So I think I'm done playing for October. I have played almost exclusively 6 max. I think I played less than 200 hands of HU. For a while now, I've been determined to do better at 6-max and I feel like I've finally crossed a big hurdle

For the month of October I'm up 59 buy-ins plus about 20 buy-ins of rakeback. All total I played just under 60k hands which I'm sure is also a record for me. I've made a couple of changes in my game that made a big difference.

I had signed up for Shootaa group lessons but I had to bail at the last minute. Our nanny quit like the day after I signed up for it and it's been insane at my house ever since. My second daughter is going to be born on Monday Nov 2nd (c-section obv) so I'm pretty pumped about that. I doubt anyone cares but I'm going to post a picture anyways.

After having sworn off investing in real estate earlier this year, I have just put a house under contract. It was pretty easy to find as it's the house next to mine. The redneck builder that lived there went busto and the bank foreclosed on it about two months ago. The house is about 6000SF heated and Sean (the builder) told me it cost $700k to build it. ((If you are building a house yourself you can generally calculate that it will cost $100 per square foot to build plus the cost of the lot. If you are having someone build it for you then just add about 20% to that figure.)

Anyways, he owed the bank $475k at the time of foreclosure. The bank as always appraised it at foreclosure for $440,000. When it was new, the house appraised for ~$750k. I talked to the bank directly without any real estate agents involved and I offered $350,000 and provided they do the financing with zero down. They balked at first wanting me to put down $50k but in this market I thought it was a pretty solid offer. After about a week they agreed to it and are giving me a 3 year interest only loan for the $350k. That works out to about $1400 per month payment plus an additional $500 in property taxes and insurance.

I'm going to close on this in about ten days and hopefully get some renters in there to cover the payment.

I made a couple of really good meals this week too. One of my favorite meals out is the Penne Rustica at Romano's Macaroni Grill. I found the recipe online. Here's the link. It was really easy to make and tasted almost exactly like the original.

http://community.tasteofhome.com/for...42/224293.aspx

Here's a good grocery store tip. It's almost always a good idea to buy shrimp in the big frozen bags instead of buying the ones at the counter. Almost all shrimp are frozen as soon as they are caught so the ones at the counter are just thawed out. Buy the frozen instead. This applies to a lot of fish also.


I'm going to be doing nothing but sleeping for the next three days because once the new baby is here, I won't be sleeping anymore.

Hope everyone has a great November. Later, John