Musings on the year that was 2010 and some 2011 predictions

Here are some predictions for 2011, and a few thoughts on 2010.

I will lose ten pounds to reach my target weight of 165 lbs (which is what I was at back when I graduated high school).

I will achieve some much-needed professional development and move upwards, not laterally, in the coming months.

I will improve my endurance and run some 10K races this summer, hopefully breaking the 55-minute barrier.

The Vancouver Canucks - currently the best team in the NHL - will be Stanley Cup finalists for the first time since 1994. We will probably lose in heart-breaking fashion to the Pittsburgh Penguins because Sidney Crosby always finds a way to win. This will be a time where my sincere admiration for Crosby will (temporarily) turn to unvarnished hatred.

I will attend next December's blogger gathering in Las Vegas.

I will put more time and effort into crushing some local private NL/PLO cash games that I've recently discovered. I will likely play more online poker in 2011 than I did in 2010, sticking to lower stakes mixed games and PLO8 cash games and a few bloggaments. Bring on the next BBT, Al!

I will blog more (but it's likely poker won't be a regular topic unless the American online poker industry blows up in dramatic fashion).

Looking back on 2010, I have a lot to be thankful for. I significantly improved my fitness, I saw the most famous international goal in Canadian hockey in my lifetime from 40 feet away (my DOB is post-Summit Series), and most importantly of all, my close family is all in good health and grew by one with the birth of my nephew Oliver, who recently turned one on December 30th.

Nineteen

Tonight marks the night when #19 rises to the rafters. Just two years after his retirement from the NHL, Markus Naslund, the best player in Vancouver Canucks team history (he owns a ton of team records for his accomplishments as a Canuck), has his number retired by the Canucks. It's the third number retired by the franchise, following Stan Smyl (#12) and Trevor Linden (#16).

It couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

The only thing that could make me happier as a lifelong fan of the team is a Stanley Cup parade.

Two words: no-hitter

Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in baseball.

Even though he's no longer pitching for my team, I still cheer for him.

Now that he's pitching in the playoffs for Philadelphia, casual baseball fans realize just how good Doc is. All he's done for the Phillies this year, his first season playing in the National League, is put up a Cy Young-worthy season which featured a perfect game, and now the second no-hitter in baseball's postseason history (NB. there have been 1,264 postseason baseball games played since 1903 - so this was a truly staggering feat). And this wasn't an easy task - Halladay was facing the highest-scoring team in the league in the Cincinnati Reds - and he made the Reds batters look completely helpless at the plate. No-one even came close to getting a hit; and Halladay only walked one batter during the game.

Five men have thrown two no-hitters in a calendar year or a postseason no-hitter. Halladay just became the first pitcher in baseball history to accomplish both feats.

I look forward to the day Doc gets inducted to the Hall of Fame, and I can see him wearing a Blue Jays cap once again.

Two words: whisky night

The long hot dry summer is over.

A night out with father, brother-in-law, and brother-in-law's father (visiting from Scotland) put paid to the mostly alcohol-free summer. We spent a night out having a good meal followed by the real treat of the evening, sampling a great many expensive offerings of Scotland's finest export in Vancouver's best gastropub - none of your Irish or American or Canadian inferior offerings for this party of four, if you please (the menu had a full page of single malts; there was about seven or eight Irish whiskeys on the back page, and a few North American and Japanese).

My favourite - we sampled about twenty, accompanied by a tasty cheese plate, some sausage and french fries - was a classic offering: a 16 year-old Lagavulin. But if you pressed me, I'd have cast a strong second-place vote for the 15 year-old Bruichladdich. Or my perennial favorite, Caol Ila (a real fire-starter, an 8 year-old with over 64% alcohol content), could have taken pride of place. Or there was this very good recommendation by the bar manager ...

I'm glad we thought ahead and booked a cab for the trip home.

Dog days of summer

I will seize on any lame excuse for my lack of blogging. Hot summer weather is a good one.

Despite the summer heat, I've managed to break through a running plateau. Some proper new running shoes and a new venue - which incidentally was a training track for Roger Bannister's 1954 four-minute mile at the Commonwealth Games - have furnished added motivation to my exercise program. I've managed to crack the six-minute barrier (km) for my half-hour runs (total distance just over 5K). I hope by next summer to be doing 10K runs at that pace or better.

Haven't been playing any poker due to lack of inspiration. If I can't play close to my best, there's no point in playing. This means I should be a complete degen in December at the WPBG . . . isn't poker blogger money the best? I'm on track to meet my target weight of 165 lbs, but losing the first 15 was easier than the remaining 15 will be. I wonder if anyone else is going to make their weight?

Nephew is just about 7 months old. A new purchase which has been a big hit is a wading pool.

One of my favourite all-time baseball players entered the Hall of Fame yesterday. Here's a tip of the cap to Andre Dawson. Hopefully his former Expos teammate Tim Raines won't be far behind.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

It's been a lazy summer so far, and not entirely by choice.

Injured my foot somehow; haven't been able to run for past ten days or so. Disappointing, because I'd broken through a plateau and was chewing up more distance in my 30 minute runs. I hope to be back at it either Wednesday or Friday, though.

My nephew will reach the 6-month mark tomorrow, and as a doting uncle I babysit every chance I get to spoil him shamelessly and leave all the responsibilities to the parents.

Poker hasn't been so fun lately - I used up some of my unused stockpile of FTP points to earn T$, and proceeded to bubble a slew of SNGs for zero profit, but I'm reminded why I like Rush Poker when I play just long enough to hold up in spots like this (having 55% equity in a 3-way AIPF pot is hard to do in Omaha!):

Fitness Goals

As time marches on I figure I should provide a brief update on the weight loss bet that I've really been taking seriously from the get-go. I plan on attending this year's WBG in December after a one-year hiatus, and there's something on the line as I've pledged to reach a target weight of 75 kilos - which is what I tipped the scales at way back in 1992 when I graduated from high school. I'm pleased to report that I'm well on my way there, having weighed in today at 80 kilos. Running three times a week and hitting the gym another couple of times per week since February has done the trick, along with much improved nutrition. When I began my running program it was all I could do to wheeze through ten-minutes stretches at a laughably slow pace; now I'm able to run about 5km in 30 minutes. Not exactly a 4 minute mile pace but pretty respectable by my way of thinking (at least for now). This time next year I hope to be able to run 10K in under 50 minutes.

I plan to hit the ice again for weekly hockey games in the fall; it's been several years since I've played organized hockey and given how I'm feeling I am pretty optimistic that I'll have the cardiovascular fitness to seamlessly pretend I'm an NHL'er. I just hope my hands haven't completely lost their touch; I used to play hockey at a pretty high level back when I was a teenager. Only time will tell if I'm delusional.