A Day in the Life

Okay, so yesterday I comment on how my life is not so exciting and I maintain this is true. People may want to read Kim's comment after the previous post as this is a bit of a response to that.

I get up around 6:30-6:45ish, relieve myself. Pick up the crap I left on the floor from the previous evening. Fill my water bottles. I have a Brita water filter and drink 3-4 liters per day, so I'll leave it out of this post, but you can pretty much assume I am going to the bathroom every half hour or so.

About 7am, I start writing. I am one of those weird people who is ready to start their day about five minutes after getting out of bed. I don't really require a lot of wake up time. I wrote 697 words today. That puts me at 1400 and change for the week. A good start, I suppose, but still a long way from my goal.

Some time between 9am and 9:30, I decide I am hungry and make myself some eggs and toast. As quick as I am to wake up, it takes a while for my stomach to catch up. I rarely can eat just after waking up.

I then continue to sit in front of my computer for about 2 hours researching sports bets. This actually takes a bit of work. I pour through articles, team records, recent play, and often I watch ESPN snippets about the teams I start narrowing in on. Today was a particularly involved session, as I was researching hockey. The NHL playoffs started tonight and I wanted to see if there were any opportunities to make any bets.

You're thinking: I didn't know Patrick watched hockey. Honestly, the number of hockey games I watched this year: zero! But in most sports, you can count on two things in the first round of the playoffs. One, both teams are highly motivated. Two, the cream rises to the top. By that I mean, the better teams tend to win.

Depending on the sport, one can be more important than the other. The latter is particularly true in basketball and hockey because the matches between the two clubs is best 4 out of 7 games. There also tends to be a bigger disparity between the "good" teams and the "weaker" teams in these two sports as compared to baseball and football. Perhaps some other time, I will discuss this further, but for now, I'll get back to my day.

Anyway, though I have watched no hockey, a couple of hours of research yields a prime candidate for betting. Recall that I tend to bet on the teams with the best motivation. This is so important when you are competing I can't even begin to describe. It is universal in all sports. The second bet I lost the other day was a stupid bet. I ended up betting on a team where I didn't properly research their motivation. It turned out they had none and they got killed by a weaker team. I made a blind bet at the casino and I should know better. DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

So after doing my homework, I take a shower and meander down to the Hilton to place this bet. On the way there, I am met by a guy who claimed his vehicle just died under such and such overpass an hour and a half ago and he was a mechanic of 23 years and needed $15 bucks for a part so he could fix it. Apparently, up to that point no one would help him out. He said he would make it financially worth my while if I were to do so.

It's not as though I didn't believe him. You know how you can look at someone and know they have never done a hard days work in their life? You know, someone like me. Well, he looked like a person who had worked hard every day of his life and he obviously wasn't homeless. I still couldn't help him out.

Here's the thing. I would say three or four times out of five, on my way to and from the Hilton, I am solicited for some sort of handout. I have walked to the Hilton maybe 15 to 20 times in the 5 weeks I have been here and he is not even the first person to ask for money for their car! If I tried to help everyone who asked, I would be in serious trouble myself. I don't have much, and as much as it pains me to not help these people, in some ways, I am in as much need as they are. So I just can't do it.

Anyway, at the Hilton, I look over the NHL bets and I watch a little soccer. Eventually, I place my bet: $500 to win $250 on the Pittsburgh Penguins. I then play a little electronic roulette. I was thinking today that I haven't yet had an alcoholic beverage since moving out here. If I were to have "getting drunk" as my goal for the afternoon, I would likely play electronic roulette. It has a low house edge for slot machine type game. I would just sit there and let the waitress bring me drinks until I was sufficiently cooked. I wouldn't relish the walk home. I'd probably plan ahead and spring for a cab even though I am not much more than a half mile away. Since one of my eventual goals out here in Vegas is to become an alcoholic, I probably should get on that.

I won a whole dollar from playing my roulette game for fifteen minutes, but since I was down as much as ten dollars at one point, I call the session a success. I then walk back home and was not pestered for money.

I get home a little before 3pm and decide it is time for lunch. I had every good intention of doing a little more writing, but I got bogged down playing my alien game and started listening to the radio feeds of some of the basketball games. As you can see, it had been a long arduous day at this point, so I took a nap from 5-6pm. I didn't want to, for fear of ruining my sleep tonight, but since I was falling asleep in my chair, it seemed to make sense.

I get up and do the dishes. Decided I am too lazy to vacuum and sweep the floors and swear I'll do it tomorrow. I go back to listening to the basketball and start kicking myself for not betting on the Phoenix Suns. I had considered it while at the Hilton, but decided earlier in the week after losing my second bet, to lay off the basketball for the last five games of the season. With so many meaningless games being played just prior to the playoffs, it can be tough to figure out who will be motivated for the day.

Around 9pm I checked the score on the hockey game as it should have been over. It was, and the Penguins had won four to nothing. Phew! Stopped my losing streak at two.

I spent the next hour writing this post and in an hour or so, I'll go to bed. So if this post allows people to have had a good day vicariously, the pleasure was all mine.

Really, it was.