Road trip - Day 1

Day 1 – Saturday, June 25 – Home to John Day, OR

The first directions were the easiest: go to I-5, turn south, find breakfast. Naturally, we ate at the same place we eat when we go to Hood Canal in the mornings: Hawks Prairie Inn in Lacey, WA. Eggs, bacon, and back on the road.

At about 10:15 a.m., we waved goodbye to I-5 (we wouldn’t see it again until late July 1), and entered Oregon on I-205, connected with I-84, and headed east. I-84 is a four lane divided freeway, and as the car in front of me changed lanes to the left, I was jolted quickly out of my thoughts by the most frightening image of the whole trip. I quickly, with a sigh of relief, realized it was being towed, backwards.

We stopped briefly at Multnomah Falls, then continued on to my favorite geocache of all time, The Pipeline.

We were behind schedule at this point, so we didn’t take the full 1.75 mile hike to the cache, but we did hike ¾ mile to the best part of The Pipeline, where water is spraying everywhere and making long lasting rainbows.

We stopped for lunch at Taco Time in The Dalles, OR, where Krys got a fairly complex model cardboard plane with her kids meal. She spent the next hour in the car assembling it; I was quite impressed.

We left I-84 in Biggs, OR, passing Linda’s Restaurant on the way (hi, mom!). Ten miles later, we had to release the drinks we consumed in The Dalles, so we kept our eyes open for a place to go. The Wasco Town Park was just the spot – and the cleanest public outhouse I’ve ever seen.

We continued on, passing wheat field after wheat field (did you know they whisper in the wind – pretty cool!). At about 4:00 we stopped briefly at a roadside “Mountain Identifier”, which pointed out Adams, Shasta, Rainier, and St. Helens.

The next major town on the route was Condon, and Krys went into fits of embarrassment every time we mentioned the name of the town, so we took to calling it “La La La” instead. I wanted to take a photo of her with the welcome sign, but she refused until Kim offered her a dollar to do it.

We crossed the 45th parallel, and entered the town of Fossil. I’d been here geocaching last year, and was looking forward to showing Kim and Krys the fossil pile behind the high school. Unfortunately, some time in the last 13 months, they began charging admission and restricting access, so we left disappointed. We drove through the John Day canyon, admiring the geology, and stopped for a photo op in the town of Kimberly.

Continuing on, we passed through the town of Mount Vernon (MapPoint landmarks: Wagon Wheel Tavern, McKerns Texaco, and the Mt Vernon Trailer Park), and Krys spotted a pair of newlyweds descending the steps out of the little white church to greet their wedding guests. Straight out of Rocky Horror, I think.

At about 6:00 p.m., we finally arrived in John Day, checked in to the Little Pine Inn, and had dinner at The Outpost. Dinner took a while, because their two banquet rooms were taken up -- by a wedding party from Mt. Vernon, and another couple's 50th anniversary party. I guess this was the only banquet rooms within 50 miles or so.

When we returned to our hotel, we had two surprises. Three deer were in the field outside our window, and some friendly neighbor had given us open access to their wireless net connection. Sweet.

Miles today: 408
Miles total: 408

[Edit: adding paragraph breaks]

Road trip - Prologue

On June 25, 2005, Kim, Krys, and I set out on the longest road trip of our lives. I drove 4027 miles over 15 days, from 8500 feet elevation down to 45 feet below sea level. This is the story of that trip.

Prologue I had been thinking about doing this road trip since my solo trip to Reno last year. After seeing and doing the things I’d done, I really wanted Kim and Krys to be able to see and do the same things. But why stop there? Kim has wanted to go back to Vegas for as long as I’ve known her – she was an Air Force brat stationed at Nellis AFB during her formative middle-school years – and Krys sounded excited when I mentioned the possibility to her. Kim and I have also talked about eventually hitting every major league baseball park, and this trip was the perfect excuse to get the west coast out of the way.

In March, I began planning the route, and after reviewing the MLB schedules, came up with the path you see in the map above.

I browsed the web sites of the major (and some minor) areas that we’d be going through, and had them send me their tourist ad packets. When it was all said and done, we had a pile of literature four slippery inches thick.

Over the next three months, I read hotel reviews, made reservations, watched a documentary on traveling US-93, read road reports and books about traveling other major roads, and pretty much got myself all psyched up. At 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 25, we hit the road.

[EDIT: Added paragraph breaks, changed title to Prologue ("prelude"? what was I thinking?).]

Google personal search history

I opted in to Google's Search History about two weeks ago. Pretty slick. It stores all the searchs I run while I'm signed into my Google account (e.g., Gmail), which is just about always. 12 days, 59 searches. Fewer than I expected. Heavy into baseball, law, forms, and The 4400. Samples from the search history:

---

Jul 16, 2005 (cont.)

leaky cauldron

The Leaky Cauldron: Harry Potter News: Updates on JK Rowling, book ... - 4:17pm www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/

Jul 15, 2005

votingoptions votingresponse

Koders - mdActions.bas - 4:39pm www.koders.com/vb/fid147A005A8AFE519A62117AF90E9AB34BF72 D5134.aspx

MailItem Object -- Office Outlook 2003 VBA Language Reference ... - 4:16pm msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/vbaol11/html/ olobjMailItem_HV05247822.asp

video search

Google Video Search - 10:23am video.google.com/

"iron chef" "kitchen stadium" ingredient

Virtual Iron Chef: Kitchen Stadium Battle! - 10:28am members.tripod.com/~BayGourmet/iron.html

Searches with no clicked results: video, "iron chef" theme ingredient

Jul 14, 2005

"the 4400" - Related history

.: The 4400 TV Fan Site :. - 8:56am the4400.free.fr/en/?country=en

THE 4400 FORUM - 8:35am www.the4400forum.com/

infopath "two submit" - Related history

http://www.edcomp.com/search.aspx?query=creating+activex+objects ... - 8:18am

Searches with no clicked results: "loss of earning power" lep calculations, "loss of earning power (lep) calculations"

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Pretty cool, really. I never realized how much I googled for forms related stuff at work. (OT: Yeah, I still plan on blogging my road trip. Soon.)

Road trip photos

FYI, I've just posted seven photos from the first seven days of my 16 day road trip on my photo blog.

Losing and winning in Tampa

I went back to the Tampa Hard Rock on Thursday night, and after buying in for $90 and playing for four hours, ended up cashing out for $63. Although I won some good hands, my pocket pairs never hit their sets and I got rivered a few times more than usual.

All is well, though, because I had a very DarthSlumlord-like experience on the way out. I had $5 in $1 bills on me, so I tossed them into a $1 single-line low top-prize slot bingo machine (1000, I think), deciding to give it five pulls, and to take whatever happened. On the third pull, I get [double-bar / double-bar / bonus] for something like $95. I cash out, turning a losing night into a winner. (Then again, four hours of entertainment for $27 wouldn't have been bad, either.)

Shhh... Conference rooms

This week I'm attending a Business Forms Management conference in at the Orlando Doubletree hotel, and in the middle of a particularly dry session ("Intermediate XML," which really should have been called "Intro to XML Basics"), I excused myself to head to the restroom, in part because I needed to get up to keep from dozing off.

As I walked through the bank of conference rooms, a group of a dozen middle school kids -- apparently a school group heading to Universal Studios -- rounded a corner chatting loudly. A janitor politely motioned that they needed to quiet down. One kid was ahead of the rest of the group, and didn't see the janitor's signal. His classmate called out to him and pointed at a conference room door, "Jared, shhhh, people are trying to sleep." He wasn't far off the mark.

Poker at the Tampa Hard Rock

I think I like live action poker a lot more than online. If poker really is a game of people, played with cards, you lose a lot of that online. Case in point.

Yesterday, I drove an hour from my conference in Orlando to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel/Casino in Tampa. I'd originally planned to drive an hour the other direction, to a dog track in Daytona (apparently, Florida law allows poker at dog tracks, but that's it). But my weakness for roulette got the better of me, and I headed to the west coast instead of east.

When I arrived, I was disappointed to see that there's no table games at the Seminole Hard Rock. No roulette, no blackjack, no craps. Just rows and rows and rows and rows of slots. Curse this limited net access!

But... there's a poker room. 48 tables. When I arrived at 6:00 on a Monday night, the place was -- well, I was gonna say dead, but there was still more poker going on there than anywhere else I've seen. They probably had four $1/$2 tables, four $2/$2 tables, and a few Omaha tables playing. I got in as the 9th player, bought in for $90, and as is my style, only went in on premium hands. At my lowest point over the next three hours, I was only down to $82, and I left at the top of my game, up to $146 (+$56) when it got too late to continue.

When you're sitting with someone, it's a lot easier to tell how clueless they are, or whether their call on the turn is because they've got a good hand or if they're playing sherriff. It's a lot easier to know who's betting on the theory that any two cards can win, because they'll tell you. It's lot easier to tell how on-tilt the player across the table from you is after losing their ace-high straight to quad queens.

My big money hand for the night was a very marginal Kh 9s that I got into in middle position. The flop came 4h 9h 7s, giving me top pair with K kicker (and a very slim chance at a runner runner flush). Checked to me, I tossed in $1, and the other players called. Turn is 9d, giving me top set. There's four of us still in, and quiet girl checks, loud guy tosses in $2, I raise to $4, and the other three players call. Loud guy correctly announces that he's put me on a set of nines (grr..). The river is 9c, giving me quads. It checks to me, I bet $2, the guy to my left folds, quiet girl and loud guy call, and my quad beats their tied nines-over-fours boats. Nice.

