Double Trouble with Prim and Harrier - Poker, Sports, Cooking, Gardening, Mixed Drinks and more

Originally posted by Harrier88

Originally posted by ThunderElf
Not too great I'm in a mental hospital I did 3 years in jail for drug dealing, my dad died and I got attacked by a gang of lads with a metal bar they hurt my back, I can't work now, so things are pretty shit.

Dang! Wow, I'm sorry to hear all of that. Very sorry about your dad passing away, and clearly you had a lot of other bad stuff happening too.

Your situation must be quite tough right now. Try to take things one step at a time. And be careful with the poker, your own well-being takes precedence.

Thanks, I'm playing really well at the moment, hopefully make it to NL5 this month

Originally posted by ThunderElf
Thanks, I'm playing really well at the moment, hopefully make it to NL5 this month

Good to hear, keep it up!

Poker has been on a bit of a hiatus for me recently, but I should be back by Sunday at the latest.

We want tomatoes!!!

picpaste de upload

We want A LOT of tomatoes!! We sowed them last week and they already germinated!

picpaste de upload

We sowed tomatoes for the field as well as mini-tomatoes for the terrace. You guys won´t believe how quickly my home-made tomato-sauce is used up! So, this year, we will grow MORE tomatoes!

picpaste de upload

Let them be a brother-and-sister-project! Big sister Pom Pom takes care of the big tomatoes and little brother Boom Boom is responsible for the mini-tomatoes.

Successful hibernation!

Meanwhile the little fire kiss (a spicy dwarf chili) and the Carolina Reaper have successfully been hibernated. They will move outdoor in May (to the terrace).

The "fire kiss"

Carolina Reaper

One of the hottest chilis in the world!

Got a really nice tomato in my indoor greenhouse.

Sry for not posting pics yet. Too busy setting up my table garden outside atm ♠_cry:

Originally posted by Zeezout
Got a really nice tomato in my indoor greenhouse.

Sry for not posting pics yet. Too busy setting up my table garden outside atm ♠_cry:

Looking forward to it. Both Prim and I are excited for the beginning of spring, and I believe Primrose is going to be quite busy with the gardening. She already is, as far as I can tell.

Meanwhile, I am almost two weeks into my "Halfway to Marathon" training schedule, and yesterday, the grindette herself was visiting and agreed to join my jogging training for one day - which she went to regret when it was time to go there, but as usual, she stuck to it.

As on most weekdays, the goal was to run four miles, and even when we were chatting about it on Discord in the days leading up to it, Prim expressed serious doubt that she could keep running for so long, realizing that it is almost 6.5 km (6.437376 km, to be exact). So I was a little worried too, especially considering the known problems with her Achilles tendon, and I was fully expecting that we would have to cut the run short before reaching the four miles goal, just giving it a good effort and moving on.

Well, here we were at the start of my usual jogging track, during excellent sunny spring time weather.

The track starts with the worst part right away, featuring a pretty steep uphill section, and I noticed Primrose struggling ever since. Not being one to give up, she persevered, reciting various tennis analogies along the way, like "the score is 4-4, my opponent is playing really well... but I will keep fighting!". ♠_grin:

She kept fighting indeed, and when we had completed one lap to mark the halfway point, I was a little surprised myself to see her voluntarily dragging herself up the hill once more, determined to complete the four miles, whatever the cost. I was really impressed. Prim seems a lot like me in that regard - once she has accepted a challenge like this, she won't quit, no matter how hard it gets. It got quite tough, the uneven agricultural tracks we were running on didn't help matters. Here is a good example, from the later parts of the track - I even took that photo while being right in the middle of our jog:

On the final meters, Prim looked like she was ready to die, but... huge congrats, she made it all the way to the end in one piece, without having to resort to walking, taking any breaks, or cutting any corners. And that, I believe, is worthy of some massive respect, no matter how long it took her to get there.♠_thumbsup:

Amazing work once again, Primrose. You have proven that you are tough as nails. I believe you would have deserved some rest now, but I see you are already getting busy on the tennis court again. Well, so was I, but I was doing a work assignment at my club instead.

Both of us will clearly remain active, and I think we can expect some athletic fireworks in the warmer seasons. At least Prim can dedicate herself to the kinds of sports that are more enjoyable to her from now on, though.

Harrier, let set things straight: I WAS ready to die!!! :mdr::mdr::mdr::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly: As the regular followers of my old blogs know: Running is my weakest sports! And you know what? I got a fully packed tennis schedule coming up this season, so I won´t have to bother anyway... Speaking of tennis schedule, yes, today I was already on the tennis court and after 2 hours of tennis practice I feel alive, but my legs are ready to die ... ♠_ugly:

Sunday session this time!

