Week of February 9th the Elders go to the Casino

We did a lot of planning for our village this week, now that we have two compost toilets operational we started advancing our energy plan. We have seen nice success with the solar panel on the compost toilet and feel we have the space and the correct amount of sunlight to put up a solar array. We feel one large solar array will take care of our energy needs. We have decided we do not want to go with batteries to store the energy, as our overall plan dictates that we have a zero or negative carbon foot print. The manufacturing of batteries and the disposal of batteries has a huge negative impact on the environment.

We are not in a very windy area of Botswana, but the winds do pick up in the evenings. So to take care of our energy needs when the sun is not shining, we will use win power, we feel that one large windmill will do the trick. We only need to power two refrigerators, one the medicine man (herbalist) uses and the other one we store beer in. Both refrigerators will stay cold for some time without power. The other use of the energy is to power my computer and two we plan to buy sometime in the future for the school. The plan is to buy laptops so they have battery back-ups built in. We know our plan may leave gaps during the day or more likely at night that we may not have power at times, but we all agreed this plan was much better then what we had today and would work for us for a very long time.

Another issue that has been brought up to the elders is water, we have plenty of water as a large stream flows by our village, the issue is the women and children have to carry jugs of water up each day to the village (see pictures). So as we look at windmills for energy it has been suggested that look to see if any can be used to power a mechanical pump, powerful enough to pump water from the stream to the village. So we have added this to our list of needs on the energy plan.

The next phase is to start investigating what is available and what the cost will be. We have also been notified by the Botswana Government that the Stimulus Package the United States might pass has grants for African villages that are investing in Green Energy sources it looks like we might qualify for some of these grants. You got to love the politicians in the United States, if they can think of a way to spend money they will.

If you would like to make a donation to any of these projects please just hit the donate button, we are just looking for pennies to help out.

Two of the top elders Nami and Chuata got burned out by all this planning and depressed by the thoughts of what the costs might be. We have rebuilt our treasury somewhat through donations, but it is not at the two year surplus we now required. To help reduce their stress and to help raise funds I suggested we go to the Casino that Big Bill Ludwick and I went to a few months back. Nami is a math wiz and I thought he would be able to make it into the money at the tournament.

We took the bus to Gaborone and went to the Grand Palm Casino. As I mentioned before there is a lot of corruption at this casino and you do not want to win, but coming in the money is fine. Chuata got knocked out fairly earlier, I made it to one before the money, Nami made it to 13th and won $380.00 U.S. Dollars, this is a fortune for our village and took a lot of stress off the elders. The elders know I am a professional poker player and were confused as to how Nami was able to go further then I.

At some point I will explain why I am good at cash games and not very good at tournaments, but we will save that for another day.

As far as on-line poker this week, with all the planning I did not get to play that much, but still had a very nice week. I player 7.58 hours and won $325.50 which gives me an hourly of $42.92. I had no big losing hands and I had one big winning hand where the poker gods paid me off real nicely. See hand below.




POKERSTARS GAME #24771267841: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($1/$2) - 2009/02/09 20:15:13 ET
Table 'Gyptis VII' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Spuckie ($207.30 in chips)
Seat 2: HowHai ($201.05 in chips)
Seat 3: John_Kerry ($198.70 in chips)
Seat 4: MeleaB ($212.60 in chips)
Seat 5: dps813 ($192 in chips)
Seat 6: kilmarta ($200 in chips)
Seat 7: johnny79 ($316.10 in chips)
Seat 8: DUG ($283.40 in chips)
Seat 9: icp2044 ($53 in chips)
dps813: posts small blind $1
kilmarta: posts big blind $2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DUG [Ac Ah]
johnny79: folds
DUG: raises $6 to $8 Table has been somewhat tight so I make a standard raise hoping for a caller.
icp2044: folds
Spuckie: folds
HowHai: calls $8 Good
John_Kerry: folds
MeleaB: calls $8 Not so good
dps813: calls $7 Did not want three callers
kilmarta: folds
*** FLOP *** [2d 9c 6h] ok flop a possible straight draw if someone called with 78. My biggest worry did someone call with 22, 99 or 66.
dps813: bets $15
DUG: calls $15 Good chance someone has TT so I want to keep the betting going.
HowHai: raises $29 to $44
MeleaB: calls $44
dps813: folds
DUG: calls $29 I have to call look at my odds about 5 to 1. The pot is now close to 200.
*** TURN *** [2d 9c 6h] [8d] This card does not scare me.
DUG: checks Let the aggressor keep betting.
HowHai: checks
MeleaB: bets $70 What I expected he is committed now so I will get him to put all his chips in.
DUG: raises $70 to $140 I could of went all in, but I knew this would do the same thing and confuse him, I sure hope he does not have pocket 99’s
HowHai: folds
MeleaB: raises $20.60 to $160.60 and is all-in
DUG: calls $20.60
*** RIVER *** [2d 9c 6h 8d] [As] Awesome river, see below the poker gods were on my side.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DUG: shows [Ac Ah] (three of a kind, Aces)
MeleaB: mucks hand
DUG collected $499.20 from pot Almost a $500.00 pot.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $502.20 | Rake $3
Board [2d 9c 6h 8d As]
Seat 1: Spuckie folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: HowHai folded on the Turn
Seat 3: John_Kerry folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: MeleaB (button) mucked [9d 9s]
Seat 5: dps813 (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 6: kilmarta (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: johnny79 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: DUG showed [Ac Ah] and won ($499.20) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 9: icp2044 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Cheers,

DUG