By the way, Happy Days in Lakewood looks like they reopened last Friday after their remodel.

My big money hand for the night was a very marginal Kh 9s that I got into in middle position. The flop came 4h 9h 7s, giving me top pair with K kicker (and a very slim chance at a runner runner flush). Checked to me, I tossed in $1, and the other players called.

Bremerton II Draft I

I posted Draft 1 of the second Bremerton Cache Machine this weekend. I'm already getting some good feedback. I hope the buffet place at the end can 1) handle our hungry group, 2) handle us staying way past their closing time, and 3) can figure out how to serve beer.

I'm hopeful for #1, concerned about #2, and very doubtful about #3. I can't find anywhere in Bremerton/Silverdale that will take 100 people with no prepayment, though.

I need a scapegoat

Ouch. Over the last week, I've dropped about $100, down about $130 from my high point this go-round. When I was doing well, I told DarthSlumlord that the first key is to only bet on premium hands: pairs, blackjacks, and paint. So, inexplicably, after talking to he-who-shall-not-be-named, I begin playing suited cards in late position. Sure, you can win hands that you wouldn't expect, but everyone else out there is doing the same thing, so half the time you hit the flush, someone's got a higher flush.

That, plus the steaming that such play causes, ain't a good thing.

The second key, and the thing that does well for me when I do it well, is knowing when to get out of a hand. Just because someone plays like a fool most of the time doesn't mean they didn't hit their hand. I was holding J7 suited and the flop came AA7 rainbow. Betting came to me, and I called. The turn is another 7, two other players are in, so I raise. The river's a 3, and I and another decent player bet each other to the max. Of course, he shows A2. I knew he had the Aces over Sevens boat, but couldn't bring myself to fold my Sevens over Aces. Sigh.

My 15% bonus showed up today, though. Yay, $4.50.

$2/$4? Ouch.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I was gonna try the $2/$4 online tables. I started last night at a $1/$2, sat down with $30 in chips, and lost them all over the course of 45 minutes. I switched to another $1/$2 table with another $30, and 20 minutes later, was up to $64. Net +$4.

Then I switched to a $2/$4 table with $60, and lost $58 of it. Net -$54.

Took some time off, watched a bit of TV, helped the kid with her homework, and hopped back on a few hours later. Back to the $1/$2 with $30, which fluctuated as low as $10, but ended with $47 on a nut flush (Holding Kd Qs, flop is Xd Yd Ad, turn is Kh, river is Qd) Net -$37 for the night.

I think at the more expensive table, I was taking more chances. Not bad chances -- the pot odds said to go for the open end straight draw -- but expensive chances. That, and my two pair lost to a guy who slow played his set of 8's on the flop.

I'll stick with the $1/$2 tables for a while.

Another night, another $25

I played for half an hour last night (hey, my time's limited, and the TiVo was about to delete the two Eyes of Nye episodes and Breaking Vegas, so there's 90 minutes right there), and went up another $25. When I was done, I noticed one fact I should have seen before I started playing. At it's busy times, TigerGaming has about 5500 players on line. I don't like to play when there's less than 4000 -- I found that the caliber of player gradually improves at the slow times. Last night, there were 1700 players. Eep!

No spectacular hands -- just winning the ones I should have. It probably would have been $35 or so, but I did dumb stuff like betting $1 on two overcards after the flop, or seeing a pre-flop raise while on the small blind holding A4 offsuit.

I'm wondering if I should move up to the $2/$4 table tonight.

Button nuts

After last Saturday's play, bankroll up to $50 (from my $15 buy in), it was time to leave the 10¢/20¢ tables and head for higher stakes. The level this week: $1/$2.

The players at the $1/$2 aren't any better, except that they don't go in with the hands that drive you insane when you lose, like 3d 6h. Realistically, it makes the $1/$2 table easier, because there's more of an opportunity to put someone on a hand. You'll still see guys with big bankrolls going in with Tc 6c in middle position ("but it's soooooted!"), but you'll won't see bizarre straight draws being hit nearly as often.

On Sunday I turned my $50 into $60, and last night turned my $60 into $90, mostly by just playing the good starting hands.

Tonight, though... Lemme tell ya.

I knew things were going to be interesting when I sat down to the right of the button, posted my $1, got dealt 8h 5c, and saw the flop for free: Qs, 8c, 4d. The hand checks around, and As comes on the turn. Again, the hand checks around. The river is 3h. It checks around, and I win $6.70 with my pair of eights. Wha??

A few hands later, in middle position, I get dealt Td Qs. A marginal hand, and one I probably shouldn't have played, but I tossed $1 at it. Seven players, including the blinds. The flop is Jc Qc 7s. I got me top pair. Checks to me, I bet a buck, get four folds and two callers (small blind and UTG).

Turn is 9d. Checks to me, and I bet $2. SB and UTG call. The river is Qh. Checks to me, I bet $2, SB folds, UTG calls. My set beats his two pair, JJQQ9. $19 win (+$13 net).

It gets better. Four hands later, I'm dealt Jc Kh on the button. Eight players in, one folds, and the flop comes Td 3c Qs. A double open-ended straight draw. It checks around to me, so I make a $1 position bet. The blinds and UTG fold, the next four players call. The turn is 9d. Quick: what's the nuts?

It's my hand: Jx Kx. The only thing I've got to worry about on the river is something pairing up to give someone a full house or a quad, or a diamond to give them a flush.

Names will help at this point to keep the action straight. In order of play are ConMan13, EastCoast, MiloAlsa, Squid7, and me.

ConMan13 checks, and EastCost bets $2. Milo and Squid call. I raise to $4. ConMan13 check-raises to $6, which isn't a surprise -- he'd been doing that a lot. EastCoast caps it at $8 (4 bets), Milo folds, and the rest of us call.

The river is Ah. I probably couldn't have asked for a better card. This gives me the top nut straight, and will make anyone with an ace feel that their hand is even stronger.

The other three players check to me, and I bet $2. ConMan13 check raises (big surprise.) to $4, EastCoast folds, Squid calls, I raise to $6, ConMan13 caps it at $8, Squid calls, I call.

Community cards: Td 3c Qs 9d Ah
Squid's cards: 3s 9h (two pair) what was he doing playing this?!
ConMan13's cards: Qd Qc (set)
My cards: Jc Kh (straight), for a $70 win (+$52 net)

I play 13 more hands, dropping $5 on blinds and failing to hit a set of 4's on the flop. It's a good night.

Geocaching with Criminal Intent

Next on Law & Order: Criminal Intent (nbc.com)

THE UNBLINKING EYE
9pm 2005-05-08 ALL NEW!
STREET SHOOTINGS RAISE PUBLIC OUTCRY AS POLICE PROBE FEMALE STALKER -- AND HIGH-TECH TREASURE HUNT GAME -- After a young actor Mike, (guest star Jeffrey Hephner) is wounded and his fiancee is shot dead on the street, Detectives Goren (Vincent D. Onofrio) and Eames (Kathryn Erbe) are pointed towards the surviving victim's former girlfriend, who is known to have stalked him. The key, however, might turn on their probe of geocaching, a high-tech treasure-hunt game that could yield vital clues. As the media and public mourn the man's tragic loss, the police want to take another look at some of his acting buddies, especially one who never lets go of his Palm Pilot. Jamey Sheridan and Courtney B. Vance also star.

I sure hope this doesn't scare the cops around here more than geocaching already has.

Quotes, boats, and notes

Firstly:

One of my all-time favorite poker quotes:

Poker is not a card game you play with people. Poker is a people game you play with cards.

This is, I think, why I tend to play so much better when I play one game at a time. Since I bought in last weekend, I've had no losing days, but I've had losing tables. Last night is a good example. I joined two 10¢/20¢ tables at the same time, for the max $5 buy-in on both. I left one table with $10.60. I left the other table with 8¢. This one-good/one-bad seems to happen when I play two tables at a time; when I just play one table, I've almost always ended up ahead.

Why? When I play two tables, and I'm surfing the web between hands, all I have time to do is look at my cards, my position, and the bets on the table. I don't remember that JoeBlow bet through the river with his pocket 3's last hand, and I don't notice that TexPete has no concept of the importance of kickers. When I play one table at a time, I'm more likely to notice these things.

Secondly:

If you read back through this blog's archives, you'll see that my lucky streak ended when Phoenician Casino changed its software and turned off their poker room links. I then played on Empire Poker (linked to Party Poker) and my bankroll went down a bit, inicating to me that it was a good time to quit.

I recently found another site, Tiger Gaming, that's running the same poker software that Phoenican was. It appears to be the same Canadian-heavy population using it, too.

Lastly:

My favorite hand of the week. I'm dealt 66 under the gun. I limp in along with half the table, and the flop comes 776. The blinds bet, I raise, the guy to my left raises, and everyone folds to me. I call. I'm hoping he's got a 7 and thinks its powerful.

The turn is a 5, and we raise each other to the 80¢ max. The river's a K, and again we raise each other to 80¢. I win with my full boat. He shows A7, losing with a set. I felt fortunate that the tables weren't turned here, 'cause I'm not sure I could get out either with a set plus top kicker.

Bremerton Cache Machine II

Here's what little I've come up with so far. BCM2 will be June 18, starting at 4:30 a.m. and ending at 9:30 p.m. A quick pocket query of Geocaching.com's system shows something like 135 caches near my projected route. Some of them are probably multis or puzzle caches, but that still leaves maybe 100 or so park-and-grabs.

