Heading to Cairo, Egypt

I really need to focus on my poker play as I am financial broke. My whole plan is to play poker to finance my travels. In the last 3 months I have done more travel then poker and spent most of my winnings. So why am I heading to Egypt. Believe it or not I won a free entry into a huge poker tournament in Cairo. They are even paying my way to get there. I will be staying at the Cairo Marriott Hotel & Omar Khayyam Casino which is where the tournament is being played.

As far as poker this week I was VERY happy with my play. My first hand I lost my full stack $100.00. So you might say why am I happy with my play. The reason is I stayed focused did not lose my cool and won it all back plus $30.65. I played 5.53 hours so that gave me an hourly rate of $5.54. See the hand I lost below. If I win big in Cairo I will be doing a bit of sight seeing so you might not hear from me for a while.

Cheers,

DUG

Finally back in Botswana

Yes, I am finally back in Botswana, as you may remember I was last left in Denver and had no idea how I was going to get back to JFK in New York so I could Botswana. Let just say I got back and leave it at that.

I have attached a few pictures of the kids welcoming me home to the village. What a great reception after being away for about 3 months.

As I have mentioned I am flat broke, so I have had to stay very focus with my poker play. I have had nice results with winning $196.00 playing 11 hours for a win rate of $17.85 an hour. I thought I would post a few of my winning hands and one big losing hand.

Over the next few weeks I need to stay focused as my goal of supporting my travel through poker play has not been working. Right now my travels have out spent my poker winnings.

See hands below.

Cheers,

DUG

AK


AK again


I thought he had AK, boy was I WRONG!!!!

The Big Move to Evergreen Colorado another ski trip December 2009 (Pictures Below)

Not me, but hopefully my brother’s family. When I arrived in Colorado I found out the reason my brother and nephew were in Colorado was not just for skiing, but to do a home inspection on a house they had put an offer on. The house is beautiful, built right into the mountain, just a mile from downtown Evergreen. So from the house looking out you feel like you are all alone in the middle or a mountain range, but in reality you are located just minutes from a really cool old mining town, 45 minutes from Denver and maybe 30 minutes from some of the best skiing and mountain biking in the world.

There is only one thing better then owning a house like this, that is to have a brother and sister-in-law that own one. I just hope everything goes through.

Friday was the home inspector, I am not sure if the guy was planning to spend 8 hours inspecting this house, but that is what it took, a very thorough job. I think my brother had something to do with that. In fact I think my brother did most of the inspecting. Once the inspection was done we were back to ski mode.

We got our skis on Friday night to save time on Saturday, we rented from Breezes Ski Rentals I highly recommend them. They have many locations throughout Colorado and the best part our hotel gave us coupons for 25% off. We stayed in Golden Colorado so we have an hour and 20 minute ride to the ski resorts. We decided to ski in Breckinridge for a couple of reasons I was use to the sloops and a friend of a friend had set us up to have breakfast with the world famous Wade Howard. You may have heard of him he has completed the Leadville 100 trail ride several times. Wade also invited his brother Jeff along Jeff works for the resort and was able to get us a discount pass for lift tickets what a great thing.

Skiing was good. I was much better then just a few weeks ago, but being a Saturday and closer to Christmas the sloops were a lot more crowded. I still enjoyed it, but learned skiing is a Tuesday to Thursday sport.

After skiing we headed to the Little Bear Saloon, in downtown Evergreen. What a great place, they have live music most of the time and good cheap food. The best part is my brother can walk there from his new house.

Sunday my brother and nephew flew back to the East Coast. I am still broke and need to get to JFK to get back to Botswana, I am sure I will be able to hitch a ride home. Or I need to find a 24 hour internet café so I can play some poker and win enough to buy a plane ticket of even a bus ticket to New York.

Enjoy the pictures and short video.

Cheers,

DUG

Pictures


Video

Botswana, Oh, NO! South Beach, Miami Beach, Florida

(PICTURES BELOW)
I can't wait to get back to Botswana. I ended up taking public transport to JFK International Airport in New York. When JFK was original built in 1948 it was the state of the art airport. Now it looks more like a third world airport.

I got to the airport early, but did not mind as I am reading Sarah Palin's new book “Going Rogue", I am about one fourth through the book a very easy read, I am not sure who wrote it but clearly it was not Sarah Palin, unless someone different is doing all of her live appearances, the quality of the writing can not be Sarah’s. The only negative I have about the book is the title, rather then “Going Rogue” she should have called it, “Sour Grapes” as Sarah blames everything that goes wrong in her life on someone else. In her entire life she NEVER made a mistake or even made a bad decision.

