We had the Los Angeles County Optometric Society holiday dinner at Maria's Italian Kitchen.
A few board members didn't attend, but we had 26 people showed up.
$6.75 for shipping and handling for a single free trial pair of contacts for a patient, ouch. Thankfully he could see much, much better with them, so it was worth it.
Well, the drive-through is still in service, since you can still drive through; the speaker is out of service.
Free Wifi at LAX, although you have a watch a little ad first.
I'm surprised this is on the TV movies; Jim Jefferies is very nasty and definitely not for kids.
Traveling with Monica and getting into the airport lounges has its perks.
A taller-than-normal can of Coke.
Camo panties in a sporting goods store.
That's a nice crate.
Although that's a bit scary.
Lots of animals on the wall.
More over here.
These sound wonderful but $130 is pretty expensive.
At Ron and Melissa's with Eleanor.
Our motel room's fan had super-short blades.
Monica and Mom in similar colors.
Me, Dad, Monica, and Mom.
Stockings and old family photos.
Lots of pictures.
More.
This is one of my favorites.
Another one of my favorite pictures: me and Grandpa where I wouldn't let go of a pliers.
Dad just filled the cooler with snow instead of trying to get ice.
Desserts.
Main dishes.
Presents.
Photo chain with Monica and Larry.
Larry feeding the dog.
Ron has no room for side dishes amongst his meat.
Everyone playing bingo.
I don't think the cards went through the highest levels of quality control. I wrote a computer program back in high school to create a bingo card and I even put in a function to make sure it didn't duplicate numbers.
Jordan and I had the same card, too.
Thong panties in a cup cake, interesting.
My haul.
Zoomed in with my point-and-shoot camera.
Zoomed in with a new iPhone. They do great for normal pictures, but not so great zooming.
Cute bowling pins.
Double strike.
Mom won the first game and was the only one to break 100.
Monica took the second game (she was the first MO on the first game and the second one here). Two strikes on the final frame really helped a lot.
An airplane guide at the Minneapolis airport. He looks cold.
A cute stuffed moose.
21 people on standby for 0 unclaimed seats.
This flight continues from LA to Maui. Sometimes the weather in Hawaii is much nicer than in California and I think I should just stay on the plane instead of getting off in LA.
Not this time, though. It's only 1-2 degrees colder in LA.
Jason Carver is a poker pro who has a YouTube series where he plays poker. He's not the best player, but he's really funny and goes through his thinking process, so it's great to watch. He flops AAAA here, not a bad hand.
Ogii is way better at Angry Birds than me; she gets three stars on every level. Which isn't fair; I carefully plan through what I'm going to do on each stage and she seems to just randomly shoot them.
This game keeps getting stuck at 46% update.
And then when it does finally go through, the update is a vehicle you have to pay for to play.
And a mystery reward to have to pay for as well.
Although there is one free gameplay upgrade: now you collect letters to spell SAM and get this giant robot. If you play every day and get it, you get a new prize every day, and the fifth day you get a better prize. A lot of games are doing that, now; trying to get you to play them more by offering daily bonuses.
Time for some Quarter Poker. The same card that made this guy a flush made me a full house.
I got lucky with the third queen. Especially against eXonive, who is currently #1 on the leaderboard.
The computer-controlled bots, Ali and BetaBlox, are so dumb sometimes. What does she think she can get here to win?
He had a pair and a flush draw, but I got really lucky hitting runner runner diamonds to get a flush.
Although this guy got even luckier and hit a third three on the river to make three of a kind.
KK vs KK. You just hope the other guy doesn't make a flush.
Flopping a full house, nice. The problem is it's hard to make any money because your opponents will usually fold to any bet.
Good play by him; with a pair and only a K on the board bigger, only a 9, a K, or an overpair would beat him. That's not likely, but sometimes the unlikely is real, like my hand here.
Ali would have won if I wouldn't have caught the A on the river.
The top-right shows I'm playing two tables, and I got KK on both of them. Hopefully no ace comes on the flop.
And two aces come on the flop. That actually makes it less likely that someone has an ace, and very unlikely for a flush or straight, but I made a big laydown and was right. Dumb Ali the bot stayed in with 72 of clubs, useless.
Sometimes you have to be aggressive to win. That's a terrifying flop, but I bet, and the opponent folded. He could have had nothing, a lower pair, or even a K or Q with a bad kicker. Who knows, but I won.
We split the pot when the board makes a full house.
He won with a third Q on the river, but I'm more surprised nobody had a single club in their hand to make a flush.
I won, but it was scary; so many cards could make me lose.
Uh oh, I registered for three tables, started playing one, and forgot about the others. I can play two tables pretty easily most of the time, it gets a little hard when it gets down to only a few players and I have to play both of them quickly, but three tables is a bit to much on this site. If I could spread them out and see them all at the same time, I could do it, but not having to tab between them.
Again, a great board for me, but the opponent is almost always going to fold if I make even a small bet.
Good thing his ace wasn't a spade.
Here I knocked out both bots on the same hand. Usually they'll stay in with even the lowest pair, which BetaBlox has here, but I have no idea why Ali was in.
Uniraj is another really good player. Unfortunately, he got really unlucky here.
I was hoping for an ace to make a straight, but unfortunately a Q came. It improved my hand a little but my opponent's hand a lot, enough for me to go from winning to losing.
I usually say "gg" when I knock someone out, when stands for "good game" and is nice etiquette. If you look at the chat in the bottom-left, I knocked out four players in a row here.
My 23 offsuit from the last picture won. Although I was so far ahead it probably wouldn't have mattered, but if he doubles up that hand, it's 23k to 7k, and if he does it once more, it's 9k to 14k and I'm behind, so you can lose a big lead really fast. If I lose a third all-in in a row I'd be knocked out.
It's pretty unlikely they'll make a flush since they both have cards the other needs and I even have another one, but it happens. If one more spade would have come on the river; I'd have the highest of three flushes, but instead only one spade came, not two, so they both made a flush and I didn't.
Getting lucky with the worst hand in the game to win the tournament.
Two full houses beaten by four of a kind. And if I would have stayed in, I would have made another full house on the river.
He had me just beaten until the river, when I made a pathetically-low flush to win. I almost feel bad about it.