Poker,Obama, Starbucks,Running

I was reading another blog yesterday here that was talking about politics and it got me thinking how the change in leadership in the U.S has changed the way we here in Canada think of our American neighbours. For the past 8 years all talk here in Canada has been mostly negative about their past president and the policies of his cronies. With the election of Obama all the negativity has gone away. That is a great thing. I don't think most Americans realized (maybe some didn't care) how much damage Bush did to their reputation world wide. I have always been very pro American and for the past few years its been hard listening to everybody complain about Bush but unfortunately most of it was justified.

Now I know Obama is not going to change everything but I will use his recent address at Notre Dame as an example. Prior and during his visit all the pro life abortion people were protesting his speech at a Catholic school. Now Obama who is pro choice could have just ignored the protesters and not mentioned them in his speech but he did and what he said impressed me. He said basically let's agree to disagree but do it peacefully and respectfully. I mean we can argue until the ends of time whether you think abortion is right or wrong (I am pro choice) and the debate will never end. People just need to respect that we all aren't going to think and act the same on all issues. Okay enough politics.

My youngest son works at Starbucks and one of the great things about that is he gets a free pound of coffee a week to take home. Since he doesn't drink much coffee at home as he also gets free coffee while he is working. Guess who gets that free pound? Me. Well my wife shares it too. I love it. We have a cupboard full of coffee. It also make great gifts too. Now I know some people hate Starbucks coffee saying its too strong or whatever but personally I love it and this from a guy who until a couple years never drank coffee. Seriously!! I went through most of my life without coffee and now of course I am an addict!

Well I played my usual Monday night game last night and I actually played pretty well. I think there was 40 of us. I started off well when getting dealt a couple of low pairs early 5's one time and 6's another and both times managed to bet people off the pots.. Then I went card dead for awhile until someone went all in in early position and I looked down and had A10s and I called and doubled up. He had pocket 3's. I hit my straight. After that not a lot of memorable hands but I managed to make it to the final table. I won a couple decent pots there and was looking great until I got dealt KQ. 3 of us limped in. Flop came Q63.Lady to my right immediately went all in. I had her covered and figured my hand was good so I called. The other player folded. Lady turned over QJ so I was looking great and had her covered . Yea you guessed it the lousy Jack came on the turn and she doubled up. I was crippled after that but managed to hold on and went out in 6th.

Watched a movie on the weekend called Taken with Liam Neeson. It was not bad. Lots of action although a little hard to believe that one guy could do all what he did in the movie but without giving away too much plot it certainly was worth renting. Basic storyline is his daughter gets kidnapped and he has to find her.

My running is suffering lately. I am still running 4 days a week but I used to run 6 or 7. I used to always have a running goal whether it be an upcoming marathon or half marathon now the motivation just seems to be not there. I honestly don't know whether I will ever run a race again. One thing now though is when I do run I always enjoy it now and before I used to force myself on some days to run as I knew I needed to get out there and put in the miles. Maybe that's a good thing. Running is supposed to be fun.