Poker and Pirates

Kind of a busy weekend at the Shoptaw house.

First off, poker on Friday night. Nine people showed up, which should have meant very bad things for me, as it was over the apparent 7-player limit that my game has.

I didn’t even play a hand until the second round. My big blind first time round was raised, so I didn’t get into that hand or my small blind either. After that, though, I caught some cards and did pretty well.

The big play early for me came against Joe. He moved all in pre-flop. As with Bobby at the shootout, I was about to fold my A-Q but something in Joe’s mannerisms told me to go ahead and call. Joe had an ace, but that was it. The board didn’t help him out and it gave me some momentum.

I got to the final four with a good chip lead, but I’ve done that before. This time, though, I was able to hang on to most of it until my final hand.

I held A-7 in the big blind. Bobby and Craig called it, so we see a flop. Flop comes A-K-x. Bobby goes all in. So does Craig.

Now, in hindsight, I really should have thought to back out and let them fight it out, hopefully making a push to second place if one of them goes out. Also, I should have been thinking more about the fact that I had a weak kicker.

Instead, I focused on the king and thought at least one of them probably had a pair of kings now. I called the all-in.

Turns out both of them had A-9, which meant that, after the turn and river, they split my chips and I busted out in third.

Still, I wasn’t terribly disappointed. Out of the last 10 times I’ve played at the Shed, I’ve had two fourth place finishes, two wins, and a third place. Plus I felt the Shootout went fairly well, even with my eighth place finish.

That made for a late night, though, and unfortunately Saturday I had to start my tax season weekend working, which made for a pretty tiring day. That evening, we were able to drop the kids at church for a while since it was Parents’ Night Out. Meron and I went for Steak Escape and then went to Penny’s to do some clothes shopping, using the gift card my parents gave me for Christmas.

Sunday, it was time for the Pirates.

We had told Benjamin that when the new Veggie Tales movie, The Pirates That Don’t Do Anything, came out, we’d take him to the theater to see it. He’s never seen a movie that wasn’t on DVD or tape (Meron told me to make sure he went to the bathroom before it started, because if he had to leave during the movie, “he’ll ask me to pause it.”) so we figured that’d be a treat for him.

What we didn’t count on was that the local movie theater, it of 11 screens and usually at least 12 movies, wouldn’t have it on its opening weekend. I checked the web site Saturday afternoon and was stunned not to see it on there. Meron suggested checking Conway and, sure enough, one of those theaters had it.

I was initially leaning toward waiting a week and seeing if our theater would get it, because I wasn’t excited about driving the 40 minutes down there. But after realizing that at least two fairly well-promoted movies were coming out next week, I didn’t think the odds were in our favor.

We left Sarah with her “church grandparents”, the Clawsons. Dick and Jane love to dote on her and were glad to have her for an afternoon. Then, after a stop at Starbucks for Meron, we headed out. Benjamin slept most of the way down there, which we hoped would help him stay awake during the movie.

We got to Conway without incident. The movie theater we thought had the movie didn’t, but I knew where the other theater was and we got there in plenty of time.

I got Benjamin out of the car and Meron came around. Somehow, though, I got a little distracted. As I shut the door, I realized that Benjamin was too close to it.

The end of the door caught him on the forehead and knocked him back. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy and started crying. I picked him up quickly and soothed him down. He’s a trooper—by time we walked the parking lot and got to the theater, he was calmed down and doing OK. He said before bed last night that he had a headache, so we gave him some Motrin, but other than that, he doesn’t seem to have any ill effects, including no bruise or at least not much of one. Doesn’t mean that Dad doesn’t feel terrible about it still, though.

Anyway, we got in, got our tickets, got our popcorn and drinks and settled into the theater. For some reason, they didn’t have the lights on at all in there, even though it was a good 15 minutes before the movie was supposed to start. We watched the still slides that rotated with trivia, etc. before finally a Coke commercial started up.

That got his attention. With that and the previews, he was sitting on the very edge of his chair, straight up, focused on the screen. It didn’t look like anything would distract him from watching the screen.

All in all, he did well. He started out in his seat, sat in my lap for a while, then finished the movie in mom’s lap. It was a little loud for him (he’s not big on noises) and a couple of places were on the startling/scary side, but he didn’t have a problem all in all. Meron and I thought the movie was pretty good and Benjamin liked it on the whole as well. He really liked the rock monsters, at least after they weren’t a threat anymore. Only downside of the movie—Bob only makes a cameo at the very end.

I don’t figure Benjamin will be back to the theaters anytime soon, but I think he enjoyed his first trip pretty well.