Should be a fun, exhausting event.

Poker night, live and virtual

I had eight friends over for Poker night on Saturday. Robb's blog and its responses describe the results fairly completely. Robb lost, I came close to breaking even, and DarthSlumlord walked away with three Jacksons.

Aside: Tres brought his girlfriend Kelly along for the first time. She's quiet (who wouldn't be?), but seems pretty nice.

I've written it here before, but I need to stop getting wedded to hands. It cost me a foolish $12 on Saturday, when I had a pair of aces clearly being beat by DarthSlumlord. He was already the big stack at this point, and my big bets were doing nothing to scare him out. I'm seeing the same thing in my recent online play ($15 buy-in at the 10¢/20¢ tables, up 25% this week), where I'm holding on to my pocket queens far too long when facing AKx on the flop.

Hometown paper report on Geocaching

The News Tribune has an article on geocaching today, and it's surprisingly positive and accurate. The only big mistake is that they say that geocaching is banned in national parks and national forests. While the former is true, the latter is not, as evidenced by the Trib's mention of my buddy GEM's late night hike through the Snoqualmie tunnel.

GeoPoker in Wenatchee

Geo: Saturday was the Wenatchee Cache Machine geocaching event. We had more than 100 people participate in some way, almost all of whom showed up for dinner on Friday and Saturday night. Wow.

I hit nine caches along US-2 on the way there. I was a bit worried about crossing Stevens Pass, but the snow was light by the time I went through at 2:00, and the road was fine, with just one small quarter mile patch of slush.

During the event, I found 68 caches, including my 1000th cache, which involved transposing numbers off of a historical railroad plaque, then scrounging around the underbelly of a full size caboose.

This doesn't include the two Honey Buckets that I logged into. They've got a logbook page next to the door, don't they? That's not what the sign-in list is in there for? Oh.

I also found a cache that I had unsuccessfully looked for two years ago. Ahh, closure.

From the logs, it looks like everyone had an outstanding time.

Poker: Near our dinner spot is Kegler's Bowling and Casino. Like every card room in existence now, they've got poker tables. Unlike most, they have a $1/$2 table (9 player; kind of strange); its clientele seems to be 18- and 19-year-old rocker wannabe's (one was actually wearing a circa 1984 Def Leppard T-shirt), 17-year-olds with fake ID's, and 21-year-olds who wandered in from the bowling alley and discovered cheap drinks in here.

I'd planned to buy in for $100 in $1 chips, but I was 8th on the waiting list, so played $3 basic strategy blackjack to pass the time. I did absolutely horrid -- 12 hands later, I'm down to $67 (won one hand, lost eleven, including one double down loss). No more of that -- bleaugh.

I hang out for another 15 minutes, and my seat opens up. My strategy at the table is to play tight, quality hands. It's quickly apparent that most other players' strategy is to pay to see the flop, then to figure out what to do from there.

I sit down with three $20 stacks of $1 chips and a $5 chip to cover my cards. A couple hands later, I can tell that the two kids in seats 8 and 9 are friends, and seat 9 asks his buddy -- not quietly enough, because I heard it -- "$60? Why would someone sit down with $60? Look at him."

Mind you, I've been out geocaching for about 14 hours straight, I forgot my hairspray at home so my mop top is a bit wild, I was wearing an old, slightly unraveled sweater over a black T-shirt, and I was staring mainly at my cards and still pondering my bad blackjack luck.

"He's broke," seat 8 kid says. Yeah, guy, that must be it. "I can't think of any other reason," he says. I'm liking this. Go ahead and think that, then give me your money.

The button circles the table a few times, and I'm down about $5; three blinds and two bad flops. I get dealt a Kd Td in late position, and the flop is 5d 3d Jc. A flush draw. I'm in, as is most of the table.

The turn is 3h. A few guys drop out, I stay in, and seat 9 kid in early position raises. I put him on a set of 3's with a good kicker. The pot odds are good for me, so I call.

The river is 8d. I've made my king-high flush. Seat 9 kid bets $2, two other guys stay in with $2, I raise to $4, seat 9 kid raises to $6, two other guys drop out, and I call.

Seat 9 kid shows 8c 3s for a 3's over 8's full house. I'm down about $20. Grrr. 8-3 unsuited? In early position? Yeah, there's some crappy players here.

Like a few hands later, the guy two seats to my left calls a bet on the river with 4-7, with a deuce and four unmatched overcards on the board. WTF?

Or when a late position kid mistakenly turns his hand over after the fourth street betting round to show pocket jacks. The river comes, and the other player still in the pot (with king high), checks. He checks!? Buddy, you know if you've lost or not, you don't need to pay to be the sheriff here, so you fold if you think Mr. Jacks will call your bluff, or you bet the $2 to tell him "I've seen your jacks, and my hand's better."

No problem, though. An hour later, I'm back in the black, then take a monster pot with a set of 3's, taking more than my $20 back from seat 9 kid, who feels real cocky with his two pair aces and tens. Shortly thereafter with noticably smaller stacks, seat 8 and 9 kid head home. Must be curfew.

In the end, too tired to keep playing, I end up leaving the poker table with $153, more than doubling the $67 I sat down with. It's a good feeling to take a few minutes having to get ready to leave the table, stacking my chips neatly in the plexiglass racks. Sure, it's not high society (.wav), but it's nice nonetheless.

Wow: Slow playing can work

While waiting for funds to transfer around between Neteller and Bodog last night (Bodog does not impress me, by the way), I played a play-money tournament at EmpirePoker (a PartyPoker sister site). I decided that I'd play a little more agressively than usual, which at a play money table will usually backfire, because it's tough to scare people off of fake money. I somehow end up winning the thing. The coolest hand: I'm dealt 44 in middle position, and the flop comes KJ4 with five players in. Mind you, I'm probably the worst slow-play guy in the world, but I decide (god knows why) to try it with my set of 4's. The blinds check to me, I check, the guy to my left checks, and the button bets.

The small blind drops out, the big blind calls. Do I check-raise here? Maybe I should have, but I want to disguise my hand to come back big on the turn. I call.

The guy to my left drops out, the button calls, and the turn comes out a 6. Big blind checks (he's probably got middle pair), I check (with the intent of check raising), and the button bets. Big blind calls, I raise. Button pauses -- he's gotta be thinking "how in the hell did the 6 help him?", then calls. Big blind drops out.

The river comes out with a 2. I bet, button raises, I re-raise, button calls and shows AK. My set of 4's beats his pair of kings. Very nice.

Wenatchee Cache Machine

I posted the first draft (.pdf) of the Wenatchee Cache Machine last weekend. The event's coming up April 2. Gonna be another fun one. Maybe I'll finally see a rattlesnake this time.

WPT: Poker By The Book

A few days off the blog, now I've got a bit of a backlog. Three things today.

First, I've Tivoed Wednesday's WPT episode, "Poker by the Book", and have watched the first hour of it so far. The six players at the table: Caro, Sklansky, Brunson, Hellmuth, Cloutier, and... um... Sexton. It's very cool to watch. I've read the first four of these guy's books, and I never realized that Caro's almost a big a jerk as Hellmuth is, but (and this should have been no surprise) is even better at playing with your head.

Case in point, Caro and Cloutier are left after the rag flop, and Cloutier's trying to put Caro all in. Caro's got pocket Jacks, and he stares at Cloutier and says, "I can tell you've got a pair, I just don't know how big. Sixes?" Pause. "Sevens?" Pause. "Eights? Nines? Tens?" Pause. Pause. Pause.

The left side of Cloutier's thin-line poker face begins to turn up in a smirk.

"Jacks? Queens?" Pause, pause. "I call," Caro says.

Cloutier turns up his pocket sevens. The turn and river don't help; Caro wins.

Is that an ethical way to play?

Random warning: Beach logs KILL!!

I was reminded today of those goofy signs on the coast of Olympic National Park, warning of the killer beach logs.

Every year people get killed on our ocean beaches by surf-tossed logs. Even on calm days the ocean surf is powerful and can be dangerous, suddenly moving or tossing a piece of driftwood or log. Enjoy our Washington beaches and visit us often, but PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THOSE LOGS NEAR THE SURF.

I've added this image to my Kalaloch cache page.

Quiet for a while

Up to $300, down to $50. Looking over my game logs, it's just a streak of bad luck. It happens. A good time to take a breather, and that's what I'm doing.

Besides -- I've got no net access at home for now. We've just moved back into the house that was destroyed by fire in September 2003, and we're waiting for the final interior wiring to be done. I've got a patch panel, and all the wires, but no units to plug them in to yet.

A nice win

Last night in a $3/$6 Hold'em game, I was on the button, and was dealt 9s As. After PCWoo's raise in middle position, there's $27 in the pot with four of us playing.

The flop comes 4s 5h 7s. One person drops out after another PCWoo raise, and the small blind re-raises, we call so there's now the three of us in with a $54 pot; I'm on the nut flush draw.

The turn is 5s. I've hit the ace-high flush, but the nuts are 6s 8s for a straight flush. Odds of that are slim, though. Small blind bets, PCWoo calls, and I raise. Small blind re-raises, PCWoo is scared out. I come over the top with a re-re-raise. Small blind can't raise any more, so he calls.

