We played some games and went out for dinner. It was actually pretty good. We've got so many board games at my place and just don't have much time to play them. So it was nice to get the chance to play a variety of different games. I finally got to try the expansion to the bean farming game Bohnanza that I bought last month. I really liked it. I'm quite happy with that game purchase - it has gotten much more play than some of my other purchases.

Yesterday Diane and I went out for Dim Sum with some friends. Afterwards, I returned home to do some work and then I went over to my parent's place to have dinner and help my mom with a gardening presentation she's working on. I also got a chance to look at the posters my Dad printed up for my sister's upcoming recitals. Boy does it look good! I'm rather jealous that I didn't get the chance to take the photo that appears on the poster, because it looks amazing. For those who don't know, my sister is a harpist has to play a number of recitals in a variety of venues in the next little while. If you're interested in attending any, please leave a comment and I'll let you know when the dates and locations are.

So this weekend disappeared in a flash. And now it is Monday again and I have to work. *sigh*.

Heraldk

A New Edmonton Arena

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Anyone who's been reading the journal lately knows that there seems to be an ongoing debate over the council's investigation into building a new arena in downtown Edmonton to replace Rexall Place. There's been a barrage of articles over the past few days pointing out some of the advantages and disadvantages to the proposal ... and I guess I shouldn't be surprised there is such hot debate over the topic. It is, after all, a large investment of city resources. I'm cautiously in favour of a new arena in the downtown core, but I've been waiting to weigh in on the issue until I'd read a few more articles in the paper. I think today's article by Scott McKeen convinces me that it's a good idea, and touches on many of the complaints that people have with the arena.

So, why do we need a new arena? Well the reality of the situation is that Rexall is aging - particularly when compared to arenas in other cities. It's the 2nd oldest building the remains in active use in the NHL. From the Oiler's perspective, its hard to remain competitive if they can't sell as many seats or luxury boxes as other teams. If you've been reading my blog, you know I'm an Oiler fanboy, so you'll know that I'm biased about this from the start. But before you chastise me for being biased, Scott McKeen makes the point that Rexall is not just used for Oiler games... a new arena would be usable to attract some of the world's biggest musical acts as well. Not only that, one should only look back to this time last year when the Oilers were making their unlikely run through the playoffs to know how important the Oilers are to this city. Don't you think they deserve the chance to remain competitive - particularly when a competitive Oiler team makes this city swell with pride?

So I believe a new arena is warranted. So what are the issues? Well cost is one big one. Already though, it looks like there are several options that will require much less taxpayer dollars to build the arena. As the committee looks at it in more detail, we'll see what they come up with. However, several people more in the know than I remain confident that much of the cost can be absorbed from other sources. Sounds good to me.

As to the location - why not build the arena downtown? Downtown is starting to get much more lively as we are finally seeing condos being built in the core. (I'm happy that the city is finally starting to build up a little - the sprawl of this city is kind of disgusting). Building the arena downtown can only help - particularly since the current proposal is to build it in an area of downtown that isn't exactly bustling at the moment. You have to go west of city hall to really see active part of downtown. Thousands of people pouring into downtown to watch the latest hockey game or concert -- sounds like a good plan to get people downtown. The inevitable businesses that pop up around and in the facility will help draw people to arrive downtown early and have them stay late.

To be honest, I am a little biased. And I don't know all the issues. I do however, have a hard time believing that this isn't a good idea for the city. Many articles have pointed at other cities and the success of downtown arenas there -- places like Vancouver and Columbus and Denver and ... well I forget all of them, but there's quite a few. I don't know all the information, but maybe someone can point out to me why a new downtown arena in Edmonton can hurt us.

Heraldk