I was feeling very optimistic today. I hit the wine books pretty hard for a good three hours, and find it super interesting. Makes me want to study more. Makes me want to pass the Advanced Somm test in a year. I become more and more involved in the guild site, which I think is a good thing, and there is a list of other wine blogs going around. I have been going back and forth about starting a new blog on a different site and just cross posting here, or just continuing on here exclusively and giving this blog out to everyone who is interested. Or, I just realized I was also considering a third option, namely, dropping this blog altogether and starting fresh. I am considering a tumblr account because it seems like you can just snap a lot of photos from your iphone and add some text and post. Good for spur of the moment wine tasting, etc. I hate to say my reservation about just continuing on here, but maybe I should because it is something every poker player deals with at some point. I never really talk about poker or my experiences with it to anyone other than my wife. And even then, only sometimes. Do I want all my new contacts looking through all of my old posts? Do I want them to know I play, well, ok, played poker?

I am not really sure how it will be taken in the Sommelier community, tbh, and maybe I don't want to be known as the poker playing Sommelier. Dual blogs seems kind of like a lot of work, honestly, and I know I just wouldn't bother eventually. I think I could make a case for relevancy. The similarities between blind tasting--deducing what a wine is and where it came from--and playing no limit hold'em are pretty startling. Only you don't lose money when you get a wine wrong. Maybe I could get only a couple of posts out of that. And do people here really want to know about wine or my experiences as a Sommelier? Restaurants? Maybe this isn't the right place for it. Do my Sommelier colleagues really want to know about hand ranges and frequencies? Maybe they would just stop reading.

Oh yeah, I am not playing poker anymore, either. So not a lot of content opportunity there. Of course I still harbor hopes of playing in the future. I had just began winning regularly when it all came to a screeching halt. I am sure it will be legalized/regulated in a year or two, and I don't want to start from scratch. Plus I really do enjoy the game. I miss it. I want to play some live poker, but it is such an inefficient use of time, I just can't justify it at the moment.

Anyway, the Carl Rogers/Gestaltist in me says that I have to fully integrate all facets of my personality in how I live my life and I can't just live a fractured, shadowy life. It will only hinder my development in all other areas by spending unnecessary energy reserves hiding my poker proclivities. Maybe there are upsides. Maybe some knowledgeable sommeliers who love to play poker will take me under their wing? Maybe they aren't any good. Maybe I run the streets at lucrative home games against donks who want to share their fine wines with me while I take their money. One never knows.

(I almost changed that last part about "donks" and "take their money," see what I mean? That just doesn't sound good to people who don't play poker, work on poker, try to improve themselves by playing poker. It sounds arrogant. Do I want to come across as arrogant to possible future employers? Do I want to compromise what I write here so it sounds better to people not in the community? I have tried to be super honest in the past with this blog. I would like to keep it that way.)

Anyway, thoughts from all of you on what to do would be greatly appreciated. I guess I am still in the closet when it comes to poker, and I seem to be at some sort of crossroads. There will be a lot of changes in my life in the coming year. At least I want there to be. And I feel like I have to make them happen. I know I joked a bit in the last two posts, but even though I have only met two of you in real life (Probability and Beans), I do feel like I am a part of this community. I have given you the best 119 blog entries of my life, after all. I guess that doesn't compel me to share every part of my life here.

Part of me hates this sort of deliberating in public. Is that what I have been reduced to? Blogging about blogging? Baiting people into telling me that they really like reading about my life? This is the kind of self-absorbed aesthetic that I wanted to avoid! What's next? Looking to see how many views I have and trying to move up the list? (Used to do that. Haven't done it in a long time. Just did it.) Oh, the conceit!!! Oh, the egoism!!!!! Oh, the wanton flailing for meaning in my life reducing my sense of self worth to roughly the equivalent of the number of responses to my late night ramblings!!!!!!!!!!!

Kidding.

Sort of.

Sigh. I should probably just go to bed.

As a general sort of life update, we have a couple of offers in on a couple of different houses. They are short sales, so they could be a while. California realty remains expensive, although less so than three years ago. (A house that sold for 650k in 2008 went on the market recently for 370k.) Currently, 310k gets you a 3 bdr/1ba 1100 sq.ft. fixer in a nicer neighborhood. A bonus room and/or extra bathroom run an extra 30-40k, depending on the quality of the work, etc. It is only because I have been working so hard and putting so many hours in at my restaurant job that we are able to do this.

At work, I am slowly becoming more and more involved in the wine program and my opinion is given greater and greater weight. It is like my Sommelier pin has given me special powers. Maybe I just care more now, or maybe no one thought I took it seriously before. I have talked the beverage manager out of bringing in certain wines, persuaded him to pull the trigger on others. I am cultivating regulars, selling them on expensive wines before we have them in the restaurant and then bringing the wines in and selling them promptly. I am instilling myself in the sommelier community and bringing the benefits of those relationships to my restaurant, whether it is knowledge, hard to find wines, or increased visibility in the restaurant community. I feel like I really thrive in face to face relationships. I feel like I can do better. I feel like I can go far in the Sommelier community and elevate the lives of my family by providing better income, better connections, better quality of life. I am uncertain if people knowing I play poker or not will hold me back.

Play well. Do good work. Keep in touch.

PFJ