The river is 3s. If small blind has a 6s here, I'm dead. He could also be playing a full house, but for some reason, I'm so focused on the straight flush possibility, I didn't realize this until later. He bets, and I, super nervous with my heart racing, take almost my full 20 seconds to decide to call instead of raise.

Small blind shows 6h 9h, for a 7-high straight. I win a $117 pot, a $72 net gain. After my bad beats earlier this week, this puts me back above my buy-in.

Don't get wedded to a hand

Holding As 7s on the button against a Js 7c 2d flop, I bet after the five players still in checked. Igot four callers, then saw 6s on the turn. Big blind checks, a few more checks, I raise (flush draw with middle pair gives me a lot of outs), and the big blind re-raises. Everyone else is scared out, but I re-raise. No way the 6s helped the big blind here; he's either bluffing or is on a second-best flush draw. Only pocket sixes would help, and he'd have folded that after the flop. If he had the Jack he'd have bet instead of checked on the flop or the turn. Big blind now calls.

The river is 3c, so I'm sitting on a pair of sevens with an ace kicker. Big blind bets. I raise to scare him off, because I'm pretty sure he's got nothing. He thinks a long time, taking up almost his full 20 seconds. I'm really, really expecting him to fold here, because if he calls, then it's probable that he has the jack but was scared that I had a big pocket pair.

He calls, my stomach drops, and... I win. As 7c 7s Js 6s.

Amazed, I go to the game log to find out what he had. He was playing Ac Ks, leaving him with Ac Ks Js 7c 6s. He'd gotten wedded to the hand, which cost him about $30 -- a mistake I'd made a few times Monday night.

I don't fold big slick nearly as often as I should. Not doing so can be a costly mistake.

Two bad hands. Help?

Two of the many hands of limit hold 'em last night that I lost are gnawing at me. How would you have played these?

-----

Hand 1:

I'm in the small blind at a $3/$6 table, and get dealt Jh Jc.

Two callers, the button raises, I call, big blind calls, the two callers call. Pot is $30.

Flop is 4s, 8d, Tc.

I've got an overpair, so I bet $3. Big blind calls, next player folds, middle position calls, the button raises. I call (I should've folded here I think), and the big blind raises out of nowhere. The other three of us call. Pot is $66.

Turn is Qs.

I check, big blind checks, and now the guy in middle position bets $6. The other three of us call. Pot is now $80.

River is Ah. It checks around.

I show my pocket jacks, ace kicker. Big blind shows his failed spade flush draw, 6s 7s. Middle position shows his failed spade flush draw, 9s Ts (pair of tens). Button shows pocket kings.

I think the pot odds favored me; should I have stayed in as I did?

------

Hand 2:

I'm in the big blind at a $3/$6 table, and get dealt Ad Ah.

Everyone folds to the button, who raises to $6. Small blind folds, and I call.

Flop is 3d, 2d, 7s.

I bet. Button raises. I re-raise. Button calls.

Turn is 5h.

I bet, button calls. This tells me that the flop probably didn't help.

River is 3c.

I bet, button raises. Only a 4 or a 3 could hurt, and the guy on the button has been playing like a good player, so I don't think he's got it. I call.

He shows 3s Kh. His set of 3's beat my pocket aces.

I played this one right. Didn't I?

---

Full details are below:

***** Hand History for Game 1453734657 *****
$3/$6 Hold'em - Tuesday, January 18, 01:31:03 EDT 2005
Table classic table (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 2: jkim13_13 ( $175.5 )
Seat 3: geturdone32 ( $167.25 )
Seat 5: kpulliam ( $114 )
Seat 6: mitchteeney ( $124.5 )
Seat 7: ESKIMO_13 ( $113.5 )
Seat 8: kaashmir ( $157.5 )
Seat 10: herjn64 ( $282.5 )
Seat 9: laurict ( $128 )
Seat 4: SlickWillie ( $141 )
laurict posts small blind [$1].
herjn64 posts big blind [$3].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to laurict [ Jh Jc ]
jkim13_13 folds.
geturdone32 calls [$3].
SlickWillie folds.
kpulliam folds.
mitchteeney calls [$3].
ESKIMO_13 raises [$6].
kaashmir folds.
laurict calls [$5].
herjn64 calls [$3].
geturdone32 calls [$3].
mitchteeney calls [$3].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4s, 8d, Tc ]
laurict bets [$3].
herjn64 calls [$3].
geturdone32 folds.
mitchteeney calls [$3].
ESKIMO_13 raises [$6].
laurict calls [$3].
herjn64 raises [$6].
mitchteeney calls [$6].
ESKIMO_13 calls [$3].
laurict calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qs ]
laurict checks.
herjn64 checks.
ESKIMO_13: this sucks...
mitchteeney bets [$6].
ESKIMO_13 calls [$6].
laurict calls [$6].
herjn64 calls [$6].
** Dealing River ** [ Ah ]
laurict checks.
herjn64 checks.
mitchteeney checks.
ESKIMO_13 checks.
laurict shows [ Jh, Jc ] a pair of jacks.
herjn64 doesn't show [ 6s, 7s ] high card ace.
mitchteeney doesn't show [ Ts, 9s ] a pair of tens.
ESKIMO_13 shows [ Kc, Kh ] a pair of kings.
ESKIMO_13 wins $87 from the main pot with a pair of kings.


***** Hand History for Game 1453903608 *****
$3/$6 Hold'em - Tuesday, January 18, 02:17:26 EDT 2005
Table classic table (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 6: mitchteeney ( $249 )
Seat 7: ESKIMO_13 ( $268 )
Seat 10: herjn64 ( $319.5 )
Seat 9: laurict ( $99 )
Seat 4: SlickWillie ( $132 )
Seat 1: iH8realityTV ( $29 )
Seat 2: rivercoming ( $127 )
Seat 3: John1838 ( $300 )
ESKIMO_13 posts small blind [$1].
laurict posts big blind [$3].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to laurict [ Ad Ah ]
herjn64 folds.
iH8realityTV folds.
rivercoming folds.
John1838 folds.
SlickWillie folds.
mitchteeney raises [$6].
ESKIMO_13 folds.
laurict calls [$3].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, 2d, 7s ]
laurict bets [$3].
mitchteeney raises [$6].
laurict raises [$6].
mitchteeney calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5h ]
laurict bets [$6].
mitchteeney calls [$6].
** Dealing River ** [ 3c ]
laurict bets [$6].
mitchteeney raises [$12].
laurict calls [$6].
mitchteeney shows [ 3s, Kh ] three of a kind, threes.
laurict shows [ Ad, Ah ] two pairs, aces and threes.
mitchteeney wins $64 from the main pot with three of a kind, threes.

I'm ahead, finally

On December 20, I bought in at Empire Poker, and ended the night down $30. Bad, loose play at the $2/$4 tables dropped me down to less than 50% of my buy-in. I dropped down to the $0.50/$1.00 tables, and tried to improve my game. Problem is, there's so many maniacal players at that level, you can lose a perfectly good hand to someone who hit his 27o on the turn and river, because there's always four or five people trying to do just that.

I've continued to play solid, conservative, tight games, and eked out a few winning nights. The frustration of the play at the cheap tables was taking its toll on my nerves, so I hopped up to the $3/$6 table last week. There's still a maniac or two, but they can be quickly identified, and played strongly against when you've got a decent hand.

Finally, a month later, I'm at 103% of my buy-in. Yay!

Yarrr!

We played 1000 Blank White Cards at our annual "camping" (cabin) trip to Flaming Geyser state park. Many others played Pirates of the Spanish Main. This led to the creation of this card:

Pirate!: All pirate cards in play (including this one) are worth 1 x the number of pirate cards in play.

Yarrr.

Gig Harbor Cache Machine gets press coverage

The Longview Daily News quoted Bruce Fischer (who was my roommate for the Vancouver Cache Machine) as saying:

"It's amazing the community that's out there." People chat on-line about their activity. Last weekend, Fischer attended a Cache Machine event in Gig Harbor, where 100 people searched for 60 sites. "You find as many as you can in one day. It's a little bit nuts. It's a lot nuts."

Bruce is a good cacher and a neat guy, and unlike many cachers I've met, he's mentally stable, too. Good stuff.

