I’m coming up on 38.
I live in the Twin Cities. I was born in New Jersey (exit 10), moved to Connecticut when I was 12, and moved here shortly before I turned 24. I honestly can’t imagine living anyplace else.
Divorced, no kids. I find women absolutely bewildering.
I’m an engineer, doing design work on capital equipment. I just went full-time. I had been out of that field for over three years (got a jump on 9/11), and I hadn’t had a permanent position for 4.5 years.
I have a bachelor’s degree in music from Boston University and a master’s from Northwestern University. At the time, Boston University, with Sam Pilafian on faculty, was the top tuba school in the country. If you don’t know who he is, you’ve probably never heard of the famous guys I went to school with like Charlie Villarubia and Ken Amis. Northwestern has been the top brass school in the country for a long time. I had an unfortunate audition experience along the way and ultimately decided that I didn’t want to do music for a living anymore. I went back to school for mechanical engineering in 1994 and graduated in 1998. Getting my engineering degree as an adult is perhaps my proudest accomplishment, but if I had it to do again, I wouldn’t do it.
Favorite movies:
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Star Wars
The Princess Bride
A Clockwork Orange
It’s a Wonderful Life
Animal House
I’m sure you guys see the pattern there.
Part of the reason that I abandoned music as a vocation was that I stumbled upon a British-style brass band which has been my main outlet for the past 14 years. Music had become a grind while I was in school, and this group really brought the joy back to music for me. Most of my best friends are members of that band. In fact, all of my best friends are musicians. None of my best friends are gamblers.
But I don’t spend a whole lot of time listening to British-style brass band music. When the top bands from Europe roll through town, I always go if I can make it. Since getting divorced, I have gone to something like 100 concerts in the last two years. I like a lot of different genres, but some favorites:
Irish music: I’ve been on a heavy Irish kick for the last couple of years. This includes traditional bands like Solas, Dervish, Lunasa, and especially Flook, and rock bands like the Saw Doctors, Flogging Molly, and Dropkick Murphys. The Pogues are rapidly becoming one of my favorite bands, and I will be flying to Atlantic City in March to see them. I may not have much time to gamble as I’m flying in and out within about 24 hours and may use some of my time to visit my folks in the Philadelphia area.
This is an expensive time of year for me coming up. St. Patrick’s Day is a day of drunken revelry in the United States, but in Ireland, folks go to church in the morning and go home. There are no St. Patrick’s Day bashes in Ireland, so a lot of Irish bands will come to the states and build a late winter/early spring tour around a big St. Patrick’s Day gig.
Eastern European music: this is something that my ex turned me on to. Favorite performers include Ivo Papasov, Yuri Yunakov, and Boban Markovic.
Along the same lines, I love klezmer. Favorite performers include the Klezmatics, Naftule Brandwein, and Margot Leverett. If I had been familiar with this genre fifteen years ago, I might have stayed in Chicago after finishing my master’s and would probably be making a good part of my living playing Jewish weddings.
Hard rock: Dream Theater, Queensryche, Scorpions, Jethro Tull.
American folk: Steve Goodman, The Weavers.
“Classical”: Most of what I really like would more accurately be termed romantic. I love Dvorak, Schubert, Mahler, Brahms, and Richard Strauss. I love 19th century chamber music and large symphonic works.
Some great concerts I saw in 2005 not covered above: Mark Knopfler, Santana, Alison Krauss.
Performer I would most like to see in concert: probably Peter Gabriel. I regret never having seen Stone Temple Pilots in concert, and they’re a large part of the reason that I’m seeing a lot of shows
now.
I learned how to play poker when I was about 8. I played a little in high school and a fair amount in college, mostly silly games like baseball and criss-cross. In 1995, I fell in with a group that played a lot of high-low split declare and O/8 and played with them fairly regularly until 2000 or so. I’ve been a regular at Canterbury Park since they opened in 2000. I didn’t start playing on-line for money until Paradise gave me a free $2 to try their real money tables in May 2004. Started playing $.02/.04 and now mostly play $5/10 and $10/20 stud on Party. I have taken a couple of cracks at $20/40 on Party and $30/60 stud/8 on Stars.
Poker accomplishments:
I busted Carlos Chadha for $2 in a $.04/.08 stud heads-up freeze-out. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
I have my own
page on the Hendon Mob’s site. Of course, so do a lot of people.
The picture on that page, the one I used here for a couple of years, was taken when I won $6500 in a $30/60 stud/8 game in 2002. I’m sitting behind about eight racks of $10 chips there.
I played $15/30 stud with Kirby Puckett in 2001.
I have never been to Las Vegas, but I’m hoping to get out there during the first week of July and play in the $1500 stud event. I’ve been to Foxwoods a few times, gambled in Atlantic City once, and played at a small casino in Wisconsin once. I’ve never had a winning poker trip to a card room other than Canterbury Park.
I enjoy drinking beer. I don’t like drinking to excess, mostly because the morning after is so wretched anymore. Some favorite beers:
Mannequin Pis: a white beer from Belgium
Lindeman’s Framboise: a raspberry lambic from Belgium
Town Hall Brewery’s Masala Mama India Pale Ale: the signature brew of my favorite local watering hole.
Paulaner Hefe-Weizen
Bell's from Kalamazoo Michigan is my favorite American brewer. Summit in St. Paul used to be excellent. They're seasonal beers--Winter Ale, Maibock, and Oktoberfest--all used to be legitimately outstanding, and I used to really look forward to them each year. I don't even buy them anymore, and I think that this is sad.