ok there’s BIG news to report… but I’m waiting until I can get some images / video prepared.

In the meantime can someone answer me this?

Recently a US member of congress was raided by the FBI.

Now congress people on both sides of the isle are up in arms.

Democrats and republicans alike are outraged at the blatant disregard for law and privacy.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, a loyal White House ally, Titled his hearing on the matter: “Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?”

How dare a US CONGRESSPERSON be subjected to such clearly inappropriate if not illegal actions?

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said:

“We believe our actions were lawful and necessary under these very unique circumstances,”

Odd isn’t it that now that a congress person was subjected to shady law enforcement practices due to special and “unique” circumstances that they are outraged about it!?

Meanwhile the numerous examples effecting “normal” people are merely variables in recent poll results.

The NSA wiretapping, the phone records turned over from big telcos… all of that would be OUTRGEOUS and UNACCEPTABLE if it were done to a congerss person.

Democrats - Republicans … they’re all dumbfounded that any branch of the government could be so casual with the spirit and letter of the constitution and use such strong arm tactics.

Apparently they just aren’t paying attention. It’s been happening to everyday Americans all over the place.

Right or Wrong … I don’t feel sorry for them.

How’s it feel congress?

Super Ultra Mega Busy ….

Wednesday likely the earliest I’ll have video of this past weekend’s Chicago Vlogger event.

Please stay tuned.

But it was a great pleasure to meet

Chuck, Richard, Mason, Bill, Kevin, and Kelly

… Dave I’d already met.

Chuck from Minnesota Stories joined us via MEGA BUS!! I really enjoyed meeting him and learning about how Minnesota Stories came to be.

Bill had some great examples of his video and I look forward to seeing more of his site. The mini-documentaries he does are great. Really well done.

Richard was… of course… a riot and his Powerpoint presentation on the evolution of a vlogger was very well received by the audience.

Hey Richard… you should turn that thing into a video.

Richard is a very nice, down to earth guy, and as funny in real life as he is on video.

I hope he makes it to future events.

Mason MC’d the evening skillfully before DJing a private party later that evening. Being “in” with Mason got us on the list and I’m proud to say I’m now connected with the cool kids in Chicago!

It was the first Time I’d met Kelly too.

Happily she wasn’t feeling as under the weather as she was in our preparatory video conference.

Though Kelly, Kevin, Dave, and I did not present we did have a lot of fun being involved with the event, and got to help a good number of people during the workshop.

Speaking of Kevin … though it seemed I knew him, as I have seen his site quite often… I was pleased to finally meet him in person as well. One of the TRUE Chicago vloggers. Kevin already has some 16×9 footage online.

(show off)

Dave you all know.

The biggest news is that he SOMEHOW managed to leave the 8 hour day at the Apple store without a new Macintosh.

So I’m headed to Chicago to this weekend to participate in one of the “Meet the Vloggers” events.

Though not really a Chicago Vlogger they are taking a more “midwest” approach so I guess I’m legit.

Besides our presentationz on OUR vlogging experience we’ll also be holding a workshop.

Basically a Q&A / Help session for anyone wanting to get started with web video.

Several big names in vlogging will be there.

(at least in the midwest)

It should be a good time.

For full details check out Dave’s Blog about it.

Played some poker this weekend.
(Big surprise huh?)

Friday and Saturday I played live, and Sunday online.
Saturday was rough.

They had a good turn out.
There were 70+ people at this game.
(A $50 buy-in tourney)

Seven tables PLUS several people had to wait for someone to go out before they could even start. I didn’t do real well, but it was maddening because I really felt like I was playing my best poker. I was reading everyone at the table pretty much dead on.

(So nobody was intimidating me.)

I was noticing everything at the table.
My focus was much better than usual.
But the cards just would not come.
I got squat all night.

I hung around and made it down to the 4 table mark when I FINALLY got a pair.
A pair of 7s

I was on the high end of short stacked.
Blinds were set to go up soon.
I was in late position and there was one limper in the pot.
If I played the sevens I’d rather not get a caller.
I’d rather just steal the blinds.
So I pushed ALL-IN.

My hope was that the two blinds would fold, and so would the limper.
If he didn’t fold I figured he had AJ or something and I’d be in the lead of a very close race.

As it turns out…

One of the blinds called my ALL-IN and the limper did too.
I thought “Two? Two callers? I’m am so screwed!”

When we turned the cards over one guy had AQ the other AK.
Not as bad as I had feared, and I was pretty darn close when I put the limper on a hand.

So here I am statistically ahead at this point … and my callers are sharing aces so they don’t have as many outs.

Suddenly I’m thinking I may triple up here!

Nope.

An Ace hits on the turn and I’m out.

Jana was still in and did pretty well.
She ended up two away from the final table.
She played really well but got a couple tough beats and fought back to hang in there for quite a while.

Sunday night I played an online tourney and did ok.

There were 596 players.
The buy in was 18 bucks.
I made a dumb move at the end.
Had I sat back and passed on that hand I could have made it to the final table.

I was above average on the chip stack.
But I decided to play to win Vs. play not to lose… and tried to bully with a semi bluff.
Didn’t work.
In the end I got 15th place and turned 18 bucks into 100.

Not the 1st place I was hoping for…
But an “In The Money” finish with a decent sized crowd almost makes up for Saturday.

… Almost