Dumb play, dumb luck

Here's the log from one hand last night. My annotations are in blue. ***** Hand History for Game 1434222038 *****
3/6 TexasHTGameTable (Limit) - Fri Jan 14 02:22:02 EST 2005
Table Table 11409 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: skottish ( $139)
Seat 2: srndpty ( $147)
Seat 3: OffSuit68 ( $140)
Seat 4: PokerSins ( $97)
Seat 5: crib1 ( $21)
Seat 6: giabizinc ( $31)
Seat 7: cashjunkie ( $170.5)
Seat 8: laurict ( $79) [This is me. I'm in the small blind.]
Seat 9: NYPokerClub ( $173.5)
Seat 10: badsaw ( $217.5)
laurict posts small blind (1)
NYPokerClub posts big blind (3)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to laurict [ 9c, Ac ] [A9 suited. If it makes it back to me without a raise, I'll call for $2 more; nut flush would be nice.]
badsaw calls (3)
skottish folds.
OffSuit68 folds.
PokerSins calls (3)
crib1 calls (3)
giabizinc calls (3)
cashjunkie calls (3)
laurict calls (2) [Good deal. Let's see the flop.]
NYPokerClub checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Tc, 4h, Jc ] [Seven players. $21 in the pot.]
laurict bets (3) [Nut flush draw. Bet to scare out other players on a draw. Maybe not the best move.]
NYPokerClub folds.
badsaw calls (3)
PokerSins raises (6) to 6 [Hmmm... didn't want to see that.]
crib1 folds.
giabizinc folds.
cashjunkie calls (6)
laurict calls (3) [$36 in the pot. I've got two draws and 9 outs. A $3 call is the right move here.]
badsaw calls (3)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Ts ] [$42 pot. Darn. Anyone holding a ten has a set now. I've got a 9/46 chance of getting my flush.]
laurict bets (6) [Pot odds say that with 9 outs and one card to go, the pot should be at least $31 to make a $6 bet. It is; I do.]
badsaw calls (6)
PokerSins calls (6)
cashjunkie raises (12) to 12 [I think he hit his set.]
laurict calls (6) [The pot's still more than $31. Another $6 is the right move here (I think).]
badsaw folds.
PokerSins calls (6)
** Dealing River ** : [ Ah ] [Giving me two pair, Aces over tens, which is worse than cashjunkie's set. My nut flush draw failed.]
laurict checks.
PokerSins checks.
cashjunkie bets (6) [Yup. He's got me beat.]
laurict calls (6) [What?!? At this point, I'm throwing money away because I don't want him to buy it. Stupid, stupid play. A fold is the best move here; a raise would be second best. My calling just is trying to make sure I lose. What was I thinking?]
PokerSins calls (6) [I'd put him on a flush draw at this point. I figured he'd fold.]
** Summary **
Main Pot: $102 | Rake: $3
Board: [ Tc 4h Jc Ts Ah ]
skottish balance $139, didn't bet (folded)
srndpty balance $147, sits out
OffSuit68 balance $140, didn't bet (folded)
PokerSins balance $70, lost $27 [ Jd Kd ] [ two pairs, jacks and tens -- Ah,Jd,Jc,Tc,Ts ] [He was playing high pair with high kicker after the flop, and was playing sheriff on the river. Same dumb play I made at the end.]
crib1 balance $18, lost $3 (folded)
giabizinc balance $28, lost $3 (folded)
cashjunkie balance $143.5, lost $27 [ Qc 5c ] [ a pair of tens -- Ah,Qc,Jc,Tc,Ts ] [Wow. He was on a queen high flush draw. His bet on the river was a bluff to scare me out.]
laurict balance $154, bet $27, collected $102, net +$75 [ 9c Ac ] [ two pairs, aces and tens -- Ac,Ah,Jc,Tc,Ts ]
NYPokerClub balance $170.5, lost $3 (folded)
badsaw balance $202.5, lost $15 (folded)
***** End Hand History for Game 1434222038 *****

I shouldn't have won that one. I'd have probably tossed the hand if I'd been anywhere other than limping in on a blind.

A table for 78, please

The Gig Harbor Cache Machine far exceeded my expectations this last Saturday.

I'd made reservations for 24 people at the Puerto Villarta mexican restaurant, but after Friday night's pre-gathering potluck, after a rough head count that showed me that that 45 of the 70 people would be at dinner on Saturday, I increased my reservations to 48 people.

When I arrived just after 5:30, all 48 chairs were taken, and another 20 of us were waiting in the lobby. Wow. This is the highest attended cache machine event yet. One person said he counted 78 people over the course of dinner, with people arriving and departing during the meal. I know of at least 15 more who participated in the event in some way but didn't make it to dinner.

I haven't logged any of my finds yet, but I think I got about 58, which puts me over the 900 mark. Almost without exception, all of the day's finds were creatively hidden, in great spots, were humorous, were in unique containers, or were some combination of the above.

And it didn't snow on us.

Snolympia again?

A year ago today, on my 33rd birthday, I organized and participated in the Olympia Cache Machine. Locals will remember that last year at this time we got socked with a good snowstorm that chased half the cachers away, and left the rest of us sliding all over the backroads of Thurston County.

That night, over dinner, the remaining participants decided to call it the Snolympia Cache Machine, and that's how it's been remembered.

The Gig Harbor Cache Machine is coming up on Saturday, and one cacher posted this slightly photoshopped graphic from KOMO4:

The three big local stations are in agreement -- it's gonna be cold, and probably snowing, for this winter event. I hope we're still able to get a good sized chunk of the route done before dinner.

Crappy hands or crappy play?

My stats from Sunday and Monday night's online play:

Sunday:
Hands played: 68
Hands won: 0%
Showdowns won: 0%
Flop percentage seen: 18%

Monday:
Hands played: 74
Hands won: 7%
Showdowns won: 0%
Flop percentage seen: 31%

My flop percentage on Sunday was pretty much where I like to see it, but I couldn't get a flop to save my life. Monday I played a little looser, and every hand I won I got because I scared out the other players. Counting the insane $0.10/$0.25 no-limit live game on Saturday where one pot topped $80, I've lost with big slick the last five times I've had it (including two suited).

Down $62.50 for the weekend. Ick. I was down further, but had a good bump at the end of last night's game (four of the five hands I won came in the last 20 hands).

After talking to Tres, I think I need to raise pre-flop a bit more, but more importantly I need to get out before the turn if the flop hasn't helped my hand, even if I'm holding two overcards.

The Danger of Queens

Back on November 20, I wrote that happiness is not a set of queens. Doyle Brunson, in Super System, wrote that he never plays AQ offsuit, because it's the kind of hand that can get you in a lot of trouble. I mentioned this at the 25¢ no-limit poker game at Trestin's last night.

Naturally, I get dealt QQ in the small blind a few hands later. Jon's to my left, in for a quarter. Phil's in for a quarter. Kevin and Trestin fold. I raise to $1, Jon folds. Phil calls.

The flop is A x K. Two overcards to my pair -- this is not good at all. However, I'd decided before I sat down last night to play loose aggressive, so I go in for another $1. Phil calls.

Fourth street is J. At this point, I think to myself, Phil has a pair of Aces or Kings, probably with a high kicker, or maybe the J gave him two pair. Just as likely, he might be bluffing (he does that a lot more than he probably should). Regardless, the only way I'm winning this pot is to force him out. I go all in for $2.70.

Phil thinks about it for a good two minutes. With my play, I know he's thinking I've got a high pocket pair to give me a set, or else I've got a blackjack. With the river still to come... he calls. We turn the cards over.

Phil has AQ, giving him a pair of Aces with a Queen kicker. I've got a pair of Queens with an Ace kicker. The only card that'll help me is the last Queen. A ten will split the pot.

The river's a King. Phil wins, AAKKQ to my KKQQA.

Happiness is not pocket queens, either.

(Oh, and I came out ahead 50¢ yesterday evening at the $0.50/$1 table online. I tend to do a lot better at a full table, but the one I was at was fluctuating between six and ten people for the whole 90 minutes I was there.)

Slowly, slowly

I only played poker a couple of hours over Christmas weekend, but ended up ahead another $15, plus I met the required rake hands, so I got my $35 new customer bonus.

It's slow going at the $0.50/$1.00 level, but I want to take it slowly until I get up to 150% of my latest buy-in. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I'd been playing some real crappy poker, and been getting burned on it, and consequently doubting myself. I need to do well for a while before I jump up a table.

Kim got me a Dealer button (and blind buttons) for Christmas. My parents got me an octagonal poker table top. Kim's parents got me a seven-foot long felt table cover. Krys got me cards. I'm sensing a theme :-)

Ammo cans out the wazoo

A local geocacher just won an auction for 403 ammo cans -- 15 pallets -- from Ft. Lewis. He's selling them to other local cachers at cost: $1.50 each. This means that in the next few months, it's very likely that we'll see a lot more regular size caches instead of all those horrid micros.

And there was much rejoicing.

Humility wins

I dropped down another $65 on Monday night, mostly in hands where, at the river, I looked at my situation and said to myself "Self, that guy's been playing like he's hit his set/straight/flush since the flop/turn. Your measley two pair isn't gonna do it. He's got you beat, Self." And then I say to myself, "Nah. Two pair's good," and call. There's not a lot of bluffing at the $2/$4 or $5/$10 tables.

At one point on the $2/$4, my JJ won $32. The very next hand, I got JJ again and lost $30. Sigh.

Tuesday night, however, I dropped myself back down to the $0.50/$1.00 table, and played while catching up on the last week of Fark.com. For the most part, I only played premium hands, even folding QT offsuit pre-flop on the button facing a single raise from middle position. After about two hours of play, I ended up ahead $25. My first positive real money night in weeks.

It'll be a long road back to those glory days of November when I was having $150 and $200 nights. Somewhere along the line, I think I began to expect, nay, deserve(!) to win a lot -- two pair's good, right? -- and that was my downfall.

Smart, conservative play is what I did last night, and what I need to continue doing. Things like consulting the pot odds chart from Gary Carson's Complete Book of Hold 'Em Poker in marginal situations. Things like making notes like "whirlyjim raised pre-flop with AK off. whirlyjim raised pre-flop with QQ." Things like deciding, more often than I have been, that if a player is betting like he's got the six to make the inside straight, he probably does.

On another note, some folks (hi, Bill and Kevin!) have recommended Doyle Brunson's Super System to me. I need to pick it up from the library on the way home tonight.

Draft 2 of Gig Harbor posted

I posted the second draft of the Gig Harbor Cache Machine route last night. I've added another night cache to the route; I hope it's not raining and cold and miserable. (In early January? Nahhh...)