My poker session was postponed to today for two reasons: 1) Yesterday, I was extremely exhausted from my work-outs and 2) and most importantly, we had to use up a ticket! Bowser jr. had won a 3.30 $ satty ticket, which would have expired tomorrow. The 3.30 $ satty was today at 5 p.m which is a perfect time for me - ´cause I´m no night owl, I´m an early bird who gets tired late in the evening. Today 5 p.m was perfect. Let´s not forget that Bowser jr. is a kid and has to go to bed in time. :f_wink::f_biggrin::f_ugly:

Well, we started with a late reg in the 4 p.m. Free to play, for a little warm up and got a nice little ticket:

At 5 p.m our 3.30 $ Sunday Carnival satty started, which was also for free (because we had won that 3.30 $ ticket in a Free to play). Well, the satty did not start really promising, we were card-dead for quite a while. I think it was about 45 minutes into the tournament when we could double up with AJ - J on the river, phew! It was also nice to try some moves I still remember from my early grinding days, so hey, I haven´t forgotten everything. And it was the first time after a while that I could play a little bit more of a loose-aggessive style, which was of course fun! Some ranges still sit in my head, okay, to be honest, I have forgotten some, and I guess it´s time to re-learn them, because:

Hey, we made it! We qualified for the 22 $ Sunday Carnival, which is exciting!

Now, we got a 11 $ ticket for the Big Quarter and a 22 $ ticket for the Sunday Carnival! And I saw that on April 2nd, 3rd or 4th the Big Quarter Phase 1 is already at 3 p.m in the afternoon with is great! So I don´t have to drink 5 liters of coffee and struggle to stay awake!!! :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly: Very nice.

Well, I also finally played some Badugi tonight, and at least got a small ITM out of it. The second tier cash only covered the buy-in, so the $1 bounty was all the profit I got this time.

My heart is not quite in it yet when it comes to poker. I expect things will change when my time zone has caught up with the daylight savings time switch, putting my MTTs in their usual slots again.

Until then, things will continue as usual. Another busy week ahead, it doesn't look like the sports schedule will show any signs of lightening up for either of us in the near future. I should, however, receive my "Trollympic Medal" (the German Sports Badge) for my performance last year this weekend, which is something to look forward to.

For the first time this year: outdoor!!

Yes, Homer and I will hit the tennis court tomorrow: for another Troll Open! This time it´s mixed doubles 50plus! We´re going to play one match in the morning and one at 1 p.m., so maybe after hitting the tennis court, I may be able to hit the tables? Let´s see. It´s going to be our first Troll Open outdoor this year and we´re excited! Our tomorrow´s Villains appear have more or less the same rankings and more or less the same age as us. So, exciting matches are coming up ..........

It's a good thing that Primrose will see some action on the court, because there has been no more poker to report since Monday. Maybe I will play this weekend, but I can already tell that things went quite badly this month. I will wait for the stats, and then maybe discuss those things internally with Prim. She knows about my big mental game issues and how the game is impacting me.

As for her tennis matches tomorrow, Prim already mentioned above that we can expect everyone to be very evenly matched, so there should really be some intense matches. I wish I could see them...

Anyway, for my prediction, I know that the grindette can punch far above her weight, so I am giving her and her husband the edge tomorrow - in both matches. I predict two close wins, with at least one set going to tie-break.

Emergency! Emergency! One of my bonsais, the African Wisteria that was growing so nicely, was found in a critical condition today, and I was ready to pronounce it dead.

One of the big issues was that after watering it way too much before, I now over-corrected and watered it way too little. I also believe that the pot may have gotten a little too small for it by now.

I am not yet giving up on it yet, though. The plant got transferred into a bigger pot once again, and received some good watering to get it going.

You probably can't tell from this perspective, but it is standing a lot more upright already.

Let's hope the little one can still be saved. Horticulture does have a bit of a learning curve to it, doesn't it?

Hey, that little one doesn´t look dead! It´s just thirsty, it needs water! I think you can still save it.

It really was lying quite limp on the ground when I first saw it after returning home from work. It seemed ready to crumble after touching it.

After giving the soil a good watering, it eventually looked a bit better, and I hope it will regain its strength in the new pot. I think I should have gotten it a new one much earlier.

