Sunday, October 30, 2011

Soho on a Saturday Night

Soho = South of Houston.  Houston, pronounced house-ton, is a street that cuts across Manhattan Island.

For the longest time I had no idea what Soho meant - perhaps because I rarely spent time in the area.  But then I met this guy who resides in Soho, and this past month I've ended up at his place every weekend.  To clarify, not in the stay the night sort of way.  But rather he has hosted events and conversations.

And last night.his roommate threw a Halloween Costume Party and for some reason I was invited.  To be honest, I don't think I should have been invited, but I was and since I was, I wasn't going to miss it.  So my friend Sally Ann (dressed as a viking) and I (dressed as an Indian) took the subway downtown to Prince Street.

We made a friend along the way - he was dressed as a carton of milk, with a sign that stated, "I'm am the 1%, Occupy the Fridge."  He was a med student at Yale and got off at the subway just before ours.  I'm regretting now that we didn't exchange any info, or even names.  But I did catch the names of several others that I met throughout the evening.

Emmitt was the most memorable.  He's oringally from Lake Forest, Illinois, and played tennis and golf in high school, and well, I can't really tell you much else about him, except he's a great dancer and we spent much of the evening out on the dance floor together... hot - yes.  But I knew he wasn't for me.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

My Debut on ESPN

At 9:35 this evening I received the following text: Your mug and name was just on ESPN.
The text was from Bryan Devonshire - Professional Poker Player Extraordinaire.  I met up with him and his fiance in Las Vegas on my roadtrip cross country over the summer.

It just so happened to be during the World Series Poker Tournament Days 7 & 8.  And it just so happened that I was able to stick around long enough to see Bryan finish 12th out of over 6,000 players who entered the competition at $10,000 pot.  Evidently the camara caught a few shots of me while I was there - but Bryan also said my name was mentioned, which means that he probably talked about me in an interview. 
That's CRAZY - this is the same guy who taught me how to surf  back in 2002 when I worked at Forest Home summer camp in So Cal.

Professional poker playing is an interesting "sport" - to say the least.  Some may look down on this "sport," but I can't help but wonder if poker players are much different from entrepreneurs who take financial risks in hopes to someday gain a profit.  Hmmm...

I told my roomie Shannen the news when she returned to our apartment after and she told me the news, "I think I just got hit on... in the elevator...by women..."

"What?  Are you serious?!?!"

Shannen nodded yep, and explained that one of the woman told her, "You're cute.  What floor do you live on?"  Shannen cautiously answered the question and the same woman continued on introducting her to the other, "This is Joanna, she's new here..."

Shannen is a wee bit traumatized.  I would be too.