buy the sky and sell the sky

There’s this one corner of my office that’s been completely taken over by various bits of flotsam. It’s the place where things that really need to be dealt with get shoved aside, partially out of sight, but never entirely out of mind.

I’ve been putting off cleaning it up, but just before we left for the PCA, I had this overwhelming and undeniable desire to clean out all the bullshit that is scattered around my house, which has been allowed to pile up and overwhelm me over the last year or so.

This is a powerful metaphor for what’s going on in my life right now.

I am so fucking sick and tired of all this bullshit that’s piled up everywhere that makes me feel like I’m not even in control of my own life, and I’m so sick of making excuses for allowing it to be there, I just attacked it this afternoon. Literally. I grabbed handfuls of books off shelves and piled them on the floor to be sorted. I pulled out drawers from a desk, dumped them next to the books, got the shredder out, and went through almost eighteen months worth of junk and paperwork that should have been filed away or destroyed long ago. It’s been a long, occasionally frustrating, but mostly rewarding day, as I get this shit under control. The end is starting to come into view, and now that I feel like this shit isn’t controlling me, I can enjoy some of the cool things I’ve come across, like a stack of old Star Trek trading cards, my script from CSI, some press kits from Stand By Me, and a bunch of really cool Aqualad figures I’d forgotten I had. I found things that made me angry, like correspondence I sent to
O’Reilly (unsuccessfully) begging them to stop mispromoting Just A Geek, and things that
made me incredibly happy, like a first-edition of Dancing Barefoot,
complete with typo(e)s, and the original hand-drawn layout for WWdN from a thousand years ago. I also found some things that made me really
sad, like one of Sketch’s chewed up rainbow balls. I also found some things that must have seemed very important at the time I collected them, like an envelope with the word "It’s Curvy!" written in my this is hilarious! script, and a seven of diamonds with the pips connected like dots. I also found a bunch of poker chips I thought I’d lost, and well over one hundred polyhedral dice. There are CDs, DVDs, pictures, business cards, notes, and lots and lots of games.Most of this stuff is going into boxes and out to the garage, but a lot
of it will get thrown into the trash with extreme prejudice. It’s
empowering to decide what’s important enough to keep around, what’s
worth dealing with, and what’s just better off going straight into the
fucking trash where it belongs.

For the longest time, the only semi-calm area in my office was about a four foot neutral zone surrounding my computer, but I’ve nearly reclaimed the entire area in the name of Wil, and it feels awesome. Tomorrow, I will continue to expand my empire out into the rest of my house, and by extension, my life. I’m not sure if I’ll be successful, but I’m going to do my very best.

Which is a powerful metaphor for what’s going on in my life right now.

back to winter

We got home late last night, after a really bumpy and seemingly never-ending flight. Have you noticed that when you want to get home after a long trip, everything seems to take twice as long? We waited an hour to get our bags at LAX, then an additional 35 minutes for the car to pick us up. It’s a good thing I was rested and travelling with my wife, or I would have been super cranky.

I’ll have a massive trip report up as soon as I unpack and wash my clothes, and get caught up on my e-mail, bloglines, real mail, and whatever else has piled up over the last ten days (don’t worry, all the poker stuff will be at CardSquad.com, so you can read the entire trip, or just the stuff that interests you.)

lightly tapping a high-pitched drum

From my balcony, I can see two cruise ships on the horizon, two weddings on the grounds beneath me, and the stetting sun bathing the entire scene in a golden light. The sound of waterfalls and reggae music drifts up on a light breeze, which was a fierce windstorm as recently as last night.

The white sand of the beach is dotted with washed-over footprints, and the sting rays in the pool beneath me are settling into the shallows, now in shade, where they spend their evenings.

When I landed here in Nassau, and did some interviews to promote PokerStars and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, I commented that even if I didn’t make the money, the "consolation prize of a week" in paradise with my wife would do quite nicely.

It turns out that I was right.

Catching up on the last few days . . .

After Anne and I slept for fourteen hours to catch up from our post-holiday and red eye flight exhaustion, we wandered around the grounds here. We ate lunch, and had our first experience with the absolutely abominable service in the restaurants here. (Rude, slow, and disinterested seems to be the standard theme, always rewarded by the mandatory 15% tip which is helpfully included in all of our bills.)

