On the Cusp of 30

Hello out there, how's everyone?

Sorry it's been a while, and I'm not keeping up with either of my blogs very well. What's that, you say; "BLOG(S)?? Julian, I didn't know you had 2?" Well the other one is basically my "poker blog" full of boring updates on my career as a world class poker player(he he) :) But it's here if you're interested.

Anyway, life has been pretty crazy lately, in a good way though. And.......... bum bum buuum, I turned 29 a few weeks ago. Yeah, holy crap that's dangerously close to 30. I would say if you asked me where my life would be at 30 when I was 20, I probably wouldn't have quite guessed correctly, but I think I'd be close. Married, kids, probably more money in the bank though, and in better shape, (yes round is a shape, but screw the clever T Shirt, you know what I mean:)

Anyway, for those of you who know me, you know I'm a very goal oriented person, so I've decided to come up with some goals for 30. Realistic goals, but one's that will still challenge me.

They're pretty simple, reclaim my pre marriage weight of 175 (currently 195ish), get up earlier(at least 5 or 5 30 as opposed to 6-630), and increase the size of my poker playing bankroll(more on that in my poker blog).

No I know that aimlessly throwing goals out without a plan is kinda pointless, so I've also decided to start running.............. again. This should not only help me with the weight thing, but maybe it'll create a little more energy to help me get up earlier??

I can already tell that 30's gonna be a little depressing for me, so if I can at least get in shape, and wake up earlier to make time for the things I need to do(poker, "Julian time", etc), maybe that will help smooth out the beginning of my 3rd decade of life.

Updates and progress reports to come; good or bad :)

JWC

Holy Early December Batman

Wow, so I'm sitting here thinking :"man I haven't made a blog in....... like a month!" So you can imagine my surprise when I realized it had been not 1........ not 2...... but THREE months since I put anything down. So to those of you that actually enjoy my writings.... I apologize.

A lot has happened since then. As most of you know, I'm having another kid. Yeah, I know crazy huh? After all the craziness we had to go through for Coop, to have such a gift dropped in our lap was a blessing to say the least. And is it a little bit earlier than we were planning??? Ummm.. HELL YES! But we're thrilled....... ya know, I can't imagine who would be reading this that doesn't already know about all this, so let's just summarize: Having second kid, thrilled :)

Other than that, it's pretty much business as usual. Still playing as much poker as my wife will allow, oh and I found the secret to happiness...... And poker has shown me the light. I can honestly say that my overall happiness has SKYROCKETED lately. Interested?? Read on. If not, you can stop here, and thanks for reading.

So in my conquest for poker domination, I discovered a major road block: Tilt. For those of you that don't play poker, tilt is what happens when you have a losing streak, and like most people you get upset at the thought of losing money, and your emotions get all out of whack and you end up playing bad........ thus losing more......... and the downward spiral begins.........

So I discovered three major factors that all successful poker players have in common.... AND they both can also be applied to life in general(hence the overall happiness).

And they are, 1: A complete indifference to money, 2: A clear, "in the moment" way of thinking, and 3: a good healthy dose of "perspective". I have a feeling this might get long, so consider yourself warned. Not that it isn't worth it........ but you know......

Money is evil. Very much a "necessary evil" but an evil non the less. In poker, if you lose a pot and think "damn, I could have taken my family out to dinner with that money" you're never gonna make it. Being attached to money like that will literally cripple your ability to succeed in poker.

But also in life. I must say, I know a lot of rich people, and a lot of poor people. I know TONS of happy poor people, but not a lot of happy rich people. Seems backwards doesn't it?? They say money changes people, and it does. Not only the way they act(something they can control), but the way people act around them and perceive them in general. Like Biggie says "Mo Money, Mo Problems". It AMAZES me how many stresses, arguments, and just general conflicts in life revolve around a fixation on money. I personally will never be rich. If I happen to come into money somehow, you better hope that you were already a friend of mine beforehand because it's all going to family and friends............. After I put back some for College for the kids of course :-)

I also am learning to live in present. It's so easy to dwell on past problems, and/or worry and stress about things that are to come in the future. But simply living in the present, while not easy to do at first, will also work wonders for your overall happiness. It did for me anyway. Anytime I feel myself getting worked up, I take 5 or 6 deep breaths and concentrate HARD on nothing but my breathing, it's like a switch gets flipped and all is well.............. It gets me re-centered and ready for action. It poker.......... AND in life.

Perspective is.... to me seeing everything as a "relative term". Like the word "rich" for example. As the saying goes, If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah's bank account, he'd hang himself. When someone tells me what a horrible day they're having, my first thought is usually "compared to who??" I bet I know a few people in Japan that would gladly trade with you right now.

So to summarize, money is evil, eat out when you want, buy the damn shoes if you like them, and if you wanna play some poker, come find me :-) Live in the present, the past is in the past and until someone invents a time machine there isn't a DAMN thing you can do about it. And who knows what the future holds, so quit worrying about it. And it's easy to look at those who have more than you with anger or jealously, but why is it so hard to see that there's WAY more people who have it much worse.

