Thursday League

Had my APA 23 league last night. We had to go to a shit hole bar on the other side of town. I hate this bar, I hate their tables, I hate their bathrooms, I hate everything about this place. But, one of the things I'm trying to work on in my game is not being such a little bitch. I usually get annoyed when I have to play at a place like this, but my goal is to embrace a surrounding I don't like or am not used to. And, to top it off, one of their players was a "talker". Real nice guy, but wouldn't shut the fuck up. Talking to me while I'm playing, which used to would have sent me into a new level of pissed-offed-ness, but I rolled with it. Never getting upset and never letting any of these things get me off my game. I played lights out and won 5-0. First 3 games was a total of 2 innings. The last 2 games were longer because the table was tied up. I safetied the fuck out of this guy and won very easily. Felt good to play well again, I haven't played really good in some time.

Fucking Insurance

On Monday night, some fucktard backed into one of my semi's. Hit the door, air cleaner, and mirror. Well, the total for this is $5100. It was obvious it's the other guys fault but until the insurance does their thing to make sure that's the case, I have to pay my $2500 deductible to get the repairs rolling. The truck is going to be down 2 weeks as it is (probably $10k gross of work) and if I wanted to wait until they got word it was the other companies fault (so I wouldn't have to pay my $2500) it likely would have been 4 weeks. I'll be able to bill back my $2500 deductible and my down time with little problem (hope-fucking-fully anyways) but until then I'm out:
2 nights hotel for my guy - $135
Rental car to get home - $400
His salary while off for 2 weeks - $2200
Deductible - $2500
Grand total $5235 (so far).

For something that wasn't our fault and the other company is insured by the same exact insurance company. I understand things don't work at the speed I'd like them to (or anyone in my position) but it's just the dealing with them in general. I speak to him Tuesday first thing, repair facility sends estimate to him in afternoon. I email and call him 3 times yesterday with no response. He finally gets back to me today and says he never received anything. Fucking jackass.

Shit on my mind

Pool.
I think I might be over playing pool. I have a hard time being motivated to play good. I get there and I'm just wanting it to be over, and I'm not overly concerned whether I win or lose. I used to get up for playing a good opponent and now I basically lay down. If I'm playing well then I'll win or be competitive but if I'm slightly off then I just basically give up. I'm only playing Thursday night league for the next couple months with wife and friends. Taking Tuesday off for foreseeable future and Wednesday BCA league I run will probably start up in October sometime. I'm hoping some time away from so much pool will reinvigorate me. I usually have a lag in summer, but never been this bad. I almost want to not play at all for a while and see how I feel.

Work.
Work been fucking crappy. I've had guys off and break downs and been scraping by. Then, I get everything rolling and some fucktard backs into my truck. It's going to be down for a couple weeks probably.

Life.
I was watching Last Week Tonight and John Oliver was talking about Colorado baker who wouldn't do a wedding cake for gay couple. Oliver stated that the guy had done other things for gay people but due to his religious views, he wouldn't do a wedding cake. Now, I'm all for gays having equal rights and should be allowed to get married and do whatever they want. And, I'm not religious at all, NOT AT ALL. However, if the goal is for people to be tolerant then I believe the baker absolutely fits that description. He's made pastries (or whatever) for gay people as reported by JO. His religion (however fucking cooky I believe it to be) says that marriage is between a man and a woman and he should be able to live his life according to his religious beliefs. If tolerance is the goal, why is it wrong to be intolerant towards gays (or blacks, hispanics, or whatever) but okay to be intolerant to people who hold different beliefs than what's politically correct. I'm most likely in the minority here (among liberal thinking people anyways) but I believe he is tolerant of them (as he's provided other services to them) but he refuses to celebrate their "choice". I don't think we should have to love the things other people do, but respect them and their choices. I feel that was done in this scenario.

In the last 2+ years...

So I got away from blogging for the past 2 plus years and lately I've been thinking that I'd like to get my thoughts out and "on paper."

I'll start with the now and get into what's happened in the past 2 years later. Right now, my pool game is utter garbage. Like, flaming dogshit garbage. I have no focus and I have no competitive drive. I'm playing league too many nights, and thus, I'm playing when I don't necessarily feel like it. Seems like before when I didn't necessarily feel like playing my competitive spirit would come into play and I'd give an honest effort. Now, I'm going through the motions. I feel like I need to take a break from league. Problem is, I'm the league operator on one and my good friend with whom I play the other two nights just bought that league and I feel compelled to keep playing to support him. However, I think at the end of this league session I'm going to be taking a break from league. I'm in a lull, playing the same people at the same places and I've become friendly with many of them and it's turned into more of a social thing.

Lately, I only want to play one pocket on the big tables but 9 ball will suffice if I can't get a one pocket game. Another problem is I usually go after work (and before league starts) and there's not usually many, if any, one pocket players there during that time. I'm not a late night guy and the thought of being at the pool hall until 11pm (or later) during the week looking for a one pocket game is not terribly appealing to me.