I was very engrossed in the book. I was reading about how Sarah was about to resign from a paid committee post because she felt she could not get people to make the changes needed. Rather then fight to fix things she thought quitting was best move. I thought I heard my name being paged. "LifeOfDUG please pick up a white courtesy phone". How could that be no one knew I was at JFK. I ignored the page, but then heard it again. So I put down the book and found a courtesy phone.

On the other end of the phone was Margarite. She had flown over with her uncle who had some United Nations work (parties to attend) in New York.

Margarite had decided to surprise me and take me to South Beach, Florida for the weekend. I headed over to general aviation to find Margarite’s Uncle's private jet. Instead of a 3 day trip home I had a 3 hour trip to South Beach.

Margarite found out from the village elders when I was returning and then planned this surprise. We had gone to South Beach last year and we both enjoyed it. Margarite thought we should do it again.

Margarite booked us at the same hotel as last year the Sagamore it is an artist hotel with unique art throughout the building and grounds, this year Margarite got us a beautiful suite I have no idea the cost, but was glad I was not paying.

Thursday, Margarite arranged dinner at The Restaurant at Setai it was a great unique experience. This restaurant normally has an Asian experience though the chef has a French bias add in thanksgiving and wow, this creative chef did wonders. From the coconut lobster bisque to the traditional turkey main course everything was great.

Friday besides a short run to work off Thursday’s dinner I never left the pool area. As I continued to read Sarah Palin’s book, I got a lot of comments from other guest at the hotel “Did you really pay money for that book!”, “You are a brave sole reading that book in public!” The temperature is a little cool for this time of year it stayed in the low 70's most of the day.

Friday night we hit a Tapas Bar, Tapas & Tintos for dinner on Espanola Way. The resturant was fine but nothing to write home about.

Saturday another cool day at the pool, Margarite was knitting wool caps for her nephew and nieces. It seemed every kid at the pool was fascinated. Margarite ended up giving knitting lessons to several of the children.

We never left the pool that day, except for dinner on Lincoln Avenue.

Sunday before we hit the pool we visited the Holocaust Memorial and the Miami Botanical Gardens. The memorial was a beautiful reminder of an awful time in history. For Margarite and I it brought back memories of visiting the Jewish ghettos when we visited Prague and Budapest a few years back.

For dinner we hit The Vix at the Hotel Victor. Dinner and the service were great I highly recommend Vix at the Hotel Victor.

Monday I did an easy 8 mile run then another tough day at the pool. I finished reading, “Sour Grapes” I mean “Going Rogue”, so I bought another book “To Big to Fail”, this is a great read and I highly recommend it.

We decided to have dinner at the Barton G. You may remember last year we had Thanksgiving dinner at this restaurant. Before dinner we did a quick walk through the Delano Hotel. Sitting in the lobby minding her own business was Alli Ludwick. Alli is the only daughter of Big Bill Ludwick. You may remember Big Bill Ludwick from when he and I played some poker back in Botswana.

Alli would not give us a straight answer as to why she was sitting in the Delano but we did convince her to join us for dinner.

Alli is the star miler at the University of Miami or at least that is what Big Bill tells us. Alli, very humble, unlike her father, did tell us she is on the track team but that was it.

The Barton G was outstanding as usual all the meals were over the top.

Even though Alli has been at school for 3 months, this was her first trip to South Beach. At this point we found out why Alli was at the Delano, she was suppose to meet at blind date there, but when we showed up she decided to blow her date off and join us.

After dinner we gave Alli a tour of the Art Deco section of South Beach and then we toured some of the clubs on Ocean Drive we finished back at our hotel. It was great to see Alli what a great surprise.

Tuesday is our last day in South Beach so I was at the pool at 7:00 am.
Around 8:00 am Georges and his 5 year old daughter Alana showed up. At this point the hotel was empty and we had the pool to ourselves.

Georges and his family were from Sweden. Over the last few days we had grown friendly with Georges’s family. So you may see an excursion to Sweden when we go to Greenland next summer.

The plan was for Margarite to drop me back at JFK and then I have my three day trip back to Botswana. Before we took off I checked my email and saw my brother Ross and nephew Austin were heading back to Colorado for some skiing.

I have no money and had not played any poker for a week, but I was hooked on skiing. So I begged Margarite to fly me to Breckenridge instead of JFK. After much begging and whining she gave in and dropped me off at the Fort Collins, Colorado Airport.

Will, I ever get home to Botswana?

Cheers,
DUG