This chapter isn't really about travel -- more about non-travel. I've got some ramblings to expel about my holiday and it's more than would reasonably fit in my newsletter -- plus I've got some photos to show also.
Firstly, I guess I ought to mention (for those not yet retired) that the term holiday has a somewhat different meaning if you're retired. Just like weekend -- to retirees, weekend isn't the time to get a bunch of stuff done. It's the time you stay at home because all the stores are full of weekend shoppers. Joyce still has the worker mentality, always wanting to "do stuff on the weekend", like going out to eat, going to movies, etc. I generally try to resist, but often give in to keep the peace. If it was up to me, I'd stay home on the computer all weekend, then get out to eat, movie, etc. during the week. I especially hate Walmart on the weekend -- always crowded and with long lines.
Holidays are similar -- at least they are at our house. I guess if you've got family real close (like in the same town) that are still working, you're still affected by their habits. My sister, for example, often gets together with her kids on the weekend because that's the only time they have. Likewise, the Christmas holidays for them are time to get together, exchange gifts, eat a bunch, and do what's traditional. For us, whose nearest family is a couple of hours away, it's a time that we're pretty much on our own to do what we want, when we want. So, as you read my ramblings below, don't feel sorry for us because our holidays aren't filled with all that stuff. If we wanted it, which we occasionally do, we get into the RV and go where the family is to do the get-together/gift/eat things. But this holiday season, we've been pretty unorthodox, by most standards. I'm not sure how many retirees have holidays like ours, but I'd suspect it's quite a few.
I know many of you are tired of hearing about Poker, but I'm going to start with that. If you want to, just skip to where you see the photo of the Delta 4 rocket. HOWEVER, big changes are happening in my Poker world! I keep talking about my adventures in online pokerland because I continue to be amazed. I've never been a big winner at Poker and I've been playing for about 50 years, so I guess I can't stop talking about it. Like I say -- if you're tired of it -- drop down to the Delta 4 photo.
On December 17th, I signed up at FullTiltPoker.com. I put in $50, then started to slowly earn my $50 (100%!) bonus. I was so impressed by the unique features at their site, I wrote Chapter 17 in my WebBook about it. Note that link to Chapter 17 -- that's a free copy of the actual chapter. Your big chance to see a sample chapter without buying the book! I was diddling along, playing nickle-dime or dime-quarter no-limit, as I have been for the last few months. It's a low-priced, fun game, where you can win a lot faster than you can lose. Very safe, but no large profits to be expected. THEN, on Christmas Eve, after Joyce had gone to bed, I decided to give myself a Christmas gift. I pulled $200 out of my Neteller account and jumped into a $3-$6 limit game. Now, I haven't played at that level since December 2003, when I first started playing and quickly lost my original $200 stake. It was shortly after that, around Valentine Day, that I discovered the secret that's the basis for the original book chapters, and started to win now and then.
To continue -- it's Christmas Eve and I'm playing a $3-$6 game. I noticed a couple of things -- first, I noticed that my bonus points were being earned much faster -- no surprise there. The surprise came when I saw that I was actually winning! I continued playing for a couple of hours, was winning a bunch, drank some more wine, then jumped into a $5-$10 game! Big money! Just calling each card for one complete hand costs you $30! At that rate, one could lose that $200 very quickly. By the time I got to this point, I was up a hundred or so, but the higher stakes were still a bit adventuresome for a cheapie like me. I continued winning!
Making a long story short -- I won a couple hundred that night, continued playing for the next few days, jumped over to Paradise Poker and played the big ($3-$6, $2-$4, etc.) games there, and continued winning! I'm not really sure what's happened since I lost that money a year ago, but I've played over 150,000 hands since then, so maybe I've actually learned something. It's now the 28th and I'm up $1149! I hesitate to crow too much about this, because it may just be a lucky streak, but hey -- it seems to be continuing. I've gotten my play down to a set of simple rules on when I play and when I don't, with a little bluffing thrown in now and then for fun, so it'll be interesting to see how long things continue this way. For those who have already purchased my Secrets for Winning Online Hold'Em Poker, keep an eye out for Chapter 18. I hope to get it out there before New Year's and it'll contain all my rules for playing/betting/raising/etc. And, I also plan to put out a Chapter 19 on bluffing -- I've found a few situations where the bluffs appear to work about 80% of the time, so will pass them along for your consideration. With these two chapters, you'll have a complete picture of how I'm currently playing, so should be able to achieve some of the same success, unless I'm doing something that I'm not aware of. Hey! If this keeps up, I can retire and play Poker full-time .. hahaha ... check January newsletter to see if it's continuing.
For those who don't yet have the book, and who are interested in making some easy money playing online, click the link above and spend the $15. That's a whole lot less than you'll lose by going out there without any advice at all!
Continuing with the holiday experience -- on December 22nd, NASA launched a Delta 4 rocket. A big deal because it was unusually large and because they had missed about 4 launch dates before it finally took off. A big deal for us, because we could stand in the front yard and watch it. Look below for photos. Click them to see a closeup view.
View on the TV
Early launch cloud, seen between neighbors' homes
View from our yard
Best night-time shot I could get. Hey! I don't claim to be a pro! That's a Norfolk pine about 15 feet high in front with the candy canes around it.