Back in, down $30

I bought in again last night at Empire Poker (on the Party Poker network), and did OK at a $0.50/$1.00 table, then mediocrely at a $2/$4 table, for the first two hours. I was up about $20. Then I hit a hand. I was dealt As 7h, limped in, and hit Ah 7s 9s on the flop. I bet and raised, and one other player stayed in. 7d came on the river, giving me a full boat, sevens over aces. I jammed the pot, as did my opponent. The river came 9c. We max bet, and he shows his 9h 3c. His full boat nines-over-sevens wins. I ended my night a few hands later, down about $30. I think I played it right, though. I'd have done better if the other monster hands I was dealt actually had people staying in to see the flop.

Thanks, fairy godmother!

About a week-and-a-half ago, Robbbbbb described his night of poker as getting "hit over the head with the deck like a fairy godmother gifting me with her wand." Too bad I was playing in a play-money tournament last night, because the same thing happened to me.

I haven't played for real money in a few weeks. I'm still trying to build my confidence back after my rabid tilt-a-thon. So in lieu of that, I like to be in play money tournaments, because the people there -- for the most part -- are still actually trying to win. Sure, once in a while you'll have someone who gets bored and decides to give all their money to the winner of the next hand by jamming the pot with 2-2 offsuit, but usually when half of the 10 original players are left, they're in it to win it. Granted, they still play a bit looser than real money tables, but it's still the tightest free game I've found.

The game is a ten player table, everyone starts with 800.

Early on, at the 15/30 level, I was dealt pocket 8's. The flop came T48 rainbow. A set of 8's? I'll bet that aggressively. I did, had a couple of raisers, a lot more callers, and got the pot up in the 400s somewhere. The turn was the fourth 8. I jam the pot, still have a few raisers, and it's up in the 800s. The river is a low rag, I've got the nuts, and leave that hand up about 1300.

I'm the big stack at this point, and I watch as four players drop out over the next ten hands.

The guy to my right is a pretty aggressive player; over the next 20 hands, I gave him a bunch of blinds and two-bets. Then, I get pocket jacks under the gun, and raise him all the way to the end, and he lost with his 4-9 suited. Ahhh. A bluff-bully revealed.

The next hand, with five players left, I'm in the big blind and got dealt crap, but everyone calls and I see the flop for free. A84 rainbow. All I've got is a pair of 4's. It checks around to BluffBully, who bets the minimum. I raise him, thinking he's got nothing again. Everyone else gets out, and we're in a raising war. We raise each other all the way to the end, and the dog wins with his AQ. I picked the wrong time to try to push him around.

The game continues. Three players are left, the blinds are at 100/200. I'm on the button and get dealt 5-5. I raise to 400. Small blind drops out, and BluffBully raises, of course. I call, and I hit another set on the flop, T57. BluffBully bets, I raise, he raises, I call. The turn is another 7; I've got full house 5's over 7's. I jam the pot, he slowly jams the pot, the river's a 9. We both quickly raise raise raise, and he's all-in. He's holding 6-8 for the straight. Buh bye.

A few hands later against a very short stack, and for the first time in weeks, I've won a play money tournament.

Candid camera notes

Well, I went to Best Buy at lunch today and picked up a JVC GR-D72 camcorder in preparation for Krys' concert on Thursday. My other options were the Panasonic PV-GS9, or the Canon ZR-80.

All three use the Mini DV digital tapes.

The Panasonic was a very close second, but it lacks a SD media slot (nice to have in the future, I'd think), lacks a pass-through analog port (for converting analog to digital, such as a VHS tape to MPEG), and its image stabilization seemed far superior. I focused both the Panasonic and the JVC on a range hood carton ¾ of the way across the store at full optical zoom, and the JVC was much easier to keep on the same area.

The Canon's LCD view screen looked really washed out, which may be because it was had been running 18 hours a day for the last year in the display case, but if that's the case, that's a good reason not to get it.

The first small camcorder I ever used was my grandfather's JVC, and I think it's still functional today. Hopefully, this one will last as long.

An okay weekend; time for a camcorder

I played poker on Friday and Saturday night with my new chips. On Friday, in a seven player game, I did fairly well. The cards weren't coming too well, but I ended up with $16 for my $5 buy in. A lot of that came at Phil's expense, because for some reason I just kept beating him by a card (for example, AJ making a pair of aces with jack kicker versus his AT making a pair of aces with ten kicker).

On Saturday, we played a ten-player game at Nub's place, and Robbbbbb kicked major butt. I think he bought in for $15 and left with $38, but he was easily up over $50 at one point. I left with $5 of my $10 buy in, so I'm up $11 for the weekend. Kevin did well both days, which should help him pay for his beer while he's waiting for work.

My first big purchase with my poker winnings was t-shirts for my daughter's soccer team. Then the poker chips. Now I'm in the market for a camcorder before Krys' concert on Thursday. I thought tape was dead, but apparently DVD and mini-DVD camcorders aren't quite good enough yet, and the mini-DV tape is still the way to go for low-end decent-quality camcorders. I'm looking at the Panasonic PV-GS9, or the Canon ZR-80.

Blue star for you, Mr. Lauricella

As a result of my poker chip purchase (they arrived yesterday, and they are sweet), I got my 50th positive feedback on Ebay, giving me a blue star. Woot.

Dumb casino moves

Yesterday, I'd mentioned that the online casino that I (used to) play at had e-mailed me about their new software, and had given out $13 in free money to test it out.

Part of the reason I'd played at Phoenician was because of their elegant, slick, crisp, smooth-running interface. They used software they'd licensed from Real Time Gaming, which is also used by many other online casinos.

Their new software is, as best as I can tell, the January 2003 release of the Viper engine from Microgaming. One aggrivating feature is that after you download the 5 MB software package and install it, you get three games (a blackjack version, a slot machine, and something else I don't recall. Other games have to be downloaded as needed, and you can't download them to test them without a balance in your online account.

The graphics are pretty blocky and appear to have been designed for a 640 x 480 screen. Ick.

But the worst part: I couldn't find multiplayer poker, so I e-mailed the casino. Their response:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Customer Support.

Unfortunately multiplayer poker is no longer available at the casino. however if you would like to partake in this game, we suggest Aztec Riches poker at [some hyperlink I see no need to advertise]

Please do not hesitate in contacting us if you have any further questions or comments.

I don't know what decision-making process they went through to make this change, but at least from the poker standpoint, if you're making a 5% vig off of every pot, you're essentially just printing yourself money every time a game's played. Maybe RTG's cut was too big or something, but this just seems like a dumb move to me.

Time to go elsewhere.

Free money?

I just got an e-mail that the online casino I play at just got new software, and to test it out they're giving some players free money to test it. I got $13. Wonder if I can build it into anything?

Chips

My new poker chips are on their way up from southern California. UPS says they should arrive on Thursday. Sweet.

Port Orchard is off my list

It turns out that Port Orchard and Gig Harbor had a lot more caches than I expected. The 61 caches I have on the route will only get us through Gig Harbor and will still have us going to after sunset. Port Orchard had another 40 some. That's a lot.

The first draft route is here.

Royal clubs

Last night, at an eight player game at the absent-and-hoping-to-be-lucky (not get lucky; be lucky) Robbbbbb's house, my cousin Jeremy (who we've taken to calling "Riverman" for all the obscure lucky draws he gets on the river) and another player (my brother Trestin, I think) were in the game and the flop comes JQK of clubs.

Jeremy, his hands shaking (think that's a tell?) goes all in. Trestin calls him, and they turn their cards up. Trestin has pocket aces. Riverman has TA of clubs.

Royal. Straight. Flush. On the flop.

Seems like there's always something new in this game.

Myself, I had a down night. After four $5 buy ins, I found myself down only $1.80, but then went heads up against Trestin and came out on the short end of a $25 pot. In the end, I was down about $9. Good price for a nights worth of entertainment.

Know when to walk away

Well, my grand experience in online poker has come to an end. I told myself that once my online account reached zero, it'd be time to quit. That time has come.

I think my losing streak is due, more than anything else, to my overanalysis of the game. Poker, as many have said, is not so much a game about cards played with other people, but rather is a game about people played with cards. I've been reading poker books voraciously the last few weeks, and in the last week or so, I think I've been playing the cards instead of the people. Six times in the last three days I held AA or KK or AK or AQ, the flop turned up nothing helpful, and I still bet strong, losing to other players with sets of 8's or two pair (or in one case, a pair of 3's against my AK high). In retrospect, I knew they had it, too, but was trying to bully them out of the pot because I had the best hand before the flop. Instead of thinking to myself "that player is acting like they have me beat, and my AK is weak", I thought to myself "they player probably has me beat, but I've got AK, dammit, and that's supposed to be a good hand." You can see why this thought process burned me so quickly.

It's been a good run, though. At my best, I was up almost $3000, and I'm still walking away with almost $2000. Not bad for an initial $20 buy-in.

It's time to head back to the dining room and tournament tables and play against people I can actually see and read.

So that's what going on tilt is

Ouch.

I knew that chasing after lost money by increasing wagers is a bad idea, but I went on major tilt yesterday against a table full of really tough opponents -- folks I knew were good -- and as my hands got worse and worse, I played more and more, going in with crap like 6-7 offsuit, hoping I'd get 3-4-5 on the flop.

I lost like an entire weeks worth of winnings in about an hour on the $5/$10 tables, then tossed the rest of it away on the roulette wheel, and then beat myself up over it overnight.

