It turns out that I didn’t take as many pictures at the PCA as I thought I did. It’s kind of a drag, because Anne and I specifically agreed that, even though it’s a bit of a hassle to carry the camera everywhere, we always appreciate lots of pictures once we get home.

Oh well. It’s just more motivation for me to get fabulously wealthy, so I can justify the purchase of one of those really skinny and ultra-portable digital cameras everyone else has.

Anyway, I uploaded most of the good photos to my flickr account in a nifty little photoset called 2006 PCA. For some reason, there isn’t a single picture of me in the poker room, which makes me sad.

I was doing some research for Games of our Lives at Wikipedia, and I took a look at my entry
while I was there. I’m glad that the days of idiot vandalism are over,
but I also see that the information there is incredibly incomplete, and
there’s a completely incorrect assertion about my relationship with PokerStars
(I don’t provide "advertising services" for them, I’m on Team PokerStars. Big difference.) I would be happy to write up a more complete
biography, including some as-yet-unpublished information about growing
up, my early years as an actor, and some of the things I’ve done in the
last five or six years that aren’t there.

I’m not interested in "spinning" anything, just filling in more
information to make it a more useful and complete entry. I know that
editing one’s own Wikipedia page is frowned upon, but if it’s just
filling in facts, that’s okay, right? Anyone have any thoughts or
comments?

In a related story, someone finally fixed my entry at the imdb. Thank you, unknown editor!

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.

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.)

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.

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.)