After lunch, we went down to the beach where we played Scrabble and watched people parasail, ride jet skis, and play in the surf and sand. I’ve lived all over the world, and I’ve been to some really beautiful places, but there is nothing like the beauty of the Caribbean water on a sunny day. Even when the weather was lousy, like it was yesterday, the seas still managed to look excited, rather than angry, and when the sun poked through the clouds, it shot brilliant shafts of light down that looked like something from one of those awesome 1980s oil paintings you see over your grandparents’ couch.

When the afternoon got late, and the wind kicked up, we headed back upstairs and got ready for the welcome party that PokerStars had for all the participants and staff. Before the party, I had a meeting with all the Team PokerStars members, and met 2005 WSOP Champion Joe Hachem for the first time. I didn’t think it was possible to meet a poker player who is nicer and more friendly than Greg Raymer, but Joe is just as amazing as Greg is, and just as patient and kind to legion of fans who want a piece of him. After the meeting, I picked up Anne, and we walked with Greg, Joe, Isabelle Mercier (sigh), Lee Jones, and several of the PokerStars staff over to the welcome party.

The party was held poolside on this place they call The Royal Deck, because it sits in the shadows of the luxurious Royal Towers, and there was live music, lots of food, and enough open bars to keep a bunch of rowdy poker players happy. Dan Goldman took the stage after we’d all been there about thirty minutes, and introduced all the people who worked so hard to make this tournament happen. If I recall correctly, he said something like, "To make this happen, it takes six months of planning, three months of work, and two weeks of complete panic." One of the many reasons I’m so proud of my affiliation with PokerStars is because I get to work with people like Dan and Sharon and Lee, and too many other hardworking people to count, who really care about their players. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I don’t know if I’ve written about how much it feels like a big family. I’m exceptionally lucky to be part of this company.

After the staff introductions, Dan introduced the members of Team PokerStars, minus Chris and Evelyn, who had flight issues, and after Joe made a brief speech where he said, "There are only two rules: when I raise, fold. And when I go all-in, fold." Ah, poker humor. While it lacks the subtlety of "pull my finger" jokes, it certainly makes up for it with the obscurity normally reserved for Monty Python jokes.

We all ate and drank (just water and juice for me, thanks) for a few hours, and I managed to, while completely sober, drop an entire 16 ounce cup of cranberry juice on the ground while talking with Terrance Chan and his girlfriend Jacqueline. Awesome. We also finally met Otis’ wife, Mrs. Otis, which confirmed that poker bloggers always marry up. I don’t know how we do it, but I’m glad we do. I also met a few people who were fans of my blog, my books, and my acting work, which is always cool, because I still feel out of my league at these things, and I’m always terrified that someone’s going to figure out that they actually meant to recruit a different WIl Wheaton for Team PokerStars. I resolve to accept that I deserve to be at the next thing, whatever it is, and quit doubting my abilities as a player, and my legitimacy as a member of the team.

After the party, Anne and I were still hungry, so we ate in that Cafe place again, mostly because it was close, open, and we knew there were things on the menu we liked, before we turned in early enough for me to fall asleep before midnight, wake up at 12:30, and toss and turn until 5AM. When the alarm went off at 8:45, I felt like I had gremlins gnawing on my head and spikes shoved into my back, but I drank some coffee, ate a muffin, and shook it off in time for my interviews at 10:00.

The weddings below me are in full-swing, and the sun has dropped beneath the lowest bank of slowly-drifting clouds, flecking their edges gold and painting the horizon orange and red. I’m going to take this down to the PokerStars office so I can use their Internets to post it.

Next time: The Tournament. (For those of you who can’t wait, check out Otis’ updates at The Official PokerStars Blog.)

greetings from atlantis

Our flight to Miami was about as pleasant as a red eye can be, with the notable exception of Baron von Kicksalot, who sat behind me, and guaranteed that I didn’t sleep for more than thirty minutes at a time. I have this foggy memory of spinning around and snarling at him somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, after which the kicking stopped, but I could have dreamed the whole thing, so don’t hold me to it.

