slushi
G: We went to Greykell's on
Friday to visit and because Annaliese was in town and she was hanging
out there. We had a great time visiting with everyone - Paul was there,
Bruce, Kevin, Neva, and Dan showed up, and of course the whole Dutton
Family.
Grey showed off her
comic
book. Annaliese and I chatted a bit about
nutrition. Kat and Aly would come
by and give hugs and back and head scratches. John got into a long game
with some of the guys. Kevin did some Shakespeare script recording with
Annaliese. Nik was wearing an old
Opus shirt,
the same as one I have from the 80's. We went out and looked at the
moon. We like the moon.
Greykell had been diligently recording and watching many episodes of
Wild Weddings, looking for our clip. She had the episode but hadn't
watched it yet, so we all watched it. You can see the Dutton kids, nine
years younger, as well as glimpses of many other friends, and a lot of
Dave Choat (who was our minister). BTW, we are planning on putting the
clip up here sometime.
They had one of those hard metal DDR pads, so I tried it out. I liked
it a lot, but I also like the cheap pads. The one time I tried the
thick foam pads, I didn't like them very much. It seemed you had to
step down on them harder than the cheap thin ones. Which kind of slows
you down. I did 5 or 6 songs and then the people who were still hanging
around - Grey, Neva, Paul, John and I - went for a walk. There are
really lovely paths around the Dutton's in Columbia and it was a really
nice night for a walk.
Since lately I'm awake until 4am and sleeping until noon, not much
usually happens until the evening. So Saturday night there was a party
at Luisa and Nancy's to celebrate Nancy graduating with her Masters in
Geography. It was a lovely party with a campfire and cool people to
hang out and chat with.
Sunday John and I met Bruce at Carderock for some climbing. I hadn't
been in years, but since I've lost weight I did pretty well for the low
level climbs we did. I had some trouble on the first climb, but didn't
fall, and it was easier
the second time. I had to stop though because I developed a small
blister on one finger. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we got
lost for a little bit trying to get to John's mom's house, just to pop
in and say hi, then when we
got there, no one was home. So we went to the Vegetable Garden for
dinner.
On Monday I changed my jogging route. I felt like I was doing better
and could take a bit more of a challenge, and although I liked my
route, it was all along streets and I invariably suffered from
breathing car and diesel exhaust. So I decided to run down around the
lake and back. The time it takes is just a couple of minutes longer,
there is less pollution, and the way back is a lot of uphills. I was
afraid of that but I'm doing fine. Yay! So I've run that route three
days in a row now.
After a few weeks off, I started teaching some pottery classes at UM
Art and
Learning Center on Monday. My Greenbelt classes all start next
Wednesday.
Tuesday night Stacy dropped by for a visit and I made a wonderful
dinner. I've always loved avocado and nori together, and of course
avocado sushi as well. I've never made my own sushi and I really see
little reason for all the arranging and rolling, so I decided to make
sloppy sushi. Stacy shortened that to slushi.
Here's how I made the slushi. I took leftover brown rice from the
Veggie Garden and a package of
Organic Brown
Rice Expressions and mixed them together to make about 4 cups of
cooked brown rice. I sprinkled in some rice vinegar and a teaspoon of
date sugar. Then I chopped up two hass avocados and mixed it in. I took
four sheets of nori (it was more than needed but I just snacked on the
rest later) and cut them up into little strips. I made wasabi and also
steamed some broccoli florets. To serve, scoop a glob of the rice
mixture on a plate,
spray Bragg's
liquid aminos on it (okay, use tamari if you don't have Braggs),
sprinkle with lots of nori, put a little gob of wasabi on the side and
some steamed broccoli. You can add that ginger stuff if you are into
that. Get a little wasabi on your fork, and scoop a little of
everything else on it. It was SO good. And fast!
dogs playing poker
The combination of some data and an aching desire for an
answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a
given body of data.
- John Tukey
The most misleading assumptions are the ones you don’t even know
you’re making.
- Douglas Adams
J:
Coolidge's
famous paintings of
dogs
playing poker remind me of my latest discoveries during my
continuing journey through the game.
One of my primary objectives as a poker player is to train other
players to make bad decisions, and then capitalize on those decisions.
At the table I am attempting to recognize bad play and use specific
instances of it to my advantage, while counting on random positive
rewards to reinforce opponents' mistakes. I'm also attempting to
squelch opponents' decent play with convincing bluffs. But the other
players are trying to train
me to play badly, too.
We're dogs training dogs. It's all very subtle, but while you are
working diligently to train the other dogs, they are all working in
informal, unwitting concert to change
your behavior - and
there are more of them than there are of you. Unless you regularly
review your games for errors, you can be nudged into a bad gambling
mode that's very hard for your conscious self to discover.
A big, lucky win combined with several compliments from other players
("nice hand!") is as effective as a doggy treat and a pat on the head.
As for negative reinforcement, after being beat by the stick of another
player's big re-raise followed by her monster showdown, you might throw
less money at the pot later on, which can give other opponents the pot
odds to call with good drawing hands. This type of training can be
quite effective.
I recently discovered how thorough and unexpected the training can be.
My bankroll, which for the previous six months had been slowly growing,
took a turn for the worse. Two weeks into this downturn, I was soothing
myself with mumblings of bad beats and thoughts of "bad luck." A month
and a half later I was under my initial deposit and had to admit that
the problem might be coming from within.
There followed a period of meditation on my game. I tried to compare
and contrast changes in my strategies and tactics over the year. This
meant I had to remember things, which is not my forte, darn it. But as
I reconstructed my general play over the last few months, it slowly
dawned on me that I was no longer playing as aggressively as I should,
when
I should. I was devolving into my worst poker nightmare - the calling
station. I had been trained to play weak.
How could this have happened to me? When something like it happens
again, how can I recognize it earlier? Worse still, how many other bad
habits have I picked up that I have not yet discovered? Facing these
questions take a lot of introspection, and my powers of introspection
are only slightly better than my forgetfulness. But I will persevere.
I've since turned my earnings around (at least for the last two weeks;
we'll see if I can keep up the good work). I'm playing a very careful,
conservative, selectively aggressive game. And I've become extremely
wary of the powerful group mind that lies inside the poker mechanism,
the one that constantly tempts me with treats from a thousand hands
while threatening to beat me with a thousand sticks.
The realization that I am also a part of this gigantic group mind makes
me
that much warier.
:-j