Time to re-focus and force myself to play super, super tight. Phil Helmuth defines super-tight as only getting into hands with AQ, AK, and pairs of 77 or higher. It seems to be working, as I've doubled my bankroll with this strategy.

Gig Harbor/Port Orchard Cache Machine

The chatter about the upcoming Gig Harbor/Port Orchard Cache Machine event has begun. I'll need to get a draft route together in the next week or so.

Happiness is not a set of Queens

Last night didn't go so well. Part of it might have been because I was out of my normal environment -- I was in bed with my wife reading next to me, and the laptop on the really cool over-the-bed Ikea rolling table. At the $5/$10 table, I lost my $100 buy in, twice, including what I think were some bad beats.

Two hands in a row I was dealt pocket aces. Two hands in a row I lost to a straight draw on the river.

One hand, on the small blind, I was dealt Qc Qd. I raise before the flop, and seven other players call. The flop comes Ac Kd 8h. I bet, late position raises, I call. There's still four of us in.

The turn is Qs. I've got a set of queens with an A/K. I'm thinking that the late position raiser probably has two pair. I bet like a madman, as does he, chasing one of the other two players out.

The river is a 2c. The only hands he has that could beat me would be pocket aces, pocket kings, or JT. If he had JT, he wouldn't have raised on the flop, right?

Right. He doesn't have JT. He does, however, have the pocket kings. He wins the $223 pot.

Ah well. Some lucky pontoon afterwards nets me $135, and roulette gets me another $96, so I still finished ahead $31 for the session.

Another good poker night

I played at a surprisingly chatter-free $3/$6 table tonight, growing my $70 buy in into $331. A big part of that was a $120 win where I held AJ offsuit, and the flop came J A 9, with another J on the turn.

Patience. I'm convinced that patience is the key to winning big pots against loose tables. Wait for the monster hands, then play them hard. Many of the other players aren't paying attention; they don't know I'm the guy that folds most of the time.

Play on other casino games -- Pontoon (which hurt me a lot more than it helped), Roulette (hit my number twice on 25 spins), and Baccarat (mostly even) gained me another $79.

Up $341 for the night. Not too shabby.

Happiness is a set of aces

I wasn't doing so well at the poker table last night. I'd burned through my first $100 buy in at the $5/$10 table, and had gotten more than halfway through my second $100. I was playing looser than I should have, staying in with hands like T9 offsuit. Realizing this, I tightened up my play, and about half an hour later, sitting on the button, I was dealt As Kd. Four others had called before me for $5, plus the big and small blinds. I raised to $10.

I've mentioned to some of you that the RealTimeGaming tables seem to have a lot of loose agressive players, so my bet here was meant to scare out those who might be trying to limp in with T3 suited or something ("but it's sooooooted!") and to raise the value of the pot. Only the small blind is scared out, the rest of the players call, and the pot is at $63.

The flop is Qs Ad Ah.

Big blind checks. "Cake", a good strong player, bets $5. The next two players (who I've seen winning and losing pots with crappy hands they hold to the end) bet $5, as does the player to my right, who talks like a pro but whose small stack doesn't show it. I raise to $10. The pot is at $93. Big blind folds. Cake folds. The other three call, bringing the pot to $108.

The turn is 9c.

The three other players check. I hesitate for almost my full 30 second limit to imply that I'm thinking hard. I bet $10. The two weak players call, the "pro" folds. The pot is at $138.

The river is 2h.

Check, check. I bet $10. One of the weak players folds. The other calls. I win the $158 pot with As Ad Ah Kd Qs.

"I could have played that in my sleep," says the player to my left. I yawn.

The very next hand, I'm dealt AK suited, with which I win another big pot with a pair of kings. This makes my net winnings for the night $130, which I then parlay into $179 at the Pontoon table (a 0.17% house edge!). It was a good night.

The rumor in the poker game chat was that Phil Ivey was playing at the $200/$400 table and had just taken a 21-year-old for $31,000. too bad I didn't get a chance to watch that.

Found it log for Way To Go (Traditional Micro)

Way to Go! by NLS

November 5
By road, this is the closest cache to my (temporary) house (LOTR is closer as the crow flies), and I've taken far too long to come down to find it. But today, I had the opportunity. While Dragonfli attended a meeting at Pierce, Geogrrrl and I decided to hunt for this one. I'd plotted it on the maps last week, so knew pretty much the area it would be in. In other words, I knew it would be close to the cheapest delivery pizza (in cents per square inch) in Lakewood. Pacific Pizza makes huge, cheap, tolerable pizzas. Order one of their giants, and you'll have enough to feed yourself for a couple of days.

I parked there, and gave Geogrrrl the GPS. As soon as she started following the arrow, I knew where the cache was going to be. I've hidden a cache in a very similar location.

No muggles today, although we did have to dismissively wave on one vehicle that slowed down to gawk at us. Found the cache (good thinking on the attachment!) and signed the log. Thanks for the hunt!

We had a bit more time left, so I scoped out another little-known park for a possible future hide. Thanks for giving me something to do other than sit in the car and sing Duran Duran songs at the top of my lungs for an hour.

Log by travisl for Piety Flats Micro Cache (Traditional Cache)

No-Find Log by travisl for Piety Flats Micro Cache (Traditional Cache):

travisl couldn't find Piety Flats Micro Cache (Traditional Cache)

Searched for a few minutes, but there were enough bees around to keep me from searching too thoroughly. After talking to someone about this at the Tri-Cities Cache Machine event, it turns out it was exactly where I figured the bees' nest was, and that there was no bees' nest. Oh well. Maybe next time through.

Log by travisl for Above the Clouds (Traditional Cache)

Log by travisl for Above the Clouds (Traditional Cache):

travisl couldn't find Above the Clouds (Traditional Cache)

Just another sunny day to climb Mount Doom. Me, my brother Trestin Baggins, my daughter's gaffer, and Kevin Gamgee left the shire ''Bivouac'' (where Trestin got soaked in his hammock, Kevin got drenched in his tent, and the gaffer and I stayed mostly warm in the Jimmy Inn) at around 7:30, and began our ascent.

It started innocently enough, a light uphill stroll through the woods. Just after the junction with the road to the legendary hamlet of Loowit, however, I think one of those dementor thingies must've swooped up behind me and started sucking the air out of me.

(Wait, that's a Harry Potter critter. I'm mix master massacring my metaphors. Feh.)

I felt a little dizzy, and a little nauseous, but it went away quickly. By this point, Frodo and Gamgee were already ascending the rocks, I'm sure, but the gaffer and I were taking it slow.

(I should mention that other cachers, like Nolenator the Gray and Hermione Forest Monkey were already way ahead of us; Shunra, son of Mountain Goats, passed us soon thereafter.)

At crossing 1, Baggins and Gamgee were sitting their waiting for us, and we made cell calls home to our loved ones to let them know that we'd started the climb, and that the top of Mount Doom was just a few posts and about 3000 vertical feet to go.

The two of them then vaulted ahead of the gaffer and I, while the two of us slowly, painstakingly, gruelingly made it from post to post to post. Finally, at the spot on the map written in ancient times by the ancient wizard Moun10HorseCart where we clearly should have seen a giant ''C'' on the ground (in the middle of the word ''VOLCANIC''), I called up to the hobbits ahead to go on without me. ''Go for it, Frodo, I'm stayin here. I'm no Samwise.'' My legs were rubber, my head was hurting, and each step I took felt like I was going to collapse.

The gaffer convinced me to climb up two more posts, to about 6075 feet, where I rested behind a wind-breaking large rock for two hours while he made it to cache elevation. I cowered like a mountain troll, frightening climbers who stumbled across me as I stared out over the valley, watching clouds be birthed, swirl in the updrafts, and dissipate. Still hazy from the climb, I did double takes across the valley at rocks that looked like a space alien kid and his mother, a bush that looked like a midget indian medicine man doing jumping jacks on his back, and at two baseball caps that flew off the heads of hikers passing by. I kept expecting to see a nazgul or something rise beside the aptly-named 5994 Peak, but no, just more swirling clouds and illusionary rocks.

Towards the end of my rest, two other travelers stopped for a bit of a chat. They asked if I was a christian, and to keep things simple and avoid being preached to, I said yes. As they left, they asked if I had any extra water, because they'd only packed one quart between the two of them. I gave them the third of my four flasks, and wished them on their way. Soon thereafter, the gaffer returned, and I began my descent down the mountain, my legs shaking with every step down.

We took a few breaks on the way to the forest, and another in the meadow, where Baggins caught up with us. He and the gaffer continued on, and I strolled out on a mental auto-pilot, quaffing down the last of my final flask of water on the way. I made it back to the shire at about 4:00, and Gamgee emerged from the woods soon thereafter.

This was easily the toughest hike I've ever attempted -- and that includes a 50+ mile hike across the north Olympics back when I was eleventy-six years old. This also gave me the greatest feeling of accomplishment of any cache I've hunted, even though I didn't get that far. Thanks for hiding this one.

No find log by travisl for I Believe in Angles (Unknown (Mystery) Cache)

Log by travisl for I Believe in Angles (Unknown (Mystery) Cache):

travisl couldn't find I Believe in Angles (Unknown (Mystery) Cache)

I had to pick Dragonfli and Geogrrrl up at the airport today, and with lots of time to spare, decided to hit this cache. As I got close, the hiding spot was obvious: obviously somewhere my allergic self didn't want to go. I chalked it up as a DBL, decided I'd take another frownie, and headed back to the car.