Life's good,

JWC

Have your own opinion

OK, warning, this is somewhat of a rant blog. And I'm not even mad or upset about anything, I just feel like going off. How sick is that?? :-) Anyway, often times I'm in NO MOOD to hear someone bitch and complain about some crap I probably don't care about anyway, so I'm giving you this opportunity to run while you still can............... Still here?? OK then, here we go:

I've been getting annoyed lately with peoples opinions. And not because I don't agree with them; hell I think I'm one of the most open minded people I know. But what really gets under my skin is when someone simply regurgitates what they've heard from someone else. And it's usually obvious after a tiny amount of discussion that they actually have no idea what the hell they're talking about.

Example, the other day I was talking to someone about gambling(big surprise huh?), and he, or someone else mentioned that he would gamble, but he doesn't like "losing money". He prefers hobbies that are a "sure thing". WHAT.......... the fuck does that mean?? So you don't ever go golfing, hunting, fishing, or any other hobbies that ARE a "sure thing" that you WILL "lose money". When's the last time you ever left a golf course with more money that you came with. NEVER!! Unless......... you played for money and won........ basically GAMBLING!! Oh and you surely don't mind going out to eat and basically converting your money into a turd, but gambling is just out of the question. At least with my hobby, I do sometimes make money. Sorry to go off, but you see the complete lack of logic in that statement right?????

And my point is not that I hate everyone that doesn't love gambling, but when people make generic statements like that, it just makes them look dumb. If someone came up to me and said, "Julian, I've played poker before, I don't like it, it's boring, and I'm not into it". Guess what, no problem. I wouldn't take the slightest offense to that. You have a logical opinion that YOU came up with yourself, and I respect the hell out of that.

I mean it's everywhere, sports, politics, religion, you name it. There's always some dumb general opinion that gets formed, and then people that don't like to think for themselves just latch on that opinion and regurgitate it every chance they get. And it drives me NUTS!!!!

Anyway, if you made it this far down this blog, god bless you for listening to my rant. I feel better for getting it out.................

JWC

Friends

Hey out there! So I had a random thought, like I very often do, and it was so powerful that I felt compelled to blog about it.

I've always felt very blessed. I have a wonderful family, blood and otherwise, I have my health, I have a good job in a rough economy, and I'm devilishly good looking :-)

But I'm blessed in another way, which I feel is rare in some people's cases. I have a SHIT LOAD of GOOD........... no GREAT friends. Either one without the other is very common, but I feel both is quite rare.

And that allows me to be myself, which is HUGE. Let me explain: Often times, I see a friend, or family member, or anyone for that matter in a social situation; and they're acting totally weird. Basically they're not being themselves. Ya know, they're talking in their "rich yuppie" tone of voice, or talking about some baseball game when I know damn well they hate baseball as much as everyone else does.

Then it hits me......... they HAVE to act that way so that particular "group" of people will accept them. And then I feel sad for them. They must REALLY need that group of people in their life, otherwise they wouldn't act like that. They would just be themselves.

I personally like to live by my good friend Chris Cornell's mantra: "To be yourself is all that you can do". Hell, why would anyone not do that??

Luckily for me, I have TONS of great friends, so........ to put it bluntly, I don't need any new friends. Now don't get me wrong, I'm ALWAYS looking for new friends that I can laugh and have fun with. People that can inspire me, and who knows, maybe I'll inspire them?? But if someone doesn't like me, for EXACTLY who I am, then well as my good friend Robert Dinero said... "fuck em".

So........... in closing, you're never gonna see me pretending to like politics, hunting, or baseball, or laughing in the textbook "yuppie douchebag" voice; unless of course I'm making fun of someone.

And to all my many great friends out there: I Love You Bitches......

JWC

New Blog

Hey Peeps, what's up?? Long time no post, I know. Sorry, I know you all can't live without my random crap right??

ANyway, I've starter YET ANOTHER Blog, and if you like Poker, or even wanna follow my journey into this new endeavor, follow it and tell me what you think.

It's called Double Suited Rundown

Thanks,

JWC

Poker Chronicles..........

Hello out there all my loving fans. Here's the update I know you've all been dying for....

Well my bankroll has grown to around $70, but not by anything deserving. I actually have been very up and down, and out of frustration and a little under the influence, I sat down at a table with all my money, and hit a big hand and tripled my stack!! Crazy I know, and super irresponsible. Had I lost that hand, it would have been QUITE awhile until I had another 50 bucks to play with..........

And if I'm gonna watch this stack of virtual chips grow, I'm gonna have to learn to have patience and self control. We'll see.............................

I'm going to set a personal goal for the next week to not sit down with more that 5% of my whole bankroll at any given table, and set a stop loss of 10% of my bankroll in a given day.

Till next time...........

JWC

P-p-p-Poker Face...........

Hello friends!! Sorry for the long delay in posts, I know you were all DYING for the next installment of the good old Random Crap Blog. Well this post is just as random....

After 3 years away from it, I've decided to throw my hat back in the poker ring. On a small scale of course....... the wife and kid take up a lot of my time, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

But I did decide to once again start pursuing a great love of mine, that could even be a second source of income. I've always loved playing cards, and when I'm sober and under control, I'm not too bad at it. But can I make money at it?? Therein lies the question.

I've decided to put 25 bucks into a poker site, and see if I can slowly turn it into something worthwhile. And what is worthwhile you ask?? Hell I don't know, let's start with not loosing it all, and go from there.

I'll keep you updated as I hopefully grind my way up to a somewhat profitable hobby. We'll see..............

JWC