Altering Plans, need ideas

Hey everyone, thinking of cutting Thailand trip to 1 month in order to see alot more of Asia/Australia while out here, post anything you'd recommend doing if you were out here, videos are welcome, could use some good input.

Infiniti Pool at our Apartment

Here is a video of the nice pool area, might play some over here if i can find a plug in, maybe play standing up at the edge or something

Apartment in Phuket

This is our apartment in Phuket, I'll post more video when I have it. Great view to grind to, playing on the balcony when I get the chance, just been enjoying the culture so far though.

Thailand Flight tomorrow

I leave tomorrow for Thailand with Laurie at about 10:40pm. The total flight time with connections is approximately 26 hours. With traveling too and from the airport and getting ready we will be looking at about 36 hours of getting ready and settling in. It will be an exhausting day, but one I am looking forward to. We got our vaccinations today which were pretty steep for shots. It cost just under $700. The main cost was a $170 counseling fee by the doctor that took him all of 5 minutes to explain what we already knew about Thailand. That fee was for each of us which is pretty absurd for just that, o well. Not much else is new, May was a mediocre month as far as poker goes. I was busy seeing family for holidays, birthdays, and the wedding. I'll update with some pictures when I get there. I'm very excited and ready, have to pack tonight, going to probably end my poker soon for the night. It will be 4 days off or so which is a lot for me. I couldn't get the Yankees video uploaded as I think it was too long. Hope everyone is doing well.

Missing WSOP, NBA Playoffs

Not a long blog, kind of on a tangent most likely. Real happy to go to Thailand as I love it there, going to miss doing a meet up with everyone at WSOP this year which makes me sad. O well, I'll most likely do it every year from here on out, and by every year I mean til I am 75 or so. I would most likely not play any events because they are so boring and it lowers my hourly. Although, you can have a huge pay day and get luckily signed by a poker site which is a huge perk. If I were to play any event it'd probably be the 2-7 NL single draw event since it has the smallest field and thus a better chance at a bracelet without having to waste a few days to bubble an event(never even played the game before, but I'd just be super aggressive). Also, NBA playoffs, rooting for the Suns since I like Nash and their squad, I also think the Lakers are so stacked it's insane. So, I'd like to see someone take them out, and seeing that he Magic are down 3-1 in the series, and I hate the Celtics since I an east coast NJ/NY guy. Watching the Suns vs Lakers game right now with a few minutes left int he first half. This is insane, every shot has dropped for like 5 minutes now.

Anxious for Thailand and June 1st

I'm very excited to get back to Thailand and see more of their culture. Also to simply just have fun in a new environment. I'm not sure if I am going to do any other traveling, but with round trip tickets being ~$2k a piece for both I and Laurie each, I think it'd be wise of me to try and see places like New Zealand, Bali, Fiji, Australia, or any of Asia while out here. This is difficult as it is tough to stay on any kind of budget for the trip. Also, while most friends of mine seem to think that if you play poker you can just take tons of time off, that is far from the truth. Sure, I can take time off for vacation and take off random weekdays like your average working person. However, I put in more hours at my "job" than any friend I know that is not a poker player, maybe some WallStreet guys put in more time, but that'd be close. Anyhow, if people say well go to those places and what not, then I end up costing myself a ton of money in expected income. A good way for me to relate this to my non-poker friends is that it would be like a casino shutting down to go on breaks. When operating they have a said edge, but if they needed to close they give up "expected" income even though on any given day they may actually lose. However, statistics always pan out over large sample sizes. While I can't look at life merely as expected income lost, I do need to heavily weight it within my options. You don't want to get so caught up in missing out on money you'd expect, that you don't enjoy your life while you are young. Poker has allowed me the freedom I've wanted and I will travel with it and make the most of what I can. My advice for fellow poker players who get caught up in this, is to allocate time for friends and traveling, and set up some hours where you will definitely play. I hope my trip goes well, pretty stoked for it.

Some pictures for those who don't know Phuket, Thailand.

Streets during the day time

Muay Thai Fight

Street at night time

Karon Beach, 5 minutes from us

Kata Beach, our beach

Kata Beach also, I'll try to get a shot of Laurie in this location

Leeeeeeebron James

I enjoy the NBA but mostly just the postseason. Mainly, I just root for Lebron to be the best of all time now. I figured I'd take a blog and speculate about his future since most others are. Some thing he'll be loyal and remain in Cleveland and I think this is insanely optimistic to say the least. He clearly wants to be the best ever and has the talent to do so. However, in Cleveland his 2nd best player is comparable to the 4th or 5th best player on these teams making deep runs in the NBA playoffs. He's a Yankees fan (like myself), but doesn't live in New York, what's that tell you? He isn't as loyal to his city as he claims, he even wears Yankees caps to the Indians vs. Yankees games. With this knowledge and the fact that he will be wanting to dominate and win every year, and yes I think he can do this with the right squad, I'll speculate the teams I'd like to see him play for or that he may, I'll leave alot off.

1) New York, the team isn't so hot but they can sign 2 max free agents. Lebron has talked about how he wanted to be the first billionaire athlete. Clearly he didn't know who Tiger Woods was, as he just accomplished this in the past year. If that's his goal though, New York is the place for him to be. With D'Antoni as head coach I don't really want to see it but who knows.

2) Miami Heat, Dwayne Wade could stay and Lebron could also have a house in a state with no state tax (although this isn't too big a deal, but if he makes another $500,000,000 living here he'd save somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000,000-$10,000,000 dollars). I don't like this fit either, he could use another star, and although Wade is a superstar, his style would not mesh with Lebron's as he needs the ball too much. I'd prefer to see Lebron with a nice big man like Chris Bosh.

3) Cleveland, blah I hope he leaves, I think it's a disaster for his future if he stays other than the city loving him for life which they should anyhow. He has one bad game in 7 years in the playoffs and they boo him? He's saved the franchise, without him this squad probably wouldn't be in the playoffs.

4) New Jersey Nets, with this new billionaire owner it would be interesting, but I can't see them turning it around like he thinks. An interesting scenario I'd be curious to see turn out.

5) Los Angeles Clippers, I would like to see this out of all the teams, although they underperformed last year Lebron could play with rising talents like Blake Griffin and Eric Gordon. Lebron would help them develop and they can be stars while allowing him to still control the team.

Anyhow, these are just my thoughts, I know everyones' varies.

Poker was meh yesterday, won a few grand I think, had a guy down to 5bets at 15/30 right before I went to sleep and lost about 1500 or so to him, o well pretty decent day overall.