I've had flashes of brilliance over that last couple years and that's what makes it even more frustrating. My best game rivals most anyone around and when I get into that gear it's a great feeling. I've had several good finishes in tournaments and now that I think about it I usually do finish in the money or very close to it. My expectations have risen and when I don't bring my best game knowing that I could compete with almost anyone if I did has got me down, waaaaaaaaay down. There are some personal issues that could be playing a role, but I feel like those are excuses to not play well. Making excuses for my failures doesn't interest me in the least.

I also find that I'm making less time to go to tournaments. Seems like 2-3 years ago I'd hit up a weekend tournament at least 6-7 times. Now, maybe, 3-4 times. MAYBE. It's not because my wife won't let me, it's because I find other things more enjoyable. My goal is to get into more tournaments, more big table 1 pocket/9ball, and less league. It's not my goal, it's my plan.

Working

My daily duties for work are finding loads for my trucks. Sometimes this takes no time at all and sometimes it takes many hours especially when I'm playing travel agent. I sit and look through or wait for loads to come up. Today my guy was in Houston and needed to load back to Colorado. Well now I have to sit and wait for a load to come to Colorado, fortunately that just popped up around 9:15am so it only took me 2 hours. He's got a funeral or wedding or something on Saturday he needs to be at. I usually am looking 2-3 days in advance for loads but couldn't find anything for this guy all day yesterday so I was looking for loads the day he was getting empty which sucks cause he's now sitting waiting for me. I'm now looking for loads for two trucks Friday and one Saturday and everyone else is covered until next Monday and Tuesday. If I find loads for the Friday trucks today then tomorrow I'll be able to goof off, golfing hopefully but that's only if I get my loads found. I don't take bad loads just to be done, I make sure I get a good (or best available) load so my guys can make the most money possible.

Long Day

Played in a pool tournament Saturday for APA Masters league. The tournament is free entry and they gave away $1000 for total prize pool. Pretty kick ass considering the guy that owns this league is a liar and overall a douchebag. In addition was a APA captains tournament as well as a BCA tournament there.  Some guys were playing in two or even all three tournaments so if you were playing a guy doing that sometimes you would have to wait til they played in another one.  I played at around 11am and beat a guy on my Wednesday BCA team. Then I played shortly thereafter around 1pm and beat that dude 7-6. Then had a little wait and played around 4pm and beat Doug 7-6 and finished around 5pm. I then had to sit and wait until 10pm or so. I didn't play well at all my last two matches, I struggled having to sit there that long. Most people were in the same boat but they managed to keep it together better then I did. I won $150 for my 3rd place effort so no complaints at all from me but this is exactly what can happen at any tournaments and I've usually not responded well when I've had to sit for an extended period of time. I finished up around midnight so I spent 13.5 hours at the poolhall. I'll be doing it again this weekend though, free entry tournament that the first prize is a trip to Vegas. This is going to be a handicapped tournament and I'm pretty sure I'll have to spot everyone at least one game but I still like my chances to finish real well.

Bat Shit Crazy

I'm going to preface this story with this fact, I take pool very seriously and respect the fact other people don't take it seriously at all or not as much as I.  I expect the same in return, although I almost never get it. So subbing for my team last night I end up as defacto captain because the guy I subbed for is the captain. Other team puts up their worst player, Amanda, and I have to put up someone from our team. We also have real bad player but she wasn't there yet and I damn sure wasn't gonna play a 10-2 race against this lady so I put up Mike, another guy on our team. Well Mike is way better than her but he played bad as was very annoyed by her constant jibber-jabber and he lost 3-0.  It was our turn to put up and I wanted to get the fuck out of there so I put myself up against this guy around my age who's a nice guy and a good player but in the Pool Olympics wouldn't be allowed to even hold my jockstrap much less compete against me(by the way, Pool Olympics isn't a real thing). I win the lag and get to choose the game and look over our skill levels in each game and see my best matchup is in 8 ball but that would take quite a while and I still wanted to get the fuck out of there so I chose 9 ball which can be fucking toss up cause it's slop. The guy I'm playing is saying right off "well at least you'll kick my ass and my skill level will go down" so he was beat before I hit my first shot.  I win the first 2 games pretty easily, making all my shots and playing good defenses when I had to. The 3rd game I made some mistakes and got annoyed with myself and Amanda is still running her mouth about this, that, and the other thing and starts in on why are people so mad and then points at me and says "he's a good player, why is he so mad?" I blow her off because I'm playing a fucking match and don't like ANYBODY talking to me while I'm playing. But this bitch goes on and on and on and on... I lose the 3rd game and win the 4th game and on my way to winning the 5th game (I had to win 5-4 so at this point I'm running to be up 4-1) and this crazy bitch still talking and during her jibber-jabber says "what do you think of me" and I instantly say "you're bat shit crazy." I didn't say it jokingly, I said it matter-of-fucking-factly. Like I would say "no I don't like tomatoes", I KNOW I don't like tomatoes and I KNOW she is bat shit crazy. She sat there awe struck for a few seconds and then kept yapping and joking about it.

Moral of the story: don't annoy people all night then ask what they think of you cause you're gonna get an honest response that you might not like.