What a great weekend!!! The two picnics were a smash. Saturday's food was great. The ribs I smoked may have been my best ever I smoked them for about 5 hours in the WSM with the temperature right around 225. Controlling the temperature was pretty easy just using the bottom vents. My baked beans were fantastic as well. They smoked for about 3 hours. The beans are a pretty simple recipe, but I am always told that they are the best baked beans. The magic ingredient is the pepper bacon and the smoke. Even my Asian Slaw turned out well. For Sunday's picnic, we had leftovers and hot dogs/hamburgers, which are ok.

Yesterday it was balls hot. I think it was too hot for my daughter. We tried to take her to a parade in the AM, but she wanted no parts of it and she cried for about 10 minutes so we put her in the car and took her home. Later in the evening we took her to the park, but she was lethargic and did not seem to enjoy it too much.

Managed to ride my mountain bike an hour this weekend and found a sweet little trail with a few creek crossings. At this point, I do not think I will make my 100 target. Hopefully I can reach 50 hours at this point. I need to get back to riding on Saturday mornings.

Big Memorial Day weekend coming up. We are having two cook-outs. Saturday we will have some friends and then Sunday we are having my family and my wife's parents. I can finally use my new weiney roaster, which should be a gas. Saturday will be beer can chicken, smoked beans, and Asian peanut slaw. I am still working up Sunday's menu.

A funny thing happened over the weekend, I won back everything I lost earlier in the week plus a few dollars. Funny thing though, it was through horse-betting instead of poker. I won race 11 and 12 at Pimlico. Race 12 was the Preakness and my 12-1 came in. It was a shame to watch what happened to Barbaro, but that is what makes horse racing so intense. Horse-racing takes an emotional toll like no other sport because of the humanization of these beautiful creatures.

I made most of my money back from the Preakness, but I did cash in a 1,314 person poker tournament. I like to play these as they help me work on patience. I also won in a few ring games. As I was winning in those, I could feel my mojo working, whereas last week as I was losing, I didn't "feel" it.

I am entering day 2 of my self-imposed poker hiatus. Day one went well, I suspect I can make it until tomorrow night.

I think it was Mike Caro that talked about the Threshold of Pain, where losing one more dollar does not feel like losing a dollar. I think I am there. After running good for 4 weeks, I am running TERRIBLE. Through bad play and bad luck, mostly bad play I think, I have lost 75 big bets. This downswing is not as big as some I read about on 2+2, but considering it came at a time that I moved up in limits, it sucks for me. The first night I lost $100, I could hardly sleep. The second night, I was pissed, but only lost an hour's worth of sleep. Last night's $100 loss made me chuckle. That is when I knew I crossed the threshold. I am going to take a break and not play poker or read about poker until Friday. On Friday I will run my hand histories, review them, and then I will move down in limits and get back on this train.

I took my daughter fishing this weekend. We went to a pond belonging to a friend of mine. It was better than my abandoned fish hatchery. This was a stocked pond with a garbage can of fish food on the dock. Daughter even reeled in her own fish. I was so proud of her. It was a truly amazing site.

Spent some time in the saddle on Sunday. Went for a nice 1 hour ride. I felt pretty good considering that I have slacked on my fitness lately. I am trying desperately to get back into it. I just need more focus.

I took a terrible beating yesterday. I lost 40 dollars during lunch playing 2/4 hold'em and then burned through $100 playing 2/4 Omaha hi/lo. The $100 loss was a combination of bad beats, and playing out of my element. At least $50 of the loss was beats at the river, but I felt uncomfortable the whole time at the table. I should not have played at that limit. The damage is done. Now I would like to win back $70 by week's end. This will get me to 0 for two weeks, but it's better than where I am now. I will refrain from playing tournaments as well.

Meat Fest III is over. We had ribs, pork shoulder and leg of lamb for 14 of our friends. More friends were supposed to come, but there is an illness going around, or people don't really like us. Anyway the event started when I left a home poker game, that was quite lucrative. I started the smoker and had the pork shoulder cooking by 3:00am. Went to the OTB at 10:00am and bet most of my winning from Friday on a couple of mules. Oh well, I still have $3.00 for the bankroll. The leg of Lamb was put on at 12:30. I rubbed the lamb with olive oil and garlic first, and then with a rub of rosemary, sage and mint. The pork cooked for 14.5 hours and the lamb for 5. The pork was good, not my best, but still pretty good. The lamb was good. It was my first so I have nothing to compare it with. I want to try elk next. The party wrapped up around 10:30.

As far as poker, I am doing something terribly wrong in S-N-G's. I just can't seem to win. I think I am too loose at the beginning, and then not aggressive enough at the end. I need to watch my DVD again. I seem to have my cash game mojo back, as I am consistency winning again.

My fitness is a different story all together. I am back into the habit of staying up late to play poker and then sleeping later and thus missing my morning workouts. Also, I am not running/biking after work as I wanted to. This wouldn't be as bad, but I am playing poker instead of reading, thinking or doing what I really should be doing with my life. I think my wife is right, this hobby is consuming me. (woe, time to back off)

I posted another winning week. Yahoo!!! I was a net winner at ring-games and a net loser in tournaments, as per usual. Overall, though, I won more in ring-games than I lost in tournaments. The key is patience and observation. These two are also perhaps the weakest components of my game right now. The $1.00 large tournaments are a big help in getting practice.

The weekend weather was great. I managed to get ahead on my yard work too. I was overwhelmed at the onset of the weekend with how much I had to do in order to bring my yard back into shape considering the infestation of whatever weed appears to have taken over Murrysville and the damage done by the water break. Thanks to a new sprinkler, I have grass growing where the water break was, and I put weed-n-feed on the lawn and I think the weeds are showing distress. With some rain this week, we'll see what happens.

My fitness program is at a standstill now, as I can't seem to get out of bed in the AM to get to the gym, I know the solution, I just need the commitment to adhere to it.