We had a brief moment of panic during our approach, when the pilot aborted just before touch down, and raced into the sky to circle the field. While everyone on the plane wondered if we were all doomed, he told us that the runway had become obscured by fog, there was nothing to worry about, and we’d just need to make a different approach to a safer runway. As we circled Miami, I kept telling Anne, "This looks just like Vice City!" That extra time, added to the 70 minute delay we had before we left LAX, made us miss our connection to Nassau. After another, less brief moment of panic, Anne and I made it onto the very next flight as standbys (and thank gods we did, because if we’d missed it, we’d have been stranded in Miami until at least that evening, and possibly until the following morning.)

The flight to the Bahamas was amazing and nearly-perfect: the skies were clear, the water was sparkling and various shades of blue and green, and I kept feeling like I was watching a giant game of Pirates, but I spared Anne any of the talk like a pirate day lingo I’m so fond of, in favor of whistling the song from Pirates of the Caribbean. Anne is fast earning the title, "dear and patient wife."

We landed, picked up our bags, and had one of the most terrifying taxi rides, ever. We drove through downtown Nassau, which is right near the port, and was swarming with tourists from four different cruise ships. There was terrible traffic, and I learned that taxi drivers here like to do this style of driving called "speed up until your passengers are certain they are going to die in a horrible crash, then slam on the breaks inches before you hit the car in front of you." There is another style of driving they have here called, "change lanes without signaling or looking and honk the horn, man!" Our driver was a master of both.

We arrived at the hotel thirty or so harrowing minutes later, and checked into our room, which was a few stories above and open stage, where a band played covers of songs like "Ladies Night," and "Electric Slide," and the ever-popular "It’s Raining Men." I quickly asked for and received a room change to a quieter side of the hotel.

After a quick nap, Anne and I set out to explore Atlantis. WOW. Everywhere you go here, there are aquariums, filled with the most amazing marine life you’ll ever see: countless sting rays and reef sharks, huge groupers, manta rays with fifteen-foot wing spans, and schools of tuna and barracuda. This place is huge, too. It takes twenty minutes just to walk from one side to the next, and that’s without stopping to stare open-mouthed at one of the aquariums, or to just look around and marvel at how lucky we are to be in such a beautiful place.

We ate dinner in this place called "The Cafe," which is in a huge atrium, with one wall formed by one of the largest aquariums in the resort. I nearly choked on my dinner more than once when a giant shark or manta ray glided through the water just past us.

Though there was much more to see and do after dinner, we made our way back to our room, collapsed into bed around ten, and slept with the windows open for fourteen hours.

More later . . .

so this is the new year

Happy 2006, everyone!

Anne, the kids, and I spent the day on New Year’s Eve with all of my friends, playing nerdy games (Frank’s Zoo is one of my new favorites) and eating all sorts of awesome food, because several of my friends have developed a passion of cooking in the last few years — if you can convince your friends to fall in love with cooking, go for it. Trust me, I know what I’m taking about. Then we headed home, (to beat traffic, rain and drunks) and rang in the new year by playing the Pop Culture edition of Trivial
Pursuit (it’s really fun, and the easiest of all the Trivial Pursuit
variants, IMHO) while Ferris and Riley tried to figure out just why the
hell we weren’t in bed, yet.

Yesterday, Ryan and I spent much of the day watching the Twilight Zone marathon on Sci-Fi. Gods, I love the Twilight Zone. I love it that I can count on every episode to either terrify me, make me think, or blow me away with some unexpected twist. I saw some episodes yesterday that I’d never seen before, in addition to the usual line up of Twilight Zone classics.

The Rose Parade, which usually happens on New Year’s Day, happened today instead, because Jan 1 was on a Sunday. It was the first time since 1955 that there’s been a massive storm on the parade, which meant that for the first time in several years, the stealth bomber didn’t buzz over my house and scare the shit out of my family. If you can catch the parade on HD, it’s worth it.

Today is a busy day for Anne and me, because we’re leaving on the red eye tonight to go to the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure poker tournament.

While we’re down there, I’ll do my best to provide daily tournament updates, similar to my WSOP updates, at CardSquad.com. I’ll also do my best to update interesting personal stuff here.