11 a.m.

In the morning.

A sizzling, steamy Sunday in a scorching summer.

Hot. Humid. Hot.  Humid.

Real hot.  Real humid.

 

I walk into the house after a ten-mile run.

I'm all sweaty, dripping on the hardwood floors.

I hear my girlfriend on the phone

with one of her girlfriends.

These are really attractive women. Gorgeous really.

Both in their early forties. 

Both feminists.

 

I strip out of my wet clothes.

My girlfriend laughs.

And she says, "String him along.

Meanwhile, you'll get your brains humped out,

which is all you're really looking for."

 

I get a tall beer out of the refrigerator.

 

"Cheat all you want," my girlfriend advises.

She jumps to her feet

and starts waving her empty hand in the air

like a preacher on the television.

"What he doesn't know

won't hurt him."

 

I go take a cold shower.

Another memoir-snippet from The Adventures of Wild Dog.

 

 

I woke up one Sunday morning, early, as if still in a dream.  Groggy, I thought I heard voices. 

    Then just one voice.  It was soft, barely a whisper

    "It's a beautiful day," the voice repeated over and over, kneeling at the head of the bed.  "Take Peggy Diane to the country."

    I can take a hint.  I took Peggy Diane to the country.  Boy, howdy, did I ever.

    We drove the long route west on the Sunset Highway to a 650-acre resort beyond Yamhill, beyond even Dilley.  Fifty-three miles from the heart of downtown Portland, Oregon, lies the Flying "M" Ranch, a place to get away from it all.

   

Things look different here.  The log walls of the lodge are gaily festooned with the hides, horns and heads of a variety of game.

    Bison, bear, bobcat, beaver, boar and a bunch of other animals - whose identity begins with other letters of the alphabet - gave their lives to make a decorative statement.

    Axes and horseshoes serve as door handles to the Bucks and Does facilities.

    Out back a stream burbles by.  On the front porch an aged, sleeping Border collie waits for scraps outside the kitchen door.

    Across the parking lot is the landing strip, nothing more than a dirt path down the middle of a 2,200-foot-long green pasture.  Small planes actually use it.

 

Separated from the air field by the main road are the horses.  People actually ride them.  People like Peggy Diane.

    "Oh, look!  Let's go riding!"

    She grabbed my arm and tugged me toward...THE BARN.

    "No, thanks, no.  Thank you, but, no, thank you. No."

    "Oh, we never do what I want to do."

    This from the woman who has controlled my every move for years.

    Well, most moves.

    "If God had wanted us to ride horses, She wouldn't have given us automobiles.  Or bicycles.  Of roller skates.  Or..." I intoned.  "No. This is my final word on the subject."

 

    I do not speak without some experience.  You see, I have been on a horse before.  I'd been on a horse before.  Some thoughtful adult had put me in the saddle when I was about three years old.  It seemed like a long way to the ground.  I took one look down and started to cry.

    I was determined not to shed a tear this time.  And I was holding up pretty well, too, until I read the waiver. 

    The following is the complete, verbatim, actual, real, no fooling text.

    "I, the undersigned, recognize the dangers inherent with horseback riding.  I am assuming the hazard of this risk upon myself since I wish to ride horses.  I realize I am subject to injury from this activity and that no form of preplanning can remove all of the danger that I am exposing myself to.  I have been offered a protective riding helmet, which could have prevented permanent brain damage in the event of an accident.  Against the advice of stable operator, the wrangler guide, and the insurance company, I am refusing this critical safety precaution."

    Don't know about you, but that kinda makes me want to mount right up.

 

I signed, and then imagined what scene might ensue.  Peggy Diane would climb on some nag and beam a look mixed of adventure and joy.

    "What's this pretty horse's name?," she'd ask.

    "Buttercup, ma'm," the cowpoke would replay.

    Meanwhile, I would be staring at the horse, who'd been shipped here on work release from a prison farm.  Trigger on steroids.  He'd flare his nostrils.  I'd flare mine.

    "And what's this big fella's handle?", I would inquire.

    "Cyclone."

    Right.

    And, of course, I wouldn't be able to get Peggy Diane to switch.

 

Now, here's what really happened.  Richard, the wrangler, took one look at Peggy's jeans (which she had to lie down on her back to zip up) and her cowboy boots and he put her on Thunder.

    He took one look at me in my cargo shorts and Nike Lava Domes and he put me on Bob.

    "Bob?  That's it?  Bob?  You sure it isn't something like Bad Bob, or even Big Bob?"

    "Nope," the laconic horseman said.  "Just 'Bob.'"

    So, Richard rode point, Thunder followed single-file, and Bob and I trailed behind.

    Then we left the corral and heads into... THE WOODS.

 

I kept waiting for a snake to bare his fangs, rattle his rattles, causing BOB to bolt, flinging me to the rocks where my head would smash like a prop in Gallagher's comedy routine.

    No such luck.

