When you get tired of your job, you fantasize ways to leave, and when you fantasize ways to leave, you dream up get-rich-quick schemes. It's okay, we all do it. Playing the lottery was like that for me for awhile. I also briefly considered opening up a Sweepstakes Cafe, since working where I did (a company that provided the software for those cafes) gave me a good insider's perspective. But when the guys from the office started having weekly poker nights at the CEO's house, my old love of Texas Hold-Em reawakened, and looked for a hot minute to be a real, actual prospective career path.
I made vague plans to play in the World Series of Poker that summer, but I knew playing in even one of the official tournaments would all but bankrupt me. I did some research, and found that the WSOP also sponsors lower-cost circuit events at casinos and poker rooms across the country. One slated for the end of February was taking place in West Palm Beach, FL, for a buy-in of a measly few hundred dollars. I signed up immediately.
I told my dad about it, as he is an avid poker fan as well, and just sort of tacked on a "feel free to come as well", which he turned down. A week later, I called my parents to discuss my plans, and he said something like "I am 95% sure I won't be coming, but just out of curiosity, what flight are you on?" A week later still, and he was added to my hotel reservation and would meet me at the Charlotte airport on my way down.
We got in fairly late, and went to bed immediately in order to wake up super early for the tournament, which started at the ungodly hour of 12 noon(!) We got our seat assignments, said good luck, and found our way to the tables.
There were breaks every 2 hours, and at each one, I was doing progressively better and better, while he was doing slightly worse. I almost doubled my chip stack by mid-day, and things were looking pretty good.
Then someone drew two aces in a row to knock me out.
I stood immediately and jetted off in the direction of the hotel, reaching my destination almost before I processed what had happened. My dad busted out a little later and joined me at the hotel by dinner time. We ate Wendy's and commiserated our clearly unfair losses.
With a whole extra day now before our flight out Sunday morning, we decided to rent a car and head toward the beach.
Despite busting out the first day, getting to swim at the beach in February was a nice consolation prize.
We spent the morning swimming at Juno beach, then headed back to the hotel, had lunch, and took naps. Feeling the need to not waste this time we had, I jumped on trusty ol' Google Earth to find us somewhere else to explore. If you've ever looked at a map of Florida, you've probably noticed the big hole near the southern end.
That's lake Okeechobee, which is close enough to West Palm Beach that a drive to see it wasn't going to break the bank. We headed toward the town of Pahokee, which is on the shores of Okeechobee. Florida is one of the country's top exporters of silly names for places.
The drive there was quite flat:
And we saw Okeechobee:
A Very Important Notice:
What I think is part of the town of Pahokee:
Looks sort of old-worldish.
We walked along the path around the lake until we reached a suitable turn-around point:
And that was that. We headed back to the hotel and flew out the next morning. My dad of course stayed in Charlotte while I boarded my connecting flight back to Greenville. I was on a tiny flight with what seemed to be the entire ECU basketball team. I was in an aisle seat next to a tall, gangly looking man whose legs were unceremoniously crammed into the tiny space in front of him. I humbly offered my aisle seat for the sake of his legs, and he gratefully switched. I wasn't really doing it out of kindness, though. I just like the window seat.
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