"It´s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock n roll"

Troll Open started early today, already at 10 am. Our first Villains were a cool couple, who were pretty solid players. Especially the man had hard and fast servings!! As we started the match, Homer and I thought, that we probably won´t make it, but then, it turned out that the man played kind of "hit or miss" or as we in Germany say: "Sekt oder Selters" (champagne or sparkling water). So we adjusted and Homer packed out his great volley skills!! Soon it turned out that we dominated the first set and won it 6:2. Villains were confused, but they didn´t adjust to our game. So, they desparately tried to hit hard, they had some tricky moves, but Homer and I run fast!! VERY fast! So, eventually it was a 6:1 in the second set and a clear win for Homer and me.

The second match was a bunch of fun!! Cool Villains, a bit weaker than us, but very nice and very fun! While we were playing our second match, fatigue crept in. Gladly, somewhere near us, guys were playing Rugby and they also played some music, which was inspiring and refeshing! And while I was pretty tired, picking up some balls to get ready to serve, we heard:

and I thought: Oooooooooh yes, indeed!! I even sang along a bit :f_biggrin::f_ugly:

Eventually, we made "the long way to the top" and won the second match 6:1, 6:1 - clearly!

Ready to call it a day ... :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:

As the Troll Open was finished at 3 p.m already, Homer and I returned home - hungry, tired and pretty much "frozen", because it was like 10°C outside with cold wind. We changed our plan to take a shower there but opted for am warm bath at home instead. So, that´s what we did and after a late lunch and a short, warm bath, I decided that I may hit the tables on Partypoker a bit. But I very soon realized, that fatigue crept in ... just played the Big Quarter Freeroll satty phase 1 at 5 pm and the 5 pm "Free to play", but after I busted with AKs vs A2o in the freeroll satty and overplayed ATo (which ran into AQo) I was ready to call it a day. Noticed that after 3 hours of tennis altogether, I may be too tired .... :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:

Amazing performance, Primrose and Homer! You even did a lot better than I expected, those were some convincing victories.

Meanwhile, I have my own sporting achievements to report, as today was indeed the day when the certificates for last year's "Trollympics" were handed out.

The pin you can see in that photo, which is the badge itself, is the one from last year. No new ones were handed out to me, it turned out that you only get one for your first successful attempt, and for every fifth one. You would also of course receive a new badge if you improve, e.g. if you got Silver the previous year and then managed to get Gold, you would get a new Gold one.

The Sonic gang, another sporty bunch, sends their congratulations for another Gold-worthy performance in 2024.

And here is the certificate and the badge again, ceremonially handed over by Misha and Zabivaka.

We will be back this year again, probably some time in June - and hopefully, with the grindette joining the fun as well.

Now that my time zone has caught up with the daylight savings time switch, I expect there should be little in the way of a decent MTT grind. I will probably wait until some time next week, however, and try to prepare the stats for March in the meantime.

Bonsai update: I think the Wisteria should make it. We added a stick to the pot to help keep it upright. It is looking a lot better already.

This is what the rest looks like:

Not sure about that little guy in the front there. Is it germinating or not? It has been looking like this for a few days already.

There is not much going on with the other Wisteria - at least nothing that looks like a tree.

I'm having some problems with a sore throat that seem to have been worsening day by day, so I decided to skip the exercising at least for today, at the advice of Prim. Instead, let's have a look at last month's poker stats.

Stats Time

First the results, as usual.

Still in the black, but not nearly as good as last month.

Badugi, meanwhile, is largely looking the same. So where else did we go wrong?

We lost a few bucks during some side game misadventures, and Courchevel is now breaking even after the failed attempts at that $2.20 NL Turbo.

Overall, we are looking like this, with only Badugi staying somewhat solid, though it has been stagnating:

There is no getting around it, it has been a losing month.

Badugi technically finished with a mini-profit, and therefore did better than last year. This, however, also demonstrates that we haven't done too well in there at all since January.

We didn't play a lot of draw games, but when we did, they went poorly.

Courchevel last month was mostly the NL Turbo experiments mentioned above, and they undid almost all of our previous profits.

Whether we are looking at MTTs overall or only PKOs, the percentage of bounties in relation to the entire profit this year is 39.14%.

What can we say... let's do better next month.

It has been a bit quiet in here, and honestly, it has not been a very pleasant week. Undoubtedly, my minor sickness and the suspension of my sports schedule had something to do with it. Let's at least look after our bonsais today:

Assuming this plant is indeed what it's supposed to be, it seems like the Australian pine is growing nicely.

More importantly, check out the African wisteria:

Nice growth here too, after I had almost given it up for dead.

We could use a similar revival at the poker tables. Maybe we can get something going tomorrow evening. I would also like to do a careful jog again tomorrow.