Today was a day of mileposts.
It was my first working day of 2006. Because Paul and I got our various projects wrapped up before vacation, I went into the 3Sharp offices and spent a good part of my day doing something I've never done before -- pack up my office. No, we're not moving locations, and yes, I'm still with 3Sharp. However, we're getting tight on office space and since my average in-office time over the last year has probably been close to one day a week, I realized it was going to be a lot less disruption if I offered to give up my nice one-person office and officially move everything to my home office. It made all sorts of sense, but I found myself feeling very uncomfortable getting the first couple of boxes packed up until I realized that my only previous experiences with packing up my office were at the end of a job, not switching locations while staying employed. Once I realized that, the rest of the packing went a lot more smoothly.
Today was also the day I won my first Texas Hold'em tournament. One of the local bars hosts a couple of freelocalpoker.com tournaments every Tuesday and a friend and I checked them out last November. Now that the anti-smoking law has kicked in here in Washington, I can go play without coming home reeking, so I showed up tonight for the 9:30 game. We had ten players -- a smaller turnout than normal, even though the later game is usually a bit smaller than the 6:30 game -- so we all crowded around a single table. Two hours later, I was the proud possessor of a $15 gift certificate for the bar. Not only that, I'd earned the bounty (extra points received for being the player to knock the previous winner out of the game). Unlike previous games (where I can remember all the hands I lost all too clearly) I don't remember much; the only hand that really sticks out is the hand where another player and I both got a straight and split the pot. There are bits and pieces of the rest of the game, but I have no idea how I won. I do remember (if my math is correct) that I knocked out five people -- I had a couple of hands near the end where two players had gone all-in, so when I won those hands, I knocked out two players at once.
Finally, today was Steph's birthday. And now that she's gotten her nose out of the new Honor Harrington book I got for Christmas, she gets the rest of my attention before sleep time.