Traditional Christmas Dinner
So, what to do on Christmas Day? Well, I was on the phone to my sister, Marylin, the retired one with family closeby. She was going on about their traditional Christmas dinner. They all decided years ago that they didn't really like Turkey that much, that they didn't like the incessant Turkey left-overs, and that they actually liked Steak better. Hence, their traditional Christmas dinner is Steak. Not sure what the trimmings are, but I'm sure they're all delicious and not quite as fattening as most of those that go with Turkey. Anyway, that got me to thinking about us. We aren't always at home on Christmas, but when we are, we really ought to have a traditional dinner also. Joyce, always on some type of diet, doesn't really have any strong favorites, so it was up to me. After much thought, I came up with one of my favorite meals and dubbed it our Traditional Christmas Dinner -- see photo.
You can click to see a closeup, but here's the detail. That's my famous home-made Hormel Hot Chili -- home-made it myself in the microwave. The hot dogs are Oscar Mayer, the only weiner I'll eat. The beverage is .. what else? ... Sam's Diet Cola. We put it in a wine glass to add some ambience. Speaking of ambience, you may notice that we're in the formal dining room. This turned out to be a bad idea, since I managed to spill some coke on that nice table cloth in my excitement to get started on the Chili. Joyce added her special touch with the chopped Onion that can be seen on the chopping board serving tray. I don't usually go to that much trouble, but she volunteered and I thought "What the heck - it's Christmas, so let's pull out all the stops!" That, my friends, is now our Traditional Christmas Dinner. Email me a check for $30 postage and handling, and I'll send you the detailed recipe!
And that's about it for our holiday. Hope you found it mildly interesting, occasionally entertaining, and -- of course -- the seasonally necessary heart-warming.
We still have New Year's to go, but I don't expect anything very exciting to happen then. We don't really have any plans, so will probably watch the ball drop on TV. Paradise Poker is having a big special on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, where they give away hundreds of dollars if you're in one of the 10,000th games. Assuming that Joyce beds down early, I'll probably put in a few hours to see if I can't hit one of those lucky games. Since they'll probably play somewhere around 1,600,000 games in those two days, that's 160 chances to be lucky! Can't miss that!
If you're reading this before New Year's, you might check back after. If anything worth talking about happens, it'll be here. I'll mention it in the January newsletter if I add to the chapter. And, I'll be reporting on my continuing (or terminated) Poker luck.
Hope your holidays have been as happy as ours! We look forward with anticipation to more great things in 2005 and hope you're doing the same!
So what's that got to do with being retired? Well, if we weren't, we probably wouldn't live in Florida and we wouldn't be able to stand in the front yard in the middle of the afternoon, because we'd be at work.
Christmas Eve passed with little unusual activity, other than a bunch of phone calls to various family members. Thank goodness for cell phones with free long distance! Then, there was the evening of Poker, but that was about it.
Christmas Day! No gifts to open, because we pretty much buy what we need all during the year when we need it. I don't like to shop at all, so really like this arrangement. Joyce loves to shop, but can't keep a gift a secret, so by Christmas Day, I've already gotten all the gifts I'm going to get. Likewise, I've tried in the past to keep a gift for her, but she refuses to wait and always weasles it out of me before the magic day. Or -- she finds it and sneaks a peek, so it's not really a surprise anyway.
Hey! I almost forgot! Speaking of tradition, we put up Christmas lights this year -- or are they now called Holiday lights? We didn't put any up last year, because we were travelling, so Joyce was really happy we were able to put some up this year. After all was done, I'll admit they really looked nice, and most people in the neighborhood decorated, so the whole street looked quite festive! See photos below.
Holiday cutouts we made several years ago
Hahaha ... now here's a real joke for you. I was just looking at the photo above and was wondering why the lights to the left of the front door (in center of photo) aren't showing up. Just went out and turned them on and Guess What! They aren't on! Wonder how long they've been out. Oh well, they come down tomorrow, so no need to worry about that now. Just assume that what you see on the right is also on the left, and there are a bunch of colored lights on the bushes along the ground and ... nevermind. It's not that clear anyway. But they looked great!
Traditional holiday family photo
Day after Christmas (Sunday), Joyce's son Steve came up from Ft. Lauderdale and brought along a friend who's from Brazil and is a professional Chef! So, we ate some really great Brazilian food on Monday! All the dishes were his own invention, so I can't really name them, but there was a wonderful creamy soup with squash, bacon and some other veggies in it. There was a main course of rice with a creamy sauce containing Shrimp, Mahi-Mahi, several vegetables whose names I don't know, and some combination of spices -- fantastic! The dessert was a Passion Fruit Mousse that melted in your mouth. I weighed myself this morning and have gained 5 pounds. Not real good, but I certainly have no regrets. I plan to join a health club and start some serious exercise in January, so it's not a problem. We said goodby to Steve and Cezar this afternoon, and I ate some left-overs of that great meal for supper tonight. BTW, did you know that Passion Fruit should be soft, crinkly, and muushy? Joyce said that when Cezar put it into the basket, she told him it looked like it was too ripe, but he assured her that was the way it was supposed to look. How about that?! At my age, I learned something! Don't know when I'll ever be buying Passion Fruit, but just in case, I'm ready ... To the right, a photo of Joyce, Steve, and Chef Cezar.
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63. A Retiree's Holiday