    I sat on that horse for an entire hour.  Could have been all day.  Seemed like it.  I didn't dare release my deathgrip to check my watch.

    "Good, Bob.  Watch your step, Bob.  Not so fast, Bob.  Careful there, Bob.  Look out for that branch, Bob.  You're a credit to your race, Bob."

    I wasn't riding so much as being carried.  Bob knows who's in charge...and it's not me.

 

Meanwhile, I couldn't help noticing that Bob and I share some basic personality traits.  He's never seen a patch of grass he didn't want to sample, or a watering hole he didn't want to visit, or a good-looking mare he didn't want to... whinny at.

    Just when I could sense a bond forming between man and beast, we found ourselves back at the corral.  I dismounted.  There was a great sigh of relief.

    It was Bob.

 

If you ever go riding at the Flying "M" Ranch, you know who to ask for.

 

       A woman awakes during the night to find that her

husband was not in their bed.  She puts on her robe and

goes downstairs to look for him.  She finds him sitting at

the kitchen table, with a cup of coffee in front of him.  He

appears deep in thought, just staring at the wall.
      
She watches as he wipes a tear from his eye and takes a

sip of coffee. 

"What's the matter, dear?," she whispers as she steps

into the room, "Why are you down here at this time of

night?".
      
The husband looks up, "Do you remember twenty years

ago when we were dating, and you were only 16?," he

asks solemnly.  
     
The wife is touched to tears, thinking that her husband is

so caring and sensitive.
      
"Yes, I do," she replies.  
      
The husband pauses.  The words are not coming easily. 
      
"Do you remember when your father caught us in the

back seat of my car making love?"  
      
"Yes, I remember," says the wife,

lowering herself into a chair beside him.  
      
The husband continues..."Do you remember when he

shoved a shotgun in my face and said,

"Either you marry my daughter,

or I will send you to jail for 20 years?'"
      
"Yes, I remember that, too." she replies softly.
      
He wipes another tear from his cheek and says...

"I would have gotten out today!"

Gary Ryan Blair writes about how to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Gary's first rule of success is Be Decisive:

Success is the intentional, pre-meditated use of choice and decision. Unless you choose - with certainty - what it is you want, you accept table scraps by default!

The world is plump with opportunity. With boldness and conviction, stick a fork into the goals you want by being decisive.

You are born with great capabilities, but you will not achieve your potential until you call upon yourself to fulfill it. You will rise to the occasion when it presents itself; yet, to assure self-fulfillment, you must provide occasions to rise to. Clearly defined goals allow you to travel toward another horizon that represents the end of one experience and the transition to a new and better existence. The objective is to choose the right goals, and then to create the necessary causes - the effects will follow!

 

The difference between what one person and another achieves depends more on goal choices than on abilities. The profound differences between successful people and others are the goals they choose to pursue. Individuals with smaller talents, intelligence, and abilities will achieve different results because they select and pursue different goals.

Each decision affects what you become. We form our decisions and our decisions form us. There is no escaping this; the smallest choices are important because - over time - their cumulative effect is enormous.

Never overlook the obvious: The nature and direction of your life change the instant you decide what goals you want to pursue.

 

Once you make a decision, you start down a path to a new destination. At the moment the decision is made, your decision to pursue a goal alters what you are becoming. Just one spin of the lock's dial - a single choice - can alter your life, your destiny, your legacy.

Think about it - your goal decisions represent and express your individuality. You seal your fate with the choices you make. You define yourself by your decisions.

Your dialogue with success is ultimately a solo one. Decisions and goals made must be your own if you are to call your life a success.

 

Always establish the best goals you can. Goals are the seeds of success - you become only what you plant. The quality of your harvest is a direct reflection of the quality of your seeds-your decisions!

Indecision is the big eraser of opportunity and potential. Risks and costs accompany every decision; however, the price of decision is far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. When it comes to decisiveness, squatters have no rights.

Everyone has an official wish list of things they think are "reasonable". What about the unofficial wish list? The one that common sense tells you to ignore? The list that exists deep in your mind, the list that keeps you up at night, that makes your toes wiggle when you think of it? Why not choose that list for a change?

 

How long have you dreamed of being, having, and doing what you really want? Think big, as when it comes to your goals, the size of your ambition does matter. - GRB

 

I was watching a PLO video by Eric "Rizen" Lynch on PokerXFactor.  Eric was discussing the importance of pre-flop strategy.  Let me paraphrase: 'Pre-flop play dictates post-flop strategy.  Remember why you played the hand in the first place.  Have a plan for your hand.  And, having had this plan, you had better have a good reason for changing your plan after the flop.'

 

I have found this particularly true in PLO MTTs.  You know what you want to see on the flop & you know how many opponents you want to play against with that hand.  There is no shame in folding, if you find yourself looking at the wrong flop.  Sure, you might convince yourself you are seeing new opportunities.  But sometimes you have to decide to live with your original decision. - JDW