I drove to the airport, scoped out the area I'd need to pick them up, and wondered what I'd do with the next 45 minutes. Soon, I found myself back at the cache area, on my hands and knees, searching. 60 seconds, no luck. I went back to the car to get a flashlight, and as I approached the cache location again, I was surprised that I'd managed to not step in, kneel in, or set my geopack on the dozens of dog logs scattered around the area. I set my pack down carefully, searched for another two minutes or so, itched and scratched, looked a few seconds more, picked up my left contact lens that had popped out and fallen on the ground, then gave up, went to a nearby water source to wash up, and went back to the car and itched for the next 40 minutes while I listened to some right wing wacko radio talk show host talk about the president's leadership skills. I hate that stuff. The foliage stuff, that is.

The cache is probably still there. I just didn't spend a lot of time looking for it.

Found log by TravisL for Project Amnesia / Forgotten Quarry by The Gold-Diggers

TravisL found Project Amnesia / Forgotten Quarry Yabba dabba dooooo!

Cachers
Meet the cachers
They're the modern geek camraderie

Near the
Town of Adna
We continued down to the quarry

Someday
Maybe Fred is back on site
Then he
Can blast rocks with dynamite

When you're
With the cachers
You'll have a yabba dabba doo time
A Scooby Dooish time
You'll have a gay, old, tiiime.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that.) ;)

Log by travisl for Geocahe Potluck (Event cache)

Log by travisl for Geocahe Potluck (Event Cache):

travisl found Geocahe Potluck

A slightly smaller crowd than I expected, but all nice folks. I had a good time commisserating about baggies in floating logs, hanging on cliff faces on frayed ropes, and the uncanny ability of spouses to point out the cache after we've searched for 90 minutes.

New cache page by TravisL: Tri-Cities Cache Machine

I've just written up the cache page for the Tri-Cities Cache Machine (in south central Washington), which should be approved and posted this weekend. The discussion thread is started, and I've posted the first draft of the route (a 1.2M .pdf). The event is on September 25, starting in Kennewick.

Found log by travisl for Dipping in the Wynoochee (Traditional Cache)

Found log for Dipping in the Wynoochee

I'd read in the forums that this was a nice cache, so when I asked Geocaching.com ''well, froggy girl, what caches are closest to our annual summer campout site this year?'', I was very happy to see this one come up as number 2. I met with Ironman on Thursday, and he gave me some tips on getting this one, so on Friday afternoon (August 20), after a very l-o-n-g drawn out game of Battlemist, five of us (Dragonfli, Smokey55, myself, and two neo-cachers) decided to go for it.

Finding the parking spot was a piece o' cake, what with the photo and everything. I let neo-cacher Phil drive little yellow to the pool, and he correctly directed us to the top of the falls. Dragonfli read the hint and spotted the item mentioned. Neo-cacher Roy was the first across the log. I followed, then Phil, Smokey55, and Dragonfli. We all balanced; none of us fell in, yet.

I found the ''trail'' up, Phil found a good direct path once we were up there, and I found the cache container. So much moss and greenery, I joked to Phil, in my absolute worst Irish accent, ''Please be careful, laddy, notta step on the little people.''

I signed the log for the five of us, and we retraced our steps back. Phil, Smokey55, and I took a side trail to look at the falls and held ourselves against a good sized alder for balance, so that we wouldn't plummet into the pool. Soon, we all walked across the log, and none of us fell in, although I had a nervous moment on the large step down next to the MGD can.

We explored the top of the falls, and realized that we were fortunate that Wyle E. Coyote wasn't a member of our search team. You know how in the Road Runner cartoon, the coyote will stand at the edge of a deeply undercut cliff, and the entire end of the cliff will fall out underneath him? When we were looking down at the pool resting against the tree, we were in a similar spot. So that's why the ground was so soft!

The other four decided to go down the falls billy-goat style, while I, being older (not really) and wiser (not really) went down the way we'd come. We all reached the bottom at the same time, no injuries.

It's a very cool spot. Thanks for taking us here.

Found log by travisl for Ring of Fire (Traditional Cache)

Log by travisl for Ring of Fire:

travisl found Ring of Fire

Eep... it's a two-logger... I'd had plans to camp at Coho Campground for about six months now, and when I saw this cache go disabled, I fired off an e-mail to Ironman to see if I could get special permission to hunt this one. The geocaching gods were smiling on me, as it turned out that he was working and temporarily living less than half a mile from my campsite. I like it when that happens.

We agreed to meet at 5:30 on the 12th. At 6:08 on the 12th, with my brain already on island time, my brother showed up at the site and asked ''So, how'd your 5:30 meeting go?'' I was out of there like a shot, but at 6:15, with Ironman nowhere to be found, I knew I'd stood him up. I hate it when that happens.

About an hour later, though, a strange guy shows up at the campsite, and my ears perk up when I hear him mention my name to one of my 21 camping buddies. We talked for a good 45 minutes about caches, he explained why it was temporarily disabled, and gave me the option of trying to find it anyway. Ironman, you rock. I like it when that happens.

I hit ''Dipping in the Wynoochee'' on the 13th, and decided to go after this one on the 14th. My dad (who's found a few caches with me before), and the two neo-cachers who went with me to ''Dipping'' (Roy and Phil) came along. It took us three wrong turns before we found the right road, and after navigating past an obstacle that was easily bypassed, we parked less than 300 horizontal feet from the cache. Thanks, CCC, for the parking coordinates. I like it when that happens.

A few minutes later, we find the rope, and begin our decent. My dad decides to stay up top, I guess in case he needed to go get rescue helicopters or something, if we were to decide to let go of the rope and land on our heads in the river 140 feet below. I hate it when that happens.

The decent is mildly challenging, although pretty much uneventful, except for the point where I almost swing too far over the edge, where I'd be swaying gently in the breeze like a big flailing piñata. I hate it when that happens.

Fortunately, I found my footing and continued my decent to the train car. Roy arrived shortly after I did, and Phil perched himself just above us, looking out for who-knows-what. Rabid flying wombats, perhaps. Roy and I searched for about 15 minutes, I stood on the very back of the train car and experienced a sense of vertigo like I haven't had in months (I love it when that happens), and after a bit more searching, Roy found it. His first find! There's a bunch of really neat themed items in the cache, but I TNLN and signed the log for the three of us. I like it when that happens.

We then explored the riverbank for a few minutes, and my thoughts turned back to a true story that my late grandfather told me about this very trestle… back in the 40's, he and his buddies were out drinking and hunting and drinking and drinking some more. The sun was beginning to get low in the sky, and it was time to start thinking about heading home.

This canyon is pretty long, and pretty deep, and there's not a lot of ways across. Their car was on one side, and the trip home was a good couple hours drive or more. If they could just get the car to across, it'd save them a bunch of time.

''We could drive across the trestle,'' joked his buddy. They all laughed, and decided that it was a stupid idea. It'd only work if they drank a bit more. So they did, and the sun got lower, and a train went by, and they drank some more, and suddenly the idea didn't seem so stupid. So two guys got behind the car, two got along side, and slowly, they pushed the car bit by bit across the trestle, stopping every now and then to take another drink, listen for the train, or take another drink. They finally made it across, got it to the road, and heard the train go by again shortly thereafter. It's a wonder my dad was ever born :-)

For my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary, my parents gave them a beautiful drawing of a lumber train barreling across the trestle. It was very cool.

And so was this cache. Thanks for bringing me to this neat spot, to my first 5-star terrain cache, and to a piece of family history I'd never seen.

I love it when that happens.

Archived My Cache log by travisl for Ol' Doc Lilly (Traditional Cache)

Archive log by travisl for Ol' Doc Lilly (Traditional Cache):

travisl archived Ol' Doc Lilly (Traditional Cache)

Gone it is. Missing it is. Muggled, it has been. Replaced, it will not be.

Five cache containers have lived in this park. Only one remains. Go find ''Acorn for Kids'' GCJ11F instead. It's in the same park, other side.

No-find log by travisl for CWB (Traditional Cache)

No-find log by travisl for CWB (Traditional Cache):

travisl couldn't find CWB (Traditional Cache)

My company's envelope vendor takes us on a lake or harbor cruise every SeaFair, and this year's was today, leaving from a dock just east of this cache. I had about half an hour to look before the boat left, so decided to hunt this one.

The boats are really neat, including some of them undergoing some extensive work. I had trouble finding the Sharpie, but talked to the cute girl behind the counter, who showed me where it had moved to.

Neat area. Thanks a bunch for getting me out here.

Finding the cache, on the other hand, was something I decided not to put a lot of effort into. I glanced around for a few minutes, checked a couple obvious spots, but really Didn't Bother Looking (DBL), because the area was strewn with trash and spider webs, smelled strongly of creosote, and I wasn't really dressed for a dirty hunt.

Thanks for the hunt!

Note by travisl for Phatboyz Not Vine Time but Close (Traditional Cache)

Note by travisl for Phatboyz Not Vine Time but Close (Traditional Cache):

travisl posted a note for Phatboyz Not Vine Time but Close (Traditional Cache)

The park was wall-to-wall people on this sunny Sunday afternoon. Dragonfli, Geogrrrl, and I stopped here to have a picnic, and afterwards I decided to see if I could find the cache again, without actually touching it, since I didn't want to draw attention to it. I found where the letterbox used to be, but I didn't find the cache container itself. It might still be there, though, 'cause I didn't look really hard.